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One way in which apartments are different is that it has always taken longer to build them than single-family houses, and the gap has grown a lot lately.
The big increase in multifamily time-to-completion over the past couple of decades is not so much because builders have become slower but because the buildings have become much larger — and bigger buildings usually take longer to construct. Every year since 2017, most multifamily units completed in the US have been in buildings of 50 units or more, which had never happened before then (and yes, these statistics go back only to 1972, but I’m reasonably confident that this is a historical first).
Bigger buildings and longer construction times go a long way in explaining why apartments have made up the majority of housing under construction for the past few years, something that hadn’t happened on a sustained basis since the early 1970s, but they don’t explain everything. Housing-permit statistics, which aren’t affected by construction time, show (1) more multifamily housing being permitted than at any time since the mid-1980s and (2) barely any decline in multifamily permits in recent months, a big contrast to what’s been taking place in single-family construction.
Multifamily investors rely on a different set of financing tools than individuals who are buying single-family homes, so they don’t seem to have been as affected by interest-rate increases — yet. The capitalization rate for prime class A multifamily assets, a measure that kinda-sorta represents the interest rate on new multifamily investments, was still below pre-pandemic levels at 4.09% in the third quarter, according to CBRE Research.
Still, it is interesting that developers are continuing to put up so many big apartment buildings despite a pandemic and remote-work boom that many assumed would spur a shift away from apartment living. CBRE Research also reports that multifamily investors are now more optimistic about future rent increases in so-called gateway markets — the biggest, most expensive metropolitan areas — than in smaller ones. Maybe these investors know something about the future that the rest of us are missing.Or maybe they don’t: The multifamily building booms of the mid-1980s and early 1970s both ended unexpectedly, after all. The 1970s boom seems to have been driven by millions of baby boomers entering adulthood, along with billions of dollars in federal public housing subsidies and the rise of the then-exotic form of homeownership called the condominium. It ended abruptly when the 1973 oil crisis sent inflation, interest rates and unemployment skyrocketing. The 1980s boom was clearly driven in part by tax incentives, given that it withered when they were removed by the 1986 tax reform.
Something will eventually halt the current multifamily boom, too. But the crash isn’t happening yet.
• Downsizing? Rising Interest Rates Are Your Friend: Conor Sen | 2022-10-20T11:57:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Apartment Builders Didn’t Get the Housing Slump Memo - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/apartment-builders-didnt-get-the-housing-slump-memo/2022/10/20/7a63f824-5066-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/apartment-builders-didnt-get-the-housing-slump-memo/2022/10/20/7a63f824-5066-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
By Brendan Murray | Bloomberg
Cargo is loaded at the Port of Long Beach in Long Beach, California, US, on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. The head of the second-biggest US port expects the pandemic-era surge in consumer demand that snarled supply chains will start to cool, with evidence of a deceleration already reflected in weaker inbound container arrivals. Photographer: Tim Rue/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)
Nearly three years of supply disruptions have created financial headaches for importers and exporters -- especially smaller companies -- because parts shortages and shipping delays tie up working capital.
“You can have a six-month timeline between when you have to pay your suppliers and when you get paid by your customers. and that’s the gap that we’re talking about that we’re stepping into,” Justin Sherlock, head of Flexport Capital, said in an interview. “It’s a huge amount of a company’s financial well-being that’s trapped on a ship.”
After the pandemic lead to a surge in e-commerce, San Francisco-based Flexport invested heavily in the capital business this year and remains confident in its prospects even in the face of a slowing global economy and fragile asset markets.
“Despite the market gloominess, we think that there’s a lot of growth ahead for both Flexport and Flexport Capital,” Sherlock said.
Loan offerings were expanded this year to five countries -- Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the UK. Flexport’s funding from KKR is a multiyear deal, Sherlock said, with eyes on “how fast we’re able to grow next year.”
“We look forward to supporting the company’s efforts with our long-term capital as industry demand for customized financing solutions continues to grow,” KKR Managing Director Avi Korn said in the statement.
Historically, large banks such as HSBC Holdings Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have offered trade financing products that were largely unavailable to the middle market.
According to an overview of the products, Flexport’s logistics and inventory financing offers credit lines of as much as $20 million with monthly fees starting at 0.65%.
Sherlock said one of the goals is to build technology that better integrates the capital business with Flexport’s main logistics portals.
“The funding allows us to double down on the technology investment for this business,” he said. “The product is differentiated already, but it’s not as tech-enabled as we want it to be to be a core piece of the Flexport brand so we’re going to get it there in the next nine months.” | 2022-10-20T11:57:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Flexport Receives $200 Million From KKR to Grow Trade Financing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/flexport-receives-200-million-from-kkr-to-grow-trade-financing/2022/10/20/963701de-5068-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/flexport-receives-200-million-from-kkr-to-grow-trade-financing/2022/10/20/963701de-5068-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
Wait, Republicans want more tax cuts? What happened to inflation?
Republicans routinely declare that inflation is their “best” issue in the midterms. But there is no reason to think inflation would shrink under a GOP majority in the House or Senate. Indeed, Republicans are projecting they would make inflation worse.
The Post reports, “Republicans plan to push to extend key parts of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts if they take control of Congress in this fall’s elections, aiming to force President Biden to codify trillions of dollars worth of lower taxes touted by his predecessor.”
Wait, what happened to their hand-wringing over inflation? Do they expect voters to believe that tax cuts primarily for the rich wouldn’t be inflationary?
In fact, when the Trump tax cuts were first passed, Republicans insisted they would pay for themselves by boosting economic growth. (That didn’t happen, but it did spur stock buybacks, contrary to Republican claims.) At a moment when Republicans are hollering about fiscal irresponsibility, it is bewildering that they are doubling down on the same tax cuts.
Jim Kessler, head of the moderate Democratic Third Way think tank, tells me, “Tax cuts like that in the U.S. would contradict everything the Fed is doing and put the U.S. economy in an inflation-driven tailspin.”
Jason Furman, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, compares the Republican proposals to British Prime Minister Liz Truss’s disastrous tax proposal that sank the British pound, arguing, “At worst they could also cause a U.K.-style market meltdown. Either way they are completely at odds with the argument that deficits have fueled inflation.”
This should end any talk that the election is a choice between addressing inflation or protecting democracy. In reality, it’s about whether Republicans will be granted power to make inflation worse and to threaten democracy.
In a larger sense, this is a reminder that Republicans advance policy arguments (i.e., too much fiscal stimulus caused inflation) not because they believe them, but because they will say whatever can help them attain power. Had Biden resisted spending during the pandemic, they would have attacked him for failing to tame inflation and unemployment. As Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, put it to me: “Increases in the deficit will push inflation up, not down. This will result both from unpaid-for spending and any tax cuts that aren’t matched with spending cuts as well.”
Republicans’ angst about deficits was always phony given their track record when they controlled the White House. As ProPublica reported in January 2021, “The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office.” Moreover, “The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration. … And unlike George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the larger relative increases in deficits, Trump did not launch two foreign conflicts or have to pay for a civil war.”
In other words, deficits become a problem only when Democrats are in charge.
It gets worse. William Gale, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, explains to me that the Republican push to extend Trump’s tax cuts could be seen as “cynical.” They were in control of Congress and the White House in 2017; they could have made them permanent. But, Gale notes, they “chose to make the individual provisions temporary, to keep the costs down.”
Moreover, he adds, “What is hypocritical is that they now want to repeal some of the revenue raisers they enacted in 2017 that have not taken effect yet,” such as the provision requiring businesses to amortize research and development expenses, rather than deduct them from taxable income. Republicans added the measure because they knew their tax cuts were a budget-buster.
As Austan Goolsbee, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, tells me, it’s as if Republicans are watching the financial chaos in Britain, and “all it did was convince them to find someone to hold their beer.”
You can make the case that the Biden administration spent too much too quickly. You can even make the argument that the administration isn’t doing enough to tighten the purse strings now (though such arguments ignore that this spending alleviated human suffering during the pandemic and funded productivity-enhancing infrastructure). But you cannot denounce measures that help working- and middle-class people (e.g., college debt relief) as inflationary and then turn around to propose another economic stimulus in the form of an enormous tax cut.
Well, you could, but that would make you a hypocrite and unfit for public office. A Republican leader, in other words. | 2022-10-20T11:57:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Wait, Republicans want more tax cuts? What happened to inflation? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/inflation-tax-cuts-republicans-economy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/inflation-tax-cuts-republicans-economy/ |
All dressed up and ready to roll
The Link Up DC, known for its themed roller skating events, is building a joyful community on wheels
Perspective by Tom Sandner
Skaters in motion during the Link Up DC’s “It's 1980 Something” night at the Anacostia Park skating pavilion. (Tom Sandner)
On a Saturday evening in early September, I pulled up to the Anacostia Park skating pavilion for one of the monthly events hosted by the Link Up DC, a community-focused roller skating crew. DJ Prodigy was playing hip-hop while families and vendors prepared dinner on grills just outside the rink. Sweet treats were being sold out of trucks and carts that surrounded the pavilion, and people waited in a long line to pick up their free rental skates. The park was buzzing with energy, and there was an intoxicating sense of celebration in the air.
I spent part of the summer photographing the Link Up’s events, and I couldn’t miss this “Early 2000s” party, themed to the decade of my adolescence. These are some of the photos I made on that night, as well as at the “It’s 1980 Something” meetup in July and the “Tribute to the 1990s” event in August.
The vibe at these events is both exhilarating and playful. Fashion plays a big part: Skaters arrive dressed for the occasion at all the themed outings. And when it comes to the actual roller skates, all types of styles are on display, from totally chic to vintage. Scoping out other people’s wheels is an event in itself.
In early summer 2021, longtime friends Pejay Camacho and Darren Jackson went roller skating nearly every day in Anacostia Park, trying to recapture the love they had for the activity when they were kids. But it was also a way to take care of their mental health during those socially restrictive days of the pandemic. At the park, they met Wallace Loving, a.k.a. DJ Prodigy and a locally known skater who grew up in the neighborhood. The three of them quickly bonded and formed the Link Up DC, with the mission of building and supporting mental health in the local community.
Close to 500 people showed up for the Link Up’s first event in July 2021 at the Anacostia Park skating pavilion. The Link Up soon partnered with the Friends of Anacostia Park, a nonprofit group that works to connect the park with the surrounding communities, to hold free monthly events. The events during that first summer focused on addressing important issues such as suicide prevention and breast cancer awareness. People who had been directly affected attended the events and shared stories of grief and triumph with their fellow skaters.
“It’s not about the skating,” Jackson says. “Skating is the icing on the cake. It’s about community.”
Alexandria Appah, founder of the Chocolate City Skate Instagram account, has been skating alongside the Link Up since last summer. She talked to me about the events’ significance, particularly in the Black community, while also noting that this is a place where everyone is welcome. “This is a continued tradition of creating spaces for ourselves” in a city with a history of discriminatory practices, says Appah, who is Black. “The Link Up, to me, means community, safety, inclusiveness and joy — all of the things that every community deserves.”
At a Link Up event, you’ll hear or see the phrase “Snap City,” which refers to the skate culture in the District. Snapping is a one-footed transition on roller skates from frontward to backward and vice versa, all while moving. “I’m proud to say I’m a snapper because I feel like we’re the underdogs,” Jackson says. “I personally think that we have the best, hardest and dopest style.”
The Link Up’s presence has grown throughout the city. This spring, it hosted a multiday run of cherry-blossom-themed events at the outdoor roller skating rink at the Wharf, and it’s held family skates and events like Glitter Roll and Safari en Blanc at Hook Hall in Park View.
The Link Up’s final late-night outdoor skate of the year is Oct. 29 at Anacostia Park. It’s a Halloween-themed costume party, of course, and the Link Up DC is also requesting that attendees bring a new or gently used coat or blanket for a donation drive.
The Link Up DC Costume Skate Party, Oct. 29 from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Anacostia Park skating pavilion, 1500 Anacostia Dr. SE. thelinkupdc.com, instagram.com/thelinkupdc. Free. | 2022-10-20T11:58:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Photos: The Link Up DC is building a joyful community on wheels - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/the-link-up-dc-photo-essay/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/the-link-up-dc-photo-essay/ |
Battle brews in California over taxing the rich to fund electric cars
Good morning! Your Climate 202 researcher, Vanessa Montalbano, wrote the top of today's newsletter. If you live in the D.C. area, we hope you are staying warm during this week's spurt of cold weather. But first:
With less than three weeks until the midterm election, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is rallying against a ballot measure that would raise taxes for the richest Californians to help fund electric vehicles, charging stations and wildfire prevention even as he aims to ban gas-powered cars in the state by 2035.
The ballot initiative, Proposition 30, is being hailed by supporters, including the state’s Democratic Party and environmental groups, as crucial in the fight against climate change. If enacted, it would tax residents who make more than $2 million per year an additional 1.75 percent through January 2043 — or sooner, if statewide greenhouse gas pollution falls significantly below certain levels before then — according to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Roughly 80 percent of the additional tax will go toward helping people purchase zero-emissions vehicles and installing charging infrastructure, especially in communities overburdened by the impacts of climate change. The remaining 20 percent would go to wildfire response, such as hiring or retaining firefighters and for prescribed burns.
But Newsom and other opponents say the proposed tax is being used as a cop-out by companies such as Lyft, which has given about $45 million to the campaign, so that it can circumvent a new rule from the California Air Resources Board requiring 90 percent of ride-share vehicles to be electric by 2030. They say Lyft is trying to use taxpayer money instead of its own to cover the costs of complying with the new regulation.
“Prop 30 is being advertised as a climate initiative,” Newsom said in a recent ad. “But in reality, it was devised by a single corporation to funnel state income taxes to benefit their company. Put simply, Prop 30 is a Trojan horse that puts corporate welfare above the fiscal welfare of our entire state.”
As of Oct. 4, after the ad aired, about 49 percent of likely voters said they supported the proposed tax, with 37 percent opposing it and 14 percent undecided, according to a University of California at Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll.
As the “Yes on 30” campaign’s top funder, Lyft was involved in drafting the measure and helping to qualify it for the election. The ride-share company committed in 2020 to electrify all vehicles operating on the platform by 2030 and has advocated for similar tailpipe emissions mandates in other states across the country, including Washington, Oregon and Massachusetts, Lyft spokesperson CJ Macklin said.
Also at the drafting table in California was the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Coalition for Clean Air, among others.
Asked to comment on Newsom’s allegations that Lyft is using the measure as a corporate bailout, NRDC’s Max Baumhefner said: “To be clear, Lyft did not conceive of the measure, it came from the community,” adding that “it’s a false statement to say that it’s a shadow coalition.”
He said in an interview with The Climate 202 that “a small portion of rebates will go to people who happen to drive for Lyft, but that will happen not because they drive for Lyft, but because they’re California residents.”
In a September blog post, Lyft co-founder and chief executive Logan Green wrote: “Not a single dollar of Proposition 30 is earmarked for Lyft or the Ride-sharing industry as a whole. Ride-sharing drivers will be eligible just like ALL Californians, but they won’t receive any type of priority or preference”
Lyft Alone
However, Lyft’s involvement in the campaign is an outlier among other gig corporations that rely on freelance drivers. Uber spokesperson Carissa Simmons told The Climate 202 that Uber has largely stayed out of the Proposition 30 debate.
“Uber was not involved in the drafting of Prop 30, and we have no association with the campaign,” Simmons said, adding that “it's our belief that addressing climate change is a team sport.”
Unlike Lyft, Simmons said Uber provides resources valued at $800 million overall to drivers to help them make the switch to EVs.
Still, Uber and its drivers stand to benefit just as much as Lyft if the ballot measure is approved by voters in November. If passed, it could also be a sign that other states are likely to follow, since California has historically been a leader in setting national environmental standards.
The Golden State already has its own emission reduction programs, including $10 billion over the next five years for electric vehicles specifically from this year's budget and $54 billion for climate action broadly. Not to mention the added federal subsidies for electric vehicles from the Inflation Reduction Act.
One of Newsom’s top arguments against the proposed tax is that the state already has “famously volatile” tax rates. According to the World Population Review, a nonpartisan research organization, California charges residents the highest individual income tax rates out of all 50 states and D.C..
Dan Schnur, a politics lecturer at Berkeley, said the only higher priority for Newsom than fighting climate change is avoiding a budget deficit in a year when the state has already seen shortfalls in expected revenue.
“Newsom is worried that raising taxes further on the wealthy is going to leave the state budget very vulnerable the next time there’s a recession,” he said. “Whether Newsom runs for president or not, he certainly doesn’t want to spend his second term raising taxes or cutting popular government programs, so avoiding a further tax increase on the wealthy is his best protection against that.”
Biden touts $2.8 billion in Energy Department grants to expand battery manufacturing
President Biden on Wednesday highlighted the latest steps in his administration's push to bolster the adoption of electric vehicles, including $2.8 billion in Energy Department grants to expand battery manufacturing in a dozen states, The Washington Post's John Wagner and Mariana Alfaro report.
The grants, which were authorized by the bipartisan infrastructure law, will go toward 20 battery manufacturing and processing companies for projects in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Tennessee and Washington.
Three of the projects will focus on developing battery-grade lithium, graphite, and nickel, respectively, according to an Energy Department press release. Another project will seek to develop the first lithium iron phosphate cathode facility in the country.
Biden has set an ambitious goal for electric vehicles to account for half of all new car sales by 2030.
Biden rejects GOP claims that release of oil from strategic reserve is ‘politically motivated’
Biden on Wednesday dismissed GOP claims that his plan to release 15 million more barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a politically motivated effort to lower gas prices ahead of the midterm elections, Wagner and Alfaro report.
“It’s motivated to make sure that I continue to push on what I’ve been pushing on, and that is making sure there’s enough oil that’s being pumped by the companies,” Biden said in remarks from the White House on energy policy.
Biden again accused oil and gas companies of charging high prices despite earning record profits, saying gas prices aren’t “falling fast enough.” In an effort to quickly lower those costs and boost production, he also called on Congress to advance legislation that would “speed up the approval of all kinds of energy production, from wind to solar, to clean hydrogen” — an apparent nod to a deal that Democratic leadership made with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) to pass a permitting restructuring bill.
“We need to get this moving now quickly,” Biden said. “You can increase oil and gas production now while still moving full speed ahead to accelerate our transition to clean energy.”
Carbon emissions from fossil fuels to rise by less than 1 percent this year
Global carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are projected to rise by just under 1 percent this year, according to a report released Wednesday by the International Energy Agency, Angela Dewan reports for CNN.
The finding comes despite widespread concerns about countries backsliding on their climate commitments amid the global energy crunch sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The report estimates that carbon emissions will rise by 300 million metric tons this year — a much smaller jump than the spike of nearly 2 billion tons last year as global economies rebounded from the pandemic. The increase would have been larger — potentially as much as 1 billion tons — without major deployments of renewable energy and electric vehicles around the globe.
A report published this week in the journal Nature Review found that the warming of the world's oceans due to human-caused climate change has both accelerated and reached deeper depths, with the starkest changes observed in the Atlantic and Southern oceans, The Post's Brady Dennis reports. That warming — which the scientists said is probably irreversible through 2100 — is poised to continue and create new hot spots around the globe, especially if humans fail to make significant and rapid cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.
The consequences of hotter oceans are already on vivid display worldwide, with unprecedented events such as rising seas, exceptional heat waves, prolonged drought, fierce hurricanes, deadly flooding and torrential rainfall becoming more common occurrences. The paper underscores that many of the effects of warmer waters are still unknown but that marine life and the nations that have contributed the least to emissions will suffer the most profound consequences.
BMW investing $1.7 billion in South Carolina as automaker shifts to EVs — Tom Krisher and Jeffrey Collins for the Associated Press
Democrats passed a huge climate bill. Now they’re talking oil. — Josh Siegel for Politico
In the Netherlands, balancing energy security against climate concerns — Stanley Reed and Clifford Krauss for the New York Times
U.K. government wins vote in parliament on fracking — Reuters
Us on the first day of fall weather: 😂
It is time. pic.twitter.com/TiVqtyelv0 | 2022-10-20T11:59:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Battle brews in California over taxing the rich to fund electric cars - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/battle-brews-california-over-taxing-rich-fund-electric-cars/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/battle-brews-california-over-taxing-rich-fund-electric-cars/ |
‘One of the most dangerous times’ in cyber nears
Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202! As a fan of slow burns, “Star Wars” and Tony Gilroy, my complete lack of interest in “Andor” has been baffling. The last two episodes, though, have finally hooked me.
Below: The White House hosts a meeting on cybersecurity labeling, and Brazil arrests a suspect allegedly connected to a notorious hacking gang. But first:
The U.S. is entering a high-risk period with China and Russia in the cyber domain
The United States and its allies are in a period of rising conflict with China and Russia that raises the risks in cyberspace, a top cyber expert told me at a Washington Post Live event Wednesday.
“I do think we're about to enter probably one of the most dangerous times that we've had in the history of the cyber domain when it comes to our infrastructure here in the West, both because of what Russia may be doing against us as well as China, where we are both simultaneously entering a time of confrontation with both countries,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator.
.@DAlperovitch says, “What I do think we're about to enter is probably one of the most dangerous times that we've had in the history of the cyber domain when it comes to our infrastructure here in the West. Both because what Russia may be doing against us, as well as China." pic.twitter.com/HJqrs2ZILq
— Washington Post Live (@PostLive) October 19, 2022
As a longtime cyber observer, Alperovitch isn’t prone to exaggerate risks, and at times during our conversation he spoke about the ways in which cyberthreats aren’t as severe as some others might think.
Another sober voice on cybersecurity is Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), who told me during the same Washington Post Live event that China is perhaps the most worrisome U.S. cyberspace foe when it comes to damage to the economy.
China and Russia
Ukraine and Poland have both blamed Russia for explosions three weeks ago that caused ruptures of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which transport fuel from Russia to Germany. Moscow has replied by blaming the United States, which likewise has denied involvement.
If proof emerges that Russian President Vladimir Putin is behind any sabotage as he escalates the war in Ukraine in desperation over losing territory, “that is a very ominous sign that they're willing to directly attack infrastructure that could have potentially been of use down the road to the West,” Alperovitch said. “It shows that as he's escalating his rhetoric, including the use of nuclear threats, as he's mobilizing the Russian public, he may be willing to target the West, and cyber probably is going to be his first weapon of choice.”
Russia has shown an inclination toward messing with the energy sector via both physical and cyber attacks, Alperovitch said, noting Russian medial’s preoccupation with rising U.S. gas prices after last year’s Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack.
China, meanwhile, is likely to retaliate against the United States over the Biden administration's export controls restricting U.S. companies from selling semiconductors and chip-making tools to China, Alperovitch predicted.
Alperovitch is among the experts who consider the restrictions some of the most dramatic the United States has enacted. It’s a big deal because it targets an entire sector and also cuts off access to U.S. talent, he said.
“This is, I believe, a declaration of economic war,” he said. “It is absolutely going to basically crush [Chinese President] Xi Jinping's plans to achieve chip independence by 2025, a key goal that he has had for more than a decade now, and is going to absolutely destroy their efforts at advancing their advanced technology industry over the coming decade.”
And China isn’t likely to “take it sitting down,” Alperovitch said. It’s preoccupied this week with the Communist Party Congress, but afterward Xi will likely take action “both against American companies in China as well as potentially through cyber operations to try to compensate for the loss of access to technology with IP theft. I don't think it's going to be enough, but they're going to keep trying.”
.@DAlperovitch tells @timstarks, "This is, I believe a declaration of economic war. It is absolutely going to crush Xi Jinping's plans to achieve chip independence by 2025... I doubt that they'll take it sitting down." pic.twitter.com/G7VXq7AQ5q
Langevin is likewise worried about Chinese pilfering.
“China uses cyber not only for espionage but also for theft of intellectual property,” Langevin said. According to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, he said, “they're stealing to the tune of probably trillions of dollars, and that leads to loss of productivity. It costs American jobs, and China has been, unfortunately, relatively unrestrained, and I think that's an area we need to work harder to push back on China and their malicious cyber activity.”
.@JimLangevin tells @timstarks, "Clearly, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea are among the top four of the bad actors out there that we have to worry about." pic.twitter.com/s9HJJnB5K4
How to impose order, consequences
It’s important for the international community to come together on cyber “norms” that everyone adheres to — lines that no one will cross, Langevin said. “Think about the idea of not attacking another nation's critical infrastructure in peacetime or a financial system and those types of things,” he said.
But just as importantly, allies need to take action to punish those who violate norms, both Langevin and Alperovitch said.
That said, the United States shouldn’t get into a “tit-for-tat” with Russia, which doesn’t constrain itself with the rules of war, Alperovitch said. It should instead confine itself to retaliation for attacks that are truly disruptive to the U.S. economy or national security. In response, it should demonstrate U.S. capabilities to take adversaries offline, even if only for an hour, he said.
.@DAlperovitch tells @timstarks, “Instead of getting into a tit-for-tat in cyber with Russia... The best way to do that is to demonstrate our ability to actually take them offline... To show them what we are capable of if they don't stop this activity." pic.twitter.com/RpyVTQMZEZ
“Any type of disruptive attack that targets our financial sector or targets our energy sector, of course, is going to be impactful,” Alperovitch said, before sounding a note of calm about major cyberattacks. “But the one thing to remember and the one thing that the Ukraine conflict shows uniquely well is that no cyberattack is likely to have long-lasting impact. … We're going to get through this. It may be painful for a few days, but ultimately, the good thing about cyber is that it rarely causes physical destruction.”
“The meeting focused on the implementation of the program with a focus on issues such as how to ensure labels match international standards, how to design a barcode to ensure consumers can find timely information about a product online and how to raise overall consumer awareness of IoT vulnerabilities,” Smalley and Riley write. Initially, government officials aim to implement voluntary standards for very vulnerable internet-connected devices like routers.
Brazilian authorities arrest Lapsus$-linked suspect
The arrest in the northeastern city of Feira de Santana came after Brazilian authorities investigated the hacking group’s December 2021 breach of Brazil’s Health Ministry, Bleeping Computer’s Sergiu Gatlan reports. It comes months after law enforcement in the United Kingdom charged two teenagers after an investigation into the hacking group.
“Besides the Ministry of Health, the group also targeted dozens of other Brazilian Federal Government bodies and entities, including the Ministry of Economy, the Comptroller General of the Union, and the Federal Highway Police,” Gatlan writes. Lapsus$ has also claimed responsibility for a string of high-profile hacks of major technology companies like Microsoft and Samsung.
“In many cases, the extortion group also leaked closed source code and proprietary data stolen from their victims, leading to massive data leaks,” Gatlan writes. “Most Lapsus$ members are believed to be teenagers driven not by financial motivation but mainly by their goal of making a name on the hacking scene.”
National cyber strategy possibly 'months' away, Inglis says (The Record)
Pro-Trump conspiracy theorists hound election officials out of office (Reuters)
NSA cyber chief says Ukraine war is compelling more intelligence sharing with industry (CyberScoop)
How the FBI stumbled in the war on cybercrime (ProPublica)
Corporate directors resign as U.S. targets overlaps at competing firms (Wall Street Journal)
CISA Director Jen Easterly speaks at Mandiant’s mWISE conference today.
siblings can relate pic.twitter.com/UNIpdZhEqa
— theworldofdog (@theworldofdog) April 21, 2022 | 2022-10-20T11:59:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘One of the most dangerous times’ in cyber nears - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/one-most-dangerous-times-cyber-nears/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/one-most-dangerous-times-cyber-nears/ |
Public support for Ukraine remains high in the U.S, survey shows
Americans see Ukraine as succeeding in its fight against the Russian invasion. That might explain the robust public support for Ukraine.
Analysis by Shibley Telhami
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks to Group of Seven leaders from Kyiv this month. (leaders /EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Is the U.S. public prepared to pay a price for supporting Ukraine?
The latest poll was fielded Oct. 7 to 10 by SSRS, among a national sample of 1,029 adult U.S. respondents. Surveys were collected using SSRS’s probability-based panel both online and via telephone (for non-internet and internet-reluctant respondents). The margin of error is 3.4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
The survey found the American public is prepared to pay high energy costs to help Ukraine, roughly along the lines of the June results: 60 percent overall said they were prepared to do so, including 80 percent of Democrats and 48 percent of Republicans. In June, 62 percent indicated they were prepared to pay high energy costs, with 78 percent of Democrats and 44 percent of Republicans in agreement.
On inflation, 57 percent of respondents said they were prepared to accept rising prices as the United States helps Ukraine, including 74 percent of Democrats and 44 percent of Republicans (compared with 58 percent overall in the June survey and 72 percent of Democrats, 39 percent of Republicans).
Republicans in October’s survey were more willing to accept increased energy costs (a four-point change) and rising inflation (almost a six-point change) than Republicans in the June survey. Those results seem to conflict with the apparent change in the Republican public discourse about Ukraine.
It’s also notable that higher-income Americans tended to be less tolerant of the cost of supporting Ukraine. For example, 54 percent of respondents earning over $100,000 a year said they are prepared to pay higher energy costs, and 50 percent indicated they’d accept rising inflation, compared with 63 percent and 59 percent, respectively, of those earning under $100,000 a year. In part, this may be because respondents under the age of 30 tended to be more prepared to pay a price for supporting Ukraine — 72 percent said they’d accept higher energy prices and 71 percent said they’d accept rising inflation) compared with those over 30 (58 percent and 54 percent, respectively).
Most Americans remain averse to paying a cost in terms of the lives of U.S. troops. But the October survey showed a slight uptick in the preparedness to risk the lives of American soldiers: 38 percent, compared with 32 percent in June. That reflects a three-point change among Democrats, from 37 percent in June to 40 percent in October, and a greater shift among Republicans, from 22 percent in June to 35 percent in October.
Who is winning in Ukraine?
The biggest change from June to October has been the U.S. public’s assessment of which side is winning. The latest survey results probably reflect recent Ukrainian successes in reclaiming Russian-occupied territories, coupled with reports of significant Russian losses.
The October survey results indicate a substantial bump in the number of Republicans and Democrats who say Russia is failing and Ukraine is succeeding. Almost half of all Americans surveyed in October (48 percent) said Russia is failing (including 57 percent of Democrats and 42 percent of Republicans), compared with 29 percent overall in June (including 33 percent of Democrats and 28 percent of Republicans). When asked about Ukraine, 43 percent in October said Ukraine is succeeding (58 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans), compared with June’s 27 percent finding (32 percent of Democrats and 25 percent of Republicans).
Overall, those who thought Russia is failing or Ukraine is succeeding tended to be more willing to pay a price in increased energy costs and rising inflation. For example, of Americans who believe Russia is failing, 67 percent are willing to pay higher energy prices, and 60 percent are prepared to see increased inflation. Among Americans who believe Ukraine is succeeding, 69 percent are willing to pay higher energy prices, and 62 percent are prepared to see increased inflation. This is in comparison to the 60 percent and 57 percent of Americans in general who are prepared to see higher energy prices and increased inflation, respectively.
At the same time, those who said Russia is failing or Ukraine is succeeding tended to be somewhat less willing to risk the lives of American troops — bucking the trend on energy costs and rising inflation. While 38 percent of all respondents say they are prepared to risk the lives of U.S. troops, 32 percent say the same among those who say Russia is failing, and 32 percent among those who say Ukraine is succeeding.
Although it is difficult to assess the exact reasoning for these findings, it’s possible that the minority of Americans who are prepared to risk the lives of American troops prioritize the mission to help Ukraine win, and thus are expressing a preparedness to escalate the cost if current efforts fail.
As the midterm elections near, foreign policy issues — including U.S. support for Ukraine — may not be a top priority of voters. But at a time when the Biden administration increasingly throws its weight behind Ukraine, the American public continues to say they are prepared to pay for backing Ukraine, even if the cost is rising inflation, which ranks high among voters’ priorities. The increasing U.S. public perception that Ukraine is winning — and Russia is losing — may be one reason for the robust support for Ukraine eight months into the war.
Shibley Telhami (@ShibleyTelhami) is a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, professor of government and politics, and director of the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll. He is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. | 2022-10-20T11:59:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Will support for Ukraine be a top issue in the U.S. midterms? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/us-support-ukraine-war-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/us-support-ukraine-war-midterms/ |
Thursday briefing: What Russia’s martial law declaration means in Ukraine; Adderall shortage; Netflix password-sharing; and more
Russia declared martial law in parts of Ukraine yesterday.
Where? Four regions illegally claimed by Russian President Vladimir Putin after staged referendums last month — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
What this does: It could create legal cover for abuses by Russia’s military. But Moscow doesn’t entirely control the regions, so it’s not clear if it can fully implement the new rules.
Donald Trump knew his voter-fraud claims in Georgia were baseless, a judge said.
The details: The former president was aware that numbers he was pushing related to the 2020 election were wrong — but he signed legal documents with them anyway, the judge said.
How the judge knows: Emails that Trump’s allies and the House committee investigating the Capitol attack have been fighting over. The judge ruled yesterday that some of the messages must be made public.
What else to know: The Jan. 6 committee is expected to ask Trump to testify soon.
The pregnancy drug Makena should be pulled from the market, experts said.
What is it? Introduced in 2011, Makena is designed to reduce the risk of preterm birth, a leading cause of infant mortality in the U.S.
What’s the problem? It doesn’t work, FDA experts said yesterday. The panel rejected arguments that it should remain available for high-risk groups including some Black women.
What’s next? The FDA will decide whether to withdraw the drug in the coming months.
There’s a nationwide shortage of Adderall.
Why? One of the largest producers of the ADHD medication has been experiencing “manufacturing delays,” the FDA said last week.
How bad is it? Some pharmacies can’t fill prescriptions. People have been forced to go off the medication or switch treatments — both of which can make managing daily life difficult.
Oceans are warming faster than ever.
The trend: The top mile or so of oceans around the world have been heating up since the 1950s, a new study found. But now it’s accelerating and reaching greater depths.
Why this matters: It could cause more supercharged storms, devastate marine ecosystems, and upend the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.
Netflix will crack down on password-sharing early next year.
How? You’ll have to pay a fee to share your account with someone who doesn’t live with you. These new “sub-accounts” cost about $3 in trials so far.
What else? Netflix is launching a cheaper, ad-supported “basic” plan next month. It’s $6.99 a month and will have four to five minutes of ads an hour.
The asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs caused mile-high waves.
How we know: Scientists were recently able to simulate, for the first time, what impact the asteroid had when it hit 66 million years ago.
The impact: The “megatsunami” caused global flooding, the study found, and had 30,000 times more energy than the catastrophic 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean.
And now … composting is easier than you think — and good for the environment: Here’s how to start. Plus, you should clean your toothbrush holder and 10 other overlooked germ hot spots. | 2022-10-20T12:00:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Thursday, October 20 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/10/20/what-to-know-for-october-20/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/10/20/what-to-know-for-october-20/ |
In this photo from Parliament, Britain's Prime Minister Liz Truss speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons in London, Wednesday. (Jessica Taylor/AP)
LONDON — British Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation Thursday after six turbulent weeks in office, making her one of the shortest-serving prime minister in British history.
A besieged Liz Truss loses the second of her top cabinet members
Truss came to office with a vision for a low-tax, small government state. But her plans, which included billions of unfunded tax cuts, spooked the markets and sent the pound plunging. It wasn’t long before she was forced to jettison her agenda and fire her chancellor.
On Thursday morning at least a 16 of Truss’s own lawmakers went on the record calling for her to resign following a chaotic and confusing 24 hours, which saw claims of bullying in Parliament and the resignation of the home secretary.
Among those was Conservative lawmaker Sir Gary Streeter who tweeted, “sadly, it seems we must change leader BUT even if the angel Gabriel now takes over, the Parliamentary Party has to urgently rediscover discipline, mutual respect and teamwork if we are to (i) govern the UK well and (ii) avoid slaughter at the next election."
He said that he was a “glass-half-full sort of person” have believed the ship could be turned around. But he added that needed to happen quickly: “I think there's about 12 hours to do it.”
“Britain cannot afford to chaos of the Conservatives anymore, we need a general election now,” he said Thursday. | 2022-10-20T12:58:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Liz Truss resigns as U.K. prime minister after Tory party revolt - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/20/uk-liz-truss-resign-prime-minister/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/20/uk-liz-truss-resign-prime-minister/ |
Ask Sahaj: We both cheated. Now what?
Dear Sahaj: Roughly seven months ago, my relationship hit a significant rough patch. There was cheating from both parties, and since then we have been working on things and it’s been going fairly smoothly. However, she’s been pushing me away recently and she’s been very hot and cold. She went through my phone and read private conversations with friends I had during our rough patch, when I was on the fence with what to do with our relationship. I understand that some of what she read upset her.
She said she doesn’t see our relationship as a priority anymore and is focusing solely on herself. I support her wanting to focus on herself and grow, and I’m trying to find a way to understand and be empathetic toward her. I love her, but I don’t understand where she’s at with everything at times. She says she loves me and she’s happy she’s with me but her behavior doesn’t feel like it. What can I do?
— Ruptured Relationship
Ruptured Relationship: I don’t know what you two have done to repair the trust that is broken from your mutual infidelity nor do I have information about the history of your relationship. Cheating changes the level of intimacy between two people, and takes a toll on self-esteem and mental health.
Cheating can sometimes be a product of built-up resentment that needs to be surfaced, acknowledged, and addressed to facilitate healing. More than that, the impact cheating has doesn’t get canceled out when both people in a relationship do it. If anything, it further complicates the issues that need to be confronted to minimize resentment and repair what’s broken.
Most importantly, you will need to take some time to figure things out for yourself. It’s not clear what you want from your question. You mention that you want to understand where your partner stands, and yes, you love her, but you don’t say how you want things to work out. What, if anything, has changed for you since the rough patch and infidelity seven months ago? I suggest you reflect on how willing you are to heal the hurt and betrayal that is lingering in your relationship or if you are just hoping to avoid conflict and keep the peace.
Your partner told you you’re no longer a priority. This may be because she feels the need to protect herself from getting hurt by you again, or maybe she’s trying to move on altogether. Your partner looked through your phone, so it’s clear she still doesn’t trust you and is navigating her own pain. You both need clarity on what you want and need from this relationship, now.
The relationship will need to feel different for you both to truly move forward together, so I encourage you to try to explicitly address the following with your partner: What does safety and trust look like to each of you? How do you know you have forgiven each other and how will you know you have been forgiven by the other?
To truly repair what was broken there needs to be a mutual understanding and accountability for why things fell apart in the first place, how things will actually be different, and both of your roles in contributing to the emotional disconnection that led to infidelity. This will require your partner to also be invested in working through these issues with you; regardless of how much you want things to work out, you won’t be able to fix it alone.
You’ll have to give room and time for mutual healing to occur, while understanding that you both may not be affected by the infidelity in the same way. If there’s a desire from both parties to move forward and you still feel stuck, couples counseling is always an option.
Remember that two things can be true at the same time. You can each feel hurt and you shouldn’t be continuing to hurt or punish each other. You can each feel guilty and you each need standards for what you’ll accept or need in the relationship. You can both be sorry and want to fix things and you’ll need time and honesty to truly repair what was ruptured. | 2022-10-20T13:28:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Sahaj: We both cheated. Now what? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/20/ask-sahaj-relationship-cheating-break-up/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/20/ask-sahaj-relationship-cheating-break-up/ |
In ‘Come Back in September’ Pinckney shares anecdotes about his mentor Elizabeth Hardwick and their circle of friends in the ’70s and ’80s
Normally, these are novels — particularly fast-moving fiction, thrillers and mysteries — but not always. Witness “Come Back in September,” by Darryl Pinckney, subtitled “A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, Manhattan.” That address belonged to the brilliant Elizabeth Hardwick — she is pictured on the book’s cover — who, back in the 1970s, guided the 20-something Pinckney through the upper echelons of Manhattan literary and intellectual life. This memoir of that apprenticeship — by one of our most distinguished writers on African American culture, literature and history — provides a “you are there” account of those thrilling years.
Born in 1916, Hardwick fled Lexington, Ky., for New York, where she contributed essays to the almost legendary Partisan Review, wrote novels, stories and criticism, and for 20 years was married to the poet Robert Lowell. When Pinckney enrolled in Hardwick’s writing class at Barnard, she was recently divorced from Lowell but still very much a contributor to the magazine they had both helped found, the New York Review of Books.
Review: 'With Robert Lowell and his Circle'
Pinckney was working in a secondhand bookstore to pay the bills and devouring Colette’s “The Pure and the Impure,” everything he could find about Bloomsbury, the diaries of the ultra-cosmopolitan Count Kessler, Melville’s “Billy Budd” (“the saddest thing I’d ever read”), Rimbaud’s poetry, the novels of Henry James and the work of numerous Black writers. Everywhere he went, Pinckney recalls, “I carried books, emblems of my guild.”
Following the unexpected heart attack that killed Robert Lowell at age 60 in 1977, Hardwick was plunged into shock and grief. By then, she had more or less forgiven Lowell for the hurt caused by his use of her private letters in the poems of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Dolphin.” It even looked as if the couple might reunite, but instead Pinckney was enlisted for the sad task of cataloguing and organizing the late poet’s files and papers.
Even before that, though, he had begun writing essay-reviews about Black subjects for the Review. Thinking back, he almost shudders at the intensity of Silvers’s textual editing: “He was so thoroughly prepared when he talked to you, that he seemed to know as much about your subject as you did.” Still, Pinckney found reassurance when told that “Susan Sontag freaked out at the sight of her marked-up manuscripts.” While Sontag’s ideas were always brilliant, “she just had no ear, Elizabeth said.” And getting sentences right deeply mattered to Hardwick: “It’s immoral to be indifferent to what you put on the page.”
An intimate look at the scandal that tore apart a literary power couple
Certainly, no reader will be indifferent to the gossipy stories in “Come Back in September.” Once, the critic George Steiner and the pianist Charles Rosen, who was also a scholar of art, music history and literature, both wrote pieces about the German-Jewish literary theorist Walter Benjamin. “Steiner sat annoyed throughout a dinner because Rosen was not acknowledging his recent essay on Benjamin. At the end of the dinner, he called him on it. Rosen said he hadn’t mentioned it because it was terrible.”
Come Back in September
A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, Manhattan | 2022-10-20T13:28:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Michael Dirda reviews Darryl Pinckney's "Come Back in September" - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/20/darryl-pinckney-book/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/20/darryl-pinckney-book/ |
Pushing those walkers all the way to the bank. (Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Here’s why: Even if you don’t collect benefits, the COLA adjustment — 8.7% for 2023 — still gets factored into the amount you’re eligible to receive starting at age 62. And it gets compounded, so each year you hold off on collecting to full retirement age (somewhere between 66 and 67 depending on when you were born) or beyond will make your eventual payout even juicier. The benefit increase stops when you reach age 70.
“COLAs magnify the disparity between early and late claiming,” Elaine Floyd, a certified financial planner and author of Savvy Social Security Planning for Boomers, wrote in 2013 when the COLA was just 1.5%. “We can assume that all Social Security recipients celebrate when a generous COLA is announced. But some recipients celebrate more than others.”
Figuring out how to maximize Social Security is vital considering it’s a benefit that lasts for the duration of a recipient’s life and is adjusted for inflation. The same can’t be said for most, if any, other sources of income. About half of Americans 65 or older rely on Social Security for at least 50% of their household income. (For about a quarter of those 65 and over, it’s at least 90% of their income.)
Next, a formula is applied to calculate what the benefit would be if collected at full retirement age. If someone starts collecting as soon as she’s eligible at 62, she could see a reduction of as much as 30% in what’s known as the primary insurance amount.
Let’s say a 64-year-old retiree is eligible for a primary insurance amount of $3,000 per month at full retirement age. If she didn’t collect last year, when the COLA was 5.9%, her benefits would have been adjusted to $3,177. The amount will get bumped up to $3,453 next year (with the latest COLA increase being applied to the higher inflation-adjusted amount). COLAs keep getting added the more years she waits; any delayed credits for not collecting benefits from full retirement age until age 70 are then applied on top of that amount. If she delays her benefits until age 70, then her monthly benefit (excluding any COLAs beyond next year) will be $4,374.
The other benefit of delaying Social Security, especially with a bigger COLA, is the tax savings. Yes, many recipients have to pay taxes on Social Security income. And those who have other sources of retirement income, like 401(k) or IRA accounts, may see as much as 85% of their Social Security benefits subject to taxes. But holding off on collecting benefits and ultimately getting a bigger lifetime payout means those retirees won’t have to tap their personal accounts for as much money; in turn, the taxable portion of Social Security benefits drops.
So if you’re in your sixties and able to wait, just bide your time.
• Moving to a Low-Tax State Can Be an Expensive Way to Save Money: Alexis Leondis
• I Paid Off Student Loans But Support Relief for Those Who Can’t: Erin Lowry
• Downsizing? Why Rising Interest Rates Are Your Friend: Conor Sen | 2022-10-20T13:28:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Delaying Your Social Security Has Rarely Been This Profitable - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/delaying-your-social-security-has-rarely-been-this-profitable/2022/10/20/ebaca420-5077-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/delaying-your-social-security-has-rarely-been-this-profitable/2022/10/20/ebaca420-5077-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
A group calling themselves “The Real Housewives of 17th Street” take a stroll before the 17th Street High Heel Race in 2021. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Live! at the Library: Inside Our Flute Vault at the Library of Congress: Lizzo caused a stir last month when she brought James Madison’s crystal flute onstage during a concert at the Capital One Arena — an 1813 flute borrowed from the Library of Congress, which owns the largest collection of the instruments in the world. Admit it: Before Lizzo and Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden traded tweets, you probably didn’t know the Library of Congress had flutes. Explore the treasures of the library’s Flute Vault — including Madison’s flute — and ask questions of music librarians during a special edition of the weekly Live! At the Library after-hours event. Happy hour drinks are available, and all of the library’s exhibits are open for browsing. 5 to 8 p.m. Free; timed-entry tickets required.
Museum after-hours events draw crowds with music, drinks and, yes, art
Best of LGBTQ DC Awards Party at Wild Days: It’s time to announce the winners of the Washington Blade’s 21st annual reader’s choice awards, covering 60 categories from drag kings and queens to LGBTQ-owned businesses to nonprofit organizations. In addition to awards, the party at the Eaton’s Wild Days rooftop bar includes live performances by Cake Pop! and Desiree Dik and DJs from 6 to 8 p.m., followed by an after-party from 8 to 10. Tickets include one cocktail. 6 to 10 p.m. $15.
13 Nights of Halloween at Wunder Garten: If only one day (or even one weekend) of frightening festivities isn’t enough, try a themed event every day until Halloween at Wunder Garten. Mondays and Wednesdays are dedicated to spooky trivia, and Tuesdays and Thursday to scary movies. Fridays feature a DJ beginning at 8 p.m. (are you sick of “Monster Mash” yet?), while Saturdays promise pumpkin-themed competitions and, this week, the LGBTQ party Hallowqueen. The best is saved for Sundays: a midday Howl-Ween for costumed pets. Times vary by day. Free.
Yardfest on the Howard University Quad: At this point, Howard students taking to social media to speculate and gripe about the potential lineup for the Yardfest concert during homecoming weekend has become as much of a tradition as hip-hop superstars making surprise appearances. Biggie? Jay-Z? Drake? All have hit the stage unannounced, delighting the crowds of Bison and non-students who showed up to soak in the atmosphere. The full lineup usually isn’t announced until the day of the concert, but there are often some clues out there — Flo Milli headlining a sold-out show at the Howard Theatre on Friday night, where Key Glock is playing the night before? Hmm. GloRilla performing at Bliss Nightclub on Friday? Interesting. Neutrogena announcing Chloe x Halle are hosting a “Bison Family Battle” “onstage at Howard’s Yardfest”? That’s something. But no matter who shows up, the first in-person Yardfest since 2019 — when the lineup included DaBaby, Saweetie and Juvenile — is going to be a scene. Arrive early or risk getting shut out. Noon to 6 p.m. Free.
Smithsonian Craft2Wear at the National Building Museum: Shake off the athleisure doldrums and add a one-of-a-kind piece to your wardrobe at the 15th annual Smithsonian Craft2Wear show, which returns in person at the National Building Museum for the first time since 2019. This year’s theme is “Find Your Fabulous,” and you can shop for jewelry and clothing at a variety of price points from artisans based across the country. The event kicks off Oct. 20 with a benefit featuring cocktails, snacks and a fashion show ($100). Friday and Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. $10-$20.
Lost Frequencies at Echostage: One of the leading exponents of lilting “tropical house” hails from a place well north of the equator. Electronic composer, producer and DJ Lost Frequencies (a.k.a. Felix De Laet) is Belgian, but his music often has a laid-back Latin or Caribbean vibe. And while his beats and riffs derive from electronic dance music, De Laet is best known for enlisting guest vocalists to collaborate on mainstream synth-pop hits such as “Where Are You Now” (sung by Calum Scott) and the recent “Questions” (sung by James Arthur). Lost Frequencies albums include such purely instrumental tracks as the funk-meets-jazz-meets-flamenco “Funky’n Brussels,” which may get extended workouts at Echostage, but the crowd-pleasers are such compact love songs as Lost Frequencies’ country-tinged debut single, “Are You With Me.” 9 p.m. $33.
Halloween Family Day at the Library of Congress: Millions of kids have been scared silly by R.L. Stine’s creepy yet amusing Goosebumps series, and those who grew up reading “A Night in Terror Tower” and “Stay Out of the Basement” under the covers with a flashlight are now old enough to share the books with their own children. Stine and Mary Pope Osborne, the creator of the wonderful time-traveling “Magic Tree House” fantasy series, are the guests of honor at the Library of Congress’s Halloween Family Day, where they’ll participate in a special event in the Coolidge Auditorium at 2 p.m. and sign books afterward. Doors open at 10 a.m. for “spooky art activities,” a reading corner and other creepy things to do. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free; timed entry tickets required.
Sports in the Archives Family Day at the National Archives Museum: The National Archives’ new exhibit, “All American: The Power of Sports,” uses historical documents, film clips, jerseys and the stories of trailblazing athletes to show how sports have been used to unite Americans while also serving as a powerful force for social change. This family day is a chance to introduce younger sports fans to the topics, with stations allowing them to make pennants and buttons, play games, and participate in reading and activities focused on learning more about athletes featured in the galleries, such as Jackie Robinson and Jim Thorpe. 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Free.
Howard homecoming: The day begins with a parade featuring marching bands, floats and celebrity appearances that passes along Georgia Avenue and through the campus and surrounding neighborhoods from 10 a.m. to noon, before the big (and sold-out) football game against Delaware State at Greene Stadium kicks off at 1 p.m. Expect pregame tailgating and postgame parties at bars along U Street to be extremely busy. Celebrations continue into the night, including Reggae Fest at the Howard Theatre (10:30 p.m., $30) and the Howard 100 at the Park at 14th, hosted by Kenny Burns (9 p.m., Free; $20 to cut the inevitable lines).
Songbyrd Seventh Anniversary Show: It’s been a busy seven years for Songbyrd, which grew from a two-story Adams Morgan storefront to a separate (and much larger) record store and concert venue combo around Union Market. The Seventh Anniversary Show, which sports a $7 ticket price, includes performances from the trombone-driven Experience Band and Show; the tuneful hip-hop of Footwerk; and the banging, woozy electro of Too Free. Stick around for Thank Me Later, a free, all-Drake dance party. 7 to 11 p.m. $7.
Dupont Circle Fall Fest and Bluegrass Jamboree: Dupont Circle turns into a pumpkin patch with a rollicking soundtrack during this Saturday afternoon party. Look for pumpkin painting; snacks including kettle corn, apples and hot apple cider; and four bluegrass bands, including the Kentucky Warblers and Danny Paisley and the Southern Grass. 1 to 5 p.m. Free.
COWPIE at Eastern Market: The Wyoming State Society’s annual party — an acronym for Committee of Wyoming People in the East — brings the spirit of the Equality State to Capitol Hill for one night. Ride a mechanical bull, two-step and line dance to a country band, and partake of an open bar. Belt buckles and boots are encouraged. 8 to 11 p.m. $60; $25 “dry ticket” without alcohol.
Tenleytown Country Market Day: After a two-year pandemic-induced hiatus, this Tenleytown fall festival returns to continue more than four decades of tradition on the new Georgetown Day School campus. Families can enjoy carnival rides and games, live music and a DJ, concessions (including Sweet Shoppe vendors), a used book sale, and lawn games. Noon to 4 p.m. Free.
Planet Word Community Day: The downtown museum dedicated to language and wordplay marks its second anniversary by sponsoring a family-friendly open house. Take tours of the historic building on Franklin Square, play with crosswords, make word-related crafts, or head to the rooftop for a “Blind Date With a Book,” which asks readers to select a book based on only the genre and a quote from a review. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free; reservations suggested.
Takoma Park Street Festival: Postponed earlier in October due to Hurricane Ian, this fall festival is back on for its 41st year. Takoma Park’s annual street fair closes Carroll Avenue from Philadelphia Avenue all the way to the D.C. border, turning the city’s main drag into a giant block party. Eighteen bands perform on three stages, ranging from children’s acts to the Yachtsmen’s garage rock and the Nighthawks’ blues. The 150 booths lining the road include vendors selling handmade crafts, goods from local shops, tables run by community organizations and food trucks serving everything from crab cakes to pho. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free.
Día de los Muertos celebration at the Wharf: While attention might be on Halloween in the next few weeks, don’t forget about the Mexican holiday that occurs around the same time. District Pier at the Wharf surely won’t — it’s celebrating with a festival day featuring live music, street food and a beer garden, even if it’s about two weeks early. In partnership with Fiesta DC, the minds behind the District’s largest Latino culture festival and parade, and Mexican beer giant Modelo, the day’s activities include face painting and decorating sugar skulls. 2 to 5 p.m. Free.
Last day for the Berliner: Sunday is a sad day for D.C. beer garden fans: The Berliner, the industrial-chic bar located under the Whitehurst Freeway in Georgetown, announced Oct. 7 that it is closing “due to plans by our building’s new owners to convert the property into a hotel.” As for relocating, staff wrote on Instagram that “we’re not ruling anything out.” Still, you have a few more chances to enjoy liters of festbier or tall glasses of kolsch with friends around a long table. 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Beer prices vary.
Dehd at the Black Cat: With only three members, Dehd can’t produce a Phil Spector-style wall of sound. Yet there’s a hint of Spectorian grandeur to the Chicago-based group’s brand of alt-rock. Partly it’s Eric McGrady’s drums, which often thump a stately processional rhythm that recalls 1960s girl-group hits. Another factor is the way the vocals of bassist Emily Kempf and guitarist-producer Jason Balla merge and diverge; they’re not exactly the Ronettes, but their singing does pack significant drama into the short, mostly midtempo tunes. The lyrics to songs such as “Window” — whose refrain is the title of the trio’s recent fourth album, “Blue Skies” — chatter in dynamic conversation. The vocal synergy may reflect the fact that Kempf and Balla remain in a band that outlived their romance, but it’s also a tribute to Dehd’s musical savvy. It takes skill to make music this spare sound this big. 7:30 p.m. (doors open). $20.
Hallo-Week at Bark Social: Bark Social in North Bethesda is planning an entire week of Halloween parties for furry friends, including a dog and owner “couples costume” contest on Oct. 24 and a costume and DJ dance party on Oct. 29. Find eerie events every night in between — from a Halloween cookie decorating evening to a singles mixer. Opening party from 4 to 7 p.m. Free. Other times and ticket prices vary.
Ibibio Sound Machine at the Black Cat: The London-based Afro-techno octet Ibibio Sound Machine was originally conceived by three electronic music producers with a shared taste for 1970s West African funk and disco. Then the group found its voice in Nigerian-British singer Eno Williams, whose mother’s native tongue is Ibibio. The band’s fourth and latest album, “Electricity,” has all the high-tech effects you’d expect from music produced by British synth-pop outfit Hot Chip. But its heart is Williams’s powerful singing and impassioned bilingual lyrics, some of them derived from Nigerian folk tales. Reflecting what the singer has called “an edgier world,” the new album is darker and sharper than the Machine’s earlier work. The new attitude doesn’t preclude, however, dance-floor stompers like “All That You Want” or the techno-rap title song’s upbeat refrain: “Without love there’s no, no, no electricity.” 7:30 p.m. (doors open). $22-$25.
17th Street High Heel Race: Since 1986, drag queens and kings wearing towering, impractical footwear have raced down 17th Street in Dupont Circle. While taking the title is important, it’s secondary to the prerace activities, which find the participants parading down the middle of the street, showing off their creative costumes and posing for photos with the crowd. The race officially begins at 9 p.m., but spectators begin arriving to the course, between P and R streets NW, hours earlier. After the last set of heels crosses the finish line, the party continues at JR’s and other nearby bars. 8 p.m. Free.
National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony Ticket Lottery: It’s not even Halloween yet, and we already have to start planning for future holidays. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse, which will be lit during a ceremony featuring music and entertainment on Nov. 30. (This year’s guests have not been confirmed, but 2021 included Chris Stapleton, H.E.R. and LL Cool J, as well as President Biden and first lady Jill Biden.) If you’d like to attend, the National Park Service holds a online lottery that’s open from Tuesday through Nov. 1. Those who receive free tickets will be notified on Nov. 8, and everyone else can visit the tree and the Pathway of Peace between Dec. 2 and Jan. 1. Lottery open from Tuesday at 10 a.m. through Nov. 1 at 10 a.m. Free. | 2022-10-20T13:29:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Festivals, Halloween events and concerts in the Washington, D.C., area - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/best-things-do-dc-area-week-oct-20-26/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/best-things-do-dc-area-week-oct-20-26/ |
A jumping worm is the next garden threat
You may soon be seeing the squirmy Amynthas agrestis in your garden.
Pictured is a mature Asian jumping worm found in Wisconsin. The species is distinguishable from other earthworms by the presence of a creamy gray or white band encircling its body. (Susan Day/UWMadison Arboretum/AP)
Meet Amynthas agrestis, also known as “Alabama jumper” or “Jersey wriggler.” Unlike garden-variety earthworms, these flipping, thrashing, invasive miscreants are ravenous consumers of humus, the rich, organic, essential top layer of soil formed by dead and decaying small animals, insects and leaf litter in places such as forests, plant nurseries and your garden.
Plants, fungi and other soil life cannot survive without humus, and “Asian jumping worms can eat all of it,” Sarah Farmer of the U.S. Forest Service wrote in a USDA Southern Research Center blog post.
The invertebrates, native to east-central Asia, are believed to have been introduced to the United States in the late 1800s, likely as hitchhikers in potted plants.
Although their annual life cycle ends in winter, Asian jumping worm cocoons survive to spawn a new generation in spring. Their tiny eggs are nearly impossible to notice in soil or mulch, but adult worms, which range from 3 to 8 inches long, are easy to spot close to the soil surface and can often be seen moving under mulch or leaf litter, said Timothy McCay, a biology and environmental studies professor at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York.
The glossy worms can be gray or brown, with a smooth cream or white collar that wraps around part of their bodies. When touched, they thrash from side to side, jump, and may slither back-and-forth like a snake. That behavior, coupled with their ability to reproduce rapidly without a mate, gives them an advantage over predators, said McCay. | 2022-10-20T13:29:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A jumping worm is the next garden threat - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/10/20/jumping-worm-is-next-garden-threat/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/10/20/jumping-worm-is-next-garden-threat/ |
Cristiano Ronaldo walked off the pitch and straight into a Man U controversy
Cristiano Ronaldo, shown warming up before a match Wednesday against Tottenham, did not make it to the end. (Dave Thompson/AP) (Dave Thomposon/AP)
Cristiano Ronaldo took his frustration at being an unused substitute to a new level Wednesday, walking off the Old Trafford pitch before the end of Manchester United’s Premier League match with Tottenham Hotspur.
Ronaldo left the bench area and walked down the tunnel in the 89th minute of United’s 2-0 victory in a display Manager Erik ten Hag promised to address Thursday.
“I don’t pay attention today [to this]. We deal with that tomorrow,” ten Hag said (via the Guardian). “We want to focus on this team. It was a magnificent performance from all 11 players. I have seen him [leaving]. I didn’t speak to him after.
Manchester United’s Mason Greenwood released on bail after hearing
Ronaldo’s exit came after ten Hag had made three of the five permitted substitutions. Ronaldo got up off the bench shortly after Christian Eriksen and Anthony Elanga entered the match.
Gary Lineker, a former England striker, called Ronaldo’s exit “unacceptable,” telling “BBC Match of the Day” that it detracted from United’s performance. “It is so poor.”
Ashley Williams, a former Wales captain, added, “It was a great night for Manchester United, and here we are again talking about Cristiano Ronaldo — even though he didn’t play.”
Man Utd with Ronaldo vs. without Ronaldo in the Premier League so far this season... 👀 pic.twitter.com/CUY3VLLLSZ
Ronaldo’s frustration has been increasing of late and was also evident in United’s 0-0 draw Sunday with Newcastle. After Ronaldo had two apparent second-half goals disallowed, Marcus Rashford replaced him and he walked off shaking his head and “chuntering,” as the BBC elegantly put it.
Micah Richards, a former England defender, said it was time for the team to allow Ronaldo to leave more than just the pitch.
“His manager had problems with him at the start of the season, during preseason, and to then carry this on … I just think there is only one way this needs to go now,” Richards told BBC Radio 4 (via the BBC). “They need to come to an agreement in January [during the transfer window], and they need to let him go. He is undermining the manager there, so I think it’s best if they just part ways.”
Peter Schmeichel, a former Manchester United goalkeeper, said the 37-year-old Ronaldo, a five-time Ballon d’Or winner as the world’s best player, knew the message he was sending Wednesday.
“It’s the first time I can say that I am disappointed with him. Normally I back him; I understand his situation,” Schmeichel told BBC Radio 5 Live. “We are in transition. Manchester United are now five managers down the road since Alex Ferguson.
“We have got Erik ten Hag in now who has very clear ideas about the way he wants to play football. We need understanding and time from everyone. We don’t need distractions like that, and that’s a disappointment, I would say.” | 2022-10-20T13:30:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cristiano Ronaldo leaves pitch during Manchester United win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/cristiano-ronaldo-erik-ten-hag/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/cristiano-ronaldo-erik-ten-hag/ |
New movies to stream this week: ‘Argentina, 1985’ and more
Ricardo Darín, right, as prosecutor Julio Strassera and Peter Lanzani as his fellow prosecuting attorney Luis Moreno Ocampo in “Argentina, 1985.” (Amazon Studios)
Despite a tone that’s tidier and more deliberate than the average courtroom drama, Santiago Mitre’s fact-based drama “Argentina, 1985” — which relates the civilian trial of the leaders of Argentina’s military junta — manages to be a rousing crowd-pleaser. Ricardo Darín plays Julio Strassera, the federal prosecutor whose methodical ways belie his nickname: “Loco.” Maybe Strassera was considered crazy for even taking the case, not to mention prosecuting it with a staff of young and untested assistants. And who would blame him for hesitating? There were bomb and death threats at the time, and many in the conservative Catholic country were initially on the side of the defendants. But slowly, over the course of the film, Strassera prevails in holding the officers to account for crimes that include extrajudicial kidnapping, torture and murder. (If there are fireworks here, they’re the subdued but emotional statements of some of the junta’s victims.) It’s a stirring if subtle true story: one whose outcome left the Strassera we meet in the film — and are rooting for throughout — somewhat disappointed. But that’s only because this is a tale of justice, not vengeance. As a member of Strassera’s team puts it, “We’ll give [the defendants] what they didn’t give their victims: a fair trial.” R. Available on Amazon. Also in area theaters. In Spanish with subtitles. 140 minutes.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Jon Voight star in “Dangerous Game: The Legacy Murders,” a suspense thriller about members of a family whose reunion at a remote mansion turns less festive when they find themselves trapped inside and forced to play a deadly survival game. R. Available on demand. Contains strong violence, gore and crude language throughout. 96 minutes.
After the death of his mother, a sheltered boy (Max Harwood) creates a makeshift family by digging up corpses in the 1980s-set zombie comedy “The Loneliest Boy in the World.” “Except for a couple of brief throwaway moments, and some very welcome gore,” RogerEbert.com says, the film never establishes a tone. Emilio Estevez also stars. R. Available on demand. Contains some coarse language and violence. 90 minutes.
The documentary “The Pez Outlaw” follows the adventures of Steve Glew, a Michigan man who tried to make a killing by trafficking in rare European Pez dispensers until he ran afoul of the company bureaucracy. The Hollywood Reporter says: “It’s a hoot with a bit of heart, and if you can accept that the main character’s actions ultimately hurt nobody — with the possible exception of a few Pez executives — its fizzy pleasures and compact running time are easy to enjoy.” Unrated. Available on demand. 85 minutes.
In “Raymond & Ray,” Ethan Hawke and Ewan McGregor play very different half-brothers brought together by the death of their father, whose will directs them to dig his grave together. Slant magazine calls the family dramedy “fastidious, tidy and lifeless.” Unrated. Available on Apple TV Plus. Contains strong language and some sexual material. 105 minutes.
The fifth installment in the found-footage horror franchise, the anthology film “V/H/S/99” is set during the waning days of punk rock and videotape. Unrated. Available on Shudder. 109 minutes.
The documentary “Year One: A Political Odyssey” looks at the art of diplomacy during the first year of the Biden administration. According to the New York Times, “The film’s skimping on economic and social issues echoes one description of Biden’s own messaging by some pundits: low-key to the point of obscuring the full picture of his efforts.” TV-14. Available on HBO Max. 85 minutes. | 2022-10-20T14:21:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New movies to stream from home this week. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/10/20/october-21-new-streaming-movie-roundup/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/10/20/october-21-new-streaming-movie-roundup/ |
‘Black Power Kitchen’ and the legacy of cookbooks on a mission
Times are hard for today’s food writers. Some people don’t want to read anything negative or challenging in stories about cooking. “Shut up and cook” and “Just give us the recipe” are their alternating refrains.
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Imagine, then, what a defiant act it would be to publish a cookbook such as “Black Power Kitchen” in this moment. A collaboration between the Ghetto Gastro, a collective of chefs — Pierre Serrao, Jon Gray and Lester Walker, from the Bronx — and the writer Osayi Endolyn, it is a blatantly political project. Note its design by New Studio: the cover and graphics that hark back to Black Panther Party posters from the 1960s and the album covers they inspired in the rap and hip-hop community 20 years later. Note the title of its first chapter, “Food is a Weapon,” and the recipe for “Amerikkkan apple pie” that plays on the spelling used to indict America’s institutional racism and deconstructs a national classic.
Although the pop-cultural prominence of its creators, their directness of purpose and the timing of its release make “Black Power Kitchen” particularly cutting-edge, there is a long history of cookbooks’ serving as agents — sometimes overt, sometimes subtle — of political change.
In “Cookbook Politics,” Kennan Ferguson notes that most authors and their audiences think of cookbooks as “entirely apolitical works.” Taken as “merely a repository of techniques,” he writes, the cookbook “seems more like a manual than a political text,” and, accordingly, the very idea that it might “operate along lines of power, distinction and community seems counterintuitive at best, provocatively misleading at worst.”
Cookbooks with a clear political bias that might not qualify as provocative or misleading do exist, such as those generated to raise money for a political party or to get out the vote and support campaigns. Take the pro-Democrat “How to Cook Reagan’s Goose,” a collection of recipes from the party’s better-known politicians — and their wives — from 1984. According to Ferguson, it was a fundraising project that also familiarized the voter base with key players and their policies, and strengthened “party affiliation along domestic lines” (i.e., got female voters involved).
Celia Sack, the owner of Omnivore Books in San Francisco, has seen American cookbooks from all eras pass through her shop. Recently, she sold a suffrage cookbook from 1915. Suffragist associations throughout the country published them and applied the proceeds toward the fight for (White) women’s right to vote. On one hand, they seemingly were “harmless,” filled with recipes to help their female constituents fulfill their domestic obligation to feed their families. On the other, discreetly rallying, they contained literature that would inform and persuade their readers of the Great Cause. “Mainstream suffragists wanted to engage rather than confront,” Laura Kumin writes in “All Stirred Up,” in which she documents the legacy of these publications. “Using the cookbooks, they could talk about the recipes first, and then move on to suffrage later.”
Sack shared a few other examples of cookbooks in this vein, in support of other communities and their respective causes. “Yummy Down” from 1982 was a gay project “with all these jokes in it and funny puns,” put out to benefit AIDS-related work. “Those were seen as subversive at the time,” she added. And she’d just gotten another copy of “Cesar Salad.” Its foreword was written by Cesar Chavez; its mission was to support farmworkers.
You might not think of cookbooks that propose alternative ways of feeding ourselves as countercultural vehicles for political activism, especially not one that’s put out by a major publisher and has sold more than 3 million copies, but when Frances Moore Lappé banged out “Diet for a Small Planet” on her typewriter in 1971, she aimed not just to change the national diet, but also to question the policies and practices that shaped it.
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“I can’t not think of it when you raise the question,” says food scholar Scott Alves Barton when asked which cookbooks he considers plainly political. “Its reason for being is about politics — about being political.” Initially distributed grass-roots-style, as a pamphlet, it was one of the first proponents of the now-hackneyed mantra “think globally, act locally” and opened readers’ eyes to the fact that the choices they made as consumers (eaters and shoppers) would affect their well-being and that of their communities and the populace at large. There is nothing apolitical about that, even if it was more insightful than inciting.
Sack cites another type of cookbook dealing directly with how we eat: the category committed to returning to pre-colonial diets. “I’m starting to see that in so many cookbooks, going back to pre-colonization in Filipino food, in Brazilian, in just so many different cultures,” she says. She has seen it with American cookbooks as well. They show us what regional, Indigenous diets looked like before colonists arrived, co-opted the land and used food — industrialized food, notably — to enforce assimilation. These are collections of recipes for any home cook, but they also allow a people to reclaim their culture, correct false narratives and push back against erasure.
In a different sort of pushback, the Taiwanese American journalist Clarissa Wei has spent the better part of the pandemic writing and producing her forthcoming cookbook in Taiwan; the undertaking has coincided with the rise in tension between the self-governed island and mainland China, the country that seeks a “reunification” (i.e., re-annexation) with the island. “There’s this conflation that Taiwan is part of China; Taiwanese food is Chinese food, and so people just don’t distinguish the difference as much. Even here in Taiwan, people don’t even think about it,” Wei says. “Made in Taiwan” seeks to address and correct that conflation from a culinary perspective. This, on its own, is a political act — because it claims Taiwanese identity as a separate entity and at a time when China is fighting so hard to eradicate any remaining trace of that identity or claims to it.
“The politics of Taiwanese identity are so convoluted,” she says. “What I’ve seen is that outsiders just don’t really want to wrap their head around it because it’s too heavy, and food is one of the last things they want to have these political statements in.” For that reason, it wasn’t something she initially thought to cover in her book. But after doing the research, she says, “We really cannot talk about Taiwanese food in a holistic way without acknowledging these biases, not acknowledging how it came about.”
When it arrives, “Made in Taiwan” will be the type of politicized cookbook Barton refers to as a quiet fire; what makes it incendiary is simply that it exists. It operates more through reeducation than indoctrination, by providing information that fills in narrative blanks and revising whitewashed records.
Barton draws on an older — if surprising — title to demonstrate this quietude. Bobby Seale, a co-founder of the Black Panther Party and one of the defendants in the infamous “Chicago Eight” trial, wrote a cookbook (of all things) in 1988 about barbecue (see same). Where we might have expected a book espousing the ideals and goals of a movement that coincided with a tendency to shun pork, a food foisted upon enslaved people by their masters, he gave us (pork-heavy) “Barbeque’n with Bobby,” a book you could say was, in Barton’s words, “unabashedly a Black family cookbook” that celebrates “an iconic food … from a Black place, for a Black community.” But although its pervasive theme is one of communal gathering, he manages “to talk about transfer foods that come from Africa” and deconstruct the etymology of the word barbecue. “So that’s very political,” Barton says before noting that the author was questioning “who gets to own that word” and “have the last word about that method of cookery.”
Thirty-three years later, Bryant Terry’s collaborative “Black Food” expands on that discourse. “You get a reflection of the diaspora and not solely [through] the lens of the United States,” Barton says. “It’s an argument that needs to keep being made because there are people who still look at Africa as a country and look at, let’s say, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Cuba as one cuisine and don’t realize that that might also have a Black aspect and in terms of erasure and correction working to explicate what does it mean to be Black.”
As for cookbooks that hit you over the head with countercultural opinions, look no further than Bridgeport, Conn., where “The Political Palate” series was self-published by the Bloodroot Collective, whose HQ can be found at their feminist café-cum-bookshop in that town. The collective was founded in 1977 by Selma Miriam and Noel Furie, two New England housewives who, in a radical act, left their families, came out as lesbians and founded a community-building hub for like-minded second-wave feminists. “The Perennial Political Palate,” printed in 1988, was the third of their vegetarian cookbooks, and it was the one that most forcefully laid out the history, purpose and structural underpinnings of their endeavor. It also featured poems and quotes from well-known voices of the movement and women they admired. “We just felt that we had to have our politics there,” Miriam says. “It’s who we are.”
The notion of a feminist cookbook might not seem all that radical now, but how many cookbooks can you think of that even mention politics, let alone use the word “political” in their titles? “Black Power Kitchen” does plenty of the former. And although it’s spearheaded by three Black chefs from New York City who worked at illustrious fine-dining restaurants as opposed to being White housewives from Connecticut, Ghetto Gastro’s cookbook has more in common with Bloodroot’s than you might expect. It is not self-published, and, at $40, it’s a more polished, slickly produced cookbook that represents a luxury, interdisciplinary brand, but it, too, expresses “who we are,” as Miriam puts it, and tells “a bigger story about their people in the Bronx, and collectively the experiences of Black folks in the U.S. and globally,” Endolyn says in an email interview. Most of the recipes also are plant-based, and again, for political reasons. Finally, theirs also is the work of a collective and features input from cultural figures from a range of genres.
“Food is always only a reflection of who voluntarily or involuntarily has been displaced,” Endolyn says. “That means food content is inherently political by virtue of what you have access to, the systemic choices that affect that access, and what the dominant narratives have been about what your food culture means.”
This may not be what some readers want from food writing. More likely than not, those who don’t opted out of reading this very article in search of some recipes. Although that might be disheartening for writers committed to the uphill battle of cooking and not shutting up, the above precedents — the authors and their books — and the buzz around “Black Power Kitchen” should encourage them. Even when times are hard. | 2022-10-20T14:34:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Black Power Kitchen’ and the legacy of political cookbooks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/10/20/black-power-kitchen-political-cookbooks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/10/20/black-power-kitchen-political-cookbooks/ |
UCLA's Michael Teitell, the director of the university's cancer center, is a regular on the sidelines of the team's football games. (UCLA)
LOS ANGELES — “In cells, there’s mitochondria, and they generate energy, so they’re like, an organelle, or a piece of a cell, and they’ve always been considered, for years and years, that these organelles were fixed in the cells they were born in. Turns out they can move between cells. And when they move between cells, they shift the metabolisms of the cells they move into or out of.”
Music blared as he spoke, for he spoke at football practice, a dude at football practice talking cells upon request.
“We’re sort of pioneers and leaders in that space (at UCLA). So we understand how we can do that artificially, and we’re trying to figure out how that actually happens naturally. And if we can help with that, then people who are afflicted with cancer, undergoing chemotherapy, or have some other debilitating illness, we can try to help them for their energy and their energy levels, and help them fight off diseases.”
UCLA’s Michael Teitell, whose list of titles could tire a typist, had just given a seminar in Singapore, had just returned from Singapore, had just extolled the mighty Singapore Airlines, had just shed some of his jet lag and had just hurried on out on a Saturday morning to football practice, and not just any football practice but, with this being late April, spring football practice, where only the hardcores dwell.
He’s not really a hardcore. He became a faculty athletic representative after serving on the library committee and then trying for the admissions committee but finding it full, all while a cancer-center director and professor of pathology and other crucial whatnot. He calls his sports memories “more diffuse than specific.” He commits humanity by misremembering at least two aspects of the first World Series he saw on TV (the Orioles’ stifling sweep of the Dodgers in 1966), and he mourns slightly that the Dodgers’ three most recent titles happened in shortened seasons (1981, 1988, 2020), only to learn 1988 wasn’t shortened. (“So you’ve fixed me. Thank you,” he said.)
And he adores football practice, but not in that fanboy, selfie-with-the-coaches kind of way. “Oh, this is amazing stuff,” he said. “This is society. This isn’t separate. This is it.” And: “This should a thousand percent be here (as part of a university). This is part of life. This is part of society.”
In fact, he’s something else. He’s a college-sports believer in a national landscape rife with skyscrapers of forgivable cynicism. He spots vitality while others spot vitality-sucking TV deals and realignments. He does all this while hailing from academia with a voice more pragmatic than crusading.
Wait, surely the midsummer news of UCLA and Southern California abandoning the Pac-12 for a financial merger with the Big Ten, a move set to kill debt, charm and athlete sleep schedules, might trip him up or at least lend pause.
“I am really pleased with the news,” he said via a spokesman in late August, citing “greater resources for mental health, nutrition, academic services, career development, athletics aid and NIL opportunities.”
He doesn’t even revel in the usual way about the football Bruins being 6-0, ranked No. 9 and heading for No. 10 Oregon come Saturday.
He cited a team “playing really well and putting in a lot of hard work against tough opponents,” added an exclamation point to that, and pronounced himself as “looking forward to the second half of the season.”
How measured.
“Go Bruins!” he concluded.
How measured, save for the exclamation point.
“So, cells have two ways to generate energy. One way is to burn sugars and fats, and make ATP which is the energy currency in the cell, so ATP powers enzyme reactions, you use it, and you convert it into another form to allow an enzyme to do a reaction. And life is basically biochemical reactions in a cell. And so that’s one form. Another form is to take the lipid or the sugar and route it into these organelles called mitochondria, and they make about 18 times the amount of energy that doing it the other way, called glycolysis, makes energy. And so you can imagine that this function in that organelle can screw up cells, and us, screw up how we function and how life works for us. And so our goal is to understand how those organelles called mitochondria work, and how we can manipulate them for good.”
“It’s fun work,” he concluded. “It’s good work.”
And now you’re at football practice.
“I’m always here.”
“I’m looking at culture,” he said. “I’m looking at the kids. I’m looking at the coaches. I’m looking at how everybody’s interacting. I’m trying to get a feel of vibe for how the spirit, environment, the excitement is. I’m looking at a little bit of technique because it’s curious and interesting to me, like, how does somebody catch a ball out of one of those throwing machines? Some people have softer hands and some people have harder hands to catch the ball. But it’s mostly culture. It’s mostly, like, Do these kids seem happy? Do they seem like they’re engaged? These coaches seem like they’re involved and engaged. Does this feel healthy?”
Amid his voluminous days as a UCLA student and graduate student and further graduate student, in the 1980s, while the Pac-8 had become the Pac-10 and would become the Pac-12 long before it might become the Pac-10 again or Pac-14 or Pac-16, he wasn’t one of those practice-studying, stadium-lurking, face-painting students. He did scrape some extra money by tutoring two primo football players — Flipper Anderson, who would catch 267 NFL passes including a bunch of big ones for the Rams, and Terry Tumey, who would become an athletic director, these days at Fresno State. He did start spotting parallels between the drive of science people and the drive of sports people. He did start cementing his view of school and sports furthering one another: “We have evidence for that,” he says. “When the student-athletes are in season, they tend to do better. And that’s because their time-management skills are at their peak … And they’re tired, I mean, they’re working it really hard, but I think their attention is on the details, that’s when they do the best.”
He notices how being on the high school softball team has bolstered his teenage daughter. He notices college athletes performing before crowds while navigating formative years that include crises such as having “just got broken up with by his boyfriend or his girlfriend or her boyfriend or her girlfriend.” He notices how college athletes shift well into a field such as medicine, especially once he can counsel them to alter their egos, as he did with a high jumper.
With all of that, he rides along separately and quietly and occasionally on UCLA team buses and planes feeling something perhaps different from all the other riders. His agony proves fleeting in Philadelphia with a narrow loss to North Carolina in the 2022 men’s basketball Sweet 16, or in Indianapolis with the classic 2021 national semifinal with Gonzaga that featured no losers, or in that haunting softball finish against Florida State in the 2018 World Series in Oklahoma, which he followed from afar and which, okay, lingered a bit more.
He thinks it’s all for the good. | 2022-10-20T14:34:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UCLA doctor is college sports believer in world of cynicism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/ucla-football-doctor-michael-teitell/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/ucla-football-doctor-michael-teitell/ |
Wisconsin won the NCAA women’s volleyball championship last season. (iStock)
An investigation has begun into how private images and videos of University of Wisconsin women’s volleyball players, intended to be private, were shared online, the school announced Wednesday evening.
One photo, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, shows players posing with their sports bras lifted and appears to have been taken after the team clinched the Big Ten title in November. The Journal Sentinel cited an unnamed person with knowledge of the situation who said the image was one of those in question, but a statement from the Wisconsin athletic department offered no details other than to say university police were “investigating multiple crimes, including sharing sensitive photos without consent.”
“The unauthorized sharing is a significant and wrongful invasion of the student-athletes’ privacy, including potential violations of university policies and criminal statues,” the athletic department statement read.
Wisconsin’s team has played in the past three Final Fours, winning the national championship last season, and reached the final three times in the past decade. This year’s team, ranked fifth in the nation, is 13-3 with a 7-1 Big Ten record. | 2022-10-20T14:34:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wisconsin police investigating leaked images of volleyball players - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/wisconsin-volleyball-photos-leaked/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/wisconsin-volleyball-photos-leaked/ |
Analysis by Kevin Crowley and Ari Natter | Bloomberg
About 165 million barrels of crude oil has been delivered or put under contract since the spring, when Biden initiated a drawdown of up to 180 million barrels. On Oct. 19, Biden announced that the final tranche of 15 million barrels will be released. He also held open the possibility of “further releases in the months ahead if needed.” The White House has been seeking to ease rising costs at the pump and bolster low domestic stockpiles of fuel for the winter while also responding to the decision by the world’s largest suppliers of oil, a group known as OPEC+, to slash production.
The reserve stood at 405.1 million barrels as of Oct. 14. That’s about 57% of its maximum authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels and enough to replace more than two years’ worth of US crude net imports, based on 2021 figures. Replenishing the SPR is also on the Biden administration’s to-do list, with one senior official saying purchases will begin when West Texas Intermediate crude prices are at or below $67 to $72 per barrel.
--With assistance from Jennifer A. Dlouhy. | 2022-10-20T15:00:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Tapping the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve Means - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/what-tapping-the-us-strategic-petroleum-reserve-means/2022/10/20/5ba65780-5082-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/what-tapping-the-us-strategic-petroleum-reserve-means/2022/10/20/5ba65780-5082-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
Pedestrians enter CNN Center, the headquarters for CNN, in downtown Atlanta in 2001. (Ric Feld/AP)
When he joined CNN in 2014, Michael Smerconish blasted a poisonous news landscape. “The country is paying a price for this brand of polarized media. … Too many politicians are taking their cues from people with microphones.”
The way he approached news coverage, Smerconish said at the time, was "perfectly suited for CNN’s non-ideological brand.” Smerconish hosts a Saturday morning show on CNN as well as a show on SiriusXM.
Eight years after his arrival at CNN, Smerconish is hyping the possibilities of a network dedicated to the country’s center. In a recent panel discussion, the host pointed to a Gallup finding that 42 percent of Americans identify as independents.
“Why not say, ‘Hey, this is the path. We’re not going to be MSNBC, we’re not going to be Fox. We’re going to go after independent thinkers’?” Smerconish said Oct. 7 at the Un-Convention, a gathering designed to “find common ground” across politics. "And I don’t just mean just me on Saturday. We’re going to build a whole network around that principle.”
Does that appeal mean Smerconish no longer believes CNN is a “non-ideological” network? He responds via email with a quip straight from the centrist’s credo: “A good day for me is when half of social media say they hope I’ll be fired because I belong on Fox, and the rest complain that I’m carrying water for [President] Biden.”
As Smerconish’s comment suggests, the country is split into opposing camps. That’s one factor complicating his dream of a middle-pleasing cable-news network. Another is the colossus that continues drubbing all competition in this industry: Fox News.
In 2010, Smerconish exited the Republican Party and declared himself an independent. “Where political parties once existed to create coalitions and win elections, now they seek to advance strict ideological agendas,” he explained in a HuffPost essay. His own views — hard-line on national security and immigration; less extreme than the GOP on abortion; in favor of gay rights; unsure on climate change — placed him in a “partisan no-man’s-land,” he argued.
In-your-face moderation has been his thing ever since. On his CNN show, Smerconish takes on big issues, accords them meaty treatment and presents multiple viewpoints — a formula that would presumably take hold at his centrist media outlet. Asked at the Un-Convention panel discussion whether his organization would platform someone who spouted election-fraud lies, Smerconish responded yes — but with appropriate journalistic pushback.
But why? “Because if I’m looking at data that says Republicans believe this, I feel like I’m not doing my job unless I air it in a critical way,” responded Smerconish.
In that discussion, Jeff Zucker, who for nine years served as president of CNN Worldwide, expressed reservations about Smerconish’s concept. First of all: “The reality is there’s not 25 of you,” said Zucker, referring to skilled broadcasters who aren’t ideologically typecast. Another consideration: “I’m not sure there’s enough day-in, day-out passion for that to succeed.”
Passion is an open question. While a great mass of Americans call themselves independents, an “overwhelming majority” of them “lean” toward one party or the other, according to Pew Research Center. That said, there is a middle out there, says Chris Tausanovitch, an associate professor of political science at UCLA. Whereas there’s a significant ideological gap between the most moderate politicians of each party, there’s a more “continuous distribution of views” within the general public — millions of people for whom “it’s not clear whether the Democratic Party or the Republican Party is a better fit,” says Tausanovitch.
What’s more, younger generations are showing less appetite for major-party affiliation than their parents, notes Thom Reilly, a professor at Arizona State University’s school of public affairs: “I think people are craving for nonpartisan government and media.”
Nexstar Media Group certainly believes they are. In 2020, it launched NewsNation, a product that would serve up “unbiased” news, a middle course between the extremes on MSNBC and Fox. The code name for the undertaking was “Project Neutral,” according to the New York Times, though some staffers saw it veering toward Project Partisan. Coverage on Donald Trump was soft, staffers told the Times, and Bill Shine, a former Fox News co-president and Trump White House official, had been brought on as a consultant.
Who said an ideologue can’t guide a straight-news operation?
The evening lineup for NewsNation features hosts with backgrounds at Fox News (Leland Vittert), CNN (Chris Cuomo and Ashleigh Banfield) and ABC News (Dan Abrams). Just before Cuomo’s show launched, podcaster Kara Swisher pressed him on the “nonpartisan” branding. “I’ve always been nonpartisan,” he argued.
“Having watched you every night, I would not agree with you,” Swisher said, adding ballast to Zucker’s point about the availability of broadcasters with centrist bona fides.
No matter your view of the NewsNation lineup, it’s struggling to find viewers. Its prime-time programming averaged 51,000 viewers in the third quarter of 2022, alongside nearly 2.2 million at Fox News. “Networks are built over time, and our network isn’t even 24 hours yet,” Sean Compton, the developer of NewsNation and president of networks for Nexstar, said in a statement to the Erik Wemple Blog. He added that the network has seen audience spikes of late.
Political leanings don’t always determine viewing choices. As Jack Shafer noted in Politico, Fox News defies intuition by pulling in sizable hordes of Democrats and independents. “Turns out everyone likes to be entertained,” he writes. A network hatched in Smerconish’s spirit may well be able to signal to both Democrats and Republicans that it’s not a partisan outfit, says Tausanovitch. But, he notes, “It’s another matter to convince some group in the center, whether it be moderates or independents, that you are one of them.”
We’re now more than 40 years into the cable-news era, a span in which producers have learned all the little tricks and tactics that keep people tuned in. “More things need to happen than just to have a lot of moderates for a centrist media network to be successful,” says Tausanovitch. “It would have to be compelling.” | 2022-10-20T15:01:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | CNN's Smerconish dreams up ‘whole network’ for ‘independent thinkers’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/smerconish-centrist-network-zucker-cnn/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/smerconish-centrist-network-zucker-cnn/ |
In this image taken from video provided by WHEC-TV, David Jakubonis, left, is subdued as he brandishes a sharp object during an attack U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, right, as the Republican candidate for New York governor delivered a speech in Perinton, N.Y., July 21, 2022. Jakubonis will be released from jail into an alcohol treatment program. U.S. Magistrate Judge Marian Payson agreed Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022 to allow Jakubonis to enter a treatment program administered by the Veterans Administration. (WHEC-TV via AP) (Uncredited/WHEC-TV)
Analysis: Democrats bashed Google’s plan to ease spam filters — then signed up | 2022-10-20T15:01:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man who accosted US Rep. Zeldin will be released to rehab - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/man-who-accosted-us-rep-zeldin-will-be-released-to-rehab/2022/10/20/54e66fda-507c-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/man-who-accosted-us-rep-zeldin-will-be-released-to-rehab/2022/10/20/54e66fda-507c-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
Amazon is set to launch its first two satellites into space early next year with the goal of providing easy access to broadband anywhere in the world. On Thursday, Oct. 27 at 10:30 a.m. ET, Dave Limp, senior vice president of devices and services at Amazon, speaks to Washington Post space reporter Christian Davenport about his company’s satellite internet technology and ambitions in space.
Senior Vice President, Devices & Services, Amazon | 2022-10-20T15:03:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amazon’s ambition to provide the world with broadband access - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/27/amazons-ambition-provide-world-with-broadband-access/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/27/amazons-ambition-provide-world-with-broadband-access/ |
The Capitals will wear their Reverse Retro uniforms for seven home games this season. (Courtesy of the Capitals)
Two years after the Washington Capitals’ screaming eagle logo returned as part of the NHL’s first “Reverse Retro” collection of alternate jerseys, the franchise’s throwback look is back in black.
The design, which was officially unveiled Thursday along with the rest of the league’s Reverse Retro reboot, was a poorly kept secret, with leaked renderings circulating earlier this year. Capitals players wore black pants, gloves and socks at practice on Tuesday, and goalie Darcy Kuemper showed off new black and coppers pads, along with a new mask adorned with the team’s former screaming eagle logo. Washington will wear its primarily black alternates with copper, white and blue accents for the first time on Nov. 5 against the Arizona Coyotes, and for six additional home games throughout the season.
Capitals' Connor Brown will be out long term, is placed on injured reserve
The Capitals debuted their screaming eagle logo — a bald eagle diving with an outstretched, open claw above the team’s name — with a blue, white and copper color scheme for the 1995-96 season, and it was the primary uniform design when the franchise reached the Stanley Cup finals for the first time in 1998. Washington retired the screaming eagle and returned to its red-white-and-blue roots with an updated version of its original wordmark in 2007, and the team’s primary home and away jerseys have been mostly unchanged since then.
Washington brought back the screaming eagle with a red, white and blue color scheme for its first Reverse Retro uniform during the 2020-21 season, and it proved to be one of the best-selling jerseys in the league. This year’s Reverse Retro design combines the original screaming eagle look with the black and copper color scheme of the third jersey the Capitals introduced in 1997 and which replaced the team’s road blue jersey in 2000.
The shoulder patches on this year’s Reverse Retro jerseys feature the primary logo from those retired third jerseys — the Capitol dome with two crossed hockey sticks, a puck and a pair of copper stars. The Capitals’ original black jerseys featured players’ names and numbers in copper outlined with white and blue. The Reverse Retro version features names and numbers in white, outlined in blue and copper.
In a nod to Alex Ovechkin’s rookie year, 2005 is printed on the inside neckline of this year’s jersey, which also features the Capitals’ Caesars Sportsbook advertising patch on the upper right chest. The collar features the NHL logo in the orange and black color scheme the league used until 2005.
The Capitals will wear their Reverse Retro jerseys for home games on Nov. 5, Nov. 25, Dec. 9, Dec. 23, Dec. 31, Jan. 3 and Jan. 14. Four of the dates will feature Reverse Retro-themed all-arena giveaways, including a T-shirt (Nov. 25), snapback hat (Dec. 9), pennant (Jan. 3) and rally towel (Jan. 14). The jerseys will be available for purchase online and at the Capital One Arena and MedStar Capitals Iceplex team stores starting Nov. 15. | 2022-10-20T15:35:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Capitals unveil screaming eagle alternate jerseys - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/capitals-reverse-retro-jerseys/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/capitals-reverse-retro-jerseys/ |
NOAA’s outlook calls for La Niña-influenced warmth across the nation’s southern tier, but colder, stormier conditions to the north with likely ‘week-to-week variability'
NOAA forecasters are predicting a mild and dry winter ahead for the southern tier of the United States, including already drought-stricken areas in the lower Mississippi River Valley and the Southwest, with cooler- and wetter-than-normal conditions expected in the Pacific Northwest and around the Great Lakes.
The forecast is largely driven by an expectation that La Niña — a global climate pattern that is the inverse to the perhaps better known El Niño — will persist for a third-straight winter, something that has only occurred a handful of times over the past 50 years. La Niña is associated with cooler than normal water in the tropical Pacific Ocean, but it has ripple effects on the weather all over the world.
It is a discouraging outlook for areas already stressed by prolonged drought, and could elevate wildfire dangers in parts of the central U.S. that don’t normally face such dangers. Extended and exacerbating dry conditions are likely in the Southwest as well as states like Kansas and Oklahoma, which are experiencing extreme and in many cases exceptional drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
According to the monitor’s latest weekly report, more than 80 percent of the continental U.S. is experiencing at least abnormally dry conditions, if not drought, the largest proportion since the reports began in 2000.
“Drought conditions are now present across approximately 59% of the country, but parts of the Western U.S. and southern Great Plains will continue to be the hardest hit this winter,” Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Climate Prediction Center’s operational prediction branch, said in a statement. “With the La Nina climate pattern still in place, drought conditions may also expand to the Gulf Coast.”
More than 80 percent of the U.S. is facing troubling dry conditions
Seasonal forecasting can be a challenge for meteorologists because the key weather prediction models they use are designed for relatively short-term prognostication. Forecast accuracy breaks down more than about a week in advance, so for predictions like the ones NOAA released Thursday, scientists rely largely on signals from global climate patterns like La Niña.
In the U.S., La Niña is known for creating warm and dry conditions across the southern tier of the country, with cooler- and wetter-than-normal along its northern tier, including in the Pacific Northwest and Midwest. That’s because it tends to shift the jet stream — a band of atmospheric winds that steers weather systems across the continent — toward northern states and Canada.
Gottschalck said there is significant uncertainty in weather patterns for most of the country, where forecasters predict equal chances of cold or mild conditions and dry or wet patterns. La Niña can allow for considerable “week-to-week variability,” as shown by the extreme cold that spread across the country and caused an energy crisis in Texas in February 2021, he said.
La Niña’s impacts around the world include dry conditions in Peru, Chile and the Horn of Africa, and heavy rainfall over southeast Asia and Australia.
The U.S. Climate Prediction Center expects a 75 percent chance that La Niña will continue at least through the winter.
However, that is not to say weather patterns may not vary from classic La Niña conditions. In some years, seasonal forecasting can perform worse than a random guess.
In the winter of 2020-2021, the current stretch of La Niña had just begun, and yet the season was marked by historic cold across the contiguous United States. The polar vortex, a column of frigid air that typically remains contained over the North Pole region, came spilling southward and produced some of the snowiest winters on record across the Deep South.
This year, NOAA’s predictions are in line with other conventional thinking, including seasonal forecasts released by AccuWeather and The Weather Channel that call for continued La Niña influence on weather patterns. | 2022-10-20T16:31:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NOAA winter outlook: Cold, stormy in northern tier with drought south - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/20/noaa-winter-outlook-drought-lanina/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/20/noaa-winter-outlook-drought-lanina/ |
The latest actions aim to reduce emissions from chemicals that can be thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide in warming the planet
EPA Administrator Michael Regan, seen at the White House in 2021. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
“This is a really strong step forward,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a phone interview Thursday. Because the production and consumption of these powerful chemicals need to be phased down, Regan added that the Biden administration is pushing to create “the next generation of chemical compounds that don’t sacrifice the comforts or the needs that we have, but makes significant inroads in staving off the climate crisis while boosting American manufacturing.”
U.S. ratifies global treaty curbing climate super-pollutants
Once seen as a solution to using other chemicals that deplete Earth’s protective ozone layer, the heat-trapping properties of hydrofluorocarbons have become a serious problem. A global phase-down of the climate-damaging chemicals is projected to prevent up to 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by the end of this century.
To proceed with efforts to reduce HFCs, the EPA is proposing to continue allocating production and consumption allowances for 2024 through 2028. The rule is expected to affect manufacturers and entities that import and export HFCs, among other stakeholders. The agency is also looking to make other changes to implementation, compliance and enforcement provisions related to the phase-down, including revised record-keeping and reporting requirements. Under the proposed rule, the EPA would require annual emissions reporting from facilities that produce the chemicals. The EPA plans to finalize this rule next year.
Regan said the proposal should benefit affected companies and allow them to continue investing in U.S. manufacturing and good-paying jobs “to really transition our refrigeration and our air conditioning into the next generation technology that we need not only domestically but globally.”
“It demonstrates that we are swiftly and steadfastly advancing along the road map ... to end reliance on HFCs for cooling,” Mahapatra said. “The fact that they’re sticking to the schedule itself, I think, is something worth applauding.”
In the United States, the refrigeration and air-conditioning sector uses the most of these chemicals. The EPA noted that its next proposed rule will focus on transitioning away from HFCs in the refrigeration and air conditioning, foams and aerosols sectors.
Commercial refrigeration, which includes grocery stores as well as restaurants and food-processing operations, accounts for about 28 percent of all U.S. emissions of HFCs. Air conditioning for commercial buildings and homes represents 40 to 60 percent of emissions, according to federal data.
The commercial food industry estimates that supermarkets lose an average of 25 percent of their refrigerant charge every year. An EIA undercover investigation, which began in 2019, of grocery stores in D.C., Maryland and Virginia found that more than half the surveyed stores were emitting HFCs.
“We believe it’s a win, win, win,” Regan said. “This is good for our planet because we’re reducing a super-pollutant. It’s good for people, and it’s good for our bipartisan posture for how we’re putting America first.”
Greenhouse gases in grocery freezers are more powerful than carbon. The EPA now aims to slash their use.
Juliet Eilperin and Dino Grandoni contributed to this report. | 2022-10-20T16:31:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | EPA looks to further slash emissions from climate super-pollutants - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/10/20/epa-hfcs-super-pollutants-climate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/10/20/epa-hfcs-super-pollutants-climate/ |
Health equity grants awarded to groups helping low-income D.C. residents
Dionne White moves back into her home in Washington following repairs and renovations Wednesday. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
A new fund targeting health disparities in the District announced its first grantees this week, including an organization that helps low-income people tackle medical debt and one that helps women of color create wealth after incarceration.
Thirty-two nonprofit groups will receive $9.2 million in funding from the Health Equity Fund, which is managed by the Greater Washington Community Foundation. The fund was created last year, after the insurance company CareFirst agreed to pay $95 million to settle a 13-year legal battle between the insurer and the D.C. government.
“It’s a reinvestment in the District,” said Tonia Wellons, the foundation’s president and CEO. “It aligns so perfectly with our big-picture strategy of increasing economic mobility and our vision for closing the racial wealth gap.”
While the fund aims to increase health equity, it is not focusing primarily on clinical care, Wellons said, adding that 80 percent of health outcomes are driven by environmental and social factors such as racism and access to quality food and housing.
When awarding the grants, the foundation focused less on a traditional direct service approach and more on personal and community agency, such as “people’s ability to generate, sustain and build wealth; people’s ability to eliminate medical, court-related or other debts,” Wellons said.
“We can’t neglect the impact that policies have had on people of color in our area,” she said, adding that nationally, White families have eight times more wealth than Black families. “We can point back to governmental decisions that led to the gap. We can go all the way back to a period where Black people were here as chattel property and were unable to have any means of production for themselves, all the way up to redlining and the inability for Black people to have access to the GI Bill, or access to mortgages, to present-day predatory mortgages with higher fees for some of the same services, interest-only loans … and discrimination in the workplace.”
The grants, she said, are an example of “the kinds of investments, the kinds of strategies that we need to start focusing on as a community.”
New D.C. fund takes $95 million aim at systemic health disparities
The foundation plans at least two grant rounds a year over five years until the $95 million is disbursed. First-round recipients include Bread for the City, which will pilot a direct cash-assistance program that focuses on the social determinants of health; the National Reentry Network for Returning Citizens, which will support a new holistic wellness and wealth-creation program for women of color returning from incarceration; and Tzedek DC, which will support efforts to change how medical debt is collected, educate the community and litigate medical debt cases.
First Shift Justice Project, which will receive $200,000 from the fund, educates women and family caregivers about their workplace rights and helps them negotiate with employers about pregnancy accommodations and leave. Executive Director Laura Brown said she and a colleague started the organization after becoming mothers and realizing how hard it can be for low-wage workers when they are pregnant and giving birth.
“We were running a clinic, [and] they were coming into our clinic after becoming mothers, saying, ‘I think that when I got fired, I might have been discriminated against,’ ” she said.
The organization also counsels doctors, social workers and support staff in medical facilities and community centers on how to document their patients’ medical needs for employers and provide information to low-income women about their rights.
“No woman in D.C. should be fired or suffer the risk of job loss because they’re having a baby,” Brown said. “We have laws for that.”
Yachad, a nonprofit organization that will receive $100,000 from the fund, helps low-income homeowners preserve and rehabilitate their houses so they can remain in them and benefit from the equity.
“Building new homes isn’t always the answer. What we do is stabilize homes for families that have been living in their houses for a long time,” said Audrey Lyon, executive director of the organization, which was started by Jewish housing activists three decades ago.
Often, houses have problems that affect the family’s health, including children with severe asthma attacks. “Kids are canaries in the coal mine,” Lyon said, adding that many families find Yachad, whose name means “together,” through a partnership with Children’s National Hospital.
One of these was the family of Dionne White, 55, who grew up in the Anacostia house her mother bought half a century ago, and now lives there with her daughter and three grandchildren.
“She said she wanted it to stay in the family,” White said of her late mother. But over time, the roof began to leak, pipes burst and walls crumbled. White worked extra hours at her job with the D.C. Protective Services Division to earn money to patch the leaks, but the problems continued. “We used to put pots and pans out in the bedroom, and up and down the stairs. If it rained outside, it rained in here.”
Along the way, the family was plagued with bad health, including breathing problems that sent White’s mother to the emergency room. “The kids started having asthma. … I kept waking up with headaches.”
The family was connected with Yachad through Children’s National. The organization identified mold and lead paint in the early-20th-century house, replaced the roof and remediated the other issues. It also replaced a deteriorating back patio with a new deck. This week, White watched excitedly as movers brought the family’s furniture and possessions back from a storage pod.
“It looks wonderful,” she said, adding that the air in the house “doesn’t feel thick. We used to feel that.”
The help from Yachad “was a blessing,” she said. “You don’t know how much of a blessing.” | 2022-10-20T16:32:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | District nonprofits win health equity grants - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/district-nonprofits-health-equity-grants/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/district-nonprofits-health-equity-grants/ |
Traumatized? Horror like ‘Halloween Ends’ shows how to fight back.
By Sonny Bunch
Jamie Lee Curtis in "Halloween Ends." (Ryan Green/Universal Pictures via AP)
While the Greatest Generation adopted the ideal that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, today we find ourselves fixated on trauma. Invoked in circumstances as varied as the war in Ukraine and flooding in Pakistan to social media’s effect on teenagers, trauma is a perfect enemy: a ubiquitous threat, a social trump card and a pernicious, lingering impact.
It’s no surprise, then, that trauma has become the enemy in horror movies. But rather than prescribing therapy or treating trauma like an identity, the genre offers a more aggressive and stoic solution. From the new run of “Halloween” movies to the surprise hit “Smile,” trauma is presented not as a problem to be talked through but one to be confronted — though catharsis isn’t always guaranteed.
David Gordon Green’s “Halloween” (2018), “Halloween Kills” (2021) and “Halloween Ends” (2022) are all very much about the trauma inflicted by Michael Myers (played alternately by James Jude Courtney and Nick Castle) not only on his target, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), but also the town of Haddonfield, Ill., writ large.
Forty years after the events of John Carpenter’s classic, Laurie has adopted what can only be described as a survivalist’s lifestyle. Her home is an armory, and she rarely leaves it. Her daughter believes her to be mentally ill, in need of cognitive behavioral therapy to cure what she diagnoses to be her mother’s agoraphobia. A pair of podcasters believes she will benefit from sitting down and talking to Myers before he is transferred from a psychiatric hospital to a maximum-security prison.
Words are no substitute for action, however, and the true lesson of “Halloween” isn’t that Laurie’s trauma wounded her — it’s that it prepared her. There is less evil in the world than we might think. But it does exist, and when confronted by it, we must be equipped to fight back.
“Halloween Kills” and “Halloween Ends” broaden the scope of Myers’s effect, looking at how his presence sours Haddonfield.
“Every time someone’s afraid, the boogeyman wins,” Laurie says to a police officer. “The more he kills, the more he transcends into something else, impossible to defeat. Fear. People are afraid. That is the true curse of Michael. You can’t defeat it with brute force. … It is the essence of evil, the anger that divides us. It is the terror that grows stronger when we try to hide. … You can’t close your eyes and pretend he isn’t there. Because he is.”
This speech contains two seemingly contradictory ideas. Fear is something that exists to divide us and cannot be defeated. But in this case, the source of that fear is something real and decidedly deadly that cannot be ignored.
The tension in Laurie’s speech echoes a real-world sense that some forms of trauma are more acceptable to linger over than others. We are told to not worry about spikes in violent crime or retail thefts in major cities. Real and vicious debate erupts over whether it would be appropriate to seek police intervention in the case of an apparently mentally ill man who allegedly killed a dog and assaulted its owner in a posh Brooklyn neighborhood. We can’t live in fear — but sometimes there is, literally, more to fear than fear itself.
“Halloween Ends” squares that circle by admitting that trauma causes two kinds of fear: the fear of outsiders who will injure the herd, and a fear that leads to scapegoating friends and family when the danger disappears.
Note that I use “disappears” rather than “is eliminated.” Because the town turns on itself after the events of “Halloween Kills” because Myers vanishes. It isn’t until he is eliminated — and the whole town sees him eliminated, his body sprawled on a car and paraded through town like the Midwestern spin on a Roman triumph, his corpse dumped in an industrial shredder — that fear, and the trauma it causes, can be eliminated.
“Smile” takes horror’s recent obsession with trauma and almost makes sport of it. The film is a bit like “The Ring,” but with a spirit that propagates its curse by driving victims mad and inspiring them to commit suicide in front of an unsuspecting person. The death has to be as traumatic as possible, we’re told, to ensure the maximum horror and the spread of the jinx.
Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) falls victim to the curse as the film begins; a hospital psychiatrist, she watches as a clearly disturbed patient kills herself in brutal fashion. And then Rose begins to see people around her smiling in a horrifying way, a twisted rictus that is the least-happy grin of all time. No one believes her because no one can see what she sees; it’s enough to drive anyone mad.
But she confronts the evil spirit — literally, in her mind — and attempts to defeat it, only to be swallowed whole. The cycle of trauma, sadly, does not end with Rose.
The cycle of trauma movies didn’t begin with “Halloween” or “Smile” — Ari Aster’s “Midsommar” and “Hereditary” tackle the theme with chilling skill — and it won’t end with them anymore than it ended with Rose in “Smile.” The subject is just too good, and the cultural role of trauma too strong, for this to be the last word.
Those of us in the real world, though, should take a lesson from Laurie Strode. We should all hope to be freed from trauma rather than defined by it. But it’s on us to take the painful lessons of the past and make use of them. | 2022-10-20T16:32:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | 'Halloween Ends' on how to fight trauma - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/halloween-ends-laurie-strode-trauma/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/halloween-ends-laurie-strode-trauma/ |
Pence vs. Trump? A historic potential 2024 matchup.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence arrive at a 2020 rally in Grand Rapids, Mich. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Former vice president Mike Pence on Wednesday sent perhaps his strongest signal to date that he might challenge former president Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination, if Trump also runs.
And while Pence’s hopes appear dim in such a race, the decision itself would be historic.
Pence was asked by a student at Georgetown University whether he would support Trump in 2024, and Pence offered an answer that was decidedly not “yes.”
After taking a pause and offering a smile, he said, “Well, there might be somebody else I’d prefer more.”
Pence insisted that his focus is presently on the midterm elections, but the answer is the latest indicator that he’s not exactly ruling out running against his two-time running mate. The Washington Post and others have reported that Pence is ramping up for a presidential campaign — rallying with and planning fundraisers for GOP candidates, and visiting Iowa and New Hampshire — and could seek the office whether Trump runs or not.
That would be a striking decision on its own, given that Pence served under Trump — and often rather obsequiously — before the events of Jan. 6 turned Pence into a villain for Trump’s most ardent backers (and a literal target for some of his most extreme supporters). Pence had trodden gently around criticizing Trump and has continued to tout the agenda of the “Trump-Pence administration,” but he has occasionally sought distance and offered some rather sharp criticisms of Trump’s anti-democratic attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
Asked on Oct. 19 about supporting former president Donald Trump in 2024, former vice president Mike Pence said, “There might be somebody else I’d prefer more.” (Video: The Washington Post)
There’s little doubt that Pence would face long odds were both of them to run. But the mere fact that he’s considering it shows how unusual the situation is. Vice presidents have run only a handful of times against the presidents they served under, and none has done so since World War II.
The first example is somewhat incomparable: Vice President Thomas Jefferson ran in 1800 against President John Adams (and won). But this was at a time when nation’s two top offices were held by different parties, and the contest was in the general election. (The 12th Amendment was ratified in 1804, at which point the American people began electing the two offices together.)
The other most famous example would be 1940. Incumbent Vice President John Nance Garner III had been alienated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal policies and launched a campaign hoping that Roosevelt would abide by the tradition of presidents serving no more than two terms. Roosevelt went in the other direction, though, engineering his own purportedly spontaneous renomination at the Democratic National Convention and swamping Garner. (Garner was replaced as FDR’s running mate that year by Henry Wallace.)
But perhaps the most comparable example to a potential Trump vs. Pence matchup came in 1844.
President Martin Van Buren, like Trump today, had lost in the previous election. When he sought a comeback, his former vice president, Richard Mentor Johnson, was among the other aspirants. The former president and vice president weren’t close and had significant political differences. His party had also declined to fully support Johnson as its vice-presidential nominee in 1840 — something that also carries some parallels to Pence’s stock in the GOP today.
Neither Van Buren nor Johnson were able to gain the necessary support, though. That cleared the way for the nomination of a dark horse, James K. Polk, who hadn’t even been nominated initially and was considered a vice-presidential contender.
(We have also seen a president and a former president run against one another, when William Howard Taft faced Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. Taft had served as Roosevelt’s war secretary, though, not as his vice president.)
Johnson was mostly an also-ran in that race, but he did gain some support on later ballots as Van Buren’s support fell away. Pence is thus far situated similarly, taking a modest but significant portion of votes in early polls and looking more like he might play the role of spoiler more than anything else — or hope to pick up votes if the party ultimately decides to move on from Trump.
The reason we’ve seen so few examples of this is in part because it requires an unusual setup. Incumbent presidents don’t often break with their vice presidents, and those vice presidents typically want to bide their time and run in their own right one day. And former presidents don’t often run, either by virtue of term limits, or, if they lost after one term, perhaps because they decided that one defeat was enough.
Polling isn’t on Pence’s side in a prospective matchup with Trump. Nor is history. But that history is also limited. | 2022-10-20T16:32:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pence vs. Trump? A historic potential 2024 matchup. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/pence-vs-trump-historic-potential-2024-matchup/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/pence-vs-trump-historic-potential-2024-matchup/ |
Not that there was strong evidence he did
Trump supporters gather for a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Ellipse near the White House. (Jose Luis Magana/AP)
Donald Trump lost the presidential election in Georgia on Nov. 3, 2020 — but barely. The margin of his loss was narrower than any state except Arizona. The Associated Press didn’t call the state until more than a week later, after Joe Biden had already been identified as president-elect.
Trump, however, has never recognized his defeat. Instead, he has consistently pushed back against that reality, including — a federal judge made clear this week — by embracing claims about illegal voting that he knew to be false. Because for Trump, the issue was never whether the election was stolen, it was whether he could convince people it might have been.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter was tasked with evaluating a legal fight between Trump’s former attorney (and election-result-denying co-conspirator) John Eastman and the chair of the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot. Eastman sought to prevent certain emails from being turned over to the committee by claiming they were protected by attorney-client privilege.
But communication related to the commission of a crime is not privileged, and Carter determined that there was evidence that several of the emails at issue were “sufficiently related to and in furtherance of a conspiracy to defraud the United States” — namely, to make knowingly false claims about fraud to get a federal court to block the Georgia results.
In the days after the election, Trump filed a state lawsuit against Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger in Georgia’s Fulton County. In that complaint, Trump (through his attorneys) makes specific allegations of fraud, including that the state:
“allowed as many as 2,560 felons with an uncompleted sentence to register to vote and to cast their vote,”
“allowed at least 2,423 individuals to vote who were not listed in the State’s records as having been registered to vote,” and
“allowed as many as 10,315 or more individuals to vote who were deceased by the time of Election Day.”
Note that, even if true, none of this proves that Trump won. He lost Georgia by 11,779 votes, so Biden would have needed to have won 88 percent of the listed “illegal” votes for Trump to be the victor if those votes were tossed. Note, also, that the claims depend on assertions that come from a certified public accountant’s “statistical analysis” of the state vote, not actual evidence. It depended, for example, on matching first and last names and birth years of voters and felons — meaning that if there was both a John Smith born in 1970 who was a voter and a John Smith born the same year who is a felon who didn’t vote, the first John Smith is one of those 2,560 suspicious voters.
Trump’s legal team eventually decided to withdraw the suit against Raffensperger. Instead, it planned to file a federal lawsuit against him and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R). As that suit was being prepared, the emails reviewed by Carter reveal, there was a debate over whether to include the figures above.
Eastman thought they shouldn’t. In one email, cited by Carter, he raised concerns about the “specific numbers in the paragraph dealing with felons, deceased, moved, etc.” In another, he was explicit about his concerns.
“Although the President signed a verification for [the original complaint] back on Dec. 1, he has since been made aware that some of the allegations (and evidence proffered by the experts) has been inaccurate,” Eastman wrote. “For him to sign a new verification with that knowledge (and incorporation by reference) would not be accurate.”
“Incorporation by reference” means that the federal filing (unlike the state one) wouldn’t explicitly cite the figures but, instead, cite them. Which is what ended up happening. The suit filed Dec. 31, 2020 — the day the above email was sent — makes similar claims about felons and dead people voting, including the original state complaint as evidence to that end.
“Georgia election officials allowed unqualified individuals to register and vote in violation of O.C.G.A. $ 21-2-216;” — a section of Georgia legal code — “allowed convicted felons still serving their sentence to vote in violation of O.C.G.A. $ 21-2-216(b); … and accepted votes cast by deceased individuals, in violation of O.C.G.A. $ 21-2-23 l(a)-(b) and (d).” The evidence for those claims was the attached “copy of Verified Petition and exhibits collectively attached,” including the analysis from the accountant.
But there was an important footnote — an effort, it seems, to accommodate Eastman’s concerns.
“The facts and figures set forth in the state court action’s Verified Petition was presented to Plaintiff through the affidavits and expert opinions/reports attached to the Verified Petition” without access to state election files, it notes. So “the facts and figures submitted by affidavits and experts reports/opinions in the lower court and incorporated herein by reference, have been relied upon by Plaintiff only to the extent that such information has been provided to Plaintiff. … Plaintiff has not sworn to any facts under oath for which he does not have personal knowledge or belief.”
This is the crux of Carter’s point: In that email from Eastman, it’s made clear that the legal team knew the figures weren’t defensible and, more importantly, that the plaintiff — Trump — knew they weren’t. The footnote tries to get around this by claiming that if the information is incorrect, it was incorrect without Trump’s knowledge. But that’s not what Eastman said. Hence: a potential effort in Carter’s eyes to defraud the courts.
Remember that this wasn’t occurring in a vacuum. It’s not as though Trump’s team was working behind the scenes and discovered that the CPA was wrong. The state — in the person of Ryan Germany, counsel to Raffensperger’s office — had already publicly debunked the claims made in the initial lawsuit, including at a hearing shortly before Christmas. So it’s not the case that Trump’s legal team was withholding their own discoveries. It’s that they were pretending that Trump was not aware of the public repudiation of his claims.
And that’s just the legal dishonesty. A few days after the lawsuit was filed, Trump called Raffensperger in an attempt to get him to reverse the already-certified results in the state. In that call, he rehashed the same claims about dead voters and unregistered voters casting ballots — with Germany on the line. In other words, Trump tried to convince Germany that his campaign’s numbers were right and the actual state numbers wrong. Though, as Eastman revealed privately, he’d been informed that the data was wrong.
There were, predictably, tweets aimed at putting pressure on Georgia officials from the outside.
“Why haven’t they deducted all of the dead people who ‘voted’, illegals who voted, non Georgia residents who voted, and tens of thousands of others who voted illegally, from the final vote tally?” Trump wrote on Jan. 2, 2021. “Just a small portion of these votes give US a big and conclusive win in Georgia.”
Gabe Sterling, the official in charge of elections, was visibly exasperated on the day after the call as he held a news conference again rebutting Trump’s false claims. In an effort to reinforce the validity of the election results in the state, Sterling presented a point-by-point rebuttal of what Trump was asserting — and that we now know he knew wasn’t true.
Georgia Secretary of State staff about to hold a press conference refuting 1 by 1 the claims President Trump made on the call with @GaSecofState pic.twitter.com/dFOehpxula
— Justin Gray (@JustinGrayWSB) January 4, 2021
After all, Trump’s false claims about fraud were legally shaky but rhetorically useful. Sterling had previously held a news conference noting that false claims of fraud in the state were spurring increasing threats against him, his staff and other officials. Trump, indifferent, pressed forward anyway.
Three days later, he gave a speech in which he again cited the false numbers about fraud, the ones that had been debunked by the state more than once and that his own attorney appears to have privately revealed he knew to be false.
“Over 10,300 ballots in Georgia were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match Georgia residents who died in 2020 and prior to the election,” Trump said to the crowd. “More than 2,500 ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match incarcerated felons in Georgia prison. People who are not allowed to vote. More than 4,500 illegal ballots were cast by individuals who do not appear on the state’s own voter rolls.”
All debunked. Trump didn’t care.
“They defrauded us out of a win in Georgia, and we’re not going to forget it,” Trump said at another point.
This was his speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021. | 2022-10-20T16:33:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The clearest sign yet Trump doesn’t care that his fraud claims are false - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/trump-georgia-2020-election-false-claims/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/trump-georgia-2020-election-false-claims/ |
By Sylvia Hui and Jill Lawless | AP
LONDON — Liz Truss became prime minister on a promise to open a new era of growth by shaking up Britain’s economy. But the tumult that resulted was not exactly what she had in mind: Markets recoiled, the pound currency dived, her party revolted — and, in the end, she announced her resignation just 45 days after taking office. | 2022-10-20T16:33:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Liz Truss promised UK a shakeup — but was forced out instead - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/liz-truss-promised-uk-a-shakeup--but-was-forced-out-instead/2022/10/20/47297a9e-5087-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/liz-truss-promised-uk-a-shakeup--but-was-forced-out-instead/2022/10/20/47297a9e-5087-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Bengals and Atlanta Falcons have both been surprising this season — for different reasons.
By contrast, the Bengals are relying on Burrow’s arm as their running game continues to struggle. Ja'Marr Chase, last season's Offensive Rookie of the Year, seems to be recapturing his form. He had seven catches for 132 yards and two touchdowns last week. | 2022-10-20T16:34:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bengals, Falcons looking to get over .500 for 1st time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/bengals-falcons-looking-to-get-over-500-for-1st-time/2022/10/20/d7b5ef50-5089-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/bengals-falcons-looking-to-get-over-500-for-1st-time/2022/10/20/d7b5ef50-5089-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
Poland, which shares over 300 miles of its borders with Russia, has provided massive military support to Ukraine and refuge to millions of Ukrainians fleeing Putin’s aggression. On Tuesday, Oct. 25 at 9:00 a.m. ET, join The Washington Post’s David Ignatius for a conversation with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki about the current course of the war, fears of a growing energy crisis this winter and his country’s relationship with the European Union.
Poland Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki | 2022-10-20T16:35:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Polish Prime Minister on war in Ukraine and European energy crisis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/25/polish-prime-minister-war-ukraine-european-energy-crisis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/25/polish-prime-minister-war-ukraine-european-energy-crisis/ |
Could Boris Johnson replace Liz Truss? Here at the top contenders.
Larry the cat sits outside Number 10 Downing Street following British Prime Minister Liz Truss resignation speech, in London, Britain, October 20, 2022. REUTERS/Toby Melville (Toby Melville/Reuters)
Truss announced her resignation on Thursday morning after a bruising period that saw her radical economic plan almost entirely reversed after it caused panic in the financial markets and a sharp dip in the Conservative Party’s already dim standing in polls.
But with an election scheduled for 2025, who replaces Truss is likely to be an internal Conservative Party affair. But is anyone up for the uphill task of mending the rifts within Britain’s major right-wing party, let alone, mending the country’s ailing economy, and leading the Conservatives into an election?
As a former leader Chancellor of the Exchequer — the U.K.'s finance minister — during Johnson’s government, the 42-year-old Sunak has a reputation as a grown-up, serious politician.
During the last leadership contest all those weeks ago, Sunak dismissed Truss’s proposed economic reforms, calling them “fairy tale” economics. Their implementation has lent credence to his characterization.
But therein lies one of Sunak’s weaknesses. He already ran to be the leader of the party, ending up in the final standoff with Truss herself. He lost, in part because he could not appeal to the hardcore Conservative Party members who held the vote.
Though he broke with Johnson, he was implicated in the “Partygate” scandal that brought that former leader down and was even fined by police for attending one of the government gatherings that violated pandemic lockdown rules.
Another possibility favored by centrist members of the Conservative Party is Mordaunt, leader of the House of Commons.
Mordaunt, 49, drew attention this week as she was left to defend the government’s U-turns in Parliament when Truss apparently could not.
Some believe Mordaunt and Sunak could team up. Mordaunt, who was briefly the country’s first female defense secretary, has also served as a junior trade minister and is considered more popular with the party’s grass roots.
She has an eclectic background, including stints as a magician’s assistant and a brief period as head of foreign press for George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign.
The British Defense Secretary is well-liked by many in the Conservative Party and even non-supporters for his steadfast role during the war in Ukraine.
But there’s a big catch: Wallace has said he doesn’t want the job. He ruled himself out of the running for party leader during the last contest in the early stages, later endorsing Truss.
“I didn’t want it enough,” he later told the Telegraph.
Johnson’s last day in office was just 44 days ago, but rumors are already swirling in the British press that he could make a return.
There’s a strange logic to it. Despite the scandals that brought him down, the 58-year-old remains popular with Conservative Party members, according to polls. And whatever his later troubles, of the commanding victory he secured at the 2019 general election are still fresh for many. | 2022-10-20T16:49:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Could Boris Johnson replace Truss? Here at the top contenders. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/20/who-next-prime-minister-uk/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/20/who-next-prime-minister-uk/ |
Supporters of President Donald Trump overtook the U.S. Capitol building during a riot on Jan. 6, 2021. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
When Tom Beauchamp heard that veterans were among the violent mob of Trump supporters who broke into the U.S. Capitol, he was angry.
As a veteran himself, he thought of the oath they took upon enlisting, swearing to support and defend the nation’s Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” In his opinion, on that cold January day, veterans who joined the rioters broke that oath.
So on Thursday, Beauchamp, 58, of Houston, will be in the nation’s capital where he will join other veterans in retaking their oath of enlistment to emphasize their ongoing commitment to the Constitution.
“It’s something you really take to the grave. It’s something sacred,” Beauchamp, an Army veteran, said of the enlistment oath. “We need to stand up as veterans and let them know that we don’t feel the same way as those that were there that day.”
Beauchamp and other veterans with Common Defense, a veteran-led organization founded in 2016 in opposition to President Donald Trump, will be joining Martin Luther King III and his wife, Arndrea Waters King, and groups united in their belief that the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection was an attack on democracy, at a rally near the Capitol Reflecting Pool. Organizers said the speakers will weave together calls for accountability for the Capitol riot with protecting the right to vote ahead of midterms.
“The fundamental freedom to vote, the basic idea that the votes are counted, and the minimal accountability for a president who leads a self coup: Those are all fundamental issues for having a functioning democracy,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, a consumer rights advocacy group. “And there really shouldn't be any divide about that.”
The rally comes on the heels of the House select committee investigating the attack closing what was probably its last public hearing in the panel’s 14-month investigation. There’s also less than three weeks before midterms, which will determine which party controls Congress and how much power deniers of the 2020 presidential election could secure in key battleground states ahead of the 2024 presidential contest.
Arndrea Waters King pointed to restrictive voting legislation passed by Republican-led state legislatures around the country as an extension of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. While the insurrection was a “physical attack on our democracy,” she said, these voting restrictions are a “structural attack.”
“The very last book that Martin’s father wrote, he talked about the fact that there’s a certain constituency of White Americans that have declared that democracy isn’t worth having, if it involves equality,” Arndrea Waters King said in an interview. “That and of course, that was written in 1967. And what concerns me is I feel like we’re at that point in 2022.”
Martin Luther King III — the eldest son of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — said he thinks about the civil rights movement and the ways his father and mother kept working toward justice, even when victories seemed out of reach.
“It looked like this was beyond an uphill battle, but somehow it occurred,” said King, who will speak at the rally on Thursday. “And that is the spirit that we have to go to work every day. Because it looks and it is very challenging, but it is not unsurmountable.” | 2022-10-20T17:32:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | King family, veterans demand accountability for Capitol riot - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/jan-6-justice-rally-accountability/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/jan-6-justice-rally-accountability/ |
He escaped from his enclosure at the zoo in 2013 and was found about a mile away in Adams Morgan.
Rusty, the red panda, who famously escaped from the National Zoo in 2013. He died Oct. 18 at a facility in Colorado. (Bethany Morlind)
Rusty, the red panda that became famous after he escaped from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, has died at age 10 at a facility in Colorado.
Officials at the Pueblo Zoo, about 50 miles south of Colorado Springs, said they didn’t know the cause of death. He had not been feeling well and was lethargic, they said, and died Oct. 14.
Pamela Baker-Masson, a spokeswoman for the zoo, said Thursday that “it is the Rusty,” who became best known in 2013 for his great escape from his enclosure at the D.C. zoo in the Woodley Park neighborhood of Northwest Washington. A family found him several hours later in the busy Adams Morgan area of the city, and after much commotion he was caught by animal curators.
Rusty was later moved to the zoo’s facility in Northern Virginia, and three years ago was transferred to the Pueblo Zoo.
Missing red panda found in Adams Morgan
Rusty was born in 2012 at the Lincoln Children’s Zoo in Nebraska and came to the National Zoo in April 2013, just a few weeks before his great escape. He became a viral sensation when he escaped. The zoo went into its “Code Green,” the alert for an escaped animal. And Washington went crazy with social media messages and alleged spottings of the fuzzy red panda.
Red pandas look a bit like a small fox and are about the size of a raccoon. They’ve got thick, reddish fur, long whiskers and long tails that have white on the ends. Like giant pandas, they’re from China, and they like to climb trees.
When Rusty escaped from the D.C. zoo, Ashley Foughty and her family, who were visiting from Columbus, Ohio, saw him as he scurried through a grassy area near a building at 20th and Biltmore NW. They took pictures and put them on Twitter. They didn’t know at first that he was an escapee but they called the zoo, and a widespread search ensued.
More than six hours later, animal experts caught him about a mile from the zoo.
Officials later said after looking at visitor photos and security footage that they thought he had probably escaped at night or early in the morning through a tree canopy, as a recent rain had weighted down the limbs and lowered them enough so he could get to the edge of his enclosure and into the tree. Being a good climber, out he went. He then, experts said, probably crossed Rock Creek Park and the parkway there, and even though he had a microchip implanted, zoo officials said at the time that they couldn’t use it to track him.
Don Moore, who was then the zoo’s associate director for animal care services, said at the time of Rusty’s escape and capture that he — unlike animals of his size that usually stick close to their homes — had gone “particularly far.”
After his escape, Rusty was reported to be in good health.
Rusty the red panda likely used tree and bamboo bridge to escape zoo
He was moved from the zoo in upper Northwest in 2014 and sent to a sister facility, the Smithsonian’s Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, about 70 miles from the city. Zoo officials said at the time that they moved Rusty and another red panda, Shama, to a less stressful environment to breed. Bao Bao, one of the giant panda cubs, was arriving then, and they expected additional visitors to the zoo. Shama was euthanized after an infection in summer 2014.
Rusty stayed in Virginia until he was sent to Pueblo in 2019.
Officials at the Pueblo zoo said he didn’t lose his sense of adventure, and was known by keepers to be “very charismatic,” said Sandy Morrison, a spokeswoman at the facility.
“If he wasn’t sleeping,” she said, “you’d find him running around his enclosure.” She said he had strong bonds with the zookeepers and “touched everybody’s heart.” In Pueblo, Rusty and a female red panda named Priya became the parents of twins — Mogwai and Momo — in 2021.
“Rusty had a fun, quirky and outgoing personality,” Morrison said. “He loved to sit on a log and chomp on his bamboo. If he didn’t feel like dealing with people he would go to a corner and wrap his tail around his face.”
On the Pueblo zoo’s Facebook page, viewers shared their condolences.
Regina Yudd wrote that her life “changed completely” when Rusty escaped the D.C. zoo. Another mourner, Rachel Mandal, said: “My favorite escape artist! RIP Rusty. You brought a lot of joy into a lot of people’s lives.” | 2022-10-20T17:32:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rusty, the red panda, best known for escaping the D.C. zoo has died - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/rusty-red-panda-dead-national-zoo/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/rusty-red-panda-dead-national-zoo/ |
In the open race for governor of Pennsylvania, the Democrat speaks in blunt terms about his GOP rival
Pennsylvania Attorney General and Democratic nominee for Governor Josh Shapiro speaks to supporters inside the Wayne County Democratic Party headquarters in downtown Honesdale, Pa., on Oct. 9. Wayne County was part of a day full of campaign stops in northeast Pennsylvania for Shapiro. (Michelle Gustafson/For The Washington Post)
MONTROSE, Pa. — As he campaigns for governor across Pennsylvania, Democrat Josh Shapiro tells voters how his Jewish faith drives his values. He also tells them about his Republican rival Doug Mastriano, who paid a consulting fee to a far-right social media website where a mass shooter went on antisemitic rants.
And in an interview, Shapiro said that when he heard Mastriano accuse him of having “disdain for people like us” because Shapiro and his children have attended a “privileged, exclusive, elite” Jewish academy in the Philadelphia suburbs, the Democratic candidate immediately thought of all the students and teachers whose lives he felt his opponent had put “at risk” by singling out their school.
“I think it’s undeniable that he courts White supremacists and racists and antisemites,” Shapiro told The Washington Post. “It’s undeniable that he makes antisemitic comments, racist comments routinely, and that, you know, that forms a big part of his coalition.”
Mastriano’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story, including on Shapiro’s characterization of him.
In the open race for governor of Pennsylvania, Shapiro, 49, speaks in blunt terms about Mastriano, 58, whose comments and far-right ties have been repudiated by political leaders from both parties. With under three weeks left until Election Day, the race, which polls show Shapiro leading, stands out for its charges of antisemitism, clashes over religion and personal identity and the Democrat’s warnings about the dangers his rival represents to voters.
The clash comes amid broader concerns about antisemitism across the country, following the rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) posting antisemitic tropes and remarks, and former president Donald Trump, a Mastriano supporter, recently writing on Truth Social that Jews in the United States must “get their act together” and show more appreciation for the state of Israel “before it is too late.” Other Republicans outside Pennsylvania have recently faced criticism for incendiary comments about immigrants, race and religion.
After 17 years in elected office, Shapiro said that this was the first campaign in which he felt fearful of what might happen if he lost. “I’ve run against seven Republican opponents,” Shapiro said. “I thought my ideas were better. I thought my approach was better. But I never feared that if any of them won that the institution would be compromised, the institution would end and this is the first time I’m really afraid of what’s on the other side.”
Mastriano’s rhetoric and associations have been widely examined and criticized during his run for governor. In April, Mastriano, paid $5,000 for “campaign consulting” to the social media website Gab, which has attracted White nationalists, far-right figures and conspiracy theorists. The gunman who killed 11 people during Shabbat service at a Pittsburgh synagogue four years ago this month had used the website to post antisemitic screeds.
Gab CEO Andrew Torba has said he had a policy of not speaking to non-Christian journalists and claimed Mastriano shared that philosophy. In July, Mastriano issued a statement disavowing Torba.
Mastriano, who espouses Christian nationalism, has also argued against a separation of church and state. He attended a conference associated with fringe QAnon conspiracy theorists and told the crowd, “In November we’re going to take our state back. My God will make it so.”
During a Sept. 14 campaign speech live-streamed on Facebook, Mastriano referenced Shapiro’s schooling at Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy in Bryn Mawr, Pa., saying the Democrat “can’t relate” to those in attendance who would “lay down their lives for their country.”
“He grew up in a privileged neighborhood, attended one of the most privileged schools in the nation as a young man … sending his four kids to the same privileged, exclusive elite school,” Mastriano said. “We talk about him having disdain for people like us.”
Oren Segal, director of extremism at the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights organization, said the remarks were coded antisemitism implying that Jewish Americans seek power.
“When people talk about elitist spaces or exclusive and elite, in certain contexts, when in reference to someone who is Jewish, it can almost suggest that they view themselves as superior, part of an elite secret organization, which is classic conspiratorial speak,” Segal said.
When Shapiro heard Mastriano’s remarks about his and his childrens’ education, he said his “reaction was not to be personally upset.”
“My immediate thought was there are hundreds of students there and teachers there and he just put their lives at risk because of his incendiary language,” Shapiro said in an interview. “That’s where my mind went.”
Shapiro has been a fixture in Pennsylvania politics for over two decades, beginning his career as an elected state representative before becoming a county commissioner and serving the past four years as the state’s attorney general.
On the campaign trail, the Democrat speaks openly about his faith. In April, he aired a TV ad that showed him having Friday night Shabbat dinner, as the camera pans over two challahs in the center of the table.
“I’m not here to preach to anybody or tell you what to believe, or to believe it all, but I want you to know what I believe. My Scripture teaches me that no one is required to complete the task. But neither are we free to refrain from it,” he said at a recent event.
If Shapiro wins, he will become one of the most prominent Jewish politicians in the country, following a line of well-known Jewish officeholders in Pennsylvania from the late-Sen. Arlen Specter to former governor Ed Rendell. The first Jewish governor in the state changed his last name from Shapiro to Shapp over fears of antisemitism: The late-Milton Shapp aspired to higher office, with an eye on becoming the first Jewish president. Now, Shapiro supporters say, that chance might someday be his.
“I don’t think this is going to be his last stop,” said former Democratic congressman Robert A. Brady, who represented Philadelphia for 20 years.
Charlie Gerow, a conservative strategist in Harrisburg who ran against Mastriano in the GOP primary for governor and now supports him, called Shapiro a “progressive, woke liberal.” Shapiro’s GOP detractors attack him as not tough enough on crime, and Gerow said Shapiro’s “unfettered ambition” would distract from his role running the state. “He’s going to be busy running for president and is going to take a hard left turn,” Gerow said.
At campaign events, Shapiro’s stump speech touches on traditional Democratic talking points about improving education and raising the minimum wage and supporting labor unions. He also touts his achievements as attorney general from prosecuting the Catholic church for child sexual abuse and winning a settlement with Johnson and Johnson over the drug company’s role in the opioid epidemic. But at the events, he also warns of the perils of electing Mastriano.
At a Sunday afternoon event this month, Shapiro stood in the shadow of a monument to fallen Civil War soldiers in a town square and warned that Mastriano represented a grave danger to America. Behind him, on the statue’s pedestal, an inscription in memory of those “who gave their lives for the preservation of the Union” as Shapiro recalled that Mastriano once chose to wear a Confederate uniform to pose for a faculty photo at the Army War College.
Mastriano’s campaign message embraces many of the modern gripes of the far-right. He has railed against pandemic mask and vaccine mandates, says he will send immigrants seeking asylum in Pennsylvania to President Biden’s Delaware beach home, derides transgender rights and maintains, falsely, that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
Mastriano, as a state senator, helped lead an unsuccessful effort in Pennsylvania to overturn the 2020 presidential election and attended the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, and went to the U.S. Capitol, but says he did not go inside with the rioters.
He prayed during a call with Christian Nationalists in the lead up to Jan. 6, “That we’ll seize the power that we had given to us by the Constitution, and as well by you, providentially. I pray for the leaders also in the federal government, God, on the Sixth of January that they will rise up with boldness.”
If elected governor, Mastriano would be empowered to pick a secretary of state to oversee elections. In a recent radio interview discussing whether Trump can win Pennsylvania in 2024, Mastriano said, “I get to appoint the Secretary of State and the road to 2024 goes straight through Pennsylvania.”
As the GOP nominee for governor, Mastriano has shut out mainstream media, refusing interviews and attempting to block reporters from his events. Mastriano only recently started airing his own television commercial introducing himself to voters. He’s spent less than $1 million on television, radio and digital ads, compared to Shapiro who has spent nearly $40 million, according to data from AdImpact, which tracks campaign spending on commercials.
Prominent Pennsylvania Republicans, who have coalesced around GOP nominee Mehmet Oz in the state’s U.S. Senate race, such as Sen. Patrick J. Toomey and former governor Tom Ridge, have declined to endorse Mastriano for governor.
“I often joke if they had a secret ballot vote in the Senate Republican caucus in Harrisburg, [Shapiro] might get darn close to unanimous support,” said former Pennsylvania GOP congressman Charlie Dent, who endorsed Shapiro. “Josh Shapiro is a known entity, I believe he’s a decent, honorable guy. This wasn’t so much about right or left as much as it was right or wrong.”
Gerow said he is supporting Mastriano because of their shared ideology on policy and called him, “a conservative who is a principled person who cares very much about our state.”
Trump endorsed Mastriano just before the end of the Republican primary, when it appeared Mastriano was well-positioned to win the nomination. At a rally last month with Mastriano and other candidates, Trump said, “The one guy who supported election integrity and supported me from the very beginning, Doug Mastriano. He came to the White House with a group of people and he was fighting like hell.”
“On November 8th, we’re taking our state back by storm,” said Mastriano at the rally.
One Sunday this month, Shapiro made five campaign stops, each one taking him further into conservative areas that overwhelmingly supported Trump. The further north toward the New York border he pressed, the more vibrant the colors of the changing autumn leaves, in rich burgundy and crimson and burnt sienna, and the more frequent the Mastriano yard signs. But Shapiro said he believes there are enough voters in those conservative places who are turned off by Mastriano’s far-right positions.
In Honesdale, a picturesque town resembling the set of a Hallmark movie, Shapiro visited a Democratic campaign headquarters as people along Main Street perused an open air market lining the sidewalks on both sides of the street.
Margy Coccodrilli, 74, a former chairwoman of the Wayne County Democratic Committee — Trump won the county in 2020 with 66 percent of the vote — said it meant a lot that Shapiro came.
Mastriano “is extremely dangerous for democracy, he doesn’t believe in it,” she said in a phone interview a few days later. “What scares me about all of it, I love history, and I remember growing up thinking, ‘How did Hitler come to power?’ And now I’m watching it, and it’s terrifying.”
At his next stop in Montrose, he stayed to take photos and to chat with supporters after his stump speech. Susan Rowe, 72, a retired schoolteacher, became emotional when she met Shapiro. “I tell people get out there and vote because we are under attack,” Rowe said.
Earlier, in a vast, dimly lit ballroom at a Best Western hotel, Shapiro attended a brunch for the Luzerne County Democrats. The county, once a Democratic stronghold that voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, shifted to Trump in the presidential elections that followed.
Shapiro received thunderous applause and a standing ovation when he told the crowd he would defeat Mastriano. The Democrats in the room began chanting, “Josh, Josh, Josh.”
“Don’t be cheering my name,” he warned. “Because my name may be on the ballot, but it’s your rights and your future that’s on the line right now,” Shapiro said.
He added, “We can’t afford to lose this race because let me tell you something, this guy is dangerous, and this guy is extreme.” | 2022-10-20T17:37:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Shapiro emphasizes Jewish faith as he warns of Mastriano’s extremism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/10/20/shapiro-mastriano-pennsylvania/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/10/20/shapiro-mastriano-pennsylvania/ |
How implicit fear of Trump’s base helped turn a senator against reality
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), speaks as President Donald Trump listens during a campaign rally in support of Senate candidates Loeffler and David Perdue in Dalton, Ga., on Jan. 4, 2021. (Brynn Anderson/AP)
It’s not clear who provided a cache of text messages from the phone of former senator Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That the messages overlap with the period after the 2020 election and Loeffler’s own failed bid to hold her seat is probably not a coincidence, though, as they may have been turned over in response to a subpoena — and that period is subject to no shortage of legal wrangling.
What’s revealed in them is telling, if not surprising. While we know that Loeffler and other Republicans were facing explicit pressure from Donald Trump to support his false assertions about the election results, the messages suggest that Loeffler and her team were also influenced heavily by the implicit power wielded by Trump’s angry base of support. Which, of course, has been a vital undercurrent to Trump’s time in politics.
The messages include a request from an attorney named Daryl Moody, who had aided Loeffler’s campaign and who had been asked to be on Trump’s false slate of Georgia electors on Dec. 14, 2020. Loeffler offered no objection. (The Washington Post has not independently confirmed the accuracy of the messages, though the Journal-Constitution did.) There’s also a message from the wife of Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger (R) in which she excoriates Loeffler for her unfounded criticisms of how the election was administered.
That message, in fact, provides a glimpse into the undercurrent of Loeffler’s decision-making. Why did Loeffler and her colleague then-Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) rush to release a statement condemning Raffensperger — before the election in the state had even been called? The answer, it seems clear, is that both Loeffler and Perdue had been pushed into runoff elections to hold their seats, elections that would be held in early January 2021. And since the energy within their own party was very much focused on preserving Trump’s presidency, they moved along with it.
On Dec. 2, Loeffler received a telling message from representative-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (R).
“I need to talk with you about a plan we are developing on how to vote on the electoral college votes on Jan 6th. I need a Senator!” Greene wrote. “And I think this is a major help for you to win on the 5th!!”
This idea, objecting to electors submitted by several states during the formal counting of votes on Jan. 6, was just starting to burble on Capitol Hill and had been reported by Politico a few days prior. In order for it to work, though, there needed to be a senator to join objections from the House and, at the time of the message, there weren’t any. But notice the leverage that Greene deploys: This can help you keep your seat.
By the end of December, Greene and Trump had their senator: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) announced he would object to electors submitted by Pennsylvania. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), always willing to compete for attention from right-wing voters, quickly one-upped him, gathering a group of senators to jointly announce a plan delaying the electoral-vote certification. (It’s not a coincidence, of course, that both Hawley and Cruz are understood to have higher ambitions within the Republican Party.) Before Cruz released his statement, he reached out, hoping Loeffler would join them.
In the text messages, opinions among Loeffler’s staff are shown to have been divided. One told her he thought she “can’t afford to not be on it.” Another pointed out that the risk of joining the effort was higher for her than others: The existing signatories “all have years to message this vote” — given they wouldn’t face voters until 2022 at the earliest, while “we have hours.”
It wasn’t only Cruz, of course. Trump was creating “a hostage situation every day,” according to one Republican consultant familiar with Loeffler’s campaign, insisting that Perdue and Loeffler play along with his efforts to retain power. The alternative? Have Trump abandon their runoff elections entirely.
The president appeared at a rally in Georgia the day before the Jan. 5 runoff. He didn’t want to go, as was reported at the time. That both Loeffler and Perdue announced the same day as the rally that they would object to submitted electors on Jan. 6 was not a coincidence; the Journal-Constitution reports that the rally depended on their doing so.
pic.twitter.com/K3OXNlSN0L
— Kelly Loeffler (@KLoeffler) January 4, 2021
“Please make sure Trump RTs my statement so I don’t get booed off the stage!!” Loeffler wrote in a text message to a staffer.
It is certainly the case that elected officials should be responsive to their constituencies. But what the text messages reveal is something slightly different: A response to how Loeffler expected Georgia voters, particularly Republicans, to behave. Trump’s election in 2016 was regularly and justifiably credited to his turning out voters who were otherwise unenthusiastic about voting. For a senator seeking to retain her seat in a special election, the idea that the base might turn against her — and not only not vote for her but actively oppose her — must have been particularly worrisome.
“I think many of the Trump voters in the sideline will be watching tonight and we need a big turnout in North Georgia on Election Day,” he told Loeffler. “You might consider an announcement when you speak tonight that you are going to stand up and object to the Georgia Electors on behalf of all Georgians who voted legally.” She was already ahead of him on that.
What these messages show is how Trump and his allies relied not on facts to get his party to accede to his demands but on political power, on the perception that he could make or break their fortunes. It’s an encapsulation of how Trump governed, of course; he always used perceptions of the base as a cudgel against other Republicans. And in the post-election period in Georgia, Loeffler’s wavering on the subject was resolved out of fear of what Trump supporters might do.
In the end, she didn’t go along with the effort to reject the submitted electoral votes. In the wake of the riot at the Capitol, she was in a small minority of senators to reverse their positions on the question.
Of course by then she’d already lost her election bid anyway. | 2022-10-20T17:37:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How implicit fear of Trump's base turned Sen. Kelly Loeffler against democracy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/trump-georgia-kelly-loeffler-senate-2020-election/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/trump-georgia-kelly-loeffler-senate-2020-election/ |
British Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside 10 Downing Street on Thursday. (Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images)
Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned on Thursday, ending a disastrous six-week term as the United Kingdom’s head of government. The U.K. has slipped as a critical international player — a leader in Europe and a reliable diplomatic and military partner, with competent government and liberal democratic values. Now it looks increasingly like an isolated Atlantic island state. Much of its dysfunction has been self-inflicted, offering other countries lessons about the perils of populist politics.
Yet global leaders should not congratulate themselves on being right about the mistakes Britain, mostly under conservative governments, has made. It is important not just for Britain, but for Europe, the United States and the world that the country right itself.
British voters’ 2016 choice to leave the European Union — known as Brexit — inaugurated a chaotic political era marked by a line of poor leaders: the weak Theresa May, the buffoonish Boris Johnson and the incompetent Ms. Truss. Her resignation came after currency and bond markets crashed in response to her economic plan, which risked higher inflation with unfunded tax cuts. This represented a humiliation of a major developed economy the likes of which has not occurred since the 1990s. It was also avoidable, like Brexit itself, without which the country’s output would have been some 5.2 percent higher by the end of last year, according to one estimate from a European think tank.
Any turnaround will start in the coming week, as the U.K.’s ruling Conservative Party chooses the next prime minister. Rishi Sunak, a former finance minister and the runner-up in the last leadership election, would likely prove a steadier hand than Ms. Truss — or Mr. Johnson, whose return some are calling for. The party should also reform how it chooses its leaders. The current process empowers dues-paying party members, who tend to lean further to the populist right than the average Briton.
Next, the United States and Europe should help. Brexit negotiations continue to drag on, with questions about the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland still unresolved and trade between the U.K. and the E.U. far too difficult. Polling suggests the British public favors a softer Brexit, surrendering some control over judicial proceedings and regulation in return for easier trade, more law enforcement cooperation and the like. It is in the U.K.’s and Europe’s interests to seek one. Meanwhile, President Biden should reinvigorate U.S.-U.K. free trade talks, which have stalled since Mr. Biden entered the Oval Office.
Over the past two decades, Britain has been a key partner in Afghanistan, in the 2011 intervention that toppled Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi and in striking the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The country hosted a major climate change summit last year and remained a powerful voice promoting global development. Its steadfast support for Ukraine shows that it can still play a vital and constructive role.
Britain should be more than an exporter of royal gossip and lurid political news. The United States and Europe should help Britain regain its place in a liberal global order under attack by Russia, China and other adversaries of freedom.
Opinion|Truss-nomics failed. It’s a warning about the GOP’s economic schemes. | 2022-10-20T17:45:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How Britain can right itself after Liz Truss's resignation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/liz-truss-resignation-what-next/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/liz-truss-resignation-what-next/ |
Escape from Russia: A young college student tells his tale
By Lee Hockstader
Misha Sukhoruchkin (Lee Hockstader for The Washington Post)
The knock at Misha Sukhoruchkin’s college apartment door came shortly before dinner time, and a voice outside said, “Delivery.” When he opened up, two Russian paramilitary police and five plainclothesmen burst in, ransacked the place and hauled him away. By the time they were done at the police station — where he was forced to sign and videotape a “confession” expressing his “love” for Vladimir Putin, then roughed up by goons who threatened to break his hands with a hammer — the baby-faced 18-year-old had made his decision: It was time to leave Russia.
Misha's odyssey, which he recounted to me in Paris, where he eventually landed, is a telling example of how the Russian dictator’s imperial fever dream has upended so many lives. The suffering, of course, is incomparably worse in Ukraine, where the Kremlin has waged its bloody war. But millions of Russians have also been caught in Putin’s widening campaign of brutality, prompting hundreds of thousands of them to flee and an unknowable number of others to plot their departure.
Even if Putin’s regime is more brittle than it seems — as in many dictatorships, the slightest gesture of domestic dissent elicits wild overreactions — it will not collapse under the weight of millions of disaffected Russian teens and college students. Like Misha, they are powerless under Putin’s thumb.
Misha told me his story amid the quotidian clatter of a Left Bank café, a surreal place to hear such a bleak, brave tale — impossible to verify, but impossible to ignore. He has lank hair to his shoulders and owlish glasses; he looks like he might start shaving in a year or two. A gamer who writes fantasy fiction, he delivered deft insights in a low, steady voice and excellent English. Before the war, he said, he was barely interested in politics.
A sophomore psychology major, he tended to get his information from Twitter and Telegram, a Russian chat app. That’s how he learned in April about the Russian army’s atrocities in Bucha, through videos of Ukrainian civilians who had been slaughtered, he said, “like cattle.”
Appalled, he took a can of black spray paint, went out after midnight and scrawled the words “Putin = War” on a wall an hour’s walk from his university in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic. “I couldn’t sit and do nothing,” he said. “I realized it wasn’t a war for territory or resources. It was just evil.” It took two days for the police to track him down.
When he was released after several hours, stripped of his phone, laptop and official ID, the cops ordered him to return the next day. He was badly frightened — of another beating; of being expelled from college, which could have subjected him to the draft; of criminal charges on charges of “vandalism on the basis of political hatred”; of prison.
Misha went home and packed a rucksack with the essentials: a blanket, two liters of water, his flute, a set of dice from the fantasy board game "Dungeons and Dragons." He set out at 3 a.m., heading south toward the Polish border 20 miles away. He trekked for three days through the woods, navigating by the sun and the moon, frequently lost, mucking through spring grassland, sleeping on moss and twigs in frozen marshes. He avoided roads and took wide detours around villages, for fear of informers.
By the fourth night, approaching the frontier, he was delirious from hunger and found himself mumbling his thoughts out loud. At a remote stretch of the international boundary, he used a pair of logs to pry apart the bottom strands of barbed wire and tumbled through the gap into Poland. Then he ran and ran, crossing more swampland and a river, until he came to a village. He had lost more than 20 pounds.
The border crossing should have meant freedom for Misha. But most European countries, including Poland, have resisted admitting Russians, even as they have welcomed millions of Ukrainian refugees. Rather than being granted asylum, Misha was interrogated on suspicion of spying, then held for weeks in migrant detention. Only through the intercession of well-connected relatives in Paris — themselves Muscovites who turned against Putin and fled years ago — did he manage to reach France, which has been more welcoming.
For Misha, leaving Russia was one thing. Ridding himself of it is another. The psychological habits he formed growing up there — indifference to politics, fear of police — are “like a curse,” he said. “I need to free myself of this influence.”
He has spent the fall cramming for the ACTs, hoping to resume his studies at an English-language university. He plans to switch his major to political science, for reasons that make sense, and imagines a future of activism in the West, since going home looks unsafe for the foreseeable future. “I have a bone to pick with all of Russia’s structures and authoritarian states around the world,” he said. | 2022-10-20T17:46:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | A Russian student describes fleeing the country - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/russian-student-describes-fleeing-country/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/russian-student-describes-fleeing-country/ |
Charlotte Charles, the mother of Harry Dunn who was killed in a crash by the wife of a U.S. diplomat, stands in front of a banner of her son in London, on Dec. 3, 2019. (Alberto Pezzali/AP)
LONDON — U.S. citizen Anne Sacoolas, 45, who according to her lawyers was working for a U.S. intelligence agency, pleaded guilty Thursday in British court to causing death by careless driving, when she drove on the wrong side of the road and killed a 19-year-old motorcyclist.
The plea marked a step forward in what has become a high-level diplomatic dispute and three-year fight for justice by the family of the victim, Harry Dunn. Sacoolas’s sentencing is scheduled for November.
The case is unique because the U.S. government asserted that Sacoolas, who was a State Department employee, had diplomatic immunity following the crash, and she left Britain less than three weeks after the incident while the investigation was ongoing.
It is also rare in Britain for a defendant to appear for an entire criminal case via video link, as Sacoolas has so far. The judge in the case ordered Sacoolas to appear in person for her sentencing — but it is unclear if she will.
She could be sentenced to a relatively short prison sentence — with a maximum of five years — but shorter sentences and community service are also possible.
Dunn’s mother, Charlotte Charles, told reporters after the guilty plea that it represented the fulfillment of a promise that she made the night her son was killed, and that she can “stand aside now and let the courts do their thing.”
“Every single day, every bit of pain that you feel from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to bed — all of the hours that you lay awake at night, fighting that pain and keeping it in the pit of your stomach, which kept the promise burning as well,” she said. “It was like it was just all released.”
In court hearings in Britain and the United States, Sacoolas has been described as the wife of a U.S. intelligence officer and as an intelligence officer herself.
At the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., in 2021, one of her lawyers, John McGavin, said, “Mr. and Mrs. Sacoolas were employed by an intelligence agency of the United States, and that’s why she left.”
McGavin told the court that he was unable to “completely candidly” explain the family’s departure. “I know the answer, but I cannot disclose it,” he told the court.
Sacoolas had diplomatic immunity asserted on her behalf by the U.S. government following the crash near an air force base in Northamptonshire, England — and was able to leave Britain 19 days after the incident.
The U.S. government refused to extradite Sacoolas to Britain to face charges in person.
Since the fatal crash, Dunn’s family has campaigned for Sacoolas to be stripped of her diplomatic immunity so that she could return to face the courts.
Anne Sacoolas, accused of killing British teen Harry Dunn, was working for U.S. intelligence, lawyer says in court
Dunn was killed in August 2019 when Sacoolas struck his motorcycle while she was driving on the wrong side, according to British police.
Sacoolas was merging onto a roadway near Royal Air Force Croughton station, a U.S. Air Force installation, where many intelligence workers are based. Sacoolas, her diplomat husband and her children had recently moved to the base.
She had been in Britain only a short time, and as newcomers quickly learn, the British drive on the left side of the road, while Americans drive on the right.
She had been formally charged with “causing death by dangerous driving” in 2019, but admitted guilt to a lesser charge of death caused by “careless driving” — a guilty plea accepted by the Crown Prosecution Service, which conducts criminal prosecutions in England.
Then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in June 2021 that he and President Biden were “actively engaged” on the case of Dunn.
The Dunn family reached a settlement in a U.S. civil suit against Sacoolas in 2021. Dunn’s parents had launched a U.S. federal lawsuit claiming wrongful death. In September 2021, the family’s spokesman, Radd Seiger, told The Washington Post that the civil case was “resolved,” and they could move on to the criminal case. | 2022-10-20T18:03:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Anne Sacoolas pleads guilty in death of British teen Harry Dunn - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/20/anne-sacoolas-harry-dunn-driving-guilty/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/20/anne-sacoolas-harry-dunn-driving-guilty/ |
NATO’s Nuclear War Games Are a Risk It Needs to Take
LASK, POLAND - OCTOBER 12: Mikoyan MIG-29 fighter jets of the Polish Air Force take part in a NATO shielding exercise at the Lask Air Base on October 12, 2022 in Lask, Poland. NATO’s Allied Air Command, the Polish Air Force and the United States Air Force demonstrated the modern aircraft capabilities of Polish F-16s and the U.S. F-22s. As the Russian Invasion of Ukraine continues, NATO member Poland has been investing in new military equipment and various NATO allies’ troops are now stationed in the country. (Photo by Omar Marques/Getty Images) (Photographer: Omar Marques/Getty Images Europe)
This week, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization started a round of exercises of its nuclear capabilities in Western Europe, centered in Belgium and the UK. This comes at a particularly fraught moment in NATO-Russian relations, to say the least, given President Vladimir Putin’s frequent rattling of the nuclear saber over the past six months. Russia is “not bluffing” about tactical nukes, he insists.
These are big, muscular events, and at least 14 of NATO’s 30 member nations (soon to be 32 with the welcome additions of Sweden and Finland) will participate. Typically, the exercises would include dozens of fighter aircraft from various member states, large Airborne Early Warning Aircraft that are under NATO’s direct command, and sufficient refueling aircraft to support the air armada. Long-range US strategic bombers (the venerable but capable B-52s based in North Dakota) are participating as well.
The war games will be held more than 500 miles from the borders of the Russian Federation. Generally, they run 10 to 14 days, and it is unlikely that any news media will be allowed to observe. Nicknamed Steadfast Noon, they almost certainly will not involve actual tactical nuclear weapons. Instead, the jets will carry “dummy loads,” meant to simulate using actual nuclear bombs.
There will be plenty of activity on the ground was well, simulating movement and maintenance of the weapons, and drills to safeguard them from both conventional military attack and terrorist activity.
Russia also holds annual nuclear-forces exercises — known as Grom, Russian for “thunder” — which will receive a very high level of surveillance and study by NATO intelligence. This will probably take place later this fall, although the Russian military has yet to notify NATO of its intentions.
On the other hand, the US and its allies will not stop annual training events simply because of heightened tensions. This month, the US and South Korea are proceeding with high-end naval exercises off the Korean peninsula, despite the record-high number of ballistic-missile launches North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un has undertaken over recent months.
The NATO secretary general in Brussels and the supreme allied commander at the military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, will be carefully assessing Putin’s possible responses to the NATO exercises. Among their concerns will be whether the Russian leader would use them as an excuse to conduct more aggressive nuclear drills than usual. Could he position tactical nuclear weapons in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which lies between NATO members Poland and Lithuania, or even among Russian forces on the “special military operation” in Ukraine?
The other purpose of the exercises, of course, is to show the Russians NATO’s muscle. It is often said that deterrence is the combination of capability and credibility, i.e., the ability to accomplish something and a demonstrated will to actually do it. “Steadfast Noon” allows the NATO alliance to demonstrate both.
• It’s Time to Sanction Russia as the Terrorist State It’s Become: Igor Cherkaskyi
• Can the US Take on China, Iran and Russia All at Once?: Hal Brands | 2022-10-20T18:03:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NATO’s Nuclear War Games Are a Risk It Needs to Take - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/natos-nuclear-war-games-are-a-risk-it-needs-to-take/2022/10/20/29ff0ec6-509a-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/natos-nuclear-war-games-are-a-risk-it-needs-to-take/2022/10/20/29ff0ec6-509a-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
Wine can mean lots of different things to different people - and its impact on the local economy is just one. (iStock)
What’s wine worth? To us as individuals, wine’s value is personal. It may be a dinner drink for every day, or once a week, with a price appropriate to the meal. Or perhaps it’s a splurge for special occasions, a bottle cradled in a closet until the night is right. For some, wine is an investment in both money and ego, part of the good life, a sign of personal accomplishment. Prices may vary.
But what’s wine worth to the U.S. economy? A new study released in September by Wine America, a winery trade organization, estimates wine’s economic impact this year will be about $276 billion dollars. That includes direct impact from production and sale of wine, indirect impact of the industry’s suppliers (bottles, labels, equipment, etc.) and the “induced impact” of all those wages being spent throughout the economy.
The study, by John Dunham & Associates, is an imperfect snapshot of American wine in 2022, because there isn’t reliable data to work with. Even a basic figure such as the number of acres planted to wine grapes has to be estimated from a number of disparate sources. The U.S. Department of Agriculture stopped tracking vineyard acreage years ago because of budget cuts, and state marketing studies such as Virginia’s often rely on voluntary participation by wineries. The 10,637 “wine producers” may somewhat overstate the number of wineries, as those with multiple facilities will be counted more than once. And there’s an obvious boosterism in the study — the authors apparently had a keyboard shortcut to insert the phrase “ultimate value-added product” every few paragraphs.
Caveats aside, the study gives a fascinating glimpse of how the wine industry has weathered the storm of the pandemic. A similar study in 2017 clocked wine’s economic impact at $220 billion. Continued growth even through the pandemic “illustrates the health of the industry,” says Michael Kaiser, Wine America’s executive vice president.
Covid shutdowns dealt a blow to wine tourism in 2020 as wineries closed to visitors for several months, but retail and online sales boomed as we stockpiled wines for tough times. Wine was more flexible in this way than other service sectors such as restaurants, which were forced to pivot to takeout and delivery just to stay alive. That’s not to say there haven’t been pandemic casualties — wineries dependent on events such as weddings were hard hit. But wine’s alternate distribution channels strengthened its resiliency.
When wineries reopened to visitors, the experience changed toward “curated tasting menus” rather than crowding around a bar. And with air travel still limited by the pandemic, more of us visited the “wine country” next door, giving local wineries a boost. It’s easier and cheaper to hop in our cars and head to Mt. Airy, Md., or Leesburg or Charlottesville in Virginia, or wherever “next door” is than to book a flight to California.
The Wine America report estimates U.S. wineries will welcome about 49.2 tourist visits this year, generating nearly $16.7 billion dollars in revenue for local economies. Individual state estimates hint at the impact we have by supporting our local wineries. Virginia’s 274 wine producers will welcome 1.45 million visitors this year, who will spend about $493 million, the report says. Wineries, importers, distributors and retailers will employ about 45,000 people, paying nearly $2 billion in wages and $498 million in federal and state taxes. Wine’s overall impact in Virginia this year will be about $6.4 billion.
Maryland will see about $3.1 billion in total impact, including more than $53 million in tourist spending and $328 million in taxes, the report says. By comparison, California will see $88.1 billion in total impact, including $8.56 billion in tourist expenditures from 25.2 million visitors, the report says.
If you’re interested in working in wine, the industry directly employs just over 1 million people, with an average pay and benefits of $51,800 annually. Related sectors whose success depends on a healthy wine industry employ an additional 364,000 people nationwide. The study does not explain how to find those jobs.
When we enjoy wine with dinner, we know the price we paid for the bottle. We may be familiar with the winemaker’s story. We don’t usually think about the workers who tended the vines, picked the grapes, made the bottle, printed the label, harvested the bark from cork trees, drove the trucks from the winery to the warehouse to the store, stocked the shelves and sold us the wine. (If we did think about them, we might make different choices, a theme I’ve explored before.) That simple transaction of buying a bottle of wine doesn’t just add numbers to an economic model. Like all our purchases, it makes a difference in peoples’ lives. | 2022-10-20T18:03:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The wine industry not only weathered the pandemic. It even grew. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/10/20/wine-industry-grew-during-pandemic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/10/20/wine-industry-grew-during-pandemic/ |
Syracuse Coach Dino Babers has the Orange off to its best start since 1987. (Adrian Kraus/AP)
Syracuse football coach Dino Babers had not been on the same staff with Robert Anae before this season but admired his work from afar, particularly during the past few years at Virginia, where Anae oversaw an offense that set several program records.
Babers and Anae also shared many mutual connections given their backgrounds in the Western Athletic Conference. Babers, for instance, served as a graduate assistant at Hawaii, his alma mater, in 1984 two years before Anae, a former player at BYU, accepted the same position.
So with the Orange seeking a new offensive coordinator this past offseason and Anae conveniently available, Babers wasted little time completing a partnership that has contributed considerably to 14th-ranked Syracuse (6-0, 3-0 ACC) matching its best start since 1987.
Next up is a showdown with No. 5 Clemson (7-0, 5-0) in Death Valley, with the winner securing the inside track for the Atlantic Division title and a berth in the ACC championship game. It’s the first matchup in Memorial Stadium history in which both teams are unbeaten this late in the season.
“Like a grandpa. I really like it,” Babers said of Anae’s demeanor. “I’ve never seen a guy be so eloquent with his words and yet maybe telling you that you’re not really good at your job, but doing it in such a nice way that you’re not mad, and then you want to come back and work for him, and that’s what I mean by the grandpa thing. He has a certain way with them, which really excites me.”
Behind Anae’s revamped offense, the Orange is ranked fourth out of 14 schools in the conference in scoring (36 points per game) and sixth in passing (244.3 yards per game) this season. It finished 10th and last, respectively, last year, in part leading to the dismissal of former offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert, who also coached quarterbacks.
Jason Beck took over as quarterbacks coach, the same position he held at Virginia from 2016 through 2021 while working with Anae. Both left the Cavaliers on the heels of the sudden resignation of former Virginia coach Bronco Mendenhall.
The biggest individual beneficiary of Babers’s coaching reorganization has been quarterback Garrett Shrader, a transfer from Mississippi State.
The junior has thrown for 1,434 yards and 12 touchdowns with three interceptions on 106-for-152 passing (69.7 percent). He ranks second in the ACC in completion percentage, third in efficiency (171.2) and fourth in yards per game (239.0).
Last year, Shrader amassed 1,445 yards and nine touchdowns over 12 games, including nine starts, and completed 123 of 234 attempts (52.6). He finished last in yards per game (120.4) and completion percentage and second-to-last in passing efficiency (113.7) among qualifying ACC quarterbacks.
Shrader is coming off 16 of 25 completions for 210 yards and two touchdowns and 16 carries for 81 yards during a 24-9 win against then-No. 15 North Carolina State last weekend, triggering a portion of the sold-out crowd at JMA Wireless Dome to storm the field.
One game earlier he set a single-game school record by completing all 17 of his pass attempts during a 59-0 victory over Wagner. He’s the only player in the country to have done so this year with 10 or more attempts.
“We always aim to start fast, and we expect to score,” said Shrader, who directed the Orange to a touchdown on the game’s opening possession against the Wolfpack courtesy of a 12-yard scoring throw to wide receiver Oronde Gadsden II. “That’s why we always take the ball. What we need to work on is just keeping that momentum for the second and third drive and going down and scoring 21 points in the first quarter.”
Last season against Clemson, Shrader ran for a touchdown during the second quarter and threw another with 7:18 left in the fourth to draw Syracuse within three before it lost, 17-14, at the Dome. Three of the past five games in the series have been decided by four points or fewer, including a 27-24 triumph for the Orange in 2017.
But none of those previous teams had the offensive firepower of this season in addition to the top-ranked defense in the ACC in both scoring (13.2) and total yards (268.8). The robust performance of the defense despite injuries has permitted Anae and his staff at times to take chances they otherwise might not.
“I haven’t been at some of those schools that you guys read about in the paper all the time, but I’ve been at good schools,” Babers said. “And this is the third time that we have been [undefeated] this deep in over three decades, so it is rare. You should cherish it. You should understand this moment and not let it just go past you. You might want to slow down and make sure you get it.” | 2022-10-20T18:05:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Syracuse cherishing its 6-0 start with trip to Clemson up next - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/syracuse-football-clemson/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/syracuse-football-clemson/ |
Rosie Hidalgo and Deborah J. Vagins join Washington Post Live on Thursday, Oct. 20. (Video: The Washington Post)
Domestic violence against women and girls reached record levels around the world as lockdowns took effect to curb COVID-19. On Thursday, Oct. 20 at 1:30 p.m. ET, join Washington Post Live for conversations with Rosie Hidalgo, senior advisor on gender-based violence for the White House Gender Policy Council, and Deborah J. Vagins, president and CEO of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, about the contributing risk factors to what has been called a “shadow pandemic,” the public policy response and the use of social media to educate survivors.
Rosie Hidalgo
Special Assistant to the President & Senior Advisor on Gender-Based Violence, White House Gender Policy Council
Deborah J. Vagins
President & CEO, National Network to End Domestic Violence
Content from Purina
Hidden Survivors of Domestic Violence: Pets
Domestic violence statistics show that an estimated one in three women and one in four men experience some form of domestic abuse in their lifetimes, but in many cases, pets are hidden victims.
Today, only 15 percent of domestic violence shelters accept pets, and as a result, nearly half (48%) of domestic abuse survivors delay leaving because they can’t take their pets with them. On Purple Thursday, Oct. 20, in a segment presented by Purina, a veterinary expert and leader from the nonprofit, RedRover, discuss why the decision to escape can be even more difficult when a beloved pet might be left behind, what signs to look for in a pet, how veterinarians can help spot signs of domestic violence and what you can do to help.
Traci Zager
Veterinary Communications Manager, Purina
Director, Collaboration & Outreach, RedRover | 2022-10-20T18:07:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Domestic violence victim advocates on case uptick during pandemic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/20/domestic-violence-victim-advocates-case-uptick-during-pandemic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/20/domestic-violence-victim-advocates-case-uptick-during-pandemic/ |
Washington Commanders co-CEOs and co-owners Dan and Tanya Snyder during the team name reveal in February, 2022. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
There is enough to talk about, what with Taylor Heinicke taking over — again — for a fallen starting quarterback, and William Jackson III either hurt or incapable or some combination of the two, and Chase Young hoping he soon gets cleared to return. The Washington Commanders are a football team with football issues, and that should more than suffice.
Except it never does. Not in Ashburn. Not 20 years ago. Not now. Not next week.
So here we are again, predictably and inevitably.
“I think that’s tough for us as players,” star receiver Terry McLaurin said. “Obviously, with social media and everything that’s out there, you see what’s going on.”
What’s going on is that one sitting NFL owner said that it would be appropriate for his billionaire brethren to oust another sitting NFL owner, who happens to be run the Commanders, one Daniel Snyder. Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay “believes there is merit to removing him as owner” of the Commanders, which, as news stories go, is a whopper.
Sally Jenkins: Daniel Snyder is always looking for the sucker. This time, it might be him.
There’s a lot of twine to untangle in Irsay’s at-times impassioned tirade about Snyder, not least of which is whether 23 other owners would agree — because that’s the number that would be needed, in a vote, to compel Snyder to sell. But step away from the headlines provided in a hotel lobby in New York, where NFL owners met this week, and apply them to a practice field and locker room in Ashburn. The Green Bay Packers come to FedEx Field on Sunday. There is increasing focus on Coach Ron Rivera’s operation and the direction of his team. Heinicke takes over for Carson Wentz, who broke a finger last week in Chicago, and there will be considerable consternation if the backup performs poorly — or if he exceeds the production of the $28-million starter, for whom Rivera gave up two draft picks.
And yet, the owner. The owner, the owner, the owner, the owner.
This is tiring. It has been for years. What would it be like to live in a town and focus on a team in which the primary issues were pass protection and creating turnovers? Not that pass protection and creating turnovers aren’t problems in Washington. They just fall well down the list.
The ownership stuff is both separate from the football and affects the football. It filters to the locker room. It has to.
Daniel Snyder as the subject of another owner’s ire doesn’t mean McLaurin will have trouble running routes or catching passes on Sunday against the Packers. But in a sport in which players and coaches preach focus as an essential part of every week, every practice and every meeting, the effect is not zero. Not in a given week. And particularly, not over time. The drip-drip-drip of it is some form of water torture for the people who play in Washington.
Which leads, of course, to continuing and eternal frustration from fans. In a sense, Snyder is a unifier, because who among those who will gather at FedEx Field — which, through the early season, is averaging the smallest crowds in the league — would turn to his or her seatmate and say, “You know, Dan’s just misunderstood. I think he’s doing a bang-up job”? Find me that person, because I’d like to buy her or him a $14 beer so we can discuss the reasoning and rationale.
In a letter Snyder wrote this week to his fellow NFL owners — a letter he felt compelled to write to refute an ESPN report that accused him, among other things, of hiring private investigators to dig up dirt on those owners — Snyder included this line: “While we are fierce competitors on the field, we are part of [the NFL] because we love football, our teams and our fans.”
It isn’t the first — or last — time Snyder has professed his admiration for the people who, blindly at this point, support his team. In a 2013 letter to fans in which he laid out the case for keeping the old nickname, he wrote, “We are relentlessly committed to our fans and to the sustained long-term success of this franchise.”
To which those fans could rightly say: “You love us? You’re committed to us? Really? Then sell.”
Which really has to be where this is headed, right? Having Irsay voice public discontent with Snyder isn’t the same as, say, Robert Kraft or Jerry Jones or the Rooney family uttering those words. But it’s at least a crack in the club, and that’s important.
For now, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he encouraged the other owners to not draw conclusions about Snyder until the investigation by former Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Jo White is completed, whenever that might be. “I think everyone deserves to have facts and to make sure those decisions are made with facts,” Goodell told reporters Tuesday.
So maybe something else is coming, some sort of smoking gun that exceeds what we already know.
But even before White’s report, the facts are these: Daniel Snyder has done damage to his franchise. He is a distraction to his players and coaches, not an aide. He has provided an awful product on the field and overseen a reprehensible workplace off it. He is bad for the NFL, and at least one owner is willing to say so publicly.
That’s a lot. On Sunday, Taylor Heinicke will take the snaps from center, and Rivera’s troops will try to continue to salvage the season by upsetting Green Bay. But the fans who attend know that ultimately, that’s not what matters.
What matters is that Snyder will watch from his box, and the important questions aren’t whether Heinicke throws touchdowns or interceptions, but whether the owner has that vantage point and that status next year, the year after or the year after that. | 2022-10-20T18:16:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Daniel Snyder is the Washington Commanders' biggest distraction - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/daniel-snyder-washington-commanders-distraction/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/daniel-snyder-washington-commanders-distraction/ |
D.C. wins historic $10 million in housing voucher discrimination case
Three real estate firms and some of their executives are required to pay penalties for turning away or imposing illegal requirements on renters with housing vouchers or other housing assistance
Kyle Swenson
D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine speaks during a news conference in Washington on Thursday. (Drew Costley/AP)
Three real estate firms and several of their executives are required to pay D.C. a historic $10 million settlement and stop managing property in the city forever for allegedly denying access to rentals or imposing additional, and illegal, requirements on low-income applicants.
The settlement is the largest civil penalty in a housing discrimination case in U.S. history, according to D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D), who announced it at a news conference Thursday.
The attorney general’s office filed suit against the three real estate firms — DARO Management Services, DARO Realty and Infinity Real Estate — and several of their executives in 2020 for violating civil rights and consumer-protection laws meant to protect low-income renters who receive government assistance from housing discrimination. The action was part of an ongoing crackdown on discrimination against voucher holders in the District.
Racine said at the news conference that enforcing anti-discrimination laws is vital to preventing displacement of longtime residents.
“This discrimination has perpetuated Jim Crow racism that pushes Black and Brown families out of certain areas of the District of Columbia,” he said.
D.C. officials documented discriminatory practices at 15 buildings owned or operated by the companies named in its lawsuit, throughout Wards 1, 2 and 3, according to court documents. The buildings, officials said, were concentrated in some of the District’s most affluent areas.
Building managers that ferret out applicants receiving government assistance in the form of vouchers and other aid programs violate the city’s Human Rights Act, which bans source-of-income discrimination.
The D.C. attorney general’s office filed suit against the three real estate firms and their associates after finding that DARO illegally posted ads with discriminatory language and charged Section 8 voucher recipients extra fees.
In one email exchange cited in court documents between Jared Engel, who helped oversee Infinity’s investments, and Carissa Barry, a D.C. real estate broker who oversaw the DARO properties and worked with Infinity, the instructions were clear: “No voucher/sec-8 — find ways to reject, applicant must meet every requirement (credit, security deposit, income etc), in the case that we have to lease to them which we should find every way out of, don’t put in renovated units.”
In another email cited in court documents that was addressed to Steve Kassin, a managing partner at Infinity who was also named in the lawsuit, Barry wrote that she was “doing everything I can to reduce if not eliminate the section 8 program from our communities.”
According to the attorney general, DARO outright refused to accept subsidies from renters who were enrolled in the D.C. rapid rehousing program — a voucher program commonly used to help families out of homelessness — and applicants receiving financial aid through partnerships with organizations meant to combat homelessness in the District.
As part of the settlement reached this week, Barry will be required to forfeit her real estate licenses for 15 years.
The firms and executives named in the suit did not immediately return requests for comment.
“What a tremendous win for working families in this city,” D.C. Council member Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) said. “This is a win for our pharmacy techs and grocery store workers and seniors … This is such an expensive city that many of our essential workers who helped us get through the last three years need a housing voucher to help get a home in this city.”
Mayor Bowser vowed to end homelessness. Here's how that's going.
More than 30,000 Washingtonians rely on some form of government subsidy to supplement the cost of housing, according to the District.
About 11,500 low-income households get aid through the federally backed Housing Choice Voucher Program, known commonly as Section 8 vouchers, which subsidize rent at homes not typically designated as affordable housing. According to the Racine’s office, 95 percent of D.C. Section 8 voucher holders are Black, and 79 percent of households using them are headed by women.
There are also local voucher programs such as the Local Rent Supplement Program, which provides tenant-based subsidies to nearly 5,000 households, the attorney general’s office said.
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has also relied on voucher programs to get homeless families and individuals out of shelters and off of the streets.
One of them, rapid rehousing, provides subsidized rent for four months to a year, and is meant to intervene in emergency situations to prevent families from losing their housing or help families out of homelessness and back into stable homes. In fiscal 2021, the District put more than $98.6 million toward funding rapid rehousing — a historically high amount.
DARO previously accepted voucher holders in at least one of its properties, Sedgwick Gardens in Cleveland Park, where the company told The Washington Post in 2019 that it had not taken steps to either “solicit or discourage voucher holders from applying” for housing at the stately apartment complex.
D.C. housed the homeless in upscale apartments. It hasn’t gone as planned.
Longtime tenants there complained that some voucher holders who were brought in as part of the District’s efforts to curb homelessness were disruptive, at times violent and lacked adequate social services to address underlying issues of addiction, mental health struggles and other challenges.
DARO’s portfolio consists of about 20 apartment complexes throughout the District and its surrounding suburbs.
“There are more bad actors like DARO in our town,” Racine said. “We are going to try as best we can to go after them.” | 2022-10-20T19:34:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Karl Racine announces $10 million DC settlement for housing discrimination - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/dc-voucher-penalty-settlement/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/dc-voucher-penalty-settlement/ |
A ballet with bayonets: Military drill teams square off on National Mall
The ceremonial squads of the five branches of the armed forces performed at the Lincoln Memorial in the first competition in a decade
Rifles fly through the air on the National Mall near the Washington Monument on Wednesday. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
The Air Force drill team stood perfectly still in front of the Reflecting Pool as Master Sgt. Antonio Lofton clicked his heels and swung a sword to his shoulder, signaling the start of a performance as crisp as the fall air Wednesday.
The 16-member squad in dress blues and white cravats snapped to attention, spun their rifles in one hand and then slammed the butts of the weapons into the ground in unison. Over the next 10 minutes, rifles fixed with knives flew high in the air and airmen marched in perfect columns.
The moves were so precise and well-timed that each palm slap on a rifle, step and heel click formed a kind of syncopated music. It was ballet with bayonets.
The performance at the Lincoln Memorial kicked off the first competition in a decade between the highly skilled ceremonial drill teams from the five branches of the U.S. military. The “Drill Off” drew rowdy cheers from dozens of enlisted men and women who came to support their teams and wowed tourists who happened by.
Daniel Rachline, who was visiting the United States from Israel, was engrossed by the military pomp. Rachline, who served in the military in his homeland, said the moves, starched uniforms and monumental backdrop created a stunning tableau.
“It’s a nice thing to see. It takes me back to my service,” Rachline said, before quipping, “but they do it a lot better than we do!”
The drill teams are intended to be the face of each military branch, serving as ambassadors and demonstrating skill, discipline and esprit de corps for the public. They have existed for decades and travel the country — and sometimes the world — performing intricate pieces that feature stepping and riflework. They have marched at NFL halftime shows, parades and funerals at Arlington National Cemetery.
The drill teams are selective, and many who apply don’t make the cut. Those who do can spend seven, eight or even 16 hours a day rehearsing the spins and rifle tosses that go into performances that can span 15 minutes. Many said they don’t mind the long hours.
“You’re a representative of the total force,” Lofton said. “When we go out and perform for a small town or college, they can rest assured the attention to detail and the effort we put into our craft is a small piece of what is put into the whole entire mission of the United States Air Force.”
The last competition occurred in 2012. Army Capt. Michael Vogel said he was inspired to resurrect the Drill Off after hearing stories of the competitions that ran between 2008 and 2012. Two were won by the Army and one each by the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.
“We are all part of the same family of ceremonial units in D.C., so we figured it was a no-brainer to get it started again,” Vogel said.
Drill teams from five branches of the U.S. military competed in a Joint Service Drill Off on the National Mall on Oct. 19 for the first time in 10 years. (Video: Justin Jouvenal/The Washington Post)
The competition Wednesday featured drill teams from the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard squaring off during two performances. A longer one featured the full drill team, while shorter pieces showcased the work of the most skilled members of each squad. The performances and presentation of each squad were judged by members of the U.S. Capitol Police.
The crowd gasped as soldiers blindly threw rifles over their shoulders only to be caught by others marching behind. Someone in the crowd yelled, “That’s a close shave!” when bayonets brushed inches from the face of a superior officer.
“The hardest thing to do is allowing your body to focus on what you’re doing in that particular moment,” said a Marine drill team member, Staff Sgt. Henry Truzy. “That’s something that is hard to perfect. It takes a lot of diligence and time.”
After more than two hours of performances Wednesday, an announcer finally ticked off the top finishers. Air Force placed third, followed by the Army in second. The announcer told the crowd the Marine Corps had taken the title, and cheers erupted.
The Marines drill team betrayed no emotion, standing stoically at attention in front of the Reflecting Pool as they were presented with a statue of a flying eagle. Truzy said earlier that a win would be nice, but the calling of the drill team was higher than winning competitions.
“The standard doesn’t change — it’s to be excellent above all else,” Truzy said. | 2022-10-20T19:34:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Military drill teams square off in first competition in a decade - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/drill-teams-military-competition-lincoln-memorial/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/drill-teams-military-competition-lincoln-memorial/ |
Raleigh gunman was shot and armed with handgun, knife sheath, when found
After the first 9-1-1 call at 5:09 p.m. last Thursday, the police had the alleged shooter in handcuffs at 9:36 pm, according to a city report.
Leigh Tauss
The Raleigh gunman accused of killing five people and wounding two others last week was found in a building by police suffering from a gunshot wound and armed with a handgun, several types of ammunition and a knife sheath, according to a new report released by the city Thursday afternoon.
Police found a shotgun and shells lying beside him, and a large hunting knife was found outside the building.
The alleged teenage shooter first killed his 16-year-old brother, James Thompson, the report said, followed by Nicole Connors, 52, police officer Gabriel Torres, 29, Mary Marshall, 35, and Susan Karnatz, 49. Marcille Gardner and Raleigh police officer Casey Clark were both shot but survived.
The four-page report said the shooter’s motive is still unknown. It is unclear how and where he purchased the weapons, and the specific kind he used.
After the first 911 call at 5:09 p.m. last Thursday, the police had the shooter in handcuffs at 9:36 p.m., the report said.
Alan and Elise Thompson said their son, the gunman, “inflicted immeasurable pain on our Raleigh community and we are overcome with grief over the innocent lives lost."
“There were never any indications or warning signs that [their son] was capable of doing anything like this," the Thompson parents said in a joint statement.
He remains in critical condition at the hospital.
The Washington Post is not naming the 15-year-old suspect because he is not a juvenile and has not yet been charged as an adult. On Friday, Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told the Raleigh News and Observer she plans to file a petition to move the case from juvenile court to superior court. The case could also automatically move to an adult court if a judge finds probable cause for first-degree murder.
The shooter was wearing camouflage clothing and a backpack, carrying a gun, police said, when he descended upon the quiet Hedingham neighborhood Thursday evening. They said he was taken into custody after an hours-long search and exchange of gunfire with multiple officers, according to the report. The officers fired 23 rounds during that time, the report said.
Victim James Thompson’s memorial service is being held Thursday night. Next Sunday, the city of Raleigh will hold another vigil to honor the five lives lost. | 2022-10-20T19:35:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Raleigh gunman was shot and found with handgun, hunting knife - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/20/raleigh-shooting-report-gunman/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/20/raleigh-shooting-report-gunman/ |
Beyond its stunning recent battlefield successes, eight months of war have rendered Ukraine a physical, financial and economic basket case. Millions of refugees have fled, the country’s gross domestic product has shrunk by about one-third, and the government, its budget depleted by the war, runs monthly deficits of $4 billion or more — mainly financed by Western grants, a lifeline for teachers, retirees living on pensions and millions of others.
Even if Russia were to withdraw now, Ukraine will remain enfeebled for years. Before Russian President Vladimir Putin rained missiles on Ukrainian power plants and other facilities this month, the cost of repairing damage to the country’s critical infrastructure had already been estimated at nearly $200 billion, according to a study by the Kyiv School of Economics. And that is just a fraction of the overall wreckage wrought by Moscow’s indiscriminate attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, rightly lionized as an inspirational wartime leader, was ineffective at best during his first three years in office in rolling back graft, the very issue that got him elected in 2019. His second prime minister, dismissed in 2020, said Mr. Zelensky fired him because the government’s own anti-corruption efforts were threatening wealthy power-brokers close to the president. Hundreds of millions of dollars in government funds and foreign aid have been siphoned off in recent years by oligarchs, who have used Ukraine’s several thousand state-run companies as ATMs, with the government’s connivance.
Western leaders cannot drag their feet on determining who will oversee and coordinate the hundreds of billions of dollars that will be required over time. Among the plausible candidates are the Group of Seven, the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the E.U. itself. Someone needs to be in charge, and soon. A good place to start on that question is Berlin, where an international conference on Ukraine’s reconstruction is set for Oct. 25.
At the same time, Ukraine should be on notice that Western aid will be heavily conditioned, and the tsunami of grants and soft loans that officials in Kyiv hope for is likely to ramp up gradually. That will disappoint some Ukrainians. But it is realistic given the political and economic pressures in donor countries grappling with energy inflation, nationalism and war fatigue. Pledges for Afghanistan’s reconstruction have so far fallen short of the United Nations target amount. The E.U.’s own promise earlier this year of 9 billion euros to close Ukraine’s monthly budget gaps has so far yielded just a fraction of that amount. | 2022-10-20T19:36:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Rebuilding Ukraine after the war is vital for the West - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/how-rebuild-ukraine-after-war/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/how-rebuild-ukraine-after-war/ |
British Prime Minister Liz Truss outside 10 Downing Street in London on Thursday. (Stefan Rousseau/AP)
“I am a fighter and not a quitter!” British Prime Minister Liz Truss thundered Wednesday in the House of Commons. “I am resigning,” she said Thursday, in a less bombastic tone of voice. Let’s hope conservatives here and around the world learn a lesson about both policy and populism.
Those markets immediately decided Truss and her cabinet were nuts. The British pound plummeted, investors lost faith in Britain’s debt, the independent Bank of England had to raise interest rates — utter chaos reigned in one of the world’s biggest and traditionally most stable economies.
Truss began rescinding her radical policies one by one, but it was already too late. On Oct. 11, a column in the Economist said Truss had “the shelf-life of a lettuce.” On Oct. 14, Truss fired Kwarteng; if she meant to toss him to the wolves, the wolves practically tossed him back. That same day, the Daily Star newspaper started running on its website a livestream of a picture of Truss next to a wilting head of lettuce, with a banner asking which would last longer. “Lettuce Wins,” the paper crowed Thursday after Truss announced her departure.
Truss never had a popular mandate in the first place — fewer than 100,000 members of the Conservative Party backed her in the vote to succeed the buffoonish but cunning Boris Johnson — and made grievous political errors as well. On Wednesday, she and her aides so mishandled a routine vote in the Commons that there was pushing, shoving and pretty much a total meltdown in the Tory ranks.
In a larger sense, however, even if you leave aside her political ineptitude and her embrace of voodoo economics, Truss was in an impossible position. So was Johnson before her, and so will be her successor. The Conservative Party is in power because it embraced populism, which turns out to be a good way to win elections but an impossible way to govern.
In British politics these days, all roads lead back to Brexit. Like many in the Conservative Party, Truss originally opposed the idea of Britain leaving the European Union. But after voters narrowly voted for Brexit in 2016, she did what Johnson and many other Tories did and became a fervent Brexit supporter, bashing the E.U. and demanding that then-Prime Minister Theresa May move more quickly to finalize the divorce.
Today, none of the promised benefits of Brexit have materialized. In fact, Britain is having a harder time than E.U. countries in dealing with the economic shocks of the covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war. There are long lines at ports of entry that even stoic Britons find hard to endure. The country faces labor shortages, especially in areas such as agriculture and home health care — relatively low-paying jobs that used to be filled by workers from Poland, Romania and other E.U. countries.
Likewise, the Conservative Party decided to encourage populist anger about immigration. In April, Johnson’s government announced a deal to send refugees who seek asylum in Britain to faraway Rwanda instead. Truss appointed a home secretary, Suella Braverman, who not only supported the Rwanda plan but wanted to go much further and see legal immigration from all sources dramatically reduced. However, Braverman resigned Wednesday. She was ostensibly fired over a documents-handling controversy, but she might as well have leapt from a sinking ship. It’s unclear what the next administration’s immigration policy might be.
When you hear Republicans in this country say “secure the border” or “crack down on crime” or “America first,” keep in mind how easy it is to write a bumper sticker and how hard it is to actually govern in a complex, interconnected world. GOP leaders, pay attention: Britain’s Conservatives have pandered their way into ruin. | 2022-10-20T19:36:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Liz Truss's fall is a warning to populists everywhere - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/liz-truss-populist-warning/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/liz-truss-populist-warning/ |
Maryland keeps making promises it doesn’t intend to keep
The Gov. Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge that crosses the Potomac River in southern Charles County. (Mark Gail/The Washington Post)
How many people used the bike path bordering the Intercounty Connector these past nice days? This question came to mind when I read the Oct. 12 Metro article on the new Potomac River bridge, “New Potomac bridge to open, a Hogan win.” The article described how the last hope for a safe bicycle and pedestrian Potomac crossing south of D.C. had been dashed when approval was given for destruction of the old Nice Bridge instead of adapting it for that purpose. Initially, there were plans to build a crossing as part of the new bridge, but once the approval process was far enough along that the Maryland Department of Transportation didn’t need environmentalist support, that was removed from the plans.
Which brings me back to my initial question, which many people will have recognized as a trick one. The answer is zero, for, again, the elaborate plans announced for a state-of-the-art path when the state was seeking environmentalist support for the controversial ICC were dropped once approval for the road was obtained.
Well, at least there is the prospect of a bicycle and pedestrian crossing when the American Legion Bridge is rebuilt. Don’t hold your breath, though. The Maryland Department of Transportation is in charge of that project also.
Roger Burkhart, Gaithersburg | 2022-10-20T19:36:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Maryland keeps making promises it doesn’t intend to keep - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/maryland-keeps-making-promises-it-doesnt-intend-keep/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/maryland-keeps-making-promises-it-doesnt-intend-keep/ |
America’s new-car shortage has that old-time Soviet feeling
A truck cab is lowered onto an F-150 Lightning at Ford's Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in September. The wait time for this battery-powered truck is about a year. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images)
President Ronald Reagan loved to tell jokes about the inefficiencies of Soviet communism. One of his favorites was the one about the man in the U.S.S.R. who went to an automobile dealership to buy a car. “There’s a 10-year delay in the Soviet Union of delivery of an automobile,” Reagan said. “So, this man laid down his money, and then the fella who was in charge said: ‘Okay, come back in 10 years and get your car.’ ”
The result? Wait times ranging from several months to two years. According to the auto-sales website YAA, the wait time for a new Subaru is 3-5 months, the wait time for new Honda vehicles is four to six months, and the wait time for a Hyundai IONIQ 5 is eight to 12 months. Ford’s combustion-engine vehicles are seeing wait times of four to six months, but you’ll have to wait between six and eight months for an electric Ford Mustang Mach-E and at least one year for the Ford F-150 Lightning. Wait times for the Toyota RAV4 Prime and Prius Prime, as well as many KIA electric vehicles, are between 18 months and two years.
Not only are manufacturers facing production delays, they are also experiencing quality control issues. The quality of vehicles sold in the United States fell to a 36-year low this year, according to automotive consultant J.D. Power. (Owners of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles cited more problems than owners of internal combustion engine models.) Moreover, thanks to the chip shortage, many new cars are being built without such advanced features as touch screens, hands-free driver assistance technology, rear access systems, wireless charging, HD radio, navigation systems, heated seats and steering wheels, and fuel-saving stop-start technology. So don’t be surprised when your new car drives a little more like the Soviet Lada or Volga the man was buying in Reagan’s story.
As supply shrinks, prices skyrocket. The average price of a new vehicle reached $48,043 in June, the highest on record. And because of the shortage, customers are paying well over list price for new vehicles. The average sales price of a new vehicle is averaging 10 percent above manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP). So, not only will you wait for months or years for your new car, you’re going to pay record-high prices for the privilege. | 2022-10-20T19:36:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | U.S. auto industry woes hearken back to days of U.S.S.R. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/us-auto-industry-delays-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/us-auto-industry-delays-russia/ |
Qatar’s Lusail Stadium, an 80,000-seat venue, will host several preliminary matches in the FIFA World Cup Tournament and then the final to determine the champion team. (Noushad Thekkayil/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
DOHA, Qatar — The president of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, was unequivocal. “Qatar is ready,” Gianni Infantino said this week, addressing one of the central concerns about the approaching World Cup: that the host country, the smallest ever to stage the tournament, would buckle under the weight of global scrutiny and the arrival of hundreds of thousands of fans.
With a month to go until the first match, though, preparations are still a work in progress. The backbone of the tournament infrastructure — eight stadiums and an extensive metro system that will deliver fans to the matches — is ready, officials insist. But many other parts of Qatar remain under construction, draped with scaffolding or hidden behind screens, while some facilities critical to the visitor experience, including fan zones and apartment blocks, are still being built.
Questions persist about whether the accommodations are enough. Qatari officials have offered an assortment of unusual housing options, including steel cabins that look like storefronts and traditional wooden boats known as dhows, and they recently announced the addition of 30,000 rooms to meet surging demand. Nearly 3 million tickets to the tournament have been sold, FIFA said, with top purchasing countries including Qatar itself, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Human and labor rights groups say they continue to be concerned about the welfare of the foreign workers who transformed Qatar during a spate of zealous construction over the past 12 years using a system that advocates has been deadly for workers and rife with abuse. Despite Qatar’s adoption of labor reforms, the risks to workers remain, including those recruited to staff the tournament, observers say.
And for the World Cup soccer players, especially those who also participate in club leagues, the tournament’s unusual timing means they have little opportunity to practice with their national teams.
Qatar’s great virtue as host — its small size, which allows for speedy travel between stadiums for fans and teams alike — also is a potential liability, with infrastructure used by a population of 3 million people having to serve more than a million additional visitors. Qatari officials have acknowledged some of the challenges, including traffic congestion, but insisting they have plans to meet any difficulties.
“There’s a lot of issues that keep anyone awake at night,” Hassan al-Thawadi, the secretary general of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy — Qatar’s World Cup organization — said during an interview Wednesday. Organizers are working with a “standard checklist” for such an event, including operational and transportation logistics, movement in and out of stadiums, and ensuring “people are having a great time,” he said.
“I’m not saying everything’s fine. But what I’m saying is, if there is anything that gives some comfort, it’s that our team has proved a number of times their resourcefulness and resilience in the face of issues that come up — some expected, some completely from left field,” Thawadi said.
Residents have approached the question of whether the country is ready with a mixture of enthusiasm, apprehension and resignation. “We’re about to find out,” said J.M. Diaz, 38, a respiratory therapist, as he took a sunset stroll last week on the seafront road known as the Corniche. This key traffic artery that will be closed to vehicles during the tournament.
“It’s a very small city,” said Diaz’s wife, Aileen Robles. They said they were not focusing on what could go wrong, though, but on the match they planned to attend, South Korea vs. Ghana. “Everyone is excited,” Robles said.
To ease congestion, organizers have announced that schools will be suspended and most government employees who can work from home will do so. Some cars will be barred from large parts of the city, and public transportation networks are being augmented, including by adding metro cars. The government has opened an old airport to commercial airline traffic, including hundreds of regional shuttle and charter flights in and out every day, moving ticket holders for day trips, or those who decided to stay in neighboring countries including the United Arab Emirates.
Officials insist that there is enough accommodation for the visitors in apartments, hotels and other facilities, including prefabricated huts. A booking website for ticket holders showed a range of options this week for peak periods during the tournament, at prices ranging from $80 to several thousand dollars a night.
But at least one of the lower-cost options, an apartment complex featured on the website, appeared still to be under construction when a Washington Post reporter visited this week, with cranes towering overhead and unpainted buildings surrounded by scaffolding. A worker at the site said “some” buildings inside had been completed.
Everywhere, there are workers and the sound of heavy machinery. They toil on the sides of roads and highways that connect to the stadiums, built so recently that GPS devices do not have up-to-date directions. On a recent evening, a group was working on a row of unfinished yellow structures in Doha’s souk, or market district, that are supposed to serve as a broadcast center.
The rush to the tournament’s finish line has revived alarm at the treatment of migrant workers, despite an overhaul of labor regulations by Qatar in recent years that set a minimum wage and reformed a system that prevented workers from changing jobs or leaving the country at will.
That overhaul had brought “some notable improvements” for the country’s 2 million migrant workers, Amnesty International said in a statement Thursday, but added that thousands of workers “are still facing issues such as delayed or unpaid wages, denial of rest days, unsafe working conditions, barriers to changing jobs, and limited access to justice, while the deaths of thousands of workers remain uninvestigated.”
Normally, the World Cup takes place in June and July, after most players have completed league seasons with their clubs in May. They report to training camps for several weeks of workouts, play warm-up matches, then travel to the host country for final preparations. This World Cup, however, was moved to the winter because of the searing summer heat in the Persian Gulf. Consequently, the tournament falls in the middle of most league schedules, such as the English Premier League and the German Bundesliga, which will go dark for many weeks.
Because of the overlap, most players will not report to their national teams until Nov. 12-13, just a week before the World Cup. Few teams will have time for tune-up games, and instead of teams’ flying to Qatar as whole units, their players will arrive individually shortly after playing in league matches.
The U.S. players from Major League Soccer teams will arrive Nov. 10, just five days after the MLS championship has been decided. European-based players will follow in the ensuing days. | 2022-10-20T19:39:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The World Cup starts in a month. Will Qatar be ready? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/20/qatar-world-cup-2022-doha/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/20/qatar-world-cup-2022-doha/ |
Don’t let Putin fool you — an aggressor can’t be a peacemaker
By Andriy Yermak
Firefighters work after a drone attack on buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday. (Roman Hrytsyna/AP)
Andriy Yermak is head of the presidential office of Ukraine.
This month, human rights campaigners from Ukraine won the Nobel Peace Prize for the first time in our country’s history. The symbolism of the award was strengthened by the fact it came on Vladimir Putin’s 70th birthday.
But for Ukraine, this event was significant for other reasons. Many of our people were upset that the prize was divided into three, with the other winners hailing from Russia and Belarus.
The other two groups are undoubtedly worthy winners; both have fought against tyranny and in support of human rights in their own lands. But they also come from the two aggressor states waging war against Ukraine. Such a combination evokes the idea, often touted by Russian imperialists, that Ukraine, Russia and Belarus are “brotherly nations” that naturally belong together and must be constantly encouraged to reconcile.
You might believe that resistance to this idea is ill-tempered. But Ukrainians have reasons to feel this way, for the story of the “brothers” has been repeated for years.
Since 2014, when Russia seized Crimea, we have heard calls for peaceful reconciliation. We have heard calls for diplomacy, as if we started this war. We are told that it is time to stop the bloodshed, as if we were the ones who want to fight. We are advised to prioritize the interests of humanity, as if we are threatening the world with a nuclear apocalypse.
After staging sham “referendums” in the occupied Ukrainian territories, Russia announced it was ready to “resume” negotiations with Ukraine and congratulated itself for these peacemaking efforts. Nearly all Russian high-ranking officials suddenly started talking of readiness for negotiations with Ukraine. What they are not talking about is the return of captured territories, the release of people deported from Ukraine against their will, the payment of compensation for damage caused by the war, and an agreement to extradite war criminals. Russia does not address these issues for one simple reason: Moscow wants to end the war as a winner.
Russian troops are retreating. Russia’s industry is short on resources, its economy is collapsing, and an urgent cessation of hostilities is the only way for Russia to save face. To this end, the Kremlin is ready to resort to nuclear blackmail while its useful idiots in the West mount louder and louder calls for peace.
Unfortunately, some seem to have heard its voice. Former and current politicians and influential business executives call for negotiations with the Kremlin. For the sake of peace. For the sake of the world. For the sake of humanity. But not for the sake of Ukraine. Nor for the sake of justice.
This is not the first time. Since the war began in February, the narrative has morphed from “Ukraine must disappear so that Russia can calm down” to “Ukraine must surrender so that Europe can stay warm.” Now the narrative has become “Ukraine must stop liberating its territories to prevent a new world war.”
Russia’s enablers should ask voters whether they can appease a regime that has perpetrated the most grievous act of state terrorism since the Second World War. Russia has launched thousands of cruise and ballistic missiles at peaceful cities (and 100 in just one of the recent daily attacks) — just as the Nazis did. Can civil societies in the West accept a regime that considers apartment buildings, museums and playgrounds legitimate targets?
Russia is flattening Ukrainian cities and destroying critical infrastructure, including dams and power plants. Against this background, the Kremlin is calling on the West to broker a deal to establish a new normal.
Cynically, Russia and its Western supporters are holding out an olive branch. Please do not be fooled: An aggressor cannot be a peacemaker.
Ukraine seeks peace. Ukraine longs for peace. But our conditions are known. We have voiced them many times. President Volodymyr Zelensky put it simply: punishment for the crime of aggression; protection of the “right to life, liberty and … security” as outlined by Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; restoration of Ukraine’s security and territorial integrity; security guarantees; and the global community’s determination to implement this program.
Ukraine will not succumb to peace by coercion. Ukraine needs clear guarantees that when Russia leaves the illegally occupied territories, it will never return. We believe any deal should start with respect for our right to self-determination, the inviolability of our sovereignty and the integrity of our borders. Without it, European security will always depend on the whims of whoever happens to reside in the Kremlin. And a significant number of Russian elites will always be obsessed with securing their own zone of exclusive interests, including Ukraine.
To give Russia what it wants would show that the West has not learned the lessons from this war. But the West has another option.
Ukraine’s security can never be subjected to geopolitical bargaining. We therefore call for the creation of the Kyiv Security Compact — a strategic partnership that will unite Ukraine and its guarantor states in the West. It will be based on the principle that Ukraine’s security depends primarily on its ability to defend itself.
This will require a multidecade effort of sustained investment in Ukraine’s defense and industrial base, scalable weapons transfers, and intelligence support from allies.
In the meantime, Ukraine wishes to join NATO as soon as possible. Our application is clear evidence of that. However, we will need guarantees of protection until we succeed.
Security guarantees should come from a core group of allied states with significant military capabilities. Both political and legal commitments are required. Along with military support, a broader set of nonmilitary, sanctions-based safeguards should be maintained by a wider group of international partners. We must ensure that the price of aggression will be too high for Russia. This should become the starting point for a new “great deal” on the part of the West.
Any other stance would mean an inevitable return to the world of illusions conjured up by the Kremlin.
Commentary from Ukrainians
Opinion|Ukrainians are rejoicing at victory — and awash in trauma and grief | 2022-10-20T20:00:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Don’t let Putin fool you — an aggressor can’t be a peacemaker - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/andriy-yermak-russia-aggressor-not-peacemaker/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/andriy-yermak-russia-aggressor-not-peacemaker/ |
Monumental Sports names new NBCSW GM, eyes new streaming platform
Monumental Sports & Entertainment announced Friday Abernethy as the new general manager of NBC Sports Washington on Thursday. (Courtesy of Monumental Sports & Entertainment)
After Ted Leonsis, whose Monumental Sports & Entertainment owns the Washington Wizards, Capitals and Mystics, purchased NBC Sports Washington, the regional sports network that broadcasts Wizards and Capitals games, it was natural to wonder how the acquisition would affect the viewer experience. The short answer, at least for this season: not much.
Media industry veteran Friday Abernethy, who on Thursday was named the new general manager of NBC Sports Washington, said the look and feel of game broadcasts and other programming on the network — as well as the ways in which fans can access that content — will be largely the same as it was before the August deal was announced, though enhancements, to include a new digital streaming platform, are in the works.
“I think in the short term we’re really excited about reimagining our programming slate outside of the live games,” Abernethy, who has nearly three decades of experience in the industry, with a focus on distribution and content licensing, said in a video interview. “I think by us having full ownership of it, it allows us to [ask], ‘How can we go deeper with the teams and bring more of that personal element to the fans?’”
Abernethy mentioned Meghan McPeak’s addition as a sideline reporter for Wizards games as one of the few changes made to the Capitals and Wizards broadcasts this season, and she said new team-focused programming is expected to debut by next season.
After the acquisition, which was completed last month, Zach Leonsis, Monumental’s president of media and new enterprises and Ted’s son, said Monumental was interested in exploring a direct-to-consumer streaming option for Capitals and Wizards games that would give fans access to the broadcasts without requiring a cable subscription. According to a release, Monumental has hired digital platform ViewLift to “design, integrate, develop and launch a robust digital experience for Mid-Atlantic sports fans across all major streaming devices.” While Abernethy said the network is focused on supporting its traditional linear TV experience for the time being, it will have a potential model to follow when it decides to go the digital route.
Earlier this week, Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer launched “ClipperVision,” a direct-to-consumer streaming platform with six live viewing options, including an augmented reality stream with shot probability graphics and statistics, live commentary from former players and Korean and Spanish-language broadcasts. The service, which does not require a cable subscription, costs $199.99 for 74 games this season and includes access to a library of past games and highlights.
Abernethy, who will be tasked with overseeing day-to-day operations of NBC Sports Washington while helping lead its integration into Monumental’s existing platform, said she will be watching the response to ClipperVision “really closely.” She will also be keeping an eye on Bally Sports, which launched a stand-alone subscription streaming service in September, and New England Sports Network (NESN), which became the first regional sports network to live stream NHL games in 4K High Dynamic Range this season.
“I think it’s sort of the tip of the iceberg in terms of where sports rights can go,” said Abernethy, who spent seven years in executive-level positions at Univision and fills the role at NBCSW previously held by Jackie Bradford, who remains the president and general manager of NBC 4 and Telemundo. “… I think alternate feeds are super interesting. There could be a betting feed, there could be multiple languages. Those are all things that we’re exploring.”
Monumental, which acquired a one-third stake in NBC Sports Washington from Comcast in 2016 and also owns the NBA G League’s Capital City Go-Go and the NBA 2K League’s Wizards District Gaming, has experimented with gambling-focused alternate TV broadcasts before.
In addition to its Capitals and Wizards coverage, NBC Sports Washington airs extensive pregame and postgame coverage of the Washington Commanders, as well as a daily Commanders-focused, half-hour show hosted by Julie Donaldson, the team’s senior vice president of media and content. Abernethy said the network hasn’t made any decisions about how it will cover the Commanders, or any of the other local sports teams not owned by Monumental, beyond this season.
“We’ll be exploring all of the opportunities that we have in the local market,” she said.
Monumental also announced that D.C.-based agency HZ will support its rebranding effort, and Diversified, a technology solutions provider, will oversee the development of a new production facility near Capital One Arena. Construction is expected to be completed by next season. | 2022-10-20T20:13:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Friday Abernethy named new general manager of NBC Sports Washington - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/nbc-sports-washington-friday-abernethy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/nbc-sports-washington-friday-abernethy/ |
D.C. at-large hopefuls go after incumbents in latest debate
A D.C. Council sign sits at The John Wilson Building on July 2, 2019 in Washington. (Marlena Sloss/The Washington Post)
Seven candidates vying for two at-large seats on the D.C. Council debated topics from term limits to statehood at a debate on Wednesday, aiming to distinguish themselves as Election Day nears. As in previous debates and forums, political newcomers took repeat shots at the incumbents who are hoping to retain their seats.
“I’ve made no secret that the council has done a terrible job at oversight … our council is very good at pointing fingers after the fact,” said independent candidate Karim Marshall, a former council staffer, while discussing a recent HUD report that outlined myriad problems at the D.C. Housing Authority. “These things have been said for the last decade, but suddenly because there’s a HUD report, these issues are now serious.”
Independent candidates Graham McLaughlin, Fred Hill and incumbent council member Elissa Silverman joined Marshall at the debate. Council member Anita Bonds, another incumbent who won the Democratic primary and is favored to retain her seat, rounded out the conversation along with Republican Giuseppe Niosi and D.C. Statehood Green party candidate David Schwartzman.
Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie (D-Ward 5), who is running as an independent for an at-large seat, did not attend the debate but was endorsed Thursday morning by council chair Phil Mendelson (D); Silverman, meanwhile has received endorsements from fellow council members Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) and Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1).
The wide-ranging discussion was hosted by the D.C. Bar and arrived during a period of urgency for the candidates: most city voters have already received their ballots in the mail and are finalizing their selections ahead of early in-person voting, which begins Oct. 31. Some have already cast their votes through ballot drop boxes, which opened across the city last week.
Asked about the council’s oversight, Niosi offered a similar assessment to Marshall, calling housing a major issue in the light of HUD findings published earlier this month that concluded poor oversight and faulty governance drove the D.C. Housing Authority’s failure to provide “decent, safe, and sanitary” housing for its residents in violation of federal requirements. “But the thing I’m mostly focused on is making sure we no longer have a 20-year-record high crime wave,” he added (last year, D.C. reported 200 homicides for the first time since 2003). “A lot of the policies that we’ve been seeing on the council have done nothing to mitigate that.”
Schwartzman said the council needed to go further in its oversight of the Department of Human Services, which contains many of the District’s homeless and youth services, to reduce the wide life expectancy gap between the city’s White and Black residents.
In response to a question about the District’s elections and the popular public campaign financing program, both McLaughlin and Hill said city lawmakers should be subject to term limits. McLaughlin said he would impose a term limit on himself to ensure his priorities aren’t skewed by political allegiances or the need to appeal to a particular base: “I think that’s a critical aspect of ensuring we have a political system where folks are making the right decision for the largest number of people every time,” he added.
Hill, a longtime business owner in Ward 8, said that he was against public financing, which caps individual donations at small dollar amounts while matching contributions from city residents, 5 to 1, with taxpayer funds; he argued that any candidate can be successful if they knock on enough doors. On term limits, he said that candidates should be more prepared before they take office so they can accomplish goals in less time.
“If you have to come in and try the [on-the-job training] method of learning what needs to be done, serving people in this city is not for you,” he said. “And we’ve seen that carried out with the current council members.”
Silverman and Bonds were each asked about how they, as at-large council members, balance the needs of the entire city with those of ward-level lawmakers who may object to certain proposals. Bonds said it’s crucial for lawmakers to get feedback from Ward-level legislators, who often hear direct feedback from their constituents, before noting that advocates often impact how the council legislates.
“There is extreme lobbying, not just from the registered lobbyists but from the advocates that pretty much control many of the agendas that are put forth at the council,” she said. “I would like the advocates to register [their activity] just like the lobbyists … to have a process where it’s very clear who is talking to whom. Not to stop the process, but certainly make the process more transparent, a word that we all use much too much and don’t implement it.”
Silverman, in her response, noted that she was at the helm of a city redistricting effort this past year that rankled some residents concerned by proposed changes to ward and Advisory Neighborhood Commission boundaries.
“We listened to residents, we listened to businesses we listened again, we had a lot of hearings. And in the end, you have to make a decision based on what you think is the best public policy,” she said. “And you can make compromises.”
There was one area where all the candidates united: asked if they supported a taxpayer-financed stadium in D.C. to host the Washington Commanders, they all said no, though Niosi, citing an investigation into Commanders owner Dan Snyder as his main holdup, said he “would be willing to address it later.”
“I would like to see the team being publicly owned,” Schwartzman added, noting that the Green Bay Packers are the only community-owned major league professional team in the United States. “Then I would reconsider it.” | 2022-10-20T20:31:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. Council candidates debate as voters finalize their choices - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/dc-at-large-debate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/dc-at-large-debate/ |
Actor Kevin Spacey exits a Manhattan courthouse in early October. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
A New York jury on Thursday found Kevin Spacey not liable in a sexual assault and battery case brought forward by actor Anthony Rapp, who sought $40 million in damages, according to the Associated Press. The jury deliberated for a little over an hour.
The lawsuit, filed in September 2020, alleged that Spacey placed Rapp on a bed and climbed on top of him in a sexual manner at a party held at Spacey’s Manhattan residence in 1986, when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26. The actors met while on Broadway. Rapp shared the story in a BuzzFeed News interview from October 2017, the same month the New York Times and New Yorker published articles detailing years of assault allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
Rapp told BuzzFeed News that the entertainment industry conversations sparked by the Weinstein exposés led him to “try to shine another light on the decades of behavior that have been allowed to continue [by] many people, including myself, being silent.” After the interview ran, Spacey wrote in a tweeted statement that he could not remember the encounter with Rapp.
“But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for all the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years,” Spacey wrote. He came out as gay in the same statement.
The lawsuit accused Spacey of assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, noting that Rapp “sustained psychological injuries” that, in some cases, were “of a permanent and lasting nature.” The document made the same three claims on behalf of another plaintiff referred to only as “C.D.,” who was dismissed from the case last year after U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled it wouldn’t be fair for Spacey to have to defend himself against accusations made anonymously.
Reuters reported that Kaplan dismissed Rapp’s claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress during trial proceedings because it repeated aspects of the assault and battery claims.
Rapp testified that he came forward with his accusations “because I knew I was not the only one who Kevin Spacey made inappropriate sexual advances to,” according to the Hollywood Reporter, which also stated that a forensic psychologist who evaluated Rapp said in court that he dealt with “a tremendous amount of shame, guilt and confusion” after the alleged assault. Variety reported that Rapp described the encounter as “the most traumatic single event of my life.”
According to Deadline, Spacey’s lawyers argued that the test results leading to Rapp’s diagnosis with post-traumatic stress disorder were inconsistent to the extent they were “unusable.”
Spacey said in court that the allegations against him were “not true” and that he regretted sharing the statement he posted to Twitter, the AP reported. He added that his team advised him to post it because they saw it as the wisest way to manage “a crisis that was going to get worse.”
In his testimony, Spacey described growing up “in a very complicated family dynamic,” stating that his father was a “White supremacist and neo-Nazi” who lectured Spacey and his siblings. When Spacey expressed interest in theater, he said, his father “used to yell at me at the idea that I might be gay.”
More than a dozen others have accused Spacey of sexual misconduct, including crew members who worked on “House of Cards,” the Netflix drama series that earned Spacey 10 Emmy nominations as an actor and executive producer. He was fired from the show in 2017 over the sexual harassment allegations and earlier this year ordered to cover resulting losses by paying producers $30 million.
A sexual assault charge against Spacey in Massachusetts was dropped in 2019 due to the “due to the unavailability of the complaining witness,” and a lawsuit in California was dismissed that same year after the accuser died. Spacey is currently awaiting trial in the United Kingdom on five counts of sexual assault related to incidents alleged to have taken place in England between 2005 and 2013, including one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.
A lawyer representing Spacey, who served as artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London at the times of the alleged encounters against three separate men, said during a court appearance in June that the embattled actor “strenuously denies any and all criminality in this case.” | 2022-10-20T20:44:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kevin Spacey found not liable in Anthony Rapp sexual assault lawsuit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/20/kevin-spacey-found-not-liable-anthony-rapp-sexual-assault-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/20/kevin-spacey-found-not-liable-anthony-rapp-sexual-assault-lawsuit/ |
Victor Robles was named a Gold Glove finalist for the second time in his career. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
For the second time in his career, Nationals center fielder Victor Robles has been named a Gold Glove finalist.
The 25-year-old was named Thursday as one of three National League candidates by Rawlings, joining Trent Grisham of the San Diego Padres and Alek Thomas of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Robles was also a finalist as a rookie in 2019, losing to Lorenzo Cain.
Although the Nationals defense struggled this season, ranking near the bottom of the league in a handful of defensive metrics, Robles was a bright spot. He finished the year with 12 defensive runs saved, the most for any NL center fielder and 3rd in the majors behind Cleveland’s Myles Straw and former National and Michael A. Taylor, now of the Kansas City Royals.
Robles added seven assists to only six errors. Robles’s athleticism in the field was a major reason he kept his spot in the lineup despite batting just .224.
“Victor’s an unbelievable center fielder. I’ve always said he’s going to win a Gold Glove,” Manager Dave Martinez said late in the season. “But he’s got to do all the other things correctly. Throwing the right place, bunting when he needs to bunt. … I don’t view him as a fourth or fifth outfielder. I want him to play everyday.”
Former National Juan Soto was a finalist in right field. His inclusion came as a bit of a surprise given his defensive metrics were below league average; he finished with -2 defensive runs saved while playing more innings in right field than any other player. | 2022-10-20T20:53:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nationals’ Victor Robles named a Gold Glove finalist - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/victor-robles-nl-gold-glove-finalist/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/victor-robles-nl-gold-glove-finalist/ |
Cornerback William Jackson III started for the Washington Commanders in their Week 1 defeat of the Jacksonville Jaguars. He has since been benched and is dealing with a back injury. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Unless something significant changes, cornerback William Jackson III’s season (and perhaps career) with the Washington Commanders appears to be over. Coach Ron Rivera has declined to directly address the fact that the Commanders benched Jackson during their Oct. 9 loss to Tennessee, and Jackson recently denied the recent report that he’d like to be traded — but it’s clear the team’s decision to not play him is not just about his back injury.
Cleveland and Jones agreed to alter Jones’s contract, removing the nearly $12 million owed to him in 2023, which minimizes the Browns’ financial obligation to Jones and allows him to hit free agency a year sooner.
“Odds are an acquiring team would look to do the same here with Jackson, as none of that money is guaranteed anyway,” Spielberger wrote. “Furthermore, an acquiring team may also ask Washington to eat some of Jackson's remaining 2022 salary owed, and Washington would be wise to do so if it can leverage that into a better draft pick return.”
If the Commanders were to release him this year, they would assume $13 million in “dead cap” and save $812,500, according to the website Over the Cap. One reason Washington would consider this move would be to clear the books for next season, when Jackson is set to have a cap hit of $15.75 million, one of the most expensive in the league.
If neither happened, the Commanders would assume a $9 million dead cap by cutting him before June 1. | 2022-10-20T20:53:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Commanders benched William Jackson III. What comes next? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/william-jackson-commanders-trade-cut/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/william-jackson-commanders-trade-cut/ |
Putin’s war crimes victims are joining forces — and they want him behind bars
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, with Gen. Sergei Surovikin in December 2017. (Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces have committed countless war crimes over the past decade in Syria. Now, he is putting the very same people, weapons and tactics implicated in those atrocities to fresh use in Ukraine. But that could well turn out to be a huge mistake. Syrians and Ukrainians are teaming up to seek justice for Russia’s victims and force accountability on Russian war criminals — and Putin is at the top of their list.
As Ukrainian forces have pushed Russian occupiers out of towns such as Bucha and Izyum, the horrifying scenes they’ve uncovered there are eerily reminiscent of Putin’s past atrocities in cities such as Grozny and Aleppo. Putin recently appointed Gen. Sergei Surovikin — known as “General Armageddon” for his conduct in Syria — as commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. Putin’s partner in Syria, Iran, has now deployed drones and troops on the Ukrainian battlefield. The results for Ukrainians are appalling.
On Tuesday, the United Nations’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine issued a report that found that Russian forces have conducted widespread war crimes, including strikes against civilian infrastructure, attacking humanitarian facilities, and “patterns of summary executions, unlawful confinement, torture, ill-treatment, rape and other sexual violence committed in areas occupied by Russian armed forces.”
As of last month, a network of Ukrainian human rights organizations had documented more than 21,000 cases of war crimes, said Oleksandra Matviichuk, founder of the Center for Civil Liberties, a Kyiv-based organization that was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.
“Russia tries to break people’s resistance and occupy their country using the tool of immense pain on civilians,” Matviichuk said at an event I moderated on Wednesday at Georgetown University’s Mortara Center for International Studies. “We document this pain. In parallel, we are searching for a complex strategy of justice to [hold] all the perpetrators accountable.”
She is part of a group called the Syria Ukraine Network, which has brought Syrians and Ukrainians together to collaborate on war crimes documentation, medical aid, fighting Russian disinformation and protecting civilians from Russian forces. They are trading information on Russians who have both Syrian and Ukrainian blood on their hands.
“A Russian soldier or officer in Ukraine may not have killed a kid there yet, but he may have done so in Syria, and if captured, should be held accountable,” said Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force. “We all must work together. It’s in the national interests of the United States and its allies, and it’s the right thing to do.”
Tragically, the world’s neglect of Putin’s past atrocities in places such as Chechnya and Syria has emboldened the Russian leader to expand these practices to Ukraine, said Stephen Rapp, a former U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues. But the common misperception that Putin himself is immune from war crimes prosecution under international law is just wrong.
“What we’ve seen is Russia getting away with murder for years and years and never being held to account. ... Impunity breeds impunity,” Rapp said. “But the [International Criminal Court] does have jurisdiction. ... The prosecutor could indict Putin tomorrow.”
Under the doctrine of command responsibility, Putin is directly responsible and vulnerable to prosecution, Rapp said. And he added that the ICC isn’t the only venue in which Putin and other Russian war criminals can be tried. They can also be prosecuted in Ukrainian courts, or — based on the principle of universal jurisdiction — in courts in third countries. (Syrian war criminals have already been prosecuted in German courts, for example.)
Now, the techniques that war crimes investigators in Syria have spent years developing are being taught to Ukrainian investigators and prosecutors. Yevgeny Vindman, a former White House official and retired Army colonel, is part of a joint U.S.-European effort called the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group, which is key to that effort.
“Like it or not, [senior Russian officials] are subject to jurisdiction under the ICC, or Ukrainian national courts, or some other body, and they can be prosecuted,” said Vindman. “The Ukrainians have taken first steps of doing that … and they are looking at cases of command responsibility up the chain.”
There are several tools the U.S. government could use to help this effort. There is bipartisan support in Congress for declaring Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, which would simply recognize the plain truth. The United States could also support calls from the Baltic states for an international tribunal to hold Putin and Russia accountable for the separate international crime of aggression, which the United States (and Russia) used to prosecute Nazi war criminals at Nuremburg.
Putin’s international crimes have no statute of limitations. As long as he breathes air, he must understand that his victims and their families will never stop seeking justice. The least the rest of us can do is to support that effort — so that hopefully, one day, his victims can see Putin and all who carried out his atrocities tried and jailed, just as they deserve.
Opinion|Escape from Russia: A young college student tells his tale | 2022-10-20T20:53:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Syrians are helping Ukraine track Putin's war crimes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/syria-war-crimes-investigators-helping-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/syria-war-crimes-investigators-helping-ukraine/ |
Wildfire smoke made the air quality in the city worse than Delhi or Beijing -- with uncertain health effects.
The Seattle skyline continues to be obscured by a thick haze of smoke, as seen from West Seattle's Seacrest Park on Tuesday. (Ellen M. Banner/The Seattle Times via AP)
SEATTLE — Seattle had the worst air quality in the world Thursday, with a heavy mix of fog and smoke blotting out the horizon, the surrounding mountains and the Space Needle.
It was the second day in a row that the city had the worst air quality on earth, beating out famously polluted cities like Beijing and Delhi. Seattle’s air quality index, or AQI, reached over 240 on Wednesday and Thursday — a level defined as “very unhealthy” for all groups. It was hard to see the top of a building a block away, and people wore masks to protect themselves from particulates in the air and the acrid smell of smoke.
According to the air quality monitoring site IQAir, Seattle’s concentration of PM 2.5 — tiny particles less than 2.5 microns in width — on Thursday afternoon was 38 times higher than the annual guideline recommended by the World Health Organization.
The cause was forest fires raging in the Cascade Mountains, combined with weeks of unusually dry and hot weather. On Sunday, Seattle broke a record for the hottest day this late in the fall, at 88 degrees Fahrenheit. Washington state has experienced precious little precipitation since June; 56 percent of the state is currently in drought, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Seattle having the worst air quality in the world is a “shocking statistic,” said Maddie Kristell, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Seattle. Part of the problem, she explained, is a persistent ridge of high pressure that has kept storms from settling over Seattle.
“That ridge was really strong and it was just not allowing a difference in weather patterns to come through,” she said. That, combined with above-normal temperatures, allowed the fires to burn on for longer than they might otherwise.
The city’s terrible air comes at a time when researchers are trying to understand whether wildfire smoke is worsening — and how it is affecting human health on the West Coast and beyond. According to a study published last month, the number of people in the United States experiencing an extreme smoke day has increased significantly over the last decade.
“Intuitively if you live in the West, you know that things have changed, it’s become smokier,” said Marshall Burke, a professor of earth science at Stanford University and one of the co-authors of the study. “But our goal was to try to quantify how much.”
Between 2006 and 2010, the researchers found, fewer than 500,000 people every year were exposed to a single day of extreme levels of PM2.5. But between 2016 and 2020, that number climbed to over 8 million. A hotter, drier climate — combined with a failure to plan and execute prescribed burns that can prevent giant wildfires — has caused an increase in the number of Americans exposed to choking, acrid air during the summer and fall.
Researchers know that PM2.5 is extremely bad for human health — it can exacerbate respiratory and cardiovascular problems, and frequent high exposures have been shown to affect cognition and children’s test scores. But, Burke said, nobody really knows how brief spikes of extremely high air pollution affect health and cognition.
Staying inside isn’t necessarily a fix: the air quality monitoring site PurpleAir showed that even many indoor air sensors in Seattle Thursday were reporting AQIs of between 100 and 150, which can be dangerous for many vulnerable groups.
When faced with terrible air quality, Burke recommends staying inside, keeping doors and windows and using air purifiers or other filtration systems wherever possible. Those without air purifiers can make what are called “Corsi-Rosenthal boxes,” or box fans with air filters taped to them for a quick DIY solution for cleaning indoor air.
Ultimately, however, researchers are just beginning to scratch the surface of the fire-filled climate future. Poor air quality “affects our lives in a lot of ways,” Burke said. “We’re only beginning to understand the extent to which it matters.”
The air quality alert in effect for Seattle expires Friday morning. Rain is expected Friday afternoon into Saturday, a system the National Weather Service said should “help further improve air quality.”
Jason Samenow contributed reporting | 2022-10-20T21:06:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Seattle air quality is the worst in the world two days in a row - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/20/seattle-air-quality-worst-in-world/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/20/seattle-air-quality-worst-in-world/ |
While spring is most active for severe thunderstorms, a second surge of activity accompanies autumn.
Homes destroyed by a tornado as seen from an aerial view on Dec. 12, 2021, in Mayfield, Ken. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)
Residents of the Plains and Deep South know to hold their breath during the months of April and May. That’s when the clashing seasons routinely bring swarms of severe thunderstorms, with bouts of destructive hail, damaging winds and tornadoes terrorizing the landscape. But autumn can offer a sneaky flurry of dangerous weather, and it’s known as a “second season” for strong to severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.
Tornado deaths trending down, but last December's outbreak shows enduring danger
High-end events aren’t as common as during the spring months, but tornadoes in the late fall and wintertime can be every bit as dangerous. In fact, there’s research to suggest tornadoes in this second severe season may be stronger in some instances, quicker-moving and able to cover more ground.
In the near term, meteorologists are already tracking the threat of some severe weather over the Corn Belt and Mid-South next week.
What are the ingredients for severe weather?
Severe weather requires two main ingredients: fuel (or “juice” for storms) and spin. The former, called CAPE, or Convective Available Potential Energy, is the energy that helps air parcels to ascend. CAPE is ordinarily greatest on warm, humid days. In the autumn and winter, it’s typically more meager than spring and summer.
Spin is needed to sculpt any updraft into a rotating storm. That comes from shear, or a change of wind speed and/or direction with height. In the presence of shear, any cloud that grows tall enough to span multiple layers of atmosphere will begin to twist, in some cases rotating like a barber pole. These clouds can become supercell thunderstorms capable of producing baseball-sized hail, hurricane-force winds and tornadoes.
Supercells result when a rotating thunderstorm can exist in isolation. Other times, storms explode along a boundary and merge, becoming a squall line. That happened last Dec. 15, when a line of violent thunderstorms brought 90 to 100 mph winds and a whopping 120 confirmed tornadoes to the Midwest, namely eastern Nebraska, Iowa and southeastern Minnesota.
Five days prior, a high-end severe weather outbreak produced an EF4 tornado that razed most of Mayfield, Ky., claiming 57 lives during its 2 hours and 54 minute rampage.
What happens in the fall?
In the fall, the jet stream strengthens and shifts farther south. The jet stream is a river of swiftly moving winds in the upper atmosphere. As winter’s chill builds in the polar regions to the north, it pushes the jet stream toward the equator as it “follows” the steepest north-to-south temperature contrast.
That means wind shear climbs markedly in the autumn. While CAPE is tough to come by, in the periodic instances that it is available, thunderstorms often become tornadic. The stronger jet stream translates to higher-end tornadoes (a greater proportion of “significant” tornadoes reaching EF2 strength or greater), which tend to move more quickly, because storm systems translate west to east at a swifter speed.
Late October, November and December tend to see an uptick in tornado events. According to the website U.S. Tornadoes, November has an average of 56 tornadoes. December averages 27 twisters — though that comes with enormous variability, since some years have hardly any, and others feature outbreaks.
There are some indications that human-induced climate change is also amplifying the extent to which insurances of warm, moist air can ride northward in the cool season, bolstering the availability of CAPE. That may have been a contributing factor to last year’s December severe weather outbreaks.
What’s the forecast for next week?
On Sunday, a strong shortwave, or pocket of high-altitude cold air, low pressure and spin, will dive over the western U.S. By Monday, it will pass over the Four Corners. That will enhance upward motion ahead of it. The jet stream, meanwhile, will be ripping overhead.
Meanwhile, that upper-air disturbance will enhance the development of a surface low pressure, ahead of which a sliver of acutely warm, moist air will ride northward over the Corn Belt. The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center has already highlighted an area of level 2 out of 5 “slight risk,” which includes extreme eastern Nebraska and the Loess Hills of Iowa, as well as the Missouri River. That means places like Omaha and Council Bluffs, Iowa, could be in line for storms.
“[The] primary risk will likely be locally damaging wind gusts from late afternoon into the evening hours, within a narrow zone of [shower and thunderstorm activity] near/just ahead of the advancing cold front,” wrote the Center.
Then on Tuesday, a secondary surface low could develop over Oklahoma and move northeast, potentially bringing additional strong to severe storms somewhere in the Mississippi Valley. Confidence on that second episode, however, is low. | 2022-10-20T21:06:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | While spring is most active for severe thunderstorms, a second surge of activity accompanies autumn. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/20/second-severe-thunderstorm-season-tornadoes/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/20/second-severe-thunderstorm-season-tornadoes/ |
At trial, Que Wallace described rushing to the scene where her 17-year-old, college-bound daughter had been struck by a stray bullet
Retired D.C. police officer Que Wallace in 2020, holding a photo of her daughter, Jamahri Sydnor. (Amanda Voisard for The Washington Post)
For about a decade, Que Wallace investigated homicides in the District, notifying family members of their loved ones’ deaths and testifying in the accused killers’ trials.
But when she took the witness stand in D.C. Superior Court earlier this week, raising her right hand and pledging to tell the truth, she did so not as a police investigator but as a mom.
Wallace’s daughter, 17-year-old Jamahri Sydnor, was shot on the afternoon of Aug. 10, 2017, when a stray bullet shattered her car window and struck her in her head. The graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School in upper Northwest Washington, who was less than two weeks away from her freshman year as a communications major at Florida A&M University, died two days later.
At a trial this week for two men accused in the killing, federal prosecutors alleged Jamahri was an innocent victim, driving her 12-year-old nephew home from the barbershop when two people began firing gunshots wildly as part of a long-running battle between two Northeast Washington gangs: the Langston Park Crew and the Saratoga Crew. Prosecutors called Wallace, who has since retired after nearly 32 years with the D.C. police, to testify about how she rushed to the scene after hearing her daughter had been shot.
Wallace said she saw Jamahri’s car behind yellow crime-scene tape draped around trees and streetlights as colleagues held her back.
“I just kept asking: ‘What’s going on? What’s happening?’” she said.
Wallace described Jamahri as her “baby” — the youngest of her four children, going by the nickname “Jammi.” As she spoke, one juror in the front row bowed and shook her head. Several of Wallace’s family members, including Jamahri’s father, Jerome Sydnor, wiped away tears and moaned.
Charged with first-degree murder in the case are James Mayfield, 23, and Robert Moses, 23. Their defense attorneys argue that they are innocent and that prosecutors’ case hinges on the unreliable account of a man who admitted being involved in the killing.
That man, Philip Carlos McDaniel, 26, talked for hours with investigators. Authorities said he admitted driving Mayfield and Moses to and from the neighborhood where the shooting took place in a gold Honda with New Jersey license plates and tinted windows. Authorities said McDaniel told them Mayfield and Moses shot indiscriminately into the intersection of Saratoga and Montana avenues as an act of revenge against the Saratoga Crew for an earlier incident. Prosecutors said the Saratoga Crew had been in a generations-long feud with the Langston Park Crew, of which they said Mayfield and Moses were a part.
Panic-stricken residents tried to run and dive on the ground for safety. In addition to Jamahri, three bystanders were also injured. Jamahri’s car crashed into an SUV. According to an arrest affidavit, when an unnamed witness confronted Mayfield about shooting the college-bound teenager, Mayfield responded, “She got in the way.”
“Twelve shots ripped through that intersection. No one knew what was happening,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah C. Santiago. “None of the victims had anything to do with this rivalry. They just happened to be there.”
Their daughter was killed by a stray bullet. Then their act of kindness touched thousands.
Wallace recalled her daughter phoning her just minutes before the shooting. She testified that she took the call in the parking lot of the Wegmans supermarket in Prince George’s County, Md., and her daughter ended their conversation with her standard goodbye: “Okay, love you lots. Love you bunches.”
Jamahri was less than eight blocks from home. But about five minutes later, Wallace said, she received another call from a family member. Jamahri’s nephew had rushed to his grandmother’s house and told relatives of the shooting, and they passed the news on to Wallace.
“I was screaming: ‘What’s going on? What happened?’” Wallace testified. She said she frantically tried calling her daughter’s cellphone but no one answered.
Wallace said she called 911 and tried to get a police car to pick her up from the parking lot and speed her home — a courtesy she said her D.C. police colleagues might have afforded her during her family emergency. “I told them I was a D.C. police officer and I needed to get to my house with my children,” she recalled.
But because Wallace was in Prince George’s County at the time, her 911 calls were routed to Maryland police, who did not offer her a ride. Wallace said she began driving and ran into rush-hour traffic on the Beltway and Route 202 leading toward the District.
At one point, she said, she briefly sped down the opposite side of the road, against oncoming traffic, to get by.
While on the road, she received a phone call from her grandson. “He said, ‘I’m sorry. Aunt J. has been shot,’” Wallace testified. “… I just started screaming.”
Attorneys for Mayfield and Moses told the jurors their clients were innocent and that no eyewitnesses, aside from McDaniel, identified Mayfield and Moses as shooters. The attorneys argued that there was no DNA linking either of the men to a weapon and that one of the guns that prosecutors said was linked to Moses via shell casings found at the scene was mistakenly destroyed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
In exchange for cooperating, McDaniel pleaded guilty to lesser crimes in the shooting, including second-degree murder. The deal allowed him to avoid the mandatory 30-year minimum sentence plus additional years in prison, which Mayfield and Moses face if convicted. Mayfield is also charged in connection with two separate fatal shootings.
McDaniel is also scheduled to testify at some point during the trial in Judge Maribeth Raffinan’s courtroom.
Veronice Holt, one of Mayfield’s attorneys, said McDaniel “repeatedly lied” to detectives about his connection to the Honda, the shooting and other matters. She told jurors that McDaniel was caught on video pulling the fire alarm in the police homicide interrogation room but told detectives he never touched the alarm.
Holt alleged a homicide detective encouraged McDaniel to confess to being the driver to avoid a harsher punishment and to instead identify someone else as the shooter. McDaniel, she said, had been linked by authorities to numerous illegal weapons and charged with selling a loaded “ghost” gun to an undercover FBI agent. But prosecutors, Holt said, dismissed those charges in exchange for his testimony against Mayfield and Moses.
“My client was falsely accused of a crime he did not commit,” she said.
Holt argued that one witness told authorities of seeing only two people get into the car’s driver side and passenger side after firing guns into the street and sidewalk. She acknowledged authorities found Mayfield’s fingerprints inside the Honda but told jurors that McDaniel had driven her client around days before the shooting. “Mr. McDaniel is the only person who identifies my client as a shooter,” she said. “He made up a story and told detectives my client was in the vehicle, when he was a shooter and the driver.”
Steven Kiersh, one of Moses’s attorneys, said it was McDaniel who “helped plan the shooting.” Kiersh also said Moses was not getting a fair trial, because Kiersh was unable to hire an analyst to perform a DNA test on the gun since ATF had destroyed it.
The trial is expected to last about five weeks. | 2022-10-20T21:06:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Former D.C. police detective describes learning of daughter's killing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/jamahri-sydnor-murder-trial-mother/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/jamahri-sydnor-murder-trial-mother/ |
Man fatally shot in Prince George’s, police say
A man was fatally shot Thursday afternoon in Prince George’s, county police said.
Officers responded to a reported shooting at about 2:10 p.m. in the 3200 block of Walters Lane in the District Heights area. They found a man outside with gunshot wounds, police said. | 2022-10-20T21:06:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man fatally shot in Prince George's County - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/man-shot-fatal-prince-georges/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/man-shot-fatal-prince-georges/ |
Lake Mead is seen in June, near water intakes on the Arizona side of Hoover Dam at the Lake Mead National Recreation near Boulder City, Nev. (John Locher/Associated Press)
A young boy from Clark County, Nev., has died after being infected by a brain-eating amoeba that he may have been exposed to in Lake Mead on the Arizona side of the lake, the Southern Nevada Health District said in a news release Wednesday.
If so, this would be the first reported case of a brain-eating amoeba at Lake Mead National Recreation Area. For the state of Nevada, this is the second death caused by the brain-eating parasite, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The boy, who was younger than 18, visited the Kingman Wash area of the park, on the weekend of Sept. 30, according to a statement by the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. The young boy developed symptoms approximately a week after interacting with the fatal amoeba.
The initial symptoms include headache, fever, nausea, and vomiting. Once the symptoms begin, the disease typically causes death in about five days.
“This is a very tragic situation and our sympathies are with this young man’s family and friends,” Jennifer Sizemore, the chief communications officer at Southern Nevada Health District told The Washington Post.
The brain-eating parasite is medically termed Naegleria fowleri; it earned its colloquial name because the amoeba feasts on brain tissue as food if water containing the parasite goes up the nose.
If you swallow the amoeba, you’re not in any danger. Additionally, the infection the amoeba causes is not contagious.
Earlier this year, a swimmer in Ohio was infected with the brain-eating amoeba. In response, the Iowa Department of Public Health announced a beach closure at the Lake of Three Fires State Park while the lake and other water sources would be tested for Naegleria fowleri.
A brain-eating amoeba may have killed child in Nebraska, officials say
The beaches at Lake Mead remain open for recreational swimming. Sizemore said the decision to keep the Lake Mead park open was made by the National Park Service.
“Naegleria fowleri is commonly found in bodies of fresh warm water and while the risk of infection is low, recreational water users should always assume there is a risk when entering the water and take precautions,” she added.
Sizemore said there are no plans to post warning signs.
“The location and number of amoebae in the water can vary over time within the same lake or river, which means posting signs can create misconceptions,” she said. “If there are no signs people may think there is no risk, or if there are signs, they may think the risk is limited to the area where the sign is posted.”
In the health district’s news release, Dr. Fermin Leguen, the District Health Officer said, “While I want to reassure the public that this type of infection is an extremely rare occurrence, I know this brings no comfort to his family and friends at this time.”
It is tremendously rare for humans to be infected by brain-eating amoeba. But once infected, it’s uncommon to survive it. The death rate from the infection is 97 percent.
Between 1962 and 2021, the United States reported 156 cases, according to the CDC. Only four people survived.
In most cases, children or young adults are infected by the deadly amoebas. The parasite is commonly found in bodies of warm freshwater, such as lakes and rivers, and geothermal water, such as hot springs, according to the CDC.
Texas and Florida have the highest number of reported cases for brain-eating infections, followed by California, Arizona and South Carolina.
As a precaution, the CDC suggests limiting the amount of water going up your nose by wearing nose clips or keeping your head above water when in freshwater, especially when water temperature is high and water levels are low. | 2022-10-20T21:07:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nevada boy dies from brain-eating amoeba - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/20/nevada-boy-dies-brain-eating-amoeba/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/20/nevada-boy-dies-brain-eating-amoeba/ |
But, partly due to an abruptly canceled passion project for Pixar called “The Shadow King,” it’s been 13 years since Selick’s last film, “Coraline.” Back in 2015, Selick met with Peele about making what would become “Wendell & Wild." At the time, Peele and Keegan-Michael Key were still making “Key & Peele.” “Get Out,” which would launch Peele as Hollywood’s foremost horror practitioner and an in-demand filmmaker, hadn’t come out yet. | 2022-10-20T21:07:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In 'Wendell & Wild,' stop motion moves to an Afro-punk beat - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/in-wendell-and-wild-stop-motion-moves-to-an-afro-punk-beat/2022/10/20/80f0cd7a-50b6-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/in-wendell-and-wild-stop-motion-moves-to-an-afro-punk-beat/2022/10/20/80f0cd7a-50b6-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
Misrach Ewunetie, a 20-year-old Princeton student, was found dead on Thursday. (Princeton University)
Princeton University announced Thursday afternoon that a missing student, Misrach Ewunetie, has been found dead on campus.
The university said there were “no obvious signs of injury and her death does not appear suspicious or criminal in nature,” citing information from the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office and the Department of Public Safety. An autopsy has been ordered to determine the 20-year-old student’s cause of death.
Ewunetie went missing early Friday. Her family asked Princeton to check on her Sunday night, after not hearing from her for several days. A day later, university officials announced she was missing and asked for the campus community’s help in locating her.
On the night of Oct. 13, Ewunetie reportedly volunteered during a music event at Terrace Club, one of Princeton’s 11 eating clubs. After it closed, she and other members on duty “left for the night,” the club’s student officers said in a statement to the university newspaper, the Daily Princetonian.
She was last seen around 3 a.m. Friday near student residence building Scully Hall, officials said.
Ewunetie’s brother, Universe Ewunetie, described her to NBC News as “a very smart, empathetic person who cares for people.”
The family is originally from Ethiopia, he told the outlet. Ewunetie grew up in Euclid, Ohio, and Princeton is her only connection to New Jersey, he said. | 2022-10-20T21:07:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Princeton University student Misrach Ewunetie found dead on campus, school says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/20/misrach-ewunetie-princeton-student-missing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/20/misrach-ewunetie-princeton-student-missing/ |
He wanted his dad’s business. He kept hiring hitmen until they killed him.
Anthony Zottola Sr. was convicted of plotting attacks that killed his father in hopes of profiting from the real estate properties he left behind. (iStock)
When a masked person threatened millionaire real estate magnate Sylvester Zottola at gunpoint in November 2017, he survived.
When three men broke into his residence almost a month later, stabbed him multiple times and slashed his throat, Zottola clung to life but made it.
The attacks didn’t end. In October 2018, Zottola was fatally shot at a McDonald’s drive-through in the Bronx while waiting for his cup of coffee.
Zottola, who was 71, owned multifamily rental properties valued at tens of millions of dollars at the time of his death.
The man behind the violent string of attacks overseen by a Bloods gang member was close to home: His son Anthony Zottola Sr., 44, who helped him manage his business.
On Wednesday — more than five years after the first assault against his father — a federal jury convicted Anthony Zottola Sr. of plotting the series of attacks that ultimately led to his father’s death, all in hope of profiting from the properties the eldest Zottola left behind.
Following the six-week trial, the jury also convicted Himen Ross, his accomplice, of Sylvester Zottola’s murder-for-hire.
Both men face mandatory life sentences.
“Over the course of more than a year, the elderly victim, Sylvester Zottola, was stalked, beaten, and stabbed, never knowing who orchestrated the attacks,” Breon Peace, the U. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said Wednesday. “It was his own son, who was so determined to control the family’s lucrative real estate business that he hired a gang of hitmen to murder his father.”
Anthony Zottola Sr. also hired hit men to unsuccessfully kill his brother Salvatore Zottola, prosecutors say. Salvatore Zottola suffered gunshot wounds to his head, chest and hand when a gunman opened fire in front of his house on July 2018, court records state.
An execution looked like a mafia vendetta. But the man’s son planned the hit, feds say.
Ross, 36 — hired by Bloods gang member Bushawn Shelton — learned about the eldest Zottola’s whereabouts on Oct. 4, 2018, using a tracking device placed in his car. When Ross found him at the drive-through that day, he fatally shot Sylvester Zottola while he waited for his to-go coffee inside his car. Shelton, 38, pleaded guilty in August 2022 to murder-for-hire conspiracy and murder-for-hire. He is awaiting sentencing.
Moments after Sylvester Zottola was killed, Ross and Shelton texted each other. Then Shelton texted Anthony Zottola Sr. to let him know the job he’d hired him to do had been completed.
“Can we party today or tomorrow?” Shelton texted Anthony Zottola Sr.
“I have the cases of water in a day or so,” he texted back, referring to the payout for the murder-for-hire. | 2022-10-20T21:07:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Anthony Zottola Sr. convicted in hitman plot that killed his father Sylvester Zottola - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/20/zottola-father-son-hitman-murder/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/20/zottola-father-son-hitman-murder/ |
A sticker that has "WHO WILL SURVIVE IN AMERICA?" written on a power pole near Washington Square Park following a coronavirus outbreak. (Photo by Jeenah Moon for The Washington Post)
The imbalance in death rates among the nation’s racial and ethnic groups has been a defining part of the pandemic since the start. Early in the crisis, Black people died at higher rates than White people. But at the end of last year, the racial disparity in covid deaths vanished. Now, White people are more likely to die of covid than Black people. Reporter Akilah Johnson breaks down the complex, historic forces that brought us here and what this means for the future.
And, you may have heard the news about the resignation of United Kingdom Prime Minister Liz Truss. Truss lasted 44 days, making her the nation’s shortest-tenured prime minister in 300 years. Our colleagues in London are bringing you the latest news of what could happen next – and you can find their reporting on washingtonpost.com.
We also had an episode earlier this month about the eroding faith in the new prime minister – it’s called “In Truss, the UK doesn’t trust.” It’s a great explainer of who she is and how her proposals weakened the country’s already struggling economy. You can listen to it here. | 2022-10-20T21:08:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Black-White covid death rate flipped. Why? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-blackwhite-covid-death-rate-flipped-why/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-blackwhite-covid-death-rate-flipped-why/ |
Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt listens as his Democratic challenger, Joy Hofmeister, the state’s public schools superintendent, speaks during a debate at Will Rogers Theatre in Oklahoma City on Oct. 19. (Sarah Phipps/The Oklahoman/AP)
“So let’s talk about the facts,” Joy Hofmeister, the Democratic candidate for governor in Oklahoma, said during a debate Wednesday. “The fact is, the rates of violent crime are higher in Oklahoma —”
“It’s not true,” incumbent Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) interjected.
“— under your watch,” Hofmeister continued — with Stitt interjecting again, “It’s not true” — “than in New York and California. That’s a fact.”
The moderator promised that the claim would be fact-checked. Meanwhile, Stitt was chuckling.
“Oh my gosh,” he said. As Hofmeister began to speak again, he again broke in: “Hang on. Oklahomans, do you believe we have higher crime than New York or California? That’s what she just said!”
And that, in a nutshell, is how the debate on crime in the United States has played out. Democrats point to the available data, data that’s usually at least two years out of date. Republicans point to perceptions of crime, particularly in urban areas — perceptions that are long-standing and bolstered in recent months by Fox News.
We can start by fact-checking Hofmeister’s claim — or at least, checking it as best we can. Data from the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer shows that rates of violent crime were, in fact, higher in Oklahoma than New York or California in 2020. In California, the rate was 442 incidents per 100,000 residents; in Oklahoma, it was about 459 per 100,000. That’s in part because rates in Oklahoma rose between 2019 and 2020.
Notice that we’re talking about rates: the frequency of violent crime. It’s certainly not true that there is more violent crime in Oklahoma than New York or California, since those states have much larger populations. If there are only 10 murders in one town compared to 100 in the next one over, that’s not much consolation if the population of the first town is 100 and the population of the second is 1 million.
But then, those rates are from 2020. We don’t have good state-level data from 2021 at this point, much less 2022, thanks to changes in how the FBI collects data. Many large police departments haven’t yet converted over to the new system, so the 2021 data reported to the FBI from New York (for example) covers only 17 percent of the state’s population.
Since New York City (most of the missing chunk in the data the state handed over to the feds) reports its own data, though, we can note that in 2019 and 2020, its violent crime rate was lower than Oklahoma’s. Since we don’t have good data from Oklahoma for 2021, though, we can’t see if the surge in the city in 2021 pushed its rate past Oklahoma or not.
In other words, if the question is whether Oklahoma has had more violent crime per person this year than New York or California, we can’t fact-check it. We don’t know.
This is a wildly underrecognized point and a critically important one. That’s particularly true because crime is a core part of the political debate as the midterms approach. That people are prone to believing that crime is rising regardless of what’s actually happening — as research has shown — means that talking about rising crime simply feels true. Polling from YouGov conducted in August showed a pattern that’s recurred over and over since violent crime began to fall in the 1990s: People tend to think crime is rising nationally even if they don’t think it’s increasing where they live. So if you are a candidate or organization with a vested interest in amplifying concern about crime, it’s easy to cherry-pick incidents or isolated measures to reinforce that concern.
In that YouGov polling, Republicans (who easily outnumber Democrats in the state) were much more likely to suspect that crime was a very serious problem nationally. To some extent, this is about how conservative media is talking about crime, often focusing on cherry-picked examples or points of data. But it’s also to some extent about the divide between urban and rural Americans. When Fox News covers crime, it’s almost uniformly in urban areas, despite reporting showing that rural areas are also battling more crime. Hofmeister’s invocation of New York and California was meant to contrast Stitt with blue states, but also, certainly, with the major cities those states contain.
The right has been tying Democrats and big cities and crime together with great energy since the summer of 2020. Even though research published earlier this year by the group Third Way found that Republican states had higher murder rates than Democratic ones. It’s a subset of violent crime, but one that gets a lot of attention.
In response to points like the one above, Republicans often blame blue cities in those red states. So let’s just look at Oklahoma. There were 4,326 violent crimes in Oklahoma City in 2021, according to city data. In a population of 688,000, that’s a rate of 666 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. That’s far higher than the rate in New York City.
Oklahoma City is also the largest U.S. city to vote for Donald Trump in 2020. Its mayor is a Republican, as is the state’s governor, Stitt.
It would be great if we had comparable, real-time numbers on crime from across the country. We don’t. And that means that efforts to talk about crime are hindered by a lack of data and polluted by appeals to emotion. The result is a debate — in Oklahoma and nationally — in which those two forces awkwardly collide.
But of course, Hofmeister is right. On Stitt’s watch — in 2020, that is — Oklahoma had a higher violent crime rate than those two large blue states. Even if it doesn’t now and even if it didn’t feel that way. | 2022-10-20T21:08:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A perfect encapsulation of the partisan divide on crime - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/crime-oklahoma-republicans-governor/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/crime-oklahoma-republicans-governor/ |
“(’King of Chinatown’) was part of this multi-picture deal at Paramount that gave her more control, more say in the types of films she was going to be participating in,” he said. “For a Chinese American woman to have that kind of multi-picture deal at Paramount, that was quite outstanding.” | 2022-10-20T21:08:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Momentous': Asian Americans laud Anna May Wong's US quarter - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/momentous-asian-americans-laud-anna-may-wongs-us-quarter/2022/10/20/cc5fff5c-50b5-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/momentous-asian-americans-laud-anna-may-wongs-us-quarter/2022/10/20/cc5fff5c-50b5-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
White House and Federal Reserve officials remain focused on inflation and confident in the economy’s trajectory
President Biden waves during his walk to the Oval Office on the South Lawn of the White House on Monday. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
Amid intensifying forecasts of a U.S. recession, Washington policymakers are beginning to confront their limited options for easing the effects of a slowdown accompanied by high inflation – a confounding set of economic conditions that would present starkly different challenges from recent downturns.
Officials at the White House and the Federal Reserve say that they continue to believe a recession can be avoided and that they remain focused on fighting inflation, which is rising at rates not seen in four decades. But with Wall Street trembling, and many private forecasters warning that recession is likely, preliminary talks about policy options are underway around town.
On Capitol Hill, congressional officials have begun discussing the challenge of intervening to alleviate the pain of a recession in ways that do not exacerbate inflation. At the White House, aides have informally begun weighing hypothetical options, such as unemployment benefits and food stamp assistance. And at the Federal Reserve, staffers have discussed with outside analysts how monetary policy could simultaneously respond to an economic contraction and high prices — a dual challenge it has not faced in decades.
“I’m asked a lot by policymakers what we should do during the next recession if inflation is still high — this is very much on their minds right now, including inside the Biden administration,” said Wendy Edelberg, director of the Hamilton Project and a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, a center-left D.C.-based think tank. “I have talked to them about it.”
Experts generally agree that a downturn now is unlikely to cause the kind of deep rupture in the labor market seen during the Great Recession of 2008-2009 or the 2020 collapse in the face of the pandemic. Many analysts predict that any downturn is likely to be “mild,” with unemployment staying below 5 or 6 percent. The current unemployment rate is 3.5 percent.
But Washington’s options for providing relief could be constrained by the effort to fight inflation. During the pandemic and the Great Recession, Washington flooded the economy with aid to the unemployed and other cash supports. If enacted now, such policies would risk pushing inflation higher. Meanwhile, with the Fed hiking interest rates faster than it has in decades as part of its battle against inflation, the new federal spending would require additional borrowing at a time when debt is becoming increasingly expensive.
“Typically in a recession, where inflation is not too high, monetary and fiscal policy try to stimulate demand to stimulate our way out of a recession — which has the effect of bringing up inflation from too low a level,” Edelberg added. “But in this case, stimulating our way out of a recession would be counterproductive to the efforts to also fight inflation.”
Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, said Fed staffers had reached out to him to discuss how economic turmoil abroad could weigh on the U.S. economy and how financial markets would respond if a recession happened while inflation was still high, or if there was a more conventional recession that happened in tandem with global economic upheaval. “It was within the context of the current environment, which is more external than U.S.,” Brusuelas said.
In a statement, a senior White House official disputed the idea that the administration was preparing for a recession and emphasized aides’ focus on inflation. The job market has proven very resilient despite the central bank’s rate hikes — unemployment claims fell to a three-week low in mid-October, a report out Thursday showed. Another report next week is expected to show economic growth in the third quarter of this year.
Today’s economic data compared with recessions over the past 50 years
“The White House is not planning for a recession — the economy is showing growth, and the unemployment rate is 3.5 percent, the lowest in 50 years,” said Heather Boushey, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. “We are working on bringing down inflation, and focused on lowering the cost of living.”
Policymakers around Washington are adamant that they are concentrating on lowering prices in the face of the highest inflation in 40 years. The latest inflation report showed prices continuing to rise again in September, with “core inflation” climbing a worrying 0.6 percent over the month. The labor market has maintained its rapid growth, as well: The United States added 263,000 jobs in September, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent. In that context, some government officials dismissed the idea of planning for a recession now as premature.
But cracks have emerged that have many policymakers worried. The Federal Reserve’s campaign to cool inflation has led to a series of large interest rate hikes aimed at slowing consumer demand and spending. Despite the persistence of inflation and the strength in the job market, there are indications that the Fed’s efforts are working: Housing demand is plummeting, and the stock market has fallen precipitously. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage, the most popular U.S. home loan, rose to 6.94 percent in this week’s Freddie Mac survey, a huge increase from 3.22 percent in January.
At the White House, some officials recently had informal discussions about potential policy responses to the next recession and the lack of obvious available tools, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private talks. Those talks touched on improvements to the unemployment system and increased food stamp benefits as potential measures that could buffer vulnerable Americans from a recession without boosting broad-based inflation. White House aides emphasized that such conversation was hypothetical and not a reflection of serious administration policy considerations.
The president has also summoned aides to brief him on the potential for a similar panic in financial markets to the one in the United Kingdom, one person familiar with the matter said. The aides found that such an outcome was highly unlikely. This briefing was first reported by the New York Times.
“We may have to think about this recession in terms of very targeted relief; it’s a much more subtle strategy,” said one person aware of the administration’s “highly preliminary” talks, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. “We are trying to prepare for a recession where there is also inflation, and so the sweeping recovery bills in the style of the American Rescue Plan or the Cares Act or the Recovery Act are off the table — economically and politically.”
White House scrambles on inflation after Biden complains to aides
Congress is starting to wrestle with similar questions. At a bipartisan briefing for staffers earlier this week, three policy analysts — Edelberg; Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute; and Marc Goldwein, senior vice president of policy for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget — fielded questions about how lawmakers should weigh options for responding to a recession. Several Democratic members of Congress have also separately asked about potential policy responses to a recession in the next year, according to Strain.
“They’re asking for the policy options available if we have a recession,” Strain said. “I suspect the administration is concerned about the possibility of a recession in 2023.”
The most difficult challenge in an inflationary recession may be that faced by the Federal Reserve. Typically, when downturns emerge, the central bank lowers interest rates to stimulate demand. But a recession that starts while inflation is still high would complicate that response. Federal Reserve officials at an annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in August held both formal and informal discussions about the difficulty the central bank would have fighting inflation and a recession at the same time, according to Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University who worked as a lead economist at the International Monetary Fund.
Among the challenges facing the bank is that its balance sheet remains large from its response to covid, limiting the extent to which it can buy assets to prop up spending. Its other major tool — interest rates — would face similar constraints, because any cut to rates to juice economic demand would work against this year’s attempts to contain inflation.
A spokeswoman for the central bank declined to comment.
“This is a real conundrum for both monetary and fiscal policy right now. How can policymakers avoid stoking inflation while still supporting a weakening economy that is heading toward a recession?” Prasad said. “The tools involved are very different.” | 2022-10-20T21:10:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Recession fears rising, Washington begins to consider how to respond - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/10/20/recession-inflation-white-house-fed/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/10/20/recession-inflation-white-house-fed/ |
Transcript: Domestic Violence: The Shadow Pandemic
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Frances Stead Sellers, a senior writer here at The Post.
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and today we have two segments focusing on the impact of the pandemic on domestic violence. First to join me is Rosie Hidalgo. She's a senior advisor at the White House Gender Policy Council.
Rosie, a very warm welcome to Washington Post Live.
MS. HIDALGO: Thank you so much, Frances. I really appreciate the invitation to join you today and to have this important dialogue, particularly, as you know, during Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention Month. Thank you very much.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Well, we're delighted to have you.
And before we start, I want to have a quick word with our audience. Tweet your questions to Rosie at @PostLive. That's the Twitter handle @PostLive. We'll try to pick some of them up and pose them to her.
So, Rosie, let's get started. The UN dubbed this a "shadow pandemic," the surge domestic violence. Talk to me about that word "shadow" and what we should be doing to bring domestic violence into the light.
MS. HIDALGO: Well, thank you so much. You know, and I think as we're all aware, domestic violence was already a significant public health issue, even before the pandemic. It affects millions of people every year and really undermines health and well‑being, mental health, physical health, economic security of individuals who are impacted as well as their families, the community as a whole, our nation, and even globally.
But I think to your point, the pandemic brought it to sharper focus, the ways in which specific risk factors were exacerbated during the pandemic and the added barriers and challenges to seeking safety services and support.
And so, as you mentioned, it's called a "pandemic within a pandemic" or a "shadow pandemic," but thankfully, it has been an opportunity to bring more focus and really continue to enhance our nation's commitment to prevent and to improve the response to domestic violence in all forms of gender‑based violence.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Rosie, I've seen the statistic of an 8 percent increase in domestic violence. I'd love you to talk to me about how accurate those statistics are, particularly during a period when people were quarantining and then lockdown, and also about the impact of lockdowns on domestic violence.
MS. HIDALGO: Yes. And I think to your point, it's very hard to know as yet the full data. I think only time will tell as more research is done, but I think undoubtedly what we saw, what we heard, certainly what we heard from the National Domestic Violence Hotline, from national organizations and state coalitions and every‑‑throughout the 56 states and territories were the ways in which survivors were experiencing these increased risks.
So, as you mentioned, one of the ways in which someone who is choosing to abuse causes harm is often by isolating that person, and that was already a tactic before the pandemic. But, again, when people had to isolate at home, not only because of the quarantine, but even afterwards as people were trying to reduce their risks, it made it so much harder for individuals to be able to seek safety and support. They were also isolated from support networks, that people were no longer going to work, but working from home, if children were no longer going to school or even the ways in which it made it harder for someone who wanted to leave an abusive situation to find shelter, to find housing. Oftentimes people go and stay with family and friends, but of course, in the midst of the pandemic, that brought increased risk.
Even domestic violence shelters struggled with the challenges from congregate living, how to keep survivors safe, how to be able to get extra funding for vouchers for people to stay in motels and hotels to try to reduce putting more than one family in a room together.
So, again, we also saw courts who moved to tele‑proceedings and only the most urgent proceedings. It made it much more difficult for survivors to go in, for example, and seek an order of protection.
And, at the same time, we also know that economic security is such an important factor. It can increase the risk of someone who's encountering economic barriers, and we saw the pandemic really exacerbate that.
So, as individuals were losing their employment or having reduced ability to do their work and get the hours they needed, if they worked in the restaurant industry, hotel industry, so many different industries that disproportionately impacted women, women who oftentimes were already struggling with inadequate wages, right, inadequate access to childcare, inadequate access to health care, all of these different factors were further exacerbated during the pandemic. So it really has been an opportunity to, once again, recognize why we need a much more holistic approach.
And while, on the one hand, we did see some rates of increase of people calling the police or calling hotlines, in some areas, there was a decrease because people did not feel safe in their homes to reach out for help.
Some people also just had difficulty reaching service providers who themselves were struggling in the midst of the pandemic with how to adapt their services.
So there were a myriad of factors, but overall, our nation's commitment to really address this and certainly the commitment of Biden‑Harris administration to make this a priority has made a significant impact to really try to continue to better address these issues, not only during the pandemic, but going forward to have a much more holistic strategy in our nation's commitment to prevent and end domestic violence in all forms of gender‑based violence.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So, Rosie, I'd like to ask you specifically about the Violence Against Women Act, which was reauthorized earlier this year with bipartisan support. What are the changes here? What are the commitments going ahead?
MS. HIDALGO: Yes. Thank you. And, as the you, the Violence Against Women Act, when it originally passed in 1994, then Senator Biden was a lead author and champion in coming together with the movement, with advocates and others to advance this really landmark legislation when it originally passed VAWA.
But what's interesting about VAWA is it's up for reauthorization technically every five years, and when that happens, it's an opportunity for our nation again to identify gaps and barriers, see where progress has been made, but continue to see where we can improve the Violence Against Women Act as well as other important pieces of legislation.
So President Biden very much championed the reauthorization of VAWA during this past term of Congress, and with bipartisan support, we were able to not only renew it but strengthen it, expand it. So what it did is it reauthorized many important grant programs funded through the Violence Against Women Act that go out, significant funding that reaches all 56 states and territories, and really, it's funding that helps build what's known as a coordinated community response, how do we really address these issues more holistically, bringing all the key players to the table.
And it also funds a lot of other significant grant programs that reach underserved and historically marginalized communities. So there's specific funding to reach tribal communities, to reach LGBTQ populations, those who are facing additional barriers based on disabilities, on age, those from communities of color. We saw during the pandemic the ways in which racial and ethnic minority communities also experienced initially a lot of disproportionate barriers to access to services.
So there are ways in which this VAWA continues to expand for all survivors as well as addressing issues that impact different populations at these intersections to be better able to meet these needs and also to just better train law enforcement on what are trauma‑informed approaches, to better support health care providers, sexual assault nurse examiners, to integrate the best promising practices, to really make sure we're eliminating the rape kit backlog, and to really put other tools and resources in the hands of communities, both to prevent and improve our response to domestic violence.
So this VAWA was a very important historic opportunity. It was last reauthorized in 2013. So, unfortunately, it took longer than it probably should have, but thankfully, because of a lot of concerted effort of advocates, the voices of survivors, that their stories, their lived experience, their courage are really what helped propel this work, and really the bipartisan commitment to get this across a finish line has really helped us move our nation's commitment forward with this reauthorized VAWA.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Rosie, you used the word "intersection." I do want to ask you a little bit more about the intersectional approach. Of course, the Violence Against Women Act now sounds like sort of old‑fashioned title. Could you just give me specifically some examples of how an intersectional approach helps these days?
MS. HIDALGO: Yes. And you bring up a really good point. I'm glad you raised that. When it was originally entitled the Violence Against Women Act, it was to bring attention to the fact that this is a harm that disproportionately impacts women. It disproportionately impacts individuals in the LGBTQ+ community.
But, nonetheless, we know that men also can experience gender‑based violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, dating violence, or other intersective forms of violence. And, from the outset, violence has been gender neutral, and it is important to put that out there that any and every individual who experiences any form of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, stalking, trafficking should be able to reach out, get services and support, and really to your point, meet a survivor where they're at across different intersectional identities that may at times present additional barriers, additional burdens to being able to access services and support.
And so VAWA, even in 2013, included a special nondiscrimination provision that for the first time in federal legislation also called out how important it is to make sure there's no discrimination on the basis of sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, national origin, all the ways in which service providers are continuing to meet survivors where they're at and provide them services, but to your point, recognizing that we also need to get resources, build capacity, develop the leadership in different communities amongst different populations to make sure that there's multiple pathways to safety.
Someone may want to go to a DV shelter. Someone may want to go to a Hispanic community resource center. Someone might want to go to an LGBTQ, you know, community clinic or that focus is on the LGBTQ community.
So how do we make sure someone to reach out to services in their own tribal community? So, for example, we're now funding a national hotline, specifically called the Native Heart‑‑the StrongHearts Native Helpline, recognizing that individuals who experience disproportionate levels of violence, for example, in Indian country want to oftentimes speak to other Native American advocates and be able to navigate some of the additional complexities they may face, especially, for example, at the hands of non‑Native perpetrators where there are complexities around jurisdiction of the tribal courts. And that's something that this VAWA really has helped expand special criminal jurisdiction in tribal courts, built capacity and support the leadership, the resources in tribal communities to address these issues.
So these are different ways in which VAWA has sought to continue to move that, that commitment forward.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So we're talking from a very sort of top‑down approach, of course, because you're working with the White House. The administration invested something like a billion dollars, I think, towards service providers. How is that changing the life and the experience of people who are really on the front line, on the ground dealing with these issues?
MS. HIDALGO: Yeah. That's a great question, and I think it's important to recognize that there's some key sources of federal funding, to your point, in addition to VAWA. And the president made a commitment in the budget to fund VAWA at a billion dollars a year. We're not there yet, but that should be an ongoing commitment.
Also the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, that's through the Department of Health and Human Services, which is also critical core funding. That was initially passed in 1984, and it's really core funding for DV shelters, service programs, coalitions, national resource centers. That needs to be reauthorized. It already passed the House with important improvements, and we're working to get it across to Senate and strengthen that source of funding and support as well.
And then the Victims of Crime Act is another very important federal resource, and we recently passed an amendment to that, to VOCA, to strengthen allocations of funding for the crime victims fund.
But, again, these are different federal sources, and in the midst of the pandemic, the president and the Biden‑Harris administration overall allocated an additional $1 billion in supplemental funding through the American Rescue Plan, because, again, recognizing the shadow pandemic and the need to get additional resources with urgency out to domestic violence service programs, sexual assault service programs, to tribes and national resource centers and also with specific funding for culturally specific community‑based organizations, too, to reach harder‑to‑serve populations. So that was a billion dollars in supplemental funding in addition to these other sources of funding.
But, at the end of the day, it's not just the federal money. It's so critical that states and localities invest‑‑and many of them do‑‑and even the private sector, donations at the community level. I think Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention Month is a great opportunity to call in, to call in everyone to be a part of the solution and the ways in which people in their own local communities can support critical services.
And you're right. We need to support also the frontline advocates. It is one of the most difficult jobs for someone who's a frontline advocate in a rape crisis center, in a domestic violence shelter, or any of these other programs. Oftentimes they are underpaid and not given the sufficient support they need.
So, to your point, that was part of the goal of this too, in the midst of the pandemic, how to get more resources to these service providers who are dealing with the pandemic themselves in their own lives and yet were out there on the front lines. And many of them are themselves now dedicated as advocates.
So I think there's a lot more we can do to continue to advance the support for this work, so that on the ground, in communities, there's sufficient support not only through these specific targeted programs, but one of the things we're doing through our National Action Plan to end gender‑based violence is to lift up the critical role that everyone plays across many different sectors and the fact that we need to do a lot more to prevent domestic violence. There should be no tolerance for abuse.
This is something that's preventable. Violence is chosen, right? Sometimes people say why doesn't she leave or why doesn't he leave. The question is, why does that person who's causing harm, who is abusing‑‑why are they abusing someone? How do we reduce any tolerance for that so that we can have a culture where everyone thrives with health, with well‑being, and, you know, as a human right to recognize the right to live free from violence.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: What important insights.
Rosie, we have a question from our audience. Lucia from‑‑or Lucia‑‑I don't know how she pronounces her name‑‑from California asks, given the elevated rates of domestic violence as a result of the pandemic, what are the most important findings, lessons, or observations that should drive future change in our systems to prevent domestic violence? An issue you were just talking on. So it was a very timely question here.
MS. HIDALGO: I love that question. I love that the question is also how do we continue working to prevent it, and that is something recently we held a great virtual roundtable also with, you know, the important role of men and boys, LGBTQ individuals, women and girls, everyone at the table to really say how do we change some social norms that tolerate that abuse.
So part of prevention is teaching healthy relationships, but another part of it also, as this questioner points out, what are some of the systemic issues? How do we make sure, for example, that people are getting a living wage, that they do have access to childcare, health care, that they have access to affordable housing, that if they have access to education free from violence or the threats of violence? All these different pieces also are part of prevention as well, because as we build sort of an infrastructure where people can thrive, where they have options and choices, it reduces oftentimes where we see some survivors who feel that they don't even have a choice to leave an abusive relationship because of all these other barriers.
So I think part of it is also creating these kinds of supports, and we saw that during the pandemic. We saw how critical these different pieces were. For example, even the child tax credit, to the extent that during the pandemic, people were able to access that to get‑‑it was fully refundable. They didn't have to wait until their taxes to be able to get even monthly sources of the child tax credit.
When I went and visited one of the DV shelters here in D.C., they talked about how that additional economic security was so important for survivors, so that they could be able to move towards stable housing, right? People can only stay at a shelter for so long, but we really need our continued investments in safe and affordable housing.
And just yesterday, HUD did a remarkable forum all over the country with over 1,200 participants across the housing industry for how can we continue to support survivors to access that.
So all these different pieces are very important, but at the end of the day, it's so important to move towards prevention. And I think both domestically and globally, we really are looking at this as a public health issue that we can do a lot more to bring that lens into this work.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Rosie, I have time for just one question, and I'm afraid it has to be a short answer. I'm going to be talking in my next segment a lot about tech‑facilitated violence. What's being done on a policy level? And, again, I'm apologize. It will need to be a quick answer.
MS. HIDALGO: Really appreciate that question. The president made a commitment on the campaign trail to address this critical issue. It's an issue that existed before, but obviously, it is beginning to really scale up, the ways in which we're seeing technology‑facilitated gender‑based violence, the non‑consensual distribution of intimate images, sextortion, cyber stalking. And so the president launched in June‑‑he signed a presidential memorandum creating a White House task force to address online harassment and abuse. We've had robust engagement with experts and stakeholders and survivors, and across our federal agencies, we're marching towards a 180 days to develop a blueprint for action to much more proactively address these issues, but, of course, to call in the tech sector, private industry and others because there's a lot more that needs to be done to really make sure we're preventing and addressing this really significant issue.
And so, really, you know, just heartened that President Biden, Vice President Harris, the attorney general, and even the surgeon general were all a part of the launch of this task force because it brings into place some critical issues, and so we look forward to moving additional policies and programs forward to address this.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Rosie Hidalgo, thank you so much for joining me today.
MS. HIDALGO: Thank you so very much. Take good care.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: I'm going to be back in a few minutes with our next guest, so don't go away, and we'll learn more about tech‑facilitated gender‑based violence.
MS. KOCH: Hi. I'm Kathleen Koch.
People facing domestic violence often consider seeking refuge at a shelter to escape an abuser, but only 15 percent of domestic violence shelters accept pets. Well, that puts many abuse survivors in a terrible position of choosing between their safety and their pet.
Well, here to talk about their efforts to resolve that dilemma are Dr. Traci Zager‑‑she's veterinary communications manager at Purina‑‑and Katie Campbell, director of Collaboration and Outreach at the nonprofit Red Rover.
Welcome, Katie, Dr. Traci.
MS. CAMPBELL: Hi.
MS. KOCH: Katie, you are at a domestic violence shelter in Rhode Island right now. What are the top barriers that domestic violence survivors with pets face when leaving an abuser?
MS. CAMPBELL: Yeah. That's a great question, Kathleen. You know, domestic violence survivors face many barriers when leaving an abuser, and having a pet and not having a safe place to take them is one of the biggest.
So we know that approximately 50 percent of domestic violence survivors will delay leaving an abuser if they can't take their pets with them, and as you mentioned, only 15 percent of domestic violence shelters here in the U.S. are pet friendly.
And according to a recent survey that the Urban Resource Institute in New York City and the National Domestic Violence Hotline shared, actually 72 percent of domestic violence survivors didn't even know that a pet housing program existed, and so we have a real challenge here in creating more pet friendly resources and also making sure that more domestic violence survivors know about those resources.
And I think that's one of the greatest pieces of the Purple Leash Project, our collaboration with Purina. It's, one, we're helping to raise the funds and give those funds to domestic violence shelters, like the one I'm in right now, to create pet friendly spaces, but also really making sure that the survivors who need those resources know that they exist.
MS. KOCH: Dr. Traci, veterinarians like you really have a unique window into the family dynamic, you know, when families come in with their dogs or cats, whatever. Tell us about that and what role you can play in these difficult situations.
DR. ZAGER: Absolutely. Often veterinarians are seeing multiple members of the family, sometimes the whole family in the office at the same time, and we really see how they are dealing with stressful situations, whether that be‑‑you know, as pet owners, we know that it's stressful to go into the vet hospital. There's lots of barking dogs and commotion, things going on. But, also, it could be because those pets are dealing with a difficult situation or a serious medical issue.
And so we get to see how these families are interacting with their pets, and vice versa, all in the clinic. We know that these interactions can be really important and give us some insight into how these families interact and deal with stressors at home as well.
MS. KOCH: Katie, you mentioned the Purple Leash Project. As folks can see, Dr. Traci's wearing a purple leash shirt. Tell us more about it, exactly what it does to help survivors and their pets escape abuse.
MS. CAMPBELL: Sure, yeah. The Purple Leash Project, you know, on one side is really focused on helping more domestic violence shelters become pet friendly. So that is really just the amazing support that they've provided in giving grants to domestic violence shelters to create pet friendly spaces.
I'm sitting in what is going to be a lovely pet friendly room. You know, 91 percent of survivors say that having their pets with them is really important to their ability to heal and survive, and so we really need to create more of these pet friendly spaces. So, on one end, that is the amazing work that the Purple Leash Project does.
But, as I mentioned earlier, it's also just raising awareness about pet friendly resources, that they even exist, and really just helping to kind of normalize the conversation.
You know, I often say we all need to have that light‑bulb moment. You know, I know a lot of people who consider themselves animal lovers, and they also, you know, maybe know about domestic violence, and they know about the link between human and animal violence. But they've never put those two things together.
I was actually one of those people before I came to RedRover, and I had my light‑bulb moment. And so I think that's one of the most impactful things that the Purple Leash Project brings to the discussion.
MS. KOCH: Dr. Traci, could you help us understand the connection between animal abuse and other types of violence?
DR. ZAGER: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So we know there is a major link between animal abuse, child abuse and neglect, elder abuse and domestic violence. If an abuser is willing to harm one vulnerable person or animal in that household, they're much more likely to harm anyone within that household.
We also know that in homes under investigation for child abuse, co‑incidents of animal abuse ranged from 60 to 88 percent in those homes, and they were just as likely to seek veterinary care as non‑abusive homes. So we know that it's happening. We know that there's a link, and as veterinarians with that unique window into the family dynamic, we can be a very important step‑‑or a very important link in abuse reporting.
MS. KOCH: Katie and Dr. Traci, in our final minute, what can people who are watching this discussion, whether they're members of the general public or maybe a veterinarian‑‑what can they do to help, abuse survivors and their pets, find safe haven?
MS. CAMPBELL: Sure. I would say, certainly, you know, if you have the means, certainly donate to PurpleLeashProject.com. I think that's one of the greatest ways that you can support.
Also, as I mentioned earlier, just have those conversations. You know, make sure that folks know that these kinds of resources exist, and help other people have their light‑bulb moment and understand this link between human and animal violence.
DR. ZAGER: Yeah, absolutely, Katie. That's a great point.
And, if you're a veterinarian watching, if you have any reasonable suspicion of abuse of any kind, please report it. Know if you are in a mandatory reporting state. The National Link Coalition is a great resource for veterinarians or professionals, like in law enforcement or social work, to learn more about this link between different types of violence and where to report it to.
There's a resource on that website for finding out where to report to. Have those conversations ahead of time, and develop a standard operating procedure for your hospital.
MS. KOCH: Dr. Traci Zager of Purina, Katie Campbell of RedRover, thank you both for helping shed light on this really little‑known problem.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Welcome back to Washington Post Live. For those of you just joining us, I'm Frances Stead Sellers.
For this second segment, I am joined by Deborah Vagins, who is the president and CEO of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, and we're going to be talking about tech abuse.
Deborah, a very warm welcome to Washington Post Live.
MS. VAGINS: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here, and thank you for covering this important issue.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And we want to include our audience. So please remember to tweet your questions for Deborah to @PostLive. That's @PostLive, the Twitter handle, and we'll be on the lookout for them.
Deborah, it is a huge issue. We know domestic violence. We've heard about the numbers in the pandemic, but tech abuse, how pervasive a problem is that specifically?
MS. VAGINS: Well, let's talk about what tech abuse is, and unfortunately, it is a pervasive problem and became more pervasive during the pandemic. So tech abuse can take a lot of forms and can use different types of technology, and technology abuse often exists within a larger pattern of domestic violence, where one partner is trying to exert control over another person and their partner. And it usually does go alongside with other forms of abuse, such as physical or emotional or financial abuse, and it's very interconnected with those other tactics.
But, at its root, it is the misuse of technology to exert power and control over another person and can include things like threatening and hateful comments on online platforms or sending threatening text messages, sharing sexual images without a person's consent, or even creating fake sexually explicit images called "deep fakes," or using social media to stalk someone. The behavior is really more than someone saying something that you don't like but can include threats for sexual or physical violence and can cause great personal and economic damage.
And I think sometimes tech abuse is minimized. It has to be taken seriously. It can be extremely traumatizing and terrifying. People can feel‑‑now that we're online, most of our lives are spent online. People can feel that it's impossible to get away from it. It can ruin a person's reputation.
You heard Rosie talk about this creates isolation. There are financial crimes that are caused on‑‑that are perpetrated online. It can lead to offline stalking and harassment, and we should be prepared for the likelihood that the tech‑abuse tactics that were adopted during the pandemic will not be given up, and we have to work together to address these issues.
We conducted‑‑NNEDV conducted a needs assessment. We saw an increase of online abuse in the field over the pandemic. In December of 2020 and January of 2021, we surveyed victim service providers and those working in legal systems to learn more about the types of tech abuse they were hearing about from survivors, and over a thousand folks responded. And what they reported is that they were seeing online harassment, people limiting access to technology while you were‑‑they were stuck with their abusers, types of surveillance of their technology, and all of the data show that it increased during the pandemic.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So, Deborah, you're getting at an issue that I'm really curious about, human behavior is human behavior, right? There are these disturbing repeated patterns that Rosie talked about and you've talked about: isolation, cutting people off, exerting control. Is there anything strikingly new about tech abuse, or is it just a new means of doing the same old things?
MS. VAGINS: Well, unfortunately, almost any tool can be weaponized by someone who wants to cause abuse. So a pattern of public harassment that now can be done on social media platforms, for example, is a textbook articulation of an of intimate partner violence that causes emotional distress for a victim and sometimes more than that.
And with the evolution of technologies, unfortunately, many of those technologies have been misused by abusers over time. So it's not necessarily that we're seeing new abuse of behavior but new tactics being used as technology evolves. Unfortunately, so too does the abuse.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Right. One of the major stresses during the pandemic was financial. People lost jobs, stayed at home. How has financial abuse or control intersected with tech abuse?
MS. VAGINS: There are very significant connections, and at NNEDV, we have our incredible safety net team that looks at the intersections of technology and domestic violence and civil rights and innovation in all of these ideas. We also have an economic justice team that looks at different types of financial abuse, and financial abuse also can take a variety of forms. But some ways that it intersects with technology abuse are online banking fraud, getting access to people's passwords or bank accounts, depleting bank accounts online, limiting access to folks' ability to access their own accounts. All of this can be done through technology.
We have online banking now, and so while there was always financial abuse as a part of domestic violence, now we see, as tools evolve to facilitate your financial life online, those can be weaponized as well by abusers.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So this, I believe, is your organization's week of action, and today is Purple Day.
Talk to us a little bit about Purple Day and what that means.
MS. VAGINS: Yes, absolutely. We're all wearing‑‑we're all wearing purple today. This is a day to raise awareness, and so take today. So Purple Thursday is a national day of action each October during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and it's an opportunity for all of us to raise awareness about domestic violence and an easy way for people to show their commitment to promoting healthy relationships. So it's just one of the many things our organization is doing to raise awareness.
We also have a theme for this year's DVAM activities, and that is everyone knows someone, and that is both to say that we all have a part in solving this problem. But because of the‑‑because of how frequently domestic violence occurs, unfortunately, it means that almost every one of us will know someone that this is occurring to.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Right. And when you talk about raising awareness and we're talking about tech abuse, what do people most misunderstand about this particular kind of online abuse?
MS. VAGINS: Well, I think, you know, there's two parts of this. We do talk a lot about tech misuse, and that is very, very important. And I'm grateful to work at an organization that is focusing on this critical and developing field.
But there's a flip side of this, and that is that technology is also power. We know that it can be used, misused to harass and isolate and cause fear, but it's also power for survivors. We need to raise awareness about both needs, and we do that, right, with trainings and resources and working with tech companies and policymakers and our membership.
But it's very important that people understand that every survivor has the right to use technology in a safe and meaningful way, that survivors have the right to engage, speak out, speak up, communicate with their family, friends, government systems, and more without fear of abuse or fear of technology abuse, so that technology can be used to increase survivors' access to services and keep communities connected and hold discriminatory systems accountable.
So sometimes we would get reports from the field that survivors were told that they should not be using their technology if it was‑‑if they were being monitored or stalked, but we have to look at both sides of the coin. We have to look at tech abuse, but we have to look at the empowered use of technology to assist survivors in their path to safety and healing.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So we heard from Rosie about some of the steps the administration has been taking, and I know in June, the administration launched a task force to prevent online abuse. Your organization obviously has a big voice in this. What's your key recommendation to that task force?
MS. VAGINS: Yes. And we were‑‑we were lucky enough to join one of their roundtables, and we provided several recommendations about steps that we can engage in and looking at policy change and looking at tech companies collaboration.
So tech companies and victim service providers have to continue to work together to find solutions and industry‑wide standards to minimize opportunities for abuse and increase safety for survivors.
We talked about things like increasing access to technical experts to help survivors and advocates support cases of tech‑facilitated abuse. We also recommended that we expand programs aimed at preventing and addressing online harassment and tech‑facilitated abuse.
There's also now‑‑Rosie talked about the new developments in the Violence Against Women Act, when it was reauthorized, and now there is a federal civil cause of action included in VAWA to offer more options for survivors when there are non‑consensual distribution of intimate images. So they can bring lawsuits, but not everyone can do that or afford that. So more investment by the administration in legal services so that people have more access to help, that's a big recommendation.
And we also have to be looking at‑‑as I mentioned before, when you look at both sides of the coin, when you look at tech misuse but also the empowered‑‑the empowered use of technology for survivors, we also‑‑another recommendation is that we should create and enhance programs that promote digital equity and tech safety, so that ensuring that all survivors can enjoy access and the benefits of technology in their personal lives as well as in work and school and in public life. This can look like helping low‑income folks access safe technology. It can be providing more sunsets when we know access of services are being sunset, like some of our flip phones now are being sunset. People may not be able to afford upgrades. We need to have safe access to technology.
And, of course, it's very important that the administration and in the appropriations that are coming up support culturally specific approaches and responses to abuse that recognize the layered and intersectional needs of survivors.
So people of color, survivors of color, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, for example, all experience significantly higher rates of online harassment and are targeted with violent threats that often are racialized and sexualized in nature, and we need to make sure that we are investing in all communities.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: You've mentioned your own group's safety net project. What are the outlines of that project? What sets it apart?
MS. VAGINS: So this is a very important project that looks at the intersection of technology and privacy, civil rights, and safety. They work with‑‑they addressed technology‑facilitated abuse holistically, which means looking at prevention, intervention, safety, planning, and accountability. They are‑‑they work with our membership, training with law enforcement, with the judicial system to make sure that they understand both how to address tech‑facilitated abuse as well as the importance of empowered use of technology.
The other thing the team does is create credible‑‑well, the team does a lot of things, but one of the other things the team does is create incredible resources that we highly recommend. If people are worried about their online safety, we've got toolkits that folks can look at that address how one might engage safely with Twitter, with Facebook, online dating apps, and more.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: In February of this year, there was a huge surge in contact to one of the hotlines, the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Is that a good sign or a bad sign? Were those all‑‑do we know if those were all messages of people suffering domestic abuse or the flip side that you're talking about of some sort of sense of an outlet, a place to get help? What are we learning from that?
MS. VAGINS: Well, you heard Rosie talk about in some‑‑at the beginning of the pandemic, we actually saw some decreases in calls and reporting because people were stuck with their abusers, and instances where you might be able to reach safety by going to work or going to school, you were not necessarily able to do that. And so there was some quiet and some lulls that we found very concerning.
After some of the stay‑at‑home orders lifted, you did see a surge in calls for help, calls on hotlines, sometimes calls to police, where folks felt comfortable.
You can't necessarily say it's good or bad, but what is good is that people felt that they could reach out and that there were services available, although those services have‑‑for everyone who works in this field, services have been stretched thin, and people are both trying to deal with the surge in needs as well as their own organizations' funding and turnover and impact that COVID has had on their own staff. So it's been a very difficult time, but the folks that do this work day in and day out, they're incredible. They're inspirational.
We also have a legal email hotline. It's called WomensLaw.org, and we do two things at NNEDV. One is that people can write in for free legal information. We do get referrals of legal questions from the National Domestic Violence Hotline as well, and people can also go to our website and pull out state‑specific legal information, both in English and Spanish, nationwide to help them navigate, whether it is looking at the intersection of legal questions and tech‑facilitated abuse or how to get a restraining order or how to file for custody or divorce. We have that information available.
And I will say that if you look at the 30 months before the pandemic, so, you know, 2017 to the beginning of 2020, as compared to the 30 months from March of 2020 through the end of August of this year, we saw‑‑the increase in visits was astounding to our website. So WomensLaw.org had about 3 million unique users with about 8 million page views in that 30 months before the pandemic, and afterwards we had about 10, over 10 million, almost 11 million unique viewers with 23 million page views. So just that one data point alone shows you the surge that happened in request for services of legal information and hotline information.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Share with us, just briefly, if you can, some of the other ways in which technology can be a lifeline for people who need it.
MS. VAGINS: Absolutely. I mean, the‑‑if you think about your life, it's conducted a lot online. If you need to reach out to someone for help, if you want to call services, if you want to chat, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which we've talked about, has chat functions, and we'll be launching that soon too as well.
So there are‑‑if you want to engage with government systems, if you need to try to interview for a job so that you can move on for healing and from financial abuse, that's all through technology now. If you don't have access, safe access to your phone, to your computer, to your banking, then that's a concern. And so these are‑‑ and all part of safety planning may be how you look at your technology, and so there are steps that we do tell people to take if they're experiencing‑‑if they're experiencing tech‑facilitated abuse and to make sure that they're‑‑that they can be safe in using their technology going forward.
And the first is that we say first is to focus on their safety, right? So make sure that you're safe when you're engaging in this, that you're in a place where you can do this, but‑‑and we suggest that survivors look, for example, at their settings on all their online accounts to identify the level of privacy that they need, and I mean accounts from bank accounts to how you operate your phone, to make sure that it meets their needs for safety and security.
If they're experiencing tech‑facilitated abuse, we recommend that they document it. Very important. You can take screenshots of harassment or other types of online abuse. And sometimes there are sites like Facebook will let you download your information so you can document it that way. If you're experiencing problems on social media or on a website, you can contact the companies to look at their terms of service, their content guidelines to see if they can help you take down things. For example, some of the non‑consensual intimate images we talked about, one of the steps you can do is see if the company can help you get those images down. And there's also‑‑there are also companies' reputation management services that can help as well if images are up. However, we realize that this is sometimes cost prohibitive for people.
So, again, you can check out our free legal services for looking at things like eligibility for restraining orders and more, and we also have two partners that I recommend, the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and StopNCII.org. Those are two places that you can go for help as well as TechSafety.org, which is our website, of the website of our safety net team at NNEDV.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Deborah, winding up, I wanted to squeeze in one last question before I let you go. We've heard from Rosie about some of the policy changes. Looking ahead‑‑and I'm afraid it has to be quick, but what key policy change would you like to see that you think could make a difference, particularly in the tech abuse area?
MS. VAGINS: Well, I think that we need more investment in prevention, and so right now Congress is‑‑the FVPSA, you heard that, the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, which invests in prevention, is currently awaiting reauthorization. That's something that's incredibly important, not just for looking at issues of technology but all of the needs of survivors and funding their‑‑funding the work of local programs and more. So we really hope that Congress reauthorizes that legislation soon, and there are lots of economic justice pieces of legislation that survivors need so that they can rebuild their lives, from pay equity to living wages, paid sick and safe days, very important stuff out there so that survivors can reach safety and stay safe.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Deborah, thank you so much for those important messages about reaching safety and staying safe.
MS. VAGINS: Thank you very much.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Thank you to both our guests today for joining us for a very important conversation about domestic violence and the impact of the pandemic.
I’m Frances Stead Sellers. You can find other programming at WashingtonPostLive.com, WashingtonPostLive.com. Thank you for joining us. | 2022-10-20T21:10:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Domestic Violence: The Shadow Pandemic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/20/transcript-domestic-violence-shadow-pandemic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/20/transcript-domestic-violence-shadow-pandemic/ |
Liz Truss, followed by her husband, Hugh O'Leary, walks back into 10 Downing Street after announcing her resignation as Prime Minister on Thursday. (Stefan Rousseau/PA/AP)
Liz Truss lasted a brief six weeks as prime minister. But even with that short period in office, she may have won a lifetime of financial perks offered to former British leaders.
In rules instituted in 1991, after Truss idol Margaret Thatcher’s resignation, former prime ministers are able to claim up to almost $130,000 a year in expenses under what is known as a “Public Duty Cost Allowance.”
It isn’t quite free money. The expenses are audited so that they cannot be used for private or parliamentary purposes (some former prime ministers stay in parliament after being kicked out of the top job, including both immediate Truss predecessors Theresa May and Boris Johnson).
“The costs are a reimbursement of incurred expenses for necessary office costs and secretarial costs arising from their special position in public life,” a government website explaining the Public Duty Cost Allowance reads.
Last year, in response to a written question in Parliament, Minister for Cabinet Office Julia Lopez said in a statement that the expenses were “reimbursement of incurred expenses for necessary office and secretarial costs. These costs can include diary support, Met Police protection on public visits, correspondence, staffing at public visits, support to charitable work, social media platforms and managing and maintaining ex-PMs office (staff, payroll, admin).”
It is a lifetime allowance, and then some. In the event that the former prime minister dies, the salaries of any staff covered by the allowance will be continued for three additional months.
Separately, Truss may be entitled to a personal pension through the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund. The amount varies, but the cost has been based on half their annual salary at the time they leave office.
By American standards, the numbers are low. Former president Donald Trump has a lifetime pension of $230,000 a year and is eligible for all kinds of expenses, including Secret Service protection, as are all former U.S. leaders.
Indeed, before Thatcher stepped down from the premiership in 1990, there were few post-office perks for prime ministers at all. Thatcher’s successor, John Major, was reported to feel sorry for Thatcher, who had spent 11 years as prime minister and a further 20 years as a member of Parliament.
Truss will have different concerns, though she may be in some luck: The rate of Public Duty Cost Allowance has been frozen since 2011, but it is up for review next year. With inflation over 10 percent, it may be time for a bump.
The latest: British Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation Thursday after just 44 days in office, making her the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. Follow our live coverage.
Why did she resign?: Truss came to office with a vision for a low-tax, small government state. Since she took office Sept. 9, her grand financial plan tanked the British economy and politicians from the ruling Conservative Party called on her to quit. According to new polling released Tuesday, only 10 percent of the country viewed Truss favorably.
The search for a new prime minister: The bitterly divided Conservative Party will vote on who will replace Truss. Truss said that there would be a leadership election to replace her “to be completed within the next week.” She said that she would “remain as prime minister until a successor has been chosen.” These are the most prominent contenders. to replace Truss. | 2022-10-20T21:10:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Will Liz Truss get a pension? Here’s how much she will get paid - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/20/liz-truss-pension/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/20/liz-truss-pension/ |
British Prime Minister Liz Truss announces her resignation outside Number 10 Downing Street on Thursday. (Henry Nicholls/Reuters)
LONDON — She campaigned for prime minister as the ideological incarnation of the 1980s Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher, as a strong plain-speaking woman in pearls, who would finally unleash Britain’s true post-Brexit potential by slashing taxes for investors and corporations, and getting the workers to work a bit harder.
The once triumphalist Liz Truss resigned on Thursday in humiliation, after 45 days in office, becoming not a modern Conservative icon but the shortest-serving prime minister in British history.
Truss was brought down by what is widely perceived as her incompetence, her failure to sell her vision — not just to lawmakers from her Conservative Party and the slim numbers of Tories out in the hinterlands, but to the broader electorate and to currency and bond traders in London.
Her ouster also reflects an ongoing identity crisis among Conservatives — fragmentation that led to the agonizing experience of Brexit and today leaves open the question of not only who will lead the country, but in what direction.
Britain is adrift about its place in the world and its relationship to Europe, about how to address soaring inflation and an anticipated recession, and about what to do about issues ranging from immigration to climate change.
Truss scrambled to reverse herself and her supply-side, trickle-down plan for growth, quickly jettisoning top ministers and gutting her signature policy, with its tax cuts for high-earners, investors and corporations, funded in the short term by more borrowing and debt.
Boris Johnson idolized Churchill. U.K.’s next leader may look to Thatcher.
The U-turn helped calm bond traders, momentarily, and boosted the British currency. But it wasn’t enough to save her politically.
“Given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party,” she said in front of the prime minister’s residence at Downing Street on Thursday. “I have therefore spoken to His Majesty the king to notify him that I am resigning.”
U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation on Oct. 20 after six weeks in office. (Video: The Washington Post)
Conservative power brokers are bitterly divided on who should next lead their party and become the third British prime minister in eight weeks.
The Conservative Party plans to pick a new leader by Oct. 28, after voting by the party’s lawmakers in Parliament and an online vote involving the dues-paying party members — less than 0.3 percent of the British population. Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 committee, announced a sweeping change of the rules, truncating what is usually a two-month process.
Any Conservative lawmaker can now put their name forward, provided they have the backing of at least 100 of their party colleagues in Parliament — a fairly high bar.
Jeremy Hunt, the new chancellor who has twice tried to become prime minister, quickly ruled himself out.
Names bandied about as possible contenders include former finance minister Rishi Sunak, Truss’s main rival in the last leadership race, who warned that her economic policies would end in disaster — a “fantasy land” he called it.
There’s also Penny Mordaunt, the current leader of the House of Commons, who came in third in the last contest and is popular with the Conservative Party faithful — though in snap polling of the broader public most respondents could not name her when shown a photo.
Another option: The return of Boris Johnson. Rumors are building that he could mount a push for the rare role of once-and-future prime minister.
A lot of voters might not want Johnson or his party to give it another try. The Conservatives have been in power for 12 years and millions of bad headlines. If there were a general election now, they would almost certainly be annihilated. The opposition Labour Party is up 30 points in opinion polls.
“The Conservative Party has shown it no longer has a mandate to govern,” he said in a statement following Truss’s announcement. “The British people deserve so much better than this revolving door of chaos.”
What next for Boris Johnson? Books, columns, speeches, comeback?
But because the Tories led by Johnson won a general election in 2019, they don’t have to submit to another vote until 2024. A motion to call for an early election would need at least two-thirds of the votes in Parliament. That would only be possible if the Conservatives support the measure, which they would be loathe to do while they are down so far in the polls.
Truss herself should have been safe from another leadership challenge for at least a year. But Conservatives are known for ruthlessly casting aside their leaders. Out went David Cameron for opposing Brexit. Out went Theresa May for failing to get Brexit done. Out went Johnson for a pileup of scandals and for misleading members of his own party, who declared him unfit to govern.
Truss was thrown under the bus for gross mismanagement of the economy, but also because it was quickly clear she wasn’t helping her party regain the trust of voters. YouGov said she was the most unpopular prime minister the organization had ever tracked.
On Thursday, a day after she told Parliament that she was a “fighter, not a quitter,” Truss met with the powerful chair of the 1922 committee, who would have known exactly how many Conservative members of Parliament had issued secret letters of no confidence in her leadership.
At least 16 Conservative lawmakers had gone on-the-record calling for her to resign, following a chaotic and confusing 24 hours, which saw claims of bullying in Parliament and the resignation of the home secretary and may likely have been the final straw for the party.
Among the discontents was Conservative lawmaker Gary Streeter, who tweeted, “Sadly, it seems we must change leader BUT even if the angel Gabriel now takes over, the Parliamentary Party has to urgently rediscover discipline, mutual respect and teamwork if we are to (i) govern the UK well and (ii) avoid slaughter at the next election.”
Truss can be held responsible for six weeks of damage. The previous record-holder for shortest-serving prime minister was George Canning, who lasted 119 days — from April 12, 1827 and to his death on Aug. 8, 1827.
“Our lettuce wins as Liz Truss resigns,” declared the Daily Star tabloid, which last week, when things were looking perilous for the leader, began live-streaming a photograph of the prime minister next to a wilting head of lettuce with a shelf life of just 10 days.
News of Truss’s resignation stole the show at the opening of a European Union summit in Brussels, as leaders entering the meetings were asked to weigh in on Britain’s political crisis. There were glimpses of schadenfreude and some sly smiles, but leaders for the most part kept it classy, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying he hoped Britain “regains political stability very quickly.” | 2022-10-20T21:19:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Liz Truss resigns: How she became the shortest-serving U.K. prime minister - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/20/liz-truss-shortest-prime-minister-uk/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/20/liz-truss-shortest-prime-minister-uk/ |
Man arrested for bringing guns near Capitol claims ‘no malicious intent’
Tony Payne, an 80-year-old from Tunnel Hill, Ga., was released from jail Thursday and ordered to stay away from the Capitol complex
The 80-year-old Georgia man arrested Wednesday for bringing weapons to U.S. Capitol grounds was released from jail and ordered to stay away from the Capitol complex Thursday, with charging documents saying he was “extremely disabled” and told police that he had “no malicious intent with the firearms.”
Tony Payne, who was charged with carrying a pistol without a license, is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing Nov. 2. His relatives could not be reached; his attorney did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Around 3:20 p.m. Wednesday, police officers found Payne parked in a small white transit van in the 100 block of East Capitol Street SE — an area near the U.S. Capitol that, during work hours, is permit parking only for Library of Congress staffers. Payne, who was in the vehicle with his grandson, told officers they were in town “to help a friend file paperwork with the Supreme Court and would be on their way,” according to charging documents. He also told the officers that he had a gun in the car.
Payne’s grandson and another woman were briefly detained Wednesday but not arrested.
Police searched the van and found a handgun, a shotgun, a rifle, a machete and a husky puppy, according to the charging documents. Weapons are banned from Capitol grounds.
Payne, who charging documents said “lacked the ability to walk,” told officers he was a veteran.
Police closed multiple streets in the area during the investigation before clearing the vehicle around 6 p.m. Wednesday. | 2022-10-20T22:37:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man arrested for bringing guns near Capitol said he had ‘no malicious intent’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/capitol-weapon-arrest-georgia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/capitol-weapon-arrest-georgia/ |
‘Touch DNA’ instrumental in Syed’s exoneration
BALTIMORE — Adnan Syed was imprisoned for more than two decades for the murder of his teenage ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, but he was freed in September and charges were dropped this month. The decision by prosecutors hinged on a lot of factors, including a new analysis of genetic material that they said wasn’t available at the time.
So, what is touch DNA, and are the findings reliable enough to contribute to such a consequential outcome for both Syed and the victim’s family?
First, how it works: It’s DNA analysis that has been around a long time, but this type of examination is only newly being adopted, said Koirala, an assistant professor in the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s chemistry and biochemistry department. It relies on a tiny sample, as few as 10 skin cells left on an item when someone touches it — hence the name touch DNA, though the DNA could be transferred and the item not touched directly.
The sample is taken from the item and the DNA amplified using the same technology that’s used in testing for the coronavirus in a lab, called the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR. That means rapidly producing copies of a part of DNA so it can be studied in greater detail.
Court records show that for the analysis, prosecutors submitted pantyhose, a skirt and shoes left behind to a California lab, but it didn’t find much. With clothes on Lee’s body exposed to the elements, the lab tested shoes found in Lee’s car. They were black dress shoes dusted for prints in 1999 but not analyzed further. Other people’s DNA was found on them but not Syed’s.
“If everything is done correctly, this gives you a real clue about the individual’s DNA signatures,” Koirala said. “But real life is complicated.”
Surfaces of the shoes matter, as rougher fabric surfaces would capture more DNA and metal in buckles could cause a ruinous chemical reaction in some circumstances, such as environmental exposure. Time and the environment generally can degrade samples.
How someone handles the shoes — for instance, how many cells rub off and where — also matters, because more DNA is better. Other factors that may be important: how the samples were swabbed and from how big a surface, and whether the handler was properly wearing gear to avoid contamination.
And this isn’t a lot of generic material to work with. More than 99.9 percent of DNA is the same across individuals, Koirala said, leaving a sliver of unique material with markers passed on from mom and dad to examine. In a forensic examination, scientists would try to match the sample to a known sample of someone’s DNA.
Further, the lab matters. There are no standards yet developed for this type of analysis, so the lab would be relying on experience and adherence to other lab protocols. And, Koirala said, it would be important for other labs to be able to replicate, and back up, the findings.
The point is that the public shouldn’t assume this was the only reason for Syed’s exoneration, said Maneka Sinha, a University of Maryland at Baltimore law school professor who is an expert in forensic science. She also was not involved in the case.
In science, and in law, it’s often not ideal to rely on small amounts of DNA. Separately, touch DNA is a misnomer because no one has to actually touch an item to leave DNA on it. And there are all the complicating factors that come with recovering and analyzing small quantities of DNA.
If Sinha were to prick her finger and send blood to a lab, she said, the DNA findings would be extraordinarily reliable. If she were to shake hands with someone who touches a mouse that others also have touched, and then the mouse were swabbed, analyzing the mixture of DNA wouldn’t be so easy.
Marilyn Mosby, the state’s attorney for Baltimore City, did say that if the DNA were either inconclusive or exclusive of Syed, she would certify his innocence. And she said the DNA on the shoe excluded Syed as a possible contributor. But in the end, Mosby considered a lot more than the genetic findings. | 2022-10-20T22:37:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Touch DNA’ instrumental in Syed’s exoneration - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/touch-dna-instrumental-in-syeds-exoneration/2022/10/20/0e77b5f8-4f65-11ed-9b9f-2f3e226d3a8a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/touch-dna-instrumental-in-syeds-exoneration/2022/10/20/0e77b5f8-4f65-11ed-9b9f-2f3e226d3a8a_story.html |
JAY, Maine — Families are looking forward with dread as winter approaches with high energy costs and tight fuel supplies. The U.S. Department of Energy is projecting sharp price increases for home heating compared to last winter. Some worry whether heating assistance programs will be adequate for struggling families. Last month, Congress added $1 billion to Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, bringing the total to at least $4.8 billion. But that level represents a cut from last year, when federal pandemic relief pushed the total energy assistance package past $8 billion.
NEW YORK — Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell in September for the eighth month in a row, matching the pre-pandemic sales pace from 10 years ago, as house hunters grappled with sharply higher mortgage rates, rising home prices and a still tight supply of properties on the market. The National Association of Realtors said Thursday that existing home sales fell 1.5% last month from August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.71 million. That’s slightly higher than what economists were expecting, according to FactSet. Sales fell nearly 24% from September last year. The national median home price rose 8.4% in September from a year earlier to $384,800.
LOS ANGELES — The upcoming midterm elections could give the stock market a sorely needed boost by eliminating at least some of the uncertainty that’s clouding the way for investors. Historically, the benchmark S&P 500 index has gained ground in the months following a midterm election, regardless of the outcome, even when the market had been falling sharply leading up to the vote. The trend may offer some relief for wary investors, given the market’s punishing slump this year. But uncertainty over Fed rate hikes and the risk of a recession could dim the prospects for an enduring post-election bump.
NEW YORK — Stocks gave up an early gain and closed lower on Wall Street as markets continue an unsteady search for direction. Several companies made big moves, both higher and lower, as more of them reported their latest quarterly results. The S&P 500 fell 0.8% Thursday. The benchmark index was still holding on to a gain for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq also fell. Treasury yields remained at multiyear highs, which has helped push up rates on mortgages. Home sales fell again in September for the eighth month in a row.
WASHINGTON — More than 60 years after Anna May Wong became the first Asian American woman to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the pioneering actor has coined another first, quite literally. With quarters bearing her face and manicured hand set to start shipping Monday, per the U.S. Mint, Wong will be the first Asian American to grace U.S. currency. Wong was known for fighting against stereotypes foisted on her by a white Hollywood. She is one of five women being honored this year as part of the U.S. Mint’s American Women Quarters program.
WASHINGTON — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week and remains historically low even as the U.S. economy slows in the midst of decades-high inflation. Jobless claims for the week ending Oct. 15 declined by 12,000 to 214,000 from 226,000 last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The four-week moving average rose by 1,250 to 212,250. Considered a proxy for layoffs, applications for jobless aid have remained historically low since the initial purge of more than 20 million jobs at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020.
OMAHA, Neb. — The major freight railroads appear unwilling to give track maintenance workers much more than they received in the initial contract they rejected last week, increasing the chances of a strike. The railroads rejected the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division union’s request to add paid sick time on top of the 24% raises and $5,000 in bonuses they received in the first five-year deal. But Union Pacific CEO Lance Fritz said Thursday he’s confident that all 12 unions will ultimately approve their deals, so the industry can avoid a strike that would be devastating to the economy.
DALLAS — American Airlines is reporting a $483 million profit for the third quarter, as planes were mostly full and fares were higher over the hectic summer months. American says demand for travel remains strong, and it forecast better fourth-quarter results than Wall Street was expecting. American is repeating many of the same upbeat themes sounded in the last few days by United Airlines and Delta Air Lines. U.S. air travel is roaring back from pandemic lows in early 2020. That’s happening despite a 43% leap in airfares over the past year, according to government figures. | 2022-10-20T22:38:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Energy costs, home sales - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-energy-costs-home-sales/2022/10/20/cc46d26a-50c5-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-energy-costs-home-sales/2022/10/20/cc46d26a-50c5-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
Hundreds of laws have been proposed over the past three years in an effort to restrict what children can learn and do at school as part of the education culture wars. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Republican legislators have proposed a far-reaching new law that would prohibit public schools from offering young students lessons or literature that discuss gender identity, sexual orientation and transgender individuals.
The legislation, introduced in Congress this week by a group of 33 House Republicans led by Rep. Mike Johnson (La.), is called the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act. It would prohibit the use of federal funding “to develop, implement, facilitate or fund any sexually-oriented program, event or literature for children under the age of 10.”
It also outlaws use of federal funding for any event that “exposes children under the age of 10 to nude adults, individuals who are stripping, or lewd or lascivious dancing.” And it says federal facilities cannot be used to “host or promote any sexually-oriented” programming, literature or events for children under 10.
The bill defines “sexually-oriented” as “any depiction, description, or simulation of sexual activity, any lewd or lascivious depiction or description of human genitals, or any topic involving gender identity, gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual orientation, or related subjects.”
The bill says parents can sue school districts in federal court for violating the law, and it threatens disobedient school districts with the loss of federal, state and local funding for up to three years. It is the latest in a wave of hundreds of laws proposed over the past three years that similarly aim to restrict what children can learn and do at school as part of the education culture wars, The Washington Post has previously reported.
Johnson is touting the bill as a necessary step to fight back against the liberal program for public schools, echoing baseless but increasingly popular allegations from the right that LGBTQ teachers in public schools are “grooming” children for sexual abuse. Johnson wrote on Twitter: “The Democrat Party and their cultural allies are on a crusade to immerse young children in sexual imagery and radical gender ideology at school and in public.”
The proposed law drew immediate backlash from Democrats, educators and LGBTQ rights groups.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who declined a request for comment, tweeted Thursday that the bill is “hateful” and that she will fight the measure “as the proud mom of an incredible trans kid.” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, wrote in an email that Johnson’s bill resembles the 2021 Florida law — dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law by opponents — banning education on gender identity and sexual orientation for students in kindergarten through third grade and limiting lessons on those topics for higher grades. Weingarten said this kind of legislation harms “the most vulnerable kids for cheap political gain.”
And Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, executive director of LGBTQ rights group GLSEN, warned in a statement Thursday that “erasing LGBTQ+ issues from classrooms jeopardizes the foundation of our democracy.”
Asked about the criticism, Johnson wrote in an emailed statement Thursday that the bill is “straightforward and commonsense … Our young children should be learning about reading, writing, and math at elementary school, not radical gender theory or the finer points of drag culture.”
The bill comes amid a flurry of education legislation: More than 283 state laws were proposed over the past three academic years seeking to reshape how students learn and the rights they have at school, a Post analysis found. Of the proposed bills, 64 have so far become law across 25 states, whose populations together add to nearly half of the nation.
Johnson’s six-page bill makes several claims about the public K-12 education in the United States, stating that sexual education curriculums nationwide wrongly foster “discussions of sexuality, sexual orientation, transgenderism and gender ideology” for children who are too young to understand those topics. Sex education across most of the nation is in fact quite limited already per state law, The Post has reported: Just 29 states and D.C. require that students receive sex education, while 16 states mandate “abstinence-only” sex education.
The bill also states that “state and local library systems, museums and other educational institutions … have purchased sexually-oriented literature and materials that target preadolescent children and teach them about concepts like masturbation, pornography, sexual acts and gender transition.”
It follows a historic wave of attempted school book bans and challenges. Most of the literature targeted across the country has been written by or about LGBTQ people or people of color. Usually, the arguments advanced against keeping LGBTQ literature in schools is that it is too sexually explicit, while proponents of the books argue it is necessary for LGBTQ children to see themselves reflected and represented in what they read.
Students lose access to books amid ‘state-sponsored purging of ideas’
Student LGBTQ groups have also come under fire, with conservative parents, pundits and politicians alleging without evidence that the Gay-Straight Alliance clubs are sites of political indoctrination.
Johnson’s bill further alleges that federal funds have been used “to host and promote sexually-oriented events like drag queen story hours and burlesque shows.”
Drag Story Hour, founded in 2015 in San Francisco, is a national program that invites drag queens into libraries to read books aloud to children, a practice advocates say affords LGBTQ children greater representation and allows all students to learn about diverse lives and beliefs. These family-friendly drag events, sometimes hosted in libraries including school libraries, have in recent months drawn escalating protests from conservatives and politicians, as well as right-wing extremists including the Proud Boys. | 2022-10-20T22:38:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Republicans propose bill barring lessons on gender, sexuality for children - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/20/lgbtq-gender-sexuality-bill-school-mike-johnson/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/20/lgbtq-gender-sexuality-bill-school-mike-johnson/ |
China is weaker than we thought. Will we change our policies accordingly?
Media staff work in November 2021 next to TVs airing a speech from Chinese leader Xi Jinping. (Str/AFP via Getty Images)
Could we be seeing something similar happen with China these days? It seems clear that China’s growth is stalling. The country that since 1978 has grown at an average of over 9 percent annually is projected to grow about 3 percent this year. Some think tanks have postponed their projections for when the country’s economy would overtake the United States to become the world’s largest economy to 2030 or later. Some experts are even suggesting that this might never happen, which is striking given that China’s population is more than four times as much as the United States’.
There are many reasons for the new bearish mood about China: its draconian covid policy, real estate bubbles, debt, and — perhaps most consequential for the long term — a demographic collapse. (China’s fertility rate is now lower than Japan’s.) But above all looms the change of course away from the market undertaken by the Chinese government in the past 1o years.
China has grown at a stunning pace since 1978 because it embraced markets and trade. But Chinese leader Xi Jinping has moved the country to a very different model, one that views the state as the primary engine of the economy, identifying industries, providing funding and controlling the participants. And growth has stalled.
But if we can see that China is actually weaker than we had thought a few years ago, has that led us to change our conclusions accordingly? No.
Just as it is becoming clear that Xi’s embrace of the state and his “Made in China” industrial policy is not working, Washington has been busily implementing its own version of Chinese-style industrial policy. The situation is reminiscent of the late 1980s, when Americans spoke enviously of Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry — a ministry that was in fact in the process of making a series of expensive bets on industries that flopped.
China doesn’t just face economic challenges. Xi’s foreign policy has mostly been a failure. His expansionism, bluster and repression have produced quantifiable results. Unfavorable views of China have skyrocketed in recent years to all-time or near all-time highs in several countries, according to a Pew Research Center survey. From Australia to Spain, countries that were once favorably inclined have shifted away from Beijing.
China’s foreign overtures have been duds, from the expensive and messy Belt and Road initiative to its effort to woo Eastern Europe. The latter project, China’s 16+1 group, is fizzling because of countries’ disappointed expectations and Beijing’s relations with Moscow. And yet, in a move reminiscent of America’s misguided efforts to counter Soviet influence anywhere — even if that meant allying with dictators in remote countries of Africa — Washington has been frantically wooing Palau (population around 18,000) and other tiny Pacific Islands from Beijing’s embrace.
The basic argument for a hyper-hawkish policy toward China has been that China was rising fearsomely and that is what made it so dangerous. Prepare yourself for a new argument: China is declining precipitously and that is why it is so dangerous! So even if the facts are the opposite of what was previously asserted, the conclusion somehow remains the same.
In fact, while declining powers do sometimes pose a threat, the general and obvious rule remains that as countries grow rich and powerful, they try to expand their political and military reach. Moscow in the 1990s, when its economy was collapsing, allowed Ukraine to become independent. Putin, flush from a decade of high energy prices, invaded Ukraine. Scholars have tracked Chinese foreign policy and found that it turns inward in periods of weakness and stress.
Let me be clear: China, with all its limitations, still presents a powerful challenge for the United States, the most serious long-term one by far. But right-sizing this threat and understanding it correctly is crucial to formulating the best strategy to tackle it. Instead, Washington’s conventional wisdom is still filled with exaggerated fears and fantasies of an enemy that is 10 feet tall.
Opinion|Xi Jinping offers an ominous warning of what’s to come | 2022-10-20T22:39:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | China is weaker than we thought. Do we have the right policies? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/china-weaker-west-policies-must-adapt/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/20/china-weaker-west-policies-must-adapt/ |
FILE - Washington State’s TJ Bamba (5) shoots around California’s Lars Thiemann (21) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in the first round of the Pac-12 tournament Wednesday, March 9, 2022, in Las Vegas. Bamba averaged 7.7 points and 3.4 rebounds per game last year. (AP Photo/John Loche, File) (John Locher/AP)
PULLMAN, Wash. — Washington State had its best season in a decade last year, but coach Kyle Smith lost most of that team to graduations and transfers. | 2022-10-20T22:40:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Washington State looks to build on best season in a decade - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/washington-state-looks-to-build-on-best-season-in-a-decade/2022/10/20/0b9b8cfe-50c0-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/washington-state-looks-to-build-on-best-season-in-a-decade/2022/10/20/0b9b8cfe-50c0-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
Previously unreported details shed new light on Twitter’s motivations for selling the company — and Elon Musk’s plans to transform it
Jeremy B. Merrill
Elon Musk in 2021. (Al Drago/Bloomberg News)
Twitter estimates that its monetizable daily active users (MDAU), defined as the number of users eligible to see ads, is 237.8 million, up 16.6 percent compared with the same quarter last year. But documents that have emerged in Twitter’s court battle with Musk point to far lower numbers, with Musk’s side claiming, using Twitter’s own data, that fewer than 16 million users see the vast majority of ads.
Gutting and then reshaping the workforce through rehiring chosen people is a huge part of Musk’s ambitions, according to interviews and documents. Though Musk has previously indicated he would be open to cutting staff — legal filings show that he agreed with a friend over text that the company’s head count wasn’t justified by its revenue when compared with other tech companies — he has not offered specific numbers publicly.
But Twitter’s own data has found that subscriptions may not bring in significant new revenue, according to the interviews. That’s because the users who view the most ads — roughly the top 1 percent of users in the United States — are also the ones most likely to join a subscription service. If they began paying a monthly subscription and went ad-free, the program could cannibalize the most lucrative part of Twitter’s current ad business.
Twitter’s budget for head count — roughly $1.5 billion last year — includes many highly paid ad salespeople and several thousand engineers. The company also spends hundreds of millions on contracting firms that pay people to review reports of hate speech, child sexual abuse, and other ugly and rule-breaking content on the internet. Twitter’s median compensation — the point at which half make more and half make less — is about $240,000 for all employees and $308,000 for engineers.
Some of the planned cuts were put on hold pending the sale to Musk, which was announced in April.
Some of Musk’s biggest partners in the deal, including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Sequoia partner Doug Leone were also Trump supporters and self-proclaimed believers in the type of free speech ideology Musk promised to bring back to the platform. (Leone is no longer a Trump supporter but is said to take an expansive view of free speech). Hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin, the second largest GOP donor in the current midterm cycle, also committed a smaller amount — under $20 million compared with $1 billion from Ellison — to the deal, The Post has learned. | 2022-10-20T22:41:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Planned cuts at Twitter likely to hurt content moderation, user security - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/20/musk-twitter-acquisition-staff-cuts/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/20/musk-twitter-acquisition-staff-cuts/ |
He dominated the sport at just about every offensive position
Georgia Bulldogs halfback Charley Trippi in 1946. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP)
Charley Trippi, who used his speed, arm strength and the sheer grit of his coal miner roots to become one of the most versatile football players in college and professional history, died Oct. 19 at his home in Athens, Ga., not far from the stadium where he led the University of Georgia Bulldogs to an undefeated season in 1946.
Mr. Trippi’s death, at age 100, was announced by his alma mater. No specific cause was provided.
During the 1940s, when football was played without face masks, Mr. Trippi dominated the sport at just about every offensive position — first for Georgia, where he played quarterback, running back and defense, and then for the Chicago Cardinals, which won the NFL title in his rookie season.
In that championship game, played on a sheet of ice at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, Mr. Trippi swapped his cleats for sneakers to get better traction. He scored two touchdowns — a 75-yard punt return and a 44-yard run.
Mr. Trippi was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968, and he is still the only NFL player to rack up at least 1,000 yards in passing, rushing and receiving. Jim Thorpe, the Olympic gold medalist and football star, called him “the greatest football player I’ve ever seen.”
Known as much for his soft-spoken manner as his athleticism, Mr. Trippi gave a brief speech at his induction ceremony.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I just wanted to say I’m glad I played football.”
Charles Louis Trippi was born on Dec. 14, 1921, in Pittston, Pa., a blue-collar coal mining town along the Susquehanna River not far from Scranton. The son of Italian immigrants, Mr. Trippi grew up on Railroad Street with five brothers and sisters. His mother was a homemaker. His father worked in the coal mines.
“Of course I grew up during the depression, which in my case gave me inspiration to do something out of my life, because I did not want to ever work in the mines,” Mr. Trippi said in an oral history conducted by the University of Georgia. “Regardless of what happened, I would never stay there.”
Mr. Trippi viewed sports as a way out. He took up baseball and football, excelling at both, though his father didn’t understand why he’d want to get tackled.
“Go ahead, you play,” Mr. Trippi’s father told him, according to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. “But if you break one leg, I’ll break the other.”
There are many stories still told about his career back in Pittston, where the high school football team plays at Charley Trippi Stadium.
One is how Mr. Trippi’s family was too poor to buy him football shoes, but he punted so well in street shoes that his high school coach bought him a proper pair of cleats. Another is about the time his punt snapper launched the ball over his head during a game against rival West Wyoming, whose players raced for the loose ball.
“Trippi got there first,” the Scranton Times reported, “scooped up the ball, and ran around the entire West Wyoming team for an 85-yard touchdown play.”
The extraordinary run convinced Mr. Trippi’s coaches that he had the athletic ability to be more than just a punter, and pretty soon he was playing just about every position on the field.
His talent caught the attention of Harold Ketron, a University of Georgia graduate who owned a nearby Coca-Cola bottling plant. Ketron helped persuade Mr. Trippi to become a Bulldog, in part by offering him a summer job driving a delivery truck — a favor that undoubtedly would be illegal in college football today.
At Georgia, Mr. Trippi led the Bulldogs to a 1943 Rose Bowl win over UCLA, playing all but two minutes of the game and collecting more total yards himself than his opponent. He missed nearly two full seasons for military service, but in 1946 led the Bulldogs to an undefeated season, winning the Maxwell Award as college’s most outstanding player.
Mr. Trippi briefly considered a career in baseball, but after he was drafted No. 1 by the struggling Chicago Cardinals he signed a record $100,000 contract to play professional football. Meanwhile, the lineman who protected him barely made $5,000 a year.
“I felt kind of guilty,” Mr. Trippi once said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “If I ever went out to dinner with them, I’d never let them pay.‘'
Mr. Trippi led the Cardinals to two league championship games in his first two seasons. He played another seven seasons for them, retiring after the 1955 season. He coached in the NFL and at Georgia, then later went into commercial real estate in Athens, where he lived with his family not far from the university.
Mr. Trippi’s first wife, Virginia Davis, died in 1971. He is survived by his second wife, the former Peggy McNiven; two children from his first marriage, Charles Trippi Jr. and Brenda Fleeman; stepchildren Rob Bell, Kim Gunnin and Terry Bell; 15 grandchildren; and 15 great-grandchildren. A daughter from his first marriage, Joann Trippi Johns, died in 2019.
In late 2021, Mr. Trippi’s family and friends threw him a party for his 100th birthday. He wore a Pro Football Hall of Fame jacket. Georgia football coach Kirby Smart brought a cake with 100 candles. Mr. Trippi knew exactly what to do.
“Was I impressed to see him blow out all the candles?” Smart said. “Being such a great second-effort athlete, he wouldn’t stop until he blew them all out.” | 2022-10-20T23:12:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Charley Trippi, one of football’s most versatile players, dies at 100 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/20/charley-trippi-legendary-football-player-for-georgia-dies-at-100/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/20/charley-trippi-legendary-football-player-for-georgia-dies-at-100/ |
He grew up hearing stories from his father, who was born into bondage during the Civil War. Decades later, he marched in Washington and Selma with fellow civil rights activists.
Daniel R. Smith at his D.C. home in 2020. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Growing up in the 1930s, Daniel R. Smith would listen to stories from his father, as young boys often do. He was not supposed to hear these stories — they were meant for his older siblings, not for a child as young as 5 or 6 — but after dinner on Saturday evenings he would sneak out of bed and listen to accounts of the “whipping and crying post,” of the lynching tree and the wagon wheel.
These were brutally vivid stories of bondage, for his father had been born into slavery in Virginia in 1863, two years before the end of the Civil War, and had toiled as a child laborer before making his way north to Connecticut, where the Smiths were among the only African Americans in their town.
“I remember hearing about two slaves who were chained together at the wrist and tried to run away,” Mr. Smith recalled decades later. “They were found by some vicious dogs hiding under a tree, and hanged from it. I also remember a story about an enslaved man who was accused of lying to his owner. He was made to step out into the snow with his family and put his tongue on an icy wagon wheel until it stuck. When he tried to remove it, half his tongue came off.
Mr. Smith, who was 90 when he died Oct. 19 at a hospital in Washington, was one of the last remaining children of enslaved Black Americans, and a rare direct link to slavery in the United States. Born when his father was 70, he was part of a generation that dwindled and then all but disappeared, taking with them stories of bondage that were told firsthand by mothers and fathers who, after enduring brutal conditions on Southern plantations, sought to build a new, better life for their families.
Historians say it is impossible to know how many children of enslaved people are left. But while researching her book “Sugar of the Crop: My Journey to Find the Children of Slaves” (2009), author Sana Butler was able to track down about 40 who were still alive. All have since died. Mr. Smith was not featured in the book, although he later met Butler, who helped edit his forthcoming memoir, “Son of a Slave: A Black Man’s Journey in White America.”
His story was “a reminder that slavery was not that long ago,” Butler said. “You talk about the transatlantic slave trade, you talk about Reconstruction, and people really think that it’s history,” something that happened in the distant past and has little relevance today. “Mr. Smith,” she added, “is a reminder that it’s impossible to ‘get over it,’” to move past slavery and act as if it is no longer matters, “because it’s still [present] within these families’ lives.”
She was the last American to collect a Civil War pension — $73.13 a month. She just died.
It was in part through his father — Abram “A.B.” Smith, who died in a car accident when Daniel Smith was 6 — that he developed a fierce pride and resilience that he carried into his work on civil rights, health care and education. “A lot of Black children grew up in a world where they didn’t know who they were and where they came from,” Mr. Smith told The Washington Post in 2020, “but we were A.B. Smith’s children, and that sustained us through anything.”
After a childhood in which he and his siblings were “poor as church mice,” Mr. Smith served as an Army medic during the Korean War, marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, linked arms with fellow civil rights activists on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and ran literacy and anti-poverty programs in rural Alabama, where he once outraced a carload of white supremacists on a dark country road, not stopping until he found shelter at a service station.
Mr. Smith later settled in the Washington area, where in the 1970s he ran a federally funded program called the Area Health Education Centers, working to improve health care in underserved communities across the country. His work took him to apartheid-era South Africa, where he met Archbishop Desmond Tutu and, upon his return, said he was propositioned by a CIA officer who wanted him to spy on the African National Congress liberation movement. (Mr. Smith turned him down.)
Decades later, Mr. Smith was standing in the crowd, moved to tears, as Barack Obama was sworn in as America’s first Black president. He was privileged, he said, to be a part of so much history — “A friend of mine calls me the Black Forrest Gump,” he told the Economist last year — and for a time, at least, he thought little about his family’s own history and his legacy as one of the last surviving children of a man who was considered property rather than a person.
At 88, Daniel Smith is a historical rarity — the living son of an enslaved Black American
After his father’s death, she became a housekeeper and raised Mr. Smith and his siblings with help from a trio of surrogate fathers, including a White veterinarian who gave him a job at his clinic, encouraging Mr. Smith’s lifelong love of animals. He was especially drawn to dogs — Dobermans in particular — and became a member of the county dog obedience training club, taking part in American Kennel Club competitions at New York’s Madison Square Garden, where he was one of only a few Black trainers, according to his memoir.
It was immediately clear, Mr. Smith recalled, that the officer was wrong. She still had a pulse. Yet she was White; he was Black. “This remains the most racist incident I have ever experienced in my life,” he wrote in his memoir. “To this day, telling this story brings tears to my eyes. To think that someone would rather have anyone die rather than have her white lips touch my Black mouth. Incomprehensible.”
Weeks before King was assassinated in 1968, Mr. Smith moved to the Washington area, where he worked for federal agencies including the Health Resources and Services Administration and raised two children with his first wife, the former Sandra Hawkins. Together they bought a home in Bethesda, Md., that had a racially restrictive covenant — which was no longer being enforced — barring Black or Jewish ownership.
Mr. Smith, who lived in the Takoma section of the District, was preceded in death by his five siblings. His death was confirmed by his wife, who said he had cancer and congestive heart failure. She survives him, in addition to two children from his first marriage, April Smith Motaung of Columbia, Md., and Daniel “Rob” Smith Jr. of New York; and a granddaughter.
“We could never talk negatively about America in front of my father,” Mr. Smith told the Economist. “He did not have much but he really, really loved America. Isn’t that funny?” | 2022-10-20T23:21:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Daniel Smith, one of the last children of enslaved Americans, dies at 90 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/20/slavery-link-daniel-smith-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/20/slavery-link-daniel-smith-dead/ |
A man jogs along the waterside on the corniche in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019. Abu Dhabi sold $10 billion of bonds in a three-part deal in its first international offering in two years as it takes advantage of relatively low borrowing costs. (Bloomberg)
The Gulf’s deep-pocketed investors are looking at global investment banks again — more than a decade after they made billions of dollars worth of bets on them during the last financial crisis. To make their money matter this time, though, they’ll need to work on their strategy.
This past week, news emerged that Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia are weighing whether to put money into Credit Suisse Group AG’s investment bank and other businesses to take advantage of depressed values, as the Swiss lender cleans house and seeks to shore up capital, Bloomberg News reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Sounds like a 2008-type play, all over again.
There’s more at stake for the big spenders now. At a time when Gulf states are trying to make their capital go further and increase their global influence beyond just oil wealth, how they put their money to work matters. Picking up stakes and trophy assets isn’t enough. If the sovereign wealth funds with their brimming coffers want to join the big leagues, they’ll have to be controlling shareholders and show they can make strategic plays.
During the financial crisis, they came in with big checks and walked away with small, minority stakes. Many of the investments didn’t turn out so well, and didn’t do much to establish their standing as either savvy investors or rescuers of the crippled global financial institutions.
Now, with their new found swagger as the rest of the world works its way through an energy crisis, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi are all competing to become regional financial hubs, drawing in talent, big business and foreign companies. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, for instance, hasn’t previously shown the same inclination toward financial firms as it has for technology, infrastructure or industrial plays. Whichever state takes a bold stand on the global stage could accelerate its path toward a pole position.
With Michael Klein involved — the former star Citigroup Inc. investment banker who knows his way around Saudi Arabia — Credit Suisse is an opportunity, and owning a 51% stake in its investment banking arm would make that easy. Playing a key funding role at a global institution, although a shadow of its former self (therefore, small enough) but still deeply embedded in the financial system, would bring the influence they want. These businesses need to be able to use their balance sheets to make money — especially now, as interest rates rise. Very few can fund this the way the large Middle Eastern investors can.
Take the profitable securitized products business, which the Swiss firm has assessed should be sold because it requires too much capital and has limited overlap with the mainstay wealth management unit. By 2024, it’s estimated 400 million Swiss francs ($398 million) of pre-tax profit would account for a big chunk of the total of 700 million Swiss francs, according to analysts. That’s a valuable business worth owning. If the likes of Abu Dhabi or Saudi Arabia step in, they can inject more capital, shore up buffers and reduce funding costs, while keeping a money-making global lender intact.
It could be win-win. For the Credit Suisse group, a structure like this removes the financial headache of holding the entire investment bank and its risk, while maintaining access for its wealth and asset management arms. Along with giving these Gulf funds more control, taking a majority stake will help avoid the follies of their peers in Qatar, who stepped in to rescue the Swiss firm from some of its botched deals. In addition, building out deeper financial channels within the region could help the Gulf’s banking sector evolve. Of course, regulators would need to be persuaded, too.
The ties run deep and have been cultivated over decades. The Qatar Investment Authority and Saudi Arabian conglomerate Olayan Group already have stakes in Credit Suisse, after they helped it raise over $6 billion. These firms pared back their stakes over time but have made other rescues, too. At the onset of the financial crisis, the entire board including former chief executive officer Brady Dougan, showed up in Dubai. That year the Swiss lender announced it was expanding its presence in the Gulf. Over the past decade, it has tried to bank the rising number of millionaires in the region, deploying capital to its clients through financing activities. These relationships have managed to circumvent regional geopolitics, too.
Stepping in with a bunch of cash may give the impression that you’re establishing a presence. Doing it smartly is likely to come with returns. Credit Suisse investment banking headquarters in Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, perhaps?
• Rajeev Misra Must Be Doing Something Right: Ren & Trivedi
• Monday Blues Come to UAE. Will the Saudis Follow?: Bobby Ghosh
• Over New York, London and Hong Kong? Move On: Anjani Trivedi | 2022-10-21T00:08:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Credit Suisse Needs a Smarter Play, Not a Gulf Bailout - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/credit-suisse-needs-a-smarter-play-not-a-gulf-bailout/2022/10/20/8d6299d8-50c7-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/credit-suisse-needs-a-smarter-play-not-a-gulf-bailout/2022/10/20/8d6299d8-50c7-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
D.C. police charge man in 1992 killing
Ron Wright, 47, has been charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of 19-year-old Ricardo Burbano
D.C. police on Thursday charged a man in the 1992 killing of a male 19-year-old in Northwest Washington.
Ron Wright, a 47-year-old man from Wimauma, Fla., has been charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Ricardo Burbano. He was arrested in Florida in August.
Burbano, from Falls Church, Va., was found deceased and wrapped in a bed comforter on March 31, 1992, in Hyattsville, Md., according to charging documents in the case. Police said he died of strangulation, multiple stab and cut wounds, and blunt force trauma inside a residence on the 100 block of Q Street NW.
Authorities said they identified several people of interest during the investigation, including Wright, whom police first interviewed in April 1992, charging documents say. DNA testing did not exclude Wright, but it did exclude others as possible contributors to DNA identified from hairs recovered in the case.
A motive for the killing was not immediately clear. Authorities said that Wright could have acted alone or with others, and that the case remains under investigation. | 2022-10-21T00:09:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. police charge man in 1992 killing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/ron-wright-charged-ricardo-burbano/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/20/ron-wright-charged-ricardo-burbano/ |
In Montgomery, student fights stir up anxiety over safety at games
The Northwest student section cheers as their team takes the field during a game with rival Quince Orchard at Jaguar Stadium on Oct. 22. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
When Montgomery County Public Schools rolled out new safety rules last month for athletic events due to student fighting, Brian Rabin decided he wouldn’t feel comfortable with his middle school daughter going to high school football games.
Ahead of Friday Night games this week, Rabin said he was comfortable with his older daughter, who is a senior at Wootton High School, going to the games — especially with more administrators and police there, he said.
“This really seemed to start last year, where we just saw post-pandemic there just seemed to be a lot of challenges at the games, where people are coming together and a lot of passions are running high and just people stirring up trouble,” said Rabin, 51, who lives in North Potomac.
As students have returned to classrooms after about two years of online learning during the pandemic, teachers and school administrators across the country have said they’ve seen a rise in everything from minor misbehaviors and fighting in the hallways to gun violence. There is not much national data that tracks less serious incidents in schools, like fights, but anecdotally, those issues have gotten worse.
In Montgomery County, school leaders similarly say there have been increased problems with youth behavior, both in and out of school. And fights at athletic events have picked up too. Last year, individual schools in the district began moving game times up earlier in the day and adding other security measures in their own effort to curb fights.
But after a brawl at a football game between Northwest and Gaithersburg high schools in September that led to four juveniles and one adult being charged with assault, the school system rolled out a districtwide security plan for games. The plan requires fans remain in the stands during games and no entry after halftime. The plan also allows schools to take more extreme measures if needed, like changing game times, closing concession stands and limiting who can come into the game. The protocols have received a mixed reaction from parents.
From the district’s perspective, there isn’t a common thread fueling these fights — sometimes, it’s student rivalries or interpersonal issues between students who know each other, schools spokesman Chris Cram said. “There isn’t anything you can point to as a system,” he said.
Montgomery County Public Schools hasn’t had large brawls similar to what unfolded during the Gaithersburg and Northwest game since the athletic safety plan was put in place, Cram said.
Other school systems have taken similar steps in implementing safety rules for sporting events, including Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina, and a few Minnesota-based school districts that limit who can attend games and require adults attend with younger students. In the metro area, a petition was started in Arlington for that school district to loosen its rule enforced this year limiting student attendance at games to those whose teams are playing.
Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, said that up until this school year he would have said that incidents of student fighting and violence are more likely to occur during the school day. But there seems “to be a lot more going on at those athletic events” which has placed the likelihood of fights happening at school and at games on “a bad balance,” he said.
Earlier this week, Walt Whitman High School Principal Robert Dodd sent an email to parents notifying them that the upcoming Friday game against Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School would be moved up to 4 p.m. Most varsity high school games on the schedule have taken place at around 6:30 or 7 p.m., according to the Bethesda-Chevy Chase’s football schedule.
At Whitman’s most recent football game against Wootton High School last Friday, a group of about a dozen students — neither from Whitman nor Wootton — were “disruptive, abusive, and refused to follow the directions of school administrators and police,” according to another email from Dodd. Verbal threats were involved, and two students were arrested.
Back to school has brought guns, fighting and acting out
Arvin Kim, a senior at Whitman and the student member of the Montgomery County school board said that fights at athletic events — and especially football games — happen frequently. Whitman and Bethesda-Chevy Chase are considered rival schools, Kim said, and it has led to some postgame student violence in previous years.
Even earlier this week, Bethesda-Chevy Chase’s school newspaper, the Tattler, reported that there were fights off school property — including at the Bethesda Metro Station stop — after the school played Walter Johnson High School on Oct. 7.
“Whenever these things erupt, it of course does incite a fear and is a disruption to these community events,” Kim, 17, said. He added that it was concerning, because the games should be a place for students to gather and build community.
David Griffith, a parent of a junior at Poolesville High School who plays basketball and baseball, said he wasn’t nervous about his son attending any games at the high school. Poolesville hasn’t experienced the fights that have impacted other schools after returning to in-person learning, he said. But he was surprised when Montgomery County school leaders said that there had been other incidents outside of the Northwest and Gaithersburg brawl that led to the districtwide athletic safety plan.
“I was like, ‘Where else is this happening? What schools?’ ” Griffith, 55, said. “We haven’t had any problems at Poolesville, but we travel to other schools too. Like, do we need to know anything? It’s sort of one of my frustrations.”
Griffith pointed to a brawl between Churchill High School and Blake High School during a basketball game last school year, and said he wasn’t sure how many parents knew that it happened. He wouldn’t have known about it, if it weren’t for his children telling him. He said that school officials should tell parents more about those incidents.
Montgomery adds safety rules for school sporting events after football fight
Mia Soykan, a senior at Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg, Md., said the problems occurs more often off school property before or after games between schools playing against each other but they don’t get as much attention. Students often hear of those incidents via word-of-mouth, she said.
Overall, the games at Quince Orchard — whose football team won the state championship in 2021 — have been relatively calm because athletics are an integral part of the school’s culture, she said. Though there have been a few, small incidents.
A couple of weeks ago when the football team played Seneca Valley High School, a student threw a smoke bomb into the student section, she said. Soykan wasn’t at the game, but heard from her friends who went that the experience was overwhelming. The school’s administration threatened to prohibit students from going to football games until a student came forward, she said. Eventually, the students who were responsible did come forward.
Soykan, who is a member of the high school’s girl’s soccer team, said she feels secure when playing other teams and going to those games, but that she felt “iffy” at times while going to football games. Quince Orchard’s football student section is often tightly-packed, and sometimes, the crowd can be overwhelming because of the lack of personal space. But there are also things like the smoke bomb incident that can be unsettling, she said.
“It’s supposed to be crowded and fun,” Soykan, 18, said, “but sometimes I do get concerned a little bit, like when people are shoving in the stands — that happens a lot.”
Quince Orchard is slated to play its rival, Northwest High School, on Friday. Soykan said those games are usually the most fun, but she was unsure how safe the environment would be. Northwest recently lost its coach after the brawl with Gaithersburg and tensions would be high because of the schools’ rivalry.
“That one is definitely one, that like, you kind of have to wait and see,” she said. | 2022-10-21T00:09:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In Montgomery, student fights stir up anxiety over safety at games - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/20/montgomery-county-school-fights-student-dicipline/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/20/montgomery-county-school-fights-student-dicipline/ |
Six GOP-led states said the Biden administration overstepped its authority in its plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt
Standing by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, President Biden speaks about student loan forgiveness on Aug. 24 at the White House. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
A federal judge on Thursday denied a bid by six Republican-led states to block the Biden administration from moving forward with plans to cancel up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for more than 40 million people.
GOP-led states urge judge to block Biden student debt relief plan
U.S. District Judge Henry E. Autrey of the Eastern District of Missouri issued a 19-page order concluding that the states lacked the standing to bring the lawsuit to stop one of the administration’s signature economic policies.
“While plaintiffs present important and significant challenges to the debt relief plan, the current Plaintiffs are unable to proceed to the resolution of these challenges,” he wrote.
The lawsuit was widely considered one of the most serious legal challenges to Biden’s debt relief plan. Autrey’s ruling was one of two victories Thursday for the administration’s plan. In a separate case, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett denied a request by the conservative legal outfit Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, working on behalf of a taxpayer’s association, to pause the program.
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge (R), one of the states’ officials who filed the lawsuit, said the coalition would appeal the ruling. “I’m disappointed in the court’s discussion to dismiss our lawsuit," Rutledge wrote on Twitter. The other states involved in the suit are Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina.
An appeal would send the case to a conservative panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. The states may request an emergency stay from the appellate court to prevent the administration from moving forward in the interim.
The ruling by Autrey, a George W. Bush appointee, has cleared the way for the administration to begin erasing the debts of borrowers. It arrives days after the Education Department officially released the application for Biden’s debt relief plan.
Twelve million people have applied to date, according to the White House, while 8 million more have been notified of their eligibility for automatic cancellation because their information is already on file with the Education Department. The administration said people should complete the form by Nov. 15 to have them processed before federal student loan payments resume in January.
Biden’s loan relief plan will cancel up to $10,000 in federal student debt for borrowers who earn up to $125,000 annually, or up to $250,000 for married couples. Borrowers who received Pell Grants are eligible for an additional $10,000 in forgiveness.
The coalition of states involved in the lawsuit argue the administration has no right to take action on this scale without congressional approval. Moreover, they say the policy would impose economic harm on state investment entities and student loan companies that own debt from the defunct Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program.
Judge Autrey agreed. In Thursday’s ruling, he said “the lack of the ongoing incentive to consolidate defeats the claims of Arkansas and Nebraska.”
He also questioned whether Missouri had the right to bring a lawsuit on behalf of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, a quasi-state outfit that owns and services FFEL debt. Autrey argues that while the governor does appoint five members of the company’s board, its revenue and liabilities are independent of the state.
Most of the states involved in the lawsuit argue they will lose tax revenue because of Biden’s policy. They take their cue from the federal government, which will not count discharged student debt as taxable income through January 2026. Autrey shot down that claim, saying “the tenuous nature of future income tax revenue is insufficient to establish a cognizable injury to support standing to bring this action.”
Among the other ongoing cases is one filed by the conservative Job Creators Network Foundation on behalf of a commercial FFEL borrower who is ineligible for relief and an eligible borrower who does not qualify for the full $20,000 in debt relief. The suit alleges the administration denied borrowers the opportunity to voice their opinions on the policy by forgoing a comment period. Justice attorneys have argued in other cases raising similar claims that the Heroes Act doesn’t require notice and comment, said Elengold at UNC School of Law. A hearing on the group’s request for an injunction is set for Tuesday. | 2022-10-21T00:09:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Judge dismisses student loan forgiveness lawsuit by GOP-led states - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/20/student-loan-forgiveness-lawsuit-rejected/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/10/20/student-loan-forgiveness-lawsuit-rejected/ |
Democratic leaders call the midterms critical but have been slow to campaign for vulnerable candidates
President Biden speaks with Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. (Patrick Semansky/Associated Press)
PORTLAND, Ore. — President Biden declared Saturday that the upcoming midterms are “the most important off-year election” the country has had since “[Franklin D.] Roosevelt’s time.” On Tuesday, discussing abortion rights, he upped the ante, proclaiming, “We’re only 22 days away from the most consequential election in our history.”
Yet Biden has not held a campaign rally since before Labor Day. He has largely shied away from appearing with candidates in the most competitive races, amid worries he will drag them down with his low approval ratings. And his most frequent campaign activity is raising money from high-dollar donors with no television cameras or photographers present.
“It shows that a lot of these campaigns are smart and they know how to read the polls and the history books,” said Democratic strategist Lis Smith, who was a senior adviser for Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign. “If you are from the party in power in the midterms, it is not all that helpful for you to nationalize your race.”
Some lower-profile Democrats, like progressive favorite Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and centrist stalwart Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, have been better able to successfully target specific constituencies, she added. “That is why you have seen campaign’s like Tim Ryan’s stiff-arm Joe Biden but embrace Joe Manchin III,” Smith said. “They are generating local news, they are exciting the base.” Rep. Tim Ryan is the Democratic Senate candidate in Ohio.
This Democratic dynamic contrasts sharply with the landscape on the Republican side. Republican stars such as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and former governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina have crisscrossed the country for Republican House and Senate hopefuls, especially those in tight or pivotal races.
Biden has vigorously defended the pace of his political activity, insisting Thursday that he has been an active surrogate and saying he has more stops planned in the days ahead. Asked by a reporter why he has not campaign with more candidates, Biden responded, “That is not true. There have been 15. Count, kid, count.”
Asked if he would travel to Nevada or Georgia, which host two of the most Senate races, Biden did not give a direct answer, saying there are about “16 to 18 requests” for him to campaign across the country, and his plans were still being finalized.
But he said he was optimistic the Democrats would keep control of the Senate, which is now split 50-50 between the two parties, with Harris casting tiebreaking votes. “I think so,” Biden said while picking up sandwiches at Primanti Bros. with Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman. “It ain’t over til it’s over.”
But the limited nature of his events was illustrated by his Thursday schedule. Biden appeared at an event in Pittsburgh, but it was an official visit to Fern Hollow Bridge focused on touting his infrastructure package rather than exalting the qualities of such candidates as Fetterman, who appeared with him.
Biden took his usual shot at Republicans who called the infrastructure law “socialism” but, he said, are now requesting funds from that very same law, adding, “I’ve got to say, I was surprised to see there are so many socialists in the Republican caucus.” But he also said he was “truly grateful” for the Republicans who supported the bipartisan law and spent most of his remarks describing why the legislation was good for America.
Biden looked out at a relatively small crowd. There were 63 white chairs facing him, many of them marked “reserved” and filled with a collection of local and state politicos, union officials and other supporters, and outnumbered by the large contingent of media. The event took place in a cordoned-off part of Pittsburgh, half a mile down a barricaded road that was closed to the public.
Biden appeared to know many of the guests by name. Just to get close to Biden, guests had to have their names checked off a list, then were ferried to the site where the president would deliver his remarks. Later Thursday, Biden attended a fundraiser for Fetterman, but it was a closed-door event for donors, hardly a raucous campaign rally.
A president’s popularity almost invariably drops by the time the midterm elections roll around, and it is not unusual for the chief executive to walk a tightrope during those campaigns. However, Biden’s campaign activity pales in comparison to that of his predecessors, as both President Donald Trump and President Barack Obama held more than a dozen campaign rallies ahead of the midterm elections during their terms, even though their fortunes had fallen sharply since their elections to office.
David Axelrod, a former top strategist to Obama, said it can be tricky for House or Senate candidates to find nonpolarizing surrogates, ones who will energize supporters but not potential opponents. That appears to be less of a concern for Republicans this year, as deeply conservative figures have been working to charge up their base. “The challenging thing about high-profile surrogates is that you want people who will excite your base without deterring swing voters,” Axelrod said. “That is a hard pass to navigate. Obama can do it.”
Perhaps for that reason, Obama is the notable exception for Democrats this campaign season, hosting campaign rallies in Nevada, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin as candidates clamor for him to visit. One Democratic member of Congress, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss figures in the party, said Obama is “by far” the most popular and in-demand surrogate in battleground states this fall.
Candidates would also like to see Michelle Obama on the campaign trail, the lawmaker said. The former first lady is not expected to appear with Democratic candidates, however, choosing to focus instead on her nonpartisan group, When We All Vote, which seeks to increase voter participation. Smith said Obama is seen as a leader who can cobble together a multiclass, multiethnic and multigeneration coalition.
Other Democratic leaders may have a more targeted appeal. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats, just announced a national tour starting next week that will take him to eight states with at least 19 events before Election Day. Sanders has argued that Democrats should be focusing on economic issues and not solely on abortion rights, and he hopes to electrify voters who care about those issues. But it is not clear how many of the Democratic candidates in the areas he is visiting will appear with him.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), for instance, is going out on the campaign trail in an effort to keep the Democratic majority. A spokesman said Pelosi appeared at political events in 21 cities in the first three weeks of October. An adviser to Warren said she is participating in rallies in Washington and Oregon this week and will make a return visit to Wisconsin for a rally next week. It was announced Thursday that Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, whose profile rose significantly during her presidential run in 2020, would join a campaign event for Fetterman.
When Biden does hit the road, his schedule is often thin. On a recent four-day swing through the West Coast, Biden rarely interacted with voters. He only once left his hotel before 11:30 a.m. and never exceeded two public events a day. He uttered the word “abortion” twice, while never mentioning his policies to cancel student debt or relax marijuana laws, perplexing some Democrats who want to see the president focus on the issues that most animate their base.
His only unscripted interactions on the West Coast were picking up tacos with Rep. Karen Bass of California, who is running for Los Angeles mayor, and Hilda Solis, the former labor secretary, and grabbing ice cream at a Baskin-Robbins with Tina Kotek, the Democratic nominee for Oregon governor.
The swing stood in stark contrast to the aggressive schedule Biden pursued in 2018, when he was one of his party’s most sought-after surrogates, expressing pride that he was welcomed in parts of the country that shunned other Democrats. He argued during the 2020 presidential primary that his campaign activity during the 2018 midterm elections proved that his brand of politics was appealing to the broadest swath of voters. That has changed since he became president, as his approval ratings fell, something that has similarly bedeviled nearly all his predecessors.
Axelrod argued that the willingness of top Republicans to barnstorm the country may not pay off, as stars like Cruz, Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. are not particularly appealing to swing voters. “Surrogates are generally more desirable for fundraisers and targeted communications than public events in this tricky terrain, because of the tricky path campaigns in swing states and districts have to walk,” Axelrod said.
For his part, Biden is devoting most of his public appearances this week to elevating the issues Democrats on the campaign trail are most focused on: abortion, gas prices and student debt cancellation. But he is doing it mostly from Washington, and his home state of Delaware, rather than from swing states like Nevada or Georgia.
On Monday, Biden, at a White House event, touted the application site for Americans to have their student loans forgiven. The next day, he went to the Howard Theatre in the District to implore voters to elect Democrats to protect abortion rights. On Wednesday, he announced from the Roosevelt Room that his administration would release another 15 million barrels from the strategic petroleum reserve to lower gas prices.
On Friday, Biden will travel to Delaware State University to deliver a speech about how his administration plans to cancel student debt. His home, where he spends many weekends, is in Wilmington, but there are no competitive statewide or federal races in Delaware. Biden will then spend the weekend at his beach house in Rehoboth Beach.
Linskey reported from Washington and Wootson reported from Pittsburgh. | 2022-10-21T00:48:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Where are the Democratic stars? Few party leaders hit the trail. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/democratic-stars-absent-campaign-trail/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/democratic-stars-absent-campaign-trail/ |
Hans Niemann, seen arriving at the U.S. Chess Championships at the St. Louis Chess Club earlier this month, sued Magnus Carlsen and Chess.com Thursday. (Michael Thomas/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Hans Niemann, the 19-year-old American chess player at the heart of cheating allegations that have rocked the chess world, on Thursday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Missouri accusing online chess platform Chess.com and world champion Magnus Carlsen of defamation and collusion, among other infractions. Niemann is seeking $100,000,000 in damages.
The lawsuit depicts an alleged conspiracy between the popular online chess platform and Carlsen to bar Niemann from professional competition in retaliation for Niemann’s defeat of Carlsen, the world’s No. 1 player, last month at the St. Louis-based Sinquefield Cup.
Niemann “brings this action to recover from the devastating damages that Defendants have inflicted upon his reputation, career, and life by egregiously defaming him and unlawfully colluding to blacklist him from the profession to which he has dedicated his life,” the lawsuit said.
After Niemann’s upset, Carlsen hinted that wrongdoing had occurred. Niemann, a 19-year-old grandmaster, subsequently said he had cheated in matches on Chess.com when he was 12 and 16 years old — but insisted he had not since then. Carlsen later accused Niemann of having “cheated more — and more recently — than he has publicly admitted.”
In early October, Chess.com released a 72-page report saying Niemann “likely cheated” on its site more frequently than he has publicly acknowledged, and Niemann was banned from the site and online events. At the same time, Chess.com said its investigation failed to turn up an abundance of “concrete statistical evidence” that Niemann cheated in his win over Carlsen.
Niemann’s lawsuit suggests Carlsen wielded his influence as a five-time world champion in a way that has “destroyed Niemann’s remarkable career in its prime and ruined his life.”
A Norwegian grandmaster, Carlsen won his first world championship in 2013, and later co-founded Play Magnus the same year. Play Magnus began as a chess app which mimicked Carlsen’s playing style at various stages of his life, but has since evolved into a company that offers an online playing site and a book publishing outlet. In August, Play Magnus accepted an acquisition offer by Chess.com worth nearly $83 million.
The lawsuit describes that acquisition as a move that will “monopolize the chess world,” and adds that the partnership inspired Chess.com’s alleged collusion with Carlsen “to blacklist [Niemann] from chess,” as Chess.com and Play Magnus “collectively comprise the majority of FIDE-sanctioned chess tournaments.”
In the wake of Carlsen’s accusations, the lawsuit said, Niemann has had tournament invitations revoked and an upcoming match against 17-year-old German grandmaster Vincent Keymer canceled. It also said Niemann “cannot obtain employment as a chess teacher at a reputable school.”
The lawsuit also names Japanese American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, Chess.com’s most popular Twitch streamer with 1.5 million followers. Nakamura is accused of acting in collusion with Carlsen and Chess.com by posting videos which it said amplified Carlsen’s cheating allegations against Niemann.
“By design, this sudden ban, at the precise time that Carlsen accused Niemann of cheating against him, added instant credibility to Carlsen’s false allegations and suggested that they were true. Otherwise, there would be no reason for Chess.com to suddenly ban Niemann immediately after he defeated Carlsen,” the lawsuit claims. “To bolster this unprecedented joint ban, which effectively blacklisted Niemann from professional chess, [grandmaster Hikaru] Nakamura leveraged his platform as Chess.com’s top streamer and credibility as a top chess player to engage in an all-out blitz of defamatory accusations to further confirm that Carlsen accused Niemann of cheating and to make it appear that those accusations are true.”
Chess.com executive Danny Rensch, the final defendant named in the lawsuit, is accused of issuing “defamatory press releases, and leaked defamatory ‘reports’ to prominent press outlets, falsely accusing Niemann of lying in his post-match Sinquefield Cup interview regarding his use of a ‘chess engine’ in a handful of recreational online games when he was a child,” actions which it said further bolstered Carlsen’s “false” claims.
Per the BBC, lawyers for Chess.com said the allegations found in the lawsuit had “no merit.” In a statement to Polygon, Chess.com’s lawyers noted that “Hans confessed publicly to cheating online in the wake of the Sinquefield Cup, and the resulting fallout is of his own making.”
“As stated in its October 2022 report, Chess.com had historically dealt with Hans’ prior cheating privately, and was forced to clarify its position only after he spoke out publicly. There is no merit to Hans’ allegations, and Chess.com looks forward to setting the record straight on behalf of its team and all honest chess players.” | 2022-10-21T01:53:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hans Niemann files $100 million lawsuit against Magnus Carlsen, Chess.com - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/hans-niemann-magnus-carlsen-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/hans-niemann-magnus-carlsen-lawsuit/ |
Democrat Brad Pfaff is running against Derrick Van Orden, the Republican nominee for an open swing seat in Wisconsin who was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Wisconsin U.S. House candidate Brad Pfaff, a Democrat, speaks at a labor union meeting in Bangor, Wis., on Oct. 11. (Thomas Beaumont/AP)
EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Derrick Van Orden, the Republican nominee for an open swing seat in Wisconsin, was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — and his Democratic opponent is trying to make sure voters don’t forget it.
Brad Pfaff, the Democratic state senator running against Van Orden, is running TV ads in which a veteran accuses Van Orden of participating in “a riot that injured over 100 cops” as a footage of the insurrection plays.
Pfaff is one of relatively few Democrats on the ballot this year who have made criticizing Republicans’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election — which culminated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — a central theme of their campaigns.
It’s not hard to understand why. Van Orden is one of only three Republicans running for Congress who were present on Jan. 6, and he has the best shot at winning, according to the Cook Political Report and other analysts. (Cook downgraded the odds that another Republican who was near the Capitol that day, J.R. Majewski, would win after the Associated Press revealed last month that he had misrepresented his military record.)
Lee Hennick, 69, an Army veteran who described himself as a lifelong Democrat, said he was disturbed by Van Orden’s conduct on Jan. 6 as well as his criticism of the press. Still, he’s been trying to convince Pfaff to fine-tune his message.
“I personally don’t think the people in this district care very much about Van Orden’s role in the insurrection,” Hennick said.
A battle for working-class voters in a key Indiana House race
The district — a vast stretch of rural western Wisconsin peppered with small cities, stretching from the Minneapolis exurbs to the Illinois border — is one of only eight seats held by Democrats that Donald Trump carried in 2020 before redistricting, making it a natural target for Republicans in their drive to recapture the House. (Two of those seats added enough Democrats in redistricting that Biden would’ve carried them under the new lines, but Wisconsin’s 3rd District changed little.)
In an interview in his office in La Crosse, Kind said he was confident that Pfaff could hold the seat,
But Steve Gunderson, a Republican who held the seat before Kind won it in 1996 and who hasn’t endorsed Pfaff or Van Orden, said the district has moved right in recent years.
“It’s exhibit A of the polarization of America,” Gunderson said. “When I was in office, it was a Democrat-leaning district. I needed Democrats and independents for me to win. And more importantly, people were willing to consider the candidate over the party.”
Some House Democrats have expressed alarm about the prospect of serving alongside Republicans such as Van Orden who traveled to Washington for Trump’s Jan. 6 rally.
“It’s frightening,” said Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), a member of the House committee investigating Jan. 6. While she prides herself on working with Republicans, “I would find it hard to take someone like that seriously.”
But Van Orden’s campaign has outraised Pfaff’s, and Democrats aren’t investing as heavily there as they are in other battleground districts. While the super PAC Center Forward is spending $600,000 on ads attacking Van Orden, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has booked only a little more than $70,000 on coordinated ad buys with the campaign. House Majority PAC, Democrats’ flagship super PAC in House races, hasn’t run ads in the district; Axios reported earlier this month that the super PAC planned to cancel its ad reservations there.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler said, “I have been sounding the alarm everywhere I can about the value of investing in the 3rd.”
Polling indicates that the best way to defeat Van Orden is to tell voters about his conduct on Jan. 6, Pocan said. But despite the ads Pfaff is running, not all voters seem to be aware.
Walking into a Fleet Farm store on the outskirts of Eau Claire on Tuesday morning, Tom Donagan, 71, said he didn’t know about Van Orden’s involvement with Jan. 6. But that fact wouldn’t change his plans to vote for the Republican. While he voted for former president Barack Obama in 2008, “all that woke stuff” has led him to vote Republican in recent years, he said.
“I used to be a Democrat,” Donagan said. " I was a union bricklayer for years and we always voted Democratic. [The party’s] just not the same as it used to be.” | 2022-10-21T02:32:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Van Orden, Pfaff in race focused on Jan. 6 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/van-orden-pfaff-jan-6/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/20/van-orden-pfaff-jan-6/ |
“It just felt good,” Quinn said. “I thought our guys did a great job. ... We had been a fragile group, but we showed some mental toughness tonight. We showed some perseverance and resolve and you’re gonna need all those things moving forward here.”
“For the first time this year we kind of stuck with it,” Karlsson said. “We tried our best to win the game instead of sitting back and seeing what’s going to happen. ... Timo did a good job of staying patient and he found me for an easy goal.”
“The whole first period was special teams,” Rangers forward Chris Kreider said. “We lost the special teams battle, lost the period. We had an opportunity to kind of put our brand on the game early, a bunch of power-play opportunities, a couple of miscues on the penalty-kill. ... We leave (down) 1-0 and we’re chasing the game.” | 2022-10-21T03:12:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Karlsson scores in OT, Sharks beat Rangers 3-2 for 1st win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/karlsson-scores-in-ot-sharks-beat-rangers-3-2-for-1st-win/2022/10/20/5a43c38a-50e3-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/karlsson-scores-in-ot-sharks-beat-rangers-3-2-for-1st-win/2022/10/20/5a43c38a-50e3-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
Houston's Alex Bregman watches his three-run homer fly out to left Thursday in Game of the ALCS, the decisive blow in a 3-2 Astros win. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)
HOUSTON — If it were not for a momentary lapse of coordination that left him flat on his back flinging a baseball toward first base Thursday night, Houston Astros right-hander Framber Valdez would have been just about perfect Thursday night. The blemish came on a weak chopper Giancarlo Stanton hit his way that bounced out of his glove and left Valdez all but crawling in pursuit before throwing wide to first. Had it not been for that, Valdez probably wouldn’t have allowed the New York Yankees a single run at all in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series.
Valdez’s bobble and poor throw — a rare double-error — allowed the Yankees to put two runners in scoring position in the fourth inning, two of only three Valdez allowed to get so far in seven innings. Two groundballs followed, allowing two runs to score. The runs cut Houston’s lead to 3-2, where Valdez and a pair of relievers kept it the rest of the way for a win that sends the series to New York with the Astros up 2-0.
Not since the 1996 World Series have the Yankees won a playoff series after dropping the first two games.
The trouble with the Astros, at least as the rest of Major League Baseball should be concerned, is that nothing seems to stop them. Try as everyone else might, desperate though the rest of the league is to slow them after the cheating scandal that will always shade their recent dominance, they are the only team this century to make their league’s championship series six straight times.
José Altuve, their leadoff hitter and de facto elder statesman, is 0 for 23 this postseason. The Astros have yet to lose a playoff game in 2022. They lost their playoff savant shortstop Carlos Correa to free agency before this season, only to see his replacement, Jeremy Peña, join Correa on Wednesday as one of five major league rookies ever to deliver three extra-base hits in a single playoff game.
They won Game 1 behind a gutsy performance by Justin Verlander, one of the greatest postseason pitchers of all time. Then Valdez delivered even more dominance in Game 2. And even more esoteric factors seem to be aligning for their benefit these days.
Before Thursday’s game, for example, much was said about the fact that the roof at Minute Maid Park would be open for Game 2. They rarely do that here, thanks in large part to the consensus among those to whom it matters most that the ball doesn’t fly quite as well in the open air. Plus, when the roof is closed, Minute Maid is one of the loudest stadiums around.
Before the game, third baseman Alex Bregman dismissed the notion that the roof being open would hurt his team’s chances, though as a longtime Astro he is one of those most familiar with how rare it is to play beneath the Texas sky. As it happened, the roof being open allowed a substantial breeze to gust toward the train tracks in left. And as it happened, it was Bregman who sent a high flyball that way with two men on in the bottom of the third, one that cleared the fence and gave the Astros a 3-0 lead.
Bregman has been a staple of this recent Astros machine, making his playoff debut at age 23, the year they won their since-tainted title after outlasting the Yankees in that year’s ALCS. As players like Correa and George Springer have come and gone, Bregman has remained one of the few originals still playing a key role. That homer, off Yankees starter Luis Severino, was his 14th career playoff homer, most ever by a third baseman.
The Astros need players like Bregman to help them now, in part because one of the other original stalwarts, Altuve, has created a void at the top of the order.
It hasn’t been fatal because the Astros spent all season pitching themselves through offensive ebbs and flows. Valdez established himself as one of the best, if not the best left-hander in the game this season with 200-plus innings and a 2.82 ERA, his best season of many solid ones in the majors. He is an enigma both in story and in stuff, a Dominican-born player who did not sign until age 21, a half-decade after most of his countrymen normally ink deals.
He relies on a baffling combination of a sinker and curveball that helped him lead the majors in groundball percentage by nearly 10 percentage points — 66 percent of the contact against him in the regular season resulted in groundballs. Valdez was seventh among major league starters in terms of allowing the fewest barrels per plate appearance, limiting hard contact while also striking out more batters than all but 13 other qualified starters.
Valdez retired 21 batters Thursday, nine on groundballs, nine on strikeouts. Of the four hits he allowed, two were bouncing groundballs that found their way through.
Otherwise, Valdez was masterful. His curveball, breaking down and into their largely right-handed lineup, proved absolutely befuddling. The Yankees swung and missed at nearly 25 percent of the 101 pitches he threw in seven innings. When Valdez threw the last of those pitches, a curveball that twisted up rookie shortstop Oswaldo Peraza to end the seventh, he marched off the mound with an unmistakable combination of smirk and smile, like a man who had never had a moment’s worth of doubt all evening.
As funny as it sounds for a 3-2 game, his team looked that way, too. The only time the game ever felt as close as the score looked was when Aaron Judge sent a high flyball to the warning track in right field with a man on in the eighth inning against Astros’ reliever Bryan Abreu.
A foot deeper — say, if the wind had been blowing out that way, or if the ball really does travel a little better with the roof close as they believe it does — and that swing would have given the Yankees a one-run lead. As it happened, Kyle Tucker caught it at the wall, no harm done, and the Astros’ cruise through October rolled along. | 2022-10-21T03:29:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Framber Valdez, Alex Bregman lift Astros past Yankees in Game 2 of ALCS - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/astros-yankees-framber-valdez-alex-bregman/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/20/astros-yankees-framber-valdez-alex-bregman/ |
For five weeks, Iranian protesters have braved a brutal crackdown to challenge the country’s authoritarian clerical rulers, drawing the world’s attention — and the efforts of commentators in the West to explain what the demonstrators want.
The anti-government protests began in response to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died while in the custody of so-called morality police after being detained for an alleged violation of headscarf rules. But the protests have come to encompass a wide range of grievances, which are reflected in the protesters’ rallying cries.
Some slogans are developing as events unfold, and many are twists on rhetoric rooted in Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution — the foundational event for the ruling elite but increasingly distant for young Iranians at the helm of demonstrations.
Altogether, the battle cries of the protest movement present a “remarkable intersectional critique of dictatorship,” and a range of gender, religious, ethnic and generational contentions, said Eskander Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, a professor of modern Middle East history at Goldsmiths, University of London.
The death of Amini — and the state’s efforts to cover it up with impunity — was all too familiar for many Iranians. In the month since, anger over four decades of gender discrimination, repression, fundamentalist rule and inequality has united Iranians across class, geographic and ethnic lines.
Before Amini, Iranian protesters shouted the names of male political figures, said Fatemeh Shams, a professor of Persian literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Now the names of two teenage girls reportedly killed for protesting, Nika Shakarami and Sarina Esmaeilzadeh, are part of the new generation of refrains.
“Woman, life, freedom,” is one of the women-led uprising’s defining chants. It’s a fitting slogan for a movement in which the experiences of women, and the corrosive impact of gender discrimination, have been front and center. In the weeks before Amani’s death, Iranian women held small protests against mandatory headscarves and other rules as the morality police stepped up patrols in middle- and lower-class neighborhoods while leaving the wealthy alone.
Women and girls removing their mandatory headscarves has become a defining aspect of these protests. But the politicization of the hijab and women’s bodies in Iran is not new: The Shah banned the hijab in the 1930s, and women marched to demand it during the 1979 Islamic revolution. Among the distinguishing factors of this uprising are chants that reject both models: “Independence, freedom, optional hijab,” one slogan goes.
“Woman, life, freedom,” however, is not rooted in Iran’s revolution. It comes from the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a Kurdish militant group with a feminist and radical left heritage, said Djene Rhys Bajalan, a professor at Missouri State University who specializes in Kurdish history. Kurds form a large minority in Iran — as well as in Turkey, Iraq and Syria — and have been at the center of the past month’s uprising.
The rallying cry’s Kurdish roots have gone largely unacknowledged, Bajalan said. But it spread across Iran, and the globe, in part because “people can project unto it what they want to believe,” he said. “Although it has its origins in a radical anti-capitalist movement, it is very easy to appropriate to liberal bourgeois feminism.”
The ubiquitous shouts of “death to the dictator” and “death to Khamenei” — the supreme leader of Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — capture a people seething under decades of despotism. Iranians chanted “Death to the shah” in the revolution to oust the Western-backed autocrat Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Shiite revolutionaries won, and “Death to America” became a rallying cry for the repressive Islamic Republic they set up. During protests in 2009 over election fraud, protesters avoided using highly charged, taboo iterations naming the supreme leader, Sadeghi-Boroujerdi said. But over time, the fear waned. “Experiencing Islamist government has had a profoundly disillusioning effect,” he said. “There’s been a subterranean sea change in values.”
Many Iranians are fed up with efforts to reform from within. Some demonstrators call openly for a revolution to overthrow their clerical government. “Islamic Republic, we don’t want,” goes one chant. Others reference Islamic iconography in a critique of how the state uses religion as a front for repression. There are the occasional chants in favor of the monarchy, an idea with a following abroad. But one new iteration — “Death to the shah, death to the religious leader” — captures a consistent repudiation of autocratic rule, be it a king or a cleric. “The binary canceling one system in favor of another one no longer represents the ideals of the protesters,” Shams said.
Iran’s security forces — in particular the IRGC and its paramilitary force, the Basij — are another key target of the chants. The IRGC effectively runs its own parallel state with vast economic, political and institutional power and one overarching mandate: to protect the Islamic Republic. The Basij are closely associated with the state-sanctioned violence, repression and corruption Iranians have long endured, and are brought out to crush protests. One slogan, “cannons, tanks and guns won’t work anymore, tell my mother that she doesn’t have a daughter,” renounces violence against women, but also casts it as part of a historical pattern of repression: Iranians shouted the refrain with “son” in place of daughter in the 1980s to protest the continuation of the Iran-Iraq war.
One word often shouted at the police and Basij — “dishonorable” — carries a connotation that can be akin to a curse for Iranians. “The state used to inhabit the role of the patriarch,” Sadeghi-Boroujerdi said. But Amini’s death underscored its failure to protect people, especially women. Yelling “dishonorable,” he said, in effect rejects the very legitimacy of the state and Iran’s security forces.
The leaderless protest movement has focused on unifying Iranians and rejecting the ethnic divisions that their leaders exploit. “Don’t be afraid, we are united,” people chant in unison. Iran’s Kurds, who are predominantly Sunni Muslim, have long been a vanguard of resistance against the Islamic Republic. Like other minorities, they also face heightened discrimination and repression. Security forces attacked protesters in Zahedan, a southeastern city populated by the Baluch minority, on Sept. 30 in what has been the bloodiest day of the uprising. The bloodshed spawned slogans such as, “From Zahedan to Tehran, I sacrifice myself for Iran” — an expression of national unity and a twist on a slogan used to support the state’s foreign policy agenda.
The grip of Iran’s clerical leaders remains strong. Tehran is continuing to impose censorship and internet blackouts to prevent people from sharing news and videos of the crackdown, and the chants that accompany protests. The number of people Iranian authorities have killed and detained continues to rise.
But the protest slogans cannot be stopped from spreading. “Don’t call it a protest,” university students shout in videos shared online. “Call it a revolution.” | 2022-10-21T04:21:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | iran-protests-slogans-demands - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/21/iran-protests-slogans-demands/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/21/iran-protests-slogans-demands/ |
Dear Amy: I am a 16-year-old boy. I have lived with my grandparents for the last six years. I used to live with my parents, but gradually spent more time at my grandparents’ house.
Runaway: I’d like to applaud your bravery at finding a safe way to leave your household so that you could live in a more stable and healthy environment. To me, this does not seem like running away — at all! — but more like the behavior of a survivor who, at only 10 years old, figured out how to secure a better home life.
I highly recommend author and illustrator Jarrett Krosoczka’s graphic novel “Hey Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt With Family Addiction” (2018, Graphix).
I never have initiated these invites. I am on a low fixed income, so I don’t dine out very much. Apparently to them, “taking” me to lunch means that I am buying my own lunch.
Two times now, with two separate friends, they have asked for separate checks and I have been left scrambling to pay. Your thoughts?
Scrambling: I’m with you! When someone asks to “take” you to lunch, they are inviting you to lunch — and they should be picking up the check.
Restored: Meetup.com is a great way to connect with others and enjoy some new experiences and adventures. | 2022-10-21T04:21:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: How do I talk to my mom about the past if she denies everything? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/21/ask-amy-mom-strained-relationship/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/21/ask-amy-mom-strained-relationship/ |
FILE - This image from CCTV provided Monday, June 17, 2019, by New South Wales Police Force, missing Belgian backpacker Theo Hayez, center, wearing black hooded jumper, inside liquor store in Byron Bay, Australia on May 31, 2019. The disappearance of the young Belgian backpacker in Australia has confounded authorities for more than three years, and his fate remained a mystery after an inquest concluded Friday, Oct. 21, 2022.(New South Wales Police Force via AP, File) (Uncredited/New South Wales Police Force) | 2022-10-21T04:44:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Belgium tourist's Australia disappearance remains a mystery - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/belgium-tourists-australia-disappearance-remains-a-mystery/2022/10/20/2c6186bc-50ef-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/belgium-tourists-australia-disappearance-remains-a-mystery/2022/10/20/2c6186bc-50ef-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
Smoke rises from debris and corrugated roofing of a school structure that was burned to the ground in Taung Myint village in the Magway region of Myanmar on Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022. The decapitated body of a volunteer teacher in rural Myanmar was found on grotesque display at a village school after he was detained and killed by the military, witnesses said Thursday, Oct. 20, 2022. (AP Photo) (Uncredited/AP) | 2022-10-21T04:44:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Myanmar villagers say army beheaded high school teacher - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/myanmar-villagers-say-army-beheaded-high-school-teacher/2022/10/20/662487fa-50f4-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/myanmar-villagers-say-army-beheaded-high-school-teacher/2022/10/20/662487fa-50f4-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html |
Six-year veteran Christian McCaffrey, 26, is headed to the 49ers. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
The Carolina Panthers continued to disassemble their struggling team by agreeing Thursday to trade former all-pro tailback Christian McCaffrey to the San Francisco 49ers for four draft choices, according to two people familiar with the deal.
McCaffrey returns to the Bay Area after playing in college at Stanford. He is in his sixth season with the Panthers and has been one of the NFL’s most versatile and effective running backs when healthy, but he has struggled with injuries in recent years.
The 49ers agreed to send second-, third- and fourth-round picks in 2023 and a fifth-rounder in 2024 to the Panthers in the trade, according to one of those people with knowledge of the deal.
The Panthers and 49ers later confirmed the trade agreement, without announcing the terms. Both teams said the move was contingent upon McCaffrey passing a physical.
McCaffrey is scheduled to join the 49ers on Friday and could play for them in their game Sunday at home against the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Panthers are 1-5 and have lost 12 of their past 13 games dating to last season. Team owner David Tepper fired Matt Rhule five games into Rhule’s third season as the Panthers’ coach. That move came Oct. 10, the day after a 37-15 defeat at home to the 49ers.
Tepper promoted defensive assistant Steve Wilks to interim head coach, and Wilks sent wide receiver Robbie Anderson to the locker room during last Sunday’s loss to the Los Angeles Rams in Inglewood, Calif., after Anderson yelled on the sideline at wide receivers coach Joe Dailey. The Panthers wasted no time parting with Anderson, trading him Monday to the Arizona Cardinals.
They did not get a first-round selection for McCaffrey, but they did manage to get a significant package of picks. The Rams also are believed to have pursued a trade for McCaffrey.
The 49ers are making what amounts to a win-now push to reach the Super Bowl this season after losing last season’s NFC championship game to the Rams. They are 3-3 after Sunday’s surprising loss at Atlanta.
San Francisco is ranked first in the NFL in total defense but is only 18th in total offense. It put veteran quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo back in charge of the offense after his would-be replacement as the starter, Trey Lance, suffered a season-ending broken ankle in the season’s second game.
McCaffrey ran for 393 yards and two touchdowns in six games this season for Carolina. He also had 33 catches for 277 yards and one touchdown. He was a two-time 1,000-yard rusher for the Panthers. He also had a 1,000-yard receiving season.
His best season came in 2019, when he ran for 1,387 yards and 15 touchdowns while adding 116 catches for 1,005 yards and four touchdowns. | 2022-10-21T05:48:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Panthers trade former all-pro running back Christian McCaffrey to 49ers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/21/christian-mccaffrey-trade-panthers-niners/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/21/christian-mccaffrey-trade-panthers-niners/ |
President Biden touted higher Social Security payments and lower Medicare Part B premiums, but it's not the good news for seniors that it seems. (Michael Reynolds/Pool/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
“Social Security checks are going up. Medicare premiums are going down. That’s a big deal for seniors.”
— President Biden, in a tweet, Oct. 14
This is an instance when there needs to be a huge asterisk next to a politician’s statement. Social Security benefits are going up next year — and Medicare premiums are going to drop. “For the first time in over a decade, seniors’ Medicare premiums will decrease even as their Social Security checks increase,” boasted White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in a statement.
Here’s an explanation.
Social Security checks
For months, Biden has signaled that he is taking aggressive action to address inflation, which by one measure has risen to 8.2 percent for the 12 months ending in September. That’s a sharp contrast to the 1 to 2 percent inflation rate that was the norm in the previous decade. Prices rose 9.1 percent in the 12 months ending in June.
The reason Social Security payments are going up is because Social Security benefits, unlike virtually all annuities, are adjusted every year to keep pace with inflation as measured by the Department of Labor’s consumer price index (CPI-W). Thus benefits are always increasing, making it very valuable to retirees.
On Oct. 13, the Social Security Administration announced benefits would increase 8.7 percent, for an average increase of more than $140. That’s sounds like a lot, but in theory it’s only letting seniors keep pace with the increase in the cost of living.
Whether CPI-W is the appropriate mechanism for such annual adjustments is the subject of debate. The CPI relies on surveys of households and measures the increase in costs of a basket of goods purchased by urban consumers. BLS has often fiddled with the formula, sometimes under pressure from lawmakers worried about the federal budget deficit, because of concerns that the measure overstated inflation. In the 1990s, the annual inflation rate as measured by the CPI was reduced almost a full percentage point as a result of technical adjustments made by the BLS. Without those adjustments, Social Security benefits would be even higher today.
Moreover, other inflation gauges, such as one that measures costs for producers or one that measures prices for both urban and rural consumers, might more accurately reflect changes in the cost of living.
The reality is that if Biden’s and the Federal Reserve’s efforts to combat inflation were more successful, then Social Security benefits would not be going up so much.
Medicare Part B is the part of the old-age health program that covers physician and outpatient services. Seniors pay a monthly fee. Biden is right that the premium will go down next year. Premiums were $170.22 per month in 2022 and will be $164.90 next year. That’s a decrease of about 3 percent.
That sounds like good news. But premiums had soared in 2022, rising $21.60, or 14.5 percent, one of the biggest increases in recent history. Premiums had been $148.50 in 2021.
In other words, while premiums are going down slightly in 2023, they are still $16.40 higher than 2021. That’s an increase of 11 percent over two years.
The annual deductible would also be cut from $233 in 2022 to $226 in 2023, a decrease of $7. But, again, the annual deductible the year before had increased $30. So overall, deductibles are also 11 percent higher than two years earlier.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said it had hiked premiums so much in 2022 in part because it had to add reserves to cover a new Alzheimer’s drug that is administered by a physician in a clinic or hospital. The drug, known as Aduhelm, was anticipated to cost $56,000 per year. But then Biogen, the manufacturer, cut the price almost in half — to $28,200. That left the program with excess reserves that are now being passed on to people with Medicare Part B coverage.
But, for seniors, the modest reductions in the coming year will not make up for the sharp increases from the year before. | 2022-10-21T07:33:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dissecting White House spin on Social Security and Medicare - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/21/dissecting-white-house-spin-social-security-medicare/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/21/dissecting-white-house-spin-social-security-medicare/ |
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