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This pathbreaking Black journalist offers a model in uncertain times
Charlayne Hunter-Gault’s ‘My People: Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives’ offers a survey of turbulent times and those who made history throughout them
Review by Kenneth W. Mack
Resurrection City in the mud, Washington, May 24, 1968. Charlayne Hunter-Gault wrote about the people living in that tent city, erected as part of the Poor People’s Campaign after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (Marion S. Trikosko/ Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)
Charlayne Hunter-Gault’s “My People: Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives” is a response to the classic problem that the scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois identified more than a century ago. How does one see across the color line? When she started her career in the 1960s, there was no one like Hunter-Gault. She had been one of two Black students who endured the dangerous and violent experience of integrating the University of Georgia in order to get her journalism degree, and then she became nearly the only Black journalist able to write regularly for a national White audience. When urban rebellions broke out in the mid-1960s, she notes, “the riots came as a surprise because there was no one in the newsrooms of America from those communities who could have written about the simmering rage” that sparked them. She made it her project to write about “Black people in ways they were rarely portrayed anywhere in the media — in their full humanity.” She wrote a 12-page memo that persuaded the New York Times to stop using the term “Negro” in favor of “black.” She also opened a Harlem bureau at the paper.
Among her more striking pieces of reporting is a long-form chronicle of Resurrection City, the tent city built by the thousands who came to Washington as part of the Poor People’s Campaign following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. While news reports of mud, squalor and crime proliferated, Hunter-Gault spent weeks chronicling the experiences of residents. They were young organizers known only by names such as Leon and JT, or Northern and Southern Blacks who brought differing cultures to the encampment, or Mexican American and Black protesters who had different but related agendas.
“My People” gathers decades of reporting, generally about race and Black life, stretching from Hunter-Gault’s time as a reporter for the Times to her career at the PBS “NewsHour,” which she joined in 1978 in its early days when it was called “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report,” to her firsthand reporting on post-apartheid South Africa, to her engagement with present-day topics such as Donald Trump, George Floyd’s murder and the coronavirus pandemic.
Hunter-Gault’s career took shape in the aftermath of the civil rights movement, and her early reporting is a chronicle of the world that the movement made, and the lives of African Americans whom few Whites saw or understood. There are stories of debates over community diversion projects for criminal offenders and over whether Black police officers might make a difference, as well as an early critique of stop-and-frisk by civil rights lawyer Vernon Jordan. She goes to Brooklyn to chronicle a Black Panther Party Liberation School for the young. A chance trip to Martha’s Vineyard prompts her to remember the story of one Georgia man who regularly drove hundreds of miles to reach that Massachusetts island, past beach after beach that he could not use, to find one he could call home. Other pieces capture the sights and smells of Harlem, from the food trucks bringing up that “down-home soul food” to Lewis Michaux’s Black nationalist bookstore, which claimed 105,000 volumes.
Sometimes one sees history beginning to be made. A 1973 story profiles civil rights activist John Lewis as he patiently registers Southern Blacks to vote in the hopes of sending their own representatives to Congress. A story on the women’s movement and Black America captures the seeds of Black women’s critiques of the feminist movement that would later grow in prominence. A little-known congresswoman named Shirley Chisholm declares that “I am not a politician, I’m a stateswoman,” not long before she would make her pioneering run for the presidency.
“My People” also gathers extensive reporting from Hunter-Gault’s later career, including stories on the television program “Black-ish” and others that traverse Africa, chronicling corruption, LGBTQ life and terrorism. If there is something that the modern reader will find a bit alien, it is the tendency in the early stories to focus, albeit not exclusively, on the lives of middle-class African Americans. Her journalistic career took shape in a period more optimistic than our own, when the economic and social advances of the few seemed to presage those of the many.
It isn’t for nothing that Hunter-Gault gives this compendium the title “My People.” She started her writings with memoir, as early stories capture her harrowing experience at the University of Georgia and the texture of growing up in a Black rural Southern community. “I have never liked the term objective,” she says in one early public speech, “for we are all creatures of our environments and backgrounds.” Rather she chooses the terms “fair and balanced” — words that were later used by Fox News for purposes that have little in common with her empathetic reporting. Speaking to fearful young Black students who condemned the prejudices of Whites in the aftermath of Trump’s divisive 2016 presidential campaign, she reminds them to be precise with language and not to forget the Whites who lost their lives in the civil rights movement. One necessary response to hatred and ignorance, she argues, is to get more Black history into American school classrooms. “I want all of our people — even the haters — to know why we have needed that armor and how we can, while wearing it, remain open to one another.”
That is a point of view, and an approach to seeing through the eyes of others, that, as much as anything, captures her more than half century of journalism. It is also, she clearly hopes, a model for the future of America in our uncertain times.
Kenneth W. Mack, a historian and a professor of law at Harvard, is the author of “Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer” and a co-editor of “The New Black: What Has Changed — and What Has Not — With Race in America.”
My People
Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives | 2022-10-26T15:44:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review of My People: Five Decades of Writing about Black Lives by Charlayne Hunter-Gault - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/30/charlayne-hunter-gault-my-people-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/10/30/charlayne-hunter-gault-my-people-review/ |
By Steven Mufson
Flares burn off methane and other hydrocarbons at an oil and gas facility in Lenorah, Tex. (David Goldman/AP)
The amount of methane in the atmosphere is racing ahead at an accelerating pace, according to a study by the World Meteorological Organization, threatening to undermine efforts to slow climate change.
The WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin said that “global emissions have rebounded since the COVID-related lockdowns” and that the increases in methane levels in 2020 and 2021 were the largest since systematic record keeping began in 1983.
“Methane concentrations are not just rising, they’re rising faster than ever,” said Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford University.
The study comes on the same day as a new U.N. report which says that the world’s governments haven’t committed to cut enough climate emissions, putting the world on track for a 2.5 degree Celsius (4.5 degree Fahrenheit) increase in global temperatures by the end of the century.
The analysis said that the level of emissions set out in countries’ commitments was lower than a year ago, but would still lead to a full degree of temperature increase beyond the target level set at the most recent climate summits. Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said that “we are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on track toward a 1.5 degrees Celsius world.”
The quickest way to affect the pace of global warming would be cutting emissions of methane, the second largest contributor to climate change. It has a warming impact 80 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. The WMO said the amount of methane in the atmosphere jumped by 15 parts per billion in 2020 and 18 parts per billion in 2021.
Scientists are studying whether the unusually large increases in atmospheric methane levels in 2020 and 2021 are the result of a “climate feedback” from nature-based sources such as tropical wetlands and rice paddies or whether they are the result of human-made natural gas and industrial leakage. Or both.
Methane emitted by fossil sources has more of the carbon-13 isotope than that produced from wetlands or cattle.
“The isotope data suggest it’s biological rather than fossil methane from gas leaks. It could be from agriculture,” Jackson said. He warned that “it could even be the start of a dangerous warming-induced acceleration in methane emissions from wetlands and other natural systems we’ve been worrying about for decades.”
The WMO said that as the planet gets warmer, organic material decomposes faster. If the organic material decomposes in water — without oxygen — this leads to methane emissions. This process could feed on itself; if tropical wetlands become wetter and warmer, more emissions are possible.
“Will warming feed warming in tropical wetlands?” Jackson asked. “We don’t know yet.”
Antoine Halff, chief analyst and co-founder of the firm Kayross, which does extensive analysis of satellite data, said “we’re not seeing any increase” in methane generated by fossil sources. He said some countries, such as Australia, had cut emissions while others, such as Algeria, had worsened.
Atmospheric levels of the other two main greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide — also reached record highs in 2021, WMO study said. “The increase in carbon dioxide levels from 2020 to 2021 was larger than the average annual growth rate over the last decade,” it said.
Carbon dioxide concentrations in 2021 were 415.7 parts per million (or ppm), methane at 1908 parts per billion (ppb) and nitrous oxide at 334.5 ppb. These values represented 149 percent, 262 percent and 124 percent of preindustrial levels.
The report “underlined, once again, the enormous challenge — and the vital necessity — of urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions and prevent global temperatures rising even further in the future,” said WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas.
Like others, Taalas has urged the pursuit of inexpensive techniques for capturing the short-lived methane, especially when it comes to capturing natural gas. Because of its relatively short life span, methane’s “impact on climate is reversible,” he said.
The WMO also pointed to the warming of oceans and land, as well as the atmosphere. “Of the total emissions from human activities during the 2011—2020 period, about 48 percent accumulated in the atmosphere, 26 percent in the ocean and 29 percent on land,” the report said.
The WMO report comes shortly before the COP27 climate conference in Egypt next month. Last year, in the run-up to the climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, the United States and European Union took the lead in promoting the Global Methane Pledge, which set a goal of reaching a 30 percent reduction in the atmosphere by 2030. They estimated that could shave 0.2 degrees Celsius off the rise in temperatures that would otherwise take place. So far, 122 countries have signed up for the pledge.
White House climate negotiator John F. Kerry said that in the US-China joint declaration issued in Glasgow, China vowed to release “an ambitious plan” for this year’s climate summit that would move to cut its methane pollution. So far, however, that has not happened and China still has not issued an up-to-date “nationally determined contribution” or NDC in the lingo of the United Nations.
“We look forward to an updated 2030 NDC from China that accelerates CO2 reductions and addresses all greenhouse gases,” Kerry said.
The U.N. report said that the combined 193 climate pledges made in the international Paris agreement in 2015 would increase emissions by 10.6 percent by 2030, compared with 2010 levels. This reflects an improvement over last year’s assessment, which found that countries were on a path to increase emissions by 13.7 percent by 2030, compared with 2010 levels, the United Nations said.
But only 24 countries have revised their nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, since the climate summit a year ago in Glasgow, Scotland, making it difficult to avoid the worst of climate disasters, the United Nations said. Australia has made the most significant changes in its national climate goal.
Postcards from our climate future
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2018 report indicated that carbon dioxide emissions needed to be cut 45 percent by 2030, compared with 2010 levels. Earlier this year and using 2019 as a baseline, the IPCC said that greenhouse gas emissions needed to be cut 43 percent by 2030. | 2022-10-26T15:44:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nations ‘nowhere near’ emissions cuts needed to avoid climate disaster, U.N. says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/26/united-nations-climate-pledges-report/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/26/united-nations-climate-pledges-report/ |
Debris are scattered around destroyed wooden structures near Aung Bar Lay Village, Hpakant township, Kachin state in Myanmar Monday, Oct. 24, 2022. Air strikes by Myanmar’s military killed scores of people, including singers and musicians, attending an anniversary celebration of the Kachin ethnic minority’s main political organization, members of the group and a rescue worker said Monday. (AP Photo) (Uncredited/AP) | 2022-10-26T15:45:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Southeast Asian foreign ministers hold special Myanmar talks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/southeast-asian-foreign-ministers-hold-special-myanmar-talks/2022/10/26/6e7fa0fe-5538-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/southeast-asian-foreign-ministers-hold-special-myanmar-talks/2022/10/26/6e7fa0fe-5538-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
FILE - South Carolina forward Aliyah Boston (4) reacts after cutting the net following a college basketball game against Creighton in the Elite 8 round of the NCAA tournament in Greensboro, N.C., Sunday, March 27, 2022. Boston is a unanimous choice to the women’s Associated Press preseason All-America team, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)
COLUMBIA, S.C. — No. 1 South Carolina has a sweeter and much more satisfying motivation to go after an NCAA championship after winning the title a season ago. | 2022-10-26T15:45:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 1 South Carolina loaded, chasing 2nd straight NCAA title - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-1-south-carolina-loaded-chasing-2nd-straight-ncaa-title/2022/10/26/f44f689e-553e-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-1-south-carolina-loaded-chasing-2nd-straight-ncaa-title/2022/10/26/f44f689e-553e-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
When you travel for a living, you’re bound to meet a ghost or two
(Richard A. Chance/Illustration for The Washington Post)
1A haunted hotel attic in Rye, U.K.
2A paranormal funeral parlor in Cleveland
3An eerie old jail in Charleston, S.C.
4A bed-and-breakfast with bad energy in Glastonbury, U.K.
5The skull-lined Paris Catacombs
6Shades of ‘The Shining’ in Banff, Alberta
7An abandoned lighthouse on a Scottish isle
8A narco’s luxe prison in Medellín, Colombia
9An unfinished water park in Vietnam
10A claustrophobic cave in Upstate New York
11A dark, empty cemetery in Mexico City
For the TV hosts, authors and social media influencers who travel for a living, it’s only natural to wax poetic about the world’s best places: the most charming villages in Europe, the most exciting safari in Africa, the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean. It’s less often we get to hear about the places on the other end of the spectrum — specifically, the places that freaked them out.
In the spirit of Halloween, we interviewed these experienced travelers to find out which corners of the globe creeped them out the most. For some, it was unsettling cemeteries abroad that sent tingles up their spines; for others, it was dilapidated guesthouses with supernatural vibes.
A haunted hotel attic in Rye, U.K.
On a trip to the United Kingdom with friends, history buff and cookbook author Rick Martinez was compelled to visit the ancient town of Rye — once an infamous pirate port in the 13th century. While having a pint at the Mermaid Inn, a centuries-old hotel known for reports of ghost sightings, one of Martinez’s friends “felt a very malicious presence,” he remembers. With hairs standing on the backs of their necks, the group left and went to their accommodations down the street to sleep.
In the middle of the night, Martinez woke up in the so-called widow’s attic he was sharing with a friend. “I felt like I was just paralyzed — I couldn’t move — but I saw this woman walking back and forth around our room with a knife,” he says. “Meanwhile, as I’m seeing this and unable to move, I hear my friend essentially choking.”
Come morning, Martinez says, his friend reported “whatever was evil that she sensed in the pub had followed us home and was trying to strangle her in bed. So I was like: ‘You know what? This was great. We’re going to just go ahead and take off.’ ”
7 spooky under-the-radar places to visit, according to a ghost hunter
A paranormal funeral parlor in Cleveland
Scary situations are part of the job for Dalen Spratt, one of the stars of “Ghost Brothers: Lights Out,” which has a new season streaming on Discovery Plus and premiering on the Travel Channel on Nov. 26. One place that stands out to Spratt is the House of Wills in Cleveland, once reportedly the largest Black-owned funeral home in Ohio.
The property has fallen into disrepair and is a popular spot for paranormal investigators; Spratt featured it on one of his shows in 2017. He said while he was there, a woman with experience at the location brought him into the first-floor women’s restroom, and they both gazed into the mirror.
“About a minute in, my reflection in the mirror smiles at me,” Spratt said. “It was the Joker, Cheshire cat, your-mouth-doesn’t-even-open-up-that-wide-or-that-high” kind of smile. He said he fell to the ground shaking, then the women told him her reflection had just smiled at her.
“I didn’t even tell her what I saw,” he said. “That was the freakiest thing I ever saw in my life.”
An eerie old jail in Charleston, S.C.
Travel expert Samantha Brown, host of “Samantha Brown’s Places to Love” on PBS, toured Charleston’s Old City Jail twice, more than 10 years apart. Both visits left her shaken.
The jail operated from the early 1800s until 1939 in “horrid conditions,” Brown said. Her first visit was a nighttime tour that scared her so much that she had to stop: “I started to see handprints on the walls when I didn’t see handprints before,” she said.
“There was no one else in that jail other than us,” she said. “I was like, ‘Okay, let’s go.’ ”
A bed-and-breakfast with bad energy in Glastonbury, U.K.
Rick Steves, the famous guidebook author and travel guide, was hosting a tour of Cotswold villages and Stonehenge in the ’80s, and was scheduled to stay in an old bed-and-breakfast near Glastonbury.
The area is known as one of the most spiritual places in Britain, drawing religious visitors and new-age witches alike. To boot, the guesthouse was built on a spot where two ley lines crossed. (Some people believe ley lines are invisible gridlines that channel the Earth’s magnetic field, and ancient civilizations aligned landmarks along them to harness power.)
Once the group went to their rooms to tuck in for the night, “I just felt some creepy spirit in my room,” Steves says. “I went out into the hall, and everybody from the tour felt the same creepy spirit in their rooms.” Having spent thousands of nights in hotel rooms, “I’ve never felt anything remotely like this,” Steves says. “So we just all grabbed our bags. … We vacated that haunted hotel.”
Travel agency CEO Rani Cheema loves to be up early to beat the crowds. That’s how she found herself being one of the first few people of the day to enter the Paris Catacombs in 2015.
Wanting to keep moving, she listened to a bit of the tour, then walked ahead of people — until she realized she didn’t hear anything and was completely alone, surrounded by gated hallways, walls of skulls and darkness.
“I kept saying I didn’t like this, I don’t want to be alone,” said Cheema, whose agency, Cheema’s Travel, focuses on luxury culinary travel. She found the rest of the group and “zoomed past everyone and got out of there” once she neared the exits.
Cheema doesn’t believe in ghosts, but a friend who practices shamanism was convinced that a family of them followed her back from the catacombs and caused a wave of anxiety that she felt when she returned home.
“They kept saying you didn’t want to be alone,” the friend said of the ghosts.
Shades of ‘The Shining’ in Banff, Alberta
Barry Hoy, a Canadian travel writer and blogger at AsianMapleLeaf, recently visited the Fairmont Banff Springs in Banff, Alberta. “Beautiful, castle-like,” he said of the sprawling hotel, which opened in 1888. “Definite creepy vibes.”
Hoy went on a hotel tour on an earlier visit and learned two famous ghost stories about the property: one about a long-serving bellman who couldn’t give up his job, even after death, and another about a bride who died at the hotel before her wedding. Hoy said he has wandered the halls of the hotel, but never encountered anything himself.
“I joke about wanting to see stuff, but I really don’t,” he said.
When travel writer Rolf Potts peeked inside an abandoned building underneath a lighthouse on Scotland’s Isle of Scalpay, he thought he came face-to-face with a ghost. It wasn’t a supernatural experience, but it was spooky enough to rattle him.
In 2016, Potts stumbled upon a lighthouse that had, like so many others around the world, switched from manual to automated operations. He noticed an open door to the deserted crew quarters and crept inside. The dank, empty room was a tableau of a bygone era, the workers’ tools and diversions moldering on the table.
“I saw video games rotting away under this ancient building,” the 52-year-old author said. “ ‘Astro Wars’ and ‘Space Invaders,’ the archaic games of my youth.”
“It felt nostalgic and macabre at the same time,” he said. “It was an intrinsic realization of the shortness of life and my own mortality.”
A narco’s luxe prison in Medellín, Colombia
“He had been hunted by Pablo for years,” the creator and host of the TV travel show “World Wide Nate: African Adventures” said of his guide. “Only three out of 30 cadets [in his police academy class] survived.”
As soon as Fluellen entered the shabby room with stained walls and chipped paint, he understood the guide’s reluctance to step inside. “You could feel the energy,” he said. “I imagined all of the horrendous things that had taken place there.”
The compound appears on the first season of the Netflix series “Narcos.” But even the showbiz treatment can’t exorcise the evil spirits Fluellen sensed during his 2015 visit.
“I don’t get scared easily,” he said, “but I definitely wouldn’t sleep there, even if they turned it into an Airbnb.”
Being the only two people at a water park seems like a dream scenario: no lines, no tantrum-prone children, no one else’s germs. But at the abandoned Ho Thuy Tien water park, Kirstie Pike and Christine Diaz felt as if they were adrift in a nightmare.
“It was spooky and heart-wrenching,” Pike said. “It felt haunted.”
“These eerie slides were completely overgrown” with thick tropical vegetation, Pike said.
Maybe sharing a water park with one or two other visitors isn’t such a bad idea.
A claustrophobic cave in Upstate New York
Fortunately, Darley Newman isn’t claustrophobic or phasmophobic. The Lockport Cave & Underground Boat Ride in Upstate New York was terrifying enough without the phobias.
“If you want to be scared, you should go down into the tunnels blasted into the cliff face rock,” said the creator, producer and host of several PBS travel shows, including “Travels with Darley.” “The tunnels feel like they could implode at any time.”
“People sacrificed their lives,” Newman said.
“The immersive ghost tour actively showcases their paranormal side,” she said.
On the Day of the Dead, Mexico’s cemeteries are traditionally full of life. Unless you go to the wrong burial ground.
Last year, Nellie Huang, a travel writer who shares her adventures on her Wild Junket site, traveled with her husband and young daughter from their home in Playa del Carmen to Mexico City for the holiday. The trio went to Panteón de San Fernando, one of the city’s oldest cemeteries and the resting place of many notable 19th-century figures. Alas, no one else came to party with the dead.
“We went to the cemetery at night. It was very quiet, very dark and empty,” Huang said. “We were the only ones there. It was very spooky.”
Huang and her family didn’t stick around long. They high-tailed it for another cemetery, Panteón San José, where they found what they were looking for: a festive celebration with taco carts, lit candles and living revelers.
“The first cemetery was full of famous people,” said Huang, who will visit Oaxaca for this year’s Día de Muertos. “The second one was more local. I definitely liked the fun one.” | 2022-10-26T15:46:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Real ghost stories: Travel pros share 11 of their scariest trips - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/10/26/scary-travel-recommendations/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/10/26/scary-travel-recommendations/ |
Prince George’s pretrial system needs improvement, federal judge says
A federal judge made the comments as he considered requests to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the court’s bond review process and the Maryland county’s pretrial release program
People formerly and currently held in the Prince George’s County jail in Maryland have sued, challenging the bail review and pretrial process. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)
A federal judge in Maryland chastised Prince George’s County officials Tuesday, saying that they should have a more efficient and transparent process for evaluating inmates who have been authorized for release from jail while awaiting trial and that “simple” changes could improve the system.
U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte made the comments as he weighed requests to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the court’s bond review process and the county’s pretrial release program. The complaint was filed in July by people currently or previously detained at the Prince George’s County jail.
The plaintiffs allege that they and potentially hundreds of others were illegally detained for weeks or months before their trials — even after judges ordered or authorized their release.
The county, the leaders of its corrections department, and 11 Prince George’s County judges who oversaw the plaintiff’s bond hearings are named as defendants.
Lawyers for the defendants argued Tuesday during a hearing that the entire lawsuit should be rejected, claiming judicial immunity and asserting that a federal court had no jurisdiction over the issues. Suing individual judges is rare in litigation, in large part because judges are covered by legal protections aimed at preserving judicial independence. But those protections also limit the public’s ability to hold judges directly accountable through the courts.
The attorneys also argued that the claims in the lawsuit are “moot” because many of the plaintiffs have been released from jail by now and, they argue, are no longer suffering harm.
The county also said that the plaintiffs’ due process rights could not have been violated because a pretrial release program is not required under the U.S. Constitution.
“Because the jail offers this alternative potential for release it is confounding why plaintiffs would complain about it. The jail is under no obligation to offer the service,” the county wrote in one footnote. “The familiar sayings of ‘Don’t bite the hand that feeds you’ and ‘Be careful what you ask for’ come to the forefront of one’s mind under these circumstances.”
Meanwhile, there have been widespread calls for bail reform, nationally and in Maryland, where the courts have issued guidance to judges about limiting their use of cash bail. Prosecutors in Prince George’s also no longer recommend cash bail during bond hearings, a policy of the state’s attorney’s office.
But what has happened since, experts say, is a collapse of the system of alternatives to cash bail, such as pretrial release programs, which they say are not equipped to handle the additional case burden.
“You can still have a situation where you end cash bail or limit cash bail and large amounts of people are still being held anyway,” said Michael Collins, the senior director for government affairs at Color of Change. “It’s not just eliminating cash bail, but going beyond cash bail and thinking about pretrial reform more holistically.”
Once jailed, these women now hold courts accountable — with help from students, retirees and Fiona Apple
Messitte did not immediately comment on the substance of the allegations in the lawsuit about bond hearings and the pretrial program, saying his primary objective at that point in the case was determining “whether this court has any business in it at all.”
But he briefly told county attorneys at the end of the hours-long hearing that many of the issues outlined in the lawsuit could be addressed with small changes to their pretrial release system.
“These are all sort of simple things I’m hearing,” Messitte said of the plaintiffs’ allegations about shortcomings in the pretrial release program. “... I hope the county will take some of this to heart.”
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland, alleges that during bond review hearings in Prince George’s County district and circuit courts, judges have ordered, or at least permitted, those charged with crimes to be released from jail pending trial. But in the process, the suit says, those judges have “abdicated their constitutional duty” and unlawfully deferred to the county jail’s pretrial services program to determine what level of supervision people should receive — or whether they should be released at all.
The suit alleges that those authorized by judges for pretrial release end up languishing in jail for weeks or months because pretrial services never make determinations in the cases, and that the processes are opaque or are bogged down in backlogs.
The legal back-and-forth has revived old tensions between the judiciary and community watchdog groups that monitor bail proceedings in Prince George’s County, primarily Courtwatch PG — whose volunteers and supporters were in the federal courtroom in Greenbelt on Tuesday afternoon.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys — Civil Rights Corps, the WilmerHale law firm and Georgetown University Law Center Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection — worked closely with public defenders and Courtwatch PG to formulate the lawsuit.
Courtwatch PG Director Carmen Johnson said her volunteers were offended by assertions the county made in its court filings.
“It is troubling that the Plaintiffs and local Public Defender’s Office did not approach the Defendants on an informal basis to try to resolve their concerns,” the county wrote. “Instead, they amassed an army of volunteers, untrained in the law, to watch bond review hearings and make observations and impassioned complaints about them that have little or no legal import ... and then ambushed both judiciary and County with this lawsuit.”
The lawsuit was “vexatious” and volunteers were “at war with the system,” the county said.
Courtwatch PG volunteers say this characterization of their work stings and is inaccurate.
Reforms intended to end excessive cash bail in Md. are keeping more in jail longer, report says
For nearly three years, volunteer observers with Courtwatch PG have been observing daily bond hearings, meticulously documenting what plays out in each case and logging their findings into databases that they use to identify patterns and problems to be addressed.
The program grew exponentially in the summer of 2020 as the pandemic and racial justice uprisings spurred many people into action, and Courtwatch PG volunteers also started writing weekly accountability letters to public officials — state lawmakers, county officials, the state’s attorney, the public defender and the judiciary.
Many of those letters flagged problems with the bail review and pretrial release process dozens of times, court observers said. Again and again, they said, officials ignored their concerns.
“We’re not the enemy; we’re not trying to go to war. We come in peace,” Johnson said. “We didn’t ambush them on this. We’ve been doing accountability letters on pretrial for over a year.”
Her court observers, she said, receive training and are required to observe before they are allowed formally to begin submitting data. Even then, the court observers come together in debriefing sessions to compare notes.
“These are not just some people off the block doing court watch,” Johnson said. “We are professionals.”
Johnson, who has been incarcerated, is a paralegal. Her Courtwatch PG team includes retired lawyers, teachers, college students, law school students, former college professors with PhDs, community organizers and the Grammy-winning musician Fiona Apple.
“They try to make us seem like idiots. And we’re not,” Apple said in an interview. “We’re trying to be good neighbors. That’s all we’re doing.”
Apple started volunteering with Courtwatch PG nearly two years ago and became the face of the group’s push last year during Maryland’s state legislative session to pass a bill that would enshrine in law virtual access to the courts. The bill ultimately failed after pushback from the judiciary, but the effort shed light on a nationwide campaign by groups similar to Courtwatch PG to bring about greater transparency and access to the courts.
“If they wanted transparency and accountability, they wouldn’t be fighting this. They would be working with us,” Apple said. “They don’t want to admit what they did, because they don’t want to be forced to change. They’ve got all the power, and they’re saying we’re waging war on them?” | 2022-10-26T16:41:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. judge to Prince George's County: pretrial processes could improve - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/26/prince-georges-pretrial-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/26/prince-georges-pretrial-lawsuit/ |
How the handling of Fetterman’s stroke compares to Mark Kirk in 2016
Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) listens to a reporter's question on Capitol Hill in this June 20, 2016, file photo. (Alex Brandon/AP) (AP)
Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman’s (D) recovery from a stroke — and his pronounced struggles in Tuesday’s debate — have thrust our political world into some uncomfortable questions and uneasy assessments.
What bearing should a candidate’s auditory and verbal problems have on evaluating their fitness to serve? How do we talk about something that could impact their service, though we’re not sure precisely how much or in what ways? How do you avoid over-analyzing surface-level issues without knowing what lies beneath? And how much should we take a candidate’s doctor’s say-so that they’re fit to serve without getting more extensive medical records, which Fetterman has declined to provide?
Tuesday’s debate effectively ended any notion that the issue might fade into the background. While Fetterman’s GOP opponent Mehmet Oz didn’t proactively spotlight Fetterman’s condition, its surface-level indicators were plain for everyone to see; Fetterman was halting in his delivery, misspoke repeatedly, and rather than engage with questions asking for policy specifics, largely kept his answers to broad political positions. And Oz’s high-profile supporters were happy to connect the dots in ways Oz didn’t, explicitly pitching Fetterman as unfit to serve because of what his debate performance demonstrated.
That approach has come with plenty of rationalizing and whataboutism. If the roles were reversed, you can bet Democrats would do the same, some Republicans have argued. Some have even pointed to the closest analog we have to the current situation: then-Sen. Mark Kirk’s (R-Ill.) 2016 run for reelection after suffering a severe stroke — and specifically, the Chicago Tribune’s decision to endorse against him precisely because of the stroke.
But the Kirk example differs in some major ways, as even that endorsement itself demonstrated. And his stroke was far less discussed during the 2016 campaign — though not only because our politics were less bare-knuckled six short years ago.
It’s worth a history lesson and a comparison.
Kirk suffered what was, by most every account, a more severe stroke than Fetterman did. It happened in 2012, and he was gone from the Senate for nearly a year while he focused on his recovery — a luxury Fetterman didn’t have this year. Even when Kirk did return, he required a wheelchair and part of the left side of his body remained paralyzed.
Kirk decided to try to seek reelection in 2016, and his party supported that — in part because of his record of winning in blue-leaning areas and the dearth of credible GOP alternatives. But Kirk obviously struggled.
While his speech patterns weren’t as halting as Fetterman’s, what was most pronounced was his apparent lack of a filter. His aides insisted he had always been blunt, but he said things in public that repeatedly caught people off-guard and didn’t fit his reputation as a staid, moderate Republican.
There was the time in 2015 when he referred to the unmarried Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) as a “bro with no ho.” He spoke of closing the racial income gap “so that the black community is not the one we drive faster through.” He claimed Barack Obama’s attempts to forge a nuclear deal with Iran showed he wanted “to get nukes to Iran" and said Obama was “acting like the drug dealer in chief” when money was sent to Iran as prisoners were released. And perhaps most infamously, late in the 2016 campaign he responded to Purple Heart recipient and then-Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) talking about her family’s centuries of military service by saying, “I had forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”
(That last comment was not only ugly but also nonsensical. While Duckworth’s mother was born in Thailand, her father’s side includes a long history of service in the U.S. military that does indeed trace back to the American Revolution. Kirk later apologized.)
But through all of it, media coverage invoked Kirk’s stroke as a potential factor relatively rarely. When it was mentioned, it usually was as B-matter towards the bottom of the story, with no direct causality implied. And neither the media nor Democrats dwelt extensively on the issue.
Duckworth did at one point say in August of the campaign year, “If you look at all of the things he’s said, I think he lacks the ability to control what he’s saying, and you can look at the numerous gaffes that he’s had over the years.” But that was more the exception. (Duckworth claimed her comment wasn’t about Kirk’s stroke.)
Some have pointed to the Chicago Tribune’s October 2016 endorsement of Duckworth as evidence that the stroke was a significant campaign issue — the implication being that the focus on Fetterman’s health is thus fair game. But as we wrote when that endorsement landed, the editorial was striking precisely because the stroke issue was largely unspoken:
And it’s not just a small part of the endorsement. It’s what the editorial board leads with, in fact — before it gets to Duckworth’s qualifications or even mentions her at all. And it describes its reservations about Kirk’s fitness for the job in detail.
The editorial is sure to raise eyebrows. Kirk is considered an underdog in his reelection bid — the most likely Republican senator to lose reelection — but talking about his health and fitness for the job has generally been done behind closed doors.
The Tribune at the time also wrote a story about Kirk declining to release fuller medical records, ala Fetterman today. But it simply wasn’t a huge focus.
At the same time, that last paragraph in the pull-quote above demonstrates there was also perhaps a plainer reason — beyond decorum — for why there was little discussion of Kirk’s condition: He was an underdog, and Democrats were expected to win the seat.
While the race was often listed as a toss-up early on, by the time we got to the meat of the campaign Duckworth was the clear favorite, sometimes leading by double-digits in the polls. Kirk never led in a poll conducted after July 2016. And while the Senate majority hung in the balance that year, the two sides had at least half a dozen more competitive races to focus on, rendering Illinois an afterthought. National Republicans largely left Kirk to fend for himself.
Had the race been in serious doubt and a Duckworth win been more important for the Democrats’ majority hopes? Perhaps the left and the media would’ve focused more on Kirk’s condition, and perhaps the question of whether his Thailand comments stemmed from it — he made them at a late-October debate, like Fetterman’s in Pennsylvania — would have engendered more of a discussion along the lines of what we’re seeing today. But it never happened, or at least not on a similar scale.
That example doesn’t make the focus on Fetterman illegitimate. Yes, our politics have evolved; big political debates increasingly unfold independently of any particular outlet’s editorial decisions, and those debates can tend toward the ugly and speculative rather quickly. But a politician’s ability to communicate is part of running for and holding office, even if they might not suffer any underlying cognitive problems. Context is everything, as is reporting on what you know.
What’s evident is that we’ve crossed the Rubicon on this, through a combination of likely irreversible factors that weren’t present six years ago. | 2022-10-26T16:41:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How the handling of Fetterman’s stroke compares to Mark Kirk in 2016 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/26/fetterman-kirk-stroke-campaigns/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/26/fetterman-kirk-stroke-campaigns/ |
Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Wednesday in Moscow. (Alexei Babushkin/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Liz Truss’s seven-week tenure as Britain’s prime minister was both ruinous and ludicrous. Her plan for massive, unfunded tax cuts sent the pound plunging and interest rates soaring, and she ended up with a 6 percent approval rating.
But Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president, is the last person who should be laughing about her failure to outlast a head of lettuce. He serves as the pathetic lackey of a vicious dictator who passed his sell-by date many years ago and has done infinitely more damage to his country and the world than Truss ever could.
That someone as clueless as Truss became prime minister might be an indictment of the British political system (or at least the Tory party). But her rapid replacement by former finance minister Rishi Sunak, who has vowed a more responsible fiscal agenda, demonstrates the most important advantage of democracy over dictatorship: the existence of checks and balances to limit how much damage even the most inept leader can do.
There are many reasons, from history to geography, why per capita GDP in the United Kingdom ($47,334) is so much higher than in Russia ($12,172) or China ($12,556), but I would argue it ultimately comes down to governance. Britain, as a liberal democracy, has long been run for the benefit of its people, while Russia and China have always been run primarily for the benefit of their rulers.
It is impossible to imagine any democratic leader in the modern world launching an unprovoked war of aggression, as Vladimir Putin did in Ukraine. The resulting conflict has resulted in terrible suffering for Ukrainians — but it’s no picnic, either, for the Russians in whose name the war is being fought.
Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers are coming home in body bags; many more are gravely wounded. Russian civilians have to cope with economic sanctions, the loss of freedom and the threat of conscription — all of which have combined to send hundreds of thousands of Russians fleeing their own country. Democracies such as Britain and the United States have their problems, but they are struggling with too many people trying to enter, not exit, their countries.
Democratic countries make their own mistakes in going to war — as President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair did in Iraq — but, at least since the expansion of the franchise roughly a century ago, they have stopped waging wars of territorial conquest. And when they do launch misbegotten conflicts, the usual result is antiwar protests in the streets and political accountability at the ballot box.
In Putin’s case, he seems to have consulted with no one outside of a small inner circle before launching an ill-advised war of aggression against Ukraine. His attempt at conquest is going from bad to worse, but, rather than pull back, he keeps doubling down. This evil war holds no conceivable benefit for the Russian people. They are simply paying the price for their dictator’s mad dreams of imperial glory. The price could escalate exponentially if Putin uses nuclear weapons and NATO responds.
The people of China are also, in different ways, paying a heavy price for one-man rule. Xi Jinping, already in power for a decade, has just secured five more years at the top in spite of blunders that would surely have shortened the tenure of any freely elected leader.
The handling of covid-19 is a case in point. The pandemic broke out in China and spread around the world in part because of the poor quality of China’s public health system and the dishonesty of so many of its officials. Yet China has little accountability, because the Communist Party does not want to expose its failures to the world.
In the past year, Western countries have returned more or less to normal through the use of highly effective mRNA vaccines. But, for nationalistic reasons, China has employed less effective, domestically produced vaccines. Xi has relied on a heavy-handed “zero covid” policy that has led to mass quarantines and draconian lockdowns with many people complaining of shortages of food and medicine.
Not only have these measures hurt China’s economy (growth this year is projected to be 3.2 percent, well below the 5.5 percent target), but, as my Council on Foreign Relations colleague Yanzhong Huang notes, they have also “contributed to a major mental health crisis” and to many “excess deaths” from diseases such as diabetes, heart attacks and cancer.
The covid policy is only one example of how Xi pursues an agenda that is antithetical to the interests of ordinary people — whether they’re Uyghurs who are victims of crimes against humanity or Hong Kongers who have lost all their freedoms. And, just as the price of Putin’s misrule could escalate drastically, so, too, with Xi if he launches a war against Taiwan. Such a conflict would be unthinkable if China were a democracy — any more than one could imagine a war between the United States and Canada.
Putin and Xi’s misrule serves to confirm Winston Churchill’s dictum “that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried.” Democracies certainly screw up — as Britain has done repeatedly since passing Brexit — but their mistakes don’t last nearly as long or cause nearly as much damage as do those of dictators. | 2022-10-26T17:07:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Democracies correct their mistakes. Dictatorships double down. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/democracies-advantages-dictatorships-putin-xi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/democracies-advantages-dictatorships-putin-xi/ |
The best way to fix our divisions? Learn to like each other again.
Protesters and counter-protesters argue during a rally on Capitol Hill on Sept. 18, 2021, in Washington. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
PHOENIX — At a Monday night panel discussion at Arizona State University, I participated in a lively back and forth about the state of the media and American democracy. Ultimately, I think we all agreed on one thing: The country is bitterly divided into two informational bubbles, with mutually exclusive political narratives and differing sets of facts — and both traditional and social media simultaneously mirror and exacerbate this divide.
Even stories that both sides care about — such as Trump’s allegations of election fraud — often seem to have been reported from parallel universes with sharply divergent realities. With such different starting points, we can’t even really debate our problems, much less solve them.
Our panel spent most of the time discussing causes, but eventually an audience member asked the inevitable, inconvenient, important question: How do we fix it?
I don’t have a perfect answer to that. If it were that easy, we would already have solved the problem and universities would be holding panels on something else. Instead, I offer three possibilities.
First, one side might win the narrative wars outright, amassing enough political or cultural muscle to effectively banish the other team’s version from the public realm. Or one narrative might become so obviously untenable that even its partisans give up. This is, of course, what both sides are hoping for and why they keep fighting so viciously through an apparent stalemate.
Yet, I consider this the least likely outcome. For one thing, both sides have some part of the truth — including recognizing the inconvenient facts the other side prefers to deny or downplay. For another, false narratives can survive longer than you’d think: It’s easier to add a few more epicycles than to admit that maybe the sun just doesn’t revolve around the Earth.
As to a brute force solution, well, we’ve been at that for years, with no signs of a final victory. The left wields cultural power far out of proportion to its numbers, and because rural districts are overrepresented in Congress (Wyoming has the same number of senators as California), the right enjoys outsized political power. Neither advantage is large enough to force the other side’s unconditional surrender.
So another possibility: Maybe most people will get bored by the endless battles on social media and op-ed pages. A young student suggested that she saw this happening among her peers, which seems hopeful and even believable.
Much like cocaine or methamphetamine, anger provides a dopamine rush that feels terrific and distracts us from petty anxieties or persistent ennui. It’s also a good way to bond with your fellow partisans. So readers cruise both regular and social media looking for reasons to get angry. I’m afraid we oblige them to an unhealthy degree.
Yet fury is fundamentally an unrewarding emotion, even when justified; all you get out of it is bad memories and new enemies. So maybe our current frenzies will burn themselves out for the same reason that epidemics of drug use tend to wax and wane: Young people will look at their frazzled elders and think “No, thanks, I’ll find a different hobby,” while older folks start dropping out, realizing they aren’t willing to spend the rest of their lives in a semi-permanent rage.
The third — and most hopeful — possibility is that we will start learning to like each other again.
In Mesa, Ariz., for a Trump rally earlier this month, I was surrounded by a crowd that booed and jeered the media on Trump’s cue — then turned around and pleasantly did its best to help me get back into the reporters’ pen, through a packed scrum with barely room to breathe. The same people who had been catcalling the liars in the “fake news” just moments before commiserated over the crowd and heat and urged their neighbors to let me through.
That’s less surprising than you might think. In the 1930s, a social scientist took a Chinese couple around the United States to hotels and restaurants; one refused them service, but most did not. However, when the researcher wrote those same establishments asking whether they would serve Chinese people, most who responded said they wouldn’t.
We’re accustomed to the idea that people often fail to live up to their ideals in their personal lives — talking a good game about antiracism while angling to keep their kids in majority-White schools. But the same can be true of our less lovely emotions. In abstract, we might be angry or fearful, while in particular being friendly and decent to the person in front of us.
So my most optimistic scenario is that remote work will help bring us back together, by reversing some of the economic forces that have been pulling us apart, sorting us by education and politics into the booming coastal megacities and the places that feel they’ve been left behind — or worry they soon will be. Maybe when we’re standing next to each other, we’ll be surprised to find that we get along just fine. | 2022-10-26T17:07:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Americans live in separate informational bubbles. Let's fix that. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/how-fix-american-division-information-bubbles/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/how-fix-american-division-information-bubbles/ |
Three men convicted of aiding plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Whitmer
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) speaks during a debate with Republican challenger Tudor Dixon at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich., on Oct. 25, 2022. (Robin Buckson/AP)
A jury on Wednesday convicted three men of aiding a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) in a case that deepened concerns about the spread of right-wing extremism and potential violence directed at politicians.
The three men — Joseph Morrison, Paul Bellar and Pete Musico — were found guilty in state court of providing material support for terrorist acts, possessing a firearm while committing a felony and being members of a gang. They face up to 20 years in prison.
“These verdicts are further proof that violence and threats have no place in our politics,” Whitmer said on Twitter.
No threat, no plot, no rhetoric will break my belief in the goodness and decency of our people. And these verdicts are further proof that violence and threats have no place in our politics.
More than a dozen people have been arrested in connection with the plot to kidnap Whitmer, which prosecutors said was fueled by anger at steps she took to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
In August, two other men, Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr., were convicted on federal charges of plotting to kidnap Whitmer. Prosecutors said they planned to capture Whitmer at her vacation home, detonate a bridge and ignite an armed rebellion ahead of the 2020 presidential election. | 2022-10-26T17:16:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Three men convicted of aiding plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Whitmer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/26/whitmer-kidnapping-verdict/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/26/whitmer-kidnapping-verdict/ |
The Wizards are sharing the ball and the offense is flowing
Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal, seen here throwing a no-look pass to Delon Wright, leads the team with 6.3 assists per game. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Four games into the young NBA season, the Washington Wizards have found success attacking opposing defenses with unselfishness. The team has showed off a new level of offensive versatility, allowing their depth to shine unlike in years past.
“It’s a solid balance where the ball is moving. That means they’re moving bodies, moving the ball. Everybody’s involved,” Coach Wes Unseld Jr. said. “I think that helps also on the defensive end. Your overall offensive efficiency, but also guys feel like they’re part of it. They’re more invested in trying to defend at a high level.”
Following Tuesday’s 120-99 victory over Detroit, the Wizards have had at least five players reach double digits in three of their first four games. At least four players have reached double figures in every game. This balance has helped maintain offensive rhythm while keeping opposing defenses guessing.
“At the end of the day, if everybody is in double figures, it’s contagious. It’s going to be a different person’s night every night,” guard Monte Morris said. “It’s not going to be the same doses and I think that’s a really good dynamic on our roster.”
In years prior, a majority of the offensive responsibility has fallen on the shoulders of Bradley Beal. He has consistently been tasked with generating shots for himself and others, leading to the growth of his playmaking.
While he remains the clear engine for Washington, the scoring burden that Beal has to carry is lighter than in past years. Furthermore, his willingness to leverage his offensive gravity to benefit his teammates has set a clear tone in the early going.
“I think it starts with Brad. Brad has been making plays for everybody, sharing the ball even though he’s the most talented guy, the best scorer we have on the team,” center Kristaps Porzingis said. “He’s setting that example for everybody else and we have to play that way to be a team that plays the right way, makes the right pass.”
In a small sample size, Beal is averaging 14 shot attempts per game this season, down from 19.3 in 2021. This decreased workload would serve to benefit Beal’s efficiency and effectiveness as the year rolls on. He is averaging 20.5 points per game, 6.3 assists, and is shooting 58.9 percent from the field.
“That does take pressure off [Beal]. We’re asking him to do a lot, make plays, score for us,” Unseld said regarding the Wizards’ offensive continuity. “When he has the confidence to make those right plays at the right time and guys step up, make shots, I think that just reinforces his level of confidence in his teammates.”
Another catalyst for the Wizards’ offensive diversity has been a clear upgrade in versatility. Multiple players on the roster have the ability to initiate offensive sets and put pressure on opposing defenses to create quality shots for themselves or others. This creation ability was highlighted by 26 assists on Tuesday.
Will Barton also personified the team’s versatility and depth, providing a major spark against the Pistons. When Beal needed rest due to back tightness, Barton stepped in to help initiate the offense. His flashy dribble moves and passing energized the team, leading a Wizards’ surge in the second quarter. He finished with 16 points on an efficient 6-for-9 shooting to go along with four assists.
“I just try to take what the game gives me. If I need to be a scorer, I’ll be a scorer. If the pass is there, I’ll pass,” Barton said. “My mentality is to be the ultimate professional. I have the utmost confidence in my game. I work hard every day. I get my reps up so I can thrive in any role.”
Throughout his NBA career, Barton has proved that to be true. As a pivotal part of several playoff teams in Denver, his well-rounded game was an important part of the team’s success. In 32 minutes per game last season, Barton averaged 14.7 points, 3.9 assists, and shot 36.5 percent from deep.
His production was only amplified by his versatility. Whether he was starting, coming off the bench, or filling in at point guard, Barton consistently had his fingerprints all over Nuggets’ victories. After being traded to the Wizards in July, Barton will look to grow into a similar role for a team looking to return to the postseason.
“He’s been a part of a winning culture with a winning team and he’s mature enough at this point to understand the role,” Unseld Jr. said. “In that second unit, he gets an opportunity to shine.”
As the Indiana Pacers roll into town Friday, Washington will strive to maintain its offensive continuity. Their goal is to keep things simple, trust one another and play the right way. So far, this has been a winning recipe for the Wizards.
“Just share the ball. That’s it. Make the right play,” Morris said. “If we can do that, I think we’ll be good.” | 2022-10-26T18:04:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Wizards are sharing the ball and the offense is flowing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/26/wizards-offense-sharing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/26/wizards-offense-sharing/ |
Suspected fentanyl pills inside boxes of candy were seized at the Los Angeles International Airport this month. (Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department/AP)
In urgent news reports, law enforcement sources and elected officials have warned of the dangers the drug poses to children. “We’re coming into Halloween. Every mom is worried right now, ‘What if this gets into my kid’s Halloween basket,’ ” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in an interview last month on Fox News, which has avidly pushed the story.
Senators from both sides of the aisle have expressed similar concerns, as has the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. DEA Administrator Anne Milgram, has called rainbow fentanyl “a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction among kids and young adults.”
Yet the link between children and rainbow fentanyl — which differs only in its color and packaging from other fentanyl-based street drugs — appears to be theoretical at best. Its association with Halloween also may be specious, part of a long tradition of urban myths about poisoned treats such as razor blades in apples and cannabis-infused gummy bears, said Joel Best, a University of Delaware professor who studies such contemporary legends.
“Rainbow fentanyl” didn’t take off as a media phenomenon until the DEA issued a news release containing Milgram’s comment Aug. 30. Before then, the topic rated just a few dozen scattered news stories, most of them from local news sources, and all of them starting in mid-August, according to the Nexis database.
It’s not clear how many children have been harmed by rainbow fentanyl. A database maintained by America’s Poison Centers that is composed of reporting from the nation’s 55 poison-control centers has recorded 70 cases so far this year in which someone under 18 unintentionally ingested nonprescription fentanyl — 60 of which involved children 2 or younger. But the database doesn’t record fentanyl poisonings by specific type, so it’s not known how many came from rainbow fentanyl alone.
Some drug researchers say the drug’s colorful, candy-like form isn’t intended as a lure for children but as a disguise for smuggling purposes, and to differentiate it from other forms of fentanyl. They doubt dealers would give away such a relatively expensive drug to hook minors, who don’t have the means to become regular customers. “It’s illogical,” said Ryan Marino, a toxicologist and addiction specialist at Case Western Reserve University medical school in Cleveland. He adds, “For all intents and purposes, the rainbow fentanyl story is nothing more than a moral panic.”
That hasn’t stopped the onslaught of attention. In addition to Fox, ABC’s “Good Morning America,” “CBS Mornings” and local TV stations have played up the rainbow-fentanyl-Halloween connection.
The subject has come up countless times on social media, as well; the conservative Heritage Foundation attempted to place the alleged threat in the context of inflation and its opposition to the Biden administration. “The price of Skittles jumped 42% from last year,” the think tank tweeted last week. “Not to mention the cartels are stuffing Skittles bags with deadly fentanyl. Happy Halloween from the Biden administration.”
In response, Skittles maker Mars Wrigley said, “We have very stringent quality and safety measures in place so all candy lovers can feel confident enjoying our products.” It sent a second statement a few hours later: “We understand how serious the fentanyl crisis is today and are deeply worried about illegal smugglers using everyday packaging to unlawfully traffic dangerous drugs and our security teams are cooperating with law enforcement.”
The story has gotten attention from both Democrats and Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), citing the threat to “younger and younger” children, urged Congress last month to add $290 million to the budget to combat fentanyl trafficking. Separately, a dozen Republican senators appeared in a “public service” video this month to sound the alarm.
“The powerful drug cartels are coming after your kids, your neighbors, your students, your family members and your friends,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) says in the video, while urging parents to “only let kids get candy from trusted neighbors, family and friends.”
News reports have picked up the same theme. “Good Morning America” cast its report on rainbow fentanyl as “a warning that parents need to hear with Halloween coming up.” On a segment of “CBS Mornings,” host Tony Dokoupil ad-libbed, “You imagine walking around on Halloween with kids, and they are picking up stuff on the ground. It looks edible. They put everything in their mouth.”
While fears of Halloween candy poisonings have circulated since trick-or-treating became widely popular after World War II, Best said, the unusual factor this time may be the prominence of the people pushing the story. It’s rare for leading national figures, including elected officials, to be promoting a tainted-candy connection, he noted.
As it happens, Milgram, the DEA’s top official, recently clarified her initial comments about rainbow fentanyl and children, explicitly discouraging the link between the drug and Halloween.
“We are not seeing it in elementary schools,” she told Fox News last month. “We have not seen it with Halloween candy.”
The banner on-screen, however, delivered a different message: “Rainbow fentanyl warnings ahead of Halloween.”
Despite the concern, Best predicts that the news stories and rhetoric will subside once Halloween is over. “I suspect we won’t hear much about this on Nov. 1,” he said. | 2022-10-26T18:26:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The media and the Halloween ‘rainbow fentanyl’ scare - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/10/26/rainbow-fentanyl-halloween-scare/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/10/26/rainbow-fentanyl-halloween-scare/ |
Greg the local political leader makes a decision on abortion
Mehmet Oz participates in the Pennsylvania Senate debate in Harrisburg on Tuesday. (Greg Nash/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
“I want women, doctors, local political leaders — letting the democracy that’s always allowed our nation to thrive to put the best ideas forward so states can decide for themselves.”
— Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz on who gets to decide about abortions
The calls were coming in thick and fast, and Greg did not know what to do about them. He regretted very much running for local political leadership. Getting elected register of deeds had been wonderful. But his mistake had been thinking he would just get to register deeds. Instead, in addition to the job he thought he was supposed to do, which he was good at and had worked hard to obtain, he was also being asked to do a totally different job that he did not want and that made him feel as though people were getting him confused with someone else.
“Happy Monday!" Greg observed, hopefully, sitting down at his desk.
The county commissioner was already five calls deep and seemed grumpy. Greg could see on his desk a notepad where he had drawn what looked like an amphora with an X over it and written “ick topic pregnancy???” “Greg, as a local political leader, you know where your responsibilities lie. You should have gone straight to the hospital!”
“You know,” Greg said, timidly, picking up his jacket from the back of the chair, “I don’t actually — I know people keep coming to me for medical advice, but actually I am not a doctor, and I don’t really feel all that comfortable being asked to make all these choices.”
“Greg,” the commissioner said. “You heard Dr. Oz. Not just Dr. Oz, but Republicans around the country. The best people to make decisions of this kind in this democracy of ours that thrives where the best ideas are put forward is women, and their doctors —"
“And their local political leaders,” Greg sighed. “Were you trying to write the word ‘ectopic’?”
The county commissioner shrugged. “Everyone on the line sounded very hysterical. Have you ever heard of a baby implanting outside the womb? I told them they needed to calm down and it would probably sort itself out."
“Well,” Greg said, “actually, I was looking it up the other day in a book, because it keeps coming up so much, and it seems like maybe it doesn’t sort itself out?”
“Dr. Oz didn’t say ‘between a woman, her doctors, her local political leaders and a book,’ ” the commissioner said. “Greg, you’ve got the special sauce. And thank goodness you do. Imagine a world where women and their doctors just made decisions like this by themselves and didn’t have to seek input from you, their local register of deeds."
“I would certainly get a lot more deeds registered,” Greg said.
The county commissioner scoffed and took a big sip of his coffee. “Unthinkable,” he said. “This way, the best ideas are put forward in this democracy.”
Greg started to walk to the door. Then he halted and turned back. “And Dr. Oz, he, he knows about these things?" he asked. “I mean, he’s a real doctor and everything?”
“Well, he’s trying to be an elected official," the county commissioner said, “which is even more impressive than a doctor. Get on out of here, Greg.”
Greg arrived just a couple of minutes late for his first ultrasound of the day. “Sorry,” he said. “I was stopping by the office to see if they needed any deeds registered. Since I’m, you know, the register of deeds."
“Oh,” the expectant father said. “Katie and I were starting to hope you weren’t coming!”
Katie elbowed him. “That’s not true. Greg, we are always glad to see you.” She pointed at the screen. “Look! She’s kicking.”
“Any questions?” the doctor said.
“Is it okay if I travel by plane next week?”
“I would say sure,” the doctor said, “as long as you make sure you stay hydrated and walk around at intervals. But what does Greg, our register of deeds, think?"
Greg shrugged. “Sounds fine to me? I don’t know about these things.”
Katie elbowed her husband. “This is why it is important for Greg to be here,” she said. “Alderman Heinz wouldn’t let Margaret fly over the holidays at all, and he told Kelsey she couldn’t wear high heels or the baby would be cross-eyed."
“Is that true?” Greg asked.
“It is not!” Katie said. “And he made Eleanor get rid of her pet cat because he said cats were irresistibly drawn to steal babies’ breath.”
“I have another appointment,” Greg said. “Uh, congratulations on the kicking, and the plane travel, and everything, though.”
Greg went to four more appointments. They made his head hurt, and he never felt he was contributing very much. He was asked whether to remove a gallstone, if it was okay to begin chemotherapy, and whether this was a good time for a root canal. He did not know anything about any of these things. He wished he were off somewhere registering deeds.
Sometimes, in idle moments, he wondered whether maybe all women should get to be comptrollers, just to eliminate the elected middleman. But that went against everything Dr. Oz said. And surely he knew best. After all, he was a doctor, and was going to be an elected official, too, unless people did something about it. | 2022-10-26T18:34:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Dr. Oz's 'local political leaders' make an abortion decision - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/dr-oz-debate-abortion-local-political-leaders-satire/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/dr-oz-debate-abortion-local-political-leaders-satire/ |
At least 10 patients have died in U.S. outbreak, even as cases continue to fall
Fenit Nirappil
Health-care and LGBTQ rights activists protest in August for increased access to monkeypox vaccines and treatments. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
More than 28,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported since the U.S. outbreak began in May. While the vast majority recover within weeks, some patients with untreated HIV experienced especially dire consequences such as losing function of their brain or spinal cord, eyes, and lungs despite being given antiviral medication.
The report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is based on the agency’s consultations with clinicians treating 57 U.S. patients hospitalized with monkeypox complications from the outbreak’s peak in mid-August through Oct. 10. It presents the most comprehensive picture to date of the severe consequences of infection and who is most at risk for serious complications.
All 57 patients had severe lesions that could result in dying skin, including 39 people with lesions in their eyes, mouth and other mucous membranes. Two people were undergoing chemotherapy; three had had organ transplants. Nearly a third ended up in intensive-care.
Most of the hospitalized patients were Black. All but three were men. Three were pregnant. Nearly a quarter were homeless. The median age was 34.
The CDC does not report hospitalization data but previous research suggests that between 5 and 10 percent of monkeypox patients are admitted, and those with HIV are more likely to be hospitalized.
Five men share what it’s like to have monkeypox
The report highlighted three representative cases:
— A Latino man in his 20s went to the emergency department in August for back pain and a rash. He tested positive for monkeypox, and his condition quickly worsened. Over the next week, the rash spread to his entire body, he had difficulty breathing, and was admitted to the hospital. He tested positive for HIV; records show he had previously tested positive in 2020, but was lost to follow-up, the report said. Within days, he was transferred to the ICU and given TPoxx and HIV treatment. But his condition worsened: he had a seizure, developed kidney failure, and died within a few days.
— A Black man in his 30s with AIDS, who was not receiving treatment, developed a rash on his face, head, back and genitals in July. He was tested and treated for gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis. But his genital lesions worsened. Admitted to the hospital four weeks later, he tested positive for monkeypox and was discharged with a two-week supply of TPoxx. His skin lesions initially improved but then worsened, putting him back in the hospital with new lesions on his hand and penis. He developed an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection, was transferred to the ICU, received intravenous TPoxx, and was discharged with oral TPoxx and HIV treatment. During his seventh week on oral TPoxx, he was readmitted to the hospital for worsening destructive lesions with a bacterial superinfection on one hand, left eyelid lesions and a lesion in his right ear linked to decreased hearing. He was restarted on intravenous TPoxx and remains on the treatment.
— A White man in his 40s with AIDS and not receiving treatment was admitted to the hospital in August for a monkeypox-compatible rash. He received oral TPoxx and HIV treatment, and was discharged after a week. His food and housing situations were unstable, the report said. Three weeks after he was discharged, he was readmitted with painful and destructive lesions on his hands and feet. Despite multiple treatments, including TPoxx and multiple antibiotics, clinicians had to amputate a toe and part of his right index finger. He was discharged but readmitted one week later for more lesions and severe pain. He remains hospitalized.
Inside America’s monkeypox crisis — and the mistakes that made it worse
“This is an important description of severe consequences of monkeypox and should highlight the critical importance of getting vaccines, treatment and risk messaging to the communities who are most severely impacted,” said Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at UCLA who has studied monkeypox in Africa for two decades. “The disproportionate impact on communities that have less access to health services is the same story we see repeating itself locally and globally.”
The current outbreak has overwhelmingly affected men who have sex with men. Although monkeypox infections are rarely fatal, many patients experience excruciating pain from lesions and body aches. People of color and those with HIV make up a disproportionate share of patients with the most severe outcomes.
Data about severe complications of disease show up as an outbreak progresses. People who get sick at the start of an outbreak tend to have more typical manifestations of disease. But as more people fall ill, more dire consequences appear. Some monkeypox patients who were sick for many weeks are now dying, officials said.
Monkeypox was the cause of death in three of the 10 cases; seven other deaths are still under investigation, the report said.
Inside a city’s struggle to vaccinate gay Black men for monkeypox
The CDC calls on clinicians to test all sexually active patients with suspected monkeypox for HIV when they test for monkeypox. Clinicians should also consider early monkeypox treatment for all “highly immunocompromised” patients, especially those with advanced HIV disease.
Various surveys have found a significant share of monkeypox patients also have HIV. A national review of nearly 2,000 cases over the summer found that 38 percent had HIV, but the diagnosis alone is not linked to severe outcomes, researchers say.
“While we know HIV impacts our immune system, we also know that not all people with HIV are the same,” said Anu Hazra, co-medical director of Howard Brown Health, a Chicago LGBT health provider. HIV patients in successful treatment do not appear to be at increased risk for severe disease, hospitalization or death from monkeypox, he said.
Struggle to protect gay, bisexual men from monkeypox exposes inequities
The growth rate of the U.S. outbreak is slowing, the latest data show. There have been a few cases of spread to household and nonsexual contacts, but the potential for sustained transmission among heterosexual networks is likely low, according to the CDC.
Daily cases will most likely continue to fall or plateau over the next two to four weeks, but the CDC does not expect domestic transmission to be eliminated in the near future. The outbreak could even accelerate and affect increasingly wider communities if the virus spreads more readily than expected outside networks of men who have sex with men. The virus could get established in an animal host; several animal species in North America may be susceptible to monkeypox and able to transmit the virus to other animals or species.
Health officials and clinicians attribute the decline to vaccination and changes in behavior.
CDC officials are evaluating safety and effectiveness data for the two-dose Jynneos vaccine, the primary vaccine being used in the U.S. outbreak. In early August, federal health officials announced a new strategy to split monkeypox vaccine doses in hopes of vaccinating up to five times as many people against the virus. The alternative method, known as intradermal vaccination, allows a single-use vial to be split into five injections because of the vaccine shortage.
CDC officials are weighing what method should be used for vaccine administration in the long term.
Monkeypox’s toll: Stories of agony, isolation and government incompetence | 2022-10-26T18:47:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Monkeypox deaths in U.S. hit 10, danger highest with untreated HIV - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/26/monkeypox-deaths-hiv-black-men/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/26/monkeypox-deaths-hiv-black-men/ |
By San Francisco | AP
FILE - UCLA guard Tyger Campbell (10) puts up a shot during the second half of a second-round NCAA college basketball tournament game against Saint Mary’s College on March 19, 2022, in Portland, Ore. Campbell and Jaime Jaquez Jr. are back for their fourth seasons, a couple of battle-tested veterans who arrived at the same time as coach Mick Cronin to rebuild a program that owns a record 11 national championships. UCLA opens the season at home with two new five-star recruits against Sacramento State on Nov. 7. (AP Photo/Craig Mitchelldyer, File) | 2022-10-26T18:48:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 8 UCLA picked to win Pac-12 in preseason poll - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-8-ucla-picked-to-win-pac-12-in-preseason-poll/2022/10/26/83fb09aa-555b-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-8-ucla-picked-to-win-pac-12-in-preseason-poll/2022/10/26/83fb09aa-555b-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
Video games face a tough choice: Realistic graphics or sustainability
One climate author wants to spearhead sustainability from the inside — starting with Unity
In July, 2022, a conference focused on the social impact of games convened a panel called “Epic Quest? Engaging Gamers On Climate Change.” The speakers included representatives from two video game studios and Yale’s Program on Climate Change Communication, and was hosted by Marina Psaros, head of sustainability at Unity Software.
The sustainability officer is an increasingly common presence in the video game industry, at both billion dollar mobile game giants such as Rovio and publishing start-ups like Kinda Brave. Psaros is one such hire, tasked with steering the company behind one of the world’s leading video game engines in a greener direction.
The job is a challenging one, and Psaros’s work lives at the focal point of the industry’s environmental contradiction. Her employer, a software developer, wants a smaller environmental footprint. But the industry — fans and peer companies alike — demands higher fidelity graphics powered by more advanced software and hardware, the production of which involves many carbon-intensive industrial processes. One approach the industry has turned to as a stopgap is engaging fans on the issue of global warming through play.
This isn’t a new idea, but it’s one that’s picking up steam. Niantic, the maker of “Pokémon GO” and one of the panel’s guests, has used the real-world setting of its smash-hit augmented reality game to spearhead tree-planting and litter-picking initiatives. Ubisoft, meanwhile, is set to unleash a virtual forest fire on “Riders Republic” players in a bid to raise awareness of increasingly commonplace arboreal disasters. The hope with each is that they might help foster a new generation of ecologically-minded citizens, that such video games might function a little like Aesop’s fables of Ancient Greece — as tools of moral instruction.
Over Zoom, the San Francisco-based Psaros, who co-authored a recent book on coasts and ocean areas under threat from the climate crisis, refers to the idea of using games to “educate, inform, and empower” players as “tantalizing,” albeit stressing that such initiatives must be guided by evidence rather than good intentions alone. Having helped plan for how the Bay Area might adapt to climate change while working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration before implementing a clean energy program for the city of San Francisco, she well knows the importance of numbers directing such efforts.
“There’s a lot of great data about monetizing games,” Psaros says. “[But] thinking about the data-driven lens on supporting behaviors that are pro-environment is something we haven’t really done yet.”
In a bid to gauge interest on the subject, Psaros and her employer Unity commissioned Yale’s Program on Climate Change Communication to produce a report digging into gamers’ attitudes toward climate change (part of a fund reserved for efforts focusing on sustainability). Surveying 2,034 adults, 35 percent of whom were millennials with a relatively even spread (approximately 20 percent) of Gen Z, Gen X, and boomer participants, the study found that 70 percent of players are worried about global warming. 56 percent, meanwhile, think the gaming industry has a responsibility to act on the issue, doing what it can to reduce its own carbon footprint.
What the study didn’t test was the effectiveness of so-called “green nudges” found within video games (a report on this, Psaros said, should appear later in the year through the UN-backed Playing For The Planet program). One concern around such nudges is that they can be deployed cynically to paper over potentially lackluster efforts of companies to decarbonize — content that functions, in effect, as greenwashing.
“There's definitely the potential for greenwashing,” Psaros says. “If a company is putting climate-friendly messages in their games but not taking care of their own environmental footprint, that's really not okay.”
The video game industry, by virtue of the mined-metal circuit boards and guzzling power of high-end electronic devices used for both playing games and making them, as well as the electricity used to power data centers that are now indispensable to the every aspect of the industry (including the online multiplayer battle royale titles whose production Unity is tailoring its tools toward), has a duty to tackle its carbon emissions perhaps more than any other form of entertainment. Indeed, one researcher estimates the gaming industry’s total emissions for 2020 could have been as high as 15 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions; put another way, if the games industry were its own country, it would have been approximately the 130th-most-intense emitter in the world that year, approximately that of Slovenia, a country with a population of 2.1 million.
Under Psaros, Unity has made considerable strides toward sustainability. It’s become carbon neutral (helped by offsetting, or investing in environmental projects to balance out its carbon footprint) with 60 percent of its 45 offices using renewable energy, including some at 100 percent, she later confirms via email.
But while it’s relatively straightforward taking care of a company’s Scope 1 and 2 emissions (i.e. direct emissions from sources that are owned or controlled by an organization, and those stemming from its energy procurement), Scope 3 — the result of activities from assets not owned or controlled by the reporting organization — is altogether more difficult to pin down. The vast network of data centers that supports a global software company such as Unity contributes hugely to this emissions number.
However, as a major buyer of such cloud services, the company is in a genuinely influential position to effect change regarding the electricity that powers it.
“I want Unity to be doing what Salesforce and Google does, which is demand signaling,” Psaros said, referring to the increasingly common practice of notifying energy providers that renewable electricity is the preferred type of energy supply. “I get really excited when I think about power purchase agreements.”
Within Unity’s company walls, one burgeoning research area is the energy efficiency of the software itself. Psaros confirms there are lab groups at Unity investigating precisely this, but part of the challenge involves reconciling the goals of sustainability and energy efficiency — “learning to speak the language of engineering teams,” as Psaros puts it.
As the maker of software for building video games, Unity is well-placed to drive optimization efforts alongside hardware companies. Are discussions happening between software and hardware manufacturers about ways to improve energy efficiency?
“Those conversations are starting,” Psaros said, albeit declining to name which hardware companies are involved.
Part of what’s needed, she continued, is simply better quantification. “We don't even have that great data on energy usage. Finally now, I feel like there’s a lot of engineers who are really engaged on this issue. They have so much of the knowledge that's needed to get better performance data.”
Still, despite the promising start, these kinds of efforts can often feel like tinkering around the edge of a gaming industry that is fundamentally predicated on the idea of more: More graphical fidelity, more players, more power, more extraction of rare earth minerals to build processors and graphics cards; indeed, more generations of hardware built on the notion of technological obsolescence. Unity, which positioned itself at the forefront of the “democratization” of games in the 2010s, arguably the game engine of choice for developers in the indie scene, has more recently made a concerted push into the realm of eye-popping photorealism with tech demos such as “Enemies” and “Lion,” pitching to both AAA game studios and Hollywood VFX (just as Epic has done with Unity competitor Unreal Engine).
The software company is now decisively at the bleeding edge of the most power-hungry type of mainstream, high-fidelity gaming. How, then, does Psaros reconcile Unity’s commitment to such graphically intensive games with the company’s desire to be taken seriously on the environment?
“I don’t have an answer for you. I really don’t think I’m able to come up with something off the cuff because, you know, my initial reaction is that you’re correct,” Psaros said. “It’s correct that there are energy hogging processors. Every time a new device comes out, everyone’s always chasing that new device. And so, how can we support creators and developers in being backward compatible, and not always chasing that? I don’t know what the levers are there.”
It remains to be seen whether the apparent friction between Unity’s business practices and its sustainability efforts can be resolved. Such tension clearly isn’t lost on Psaros. However, the sustainability head is forthright about the place of her own committed environmentalism within the context of a multibillion dollar technology company.
“I wrestle with these questions by getting in those rooms with engineers, and thinking [them] through, doing those life-cycle assessments, really speaking their language,” Psaros says. “I’m supported by the commitments that we’ve already made publicly. There’s so much downward pressure on corporations that I feel, as a sustainability advocate, I’ve got a tail wind.”
Lewis Gordon is a video game and culture writer. His work has appeared in outlets such as VICE, The Verge, The Nation and The A.V. Club. Follow him on Twitter @lewis_gordon. | 2022-10-26T18:49:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Unity's sustainability head wants to help video games go green - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/10/26/unity-video-games-climate-change-graphics-cards/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/10/26/unity-video-games-climate-change-graphics-cards/ |
Fetterman’s struggles may still strike a chord with voters
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate, and Republican nominee Mehmet Oz, right, shake hands before debating in Harrisburg, Pa., on Tuesday. (Greg Nash/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
As the television camera took one last shot of the Pennsylvania debate stage Tuesday night, it caught John Fetterman’s face clenched in frustration. The previous hour had been excruciating — for the Democratic Senate nominee and for the audience who watched him struggle to find and articulate his words in the wake of a stroke five months ago.
The snap consensus — by Republicans and also by many despairing Democrats — was that Fetterman had done severe and possibly fatal damage to his candidacy in what has been considered the marquee Senate race in the country.
That might turn out to be true, but it is important to remember that most voters don’t see these events the way that political reporters, campaign operatives and social media obsessives do. Few actually watch debates, aside from short clips in the aftermath. They care about issues and are amused by gaffes. But they also take the measure of candidates, first and foremost, as human beings — ones who reflect the realities of their own lives.
The question is what voters take away from Tuesday’s debate: concern that Fetterman is too infirm to serve, or empathy for what he has been dealt and admiration for his courage in agreeing to be on that stage in the first place?
What often comes to mind for me is another debate that was deemed a disaster for one candidate — and turned out to be her lifeline. It happened on Jan. 5, 2008, in Manchester, N.H., three days before the primary.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.), the onetime front-runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, had limped into the state after a devastating third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. The two men who had finished ahead of her in Iowa were having great sport that night at the former first lady’s comeuppance.
When she was asked about her “likability,” Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) interrupted her answer with an instantly infamous withering line: “You’re likable enough, Hillary.” Former senator John Edwards (N.C.) averred that he had made a “horrendous mistake” by previously criticizing one of her jackets, and said for comic effect, “I want her to know I think you look terrific tonight.”
Earlier in the debate, Edwards’s campaign sent out a blast email under the subject line “our dream headline.” The email contained one liberal blogger’s assessment: “Get your kids out and put them in front of the TV: The Clinton Era officially ended at 9:34 p.m. EST when Edwards paired with Obama to bury Hillary as a non-agent of change.”
New Hampshire voters saw it differently. I will never forget an interview I did with a woman who worked as a waitress there. She told me she had been undecided between Clinton and Obama until that night, but seeing Clinton withstand the arrogance to which she was subjected was something that resonated with her own life.
On primary day, Clinton was behind in the polls, so it was a stunner when she won — setting the stage for a primary battle with Obama that would go on for months. Later, she told me the debate that everyone thought she lost was the turning point.
“I had nothing to prove it, but I could sense the change coming,” she said. “It just has been my experience, going back many, many years, that voters hear things and see things differently.”
They do. So do not dismiss the possibility that the debate performance that pundits decreed to have been a debacle for Fetterman might have struck a different chord with voters — or, perhaps, that it will turn out not to have mattered at all. | 2022-10-26T19:09:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Fetterman’s debate struggles may strike a chord with voters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/fetterman-oz-debate-struggles-pennsylvania/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/fetterman-oz-debate-struggles-pennsylvania/ |
The original Fenves family cookbook, shown by Anne Marigza, a conservator for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post)
Steven Fenves didn’t notice her on that May morning in 1944 as he and his family were forced from their home in Subotica, part of the deportations ordered by the Germans after they took control of the town in the former Yugoslavia. Fenves, his mother and sister took what they could carry from their second-floor apartment. As they made their way down the stairs, they were met with neighbors and townspeople, all lined up to loot their home.
He never saw Maris among the looters. Heavyset with big black hair and rosy cheeks, Maris would normally be hard to miss. But Fenves wasn’t looking for the family’s former cook, whom he knew only by her first name. She had not worked in the Fenves kitchen in three years, not since the Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia, with Hungary, an ally of Germany, annexing Subotica.
“As people yell at you, curse at you and spit at you, you don’t look in their faces,” Fenves, 91, said in his living room in Chevy Chase, Md.
But Maris was there, waiting for her opportunity. She had a mission, then unknown to the Fenveses, who were on their way to the first of two Jewish ghettos. She was going into the apartment to rescue, among other things, the family recipe book. The one that Fenves’s mother, Klara, had composed in her tight, tiny and nearly flawless Hungarian script. The one that Maris had cooked from for years.
The Fenves family lived an upper-middle-class life in Subotica, where Fenves’s father, Louis, was the editor of an influential Hungarian-language newspaper, printed at a plant attached to the family’s residence.
Aside from Maris, Fenves’s parents employed a maid, a chauffeur and a governess, who would tutor Fenves and his older sister, Eszti. Their mother, Klara, was a formally trained artist. She passed along her passion for art to her children, but she left the cooking to Maris, who treated the kitchen as a sovereign state into which no one was allowed without authorization.
For the main midday meal, Maris might prepare a parmesan soufflé, duck liver pâté, herring salad, hazelnut torte or Hungarian stacked potatoes, the latter a casserole-style dish with potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, butter and, sometimes, sausage. Fenves’s mother would serve everyone from the head of the table.
The food largely drew from Hungarian traditions, which hints at how the Fenveses had immersed themselves in local culture. The only Jewish dish that Fenves recalled eating as a boy was cholent, a stew traditionally served on the Sabbath.
There were special-occasion meals, such as turkey meatloaf, in which Maris would remove the skin from a fresh turkey, carve the flesh off the bone, grind it with spices, press the ground meat back on the breastbone and cover it with skin. Fenves and his sister loved the dish. What they didn’t love was Maris’s country soup with small, hard dumplings. The children called it “envelope soup,” because whenever Maris made it they would steal heavy envelopes from the printing office.
“When nobody was watching, with our spoons, we took out the dumplings and put them in the envelope,” Fenves said.
None of Maris’s dishes are in the Fenves family cookbook. Most of the 140-plus recipes were created by an aunt, a cousin, a sister-in-law, a friend or Klara herself.
Maris had to be let go in 1941 when Hungary took control of their region and imposed laws that forbade Jews from employing non-Jews. At the same time, the government took over the Fenves printing business, forcing the family to scramble for money. Klara sold arts and crafts. Fenves sold his beloved stamp collection.
Fenves’s father was the first to be sent to the ghettos, then Auschwitz, before landing at a coal mine in Silesia. When Fenves and the rest were booted from their home a few days later, they had to leave almost everything behind: Klara’s art, books, keepsakes, photos, even the family cookbook. Other than the family, Maris was perhaps the only person in Subotica who knew where to find the book, or why it was worth saving.
After a five-day trip in a railroad car — one packed with people but no food or water — Fenves and his family landed at Auschwitz. Fenves’s grandmother, taken from her own apartment, was sent to the gas chamber. His mother would die some days later, but Fenves is not sure how. Fenves and his sister were directed to youth barracks in two separate compounds.
In his barracks, Fenves was surrounded by decay and death. He was fed a thin soup once a day from a cauldron. “That was slow death,” he remembered.
Fenves was not exactly fond of his former governess — a German he described as a “horrible woman” in an interview with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum — but her lessons in the German language helped Fenves survive. He was asked to serve as interpreter for the German criminals who supervised the prisoners. “My reward was that after the people were fed from the big cauldrons,” Fenves says, “I was privileged to scrape up the bottom.”
Even though Fenves didn’t know a word of Polish, he would later serve as an interpreter for a Polish political prisoner who served as a supervisor, or kapo, in another barracks. The Polish kapos were part of the resistance, and if you worked for them, you were part of the resistance, too. Fenves became a runner in the camp’s black market. Its unit of currency was the gold watch, taken off those entering Auschwitz.
“I was the smallest and thinnest of the group” of runners, Fenves remembered. “Sometimes I had eight or 10 gold watches strapped to my thigh.”
When Fenves needed something, he could usually trade on the black market, like the time he sold his goods to secure a sweater, scarf and stick of margarine for his sister, who was being transported out of Auschwitz.
“She told me when we were reunited that she ate [the margarine] in one sitting and became terribly ill,” Fenves said.
In October 1944, Fenves was sent to Niederorschel, a subcamp of Buchenwald where he was put to work making German fighter planes. On April 1, 1945, as Allied forces closed in, Fenves and the rest of the prisoners were sent on a death march to Buchenwald. It lasted 11 days, during which, Fenves recalled, they often had nothing to eat. A guard broke Fenves’s arm during the march when he talked back to a German corporal. When Fenves finally arrived at Buchenwald, he fell asleep in a bunk, his arm still throbbing. He awoke the next day when the Allies liberated the camp.
He spent two weeks at a U.S. field hospital. He has no memory of his first meal there.
Fenves and his sister, Eszti, returned to Subotica after the war, but Yugoslavia, under the newly formed communist government, was not the same, and neither was their father. When Louis returned on a Soviet military hospital train, he was “totally broken physically and emotionally,” Fenves said in a Holocaust Museum talk. Months later, Louis died.
The siblings couldn’t stay in Yugoslavia. They secured passports and exit visas and made their way to Paris, where they renounced their Yugoslavian citizenship. Several years later, they immigrated to the United States.
The family cookbook, briefly in Fenves and Eszti’s hands after the war, was returned to Maris for safekeeping.
On a Thursday afternoon in June at the Shapell Center, the Holocaust Museum’s collections and research facility in Bowie, Md., conservator Anne Marigza propped open the Fenves family cookbook on a pristine white table. She placed a thin, folded pillow under the cover to keep it level with the first page of the book, trying to preserve what’s left of the binding.
By Marigza’s best guess, the book was bound in the 1920s at a workshop. (Fenves, incidentally, said the volume was “clearly” made in the bookbinding shop in the basement of the Fenves residence.) The gold embossed letters have eroded, but you can still read “recepter,” Hungarian for “recipes.” In the lower right corner, a name remains legible: Fenyves Lajosne, which translates to Mrs. Louis Fenyves, a reminder that Fenves changed the spelling of his surname when he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1954.
The cover is tattered, ink-stained and grimy around the edges. The ghostly outlines of adhesive tape are visible along the binder. Each page has the rulings of a records book, as if Klara had repurposed a ledger. The tabs that separate each section — appetizers, pastas and salads; soups, meats and sauces; and so on — look hand-cut. Pages are splotchy from dirty fingers and splattered sauces.
In the prewar world, the publishing industry was nothing like it is today. Professional volumes dedicated to Jewish cooking were few. Jewish culinary knowledge was often passed down through generations of women, such as Klara, who collected recipes in family cookbooks. Many of these volumes were part of the vast cultural history erased when Nazi Germany systematically killed 6 million Jews.
Jewish prisoners trying to preserve family dishes in the camps and ghettos would write down recipes on scraps of paper, on the backs of photos, even on Nazi propaganda leaflets. In the book “In Memory’s Kitchen,” which collects recipes written by women in the Theresienstadt ghetto and camp in what is now the Czech Republic, one survivor said prisoners talked so much about food they had a term for it: “cooking with the mouth.”
The Holocaust Museum has collected the papers from nearly 30 families and individuals who, in one way or another, tried to preserve their recipes. Susie Greenbaum Schwarz wrote a diary while in hiding on farms in the Netherlands, mixing personal observations with recipes. Eva Ostwalt created a cookbook while imprisoned at the Ravensbrück camp. Mina Pächter collected recipes at Theresienstadt, where, before her death, she asked a friend in the camp to somehow find her daughter and pass along the cookbook. Decades later, in 1969, a stranger delivered a package, including the cookbook, to Mina’s daughter in Manhattan.
Thinking about food was, in part, a distraction, “because obviously they were not eating as well as they were writing about food,” said Kyra Schuster, art and artifacts curator at the Holocaust Museum. “But it was something that kind of kept them grounded, kept their humanity.”
The Fenves family cookbook is different. It was fully formed before Fenves and his family were deported. The recipes could have been lost to history, like so many others during the war, if not for the cook who endangered herself by trying to save it.
“It’s very telling that this is what she took as opposed to grabbing maybe items of clothing or other family valuables, if there were any still in the apartment,” Schuster said. “I think that does speak volumes of the significance.”
By the time Fenves saw his mother’s cookbook again, he had created a new life. In the early 1960s, he was a professor of civil engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1962, he spent a year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked with a pair of colleagues to develop a computer structural analysis tool that would cement Fenves’s reputation as a pioneer in the field.
While Fenves was an undergraduate at the University of Illinois and Eszti lived on the South Side of Chicago, they received a package covered in postmarks and stamps from Yugoslavia. Maris had mailed the siblings the cookbook, their mother’s artwork, a diary and other keepsakes. Fenves said he and his sister were far more interested in the drawings and etchings.
Eszti occasionally used the cookbook for its intended purpose, Fenves said, but he never did.
The Fenves family cookbook — the gift from Maris, who died at some time unknown to the children she once cared for — essentially languished for years until a “nosy young Israel-born chef” came along, Fenves said.
Ever since visiting Yad Vashem, the largest Holocaust memorial in Israel, New Orleans chef Alon Shaya had been thinking about those who died in the camps and how they “risked their lives stealing pieces of paper and receipts and pieces of fabric to write these recipes,” he said. He was considering a project about how food — or just the thought of food — “served as an emotional bridge to connect to happier moments in their lives when they were starving to death.”
Then Shaya saw the Fenves cookbook in the basement of the Holocaust Museum, which had featured the volume in an exhibit a few years earlier. Shaya understood the value of the slender book lay not just with its recipes but also with the one person who could help reconstruct them: Fenves, then 88. (Eszti had died in 2012.)
“A lightbulb went off in my head that said, ‘Wow, here is an opportunity to get a first-person recollection of these recipes and to be able to just talk with him one-on-one about his memories of the book and the recipes,’” Shaya said.
Then came the hard work: translating and interpreting nearly century-old Hungarian recipes that were, in many respects, just sketches, designed for those who would intuitively know the ingredients, measurements (usually in dekagrams) and techniques that were often implied. Once Fenves translated about 17 recipes, Shaya got to work reconstructing them. The chef’s own connection to Hungarian cooking, via his father’s side of the family, wouldn’t help with the task because Shaya had never really explored the cuisine.
One recipe, Horseshoes With Walnuts and Poppy Seeds, was a slog. Shaya had assumed an instruction — “save some pastry for lacing” — meant the holiday dish had a lattice crust on top, like a pie. So he rolled the dough into horseshoe shapes, packed them with walnut and poppy seed fillings and covered the top with a latticework.
Only after talking to Fenves and conducting more research did Shaya realize the pastry was supposed to be rolled like a jelly roll cake. The dish, he would surmise, was a riff on beigli, a Hungarian roll traditionally made around Christmas but adapted for the Jewish table.
Other recipes raised questions, too. The one described as “potato circles” called for dough rounds to be topped with ground meat mixed with sour cream. It didn’t specify what type of meat or how it was spiced. Based on conversations with Fenves, Shaya opted to saute beef with onions, garlic, thyme, allspice and paprika, the latter of which Fenves said was used in “just about everything.”
This give-and-take between Fenves and Shaya played out electronically during the pandemic. They developed about 10 recipes. Once the recipes were locked down, Shaya sent a few dishes on dry ice to Fenves in Chevy Chase and to his four children, scattered throughout the country, to taste.
To the chef, Fenves’s opinion was the one that mattered. Fenves was the only one who had tasted these dishes as originally prepared, even if he was a child more interested in stamps and art than food.
“I want to do the recipes justice,” Shaya said.
Make the recipe: Semolina Sticks
Shaya, 43, carries a memory around like a sacred object: He was a boy from Bat Yam, Israel, starting life anew in Philadelphia with his mother, who had left her husband and was raising two children. An immigrant who didn’t speak English well, Shaya felt unmoored. One day in 1984, Shaya walked into his Philly home and was met with the aroma of peppers and eggplant roasting over a flame. He knew what it meant: His saba and safta, Hungarian for grandfather and grandmother, were visiting from Israel.
“I just connected the smell of food with my family being back together and feeling like life was going to be okay for a little bit,” Shaya said. “I guess I was trying to evoke an emotion in Fenves like the one that I had at that moment.”
The chef wanted to re-create the Fenves dishes in part to take Fenves back, too. To a life before the war. To a home where his mother still served lunch at the head of the table. To a family still in its prime.
Some of the tastings were captured during Facebook Live sessions hosted by the Holocaust Museum. Moderated by historian Edna Friedberg, the sessions connected Fenves and Shaya across distances, but they also connected Fenves across time, to food he had not tasted since 1944. Like Semolina Sticks, a sweet-and-salty snack that Fenves enjoyed as a boy. Shaya had sent Fenves and his wife, Norma, samples to try on camera.
“Mmm, terrific,” Fenves says to Norma in the video.
“Did he get it right?” Friedberg asks Fenves.
“Very good, yeah,” he says.
“Okay, good,” Shaya responds, clearly relieved. “I was really nervous.”
On another session on video, Fenves tries a walnut cream cake made with, as Shaya notes, five cups of the ground nuts. Again, Friedberg wonders what it means to Fenves to taste this cake after a 75-year hiatus.
“Eating this, honestly, I cannot isolate the memory of this dish from memories of all the other sweet dishes,” he says.
More than a year and a half after those tastings, Fenves sat in his new apartment at a senior living facility, where he and Norma moved after he suffered a fall this year. In his living room, he was again searching for the words to describe his feelings about sampling the food of his childhood. He said it “was a great pleasure.” Then he paused and offered a confession of sorts.
“I’m not that emotional of a person,” said Fenves, the man of math.
Later, Shaya acknowledged that he and Fenves, for all their close collaboration, are different people. Shaya described himself as “an extremely emotional person.”
“Maybe I was a little overconfident in the fact that I could evoke an emotion from him through food,” Shaya said. But, he added, the experience was still “a connector. If it’s not a connector emotionally from a flavor or a smell, the way that my life has kind of always been, it’s still a bridge to a conversation and a friendship.”
The recipes will be a connector in another way. Given the vast amount of time it would take to turn the Fenves recipes into a contemporary cookbook, Shaya has different plans for the project: He will embark on a tour to talk about the book, even cook a few dishes from it, in a handful of cities. The events will be fundraisers to help expand the Holocaust Memorial Museum’s collection, which already includes more than 23,800 objects. He did a similar event this year at the home of Joan Nathan, the esteemed cookbook author, and it generated $180,000.
But just as important, Shaya said, he hopes the events can shrink the horrific scale of the Holocaust down to something personable, relatable, to younger generations that some say are seeing a rise of fascism in their own lives. Your basic teenager, the chef says, may not fathom the level of human grief and pain tied to millions of deaths and the policies that led to those murders.
“You bake him a cake and then you tell him the story of Maris and her heroism to risk her life to save this cookbook,” Shaya said. “All of a sudden this is a story that a 13-year-old can get behind and understand.” | 2022-10-26T19:13:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A Holocaust survivor, a rescued family cookbook, and the taste of home - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/10/26/holocaust-cookbook-family-recipes-jewish/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/10/26/holocaust-cookbook-family-recipes-jewish/ |
Hopkins, CareFirst reach a deal over insurance coverage
The Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore, in March 2020. Johns HOpkins and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield announced an agreement that will avert an interruption in care for the health system's nearly 300,000 patients. (Rob Carr/Getty Images)
Johns Hopkins and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield health insurance announced Wednesday they have settled a contract dispute, ensuring coverage will not be interrupted for nearly 300,000 patients that rely on the Baltimore-based health system.
Hopkins and CareFirst said last month they were at an impasse over rates the insurance company pays for care at Hopkins, a major provider of primary, specialized and outpatient surgical services in the region.
In a brief statement and video, Kevin W. Sowers, president of the Johns Hopkins Health System and executive vice president of Johns Hopkins Medicine, said Hopkins doctors, nurses, other caregivers and ambulatory surgery centers will remain in-network for CareFirst members.
“Thank you for your patience as we worked with CareFirst to come to this resolution,” Sowers said in the video.
A CareFirst spokeswoman said CareFirst and Hopkins officials would not agree to interviews or answer questions about the “financial and nonfinancial terms of the agreement.”
Hopkins last month announced its doctors, nurses and other health care providers would no longer accept CareFirst as of Dec. 5, which hospital officials said fulfilled their contractual obligation to give 90 days notice before providers leave the network.
The contract covers about 4,000 providers employed by Hopkins at the Johns Hopkins flagship hospital and Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, as well as Howard County General Hospital in Columbia, Md., Suburban Hospital in Bethesda and Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington. Providers at stand-alone ambulatory surgery centers, including those in Bethesda and Columbia, would also be affected.
In addition to the providers, Hopkins hospitals in Maryland were set to leave the network if Hopkins and CareFirst couldn’t reach an agreement by March 5, meaning hospital stays would not have been covered.
The dispute came just before the period of “open enrollment,” when many patients choose their health insurance for the coming year, adding to the pressure for CareFirst.
Hopkins and CareFirst officials previously said care could continue, even if no agreement were reached, for some people with severe illness, rare disorders or certain cancers, or for those who are enrolled in clinical trials. | 2022-10-26T19:48:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hopkins and CareFirst reach deal over insurance dispute - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/26/hopkins-carefirst-insurance-doctors/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/26/hopkins-carefirst-insurance-doctors/ |
What’s the non-obvious reason Fox News is talking about crime more?
Herschel Walker, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia, flashes a police badge as he speaks to supporters during a campaign rally Oct. 18 in Atlanta. (John Bazemore/AP)
A few weeks ago, I wrote an article headlined “Crime is surging (in Fox News coverage).” It was a follow-up to an article I’d written a few weeks prior, exploring the fact that real-time crime data is anecdotal, cherry-picked or both.
We know that violent crime rose in 2020, but it’s not clear that it did nationally in 2021. We know crime is up in some places this year, but not always where or how much. In New York City, for example, violent crime is up overall, but murder is down. In a lot of other places, we simply don’t have good data.
Given that, it seemed odd that Fox News was so heavily focused on the subject. Since the beginning of 2021, the network has mentioned crime at a generally increasing rate. What was the ostensible trigger?
The folks at Fox News did not like this question. They and their allies insisted that I was downplaying or excusing crime. They pointed to anecdotal and cherry-picked data to suggest that their focus was important, often ignoring the fact that my article focused largely on the increase in coverage in 2022, for which data from 2021 are irrelevant. The short answer was that there was no obvious, objective reason for Fox News to be talking about crime more, beyond a decision to do so.
I was considering this point this morning as I was looking at how the cable networks were covering other issues ahead of the midterm elections. While in the prior article I looked at mentions of subjects each week, I tried something different this time: splitting up months into chunks and comparing them with the average number of mentions over the first half of the year.
Here are the results for three topics that have come up a lot in national politics. You can see that mentions of abortion in July were higher than in the first half of the year on the three major networks, then returning closer to the baseline before increasing again in October. For mentions of “gas” and “fuel,” mentions over the past four months have generally been less common than in the first half of the year — in part, clearly, because prices began to fall in June.
Part of the volatility you see is that these subjects often aren’t mentioned as much on cable news.
Now compare those charts with the one tracking mentions of crime.
Through July and August, all three networks were mentioning crime about as much as they did in the first half of the year. In late September, though, mentions on Fox News began to soar. In the middle of October, mentions began to rise on CNN and MSNBC, too, in part as a reflection of the increased discussion of crime on the campaign trail.
So now we have a point of time to look at here: What was it in late September that triggered Fox News to start talking about crime so much?
The increase has been stark even in absolute terms. Here’s the extent to which Fox News has been mentioning crime and gas or fuel each week. (These are averages of the number of 15-second blocks in a day during which the term appears in closed-captioning.) From the spring through the summer, crime didn’t come up much. Mentions of “gas” and “fuel” were much more common. Then gas prices peaked and mentions fell. A few weeks later, mentions of both crime and gas increased, but only mentions of crime have kept rising.
One thing that did happen in the late summer was that Democratic candidates surged in the polls. In August, I wrote about the party’s improved (but still wobbly) chances in the midterms. As gas prices continued to fall, support for Democrats and President Biden’s approval rating rose. We can map the relative change in the margin on the generic ballot (as averaged by FiveThirtyEight) relative to the first part of the year as we did with what Fox was talking about.
The Democratic gains in generic-ballot margin (relative to the first half of the year) began to slide in early October.
Republicans and Democrats have not been talking about crime disproportionately in their television ads, it’s worth noting. Analysis from USA Today published last week showed that about a third of Democratic ads (for federal, state and some municipal elections) mentioned crime, as did 4 in 10 Republican ads. That latter percentage, though, jumped from 27 percent in August to 40 percent in September. A Washington Post analysis found that Republicans have spent $50 million on ads mentioning crime since Labor Day.
We can elevate anecdotes of our own, of course. Fox News and the Republican Party have crafted a narrative about the danger of American cities — at least, ones run by Democrats — since the summer of 2020. Fox News’s Geraldo Rivera offered a more-accurate-than-it-may-seem assessment of that summer’s protests, claiming that the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers was a tipping point against the left. He claimed that this was a function of the emergence of things like the “defund the police” effort, which most major Democrats didn’t endorse or actively opposed. But that summer did cement the perception among Fox News viewers and supporters of Donald Trump that urban areas were collapsing into paroxysms of violence, an idea that’s proved useful to Republicans and others on the right. The right has actively elevated the idea that there’s a partisan divide on support for police, something reflected even in Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s deploying a badge as a regular part of his politicking.
There remains no actual evidence that something changed in late September to warrant a new increase in the attention being paid to crime by Fox News. But we do know that the GOP sees a narrative about crime as useful, that Fox News discussion of the subject has increased steadily as the midterms have approached and that the network is otherwise fairly explicit in letting its programming directly benefit the Republican Party.
Perhaps there’s a nonpolitical reason that Fox News is heavily invested in ramping up its discussion of crime. Or perhaps we’ll see a pattern like the one in 2018, when Fox News kept talking about immigrant “caravans” more and more and more … until the election ended. | 2022-10-26T20:10:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What’s the non-obvious reason Fox News is talking about crime more? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/26/crime-midterm-elections-news-coverage-fox-news/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/26/crime-midterm-elections-news-coverage-fox-news/ |
Congress probes telecom giants’ tactics in U.S. internet aid program
The inquiry follows a Washington Post investigation that revealed price hikes, speed cuts, fraud risks and other trouble surrounding a pandemic-era attempt to close the digital divide
Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) on Capitol Hill in May. Pallone's committee opened an investigation into internet providers Wednesday in response to a report by The Washington Post about potential fraud and other problems in a pandemic-driven federal program to subsidize broadband internet access. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post)
A leading congressional committee opened a probe of AT&T, Charter, Dish Network, T-Mobile and Verizon on Wednesday, aiming to explore if these and other telecom giants are “abiding by the law” in administering a federal aid program that helps low-income families stay online.
The inquiry — commenced by Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), the chairman of the tech-focused House Energy and Commerce Committee — comes in the wake of a Washington Post investigation that found internet providers had unleashed price hikes, speed cuts and fraud risks in connection with the pandemic-era initiative.
The heightened scrutiny centers on the roughly $17 billion adopted by Congress since 2020 to help cash-strapped families and close the country’s digital divide. First called the Emergency Broadband Benefit, then rebranded last year as the Affordable Connectivity Program, the initiative pays stipends directly to telecom providers to lower qualified Americans’ monthly bills, sometimes to zero.
The aid has helped more than 14 million households cut costs, though the sign-ups reflect about a quarter of the roughly 49 million households eligible for help. The gap is due in part to telecom providers, whose tactics are laid bare in thousands of consumer complaints — and reams of other data — that The Post obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Responding to those findings, Pallone wrote to 13 companies Wednesday, noting he is “deeply concerned” that some “may not be adhering to the requirements of the program.” The chairman added that the allegations reflect “actions that are now explicitly prohibited by Congress and the FCC.”
And Pallone demanded details about the internet providers’ administration of the broadband benefits. The questions included the number of people they serve, the way they market their internet offerings and the complaints they have received from aggrieved customers. Pallone also inquired about their billing practices and their oversight mechanisms, including the extent to which agents are paid commissions for sales.
“The success of the current program, ACP, is crucial to making progress in our shared goal of connecting all Americans,” wrote Pallone, requesting answers by Nov. 9.
In separate statements, AT&T and Verizon acknowledged receipt of the letters and said they will respond accordingly. They each highlighted their commitment to the federal program. Charter pointed to its prior comments, which touted its own efforts to promote government broadband benefits. Dish and T-Mobile did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Pallone’s letter reflected a broader, ongoing challenge facing the U.S. government as it seeks to keep close watch over the more than $5 trillion in emergency spending adopted since the start of the pandemic. The money helped rescue the economy from free-fall, but it has remained hard to track and subject to waste, fraud and abuse, The Post has revealed in The Covid Money Trail, a year-long series. That includes a wide array of misspending that has since drawn the interest of federal inspectors general.
The complaints about government internet subsidies date to the program’s earliest days, when it was known as the Emergency Broadband Benefit. Many consumers told the FCC beginning in early 2021 that telecom giants including AT&T, Charter and Verizon had forced them to make undesirable choices — agreeing to price hikes, speed cuts or other plan changes if they wanted to apply the federal benefit to their bills.
In response, AT&T attributed some of the issues to “technical challenges” made worse by the speed at which Washington implemented the benefit program. Charter said it had been clear with customers and achieved “significant participation,” while Verizon acknowledged it changed its policies amid a public backlash.
Meanwhile, the broadband benefits quickly became a source of potential fraud, The Post found. The telecom giants’ race to sign up subscribers — on top of long-known glitches in the government’s application system — opened the door for potentially tens of thousands of people to obtain federal aid they did not qualify to receive.
Much of the problem concerned roughly 200,000 families who received monthly internet benefits after claiming they had a child attending a high-poverty school. More than 143,000 of those beneficiaries signed up for the stipends on behalf of a student whose name they never supplied, according to data obtained by The Post. Nearly 20,000 applicants — some included children’s names, some did not — also named a school 50 miles or more away from their home address.
Some of the greatest fraud risks involved the low-cost carrier Boost Mobile, owned by Dish, which signed up 11,000 families based on students attending far-flung schools — including more than 400 students who lived thousands of miles away. Presented with The Post’s findings, a spokesman for Dish said Boost Mobile services were offered through “independent third-party retail outlets.” He added that the company has worked to improve its processes along with the FCC.
The telecom agency soon moved to tighten eligibility, as the FCC’s inspector general issued a series of sharp alerts about the risks of waste, fraud and abuse. On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans looked to refashion their broadband benefits as a $14 billion effort called the Affordable Connectivity Program. The changes, overseen by the Biden administration, helped clamp down on abuse and spurred more enrollment. But they still opened the door for new headaches that consumers soon raised with the FCC.
In many cases, lesser-known low-cost carriers came to see the money as a business opportunity — and some adopted questionable marketing tactics to sign up new subscribers. A discount brand owned by T-Mobile, called Assurance Wireless, repeatedly signed up families for federal benefits in ways that later led those customers to complain to the FCC, according to documents obtained by The Post. In some cases, they told the agency, the company’s tactics had the effect of switching a consumer’s benefit away from another provider where they had hoped to apply the monthly discount, leaving them on the hook for a bill.
In a statement, Tara Darrow, a spokeswoman for Assurance and its parent company, T-Mobile, said there is “no instance where a customer could be enrolled in these programs without their permission.”
On Wednesday, Pallone acknowledged that “many issues have been resolved” since the U.S. government began offering broadband benefits at the height of the pandemic. He also praised telecom companies for participating in a program that is voluntary in nature. But he pledged strong oversight still to come, stressing he would make sure they “comply with the safeguards and consumer protection standards.” | 2022-10-26T20:19:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Congress investigates telecom companies over U.S. internet aid program - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/26/house-investigation-internet-broadband-pandemic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/26/house-investigation-internet-broadband-pandemic/ |
News of ‘Twister’ sequel has weather fanatics swirling with excitement
Filming for a follow-up to the 1996 box office hit that starred Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt will begin in the spring, Deadline reports
A tornado whirls near McCook, Neb., on May 17, 2019. (Matthew Cappucci)
A mild obsession with the movie “Twister” is virtually a requirement for a weather enthusiast. Meteorologists, hobbyists or even slightly-more-than-casual cloud watchers probably have seen it at least a handful of times. Each time it airs on cable TV, it seems that half of “weather Twitter” (WxTwitter) takes to social media to alert colleagues. Now a sequel is reportedly coming — and it’s taking the weather enterprise by storm.
Twenty-six years after the release of “Twister,” in 1996, the sequel will be called “Twisters,” according to Deadline, the Hollywood industry news site. Filming for the movie is to begin in the spring. Steven Spielberg reportedly “flipped” over the script, and “his enthusiasm provided the impetus for the fast-tracked film,” which will be a venture between Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and Universal Studios. Deadline noted that Warner Bros. will be co-financing the project and that it will be produced by Frank Marshall.
According to Reader’s Digest, the film probably will not premiere until at least mid-2024, if not later.
When asked for his initial reaction to the news of a “Twister” sequel, Reed Timmer, a renowned storm chaser and former star of the long-running Discovery Channel series “Storm Chasers,” described feeling “pure excitement!”
“We’ve got cows!” Discussing Warner Brothers 1996 Hollywood blockbuster hit, TWISTER.
“ ‘Twister’ is still one of my favorite movies,” Timmer told The Washington Post in a message. “I love the storm chaser characters in the original movie and the representation of life on the road.”
Timmer, who regularly drives tens of thousands of miles annually crisscrossing the Great Plains, Deep South and Southeast in pursuit of tornadoes, said the portrayal of the dynamic of storm chasing was spot-on in “Twister.”
“The quirky characters, camaraderie and competitiveness between the different stormchasers and teams as shown in the original … is incredibly accurate and ahead of its time,” he wrote.
The original movie chronicles the adventures of Jo Thornton (played by Helen Hunt), whose family’s rural Oklahoma farm was destroyed in 1969 by an F5 tornado. Her father dies while trying to hold down the door of a storm cellar. Twenty-seven years later, Thornton is a PhD meteorologist working to deploy probes in the path of violent tornadoes. She’s in the midst of a divorce from fellow scientist Bill Harding (Bill Paxton). After enduring several near-death experiences involving severe storms, the pair rekindle their love while conducting groundbreaking tornado research.
“The [research] projects were an accurate look into the future of storm chasing field science — the interplay between the big mega funded field projects and the small self funded chasers trying to also make a difference,” Timmer wrote.
“Twister” was a hit, grossing nearly $500 million at the box office.
It was not immediately apparent who would star in the sequel; Deadline wrote that the hope is to bring Hunt back, according to its sources. News of the sequel comes 5 ½ years after the death of Paxton at age 61.
After Paxton’s death on Feb. 25, 2017, scores of storm chasers took to the rural roadways of the Texas Panhandle and plains of western Oklahoma to spell out his initials, which appeared on the storm chasing “Spotter Network.”
“A TWISTER sequel without Bill Paxton? Shouldn’t be made,” tweeted Chris Evangelista, the editor and chief film critic at Slash Film. “I stand firm on this very important issue.”
TMZ reports that Bill Paxton’s son has given the sequel “his seal of approval.”
“Twister” helped popularize the field of storm chasing and was among the few movies at the time that embraced scientists, and in particular nerds. It comes as no surprise that meteorologists far and wide welcome the sequel.
“The original movie was highly influential in fueling my love and passion for weather and tracking down tornadoes,” wrote Aaron Jayjack, a storm chaser for the MyRadar app, in a message to The Post. “ I’d love to see them come out with a crew and get some real, close up action shots of actual tornadoes in the Plains!”
Put on your seatbelt. The Twisters movie will probably make the storm chasing industry even more Wild West than it is now. Both good and bad, but definitely will be insane. Never stop chasing or BUST
Despite the widespread enthusiasm, meteorologists and weather enthusiasts alike are hoping producers hew close to the science — some even advocating the use of meteorological consultants.
“I’m excited but apprehensive,” wrote Jed Christoph, a meteorologist at the NBC affiliate in Missoula, Mont., in a message to the The Post. “Would be great if they research and call upon storm chasers/meteorologists to provide some insight.”
Jayjack agreed.
“At the very least, they better get some actual storm chasers and their vehicles in the movie as extras, for all that realistic chaser convergence!” he wrote.
Here’s a sample of some of the buzz “Twisters” is generating:
Twisters. Please, @UniversalPics @amblin @wbpictures, PLEASE! Have an actual meteorologist consultant on the film?? Climate and weather movies post-1996 (except for Perfect Storm) have fudged too much science and VFX for the spectacle. Real physics can still be entertaining! pic.twitter.com/JgPBo0xgOO
— Ryan Davidson (@RyanDavidsonWX) October 18, 2022
The Twister sequel should start with everyone at a fast food restaurant charging their phones and laptops and using their WiFi to check out radar.
The excitement I have for a Twister sequel is balanced by an equal level of fear of it being bad. I'm hoping it ends up being more of a Top Gun: Maverick as opposed to being a Ghostbusters 2016. Either way, I'm definitely seeing it in theaters!
— Kyle Johnson (@KJohnson_Wx) October 26, 2022
🚨! What are the odds they cast an actual, real-life female storm chaser for the role of the daughter of Helen Hunt's and Bill Paxton's characters who caught the storm chase bug? There's plenty of us out there! Calling @GirlsWhoChase. 🌪️🌪️🌪️ https://t.co/wIbP2OI4UB
— Kathryn Prociv (@KathrynProciv) October 17, 2022
Full disclosure: Twister is my favorite movie of all time... but
Not sure how I feel about this, Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment are developing the sequel, "Twisters," and hope to start filming in Spring of 2023.
If it's as good as the Top Gun sequel, I'm for it. pic.twitter.com/3SdCdvmqL0
— Kevin Lighty - WCIA 3 Chief Meteorologist (@KevinLighty) October 19, 2022 | 2022-10-26T20:19:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A sequel to the 1996 blockbuster Twister is planned: Twisters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/26/twister-movie-sequel-meteorologists-twisters/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/26/twister-movie-sequel-meteorologists-twisters/ |
Kisha Davis nominated as Montgomery County health officer
Kisha Davis. (Maryland Academy of Family Physicians)
After more than a year without a top health official, Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich on Wednesday named family physician and community health worker Kisha Davis as the nominee to succeed Travis Gayles.
The County Council is scheduled to vote on her nomination on Nov. 15.
Gayles resigned in August 2021 to work with Hazel Health, a San Francisco-based start-up that provides telehealth services to K-12 schools. James Bridgers, who served as deputy health officer under Gayles, has been the acting health officer since Gayles resigned.
“With the nomination of Dr. Kisha Davis as our County’s next health officer, we have found a health expert and leader committed to innovation, equity, and access to health care,” Elrich (D) said in a statement.
Davis most recently was vice president for health equity at Bethesda-based Aledade, an organization that works with independent medical practices, health centers and clinics. Davis has previously worked as a project manager for the Family Medicine for America’s Health project and as the medical director for CHI Health Care, a primary care center in Gaithersburg.
If confirmed, Davis will lead the county’s efforts toward disease control and prevention, eliminating health inequities and promoting inclusive health policies. She will also work with the Maryland Department of Health to develop and implement state health policies. In the role, Davis would be paid an annual salary of $200,000, said Mary Anderson, spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services. Bridgers will be responsible for ongoing operations, fiscal oversight and administrative aspects of the public health programs.
“In this role, I see myself as really being that primary care doc for Montgomery County,” Davis said at a news conference Wednesday.
Under Gayles, the county implemented stringent measures to mitigate coronavirus spread and Montgomery, the most populous county in Maryland, had one of the highest vaccination rates in the country. He earned praise for his positions but also faced criticism from some who thought he was too cautious, especially surrounding guidance around schools.
Raymond Crowel, director of the county’s Department of Health and Human Services said that about 15 candidates were considered for the position. A few moved forward through the interview process before withdrawing. Elrich said in the news conference that this a joint appointment with the state and that Davis’s nomination has already been reviewed and approved by the state.
A Montgomery County native, Davis has earned degrees from Duke University, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. She was a White House fellow at the Agriculture Department, co-host of a podcast called “The Sisters Will See You Now” and co-producer of “Finding Fellowship,” a documentary about preserving the Quince Orchard community.
“The Council is thrilled to have received the nomination from County Executive Marc Elrich of Dr. Kisha Davis to serve as Montgomery County’s Health Officer,” Gabe Albornoz (D-At Large), the council’s president and chair of its Health and Human Services Committee, said in a statement. “We are fortunate to have an accomplished public health professional with her caliber of experience and expertise poised to lead Montgomery County’s health strategies and ensure the health of our community.” | 2022-10-26T20:19:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kisha Davis nominated as Montgomery County health officer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/26/montgomery-county-nominates-health-officer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/26/montgomery-county-nominates-health-officer/ |
How Ashton B. Carter secured the world
Ashton B. Carter speaking at a news conference at the Pentagon on June 30, 2016. Carter, who served as secretary of defense in the final two years of the Obama administration, has died at age 68. (Alex Brandon/AP)
Ashton B. Carter, the former defense secretary who died Monday at 68, has been justly lauded for opening the military to women and transgender service members, and for taking on the hardest challenges in defense policy and practice over decades. He often displayed a fierce impatience. He would admonish others: Don’t respect the barriers. In a moment of global insecurity in the autumn of 1991, he showed what he meant.
Just after a failed coup that August, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, visited Moscow and saw chaos on the streets. He worried about the security of the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons. On return to Washington, Mr. Carter told him that the fears were well grounded. “A nuclear custodial system is only as stable as the social system in which it is embedded,” Mr. Carter recalled saying. “When all of that is in the middle of a social revolution, you’ve got big trouble.”
Mr. Nunn sought to rally members of Congress to help secure the Soviet nuclear arsenal. But he ran into a wall of indifference. Polls showed Americans were looking inward. President George H.W. Bush was cool to the idea. Undeterred, on Nov. 19, Mr. Nunn brought Mr. Carter to his Senate office for a brainstorming session. Mr. Carter, then at Harvard University, drove home the point that Soviet collapse, now clearly visible from news reports, was an immense security threat. “Never before has a nuclear power disintegrated,” he said. There was no single danger, he warned, but “all kinds of motives, all kinds of people, the wayward general to the wayward scientist to the wayward clerk, custodian and sergeant.” On Nov. 21, the senator brought 16 colleagues to a breakfast in the Armed Services Committee room. Mr. Carter addressed them without notes, saying that nuclear weapons command and control could not be isolated from society’s turmoil.
The clarity of Mr. Carter’s presentation had an instant impact. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) had joined Mr. Nunn, and within days they had votes for legislation to start what became known as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, one of the most successful foreign policy initiatives by Congress in recent times. A few years later, when a stash of 1,322 pounds of highly-enriched uranium was found in a warehouse in Kazakhstan, Mr. Carter, then an assistant defense secretary in the Clinton administration, once again showed no respect to the barriers. “Your job is to put together a team and go get this stuff out of Kazakhstan,” he told one official. “Whatever you need — do it.” In Project Sapphire, the uranium was carried to the United States in one of the longest C-5 flights in history.
Mr. Carter was often driven — combative, too — but with his mind fixed on getting results. He helped avert a potential catastrophe in the tumult of the Soviet collapse. Now, in a time of renewed war and uncertainty, his example should remind everyone of the dangers of complacency. He showed admirable determination to make the world safer. He understood the greater risk was in doing nothing. | 2022-10-26T20:20:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Ash Carter has died. He secured the world from Soviet nuclear weapons. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/ash-carter-died-soviet-nuclear-weapons/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/ash-carter-died-soviet-nuclear-weapons/ |
It’s time for emergency options on housing
Numerous apartments are boarded up at the Potomac Gardens public housing complex in Southeast Washington. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
Regarding the Oct. 22 front-page article “Vacancies plague public housing”:
If the D.C. government cannot make 2,000-plus existing public housing apartments habitable and available, the city should call upon every D.C.-licensed contractor with annual income over $5 million and/or more than 100 employees and publicly ask them to use their skills to voluntarily repair units. The city should then publicly identify who participated, who didn’t and the results. If response isn’t sufficient, immediately implement a “public benefit” surcharge on commercial building permits and use the funds to get the job done.
It might be unorthodox (and embarrassing for D.C. officials), but the tens of thousands of unhoused people can’t be in a worse bind than they are now, with winter coming on.
Of all The Post’s investigative stories on D.C.’s failures, this one is truly heartbreaking. Enough with the explanations from D.C. Housing Authority officials and the mayor; it’s time for emergency options.
Andrea Lee Negroni, Arlington | 2022-10-26T20:20:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | It’s time for emergency options on housing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/its-time-emergency-options-housing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/its-time-emergency-options-housing/ |
In this image from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Thursday, March 24, 2022, commander of the troops of the Russian Eastern Military District Alexander Chaiko speaks to Russian servicemen during a special military operation at an undisclosed location in Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP) (Uncredited/Rusian Defense Ministry Press Service)
ZDVYZHIVKA, Ukraine — The carnage left by Russian soldiers on the road to Kyiv wasn’t random. It was strategic brutality, perpetrated in areas that were under tight Russian control where military officers — including one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top generals accused of war crimes in Syria — were present, an investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series “Frontline” found. | 2022-10-26T20:21:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Takeaways from investigation of Russian general in Ukraine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/takeaways-from-investigation-of-russian-general-in-ukraine/2022/10/26/dfef33d2-5563-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/takeaways-from-investigation-of-russian-general-in-ukraine/2022/10/26/dfef33d2-5563-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
Transcript: “Capehart” with Rahul Gupta, Director of White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
MR. CAPEHART: Good morning and welcome to the “Capehart” podcast and Washington Post Live. I am Jonathan Capehart, associate editor at The Washington Post.
The opioid epidemic that we were all focused on before the COVID pandemic swamped everything continued unabated during it. Today fentanyl is now driving the unprecedented number of drug overdoses in the United States. Joining me now to discuss the opioid epidemic and other issues is the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Dr. Rahul Gupta. Dr. Gupta, thank you very much for coming to "Capehart" on Washington Post Live.
DR. GUPTA: Thank you for having me, Jonathan. I appreciate it.
MR. CAPEHART: So Dr. Gupta, the fentanyl overdoses are an evolution from the prescription pain meds epidemic from the early 2000s. Talk about that evolution, and where does fentanyl come from and what is the administration doing now to stop it coming into the country.
DR. GUPTA: Well, you know, as a practicing physician for the last two decades plus, I was right there in the trenches when we began [audio drop] opioids, and as a result of what happened was we started to see people started dying because of overdose from opioids, prescription opioids. And as we moved forward to make really good policies to prevent that from happening, the consequence was people moved to the cheaper, more readily available alternative on the streets oftentimes, that was oftentimes injection use of heroin.
And I was a practicing physician and I saw full-time in the emergency room sometimes there would be hardly a shift that I would go through without reversing an overdose from an opioid at the time, for months at a time. And that was so important because I would see some people make it, other people not make it because of the disease of addiction.
But what has happened since is that we began to see a fentanyl being cut, an opioid that is up to 100 times more potent than morphine. So we started to see that mix in with heroin on the streets. And now today we see fentanyl basically overtake the opioid supply of the nation, from an illicit perspective. The reason that's important is, you know, almost going away are the days when we had organic drugs that we've had for thousands of years, like cocaine, marijuana, and others, and heroin especially, where you had crops, farmers, fertilizers, you can measure those crops and get an estimate of what's being produced. Today, all you need is a small amount of closet, a small closet and the imagination of the chemist to produce these synthetic, deadly substances that come in very small quantities and kill a lot of people, unfortunately, in a very small amount of time.
MR. CAPEHART: So then, Dr. Gupta, who is making it? Where is it coming from?
DR. GUPTA: Well, the entire supply chain actually really starts from precursor chemicals that are shipped from China, oftentimes to ports in Mexico, and the production labs, small, difficult-to-detect labs happen in Mexico, and then they end up in the most vulnerable communities across the border, into the United States. And that's an important piece to understand the entire supply chain because it is the profits that are driving. It is not the ideology but profits, pure, sheer profits that is driving this particular illicit trade.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, I'm sure you saw this Washington Post investigation from 2018, that found that the Obama administration failed to grasp fentanyl's threat and failed to organize an effective strategy as deaths soared. It's been nearly 10 years since fentanyl started claiming the lives of thousands of Americans. Do you wonder how different the opioid epidemic might look today if more immediate action was taken?
DR. GUPTA: Well, I think one of the important pieces forever has been a part of U.S. drug policy is we must recognize the challenge and the threat in front of us rather than to later look in the rear-view mirror, and that's exactly what we're trying to do now, because when we do that, we can then innovate policies and strategies that can help us save lives right now.
Of course, this evolution that has happened, it's important to talk about it because we're in a very different--what I often say is it's not your grandmother's drug epidemic. This is very different. We have synthetic substances for the first time, fentanyl being one of them, meth being another one, and it's important for us now to be able to take steps, unprecedented sometimes, that will help us, first and foremost, save lives and then get the help people need. So it's really important for us to stay focused but also understand what can happen in a predictive way and act against it now.
MR. CAPEHART: So, of course, listening to your answer there, Dr. Gupta, immediately my mind went to harm reduction. There are some folks who believe that harm reduction--and that is providing clean needles to drug users as a way of stemming disease--but there are some folks who say that that encourages drug use. Is there any evidence, scientific evidence, that that is indeed the case?
DR. GUPTA: Well let me be really clear. Absolutely not, but let me expand on that as well.
You know, as a physician, someone who has not only seen patients in harm reduction clinics but have distributed syringes and seen the effects, the tremendous effects on human lives in terms of endocarditis infection of your heart valves that often becomes very permanent, lifelong, and very dangerous and costly. Oftentimes we see people dying from fentanyl. Oftentimes we see spread of communicable diseases like HIV and hepatitis, which are also lifelong oftentimes and very expensive to treat.
You know, if we have good strategies that are based in evidence and science and are cost effective, we should deploy them. That's exactly what this administration has done for the first time. You know, President Biden has been very clear--let's make sure we're saving lives and getting people with science-driven policy to help the need. And issues like naloxone, syringe service programs, fentanyl test strips for people to know that there's fentanyl in their own drug supply are some of the most lifesaving strategies, but they also help connect people, help us meet people where they are and connect them to care and other services.
So it's really important. I think one of the important pieces that often gets lost is in the 21st century we need to be moving and helping people where they are, not waiting for them to come to us. And me, as a physician, I can tell you that. With all of the aspects of health care system, one of the things we lack oftentimes is meeting people where they are and helping them, and that's exactly what we're trying to do.
MR. CAPEHART: Well more on that point, I want to bring up California, because back in August Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have allowed a few supervised injection facilities to open in that state, on a trial basis. This is a Democratic governor of a blue state, of a true-blue state. If he's vetoing such efforts what's it going to take to have state leaders be more open to these types of harm reduction programs, or in the words that you used, meeting people where they are?
DR. GUPTA: Well I think it's going to be science, research, and data, because we must be following those aspects. And it's important that we understand the science, and I've said this before that we want to make sure that we're looking at the research of any emerging harm reduction practices and the clinical effectiveness of that.
Now specific aspects, as you know, that particularly there's litigation in courts in regards to some of these aspects, and so I'm going to leave it there and not get ahead of it. But it is important that we follow the science, we follow the evidence, and go where it takes us, with the aim to save lives first.
MR. CAPEHART: Dr. Gupta, the recent surge of fentanyl overdose deaths has hit Black and Native American communities particularly hard. What specifically is the administration doing to help those communities?
DR. GUPTA: You know, from day one, President Biden was very clear that we must take a lens of equity and justice when it comes to addressing so many programs but especially drug policy. And one of the facts that is really important to understand is, you know, for the longest time, Jonathan, you mentioned what began as a prescription opioid epidemic. You know, Black Americans often were not prescribed pain medicines at the same scale, and that was partially due to the stigma within the health care system against pain for Black Americans. But also what happened was now the risk has become even greater for our Black and brown communities because it has become about counterfeit drugs, illicit fentanyl.
You know, today 2 out of 5 times the chance if someone is taking a fake or counterfeit pill that you're going to end up dying from a fentanyl overdose, potentially. Now those numbers are worse than playing Russian roulette with your life, if you think about it, and that's where we're seeing some of the highest increases in the Black community. In fact, it is Black Americans, when you just look at the data, over 50 that are bearing the most brunt. So it’s not even one age group that is staying consistent across all races.
So it's really important, and that's one of the things we're looking at, because the other side of this is also not good news, which is when you look at the treatment data, Black Americans and brown Americans tend to seek treatment much more delayed in timeline for addiction than others.
So it's a double whammy of sorts, and that's why it's been very important for us to not only expand harm reduction approaches but also treatment, addiction treatment infrastructure, so we can get the same opportunity in an equitable manner to all people across the country.
MR. CAPEHART: So Dr. Gupta, is that delay among African Americans, that delay in treatment, is that because they themselves delay getting into treatment or is that a question of access to treatment and not having the access to treatment in a timely manner?
DR. GUPTA: Jonathan, great question. Both, and so many other factors, meaning first is stigma. Stigma in addiction is so important because it pervades through communities, individuals, families, neighborhoods, as well as through the health care system. And stigma often, for Black and brown communities, prevents both the individuals from seeking care but also the health care systems engaging individuals at an early stage.
Second is access. Third is insurance coverage and the ability to be aware of what your coverage is. And that's why things like Inflation Reduction Act become so important to increase the access to health insurance, provide people with the coverage, and be aware of that becomes important.
The fact today is less than 1 out of 10 Americans who need treatment for addiction aren't getting it. Less than 1 out of 10 in the United States of America. That's the state of affairs today. We are where cancer was about 100 years ago. So we have to work to create the addiction treatment infrastructure, try to work on stigma, and especially with a lens of equity, both in public health and the medical side but also on the criminal justice side as well.
MR. CAPEHART: That's a great segue to a question, an audience question from Molly, from my home state of New Jersey. She asks, "Treatment is just the first step. How does long-term recovery figure into the way addiction is addressed?"
DR. GUPTA: Molly, that is such a great, great, important question. When I travel across the nation one of the things is I meet with so many people in recovery, and, you know, treatment I often say, as a physician, is just not about treatment. It's about recovery and support services.
One of the things I hear most about is housing, for example, housing, economic opportunity, a job, transportation, things like food security, things like childcare. These things become so important in a driver.
I'll tell you, just yesterday I was with someone who was trying to get a drug dealer off the street, and they found them a job in a facility. And the drug dealer actually quit the job after a few weeks, and the person asked, "Why, after all this hard work?" And they said, "Well, because it was costing me more on Uber and Lyft to get to my work than I was getting reimbursed for, so I better go back to my old job."
This is the challenge that we face as a nation every day in terms of what support services and wraparound services we need for people, tens of millions of Americans in recovery today.
MR. CAPEHART: Your answer is a nice segue into the other audience question that I have this time, this time from Julie Schwab in Wisconsin, who asks, "Housing is a crucial part of recovery support when an individual leaves drug rehab, detox, jail, prison, homeless shelters, et cetera. When will there be funding for recovery housing? When will HUD create a supportive recovery housing category?"
DR. GUPTA: That's a great question, and I'll tell you, I am working very closely with the Department of Labor. In fact, housing is one of the most important pieces that I hear from Americans every single day. We are working with HUD. In fact, there was a recent release of a significant amount of dollars that include people with substance use disorders to be able to get housing. I hope folks are able to check that out or share that information as well.
But it's also important that when we talk about both jobs and housing in terms of getting the support people need it is really important, both transitional housing but also permanent housing.
Some of the housing regulations are of the past, and that's exactly what we're also trying to make sure that are updated because it turns out sometimes people need to move to a different location and have the support structure behind them to be able to create that.
So we are working on it. There are lots of changes that have happened. We're working with states and local jurisdictions to make sure that our policies support the people that we are all serving.
MR. CAPEHART: Let's talk about the big price tag that is needed to address the opioid epidemic. Four years ago, on this podcast, under a different name, when Trump was in office, former assistant surgeon general Susan Blumenthal told me that at least $45 billion would be needed to address the opioid crisis. The price tag is surely higher today. So what kind of investment is the Biden administration willing to make?
DR. GUPTA: Jonathan, let me first state the cost of this crisis. Just a few weeks ago the Joint Economic Committee of Congress put the cost in 2020 dollars of the opioid crisis to be $1.5 trillion, in 2020 alone--$1.5 trillion, with a T. Now in 2020, that was the GDP of Russia. We are losing the equivalent of GDP of Russia every year because of this. Not only that, the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that up to 26 percent of a labor force participation loss compared to pre-pandemic levels because of substance use disorders.
So if you look at that challenge, we have to make sure, as President Biden has said, we will provide the resources and the help to communities, what it will take for us to beat the opioid crisis.
Now we have just announced about $1.6 billion for communities across all states and territories to be able to access treatment, prevention, and recovery support services. That builds up to the $5 billion in American Rescue Plan that was already announced earlier. The amount of funding that is going out is very helpful to communities that I speak with.
Now the president also asked Congress, in his budget proposal, to increase budget by $3.2 billion for drug control budgets. The reason that is, is because 75 cents of every dollar of the increase goes into providing communities supports for prevention, treatment, and recovery support services. It's really important that we as a nation are able to match and exceed the expectations of people across in communities with the resources--it's not just talk--because the cost overall is so large of doing nothing or doing not enough.
MR. CAPEHART: Here's something I would love to get your reaction to. Beth Macy, who is the author of "Dopesick," which chronicles the rise of prescription drugs abuse, wrote in an op-ed recently, in The Washington Post, that "If the administration offered free treatment on demand for people who can't afford it, the way HIV/AIDS treatment was available in the 1990s, the United States would be able to curb the number of people who die from overdose."
Why isn't that being done?
DR. GUPTA: Well, we're working towards that, those types of approaches. That's exactly right. So let's look at the drug called naloxone, or Narcan, as people often name it. We know that 3 out of 4 Americans out of the 108,000 that died last year are dying because of an illicit opioid like fentanyl. Now if we have enough naloxone in communities we can save tens of thousands of people right now, and that's exactly one of the areas we're focused on, in making sure that happens.
Once we do that, we want to also make sure that people are connected to treatment and we remove the ability, the challenge of affordability, the challenge of access. And that's where we have provided expanded telehealth services. So today, you know, one of the silver linings in the COVID pandemic has been the expansion of telehealth to approach and reach rural communities, communities that have been chronically deprived of care, as well as others. This is a way to get there.
But, you know, things like health insurance access, things like making sure that there's a coverage limit on the co-pays are very important, because that's the way we're going to get there. We also want to make sure that our policy, the President's own strategy, calls for universal access to treatment by 2025.
So actually, what Beth has stated is exactly what we have in our strategy. That's exactly what we're working towards.
MR. CAPEHART: So we spent the bulk of this conversation talking about opioids, fentanyl. Let's talk about pot. Dr. Gupta, earlier this month, as you well know, President Biden called on HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and Attorney General Merrick Garland to review marijuana's classification under federal law as a Schedule I narcotic. When do you expect that review to be done?
DR. GUPTA: Well, it will be done expeditiously because the President has asked for it to be done expeditiously. But before that I just wanted to mention that what the President has announced is historic in nature. No one before, in the history of the United States, has made those proclamations. First of all, he has asked for pardoning from all federal systems of anyone convicted or arrested for the use or possession of marijuana. This will impact thousands of people.
Secondly, he has called on governors to do the same across the states because that's where the bulk of those folks are. And thirdly, of course, as you mentioned, he's called on looking at the scheduling between the attorney general and the HHS secretary in an expeditious way, and we will continue to monitor that process as well.
MR. CAPEHART: Is this the first step to decriminalization?
DR. GUPTA: Well, this is certainly a step that the President believes deeply in. He believes that people should not be arrested or convicted for sole possession or use of marijuana. It's really important because, you know, when you look at the numbers, we've had over half a million arrests in any given year, and guess what? The arrests for the same prevalence of use is four times, nearly four times as much for Black Americans as compared to White Americans. These are the kinds of actions that President Biden has announced will help us look at our justice policies from an equity lens, and it's an action that is going to impact the lives of Americans.
And so many ask how, why? Well, because here's why. When you have that ding on your record you can't get public housing. You can't get government loans. You can't get employment. You can't get a lot of the other services, even child welfare benefits. You can't even sit on a jury in so many jurisdictions because of that. It takes and deprives the lives of individuals.
When I was a physician, full-time practicing, I saw so many people in my practice that would come, and the lost economic opportunity, a lot of those diseases and suffering will be as a result of that.
So this is going to make a big difference for people's lives in so many ways.
MR. CAPEHART: You are a doctor, and many times in this conversation you said we've got to follow the science. When you follow the science when it comes to marijuana, does it make sense that it is criminalized? Or let me put it this way. There are people who don't want marijuana to be decriminalized, and say that it is, quote, "a gateway drug to other things." This is 2022. Does that argument scientifically have any weight?
DR. GUPTA: Well, let me break it down, Jonathan. That's a great question. First, we know that there have been documented and clearly data is behind certain medical uses for cannabis. We also know, at the same time, that there is plenty of evidence that when we talk about children and their growing brain, the use of marijuana does impact negatively in terms of your areas of where their emotion and learning and decision-making, all those get impacted as well. So just as any substance for growing brain isn't good, it isn't good for children and adolescents as well.
But that doesn't nullify the medical benefits that have been documented in science over the years, and a lot of this is developing science. I mean, there have been bans on marijuana, and that's resulted in a deficiency of literature and science and scientific research behind it.
So I'm glad that we're able to see more science develop so we will get closer to the truth that we can. To me, as a scientist, it's really important to know, hey, what are the effects, both good and bad, so we can make good, sound policy based on that data.
MR. CAPEHART: You're the head of, as I said before, the White House Office of National Drug Policy, aka, "the drug czar." You are also the first medical doctor to be in the position. What surprised you most about this job?
DR. GUPTA: Well, I think, you know, working for almost 25 years in primary care practice in some of the most rural areas across the nation and the most urban areas across the world has allowed me to see what the real harms of having, you know, bad drug policies ends up, which is build true harm to people across both the country and the globe. But also, at the same time, we have profit-driven drug trafficking organizations and oftentimes transnational criminal organizations that aim to harm people as well.
So, you know, the most important and surprising piece for me has been that we need to use our data, both on the justice side as well as on the public health side, to make the best decisions possible. And that's an important piece that I bring to the table because I've seen way too many patients that have gone on to have successful lives. I mean, at the end of the day, we're in 2022, addiction is a brain disease that impacts so much in your body, but your community as well as everybody.
And it's important that we look at addiction as a brain disease, and help get treatment for people while, for the traffickers, we get justice. And that ability and that opportunity is one that I take very seriously, and the service of American people I take very seriously, and I'm just honored to be in this position, and my ability to make a difference.
MR. CAPEHART: Do you feel like you're being heard?
DR. GUPTA: Oh absolutely. I think every single day, when we have an American perishing every five minutes around the clock, it is something that I carry in my heart all the time, as a physician, someone who has taken an oath to do no harm. You know, oftentimes I compare that to when I'm saving somebody running at CPR or a code in the hospital, and I feel sometimes that there's more we can do and we must do.
So of all the things that we've been able to do so far, to get naloxone out there, to get treatment expansion, to get telehealth, I think there's so much more that needs to be done. Because although now we're seeing a 35 percent increase in drug overdoses around pandemic, to come down to now 6 percent, we're seeing a flattening, but there's so much more work that needs to be done across the nation, and that's exactly--of course, I think the word is getting around.
MR. CAPEHART: Last question for you, and that is this. What health threats keep you up at night?
DR. GUPTA: Well, as I mentioned before, the opening of the synthetic drug systems has really opened a Pandora's box. We, this nation, this world has never, ever seen a threat that you can create in a small place, and literally be imaginative in nature, and get to it. We're in a very different stage in the world. It is that which is very important.
Our systems have been--you know, we've had the tools of the 20th century oftentimes that we try to apply in the 21st century, in so many areas. This is one area we cannot afford to do so. So it's a matter of just making sure that we're building 21st century tools, because the threat has never been greater or never has been more severe.
So it's really important for us to not only be looking at emerging threats from drugs but at the same time providing people the help and the care that they need, and building that addiction treatment infrastructure while making sure we have policies that are compassionate, caring, and evidence driven.
MR. CAPEHART: Dr. Rahul Gupta, the "drug czar," or more formally the director of the White House Office of National Drug Policy, thank you very much for coming to "Capehart" on Washington Post Live.
DR. GUPTA: Thank you for having me, Jonathan.
MR. CAPEHART: And thank you for joining us. To check out what interviews we have coming up go to WashingtonPostLive.com.
Once again, I'm Jonathan Capehart, associate editor at The Washington Post. Thank you for watching "Capehart" on Washington Post Live. | 2022-10-26T20:23:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: “Capehart” with Rahul Gupta, Director of White House Office of National Drug Control Policy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/26/transcript-capehart-with-rahul-gupta-director-white-house-office-national-drug-control-policy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/26/transcript-capehart-with-rahul-gupta-director-white-house-office-national-drug-control-policy/ |
Transcript: Future of Work: Rethinking Age & Work
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Frances Stead Sellers, a senior writer here at The Washington Post.
Today we have two segments on rethinking age and work. My first guest is Harvard Economics professor and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisors during the Obama administration. A very warm welcome, Jason Furman, to Washington Post Live.
MR. FURMAN: Thanks for having me.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Well, we're delighted.
A word to our audience before our first question, you can send in your own questions for Jason by tweeting @PostLive. That's @PostLive. Send in questions, and we'll try to get to a few of them.
So, Jason, my first question is about the aging workforce. Americans are living longer and working longer. What's the economic impact of this trend?
MR. FURMAN: Look, it's actually been one of the things that's worked well in the economy in the last couple decades. It used to be that as people aged, they worked less and less. Starting around the 1980s, that actually turned around, and we've had a steady increase in people working longer. Now, if they were working longer because they were desperate and had to and would starve otherwise, we'd be worried, but it doesn't seem to be that. In part, it's that work is less physically demanding for many people now. In part, it's interesting, if your spouse works, you are more likely to both continue working rather than retire early.
So we have seen these longer work lives, and that enables people to have a higher income, and it's generally a good thing.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Is it good for productivity?
MR. FURMAN: You know, it goes both ways. Older workers, of course, have more experience, but often‑‑you'll often see a pattern of people retiring, but retiring isn't permanent. They'll unretire. They'll go back. They'll find another job, maybe something that's more meaningful, more fun, something else.
So, in terms of productivity, yeah, it's probably not the most important thing for our productivity, but we also need a lot of workers to run an economy too.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So I want to ask a little bit about downsides, though. Older workers that may be set in their ways‑‑we have an economy that depends upon innovation‑‑do they get in the way of younger people getting promotions or moving up or just doing things differently?
MR. FURMAN: Yeah. So it's a little bit less how long you're working and a little bit more the age structure that matters.
One of the reasons why Japan has had lower growth is not just its population is slowing, but you have this situation where you have a very top‑heavy workforce, and it's harder for your sort of 30‑, 40‑year‑old to move into the key management job if the 50‑, 60‑, or 70‑year‑old is not making way for them. So you definitely want internally, within your organization, people not to have to wait too long to be promoted.
The best way to solve that is to have more younger workers and to have less of a top‑heavy workforce. So more immigration was the main tool we would have in the United States. More births would be another one, if we knew how to do that. That's about‑‑
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So it's all about growth, right?
I'm sorry. Repeat that. I didn't mean to interrupt you.
MR. FURMAN: Well, I said more children, I think we know how to do that. It's just a matter of public policy where it gets harder.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Well, so talking about policy, looking ahead, I think by 2060, we expect life expectancy to be up to 85. It's around 79 now. We've had a little bit of a dip over the last couple of years, but are we doing the right things now to prepare for people living to be 85 and, of course, needing to retire at some point?
MR. FURMAN: Social Security's trust fund is exhausted in about a decade, and Medicare is exhausted even sooner than that. I think it's really important that Congress, the president get together and act to put those programs on a firm footing.
The good news is it doesn't require dramatic, radical changes. There are some tweaks you could make that would make them last much longer. Part of that is just simply taxing more and bringing more revenue into the system, but I think sending a signal to people that instead of, you know, you can start collecting benefits at 62, you can start at 64, and the normal retirement age goes up from 67, and maybe for people that really are in physically demanding jobs that might need to retire sooner, having a path for them. You don't need to keep a path for everyone just because a fraction of the population might have to retire at a younger age.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So you've had this very key job during the Obama administration as chairing the Council of Economic Advisors. What, in your view, is the proper role of government? You've talked about tweaks. You've talked about how we can incentivize people. Where does government belong in these decisions for individuals about how long they should work?
MR. FURMAN: Yeah. I mean, look, if you're talking about a 45‑ or 50‑year‑old, people are free to make whatever choice they want. If you're talking about a 70‑year‑old, government policy is inextricably bound in that decision in terms of the way Social Security is structured, our retirement plan. And so the government has to actually have a view on this question, and I think that view should be as you live longer, you should be able to have a longer retirement and also work more. You know, if you live an extra year, you can spend‑‑you know, work another six months and also have six more months to enjoy retirement.
I don't know exactly what the right ratio is, but public policy does need to have a view on that and build that view into Social Security.
Beyond that, there's some barriers to working.
Sometimes you might lose a job at age 55. You can't get a new one that's quite as good. Maybe the government could provide wage insurance to help you get into that new job. There's some other barriers and obstacles that the government can get out of the way. So it really does‑‑actually public policy matters here, and we need to figure out how to get it right.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So, speaking just in very broad terms for now, should government be incentivizing people to work longer or incentivizing retirement?
MR. FURMAN: I think over time, it should be incentivizing people to work longer, and already they are working longer. So I don't think this is a really draconian step I'm talking about. I'm saying maybe starting 20 years from now, you very gradually raise the retirement age. By the way, even when you raise the retirement age, you can still retire before it, but it would send a little bit of a signal about working.
But, you know, mostly this is a choice people are making for themselves, and people are making very different choices today than they were making 30 years ago. And they're making those different choices for very personal reasons.
I alluded to this briefly before, but it's really interesting. If you are traditionally a man that was working, married to a woman that wasn't, you would face a lot of pressure to retire.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: [Laughs]
MR. FURMAN: Now if you are a man, you're more likely to be married to a woman that's working too, and you both might continue working. You don't have, either of you, the same pressure to retire. You might have a couple decades ago. So those types of social changes are a really important part of the story here and should continue to drive a lot of it going forward.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So you've studied the labor markets, and I wanted to ask you a little bit more about taxes. What are the arguments for lowering taxes on older people?
MR. FURMAN: The main argument is that right now you are effectively taxed more when you're older than when you're working age. Now, why is that? The tax law is the same. It doesn't ask you how old you are, but if you're 45 and you put money into Social Security, you're probably going to get a higher benefit because of that. If you are 70 and you put more money into Social Security, you aren't going to get any of that money back. You're not going get a higher benefit because of it. And so Social Security taxes are effectively something you're not really getting credit for above a certain age, and so there's some argument for waiving them and trying to not overtax older people. The problem is that argument runs headlong into the fact that we don't have enough money going into Social Security right now. So you'd have to do a big enough reform if you wanted to address that issue.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: I wanted to ask you a little bit more about preparations for the future, because these are such long‑term trends, and we have governments that change every four or eight years, administrations that change every four or eight years. How can we‑‑or how can the administrations prepare for these enormous shifts that, you know, are decades in the making and will have implications for decades ahead?
MR. FURMAN: Yeah. I mean, they absolutely have to. Look, the one good thing here is it's very, very predictable. If you want to know how many 70‑year‑olds there are going to be 10 years from now, look at how many 60‑year‑olds there are now and make an adjustment for what the normal mortality pattern is.
The shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare are very well documented, very well understood, and so this is an area where there's a lot of things that are really hard to predict and really hard to understand. This is among the most predictable phenomenon in the economy, and so there's no reason to wait.
And, in fact, government has been doing things. It has taken steps that have enabled more people to choose to continue to work, and I think that's been a wonderful thing.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: You talked about people retiring and unretiring and the fact that we now have many dual‑income families instead of just men working and supporting families and all of these sort of social changes that have changed the way we think about work. But how do you and where do you see older workers fitting into the overall economy going ahead?
MR. FURMAN: We just‑‑birth rates have fallen. We have a population that were it not for immigrants, we'd actually have a shrinking workforce, and so older workers are really critical to keeping the economy growing.
And, again, if it was a terrible thing for you, we don't need to make someone work just for the sake of abstract economic growth, but for a lot of people, it keeps them attracted‑‑attached to other people, meaning, purpose, and enables them to have a higher living standard for longer, and all of that is just that much more important when you don't have as many children to support you or as many younger taxpayers to support you as you used to.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Jason, we have a question that's come in from our audience, and I want to read it to you. It comes from Don Mathis, and Don writes‑‑he's in Maryland‑‑what incentives or compelling arguments can be given to employers to hire older people?
MR. FURMAN: You know, Don, that's a great question, and a lot of employers right now are desperate to hire people. There are over 10 million job openings. One of the biggest changes in the labor force since the pandemic has been a lot of older people, especially older men, retired, and they didn't unretire. They didn't come back in.
So you have your Help Wanted sign out there. There's a lot of people out there that have experience that are eager to work, and as they come back into the labor force and want jobs, it's a great pool to consider hiring.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So I have another question that's come in over Twitter. I'm going to read it to you from my cell phone. This comes from‑‑I'm not seeing the person who it comes from. Are there challenges with older people and new skills and receptivity to change? I think this is a huge issue. It's from Peter Carr. Older people work differently, right? We have this enormous change that's come after the pandemic and the way people want to work. How do older people fit into this, this change in the economy?
MR. FURMAN: Yeah. Look, it can be difficult. When there's a big hit to the economy, if you're 30, 35, and lose a job, you have a decent chance of getting another job that paid just as much, continuing on your upward trajectory. If you are 55, 60, and you lose your job or can't continue working in it, you're going to have a hard time finding another job that pays just as much.
Partly, you know, this says try to be flexible and adaptable. Partly, it says maybe find a job that is meaningful to you, and even if you're taking a pay cut, still all in, it's worth it.
And there are some ideas for government policies, something called "wage insurance" that says if you're over 55 and you lose your job, you shouldn't just get unemployment insurance for not working. You should actually get some insurance, a payout if you choose to take a job that doesn't pay as much. Wage insurance is not something we have right now, but it's something I think we should consider because it would help older workers adjust, instead of to leaving the labor force to finding new jobs.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: I just want to clarify that last question came from Peter Carr. So thank you, Peter Carr, for your question.
I want to ask you some broader questions about the economy right now. Two weeks before an election, we're seeing huge inflation, and it's very much on people's minds. When I've been out, I've heard people talking about their gas prices and their groceries. Why has the Obama‑‑I'm sorry‑‑the Biden administration not been successful in slowing this inflation?
MR. FURMAN: Look, I mean, there's two parts to the economy. One is we have an unbelievably low unemployment rate and an incredibly rapid job growth. It continues to be rapid even this far into the recovery, and the flip side is we have a lot of inflation. Inflation is a hard thing to bring down quickly. Most of the job of bringing it down is the Federal Reserve. I think they are doing the right things now, but it's going to take some time to bring that inflation down.
Now, it's good that some of the harm of inflation gets cushioned for some groups. So older Americans on Social Security are getting a large COLA that is compensating them for the inflation and cushioning some of the blow. For some younger workers who aren't seeing their wages keep up, I think it's actually harder than it has been for older people.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Jason, I think you're famously active on Twitter and other places, and I, of course, checked in today to see what you've been tweeting about. And one thing was eliminating the debt limit. Talk to us a little bit about that, what that would mean.
MR. FURMAN: Yeah. The United States is basically the only country in the world that has a rule that says you can't borrow above a certain amount, and the problem with that is Congress can pass whatever laws it wants for spending, whatever laws it wants for taxes, and then it has no choice but to borrow to fulfill what the laws it already passed. If you want a lower deficit or debt, you need to spend less or tax more. Threatening to default is just bad for the economy, bad for the country, and I would love to see Congress get rid of it.
I spent a lot of time negotiating over it in 2011. The economy went to the brink. I would hate to see the Republicans come into power next year and bring the economy back to the brink. I'd love to see the Democrats‑‑or Democrats and Republicans working together just take this self‑destructive policy off the table entirely.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And what does it take to do that?
MR. FURMAN: As a technical matter, the ideal way would be to do it in a bipartisan fashion. I wrote an op‑ed advocating this with a Republican that I had done a lot of negotiating over the debt limit with.
But the Democrats could do it all by themselves. They set the dollar amount that you can borrow, and they could just raise it so much that no one would ever need to worry about it again, and they could do that in the lame duck with a party‑line vote. It would take a big risk away for the U.S. economy.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And this is where I think I read this fantasy number, a hundred quintillion dollars. Is that what you were talking about raising it to?
MR. FURMAN: I just picked some number that's so high, you're never going to ever hit it again. So that was‑‑that was mine. But if someone wants to do a hundred quadrillion or a hundred sextillion, wouldn't argue with those.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: [Laughs] So, back to the immediacy of trying to bring down the prices for consumers on their groceries and their gas, what's the most immediate policy you would like to see put through right now?
MR. FURMAN: Look, most of it's on the Fed. They're raising rates. That will cool the economy. It takes time, but I think it will work.
The administration has taken some steps that I think have been good, releasing oil from the strategic petroleum reserve, addressing the situation at our ports and the like. And I think they should just continue to turn over every stone and see if they can figure out ways to increase supply in our economy while the Federal Reserve deals with the demand side of the economy.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So there's a lot of turmoil in the world right now. We have war in Ukraine. We have an election here in two weeks. We have a very polarized country, as many people say. What would‑‑how would you describe the overall health of the U.S. economy right now?
MR. FURMAN: Look, in one‑‑I mean, in one respect, it's extraordinary in terms of where the unemployment rate is. In one respect, it is not where it should be, which is the inflation rate. Compared to other countries, we're in much better shape. I would rather be the United States than just about anywhere else in the world right now. Europe is being decimated by higher energy and electricity prices, much worse than what we're facing here. Emerging markets around the world are coping with all sorts of issues that are difficult for them.
So I think we're a very strong, resilient economy going through a challenge, but it's a challenging world, and I think we're doing an okay job of it.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Just one last very quick question before we finish. You're an academic. Academics often work right into their‑‑I would say till their death beds, but how long do you think you are going to work, Jason?
MR. FURMAN: That's a great question. You know, for me, most of what I do feels like a hobby. I would do it even if you didn't pay me. It's just so much fun. So I expect to continue to do this job or maybe this hobby, you know, possibly until the day I die.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: [Laughs] Well, thank you so much. We are very fortunate to be in jobs that we enjoy and are fulfilling.
Jason Furman, thank you so much for joining Washington Post Live.
MR. FURMAN: Thank you.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And I'll be back in a few minutes to talk to Laura Carstensen, who is the founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Welcome back. I'm Frances Stead Sellers, a senior writer here at The Washington Post.
My next guest is Laura Carstensen. She's the co‑founder of the Stanford Center on Longevity. Laura, a very warm welcome to Washington Post Live.
MS. CARSTENSEN: Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And, again, to our viewers, please do send in your questions to Laura by tweeting them to @PostLive, and we'll monitor for them. That's @PostLive for questions for Laura.
And my first question, Laura, is about the center you founded‑‑co‑founded 15 years ago. What made you realize 15 years ago that we needed to focus and study so much aging and the workforce?
MS. CARSTENSEN: Well, I'm reminded of something that Jason Furman just said, and that is that you can run the numbers pretty easily and make predictions about what the future population is going to look like in terms of age. So we've known for a long time that people are living longer, and our premise and founding the Center on Longevity was that we needed to build a culture that would support very long lives. And what we have tried to do over the years is to apply science and technology, cultural change to the way that we think about and live our lives so that longer lives can be higher quality and satisfying all the way through.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So, 15 years, in one way, it's a short time. Another way, it's a very long time. But perceptions of aging, I think, can change dramatically and maybe particularly aging in women. What's the biggest surprise you've come across in terms of those perceptions about aging in those 15 years?
MS. CARSTENSEN: Whew. I actually think perceptions of aging have improved over the last 15 years, and a lot of that has to do with work. It has to do with engagement. When people are engaged and participating in workplaces, families, communities, the aging stereotypes are less likely to hold. You know, people come to know individuals and think about them as individuals more than as a group that they have particular hard‑and‑fast rules about or views about.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: When I think about the workforce and older people in the workforce, do you see them as a stabilizing influence or one that inhibits innovation? Our work is so much technologically driven these days.
MS. CARSTENSEN: That's true and I think one of the important features of our workforce in the United States that is different from some other countries like Japan is that it's far better characterized by age diversity instead of aging.
So we talk about aging workforces and aging societies. It's true the median modal age is going up. But, in fact, we have reached an astounding, remarkable point in our country's history, and that is that we have comparable numbers of people across the age range. So we have fewer children, we have more adults, and what we're seeing is this kind of evening out, a rectangularization of these age pyramids that used to characterize the population. So now we're seeing age relatively easily‑‑evenly, I should say, distributed in workforces and in the population. I think this is a great thing.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: It's fascinating as well, and I wonder what the most common misperceptions are that continue about people as they age and aging workforces.
MS. CARSTENSEN: Well, in aging workforces, I think one of the big misperceptions is that people think there will be lots of generational conflict, and there's really not a lot of evidence for that. In part, that's because when people work together, they tend to be less likely to hold extreme stereotypes. And when you're part of a work team, we need everybody on that team to come together, and that's the best way, I think, we can bring generations together and other kinds of groups together is to work toward a common goal. We see that a lot in the workforce.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: You have written and talked a lot about the distinction, I think, between happiness and life satisfaction as people age. Can you help me understand that distinction and talk a little about how people feel about themselves and their aging as they get older?
MS. CARSTENSEN: Yeah. Great question. Economists have really been the leaders in research on life satisfaction, and what they find is a kind of a U‑shape curve related to age and satisfaction with life, with younger people and older people being the most satisfied with their lives and people in middle age being the least satisfied.
What we find with emotion and aging is that we see a different pattern, and it's pretty much a linear decline in negative emotion. Positive emotions stay roughly the same. And so, on balance, people get happier, but this is a gradual change that occurs across life, and so we don't see the kind of U‑shape curve with satisfaction. We do see it with emotion.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So there have been various, I think, arguments about why people don't have this sort of angst and anguish that they have when they're younger. Do you have a theory, a dominant theory? Do we just sort of give up and get on and decide to, you know, go with whatever comes our way?
MS. CARSTENSEN: [Laughs] Well, it's a little bit of that.
MS. CARSTENSEN: The theory that my group has developed is really grounded in the changing time horizons, future time horizons as we grow older, and motivation is very much influenced by our time horizons. We set our goals in terms of time horizon. You can't really pursue a goal outside of some kind of a temporal context.
And so when people are very young and their time horizons are long and nebulous and uncertain, they tend to pursue goals about the future, about learning, about expanding their horizons, meeting new people, learning all sorts of different things about the world.
And then when time horizons are constrained and they grow gradually more constrained as we grow older, because of mortality, people tend to pursue more short‑term goals, goals about the present, goals that can be realized in their doing. And those goals tend to be goals about emotional satisfaction and emotional meaning.
So our theory is that when you get up in the morning and the default goal that you're pursuing in life is to feel good, is to appreciate what you have and other people and the world around you, you're more likely to feel good than when your default goals are "Wow. There's so much I need to learn and to strive for, and so much can happen in the future." And so, in some ways, aging relieves us of the burden of the future. We don't have to prepare as much for the long term, and so we focus on the present.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So I asked Jason about whether government was‑‑or administration is prepared well enough for this aging workforce. Do you think‑‑and you've got this, you know, 15 years of experience running in the center. Do you think we as individuals are better prepared for aging into a longer working life?
MS. CARSTENSEN: My hunch is that policies are going to change after people change the way they work and live. They'll follow as opposed to lead.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Mm‑hmm.
MS. CARSTENSEN: Federal policies have not been terribly innovative and future thinking where aging is concerned, an aging workforce is concerned. We've been kind of nibbling around the edges. Should we retire at 65 or retire at 67?
What we're beginning to see is that people are working longer, and in part, that's because of financial need.
Another, about 50 percent of that, is because people like to work. They enjoy what they do. They get a sense of purpose from their work, and so we're seeing people working longer now than we have in the past, and it's less related to policy than it is to expectations about their own personal well‑being.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So we've been focusing so much on the working part of people's lives, but retirement, of course, is thought of as a great moment for relaxation. What's the proper balance here, in your view, between work and relaxation as we go through this huge demographic shift?
MS. CARSTENSEN: Yeah. Here's what I think about work. Work is good for people, by and large. People benefit from working in all sorts of different ways.
The way we work is not great at all in this country. So what we do is we work way too hard in the middle of life, and then we work very little toward the end of life.
In some sense, this reflects our response to longer lives in general; that is, we inherited from our ancestors in the 20th century, 30 extra years on average of life expectancy and what we did was to tack all those years onto the end and only retirement, only old age got longer.
Instead, we need to rethink how we live lives that may come close to being a century long and how that's different from those lives we lived when life expectancy was 50, and that was only a century ago. So I think that's one of the problems that we faced is that we've tended to just push all these extra years into the existing social norms and cultural practices.
Instead, we have an opportunity to rethink that. So what I'd like to see us do is to work many more years and fewer days in the week and hours in the day, and I think we‑‑
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So‑‑
MS. CARSTENSEN: ‑‑could improve quality of life.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: I didn't mean to interrupt there, but you've been a proponent of scaling up and scaling down, and we all know the pressures of being there, face time, staying on top of things when you are young and energetic. Is it realistic to really think that people can scale up and scale down and move into high‑powered jobs or jobs of any kind as they get older, or do they miss out? Do you miss out on those stepping stones?
MS. CARSTENSEN: Well, I think that's part of the reason why staying in the workforce is a good idea as opposed to pulling out altogether and then coming back. That's much harder to do. It's harder to be up to date and so on when you do that.
But if what we had instead were models of work where you'd work more hours during certain stages of your life and then fewer during other stages of your life‑‑and those other stages, by the way, might include when you have young children in the home and you're raising them‑‑then you're not getting out of date, out of touch. But you can have a better balance with the personal demands on your time at different stages. One of‑‑
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So you told me about the U‑shape.
MS. CARSTENSEN: Yeah. Can I make one point about the aging workforce today?
MS. CARSTENSEN: We have a lot of stereotypes about older people being sort of cognitively impaired, slow, not able to learn new things, and this is largely a stereotype that's rooted in prior generations of older workers who had far less education than their younger counterparts.
Today's older workers have roughly the same levels of education as the younger workers in the workforce, and so we're‑‑they're a very different population than the population of older workers, even 20 years ago.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Thank you. I want to get back into that question of scaling up and scaling down and also fit it with your notion about the U‑shape curve and the linear curve. How do those two things fit together? Do we shape change the shape of those curves and that line if we have people moving in and out of the workforce‑‑or not in and out, I guess, but scaling up and scaling down?
MS. CARSTENSEN: Yeah. You know, I would guess that it would do more to benefit the plummeting of satisfaction in midlife than it would to change emotional experience, which tends to be more age‑related and probably time‑ and goal‑related.
You know, life satisfaction is a cognitive judgment about your life, and that's how it's different than emotion, right? Emotion‑‑I could say to you right now, on a scale of 1 to 10, how angry are you? And you could tell me that, and it's different than saying what's your status in life, you know how satisfied, because then we start to compare ourselves to others. It's a deliberative kind of a process.
In middle age, people are often feeling lots and lots of pressure to take care of other people, both at work and at home, and I think that very likely does contribute to the reduced levels of satisfaction in midlife.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: You mentioned about the stereotypes, the old stereotypes around older workers, but I'd love you to dig a little deeper into what older workers can bring to the workforce or to a particular employment situation. What are the skills that come with aging?
MS. CARSTENSEN: Mm‑hmm. We've been doing some research on age‑diverse workforces and mixed‑age teams, and the finding tends to be from the work that we've been doing and work that other people are doing is that mixed‑age teams are actually more productive than all young teams or all old teams.
And the storyline goes like this. If you've got a group of young people working on something together, they're fast. They're productive. They produce a lot of widgets, whatever that is, and they also make a lot of mistakes. And older teams will work more slowly but basically not make mistakes. So you begin to build teams that have both older and younger workers on them, and what we begin to see is higher quality, few mistakes, and productivity going up. And so I think we've got great, great opportunities in front of us to actually improve work for younger and older people by integrating age.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So the pandemic, of course, has shifted so many things about how we work. I believe that research shows that older people handed the‑‑handled the emotional turmoil of the pandemic better than younger. Is that‑‑does that come from your research, and what can you tell us about how that informs the importance of older people in the workforce?
MS. CARSTENSEN: Yes. You know, we‑‑I think we were the first to report this finding that older people were actually doing better than younger people during the pandemic, and that's been replicated scores of times now and in different parts of the world as well. I think it probably just reflects this general improvement in emotional balance and emotional regulation that we see with age.
But a lot of people have argued that older people do better emotionally just because they're not stressed so much in life, and I think this has always been questionable. But it's hard to really study that. We're not going to bring people into the laboratory and stress them for prolonged periods of time, but the pandemic provided that. It was a prolonged, inescapable, stressful event, and older people still did better than younger people during that, even though they were at greater risk than younger people, by and large, because of the risk to their own health.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Laura, we have a question that's come in from our viewers. This is from Laura Hetherington in Canada, and Laura asks‑‑and I think she's talking about the trends you're discussing‑‑how do these trends intersect with ageism?
MS. CARSTENSEN: You know, ageism is a major problem, and it's particularly a problem at work. And most older people who are in the workforce say that they have experienced ageism in some ways in the workplace. So we still have ageism as a problem.
I think based on social psychology and what we've learned about all sorts of -isms, the best way to reduce ageism is to have people work together, come together around some common goal or some common effort. When we see that happen, we tend to see ageism subside to some degree.
And so, in some ways, the workforce and working longer may well be a good way, in the end, to address ageism. That's not to say it's not operating today, and I don't mean to be Pollyanna about this. There are a lot of challenges that older people and older workers are facing, but working together is a good solution.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: I'd like to follow up to Laura's question with one last question. That's all we've got time for today, and that is about ageism, particularly in relation to women. Do you see a divide between ageism and the two genders?
MS. CARSTENSEN: Yes. Women face more ageism than men do, and in part, people think that's because women tend to be valued for beauty and as partners and, you know, mothers. And, you know, then we see women who are growing older, and they look different than they used to, and they're judged for that. Whereas for men, they tend not to be as judged based on physical appearance or attractiveness, and so we do see differences in how women are treated and men are treated as they grow older.
And, you know, again, this is something that it's going to take a long time within our culture, I think, to really see that be reduced. I think it will be. I think it is already happening, but it takes time.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Laura Carstensen, those are fascinating words to conclude with. Thank you so much for joining me today.
MS. CARSTENSEN: Thank you. Good to be with you.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: That was a great conversation. Thank you, Laura, and thank you, Jason, earlier on.
To our viewers, you can find more conversations coming up at WashingtonPostLive.com. Please check them out, and we’ll see you another time.
I'm Frances Stead Sellers.
[End recorded session.] | 2022-10-26T20:23:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Future of Work: Rethinking Age & Work - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/26/transcript-future-work-rethinking-age-work/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/10/26/transcript-future-work-rethinking-age-work/ |
With midterms looming, an interactive show urges us to hear one another
Created at NYU, “Whatever You Are, Be a Good One” goes live nationally to encourage us to listen to one another, and learn
Joe Salvatore, creator of New York University's Verbatim Performance Lab, has audience members select the snippet of monologues that will be recited in “Whatever You Are, Be a Good One: A Portraits US Town Hall." (Keith R. Huff)
NEW YORK — Theater regularly brings people together, for the betterment of art. But can it do the same for democracy?
Joe Salvatore and his colleagues at New York University are testing out this ambitious thesis in a black-box performance space on Washington Square in Greenwich Village. With midterm elections looming in a politically and demographically divided nation, they are looking at our polarization in a deeply personal way: by acting out the commentary of everyday people on race and covid and gender and history, from every corner of the country.
The hope is that through the dramatizations by students in Salvatore’s Verbatim Performance Lab — based on interviews conducted with 100 subjects over the past year — audiences will hear more than what’s on other people’s minds. They’ll also discover that we’re not at each other’s ideological throats to the degree that politicians and pundits would have us believe.
“The media and politicians have done an excellent job of whipping us into a frenzy and making us believe that we are not going for the same things,” said Salvatore, the lab’s founder and director. “My hypothesis entering this project was, we’re going to find that folks are a little closer together. Or they might not even know that, but when we hear their stories set against each other, all of a sudden you’re like, ‘Oh, these people are wanting the same things.’ ”
This latest performance piece by the five-year-old lab, in NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, goes by the title “Whatever You Are, Be a Good One.” The interactive, 90-minute production features a quintet of Steinhardt students, under Keith R. Huff’s direction, assuming the identities of some of the people they interviewed. (Ten students rotate in and out of the cast.) In brief snippets, they offer word-for-word recitations of their subjects’ thoughts. Then, thanks to real-time polling software, spectators train their phone cameras on QR codes and react to the short speeches, answering such questions as: “Which of these people would you like to have a drink or coffee with?” Or “Where do you think this person is from?”
The questions are prompts for audience members to comment in a follow-up live discussion led by Salvatore. Backstage, three analysts tabulate the answers to the digital polling and project the results on overhead screens. The instant temperature-taking of the room is a measure of how we hear others. “We consume media without chewing carefully,” Salvatore tells the audience. “And we ‘consume’ other people without considering very carefully.”
About 50 people were in the audience last weekend for “Whatever You Are,” which runs through Oct. 3o. And on Oct. 27, its reach becomes broader, as it is live-streamed nationwide for free, with the same opportunity for interactive participation.
Salvatore’s work dovetails with an innovative, hybrid genre — a mix of drama and journalism — that sees conversation gleaned from interviews as a way to intensify authenticity and stir vigorous reflection. Anna Deavere Smith, a pioneer of the form, applied her chameleon-like acting skills to the process in the early 1990s in the now-classic “Fires in the Mirror” and “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.”
Deavere Smith has described what she attempts as “documentations of moments in history,” and this characterization carries over to other practitioners. At Georgetown University, for example, the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics uses a verbatim approach in its “In Your Shoes” project, which has people of divergent beliefs take the words of a dialogue partner and recite them back — a process Georgetown professor Derek Goldman calls “witness across difference.” “The Courtroom” by New York’s Waterwell dramatizes court transcripts to give substance to the emotional underpinnings of an actual immigration case.
Another variation occurs in Sojourn Theatre’s “The Race,” spearheaded by Phoenix-based theater maker Michael Rohd. During the show, audience members volunteer in a segment titled “Presidential Speech Karaoke” to read actual candidate speeches off teleprompters.
In “Whatever You Are, Be a Good One,” each actor memorizes several speeches, compressed from conversations recorded by students and faculty with people from 37 states. The goal was perspectives from across the political spectrum, which was easier said than done.
“We tried very hard to find conservative voices,” said Huff, the lab’s associate director. “And we received emails from people that said they would love to do the project, but they were terrified that if word got out, and they were outed as conservatives, that they might lose their jobs.”
Still, the production does manage to distill provocative viewpoints. The actors often portray people of other genders and ethnicities, and the roster of speeches changes every night, based on assigned numbers, picked by audience members. One such viewpoint last weekend came by way of Michael Roberts, an NYU graduate student in educational theater from San Antonio, embodying Rosana, an older woman who expressed a belief that affirmative action policies may have gone too far.
“Going to rehearsal and performing these people is a workout for my empathy muscle,” Roberts said. “I first got Rosana and I was thinking, ‘I don’t agree with everything that she’s saying. How am I going to do this?’
“Then Joe says, ‘You don’t have to agree with these people to empathize with them.’ And so once that gate was sort of opened up, it just became about empathizing. There are things that she speaks about that I will never be able to experience.”
And that, in essence, is all that Salvatore is after.
Whatever You Are, Be a Good One: A Portraits US Town Hall, directed by Keith R. Huff. Through Sunday at NYU’s Pless Hall, 82 Washington Square East, New York. tickets.nyu.edu. 212-998-4941. Online performances through Oct. 30. vimeo.com/event/2506108. | 2022-10-26T20:40:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NYU's Verbatim Performance Lab show urges us to hear each other - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/10/26/performance-nyu-verbatim-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/10/26/performance-nyu-verbatim-midterms/ |
Rep. David G. Valadao R-Calif. in 2015. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
On Jan. 13, 2021, David G. Valadao of California cast one of only 10 Republican votes in the House to impeach President Donald Trump. Mr. Valadao said: “His inciting rhetoric [on Jan. 6, 2021] was un-American, abhorrent, and absolutely an impeachable offense. It’s time to put country over politics.” For this patriotic stand, Mr. Valadao was singled out for attack by the GOP’s dominant pro-Trump wing — and also by Democrats. Leading up to the June 7 primary contest, Democrats spent $110,000 on ads criticizing his impeachment vote in the belief that a more ideologically extreme Republican, Chris Mathys, might win and make a weaker opponent for Democrat Rudy Salas in the November general election. That Mr. Mathys also expressed doubts about the validity of the 2020 election only heightened this stratagem’s hypocrisy. And it proved futile when Mr. Valadao beat Mr. Mathys.
Now Democratic-aligned activists are trying once again to punish Mr. Valadao’s good deed. As Axios first reported, the Voter Participation Project, a political action committee that backs Democratic candidates for House and Senate, has set up a website, traitordavidvaladao.com, calling Mr. Valadao “A Traitor Who Turned His Back On President Trump To Serve His Own Interests.” VPP’s Twitter profile describes the pac’s purposes as “electing voting rights champions and holding Republicans accountable for their attacks on the ballot box.”
The top of the Democratic Party hierarchy backed this ends-justifies-the-means approach. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has defended it as “in furtherance of our winning the election.” Democrats have argued the similarities among Republicans outweigh their differences, creating an overriding imperative to keep them from winning the House majority. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy, since punishing GOP politicians for being less partisan in the past ensures that they will be more partisan in the future. Democrats could have waged this campaign on the premise that, win or lose, they must emerge with their political principles intact. Instead, they decided to get clever about it — maybe too clever by half. | 2022-10-26T21:15:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Democrats hypocritically attack David Valadao for impeaching Trump - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/democrats-david-valadao-trump-jan-6/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/democrats-david-valadao-trump-jan-6/ |
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a news conference in Fort Lauderdale on Aug. 18. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Tony Patterson was in his front yard in Tampa when state police arrested him and walked him to their squad car, accusing him of voter fraud and practically apologizing as they did.
“What is voter fraud?” a bewildered Patterson wondered in a scene captured by the officers’ bodycams. “I didn’t do nothing to nobody.”
With his hands in cuffs, Patterson, an ex-felon, asked the obvious: “Why would you all let me vote, if I wasn’t able to vote?” An officer, seemingly perplexed, replied, “I don’t know, buddy.”
Patterson added, “And why y’all doing this now?”
That’s no mystery. It’s high season for Florida’s craven brand of politics, played out cynically for that portion of America still convinced the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
Patterson was one of 20 former felons who served as the opening act for Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, and his newly created Office of Election Crimes and Security.
Election cheats will “pay the price,” DeSantis declared at an August news conference, announcing the arrests. The governor hedged his bets, though, putting the cases of these befuddled defendants in the hands of state prosecutors, rather than less malleable county ones.
Now, with the arrests drawing fresh attention after the Tampa Bay Times obtained bodycam footage last week of three people being arrested, the state’s handful of cases appear to be collapsing on two separate fronts.
Why? Because the ex-felons were allowed to register to vote ahead of the 2020 election and received either voter cards or mail-in ballots. The three shown on video seem genuinely confused over accusations that they voted illegally.
Nobody told them, it seems, that as convicted murderers or sex offenders they were the exception to the 2018 constitutional amendment that returned voting rights to ex-felons. Most of the other defendants shared similar stories, similarly baffled.
This poses a major problem for DeSantis and his voter-fraud-sleuthing officials because the statute is clear. To succeed, prosecutors must prove that suspected cheats intended to con the government by willfully submitting false voter registration forms.
But if you apply for a voting card under your own name and the government sends it to you, the clear implication is that you have the right to vote. Some of those arrested ultimately received a letter telling them they couldn’t vote. But the letters didn’t arrive until long after the 2020 election.
“They were told they could apply, and they were given voter registration applications,” Mark Rankin, a lawyer representing Romona Oliver, one of the defendants, told me. “Then they got voter registration cards and they thought they could vote. We don’t prosecute people for honest mistakes.”
Hard to fault people for not knowing the ins-and-outs of the state’s voter laws. In Florida, Republican lawmakers like to tinker with election rules, seemingly to make it harder to vote — especially harder, critics say, for Black people.
Did I mention that most of the 20 arrested on fraud charges were Black?
But there’s more. Another reason the charges will likely fizzle emerged Friday when a Miami judge tossed out the first case for lack of jurisdiction. Because the defendant, Robert Lee Wood, voted only in Miami-Dade County and not two different counties, the state has zero claim to the case, the judge said.
This was good news for Wood because voter fraud carries a sentence of up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of $5,000.
Who is to blame for this mess? The state. The Florida secretary of state, who is in charge of elections, has no easy way to check whether a felon is allowed to vote, Neil Volz, the deputy director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, told me.
Advocates are demanding that the state invest in a speedy voter verification system like those used in many other states, Volz said. It would provide to election officials, and in turn voters and county election supervisors, accurate and timely information about who is registered and eligible to vote.
“The system is broken in fundamental ways, and by criminalizing voting we are making a broken system worse,” Volz said.
None of this is new. When Republican Jeb Bush was Florida’s governor, he drew criticism when his effort to purge the voter rolls of ex-felons and dead people ahead of the 2000 election turned up non-felons and felons from other states. When Sen. Rick Scott (R) was governor, he tried in 2012 to weed noncitizens from the voting rolls. Again, it failed miserably. A World War II vet and naturalized citizens received you-can’t-vote letters.
Voter fraud, while rare, does exist. And yet, most of the scant examples of voter fraud since the GOP turned it into a rallying cry almost invariably involve Republicans, though you wouldn’t know that from the party’s talking points.
This is true in Florida. Before DeSantis created his fraud squad, local Florida officials had charged four residents of the Villages, the mega-retirement community and Donald Trump stronghold in Sumter County, with voting twice in 2020 — in Florida and in other states. None of them were Democrats. | 2022-10-26T21:15:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | DeSantis unleashes the Florida voter-fraud squad. Perplexity ensues. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/desantis-florida-voter-fraud-law-confusion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/desantis-florida-voter-fraud-law-confusion/ |
In a photo shared on Twitter, an unveiled woman stands on top of a vehicle as thousands make their way toward Aichi cemetery in Saqez, Mahsa Amini's hometown in Iran, on Wednesday. (AFP/Getty Images)
Thousands of people poured into the streets of Mahsa Amini’s hometown Wednesday and marched to her grave. Iranian security forces responded — as they have throughout the course of the nationwide protests inspired by her death — with violence and arrests.
The gathering in Saqez, in Iran’s western Kurdistan region, marked the 40th day since Amini’s death in the custody of Iran’s “morality police,” a traditional moment of remembrance in Islam. As the night wore on, demonstrators came out in other cities, as they have every day since mid-September.
But with Iran’s uprising now in its sixth week, the country’s powerful security state and the protesters calling for its downfall have reached an uncertain stalemate.
Despite escalating violence by security forces and a rising death toll among protesters, the clerics who lead Iran have yet to fully unleash the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a parallel military force created to defend the state at any cost. So far, only the IRGC’s volunteer militia, the Basij, has been deployed in significant numbers to quell the demonstrations, alongside regular law enforcement, riot police and plainclothes officers.
“We are in a situation where the protesters are incapable of overthrowing the regime and the regime is incapable of forcing people to go home,” said Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
But the longer the protests persist and the larger they become, analysts said, the more pressure will grow on the Revolutionary Guard to lead the crackdown.
There is no sign that the IRGC’s loyalty to the government is wavering, as it derives its strength from the survival of the Islamic republic. For this ideologically driven and economically powerful fighting force, the unrest is an existential threat.
Despite decades of Western sanctions on the group — including new ones in recent weeks — its coffers and muscle have continued to grow. But each cycle of violence further erodes the legitimacy of the IRGC in the eyes of the Iranian public.
“Sure, they can show up with tanks tomorrow and kill enough people to put down protests for a while,” said Afshon Ostovar, an associate professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. “But they have lost this generation … With every violent act they are putting one more nail in their coffin.”
The IRGC was founded as a counterweight to Iran’s other security forces — a way to prevent a revolution like the one that first brought the Islamic republic to power in 1979.
The Revolutionary Guard are “so synonymous with the regime they can’t be divorced from it,” Ostovar said. “They are both the front end of the spear as well as the figure holding that spear.”
After the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Shaw in 1979, the Shiite revolutionaries who won out purged the existing military, called the Artesh, and the shah’s fearsome intelligence agency. In their place, they created their own security state undergirded by the IRGC.
Then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini constitutionally tasked the Revolutionary Guard with protecting the Islamic Republic and its ideals inside and outside the country. The IRGC, in turn, created the Basij, a volunteer force modeled on Scouting organizations. The goal was to indoctrinate young people and infiltrate communities, said Alfoneh, turning civilians into agents of the state.
The IRGC’s profile rose during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, as the guard took charge of training young soldiers to send to the front. As a reward for its service — and to prevent massive unemployment among decommissioned fighters — the guard was given control of Khatam al-Anbiya, the first of Iran’s many military-run economic enterprises.
The engineering firm was tasked with rebuilding the war-battered country, said Roya Azadi, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island. But the Revolutionary Guard profited mightily, diverting large amounts of money to its own banks and institutions.
“By giving it a role in the economy, they give it enough incentives to stay with the government if the army were to stage a coup or if there was a mass uprising as you see right now,” said Azadi.
Khatam al-Anbiya is now among Iran’s largest contractors, working in mining, gas, oil, petrochemicals and other industrial projects, Azadi said. The IRGC directly controls at least 275 firms, 54 of which are owned by the Basij, she said.
Over the years, Washington and its Western allies have imposed round after round of sanctions on the IRGC and Iran’s banking and financial institutions, efforts ramped up by President Donald Trump as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign.
But rather than punish and constrain the IRGC, critics say, sanctions have enabled the guard to dominate Iran’s isolated economy and its thriving black market, including the oil smuggling trade.
“The Revolutionary Guard has been sanctioned and stigmatized now for more than two decades, but in this period it has become more powerful, more enriched, more repressive at home and more aggressive in the region,” said Ali Vaez, director of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group’s Iran Project. “In the process, the middle class has been devastated and impoverished,” he added.
The hollowing out of the middle class, as well as Iran’s growing isolation and entrenched corruption, have added to the fury of the protests now sweeping the country, which Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has blamed on “thugs” and foreign instigators.
More than 200 protesters have been killed and thousands more injured and arrested in the government crackdown, though reporting restrictions and communication cuts make the true toll impossible to verify. More than 30 members of the security forces have died in the unrest, including 18 members of the Basij and six members of the full-time Revolutionary Guard, according to Alfoneh, who cited media reports on funerals.
In cities, towns and universities across the country, protesters have been squaring off with volunteers from the Basij, often lower-class Iranians who see membership and its financial benefits as a ticket to social advancement, Alfoneh said.
IRGC offices and headquarters have also been a target of protesters, in particular in minority areas such as Kurdistan and Sistan and Baluchestan province, where the guards are often brought out as a first resort and have taken part in military-style occupations of some cities.
This uprising “is definitely the longest social movement” in recent times, Azadi said, but the Basij, along with regular law enforcement, have largely been able to contain the protests because demonstrators have avoided congregating in large numbers in a single location. By contrast, millions of people took to the streets in 2009 to support the Green Movement, sparking a more rapid deployment of the full-time IRGC troops.
So far this time, Iran’s leaders appear to be using “brute force deliberately” — including the use of live ammunition and the targeting of children — to coerce protesters back home, Ostovar said. “They have no problem doing it on a small scale,” he said. “The political risks of doing that [on a larger scale] are more severe and could be unpredictable.” | 2022-10-26T21:16:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Protests rock Iran on 40th day since death of Mahsa Amini - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/26/iran-protests-mahsa-amini-hijab/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/26/iran-protests-mahsa-amini-hijab/ |
Bowser fires official who took job at insurer after Medicaid procurement
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) fired the interim director of her administration’s Office of Policy and Legislative Affairs this week. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
A week after the D.C. Council awarded multibillion-dollar contracts for insuring D.C.’s Medicaid patients to three insurers, seeming to finally end a years-long struggle to right the city’s Medicaid system after court and council fights, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser has called for a new ethics investigation related to the recently completed procurement.
Bowser announced this week that she fired the interim director of her administration’s Office of Policy and Legislative Affairs (OPLA) after he announced he took a new job with the parent company of one of the three insurers just awarded a lucrative Medicaid contract. Bowser (D) referred him to the city’s ethics board and inspector general.
Bryan Hum was promoted in February to the role at the agency, which is tasked with policy analysis and developing Bowser’s legislative agenda. Bowser on Tuesday indicated that Hum had worked on the contracts but said he was not involved in negotiations or deciding on them.
In an Oct. 23 letter to the city’s Board of Ethics and Government Accountability as well as D.C. Inspector General Daniel W. Lucas, Bowser said Hum had given his two-week notice to the city two days earlier, saying he would be joining Elevance Health, the parent company of Amerigroup. Earlier that week, the D.C. Council voted to award the city’s Medicaid contracts to Amerigroup, MedStar and AmeriHealth after a contentious, years-long procurement process.
Tony Felts, a spokesman for Amerigroup, said Hum applied for the job in response to a public job posting in August — after D.C.’s Office of Contracting and Procurement had already made its decision on awarding the Medicaid contracts, though the contracts had not yet come before the council for approval.
The city’s ethics rules restrict officials from obtaining future employment that overlaps with their responsibilities in government; two years ago, for example, a high-level Bowser appointee was fined $2,500 for taking a job at Howard University after negotiating a tax break for the school in his city position.
Bowser said Hum did not recuse himself from any work related to the Medicaid contracts before announcing his new position.
“While he is not a procurement official engaged in the evaluation or negotiation of contracts, Mr. Hum, in the course of his duties in transmitting and shepherding contracts to and through the Council, may be privy to non-public information,” Bowser wrote, while referring the matter to the agencies.
D.C. leaders clash over best insurer to cover low-income patients
Hum began working in the Bowser administration in 2018 and held various roles with OPLA before he was named interim director. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
CareFirst, an insurance company that lost its bid to win one of the Medicaid contracts after lobbying the D.C. Council and advertising on social media in an attempt to persuade council members that Amerigroup was unsuitable, sent a statement to The Washington Post on Wednesday saying that the contracts should not move forward in light of the investigation into Hum’s conduct.
“We appreciate Mayor Bowser’s call for an investigation by the Inspector General and urge the District to halt the contracting process until officials and the public have a full understanding of the extent of Mr. Hum’s involvement in the procurement and approval of these contracts,” CareFirst spokeswoman Jen Presswood wrote.
Bowser’s spokesperson declined to comment on the call to halt the procurement.
At a news conference Tuesday, Bowser said she “won’t tolerate people who don’t follow ethics rules, even upon their exit.”
“People can go onto other jobs, but that’s why we have [the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability] — you can call BEGA and get advice on how you should proceed,” Bowser said. “But it should be obvious to everyone that you can’t be working on one matter while at the same time accepting an employment offer — especially relating to a contract that you have worked on.” | 2022-10-26T21:50:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bowser fires official who took job at health insurer after Medicaid procurement - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/26/bowser-fires-official-medicaid-contracts/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/26/bowser-fires-official-medicaid-contracts/ |
New Zealand’s Parliament has more women than men for the first time
The South Pacific nation is now one of a handful to have a majority of female lawmakers.
New Labour Member of Parliament Soraya Peke-Mason smiles during her speech at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, on Tuesday. For the first time in New Zealand's history, a majority of lawmakers are women. (Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald/AP)
The milestone places New Zealand among a half-dozen nations in the world that this year can claim at least 50 percent female representation in at least their parliaments, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Other nations include Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Rwanda and the United Arab Emirates.
In the United States government, women are 24 percent of the Senate and slightly more than 28 percent of the voting members of the House of Representatives.
Globally, about 26 percent of lawmakers are women, according to the union.
New Zealand has a history of strong female representation. In 1893, it became the first self-governing nation to allow women to vote. Current Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is the nation’s third female leader, and women also hold a number of other top roles including chief justice of New Zealand’s Supreme Court and governor-general.
Ardern cautioned that the situation for women in many other countries was not secure.
And reaching gender parity could prove temporary. Opinion polls indicate that New Zealand’s conservative parties, which have a lower proportion of women than their liberal rivals, are poised to make gains during next year’s general election. | 2022-10-26T21:50:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New Zealand’s Parliament has more women than men for the first time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/10/26/new-zealand-parliament-women/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/10/26/new-zealand-parliament-women/ |
Justice Dept. issues rules for leak investigations
Attorney General Merrick Garland formalizes decision to not subpoena reporters’ phone records except in very rare cases
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland this month in Washington. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The Justice Department issued formal regulations Wednesday to restrict how federal prosecutors can pursue leak investigations, codifying a decision announced last year that officials would no longer take reporters’ phone records to try to identify the sources for stories that describe classified information.
“These regulations recognize the crucial role that a free and independent press plays in our democracy,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a written statement. “Because freedom of the press requires that members of the news media have the freedom to investigate and report the news, the new regulations are intended to provide enhanced protection to members of the news media from certain law enforcement tools and actions that might unreasonably impair newsgathering.”
First Amendment advocates welcomed the formal regulations issued Wednesday.
“This is a watershed moment,” said Bruce D. Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. He called the change “a historic shift in protecting the rights of news organizations reporting on stories of critical public importance. For the last several years, we have worked with newsrooms to push for meaningful reform and are grateful to the Justice Department officials who saw this new rule over the finish line.”
The policy change followed revelations last year that the Justice Department, while investigating leaks of information, sought to obtain communications records of reporters at The Washington Post, CNN and the New York Times. Those investigations were meant to determine who had shared classified information with reporters during the Trump administration, but the investigations carried over into the Biden administration.
The Biden Justice Department faced criticism when it revealed the efforts this year, prompting President Biden to declare he would no longer allow the practice of seizing reporters’ phone records, which he called “simply wrong.”
In the waning days of the Trump administration, the department secretly obtained the phone records of three Post journalists and tried unsuccessfully to obtain records of who they were emailing. Similar efforts were made regarding the communications records of a CNN reporter and four reporters at the Times.
In all three cases, the department had pursued the records as a means of trying to identify the sources of stories written in the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency; the reporters themselves were not targets of investigation.
Free press advocates and news media executives, including at The Post, have argued that issuing subpoenas for journalists’ records puts a chill on their ability to learn and report information about government activities. The Justice Department’s practice of issuing subpoenas to phone companies to review reporters’ phone records extends back to both Republican and Democratic administrations. President Barack Obama’s Justice Department had also faced criticism for its aggressive leak-hunting efforts, including collecting reporter records.
The new policy has some exceptions to cover activity not related to newsgathering. The prohibition on seizing reporters’ phone records would not apply to cases in which the reporter was suspected of committing a crime, acting on behalf of a foreign power or affiliated with a terrorist group — nor would it apply in cases where there is “an imminent or concrete risk of death or serious bodily harm, including terrorist acts, kidnappings, specified offenses against a minor … or incapacitation or destruction of critical infrastructure.” | 2022-10-26T21:50:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Justice Dept. issues rules for leak investigations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/26/garland-reporter-leak-investigations/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/26/garland-reporter-leak-investigations/ |
Second woman accuses Herschel Walker of pressuring her to have abortion
Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker speaks during a campaign stop in Dawsonville, Ga., on Oct. 25. (John Bazemore/AP)
A second woman on Wednesday accused Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker of pressuring her to have an abortion during their years-long affair, saying he drove her to a clinic and waited in the parking lot for hours as she underwent the procedure.
The woman, identified as Jane Doe, read a statement — but did not show her face out of fear — at a news conference in Los Angeles with Gloria Allred, an attorney known for representing women allegedly wronged by powerful men. The woman said she was involved with the then-married Walker beginning in 1987 and the abortion occurred in April 1993.
“I am not a coward but I am a realist,” the woman said. “And I choose to protect my identity to protect those I love. Herschel Walker is a hypocrite and he is not fit to be a U.S. senator.”
“We do not need people in the U.S. Senate who profess one thing and do another,” she added.
Allred showed cards, photographs and receipts that she said supported her client’s story. She also played what she said was a voice mail from Walker to the woman while he was participating in the 1992 Winter Olympics that confirmed the relationship. The Washington Post did not independently confirm these allegations.
Walker has denied a previous claim from a former partner that he pressured her to have an abortion in 2009. On Wednesday, he denied the latest report during a campaign stop in Georgia.
“I’m done with this foolishness. I’ve already told people this is a lie and I’m not going to entertain” it, Walker said. “I also want you to know I didn’t kill JFK either.”
The accuser said Walker’s Republican politics had nothing to do with her going public with her story.
“I am a registered independent and I voted for Donald Trump in both elections. I do not believe that Herschel is morally fit to be a U.S. senator,” she said.
The woman said she was motivated to come forward after Walker attempted to discredit the other woman’s claim that he paid for her abortion during a recent Fox News interview.
The mother of one of Walker’s children told The Washington Post earlier this month that she repeatedly pressed the GOP candidate for money to pay for the 2009 abortion that he wanted her to have. The same woman said Walker pressured her to have an abortion again when she became pregnant a second time, although she chose to give birth to their son, who is now 10.
Walker acknowledged giving a $700 check to his then-partner in 2009, but in an interview, he continued to deny the woman’s claim that the money was provided to pay for an abortion.
Walker is locked in a close race with Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) that is crucial to majority control of the Senate, with polls showing the two candidates separated by just a few percentage points despite the earlier reports about Walker that initially roiled the race.
Before midterms, abortion in focus as GOP backs Herschel Walker
Top Republicans have stood by the candidate and made several campaign appearances with him. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who has proposed the national abortion ban, campaigned with Walker on Wednesday.
In her statement Wednesday, the woman said she met Walker in the 1980s and had a friendship with the former college football star for two years before they began a romantic relationship in November 1987. Walker played for the Dallas Cowboys at the time and she lived nearby. He would visit her multiple times a week and she would attend home football games, she said. When she would travel to away games, she said, she would often stay in the same hotel as Walker and the team.
According to the woman, their relationship continued when he was traded to the Minnesota Vikings and later the Philadelphia Eagles, and she even helped him select his home in Minnesota.
“I was very devoted to Herschel and he gave me the impression he was devoted to me as well,” she said. “He repeatedly told me how much he loved me — often in writing and reiterated that he wanted to end his marriage.”
“However, there was always some reason why he wasn’t quite ready to do so,” she added.
According to the woman, it became more clear that she and Walker would not go on to to have the type of relationship she desired when she became pregnant in April 1993 despite being on birth control. She said Walker was upset and pressured her into having an abortion — something she did not want to do.
Walker allegedly gave the woman cash for an abortion, but when she arrived at a Dallas clinic, she said, she became overwhelmed with emotion and decided she could not move forward with the procedure. She left the clinic in tears.
Walker was upset and took her back to the clinic the next day and waited for her until the abortion was completed, she said. He then drove her to the pharmacy to get medication before taking her home.
“I was devastated because I felt that I had been pressured into having an abortion,” she said. “After the abortion, I felt that Herschel began distancing himself from me. I left Dallas within days of the abortion.”
The woman said the trauma of the experience caused her to stay away from Dallas for more than 15 years. She called the relationship detrimental.
“In retrospect, I know I was naive and Herschel took advantage of me,” she said. “I spent years of my life solely devoted to Herschel and gave up other opportunities solely to be with him.”
In her statement, the woman said she had proof that Walker paid for her abortion and sent her a card signed with the letter H. Walker has argued on air that he never signs cards with the letter H. But the woman said that was an untruthful statement and that he had sent her multiple cards signed with H.
Allred said Walker’s actions are fundamentally inconsistent with the worldview he espouses on the campaign trail.
“Mr. Walker professes to be against abortion even though he paid for and pressured our client to have an abortion,” she said. “Despite his attempts to clothe himself with Christian family values, he nevertheless had an affair with our client for six years.”
In response to the latest accusation, Rachel Petri, deputy campaign manager for Warnock, said in a statement, “We know Herschel Walker has a problem with the truth, a problem answering questions, and a problem taking responsibility for his actions. Today’s new report is just the latest example of a troubling pattern we have seen play out again and again and again. Herschel Walker shouldn’t be representing Georgians in the U.S. Senate.” | 2022-10-26T21:51:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Second woman accuses Herschel Walker of pressuring her to have an abortion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/26/herschel-walker-georgia-senate-abortion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/26/herschel-walker-georgia-senate-abortion/ |
Firefighters battle a structure fire in North Hollywood, Calif., on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022. A raging fire destroyed a vacant commercial building in Los Angeles early Wednesday and numerous other small fires broke out in the same area, triggering an arson investigation in which one person was detained, authorities said. (KABC via AP) (Uncredited/KABC) | 2022-10-26T21:53:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Arson probed after major Los Angeles blaze and smaller fires - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/arson-probed-after-major-los-angeles-blaze-and-smaller-fires/2022/10/26/6be06c84-5551-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/arson-probed-after-major-los-angeles-blaze-and-smaller-fires/2022/10/26/6be06c84-5551-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s rise to power
Rishi Sunak is Britain’s new prime minister – the third one in two months. He’s also the first person of color to lead the country. But will he really be a departure from his predecessors?
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak leaves 10 Downing Street for the House of Commons for his first Prime Minister's Questions session in London on Wednesday. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP)
On Tuesday, Rishi Sunak officially became the United Kingdom’s new prime minister following the resignation of Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Sunak, who is of Indian descent, is the first prime minister of color, and his ascent was applauded by many world leaders as a sign of progress for South Asians in the West. But Sunak’s support for Brexit and his position as the leader of the Conservative Party have led some to question whether he will be a transformational leader.
Foreign affairs columnist Ishaan Tharoor joins us to share his thoughts on Sunak’s rise and the significance of Britain having its first prime minister of South Asian descent. | 2022-10-26T21:53:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s rise to power - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/british-prime-minister-rishi-sunaks-rise-to-power/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/british-prime-minister-rishi-sunaks-rise-to-power/ |
Fat Joe on the future of rap and his efforts to protect artistic expression
November 8, 2022 at 2:00 p.m. EST
Grammy-nominated artist Fat Joe has been a central figure in the history of hip-hop and is using his platform to protect the artistic freedom of rappers. On Tuesday, Nov. 8 at 2:00 p.m. ET, the entrepreneur and author joins Washington Post pop culture reporter Helena Andrews-Dyer to discuss his new memoir, “The Book of Jose,” the evolution of hip-hop and his advice to the next generation of rappers.
Hip-Hop Artist, Author & Entrepreneur | 2022-10-26T21:54:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fat Joe on the future of rap and his efforts to protect artistic expression - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/08/fat-joe-future-rap-his-efforts-protect-artistic-expression/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/08/fat-joe-future-rap-his-efforts-protect-artistic-expression/ |
Fiona Apple uses her voice to call out Prince George’s justice system
In eight videos, the Grammy-winning musician pleads for viewers to ‘please care’ about what’s happening to people held in pre-trial detention
Musician Fiona Apple performs in 2006. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
In the first of eight videos that show Fiona Apple talking about how the justice system in Prince George’s County in Maryland is failing people, the Grammy-award winning singer explains why she is using her voice to speak out about the issue.
“The point of doing this is just to inform you, because there’s an entity trying to keep you all unaware of what’s going on behind closed doors, behind closed, barred doors,” she says. “I’m talking about jails and prisons, and I’m talking about courtrooms.”
The video lasts only 27 seconds, but that’s long enough to pull people in.
By Wednesday, the video had drawn more than 1.6 million views, and the seven videos that followed it drew hundreds of thousands more. Since those videos were posted Monday, people across the nation have shared them and expressed outrage about an issue that many likely wouldn’t have known about otherwise.
Because of Apple’s videos, which were posted on Twitter by civil rights attorney Scott Hechinger, people are suddenly talking about what is happening in Prince George’s County to individuals who are held pretrial.
In the videos, Apple breaks down complex issues into simple explanations.
“Now, remember, when you are up in front of the judge, when you are there for your bond review, you haven’t been found guilty of anything. These are just allegations. And you should be able to enjoy the presumption of innocence,” she says in one video. She explains that there are only two reasons people should be kept in jail before they have had a trial. “The first one is if there is clear and convincing evidence that you are a danger to the community, and the second reason is if there is clear and convincing evidence that you are a flight risk.”
But too often, people remain in jail in Prince George’s County, even after a judge has determined they are not a danger or a flight risk, she explains. She then points to the devastating impacts that can have on their lives.
“If you get held pretrial, it’s not just an inconvenience. You are traumatized. And it’s not just you,” she says, addressing how children and older relatives who depend on that person also get hurt. “If you had a job, you lost your job. Guess what happens then? You can’t afford your rent. You lose your place and then you become unhoused. And then next time you have a court date, you don’t get the notice and then they tell you, ‘Oh, your failure to appear means you’re a flight risk,’ and they keep you in jail again. Every time you touch the system, it sticks to you.”
Apple, who lives in California, may seem an unlikely advocate for people detained in a state where she does not reside. But she has served as a court watcher in Prince George’s County for the past few years, and in that role, she has observed court proceedings remotely. After the coronavirus pushed courts to start offering online access, Apple and other volunteers with Court Watch PG began witnessing what was happening in those courtrooms through their computers and phones.
My colleague Katie Mettler wrote an article in March about how those observers feared that their virtual access would eventually be cut off and were calling on lawmakers to make that courtroom transparency permanent. In that article, she quoted Carmen Johnson, the director of Court Watch PG, as telling lawmakers, “This access for the public is emphatically needed, not wanted.”
Needed, not wanted. That distinction is important. I started my career as a crime and courts reporter, so I have sat through many hearings and trials. Based on those experiences alone, I can attest that more transparency — not less — is needed if we are to have a more-just criminal justice system. I have personally seen people not get heard because of language barriers or other factors, and I have witnessed cases change direction once those courtrooms filled with media and other observers.
What makes Apple’s recent videos worth our attention is that she is getting people to talk about an often-ignored part of our criminal justice system. What happens after a person is arrested but not yet convicted affects people around us every day, but we often only tune into the process when confronted with extreme examples, such as when a surprisingly low bail is set for a wealthy suspect charged with a serious crime.
The process that exists in Prince George’s County is now the subject of a lawsuit, and it will inevitably take time for that case to play out in the courts. But even without knowing how it will end, looking at what prompted it offers insight into how pretrial proceedings can affect lives.
The lawsuit was filed by nine plaintiffs who claim they were illegally detained for weeks or months before their trials. The lawsuit describes them as languishing in jail, time that saw them lose jobs, homes, moments with their children and chances to attend the funerals of loved ones.
In one case detailed in the lawsuit, a woman with three children and 15 grandchildren spent Christmas and New Year’s Eve in jail, away from her family. In that time, the lawsuit says, she lost her car after it was towed and the fees accumulated past an amount she could afford. She also lost her home after she missed a rental assistance appointment. “After she was released, the State dropped all charges against her,” the lawsuit reads. “She remains unhoused to this day.”
In another case detailed in the lawsuit, a 16-year-old fell behind in school and faced possibly being held back a grade, because of his prolonged pretrial detention. The lawsuit describes him as being held despite his attorney submitting a fact sheet stating he “has never been convicted of any crime or failed to appear in court” and a copy of his mother’s lease. “While he was in the Jail,” the lawsuit reads, the teenager “was placed on suicide watch in the adult medical unit. He was allowed out of his cell for one hour per day, usually between midnight and 1 A.M.”
The plaintiffs — who are represented by Civil Rights Corps, the WilmerHale law firm and Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection — point to systemic problems with how the county handles pretrial releases.
“A judge has decided that each of these people could safely be released into the community with appropriate conditions,” the lawsuit reads. “Nevertheless, each person remains in jail, in violation of their state and federal constitutional rights, because Prince George’s County District and Circuit Court Judges have abdicated their responsibilities and instead referred to unaccountable non-judicial county officials the decision of whether, when, and under what conditions the presumptively innocent person will be released.”
The lawsuit points to those county officials, which work for the department of corrections, as taking weeks or months to make decisions and doing so in ways that are not transparent.
In her recent videos, Apple tells viewers that the court watchers lost their virtual access. Instead, she says, they now get audio of the proceeding that is hard to hear. She compares the sound quality to the garbled voices of the adults in Charlie Brown or an announcement in a New York subway station.
She ends her videos with a plea.
“Please care,” she says. “Please care about this.” | 2022-10-26T22:51:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fiona Apple uses her voice to call out Prince George’s justice system - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/26/fiona-apple-criminal-justice-videos/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/26/fiona-apple-criminal-justice-videos/ |
Georgetown Coach Patrick Ewing made plenty of changes to the roster and coaching staff after a 6-25 season. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Patrick Ewing sat at a table inside a building named after his former coach John Thompson Jr., flanked by the Georgetown logo, and acknowledged something fans have clamored for in recent years — the need for change. The Hoyas are coming off the worst season since they joined the Big East in 1979 as they finished 6-25, went winless in the conference and finished the season with 21 consecutive losses.
Ewing enacted massive changes from the roster to the coaching staff and has made some scheme adjustments, but even with so many new faces, the sixth-year coach hasn’t let anyone forget the 2021-22 debacle.
“You can’t ignore it,” Ewing said at Georgetown’s media day on Wednesday. “I’ve taken responsibility as the head of this program for last year’s season.
“When you don’t accomplish the things that you set out for, changes have to be made. Changes were made both on my staff and also with the players. … You have to make changes when things don’t go well. And I think that the guys that we have brought in have done a great job so far in trying to get us back to where we need to get to.”
The Hoyas lost four of their top five scorers to the transfer portal or the NBA draft and the fifth, point guard Dante Harris, is not with the team due to personal reasons. Ewing did not give a time frame for his return. Ten players, not including Harris, from last year’s roster are no longer with the team. There are 10 newcomers, including center Qudus Wahab, who played his first two years at Georgetown, transferred to Maryland for last season before transferring back. Recruiting site 247Sports ranked the Hoyas seven-player transfer class fourth in the nation.
Kevin Nickelberry was brought in from LSU and named associate head coach and longtime assistant Louis Orr was moved off the bench and named special assistant to the head coach. Assistant coach Pat Baldwin was brought in from Wisconsin-Milwaukee and assistant Clinton Crouch was promoted from Orr’s new position.
Ewing said the biggest improvement the team needs is on the defensive end after ranking dead last in the Big East in points allowed per game. Nickelberry will focus on coaching defense while Ewing handles the offensive end.
“I need to get better at everything,” Ewing said. “The day you think that you know everything is the day you stop growing. So naturally, I watched film. Watched last year’s film. Watched previous year’s film. Talked to my confidants that I have, not only in the NBA but all over, about things that I need to do to be better. You have to continue to grow to be successful.”
There easily could be little concern about the past from the new group of players considering they had nothing to do with it, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. They were very aware of the trials and tribulations Georgetown has gone through. Each player at media day specifically pointed to a desire to resurrect a once dominant program.
“It’s definitely a goal that we all think about,” said Akok Akok, the 6-foot-10 junior forward who played three seasons at U-Conn. “They only won six games last year. Everybody knows [within] the program that’s unacceptable. The program and the history of the program, the players that used to come from this program, we’ve got to lead the right way and also leave for the future guys that are coming here as well. So we’ve got a big chip on our shoulder this year.”
Sophomore Duquesne transfer Primo Spears added, “We think that when Georgetown basketball is great then basketball all around is great. We definitely want to bring that energy back and that winning culture back to the program.”
Spears (6-3 guard) led Duquesne in scoring last season, Akok was ranked the No. 92 recruit in the nation in 2019 by 247 Sports, LSU transfer Brandon Murray (6-5 guard) was named to the SEC all-freshman team and Wayne Bristol Jr. was the MEAC rookie of the year at Howard in 2019-20, but Wahab may be the biggest transfer of the group — both literally and figuratively. The 6-11 center played his first two seasons at Georgetown and led the team in rebounds and ranked second in scoring in 2020-21. He transferred to Maryland last season and watched his numbers decline in every major statistical area except assists, which went from 0.2 per game to 0.4.
Ewing said the absence of a post scorer was one of the biggest offensive issues last season.
“Georgetown is like home to me,” Wahab said. “Also, the culture is changing and the mentality is changing. We want to bring Georgetown back to the top.”
Ewing added, “We definitely have more talent than we had in the past.” | 2022-10-26T23:08:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Georgetown’s Patrick Ewing isn’t ignoring last season’s disaster - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/26/patrick-ewing-georgetown-changes/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/26/patrick-ewing-georgetown-changes/ |
Md. Democrats focus on turnout as early voting begins Thursday
Polls show a wide lead in governor’s race, but party leaders are stressing a get-out-the-vote effort
Wes Moore, right, Democratic gubernatorial candidate, with lieutenant governor candidate Aruna Miller, Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Democratic National Committee Chair Jamie Harrison at the University of Maryland campus Oct. 26. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“It’s not mission accomplished, and we can defeat ourselves if we don’t show up,” said Lewis, chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, who wants to see blue victories up and down the ballot. “When we don’t show up, we lose.”
Despite the need to appeal to independents to win in a state like Maryland, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1, Cox is slated to host an event Friday featuring a controversial priest who has said Democrats cannot be Catholics because of the party’s stance on abortion.
Tuesday morning, Moore’s campaign launched an ad starring former president Barack Obama and, in the evening, hosted a virtual fundraiser with former secretary of state Hillary Clinton — with an appearance from former Maryland senator Barbara A. Mikulski.
“Yes, Wes is ahead, but we’ve got to keep him ahead,” Mikulski told the 126 people on the Zoom. “Get off the benches, get into the trenches. We cannot be complacent.”
Obama’s 30-ad reminded voters that Moore “only wins if you vote.”
At the University of Maryland’s student center on Wednesday, Democratic candidates and party officials came together at a rally headlined by Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, who has been traveling across the country to turn out voters in the midterm elections.
Harrison, Lewis and U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen told the crowd of about 100 students and other supporters that the future is in their hands. Among the students was one freshman who said she came for the free Domino’s pizza, a senior who stumbled upon a sign about the event and wanted to hear from the best-selling author whose book she read in high school, and a graduate student who supported Moore’s campaign in the primary.
“We’re reaching out to voters across the state where historically the Democratic campaign doesn’t always have the largest investment,” said Saif Ratul, the director of the Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign, adding that the party has 5,000 volunteers onboard. “From my personal experience as an immigrant involved in politics, where over the course of several cycles of experience, where we don’t always invest in all the communities … We wanted to change that.”
Ratul said Democrats are imploring voters to turn out to support the party’s history-making ticket, which includes Moore, who would become the first Black governor, Rep. Anthony G. Brown, who would become the first Black attorney general, Del. Brooke Lierman (Baltimore City), who would become the first woman as comptroller and Aruna Miller, who would be the first immigrant and first woman of color as lieutenant governor.
Republicans do not have national figures trying to rally their voters to polls for top-of-the-ticket contests. U.S. Sen. Tom Cruz (R-Tex.) stumped for Del. Neil Parrott (Washington), who is in a competitive congressional race. GOP strategists say broad-based messaging like the Democrats’ rally don’t work as effectively in states like Maryland.
“The Democrats are screaming, and we are using technology,” he said.
Cox’s campaign is hosting a “One Nation Under God” event dubbed a “rally for freedom” Friday afternoon, alongside the Republican nominee for attorney general, Michael Peroutka. The event in Hampstead, a small town nine miles from the Pennsylvania border, also features conservative activist Alan Keyes and a controversial Wisconsin priest named James Altman, known for a viral YouTube video that said Catholics cannot be Democrats because of the party’s stance on abortion.
John T. Willis, a political science professor at the University of Baltimore who served as Maryland secretary of state from 1995 to 2003, said the 2022 gubernatorial election is unlike any other in Maryland’s history, given the number of mail-in ballots that have been requested from voters. As of Wednesday, more than 600,000 had been mailed, according to the state Board of Election.
“People are going to be wringing their hands over the fact that early voting was below what it was, but don’t be alarmed,” he said, noting that many voters are instead choosing to cast mail-in ballots.
Willis said in order for Democrats to be successful up and down the ballot, they have to “stick to [their] game plan … It’s kind of like what I’m upset with the Ravens doing this year. They play three quarters, and forget to play the fourth quarter.”
Maryland’s most competitive congressional race is the 6th District, which dips into part of the D.C. suburbs and stretches through the Western Mountains. Incumbent Democrat Rep. David Trone was elected in 2018 and spent heavily from his personal fortune to defend the seat, which was drawn into a less heavily-Democratic district during a contentious redistricting process this year. Republican Neil Parrott, a state delegate, has benefited from appearances from Sen. Cruz. | 2022-10-26T23:22:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Early voting begins in Maryland on Thursday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/26/maryland-election-early-voting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/26/maryland-election-early-voting/ |
Boeing CEO Puts Credibility on the Line With Writedown
David Calhoun, president and chief executive officer of the Boeing Co., speaks during the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Aerospace Summit in Washington, D.C., US, on Thursday, Sept 15, 2022. The summit will provide a forum for the industry’s top leaders to publicly discuss the most pressing topics in air and space, according to the organizers. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
The credibility of David Calhoun, the chief executive officer of Boeing Co., is on the line after the planemaker took $2.8 billion of charges for defense programs in the third quarter.
Boeing had been taking writedowns consistently on a variety of these programs, including a new Air Force One and a midair refueling tanker, at least every year since 2018, including a stretch of six consecutive quarters from the end of 2019 to the beginning of last year. That’s why the size of the latest writedown shocked investors, who pushed the stock down nearly 9%, adding to the 27% drop this year through Tuesday.
The cause is well known. Boeing entered into fixed-price contracts for these aircraft — which also include a pilot-training plane and an aerial refueling drone — and hasn’t been able to hold expenses in line. Lately, those costs have been amplified by the recent bout of inflation, supplier struggles, a labor shortage and poor performance. Calhoun decided to rip off the band-aid and pile all those charges into one lump sum, getting the sticker shock behind him ahead of a Nov. 2 investor meeting at which he will map out Boeing’s huge cash-generation opportunity for its commercial aircraft.
This strategy works only if this is the last time that Boeing will slip in a charge on these four defense projects and one program for NASA, a new spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts to the International Space Station. Calhoun now has little room for error after he took over as CEO in January 2020 and promised a transformation after Boeing horribly stumbled on the 737 Max airliner, which resulted in two crashes that killed 346 people. Calhoun argues that a transformation takes time. But investors are losing patience.
The opportunity is there for Boeing to turn the corner on its troubled 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner aircraft, but that requires Boeing to execute — something that the company hasn’t done well for a while. Demand for commercial aircraft is strong, and the challenge is to ramp up production even as the supply chain struggles to keep up (Calhoun specifically called out engines from General Electric Co.). Boeing didn’t help itself by paring its annual forecast for delivery of the airliners.
Some critics see Boeing’s challenges as a manifestation of long-festering issues of the company pivoting away from its engineering-first roots and toward an investor-first priority. The shift in focus toward lifting profits and increasing shareholder returns dates back to when Jim McNerney took over as CEO in 2005. McNerney, like Calhoun, is an alumni of GE from the Jack Welch era. In fact, both McNerney and Calhoun were on the short list to succeed Welch, and both left GE after Welch picked Jeffrey Immelt. McNerney first went to 3M Co. and then took over Boeing, bringing with him the shareholder-friendly culture of GE.Critics say the crowding out of the engineering voices by the financial ones culminated in the 737 Max disaster, which involved software that was added to the new plane’s flight controls without notifying regulators and without training pilots on the new system. The two accidents that occurred in less than five months beginning in late October 2018 led to the grounding of the 737 Max and sent Boeing spiraling into its deepest crisis since the company was founded in 1916. Losses and debt piled up and resulted in the Federal Aviation Administration reexamining its cozy relationship with Boeing, making aircraft certifications much harder.
“Boeing needs to return to an engineering-driven culture to ensure better execution, because even without these fixed-price risky contracts, poor execution would have resulted in losses,” said Richard Aboulafia, a managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, a Washington-based aerospace consultancy.
Calhoun didn’t make a strong case that Boeing has changed course to put emphasis on repairing its engineering reputation. Cash is still king at the company, and Calhoun pointed out that Boeing was able to turn the corner on its tattered finances by generating $2.9 billion of free cash flow in the third quarter as aircraft deliveries ramp up.
“I feel good about our turnaround. I do think the cash-flow numbers in the quarter are in fact a marker for us,” Calhoun said on a conference call with analysts on Wednesday after the company announced its third-quarter results. “We’ve been focused on it. We will continue to manage the company on the basis of the cash economics that we support our investors with.”
When asked by an analyst whether the emphasis on cash was the right move given that this strategy is what got the company into trouble, Calhoun, who has been on Boeing’s board since 2009, replied that he wasn’t going to speak about the past. The reality is that Boeing must focus on cash profits because of the debt that piled up over the last three years while planes were grounded and Covid-19 raged, Calhoun said. Boeing’s long-term debt has shot up to $51.7 billion at the end of the third quarter from less than $11 billion at the end of 2008.
“Our need to focus on free cash flow is a result of having taken a significant amount of debt on in light of the crisis that we had, some self-inflicted, some definitely Covid-related as it relates to the marketplace and all the things that we’ve had to contend with,” he said.
Calhoun said that cash flow is a “great metric” to measure employees’ performance and the work they’re doing. That focus doesn’t mean the company isn’t investing in new capabilities that will return Boeing to being a leader in the market, he said.
Boeing needs to be profitable so it can crank out current plane models and invest in the complex process of designing and building new aircraft. At the same time, the company must recover its prowess as a leader in aircraft engineering. In other words, Boeing must execute at a high level without further missteps. The US aerospace industry and Calhoun’s credibility depend on it.
• Covid? Airfare Inflation? WFH? Let’s Hit the Skies: Thomas Black
• Boeing and Airbus Shouldn’t Dismiss a China Rival: Thomas Black
• Boeing Faces Chorus of Critics in High Places: Brooke Sutherland | 2022-10-26T23:22:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Boeing CEO Puts Credibility on the Line With Writedown - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/boeing-ceo-puts-credibility-on-the-line-with-writedown/2022/10/26/8f7f88de-5577-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/boeing-ceo-puts-credibility-on-the-line-with-writedown/2022/10/26/8f7f88de-5577-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
An unusually large influx of tiny insects called aphids have been sucking on Dallas-area pecan trees in recent weeks. After they’ve had their fill, they “excrete” the waste out their back ends and onto cars, driveways and sidewalks. “Texas is covered in a sticky, icky goo,” declared a Dallas Morning News headline. Other news outlets offered tips on how to clean up the mess.
It’s not just Texans who should be grossed out. Scientists who study the relationship between insects and plants have long predicted that a warming climate would benefit aphids and other plant-eating pests. The Texas drought, which occurs as the state experiences rising temperatures under the influence of climate change, is just one example. Elsewhere, surging populations of plant-eating insects are disrupting farms and the food supply chain, causing problems far more serious than sticky windshields.
Discussions around climate change and its impact on animals is often limited to large, charismatic species like polar bears and sea turtles. Butterflies and pollinators might earn mentions, but generally insects get far less attention than species that translate easily into stuffed animals. That’s an understandable but grave oversight that needs to change if we want to have a chance at mitigating hundreds of billions of dollars in potential losses.
Insects, unlike sea turtles, provide services critical to the functioning of the environment and human societies. According to a 2015 study, 5% to 8% of global crop production — worth as much as $577 billion — is dependent on pollination. A less obvious but no less important service is the processing of dung into fertilizer, a function that’s performed by many organisms. A recent study suggests that the dung-eating services provided by just one, the simple dung beetle, saves the US cattle industry around $380 million in dung recycling services annually. Other ecosystem services provided by insects, including pest control, are far more difficult to price. Forensic entomology, the science of using insects to investigate crime-scene deaths, is highly dependent upon decades of data on corpse decomposition rates pegged to specific temperatures. And what price would Texans pay for a swarm of aphid-eating ladybugs to stop the goo?
Alas, these crucial organisms are facing what some prominent scientists have recently started calling the “insect apocalypse.” Last year, a group of scientists estimated that insect abundance is declining by 1% to 2% a year due to a range of stressors, including insecticides, herbicides and climate change. This year, a different study assessed samples of nearly 20,000 different insects and found a 63% decline in insects in climate-stressed agricultural areas where most natural habitat has been removed (removal of trees intensifies heating effects, among other problems). Another recent study found that the rising frequency of unusually hot days in North America and Europe is contributing to higher local bumblebee extinction rates. And in forensic entomology, a growing body of research suggests that disappearing and migrating insect species — such as the blowfly — are undermining the usefulness of the investigative method, potentially hindering law enforcement.
Not every insect species will suffer losses due to a changing climate, and many that won’t are precisely the kinds of bugs that humans would rather do without. Many pests, especially the varieties that feast on crops, are beneficiaries of climate change. In 2013, scientists observed that the home ranges of many pests have been shifting toward historically cooler regions since at least 1960. That shift continues. Scientists estimated this year that a warmer climate was contributing to a 70% expansion in the US habitat for the brown marmorated stink bug, a common and destructive agricultural pest.
There are also more subtle means by which climate change can promote pests and the destruction of economically significant plants. One study found that increases in temperature were accompanied by an increase in the numbers of Maize Stem Borers, a pest common in parts of Africa, and a decrease in the parasites that feed on them. That disconnect, in turn, led to greater devastation of corn crops. Drought, such as what Texas has faced, can weaken a plant’s natural defenses, thereby attracting pests, while higher CO2 levels can decrease the nutritional value of plants. “If insects face a plant that won’t give them all the nutrients they need, they’ll consume more,” explained Esther Ndumi Ngumbi, an assistant professor of entomology at the University of Illinois. “That’s another unfortunate side-effect of drought,” said Ngumbi, who studies the relationship between plants and insects and spoke to me by phone.
Her research is also focused on the impacts of pests on farmers, and she’s been troubled by what she’s observed, especially among small farmers in emerging markets. “A Kenyan farmer works one acre of land. If insects come, if drought comes, that takes away their crop, which means they can’t provide for their family.” In more developed regions, the farms are larger, but the impacts are still significant, especially as consumers face higher inflation.
Research efforts to develop and disseminate — for free — drought-resistant crops is a critical step to addressing the growth of pests on farmlands. But that’s a longer-term process. For now, Ngumbi would like to see a global effort to better monitor for pests and notify farmers before they migrate onto their lands. In addition, she and others argue that crop diversification, rather than single-crop monocultures, can help to slow pests.
None of these steps can reverse climate change’s impacts on insects. But they can prepare humans for the consequences that are already happening and inspire long-term thinking about adaptation. If we’re not talking about it then we’re not going to be doing anything about it, and doing nothing will only benefit the pests. That should bug everyone.
How to Foot the Bill on Urgent Climate Action: Antonio Guterres
Beleaguered East Africa Just Can’t Catch a Break: Bobby Ghosh | 2022-10-26T23:22:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Insect Apocalypse Is Coming to Your Neighborhood - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-insect-apocalypse-is-coming-to-your-neighborhood/2022/10/26/8ae3dc24-557e-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-insect-apocalypse-is-coming-to-your-neighborhood/2022/10/26/8ae3dc24-557e-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
A man carries a sign reading “Not criminal” as he participates in a gathering with marijuana activists in Berlin this year to call for the legalization of marijuana in Germany. (Lisi Niesner/Reuters)
Germany on Wednesday announced plans to legalize cannabis for recreational use. It was a move the country’s health minister said would make Germany Europe’s “most liberal cannabis legalization project” but also its “most tightly regulated market.”
Presenting a detailed cornerstone paper laying out a slate of regulations to Germany’s cabinet Wednesday, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said the legalization of cannabis is necessary to end Germany’s “unsuccessful fight against drug-related crime,” and its flourishing black market. The goal of the change is to reduce consumption, especially for young people, he said in a tweet.
Under the government’s new plans, cannabis and THC will no longer be classified as narcotics. The substances will be able to be produced, supplied and distributed to people 18 or older, within a licensed and government-regulated environment — including specialist shops and, “if necessary,” pharmacies. Adults can possess 20 to 30 grams of recreational cannabis, both in private and in public.
“The drug policy must be renewed. We want to reform cannabis consumption from a health perspective,” the government’s key issues paper said. Lauterbach said that 4 million people in Germany used cannabis last year, a quarter of whom were between ages 18 and 24.
The regulations were formed after “intensive exchange” with experts, interest groups and Germany’s commissioner for drug and addiction policy, the paper noted. The controlled legalization aims to curb the black market and improve health protections for users, especially younger ones, it added.
Germany also plans to impose a “cannabis tax” and a potential upper limit on THC content for adults under 21. Advertising for cannabis will be completely prohibited, and neutral outside packaging will be required.
Lauterbach, of the ruling Social Democrats, said in his presentation that he had tested out cannabis. “I can only say that I have actually tried it. I have also made that public,” he said while presenting the regulations. “However, I am not a user, and I would not benefit from this regulation either, because I only took it to see what it’s like.”
Reacting to the announcement, Berlin-based cannabis company the Sanity Group said in a statement that the German government’s proposal contained “interesting approaches and some fruitful frameworks,” but also some aspects worth critiquing.
A total advertising ban is not conducive to education and destigmatization of the drug, said Sanity Group CEO Finn Hänsel. “A completely new legal market is developing in which consumers must orient themselves responsibly,” he added.
Pointing out the government’s rule that edibles will not initially be allowed, he said that “by restricting the dosage forms, you give the illicit market a gateway to offer more edibles in the future.”
To Germany’s west, France maintains strict marijuana laws, forbidding all recreational use. The same applies for neighbors Poland and Denmark. Other countries, including Switzerland, Belgium and Austria, keep the substance illegal but allow or do not prosecute small amounts. Under “the Dutch policy of toleration,” the Netherlands allows coffee shops to sell hash and marijuana to residents. | 2022-10-26T23:23:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Germany moves to legalize recreational marijuana - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/26/germany-marijuana-cannabis-legalize/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/26/germany-marijuana-cannabis-legalize/ |
Regulators allege Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s remarks violated labor law
The NLRB has repeatedly found Amazon to have violated workers’ rights this year during a handful of union campaigns
The National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint over Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's comments from two interviews this year. (Steven Senne/AP)
The National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint on Wednesday alleging that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated labor law in two interviews he gave this year where he discussed his stance on unions at the e-commerce giant.
Jassy’s comments were made after workers in Staten Island voted to organize in April with the Amazon Labor Union, the first warehouse of the e-commerce giant to do so. This year, the NLRB has repeatedly found Amazon to have violated workers’ rights during a handful of unionization campaigns.
The Amazon Labor Union praised the NLRB’s decision to file a complaint.
“These plutocrats will no longer threaten workers in interviews with the media,” said attorney Seth Goldstein, who filed the charge on behalf of the Amazon Labor Union. “They’re being held accountable.”
Kelly Nantel, a spokesperson for Amazon, said that the allegations were without merit and that Jassy’s comments are protected by the National Labor Relations Act and decades of NLRB precedent.
“The comments lawfully explain Amazon’s views on unionization and the way it could affect the ability of our employees to deal directly with their managers, and they began with a clear recognition of our employees’ right to organize and in no way contained threats of reprisal,” Nantel said.
Amazon has repeatedly defended its actions and has said that it believes a direct relationship with employees is better for workers.
The first interview cited by the NLRB took place April 14, when Jassy told Andrew Ross Sorkin of CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that employees who were represented by a union would be less empowered in the workplace, making it more difficult for them to have direct relationships with management and making things “much slower” and “much more bureaucratic.”
That was followed by a June 8 interview during the Bloomberg Tech Summit, when Jassy said employees were better off without a union. He also echoed his CNBC comments about relationships with managers and the speed of work.
Under the Biden administration, the NLRB has taken a more aggressive approach to cracking down on employers who interfere with workers’ unionization efforts.
Amazon will now have the opportunity to settle with the Amazon Labor Union or take the case before an administrative law judge. The NLRB is requesting that Amazon mail and email workers a notice about their labor rights. | 2022-10-27T00:44:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Regulators allege Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s remarks violated labor law - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/26/amazon-nlrb-andy-jassy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/26/amazon-nlrb-andy-jassy/ |
Jules Bass, who brought Rudolph and Frosty to TV life, dies at 87
Working with Arthur Rankin Jr., he produced TV classics including the stop-motion ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ and the traditionally animated ‘Frosty the Snowman’
The Rankin/Bass production “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” debuted on NBC in 1964. (NBC/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
Jules Bass, who helped make Rudolph the most famous reindeer of all and bring Frosty to stop-motion life during a prolific animation career that shaped the holiday TV viewing traditions of generations of youngsters, died Oct. 25 at a senior living facility in Rye, N.Y. He was 87.
A family member, Jennifer Ruff, confirmed the death but did not cite a cause.
Mr. Bass was half of the production duo Rankin/Bass, an animation juggernaut he formed with a partner, Arthur Rankin Jr., in 1960. Over the next several decades, collaborating with animators and puppet-makers in Japan, Rankin/Bass produced a raft of movies that became staples of American childhood.
Few people have come of age since the 1960s without watching and re-watching the stop-motion puppetry of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” which first aired on NBC in 1964, or the traditionally animated “Frosty the Snowman,” which debuted in 1969.
The story of Rudolph’s luminescent nose, his rejection by the more ordinary members of his herd and his heroic service to Santa one foggy Christmas Eve was based on a popular song written by Johnny Marks and recorded by Gene Autry in 1949. (Marks, Rankin’s neighbor, had borrowed the idea for the song from a children’s book by Robert L. May.)
Oh, Rudolph with your nose so bright, where did you come from?
The Rankin/Bass television version featured Burl Ives singing the title song and other Marks numbers that entered the modern Christmas canon, among them “Silver and Gold” and “A Holly Jolly Christmas.” Writer Romeo Muller expanded upon the story of Rudolph to introduce Hermey, the elf who yearns to be a dentist, and the Island of Misfit Toys.
The result, rendered in the halting stop-motion animation style that Rankin/Bass called Animagic, was an instant phenomenon — a classic in the category of the later TV movies “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965) and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (1966). Such was the nostalgia their production evoked that when original Rudolph and Santa puppets were placed for auction in 2020, the wood, felt and wire relics were expected to fetch between $150,000 and $250,000, according to the New York Times.
Rankin/Bass found a niche adapting Christmas songs to the screen and applied the formula again with success in “Frosty the Snowman.” In their TV version, Jackie Vernon voices Frosty with Jimmy Durante singing an indelible version of the title song by Walter “Jack” Rollins and Steve Nelson.
Working with composer Maury Laws, Mr. Bass helped write the music for Rankin/Bass productions including 1970′s “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town,” with narration by Fred Astaire and Mickey Rooney as the voice of Kris Kringle, and 1974′s “The Year Without a Santa Claus,” in which Rooney reprised his role as Santa. “The Year Without a Santa Claus” gave viewers the Heat Miser and the Snow Miser, with their memorable musical motif.
“Maury usually wrote the music and Jules would write the lyrics, which would typically move the plot along, but this wasn’t always the case,” Rick Goldschmidt, a scholar of the productions of Rankin/Bass, wrote on his blog. He cited the example of the song “One Star in the Night,” from the 1968 TV movie “The Little Drummer Boy,” for which Mr. Bass wrote the music.
According to Goldschmidt, Rankin was the chief executive and primary director of Rankin/Bass productions, often working with animators in Japan while Mr. Bass oversaw voice actors and musicians in New York.
The Rankin/Bass output was not limited to Christmas specials. The team also produced the feature-length stop-motion film “Mad Monster Party” (1967), the TV series “The Smokey Bear Show” (1969) and the Easter special “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” (1971), featuring the voices of Danny Kaye and Vincent Price.
They received a Peabody Award for their animated TV movie “The Hobbit” (1977), based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel, and critical acclaim for the full-length animated movie “The Last Unicorn” (1982), with voice work by Jeff Bridges, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury and Alan Arkin.
Writing in the Times, movie critic Janet Maslin described “The Last Unicorn” as “an unusual children’s film in many respects, the chief one being that it is unusually good.”
“Children, except perhaps for very small ones, ought to be intrigued by it; adults won’t be bored,” she observed. “And no one of any age will be immune to the sentiment of the film’s final moments, which really are unexpectedly touching and memorable.”
Later Rankin/Bass collaborations included the 1980s TV series “ThunderCats” and the 1987 TV movie “The Wind in the Willows.”
Julius Bass was born in Philadelphia on Sept. 16, 1935. Little was known about his early life, a writer recounted in a 2012 Tablet magazine profile, other than that he almost died of scarlet fever as a teenager. He later moved to New York and studied at New York University before working in advertising.
He and Rankin began collaborating on commercials in 1955 before attempting television series and movies. Their first co-production as Bass/Rankin was the 1960 series “The New Adventures of Pinocchio.”
Mr. Bass ventured beyond TV, writing children’s books including “Herb, the Vegetarian Dragon” (1999), with illustrations by Debbie Harter, and the adult novel “Headhunters” (2001), which became the 2011 movie “Monte Carlo” with Selena Gomez. He aspired to write a Broadway musical but did not find success in that genre; his musical “Month of Sundays,” based on a play by Muller and with music by Laws, closed after a short run in 1968.
Mr. Bass’s marriages to Renee Fisherman and Sylvia Bass ended in divorce. A daughter from his first marriage, Jean Nicole Bass, died in January. Mr. Bass had no immediate survivors.
Mr. Bass granted few interviews, but Rankin, who died in 2014, once gave an oral history to the Television Academy Foundation in which he reflected on their years of collaboration.
“A partnership comes from two people who support each other and complement each other,” Rankin said. “After a while we were never seen together because Bass was doing something and I was doing something. … If we were together, one of us wasn’t necessary.” | 2022-10-27T00:58:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jules Bass, who brought Rudolph and Frosty to TV life, dies at 87 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/26/jules-bass-rudolph-frosty-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/26/jules-bass-rudolph-frosty-dead/ |
By Frances Vinall
Bruce Lehrmann arrives at the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory in Canberra earlier in October. Lehrmann is charged with raping fellow staffer Brittany Higgins at an office inside the Parliament building in 2019. (Mick Tsikas/AAP Image/AP)
MELBOURNE, Australia — The trial of a political staffer accused of raping a colleague inside a lawmaker’s office in Australia’s Parliament building has ended with the jury discharged and a retrial scheduled for February.
Bruce Lehrmann, who was born in Texas, is alleged to have assaulted Brittany Higgins in the early hours of March 23, 2019, on a couch in a senator’s office after a night of drinking in Australia’s capital, Canberra.
A 12-day trial ended without a verdict in the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory on Thursday. Chief Justice Lucy McCallum learned a juror had accessed an academic paper about false complaints that was not part of admitted evidence. The jury had deliberated for five days without unanimous agreement.
The trial ensnared two sitting senators for the conservative Liberal Party, Higgins’ former bosses, Sens. Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash, who were called to testify. Reynolds had been criticized locally for her response to the rape allegation, which Higgins claims took place in Reynolds’s office.
Higgins made the allegation through two media outlets in February 2021. She made a police complaint around the same time and resigned from her job with the Liberal Party. She believed the party, for whom she worked as a media adviser, was more concerned about the possible political impact of her claim than on her welfare, she said.
“It was very clear I couldn’t proceed [with a police complaint] and maintain my career,” she told the court this month.
The story was among several separate sexual misconduct claims relating to federal politics that caused an outcry in Australia in 2019.
Higgins addressed protesters at Canberra’s iteration of nationwide ‘March4Justice’ rallies for women’s safety, attended by 110,000 according to organizers, the month after she went public.
Shortly after Higgins’s allegation was publicized, stories by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. contained the allegation that then-Attorney General Christian Porter, while at university in 1988, had raped a woman who had subsequently committed suicide. Porter left politics last year and adamantly denies the claim.
Amid a media storm, then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison instructed Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins to conduct a review of the culture for workers at the federal Parliament. The review found one-third of respondents had been sexually harassed and 37 percent had been bullied.
The conservative coalition’s perceived problem with women was frequently attributed as a significant factor in its election loss in May. It received only 30 percent of votes from women, compared with 37 percent from men, according to an exit poll taken by the Australia Institute think tank. The same poll found two-thirds of voters thought the coalition’s treatment of women in politics was one of its biggest weaknesses.
Higgins told police that the night she was raped she shared a taxi with Lehrmann, both of them then staffers for the Liberal Party in their mid-20s, after a Friday night out in Canberra with a larger group, with the intention to go straight home, the jury heard this month.
She was “as drunk as I’d ever been in my life,” she told the court.
Instead, Higgins said, Lehrmann instructed the taxi to go to the Parliament building, where they both worked. She went with him inside and passed out on a couch in the office of her boss, Reynolds, and woke to Lehrmann raping her, she alleged to the court.
A security guard testified she had walked into the office later to find Higgins naked and rolling into the fetal position. Lehrmann had left in a hurry about 20 minutes after the pair were let into the Parliament building, the security guard said.
Lehrmann’s employment was terminated the following month because of two security breaches, including accessing the building late at night.
In Lehrman’s version of events told to police, he and Higgins went to Parliament together at about 1:45 a.m. because he had to pick up his house keys and she also had a task, the court heard. They went into separate rooms and he left alone without seeing her again, he said.
“Obviously I reject that allegation because it simply didn’t happen,” he told police of the sexual assault claim.
Higgins told the court that Reynolds, the senator, knew about the sexual assault allegation. She felt frozen out by her boss because of the “problems I had caused” through her disclosure, she said — which Reynolds denied.
Reynolds knew Higgins was found in a state of undress after arriving late at night with Lehrmann, but no further details, the senator told the court.
“At the time, I truly believed that I and my chief of staff were doing everything we could to support that young woman who I had responsibility for,” she said on the Senate floor last year.
When the senator heard about an incident, she called a meeting with Higgins to talk in the same room in which she was allegedly found naked — Reynolds’s office. The location “seemed really off” and made her “quite panicked,” Higgins told the court. Reynolds apologized.
Reynolds privately called Higgins a “lying cow,” something that was leaked to the Australian newspaper last March, after which Higgins initiated a defamation claim. Reynolds said the comment was in reference to Higgins’s statement that she wasn’t adequately supported. She apologized and settled out of court. Higgins said she donated the settlement to an organization that supports victims of sexual violence. | 2022-10-27T01:10:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jury discharged in trial over alleged rape at Australia’s Parliament - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/26/jury-discharged-trial-over-alleged-rape-australias-parliament/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/26/jury-discharged-trial-over-alleged-rape-australias-parliament/ |
Less than two weeks before the midterm elections, Democrats are trying to shore up the party’s candidates as Republicans charge deeper into their terrain
First lady Jill Biden speaks in Providence, R.I., on Oct. 26. (David Goldman/AP)
And in Pennsylvania, Democrats were trying to move past a shaky Tuesday debate performance by John Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke. One former party official relayed hearing from people who wondered why Fetterman agreed to debate during his recovery. The U.S. Senate nominee’s once comfortable polling lead has shrunk in a race that party leaders have long seen as their best opportunity to flip a red Senate seat and take a step closer to preserving their narrow majority in the chamber.
Less than two weeks before the midterm elections, Democrats have moved into a defensive crouch, scrambling to shore up the party’s candidates as Republicans charge deeper into their terrain. The scope of their challenge has come into sharper focus in the past 48 hours, when much of the attention in the party has been on protecting swaths of the country where Democrats have long enjoyed more support.
Late-summer Democratic talk of going on offense by running on abortion rights while Biden’s approval rating ticked up has run headlong into the harsh reality that Republicans are well-positioned to make potentially large gains on Nov. 8, some Democratic strategists said, by hammering them over crime and inflation — and seizing on fatigue over Democratic leadership in government.
“Some of what is going on is a reversion to the norm. After all the sound and fury, elections go back to their basics,” said Craig Varoga, a Democratic strategist who has worked on presidential, gubernatorial and Senate races.
Like other Democratic strategists, Varoga said he worried his party put too much emphasis on abortion over the summer and should have more aggressively made it part of a broader argument that Republicans oppose personal freedom. “Politics is hard work. It’s like personal wellness — you can’t rely on one thing to fix everything,” he said.
That has been compounded by other factors, some said. One Democratic strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be more candid, described a “blue-state depression” for House races, pointing specifically to New York, Oregon and California where a handful of races are “closer than normal.”
House Majority PAC, a well-funded organization designed to support House Democrats, placed new ad buys Wednesday in New Jersey’s 5th Congressional District, New York’s 3rd Congressional District and New York’s 18th Congressional District, according to AdImpact, which tracks such spending. The buys in the Biden-won districts were mainly in the New York City media market, according to AdImpact.
The new spending came in the wake of the Congressional Leadership Fund, the main GOP House outside group, announcing that it had poured $11 million into new or expanded ad buys in 16 congressional districts. Biden won seven of them in 2020 by double digits, the group noted. Among them was Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District, where Jill Biden campaigned for Democrat Seth Magaziner, the state treasurer and party nominee for the House seat.
“I think they’re flailing. They’ve never really had a plan. It seems like they don’t have any focus,” said the National Republican Congressional Committee’s chairman, Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), speaking of Democrats. “As we look across the country, we just have a ton of opportunities.”
“Crime, in many ways, is the thread that is holding those together,” said Dan Sena, a former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
In New York, Biden will appear Thursday with Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is struggling to fend off attacks from Rep. Lee Zeldin, the GOP nominee. Hochul is favored to win, but Zeldin’s focus on rising crime in the state is making the race far more competitive than most expected.
Democratic strategists in the state say as many as four Democratic-held seats could slip away — including one held by the DCCC’s chairman, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney. Republicans need to net just five House seats to take back the majority.
The DCCC recently spent about $600,000 in an effort to save his seat — a sign that Democrats are taking the threats seriously.
“All of these races in New York are too close for comfort for Democrats,” former congressman and DCCC chairman Steve Israel said.
Israel voiced a belief that moderate voters are not motivated by social issues. “The judgment that pro-choice independent voters are making in blue states is that Dobbs will not impact them because they live in blue states,” he said, referring to the Supreme Court ruling that ended the constitutional right to an abortion.
In some parts of the country with a redder hue, Democrats appeared less worried. Rep. Sharice Davids, who represents a Kansas district that Biden won by just four points, is less of a concern, some said. That’s true as well for Rep. Jared Golden in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, which Donald Trump won by seven percentage points.
Democratic candidates have sought to keep up an optimistic tone. “What I’m feeling is exactly what we were feeling heading into our August special election, where every expert and pundit said we were not going to win,” said Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), who won running heavily on abortion rights and is now in the newly drawn 18th Congressional District.
“We won [in August] because we stood for freedom and democracy and choice,” Ryan said in an interview with The Washington Post. “That same message is absolutely resonating even more loudly.”
“It was going to be difficult for him in any situation,” said Larry Ceisler, a Democratic public affairs executive in Philadelphia. “He was like a boxer who could not defend himself against a smooth ring veteran. It was an unfair fight.”
Fetterman’s campaign announced in a statement Wednesday that it raised $2 million in less than 24 hours after his debate, which it attributed “to the deep grassroots enthusiasm.”
The campaign also attacked Oz for saying about abortion in the debate, “I don’t want the federal government involved with that at all. I want women, doctors, local political leaders leading the democracy that’s always allowed our nation to thrive to put the best ideas forward so states can decide for themselves.” A new ad singles out the “local political leaders” part of his comment.
T.J. Rooney, former chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said he heard from people who were aghast that Fetterman’s team agreed to a debate, given the candidate’s health. Fetterman and his doctors have said he has shown symptoms of an auditory processing disorder, and the candidate has been open about the fact that he sometimes struggles with his words after his May stroke. He relied on closed-captioning in Tuesday’s debate. Fetterman’s doctors have said he is fit to serve in the Senate.
“There were people with a passing interest in politics who watched this debate and reached out and said, ‘I feel for the guy,’ ” Rooney said. “The overarching theme was a feeling of sadness, and I don’t know how that translates in politics. It used to be the death knell. Now people are more tolerant.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee announced an ad buy of about $1 million this week to boost Senate nominee Don Bolduc in New Hampshire and said the group’s chair, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), will appear at a rally for Bolduc this weekend — both developments showing potentially renewed confidence after another Republican group withdrew from the race.
Some Democrats said the individual moves by Republicans don’t add up to much. “There may be so-called signs, but there are not trends,” said J.B. Poersch, the president of Senate Majority PAC, the main outside group supporting Senate Democrats.
Republicans have gained more confidence about Wisconsin, where Sen. Ron Johnson has opened up a lead in the polls after being in close competition with his Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, during the summer. And both parties acknowledge competitive races in Nevada and Georgia, where Republicans are trying to flip seats, as well as Arizona, another GOP pickup opportunity.
Some governor’s races have also caught the attention of Republicans, including in blue-leaning Oregon. A three-way race is raising the possibility that Democrats will lose there for the first time in four decades — which is hurting U.S. House candidates, Democratic strategists said. Republicans have sought to capitalize on the unpopularity of outgoing Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, with some in tight races putting her image in ads they’re running in the state.
Colby Itkowitz in Harrisburg, Pa., Liz Goodwin and Toluse Olorunnipa contributed to this report. | 2022-10-27T01:19:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats scramble into defensive posture in final stage of midterms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/10/26/democrats-midterms-blue-states/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/10/26/democrats-midterms-blue-states/ |
Unsubstantiated Russian claims that Ukraine intends to use a radiological weapon and continued shelling around Europe’s largest nuclear plant have ratcheted up concerns of nuclear escalation
Joby Warrick
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in D.C. on Wednesday for a nuclear power conference. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
The head of the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog said he hopes to “cool off” the nuclear saber rattling between Russia and the West by dispatching inspectors to the Ukrainian nuclear sites that Moscow claims are being used to divert radioactive materials for use in a “dirty bomb.”
The upcoming visit, overseen by International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi, could help disprove Russia’s widely criticized claims of a Ukrainian nuclear plot. But by taking Moscow’s accusations at face value, it also risks elevating the sensational charges.
The visit will be the latest high-wire act of a bureaucrat who has conversed extensively with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while trying to maintain his agency’s status as a neutral watchdog of the world’s most dangerous materials.
Grossi, speaking to reporters during a visit to The Washington Post on Tuesday, emphasized Ukraine’s support for the inspection and said the visit can provide clarity to a heated international dispute.
“It required a formal invitation [from Ukraine],” Grossi said. “I decided that it was, of course, my duty to step forward.”
The two sites the IAEA plans to inspect are a research facility that produces isotopes and a mine that can process uranium. The goal is to ensure that nothing has gone missing.
Grossi said he is “so far” unaware of any missing radioactive material in Ukraine, but he is seeking to quickly dispatch inspectors to Ukraine to check inventories against the agency’s existing records. Putin on Wednesday repeated the accusation that Ukraine was planning to build and use a dirty bomb, drawing from its civilian stores of uranium and other radioactive material.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine transferred its stores of nuclear weapons back to Moscow in 1994 in exchange for territorial guarantees from the United States, Britain and Russia.
“They’re going to go there and check the material balance, because we know every gram of nuclear material in Ukraine,” Grossi said of his inspection teams.
A dirty bomb uses conventional explosives to detonate a cache of radioactive material with the aim of spreading radioactive contamination. It’s a cruder — and less deadly — device than a nuclear bomb, although it has the potential for significant civilian harm and widespread economic damage if detonated in an urban area.
Ukraine denies any plans to develop a dirty bomb. The United States has warned that the Russian claims could be aimed at creating a pretext for the Kremlin to escalate the conflict and potentially use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
“We have seen a pattern in this conflict … where the Russians have engaged in mirror imaging,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price. “The Russians have accused the Ukrainians … of what it itself was planning. That is our concern.”
The topic was discussed at a U.N. Security Council meeting Tuesday, where Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, distributed a letter claiming that Ukraine’s research and mining agencies “have received direct orders from Zelenskyy’s regime to develop such a dirty bomb” and “the works are at their concluding stage.”
While many nations welcome the visit by the IAEA, which Grossi said would happen “within days,” few experts think the inspection will be the final word on the matter.
“No matter how extensive the IAEA’s monitoring of Ukrainian nuclear facilities might be, no matter how thorough it is, Russia will seek to spread disinformation and try to discredit the agency’s work,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
By Grossi’s own acknowledgment, the IAEA visit will not cover the universe of sources of dirty bombs, leaving open the possibility that Moscow claims that the inspection will be incomplete.
“If you’re talking about a radiological material device, a.k.a. a dirty bomb, you can get it in different places,” Grossi said, mentioning hospitals as an example.
Kimball said it’s important to not lose track of where the primary nuclear threat stems from in the eight-month conflict. “The reality is that it’s President Putin who is issuing illegal threats of nuclear weapons use and there is no logic for Ukraine to use radiological weapons on its own soil,” he said.
The IAEA, meanwhile, is continuing to press both sides in the conflict to agree to a shelling-free buffer zone around Ukraine’s civilian nuclear facilities, especially the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. The plant, located in a Russian-controlled region on the banks of the Dnieper River, is located near the front lines, and in recent months the facility has been struck repeatedly by artillery and mortar shells. Kyiv and Moscow have traded accusations of responsibility for the shelling around Europe’s largest nuclear plant.
While declining to assess blame for the shelling around Zaporizhzhia, Grossi has sought to mediate an agreement to prevent what he fears could be an environmental disaster for both countries, and perhaps their neighbors as well. Grossi has met personally with Putin and Zelensky in recent weeks to urge both leaders to ban fighting near the plant.
“I think we are quite close” to an agreement, said Grossi, who said both leaders clearly understood the potential disaster that could unfold if the plant’s reactors or fuel rods are damaged by fighting.
“Whatever your military aims or goals are, you don’t need to shell a nuclear power plant,” Grossi said, summarizing his pitch to both men. “Whichever side of the war you are standing on, it’s a very bad idea, and the consequences will be equally bad.”
He described his meeting with Putin as “intense,” involving strong disagreements on Russia’s claimed annexation of the power plant and its surrounding region, but a willingness to collaborate.
“He recognizes that he can work with me,” Grossi said of Putin. “He has perfect knowledge of the plant, the technical aspects of the plant, so it was a very focused conversation.”
IAEA officials based at Zaporizhzhia have documented damage from fighting to several key buildings at the plant. Photographs of the facility revealed gaping holes in the concrete roof of a storage building that houses fresh nuclear fuel rods.
“If you look down, 10 meters, you see the [nuclear fuel] rods,” Grossi said.
He said that during his discussion with Putin in St. Petersburg earlier this month, the Russian president said workers were beginning construction of a thick outer roof as additional protection for spent fuel containers.
During the summer, some spent fuel containers came into close contact with artillery blasts, raising fears of a radioactive explosion. Even with a new roof, the threat remained significant, Grossi said.
“It’s not something that is going to be completely impenetrable, but it will provide some protection,” Grossi said. | 2022-10-27T02:24:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UN aims to ‘cool’ fears of dirty bomb with inspections in Ukraine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/26/russia-ukraine-nuclear-dirty-bomb-putin-grossi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/26/russia-ukraine-nuclear-dirty-bomb-putin-grossi/ |
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks during a news conference at the State Department in Washington on Oct. 13. (Alex Brandon/AP)
More than 300,000 immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Nepal are seeking in federal court to extend their “temporary protected status,” or TPS, which most have held for decades. Immigrants’ lawyers and the Biden administration had been negotiating over the families’ status since June 2021, but talks collapsed Tuesday and lawyers said they are returning to court.
“Mediation efforts have been exhausted,” Circuit Mediator Jonathan Westen notified the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
Advocates say Mayorkas could solve their problem by issuing a fresh designation that it is too dangerous to return immigrants to those countries.
Department of Homeland Security spokesman Luis Miranda said the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation. But he said the immigrants affected by the lawsuit "will continue to be protected over the coming months.”
The Justice Department, which represents the government in court, declined to comment, spokeswoman Dena Iverson said in an email.
Federal law allows the government to grant TPS to immigrants if their countries are engulfed in wars, natural disasters or other dangerous conditions. The Trump administration attempted to terminate the protections for Salvadorans and other immigrant groups, saying the designation had dragged on after the disasters had passed.
Federal judge, citing Trump racial bias, says administration can’t strip legal status from 300,000 Haitians, Salvadorans and others — for now
Immigrant families sued to block the Trump administration, arguing in part that its officials were motivated by racism and anti-immigrant sentiment in violation of the Constitution.
A federal judge sided with the immigrants in 2018 and paused the terminations, but was later overruled by 2-1 panel of the 9th Circuit. Advocates for immigrants have asked the full 9th Circuit to review the panel’s decision.
More than 240,000 immigrants from El Salvador, 76,700 from Honduras, 14,500 from Nepal and 4,250 from Nicaragua are at risk of losing their status, according to a 2021 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services report filed to Congress.
President Biden had pledged to protect these and other immigrants during his campaign, saying Donald Trump’s “politically motivated decisions" would be disastrous for immigrants who had lived in the United States for years.
The breakdown in negotiations stunned lawyers for the immigrants and their U.S.-born children.
‘We will lose practically everything’: Salvadorans devastated by TPS decision
“Those families have seen politicians use them as pawns for far too long,” Ahilan Arulanantham, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said, adding that he could not divulge the confidential details of the negotiations. “And it is shocking to me that the Biden administration was unable to prevent that pattern from continuing.”
Immigrants typically receive temporary protected status for a year or 18 months and live in periodic fear that the status will not be renewed. But for years officials have renewed those protections. Salvadorans received their current status in 2001 after devastating earthquakes. Hondurans and Nicaraguans were protected because of Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Nepalis received protection following an earthquake in 2015.
Anyone from those countries who arrived in the United States after the designation is ineligible to apply.
Immigrants say they are fully integrated into American society, with driver’s licenses and retirement plans. Many own homes, and their children are U.S. citizens.
While advocates for immigrants say they hope the entire 9th Circuit will review the three-judge panel’s decision, they say they have also negotiated an orderly wind-down of the protections if they lose.
If the 9th Circuit does not rule before Nov. 30, then an automatic nine-month extension of the work permits would kick in as part of an early agreement for managing the program while the litigation is pending. Lawyers said the court could reduce that extension.
If the 9th Circuit declines to review the panel’s decision before then, lawyers said, the case will return to the lower court. Then Salvadorans would lose their work permits in one year, and people from the other countries in four months, said Emi MacLean, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
Doris Landaverde, 43, a mother of three U.S. citizens in Massachusetts who works as a custodian at Harvard University, said she arrived in the United States in 2000 from El Salvador and that the dispute could divide her family. Her husband is from Morocco.
“We had put our hopes in the negotiations,” she said. “This has devastated me and the entire community. ... It means we have to pack our bags and go.” | 2022-10-27T02:25:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Protected immigrants at risk of losing U.S. work permits - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/26/us-immigrants-protections/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/26/us-immigrants-protections/ |
Top U.K. diplomat tells LGBTQ World Cup fans to ‘be respectful’ in Qatar
The World Cup draw is set. Here’s what that means for the USMNT.
British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs James Cleverly in London on Wednesday. (Andy Rain/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said Wednesday that LGBTQ fans should “be respectful” and show “flex and compromise” in Qatar for the upcoming men’s World Cup, prompting sharp criticism by U.K. media, lawmakers and the prime minister’s office.
Cleverly, speaking on the talk radio station LBC, said that Qatar was making “some compromises in terms of what is, you know, an Islamic country with a very different set of cultural norms to our own.” In turn, he said, fans should “be respectful of the host nation — they will, they are trying, to ensure that people can be themselves and enjoy the football.”
“I think with a little bit of flex and compromise at both ends, it can be a safe, secure and exciting World Cup,” he added.
Critics said Cleverly, a member of the center-right Conservatives and a supporter of same-sex marriage rights, was essentially asking LGBTQ fans to hide their identities in a country where homosexuality is a crime. Consensual sex between men is prohibited under Qatari law, which doesn’t explicitly ban sex between women, according to the U.S. State Department. Sex between men carries a penalty of up to seven years in prison.
Gary Lineker, a former British national soccer star, tweeted: “Whatever you do, don’t do anything Gay. Is that the message?”
“DON’T BE GAY AT WORLD CUP,” read Thursday’s cover of Metro, a British tabloid.
Lucy Powell, who speaks for the opposition Labour Party on sports and culture, called Cleverly’s comments “shockingly tone deaf.” She urged the government to challenge FIFA “on how they’ve put fans in this position” instead of “defending discriminatory values.”
Downing Street rebuked Cleverly’s comments, saying in a statement that people should not have to “compromise who they are,” according to the Associated Press.
But amid the criticism, Cleverly reiterated his stance, telling British broadcaster Sky News that “we have incredibly important partners in the Middle East” and that “it’s important, when you’re a visitor to a country, that you respect the culture of your host nation.”
When asked if he planned to attend the World Cup, which runs from 20 Nov. to 18 Dec., Cleverly said he would because “it is an important international event” where other interlocutors would be. He also had to be there to protect British travelers, he said.
Human Rights Watch said in a report Monday that arbitrary arrests and abuse of LGBTQ people have continued in Qatar as recently as last month.
The Gulf country’s treatment of underprivileged groups such as migrant workers has been heavily scrutinized since it was awarded the rights to host the tournament. Qatari leaders have bristled at some of the criticism that has been leveled against their country, claiming that the attacks were by “people who cannot accept the idea that an Arab Muslim country would host a tournament like the World Cup.”
Andrew Jeong contributed to this report. | 2022-10-27T02:42:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | LGBTQ fans told to ‘compromise’ for Qatar World Cup by U.K. diplomat - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/26/lgbt-qatar-world-cup-james-cleverly/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/26/lgbt-qatar-world-cup-james-cleverly/ |
He and I currently live together — I know we rushed this, but there were various factors (he is still paying the mortgage on his house, and all expenses. His wife doesn’t work). His friends know about me, but his wife is barely aware of my existence/importance to him, and doesn’t know that we live together.
Bluntly speaking, he is dreading starting divorce proceedings due to the nastiness that could ensue around the money/potentially selling their house. He is not moving forward, and is very upset when I bring it up.
I am 31, and very much want to have a family (especially with him). He also echoes this and says he wants the same thing. My concern is that the divorce will take a long time due to his fears/inaction, and thus the integration of me into his life (i.e. meeting his children) will take more time, and I’ll be too old to have a child.
I do not want to be with a married/separated man for the rest of my life. How can I stay supportive but also stick up for myself (without nagging)? Am I being too impatient? How does one keep faith?
Waiting: By cohabiting, you are pushing this man’s divorce farther into the future. Because he is living with and sharing expenses with someone he also loves, he has no incentive to initiate the emotionally, legally, and financially challenging process of dissolving his marriage. Whew! What a relief for him!
They used to split their stay between their sister and us, but now they stay only with us. They still come out for a week, but that is too long for us. How can I tell them that three days would work out much better than a whole week?
Concerned: Be honest. As hosts-with-the-most for 20 years, you’ve more than earned the right to advocate for yourselves.
Dear Amy: I just wanted to tell you how much your advice comforts me, makes me smile, and just generally reassures me. It has also helped me reframe my “ok, boomer” mentality. If you’re this with it, if you understand youth and culture, there is no excuse for anyone else.
T: Thank you! I am not the heppest of hep cats (to use a phrase that really needs to be brought back), but I do scramble to keep up. Most importantly — I’m aware of my own influences, feelings and reactions from when I was young. | 2022-10-27T05:27:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: He’s separated and taking his time getting divorced - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/27/ask-amy-partner-divorce-ex/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/27/ask-amy-partner-divorce-ex/ |
Please add that it’s very rude to sit at a table with people, time after time, and let them wonder about: 1. where you work or what you do for a living, 2. how you like your job, 3. what’s been bothering you, 4. something you’re reading or have seen on TV, 5. something you like or don’t like, or 6. any plans you’re making that you think will be fun (or won’t be).
Expecting relatives to be social in a social setting is reasonable, and Miss Manners can even agree to your suggestion that everyone bring at least one topic to the dinner table. | 2022-10-27T05:27:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: Asking relatives to be social when they come around - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/27/miss-manners-in-laws-dont-speak/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/10/27/miss-manners-in-laws-dont-speak/ |
Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong gets out of a car upon his arrival at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022. Samsung Electronics has officially appointed third-generation heir Lee Jae-yong as executive chairman, two months after he secured a pardon of his conviction for bribing a former president in a corruption scandal that toppled a previous South Korean government. (Han Sang-kyun/Yonhap via AP) (Uncredited/Yonhap) | 2022-10-27T05:28:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Samsung officially names third-generation heir Lee chairman - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/samsung-officially-names-third-generation-heir-lee-chairman/2022/10/27/f9c7c7fc-55ad-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/samsung-officially-names-third-generation-heir-lee-chairman/2022/10/27/f9c7c7fc-55ad-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
TAMPA, Fla, — New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner plans to keep Aaron Boone as his manager.
ST. LOUIS — Adam Wainwright will pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals next season, choosing to return for an 18th and final year with the club even as longtime teammates Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina head off into retirement.
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Disgruntled wide receiver Elijah Moore returned to practice with the New York Jets and is expected to play Sunday against New England after requesting to be traded last week.
LAKE FOREST, Ill. — The undefeated Philadelphia Eagles acquired three-time Pro Bowl defensive end Robert Quinn from the Chicago Bears for a fourth-round pick in 2023.
BOSTON — Boston Celtics forward Grant Williams was suspended for one game without pay by the NBA for using inappropriate language and “recklessly making contact with” a referee.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina basketball coach Hubert Davis has a new six-year contract and a raise after his first-year run to the NCAA championship game.
STORRS, Conn. — UConn freshman forward Ice Brady, a top recruit for the sixth-ranked Huskies, will miss the season because of a dislocated right kneecap.
BRISBANE, Australia — The Australian soccer team has issued a three-minute video highlighting Qatar’s human rights record, including its treatment of foreign workers and restrictions on the LGBTQI+ community, and demanding genuine reform as a legacy of the Gulf country’s staging of the World Cup.
INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors approved new guidance to members on name, image and likeness activities, clarifying how schools, coaches and staffers can be involved with athletes’ endorsement and sponsorship deals. | 2022-10-27T06:59:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wednesday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wednesdays-sports-in-brief/2022/10/27/d042cee8-55b9-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wednesdays-sports-in-brief/2022/10/27/d042cee8-55b9-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
Jenny Mitchell, 32, is suing L’Oréal and other companies, alleging their chemical hair-straightening products caused her uterine cancer. (WMAQ)
“I was devastated,” Mitchell, now 32 and living in Missouri, told The Washington Post.
Mitchell said societal pressure is what pushed her to start using hair-straightening products at such a young age — that she felt a need for her hair to “look a certain way, lay a certain way, flow a certain way in order to look professional” and “fit in.”
It further alleges that the companies misrepresented their products as safe. For example, Strength of Nature, which markets Soft & Beautiful, has sold products that use descriptions such as “botanicals” and “ultra nourishing,” according to the lawsuit.
In a statement to The Post, a spokesman for L’Oréal, which owns the SoftSheen Carson brand, said the company is “confident in the safety of our products and believe the recent lawsuits filed against us have no legal merit.”
“L’Oréal upholds the highest standards of safety for all its products,” the spokesman added. “Our products are subject to a rigorous scientific evaluation of their safety by experts who also ensure that we follow strictly all regulations in every market in which we operate.”
The diagnosis baffled Mitchell, she said. The cancer was rare, she was young and her family had no history of it, she said. But last week, after she saw news of the NIH study, she said she believed she had found an answer.
“I felt deceived. I felt hurt. I felt like I’ve been lied to my whole life,” Mitchell said, adding, “In some sense, you had to conform to look a certain way for societal norms.”
In filing her lawsuit, Mitchell said she’s thinking about the millions of other Black women who use hair-straightening products. “It’s my family. It’s my nieces. … It’s young girls,” Mitchell said, adding, “I don’t want another me at 28 years old to have to lose their dream of becoming a mother.”
Ben Crump, one of Mitchell’s attorneys, told The Post that the lawsuit is intended to tell Black girls and young women that they are “beautiful enough, and having straight hair is not worth losing your uterus.”
Diandra Debrosse Zimmermann, another one of Mitchell’s attorneys, anticipates more lawsuits will be filed. “A lot of women have come forward and will come forward,” she said. | 2022-10-27T07:03:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lawsuit alleges L’Oréal hair relaxer caused woman’s uterine cancer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/27/loreal-lawsuit-hair-straightener-relaxer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/27/loreal-lawsuit-hair-straightener-relaxer/ |
The Cuadrilla exploratory drilling site in Balcombe, England. (Lefteris Pitarakis/AP)
British Prime Minster Rishi Sunak told lawmakers Wednesday that fracking — a practice that involves drilling through underground shale rocks to extract oil and gas — would continue to be banned.
The move overturns a decision by his predecessor, Liz Truss, to lift a 2019 moratorium on that extraction method. Truss had proposed lifting the ban to combat soaring energy prices in Britain, even though the ruling Conservative Party’s last election manifesto contained a pledge to “not support” fracking.
A British energy body had previously said that it could not accurately predict the chances or magnitudes of earthquakes linked to fracking operations, prompting the freeze three years ago.
What is fracking, and why does Britain have a moratorium on it?
Fracking — or hydraulic fracturing — involves drilling into earth and pumping water, chemicals and sand to crack underground shale rocks. Energy companies then extract fossil fuel from those fissures. The technique is widely used in countries such as Argentina, Canada, China and the United States.
Proponents say the practice creates well-paying jobs, reduces reliance on foreign energy and lowers risks from global price fluctuations. Fracking activity that took off after the 2008 financial crisis boosted domestic U.S. oil and gas production, turning the United States into an energy giant.
But fracking also requires enormous amounts of water — as much as 16 million gallons per well in the United States, according to Bloomberg News. That requirement threatens water supplies in communities near fracking sites. Critics also note fracking’s links to seismic events and potential contamination of water supplies.
Wastewater produced during fracking can lead to fluid being injected into the ground, which can raise pressure in rock formations over longer periods and over larger swaths of land than the initial fracking operations, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That can, on rare occasions, contribute to “induced earthquakes,” the agency says. Such quakes are generally small, but they have sometimes been deadly.
Why is U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak bringing back the fracking ban?
The British Oil and Gas Authority’s 2019 report persuaded the government to halt fracking “unless and until further evidence is provided that it can be carried out safely.” But Truss revisited the ban amid soaring energy prices as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Britain’s consumer price index rose 10.1 percent last month compared to the same period last year, with food inflation hitting 40-year highs. Britain is also spending billions to help households with their energy bills.
But many Conservative lawmakers are opposed to fracking. The opposition Labour Party forced a vote reaffirming the ban last week in an attempt to divide Conservatives and Truss’s government. Downing Street ordered Conservative lawmakers to vote against the bill as a show of confidence in Truss, but dozens of Tory members abstained during a chaotic sequence.
Sunak’s affirmation of the ban pleased climate activists and politically distanced himself from Truss. He had entered office promising to reverse many policies set out by his unpopular and short-lived predecessor. On Wednesday, Sunak told lawmakers that he would deliver on green policies because he cares “deeply about passing our children an environment in better state than we found it ourselves.”
Neither Sunak nor Truss have faced voters as leader of the Conservative Party. The last time the U.K. electorate voted the Tories into power was in 2019, when their manifesto included the anti-fracking pledge.
Earthquakes for Ukraine: Dutch gas drilling tests what countries will accept
What is the status of fracking in the United States?
The United States began large-scale gas production from shale around two decades ago, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Fracking sites are located in states including Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Fracking has been politically controversial in the United States. Republicans have tended to support the method, noting its economic benefits. Politicians on the left are more split, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) among those who oppose it.
When seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in March 2020, Joe Biden said that he supported a ban on new fracking. His campaign later said that Biden meant that he would issue no new fracking permits for federal lands or waters, while allowing existing fracking operations to continue.
Later that year, Biden said he would not ban fracking while speaking in Pittsburgh, a city that is near heavy fracking activity. His administration has also sought to reverse a court decision that halted fracking in federal waters.
John Fetterman, the Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, said he supports fracking during a debate against Republican Mehmet Oz this week. That went against his previous remarks. In 2016, he cast himself as an ardent opponent of fracking. | 2022-10-27T07:16:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What is the U.K. fracking ban, and why is Rishi Sunak reinstating it? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/27/uk-fracking-ban-meaning-rishi-sunak/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/27/uk-fracking-ban-meaning-rishi-sunak/ |
FRANKFURT, Germany — The European Central Bank is set to follow the playbook of the U.S. Federal Reserve in making its second big interest rate increase in a row on Thursday, underlining its determination to stamp out the record inflation that threatens to sink the 19-country euro area into recession. | 2022-10-27T08:30:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Europe likely to see another jumbo interest rate increase - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/europe-likely-to-see-another-jumbo-interest-rate-increase/2022/10/27/f7e76638-55ce-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/europe-likely-to-see-another-jumbo-interest-rate-increase/2022/10/27/f7e76638-55ce-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
FILE - Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, center, hands on hips, with members of the Fascist Party, in Rome, Italy, Oct. 28, 1922, following their March on Rome. Italy’s failure to come to terms with its fascist past is more evident as it marks the 100th anniversary, Friday, Oct. 28, 2022, of the March on Rome that brought totalitarian dictator Benito Mussolini to power as the first postwar government led by a neo-fascist party takes office. (AP Photo, File) (Uncredited/AP) | 2022-10-27T08:30:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Italy's fascist past under scrutiny a century after putsch - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/italys-fascist-past-under-scrutiny-a-century-after-putsch/2022/10/27/d9cc4ae6-55ca-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/italys-fascist-past-under-scrutiny-a-century-after-putsch/2022/10/27/d9cc4ae6-55ca-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
FILE - A woman sits on a car as she leaves Ulsan Jungbu police station in Ulsan, South Korea on Sept. 15, 2022, for the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office. South Korea has initiated a court review on whether to extradite a 42-year-old woman facing murder charges from New Zealand, where the bodies of two long-dead children were found in abandoned suitcases in August. (Bae Byung-soo/Newsis via AP, File) (Uncredited/Newsis) | 2022-10-27T08:31:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | South Korea to review extradition of New Zealand suspect - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-korea-to-review-extradition-of-new-zealand-suspect/2022/10/27/90a96f54-55c7-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-korea-to-review-extradition-of-new-zealand-suspect/2022/10/27/90a96f54-55c7-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
D.C. won’t give 3 Black men concealed-carry licenses. They’re suing.
Sanu Millard, wearing his pistol in Alexandria, Va., this month. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
When D.C. security guard Sanu Millard turned 21, he decided he wanted a concealed-carry license. He carried guns at work in the District, Maryland and Virginia. He had been trained to use guns safely as a teenager and had legally registered two weapons. He had no criminal record. And, as the Supreme Court interprets the Second Amendment, carrying a gun is his right as an American citizen.
But when Millard tried to get a concealed-carry license from D.C. police in 2019, his request was denied. Even though he had never been arrested, police said his involvement in domestic violence incidents — incidents in which, he says, he and his mother were victims — disqualified him.
Now 24, Millard has sued the District, alleging that it discriminates against some people by denying them concealed-carry licenses — and that many of these people are Black men. The lawsuit said D.C. police unreasonably refused licenses to those with minor criminal convictions and arrests with no convictions, sometimes unfairly using their involvement in violent incidents against them.
“The burden of the District’s and the [police] policies fall more heavily on African Americans than any other segment of applicants,” the suit said.
The litigation comes in the wake of a major Supreme Court decision this year that found Americans have a right to carry guns outside the home — a ruling that has proved challenging for some cities as they try to manage increasing gun violence.
Millard and other Second Amendment activists, however, say gun control will not stop gun violence. By preventing people from protecting themselves, laws limiting gun rights only make cities more dangerous, Millard says.
“I have a clean background,” he said. “I’m not willing to break the law. … I’m a victim because of gun-control laws.”
A spokesperson for D.C. police referred questions to the D.C. attorney general’s office, and a spokeswoman there declined to comment on the litigation. About 3,200 concealed-carry licenses were approved last year, according to D.C. police, and around 600 were denied.
Filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last month, the suit says Millard and two other Black men were unable to get concealed-carry licenses because the city wrongly said they have violent histories or misjudged their criminal records.
The suit argues that crimes or violent incidents they witnessed or minor crimes they committed should not prevent them from carrying weapons hidden from public view. In 2019, D.C. police released statistics showing 70 percent of people stopped by officers in a one-month period were Black, though the city is no longer majority Black.
A disproportionate number of D.C. police stops involved African Americans
According to the suit, one man was denied a concealed-carry license because he fired a gun in self-defense in a 2019 incident, though he was never charged. In another incident the next year, the suit said, the man did pick up charges: assault with a deadly weapon and carrying a pistol without a license. However, the assault charge was dropped. After the man pleaded guilty to a lesser weapons charge and completed community service, his case was dismissed and his plea withdrawn.
Though the man was not convicted of a crime, D.C. police will not issue him a concealed-carry permit, according to the suit. The suit says such decisions “are not consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
“There were no founding era laws … preventing felons from owning or possessing handguns nor were there any laws generally directed at persons deemed ‘violent’ by a law enforcement official,” the suit says.
Another man included in the suit had repeated involvement in violent incidents and contacts with law enforcement, it says.
In 2017, according to the suit, he was a witness to a threatened shooting. In 2020, he took a shooting victim to a hospital. In 2021, he was arrested in two separate incidents and charged with assaulting a police officer and possession with intent to distribute marijuana while armed — but those charges were all dropped.
Though the man “has never been charged with a crime by a prosecutor” and already had a concealed-carry license, the suit says, his license was revoked.
“The District’s policymakers enacted an overly restrictive registration and licensing regime as a matter of policy,” the suit says.
Though some men in the lawsuit were denied licenses because of legal technicalities, Millard’s denial was more personal: Police said his involvement in domestic incidents makes him unsuitable for a license even though there’s no indication he instigated them.
In one incident, according to the suit, Millard’s mother’s boyfriend pushed him and bloodied his lip. In another, the boyfriend told police Millard had “mental health issues.”
Millard was never arrested or charged with a crime.
“They didn’t even put handcuffs on me,” he said.
Despite this, Millard was refused a concealed-carry license because he had a “propensity for violence or instability,” according to police. His appeal was denied in 2020 by police, who cited the domestic incidents and the fact that his registered weapons were stored in a guitar case in the common storage area of his mother’s apartment building. Millard, whose attorney provided a copy of the denial to The Washington Post, contends this case was a locked gun storage container shaped like a guitar case.
“On one hand, Mr. Millard is adamant about his gun ownership, yet on the other, his conduct reflects a level of casualness and disturbing naivety towards what can be deadly consequences,” the denial said. The suit counters that denying licenses to domestic-violence victims would create a dangerous precedent, while also discouraging victims of domestic violence from calling the police for protection.
A security guard shot a robber. A grieving mother wants justice, and police want him out of business.
Millard said D.C. gun regulations have left him defenseless on city streets. Armed security guards who can’t take their weapons home might be targeted when they clock out, he said.
D.C. policy just doesn’t make sense when he can carry a weapon at work, Millard said. On a sunny fall Sunday, he stood near the water taxi landing on Old Town Alexandria’s waterfront in Virginia, his Glock 19 in a holster strapped to his waist. This was perfectly legal, and no one seemed to notice.
“It’s only dangerous when I’m not there,” he said.
D.C. is struggling to contain gun violence. In 2021, more than 200 people were killed in the city — a level not seen in more than a decade. This year, homicides are on track to reach a two-decade high, and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) declared gun violence a public health crisis last year.
“You have a mayor who hates guns,” she said in 2015 — as the suit points out. “If it was up to me, we wouldn’t have any handguns in the District of Columbia. I swear to protect the Constitution and what the courts say, but I will do it in the most restrictive way as possible.”
However, Bowser’s options are limited. The Supreme Court declared this year that Americans may carry guns outside for self-defense.
Joseph Scrofano, one of Millard’s attorneys, said the litigation is not trying to stop reasonable gun laws. It is trying to stop unfair enforcement, he said.
“The existing process gives the chief [of police] unfettered discretion to pick and choose who gets to carry and … disproportionately disqualify African American men,” he said.
Michael R. Ulrich, an assistant professor of health law at Boston University who has studied gun violence, said in an interview that the Supreme Court’s ruling makes it difficult for lower courts to uphold gun restrictions. Fewer gun restrictions means more guns on the street — which means police may assume people are armed when they aren’t.
“More people carrying weapons, especially in densely populated areas like the District, is going to increase gun violence,” he said. “Black men are at significant risk.” | 2022-10-27T09:31:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | DC won’t give 3 Black men concealed-carry licenses. They’re suing. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/27/guns-concealed-carry-lawsuit-discrimination/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/27/guns-concealed-carry-lawsuit-discrimination/ |
He played dead on TikTok — and scored a ‘CSI’ corpse gig
Josh Nalley, 41, has posted more than 360 videos of himself pretending to be deceased
Special effects artist Lawrence Mercado works on Josh Nalley for the “CSI: Vegas” episode “There's the Rub,” which airs on Nov. 3 on CBS. (Sonja Flemming/CBS)
Josh Nalley makes a lovely corpse, because he’s had practice — lots of it.
Nalley, a 41-year-old restaurant manager from Elizabethtown, Ky., has spent the past year playing dead in short daily videos he posts to his TikTok account, “living_dead_josh.” In hundreds of clips, some racking up over a million views, he’s filmed himself lying face down in muck, slumped in a rocking chair, strung up by his wrists and draped over a bar. He’s died at the foot of a bounce house, by a bank of pinball machines and under a sign with an arrow directing hikers to Tranquility Trail.
Yet, despite having created a body of work consisting of more than 250 videos by midsummer, Nalley still hadn’t achieved his goal of landing a role on a TV show or in a movie to play “an un-alive body.”
Then, “CSI: Vegas” reached out. In July, the show flew him out to Los Angeles, where he spent nearly a week. Nalley plays an unspecified dead person in an episode that airs next week. He said he’s going to host a watch party with friends at the restaurant where he works.
Josh Nalley spent the past year playing dead on his TikTok account, “living_dead_josh.” More than 250 videos later, he landed a role on “CSI: Vegas.” (Video: Julie Yoon/The Washington Post)
Nalley started playing dead in October 2021 because he was bored and wanted to capture “a little bit of virality” on TikTok, he said. He hoped to parlay a skosh of whatever internet fame he might attract into an acting gig, even though he had zero experience and isn’t particularly comfortable being on camera.
With all that in mind, he homed in on a role suited to his talents and sensibilities: a corpse.
“I figured that was the easiest way that I could actually get onto a TV show or movie, you know, without actually having to audition or move out of Kentucky.”
“Laziness is part of it,” he added.
But playing dead has been more work than Nalley thought. Even though his videos span mere seconds and all he does is lie still, he’s done that every day — and multiple times a day, on occasion — for a year.
“It’s perseverance,” he said.
Nalley said he’s gotten better at being dead. In some of his early efforts, he often got only half his body in the frame. His shot was occasionally out of focus. Even when he managed to get the technical aspects right, his performance was sometimes less than believable. Reviewing those first takes, he noticed his chest rising and falling and other involuntary movements that outed him as alive.
Nalley said he’s since learned how to better control his breathing and, having identified his physical tells, figured out how to mask them.
Pretending to be dead has helped Nalley live, he said. He gets a lot of his material while out walking on his days off. While traipsing around a state park, he’ll spot something he thinks would make an interesting background. He whips out the camera and shoots the video himself or, if he has company, deputizes a friend.
He’s used his project to connect with family, like the time he filmed a video with his niece. In the eight-second clip, she stands triumphantly, hands on her hips, at the top of a staircase as the camera pans down to reveal Nalley splayed on the floor, looking like he just broke his neck. A cat comes over to check on him.
“I really enjoyed that one,” Nalley said. “She got a kick out of it, too.”
In June, while traveling through Arkansas with his nephews, Nalley spotted a triceratops statue at a roadside attraction. Inspired, they pulled over to shoot a seven-second clip set to the grand orchestral horns of the Jurassic Park soundtrack. In it, one of his nephews petted the triceratops while the dinosaur chomped on Nalley’s lifeless arm.
And he’s made sure that several videos shot throughout the past year feature his dogs: Jango, a chocolate lab; Ollie, a black lab; and Gracie, a foxhound.
Even though Nalley has achieved his goal of making it to the big leagues of corpse acting, he said he plans to keep going, although he’s not sure exactly how. He’ll probably keep up the playing-dead shtick but floated the idea of aiming for a more ambitious part in a movie or TV show.
“Maybe one day, getting a speaking role,” he said.
Nalley said he’s excited to see the “CSI” episode when it airs Nov. 3, something he’ll be doing for the first time along with millions of other viewers. He also plans to live-stream his watch party and is eager to see how his fans react.
Although Nalley and his friends find his project funny, the seriousness of the subject matter is not lost on him. He’s aware that he started making the videos when he was 40, as he and his friends entered middle age. His parents are getting older. Mortality is becoming more and more manifest in his life.
Playing dead is Nalley’s way of coping.
“I can face death and not really have to worry about it because, you know, I’ve seen myself dead so many times,” he said.
“It’s a good way to process it.” | 2022-10-27T09:48:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | TikTok's @living_dead_josh gets role playing dead body on "CSI: Vegas" - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/27/tiktok-living-dead-josh-csi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/27/tiktok-living-dead-josh-csi/ |
Commanders quarterback Taylor Heinicke celebrates a touchdown pass with wide receiver Terry McLaurin on Sunday. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
The best-case scenario, of course, would be for Taylor Heinicke to continue to play plucky, inspired football and for the Washington Commanders to revive their season because of it. For their football decision-makers, that might simultaneously be the worst-case scenario, too.
Heinicke’s brand of football is fun and intoxicating, and that’s informed by the fact that he was an undrafted, unemployed graduate student who is capitalizing on what was his final chance. That he costs an average of $2.375 million for two years colors everything as well.
But if Heinicke somehow stitches this season back together, what does that say about the decision-making that brought Carson Wentz here to be the starter? He costs nearly $28.3 million against the salary cap. He cost draft picks in the past and in the future.
And if Heinicke outplays him — which is both a low bar and a strong possibility — it would only make sense that the Commanders would move on from Wentz in the offseason. Which would leave them back at Heinicke. Which would leave them back where they are in perpetuity: looking for the solution at quarterback.
That sucks all the fun out of the moment, sure. So dwell on the backup-turned-starter for a minute. Heinicke’s performance in his first game replacing Wentz, who’s out with a broken finger, perfectly fits his storyline, which is captivating. Against Green Bay, he stunk to start. He calmly hung in there. He won the game. His teammates quite obviously adore him.
“It’s really fun playing with a guy like that,” said star wide receiver Terry McLaurin, who caught Heinicke’s longest pass for a touchdown and reeled in the third-down, late-game throw that sealed the win, “who’s going to fight for every yard, fight for every opportunity that he gets. I think that’s infectious.”
That’s the fun part of this trip, the part that makes it tempting to put aside the lasting implications of a Heinicke success story and just ride with it. There’s so much to like. He brings such a clear and ebullient contrast to the dynamic of Wentz — beaten down by being ousted in Philadelphia and Indianapolis. American sports fans vastly prefer characters who do more with less than those who do less with more. An undrafted guy who was signed off the street and nearly beat Tom Brady in a playoff game has far more leeway than the dude who cost both cash and picks.
So enjoy it.
“He does a lot of plays that you’re like, ‘Oh, crap, how’d you get out of that one?’ ” right tackle Sam Cosmi said. “… His background story’s great. I think everybody kind of roots for him for those reasons. A guy that didn’t have a lot of eyes on him and just come out from the woodwork and do all that, that’s a truly special thing. I think that’s why people gravitate toward him.”
Which, it’s clear after the Green Bay game, the Commanders do. The team posted a photo on social media after the victory in which Jonathan Allen, the massive defensive tackle, is embracing Heinicke. If it were part of the promotional material for a 1990s rom-com, it would be too over the top, what with the way they’re adoringly looking each other in the eyes.
So infectious is right.
“He plays like every game is his last,” McLaurin said Wednesday at the Commanders’ facility in Ashburn, repeating a sentiment he offered after Sunday’s win. “He plays like he has nothing to lose and everything to gain. And I think that’s a fine line because somebody could be reckless.”
But because he is who he is — because he was undrafted and not taken with the second overall selection as Wentz was — reckless can be some combination of necessary and endearing. Wentz has a stronger arm. Heinicke has a stronger vibe. Both are 29.
“I think that sometimes rubs off on people,” Heinicke said Wednesday.
So now, with Wentz out at least another several weeks, there’s no choice but to pit one against the other. The statistical comparison is shockingly similar — if you don’t look at their bank accounts.
Thirty-two quarterbacks have played in at least 15 games over the past two years. According to stathead.com, Heinicke is 24th in yards per attempt, Wentz 26th. Wentz ranks 20th in yards per game, Heinicke 23rd. Heinicke completes a higher percentage of his passes (64.7 to 62.3). Wentz has a higher passer rating (91.4 to 85.9). They are sacked on essentially the same percentage of their dropbacks (6.9).
They’re different players in style, for sure. But their substance isn’t wildly different. So, then, circle back to how that’s problematic.
Whether Coach Ron Rivera or, as ESPN reported, owner Daniel Snyder decided to trade for Wentz is immaterial in this regard. The Commanders did the deal, and it cost draft capital, money to Wentz and salary cap room that restricted what the team could do in free agency. If Heinicke is good against Indianapolis and drags Washington back to .500, then continues to excel until Wentz is healthy again, what’s Rivera to do? Play Wentz?
That wouldn’t play in the stands, for sure. More importantly, it wouldn’t play in the locker room.
Taylor Heinicke is both limited as a quarterback and appealing as a character. How he plays over the next month will have a direct impact on the Commanders’ 2023 season. But whether he’s an obvious choice to be benched when Carson Wentz is healthy again not only reflects on the two quarterbacks, their performances and their abilities. It reflects on the people who decided Wentz was obviously better and paid handsomely because of it, and it all could lead back to yet another offseason searching for yet another quarterback. | 2022-10-27T10:02:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | If Taylor Heinicke succeeds, what does that say about Carson Wentz? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/taylor-heinicke-commanders-carson-wentz/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/taylor-heinicke-commanders-carson-wentz/ |
The Hokies are at No. 24 North Carolina State at 7:30 p.m. Thursday (ESPN)
Quarterback Grant Wells and the Virginia Tech football team are coming off an open week seeking to end a four-game slide, including losing to Miami, 20-14, on Oct. 15. (Ryan Hunt/Getty Images)
More than a month has elapsed since the Virginia Tech football team won a game. During a slide that has reached four games, the Hokies (2-5, 1-3 ACC) have been outscored by an average of 19 points and weathered injuries to a roster already facing a dearth of skilled reserves.
So the to-do list for first-year coach Brent Pry was lengthy during last weekend’s open date, starting with a thorough assessment of the personnel at every position and which formations and packages would be best suited to spark an upswing.
Pry did not specify what modifications might be in store for Thursday night’s game against No. 24 North Carolina State at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh, N.C., but did reveal an intent to become less predictable on offense while also adding to the rotation of promising players who received limited snaps in the first half of the season.
“There will be a few nuances, some things that we [identified] that we think give us a little better opportunity, but in the end you still need personnel to step up and make some plays,” Pry said. “There was a lot of discussion about the best group out of each personnel and what that looks like, and that’s the way we practiced.”
Virginia Tech began the year planning to establish the run to assist quarterback Grant Wells, who was new to Power Five competition after transferring from Marshall and winning the starting job over Jason Brown, a transfer from South Carolina.
With five games left in the season and their bowl aspirations all but extinguished, the Hokies rank 13th of 14 schools in the conference in rushing (107.3 yards per game). They are coming off a 20-14 loss to Miami on Oct. 15 in Blacksburg in which they managed 78 rushing yards, averaging 2.6 per carry, with six rushing first downs.
An injury to tailback Malachi Thomas has contributed to Virginia Tech’s stalled ground attack. The sophomore missed the first five games with what he indicated was ankle discomfort. Thomas has been first on the depth chart the past two games and rushed for 125 yards and a touchdown on 28 carries.
Keshawn King leads the Hokies in rushing (259 yards), but the redshirt junior is nursing an undisclosed ailment that has him questionable to play against the Wolfpack (5-2, 1-2), which is third in the ACC in rushing defense (122.4 yards per game) and second in total defense (310.9 yards per game).
“We’ve tried to be that two-tight-end team that we wanted to be on the onset, run the ball and play-action and be multiple with our tight ends, and it just hasn’t gone like we’ve hoped,” Pry said. “We had several conversations about that and what direction we can go with this thing.”
Pry has leaned on his defensive expertise in seeking to boost the Hokies’ offensive output. He has studied what adjustments opposing offenses deployed to move the ball when Pry, who was Penn State’s defensive coordinator from 2016 to 2021, successfully schemed to blunt production against a two-tight-end alignment.
The search for an offensive revival comes as Virginia Tech plays its next four games against opponents with a combined record of 20-10. The only opponent in that stretch with a losing record is Georgia Tech, but the Yellow Jackets are .500 in the ACC.
Playing at a quicker pace benefited the Hokies against Miami, which led 20-0 going into the fourth quarter. Virginia Tech pulled within striking distance thanks to touchdown drives of 65 and 80 yards, with Wells completing a 14-yard scoring pass to Thomas and finding the end zone himself on a three-yard run.
“We played with some tempo in the fourth quarter, and I think when we play with tempo we play with confidence,” Wells said. “We have to make one decision. Instead of waiting for the defense, we take it upon ourselves to make those decisions. I think we did that well in the fourth quarter. I think we’ll continue to do that.”
Virginia Tech’s passing attack may be in line to receive a lift with wide receiver Stephen Gosnell close to reentering the lineup, Pry said. The junior absorbed a crushing blow during a 41-10 loss to North Carolina on Oct. 1 and has missed the past two games.
Projections were far less encouraging for cornerback Dorian Strong, whose sore hand has kept the junior from Upper Marlboro out of the past three games. Strong remains doubtful for Thursday, leaving a pair of freshmen first and second on the depth chart.
“I’m still waiting for us to play that complete game, to be consistent, handle all the things that are thrown at you over the course of four quarters in all three phases,” Pry said. “We’ve just got to play closer to who we are, who we can be. And if we do that, we’re going to have a heck of a chance to win the game.” | 2022-10-27T10:02:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Virginia Tech exits bye week with hopes of ending four-game skid - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/virginia-tech-losing-streak/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/virginia-tech-losing-streak/ |
This was the scene at Shea Stadium as the Mets began to celebrate their victory over the Baltimore Orioles at the World Series on Oct. 16, 1969. (AP)
“When it comes to the World Series, what we try to do along with our broadcast partners is what any good business would do,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said at a National Press Club luncheon in July 2018, when asked about bringing back World Series day games on weekends. “We try to put the game on at the point in time that we are going to attract the largest audience — the point in time that we get most people watching the game. That will continue to be our guidepost.”
Translation: MLB will not be playing World Series day games. You can put them in the pile with sacrifice bunts, pitchers batting ninth and the knuckleball. .
And while that reality feels as reliable as four-hour game times and fans waving towels under the lights, the onset of World Series night games arrived with controversy and dissent — and without a clear mandate. In fact, a torrential midsummer storm in Washington in 1969 helped convince baseball to start shifting its championship round into prime time.
Baseball started playing the All-Star Game at night in 1967, and the change was an immediate success — with excellent TV ratings in 1967 and 1968. But when a rainout at RFK Stadium the next year caused MLB to stage the ’69 All-Star Game the following afternoon, the ratings crashed, only to bounce back in 1970 when the game was played at night in Cincinnati. That gave MLB all the ammunition it needed to try a World Series game in prime time, too.
Six months later, in January 1971, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn announced that Game 4 of the 1971 World Series would be played at night.
“This innovation will make it possible for millions of additional fans to see baseball’s postseason classic. I feel the television audience will be of the same dimension that watched the 1970 All-Star Game from Cincinnati,” Kuhn said.
It was and then some: The Oct. 13, 1971, World Series game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles drew 63 million viewers, the largest TV audience for a prime-time sports broadcast.
So the following year, MLB expanded to two night World Series games — both on weeknights — but it sparked a backlash. As the Associated Press wrote a month after the 1972 World Series: “‘Television is calling the shots,’ argued some critics. ‘Baseball has sold its soul to the tube.’”
Kuhn pushed back on that narrative, telling the AP that he was “deeply disturbed at insinuations that baseball now jumps to the whip of television interests and that we have surrendered control of baseball.”
On the contrary, Kuhn said, it was baseball, not the networks, that had pushed for night games.
“I broached the subject to NBC,” Kuhn recalled. “They were skeptical and resistant. The World Series comes in the first 13 weeks of the new season for the TV networks. It is a time when they are trying to establish viewer habits. They didn’t want to interrupt their regular shows with a one-shot deal like the Series. We worked on them; they didn’t work on us.”
And, Kuhn bragged, “We beat out ‘All in the Family’ and other established shows on rival networks.”
Meanwhile, Oakland Athletics owner Charlie Finley, who had pushed for World Series night games since the early 1960s, argued that playing after dark gave working people the chance to watch baseball’s showcase event. “I’m the working man’s greatest friend since that guy who invented time-and-a-half,” he crowed, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
‘Baseball TV’s producer’
Still, critics continued to complain about World Series night games, relying on two main arguments. One is that with postseason games often dragging on for three or four hours, kids on the East Coast have to stay up past 11 p.m. or midnight to watch a full game — and baseball risks losing the next generation of fans.
The other is that October baseball is often too cold to play at night — and this year’s World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and Houston Astros might prove challenging. Although weather won’t be a factor in Houston, where the Astros play in a stadium with a retractable roof, up to two games will be played in Philadelphia in November, when nights can be chilly.
Weather became an issue at some of the early World Series night games, such as Game 2 of the 1976 World Series between the New York Yankees and Cincinnati Reds in Ohio.
“When the second game of the World Series should have been played, at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, the temperature was a chilly 49 degrees — hardly ideal but acceptable,” New York Times columnist Dave Anderson wrote at the time. “By the time the game began tonight in Riverfront Stadium, a ‘freeze warning’ had been forecast and the temperature was dropping toward the 30s — absolutely unacceptable for what is known as the summer game.
“But baseball’s TV producer, Bowie Kuhn, demanded that the show must go on. Bowie Kuhn was more interested in a Nielsen rating than in championship conditions, a betrayal of his commissioner’s responsibility.”
In its 2007 obituary of the former commissioner, the Times observed, “When Kuhn sat in the stands without a topcoat, seemingly in denial while everyone else was shivering, during Game 2 of the 1976 World Series on a frigid night in Cincinnati, he became the object of ridicule.”
Baseball continued to mix in day games for the rest of the 1970s, usually on weekends. But in 1985, Kuhn’s successor, Peter Ueberroth, announced that every game of that year’s World Series would be played at night — and indeed TV was calling the shots.
As Watergate simmered, Nixon buckled down on a sportswriting project
“The contract predates me,” he said. “ABC has the right to do that under the contract, and I told the owners I’ve been informed that we’re going to have all night games.”
The last daytime World Series competition was Game 6 of the 1987 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Minnesota Twins — and it was played indoors in the Metrodome, meaning there was no sunshine to make it feel like an afternoon game.
As baseball writer Joe Sheehan observed, “It’s something when you see how quickly it happened. As of October 12, 1971, there had never been a World Series night game. Since October 24, 1987, there has never been a World Series day game. It took 16 years for baseball to turn its crown jewel into just another television program.”
An East Coast issue?
When MLB went to all-night for good in 1988, Sports Illustrated writer Ron Fimrite made a plea for a return to day games — with a nod to viewers staying up late.
“Night baseball in October just doesn’t make sense to anyone outside a network boardroom,” he wrote, adding that it robbed baseball of what made it special. “Baseball’s premier attraction became just another prime-time miniseries, and in the process it lost much of its magnitude and charm.”
Noting that some of the 1988 World Series games finished close to midnight in the Eastern time zone, Fimrite added: “It’s tough enough for schoolchildren to watch games that go this late on TV, but what East Coast parent, in good conscience, could have taken his youngster out to the ballpark knowing that the little nipper wouldn’t make it back to the sack until after one o’clock in the morning? And chances are, if the kid went to the game, he would have come home sniffling and hacking after spending half the night in a near-arctic chill.”
The DH once threatened pitchers’ pride — and their manhood. Now it’s universal.
Fay Vincent, who was baseball commissioner from 1989 to 1992, the early years of all-night Fall Classics, said in a telephone interview that East Coast fans are primarily the ones who have pushed for World Series day games.
“I remember all the frustration and talk about why are the games on so late? Why aren’t they on earlier in the day?” he recalled. “And I’d always say: ‘Look, the people who are moaning about the game being on too late are people who live on the East Coast. If you live in California, the game starts at 5 in the afternoon, and the parents are saying to me: ‘Why is it on then? Kids are just getting home from school, and if they have activities after school, the baseball game will be over by 8 o’clock.’ ”
Vincent also dismissed the concern about losing young fans.
“The advertising dollar decides how to maximize the profit and maximize the audience — and it works,” he said. “It just works to the detriment of some people who wish that the world is focused on New York or Washington. There are lots of ways to attract young people.”
At his National Press Club appearance, Manfred, who appeared a bit exasperated at the question of World Series day games, noted that the sport stages many playoff games during the day. And he pushed back on the narrative of baseball missing an opportunity to draw young fans.
“I understand that there is a romantic notion out there about a World Series game played during the day and that children will be flocking from everywhere in order to watch that game,” he said. “The fact of the matter is we know who watches. We play day games during the postseason. We do not, in fact, attract more children to those games, and given that fact, we will continue to put games on at the point in time when we can get the biggest audience we can possibly draw because we feel that’s how we serve our fans.” | 2022-10-27T10:03:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How World Series day games became a thing of the past - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/world-series-day-games/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/world-series-day-games/ |
D.C. activists to rally for Brittney Griner by smoking pot near embassy
A Russian court on Oct. 25 rejected U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner’s appeal of her nine-year prison sentence on drug charges. (Video: Reuters)
Adam Eidinger, a longtime cannabis activist and co-founder of DC Marijuana Justice, which worked to legalize the drug in the city, said his plan for the protest came as a direct response to a Russian court rejecting Griner’s appeal against her more-than-nine-year prison sentence on drug charges Tuesday.
Griner’s arrest also came one week before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, a war that Eidinger said he will also be protesting Thursday.
“Just as it’s unacceptable for Americans to sit behind bars for simple possession of cannabis, it’s absolutely unacceptable for an American sitting in a Russian Gulag,” Eidinger said. “We feel compelled to protest the Russian Federation, and President Putin, who’s clearly using an American citizen as a pawn in his war against Ukraine.”
Protesters will gather at the embassy at 4:20 p.m., bringing plants, buds, flags with green pot leaves and a 50-foot inflatable joint with a message about Griner, he said, adding that he plans to throw marijuana onto the embassy grounds to make his point.
Griner spent her 32nd birthday earlier this month in detainment, as family, friends, athletes and coaches launched a “#WeAreBG” campaign seeking her return to the United States.
Her wife, Cherelle, said in an Oct. 6 interview with “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King that she was able to speak with Griner just twice via phone since she was detained. The second call, she said, was “disturbing,” leaving her in tears for days.
“It was the most disturbing phone call I’ve ever experienced,” Cherelle Griner said in the interview. “You could hear that she was not okay.”
Brittney Griner may go to a Russian penal colony. Here’s what you need to know.
Griner was attempting to enter Russia on Feb. 17 at the Sheremetyevo International Airport near Moscow, where she plays for UMMC Ekaterinburg during the WNBA offseason, when she was arrested. She was accused of carrying vape cartridges containing 0.702 grams of cannabis oil, which is illegal in Russia. Griner eventually pleaded guilty to carrying the cannabis oil.
Griner, a 6-foot-9 center with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, testified during her trial that she uses cannabis oil in the United States as prescribed by her doctors to treat chronic pain. She told the court that she knew carrying cannabis into Russia was illegal, but in her rush of packing, she said she did not realize the cartridges were in her baggage.
In the United States, cannabis is legal for recreational adult use in Washington, D.C., two territories and 19 states. It is on the ballot in five more states next month. Thirty-seven states, three territories and the District allow the medical use of marijuana, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Griner appeared Tuesday in court via video link from detention outside Moscow and spoke through an interpreter. “I want to apologize for this mistake,” she said. “I did not intend to do this, but I understand the charges brought against me.”
Speaking on Aug. 4, WNBA superstar Brittney Griner said she had no intention of breaking Russian law after a small amount of cannabis oil was found in her bags. (Video: The Washington Post)
Griner’s attorneys said they would speak with her about next steps and intend to use “all the available legal tools.” Once the appeal process is over, Griner is set to be transferred to a penal colony, where people who are incarcerated are required to perform labor during their sentence.
The U.S. government characterizes her arrest as a “wrongful detainment" and the White House condemned the court’s decision Tuesday.
Eidinger also joined protesters outside the White House on Monday, demanding that President Biden use his executive authority to release people incarcerated on nonviolent marijuana-related convictions. The protesters said that Biden’s announcement earlier this month that he would grant mass pardons for anyone convicted of a federal crime for simply possessing marijuana did not go far enough, pointing to White House officials’ acknowledgment that the pardons won’t result in anyone being released from prison.
“It’s time for the public to rise up and defend Brittney Griner and demand to release the same way the White House is,” Eidinger said. “If we’re going to fight for prisoners to be released in the United States, we need to fight for them to be released everywhere, internationally.”
Maite Fernández Simon and Mary Ilyushina contributed to this report.
Brittney Griner's detainment
U.S. officials hope public pressure will bring Russian release of prisoners
U.S. offers deal to Russia to free Brittney Griner as she testifies in Moscow
Brittney Griner prepares to testify this week in Russian trial | 2022-10-27T10:10:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | DC activists to rally for Brittney Griner by smoking pot outside embassy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/27/brittney-griner-pot-russian-protest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/27/brittney-griner-pot-russian-protest/ |
NFL offenses, much like Aaron Rodgers against the Commanders on Sunday, have fallen flat this season. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Chalk it up to parity, the closeness of games, the struggles of star quarterbacks, improved defenses, some other reason or a combination of all those things, but scoring is down in the NFL this season.
Through seven weeks, teams are collectively averaging fewer than 22 points per game, which would make 2022 the NFL’s lowest-scoring season since 2009 and represents a decrease from 23.0 in 2021 and 24.8 in 2020.
Don’t blame the Kansas City Chiefs, who are averaging nearly 32 points and have scored 40 more points than any other team. But the Chiefs are idle this week, so they won’t be around to help reverse the trend. Here’s a quick look at the Week 8 schedule.
Ravens (4-3) at Buccaneers (3-4), 8:15 p.m., Amazon Prime Video: Tampa Bay has not scored in the first quarter of any of its games. The offensive line is demoralized, the running game isn’t clicking, Tom Brady was outplayed by Panthers third-stringer P.J. Walker on Sunday, and there’s a short week in which to try to find a solution. If there’s one bright spot for the Buccaneers, it lies in a peek at the NFC South standings, where they are in a tie for first despite their losing record. Baltimore enters an extremely favorable stretch of its schedule in which the next six teams the Ravens face after the Bucs currently sport 2-5 records. Now Baltimore just needs to stop trying to find ways to lose in the fourth quarter.
Broncos (2-5) vs. Jaguars (2-5) in London, 9:30 a.m., ESPN Plus: After a 2-1 start, the Jaguars have lost four in a row, dashing hopes that they might be transitioning into watchability. Coach Doug Pederson’s job seems safe, but the same might not be true of the embattled Nathaniel Hackett, who has also lost four straight with Denver and who was not hired by the Wal-Mart heirs who purchased the Broncos over the summer. A 2-6 record heading into their bye might be cause for a change.
Panthers (2-5) at Falcons (3-4), 1 p.m.: Atlanta isn’t built to bounce back from a 21-0 deficit, which is what it found itself in last week against Cincinnati. It must avoid falling into a hole and keep P.J. Walker from having the kind of game he had against Tampa Bay.
Bears (3-4) at Cowboys (5-2), 1 p.m.: Dak Prescott, who attempted only four deep passes against Detroit last week, could afford to look a little rusty in his return from thumb surgery, particularly with Dallas’s defense playing well. Trevon Diggs came up with another interception, the 17th of his career, and Micah Parsons forced a game-ending fumble.
Dolphins (4-3) at Lions (1-5), 1 p.m.: After a 3-0 start, Miami lost the three games that Tua Tagovailoa missed after he suffered a concussion. He came out strong in his return Sunday night but showed some signs of rust against Pittsburgh, getting away with a handful of passes that could have been intercepted in the Dolphins’ close win.
Cardinals (3-4) at Vikings (5-1), 1 p.m.: The return of wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins from his suspension for using a banned performance-enhancing drug was a welcome sight for Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray. Hopkins caught 10 of the 14 passes he was targeted on for 103 yards in a win over the Saints.
Raiders (2-4) at Saints (2-5), 1 p.m.: Las Vegas running back Josh Jacobs ran for fewer than 70 yards in each of the Raiders’ first three games — all losses. In the past three games, he has averaged 147 rushing yards and scored six touchdowns, and the Raiders have gone 2-1.
Patriots (3-4) at Jets (5-2), 1 p.m.: New England has won 12 straight games against New York, including victories by 41, 38, 35 and 33 points. But the AFC East rivals are headed in different directions. The Patriots benched quarterback Mac Jones on Monday night in favor of backup Bailey Zappe in a loss to Chicago. The Jets have won four straight and are finding ways to get it done: They are the first team since Tim Tebow’s 2011 Broncos to win consecutive games with 105 or fewer net passing yards, according to NFL Research.
Steelers (2-5) at Eagles (6-0), 1 p.m.: The bad news for Pittsburgh is that rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett has thrown seven interceptions in his first four games, and facing the undefeated Eagles after their bye week seems suboptimal for him. The good news is that only one other Steelers quarterback has been intercepted five or more times in his first four games. He goes by the name of Terry Bradshaw.
Titans (4-2) at Texans (1-4-1), 4:05 p.m.: Tennessee’s Derrick Henry rushed for 128 yards on 30 carries in a victory over Indianapolis last Sunday, and his late 21-yard scamper helped the Titans run out the clock. Quarterback Ryan Tannehill’s injured ankle aside, maybe it’s a good idea to keep feeding Henry. He leads the NFL with 18 games of 100 or more rushing yards since 2020.
Commanders (3-4) at Colts (3-3-1), 4:25 p.m.: Matt Ryan became the latest veteran quarterback who can’t seem to work for Frank Reich, joining Philip Rivers and Carson Wentz. Ryan has been benched, and Sam Ehlinger will get his first NFL start against Washington’s strong defensive front. Last week, Ryan was sacked three times, was hit 10 times and threw two interceptions.
49ers (3-4) at Rams (3-3), 4:25 p.m.: Despite the arrival of Christian McCaffrey (who had 10 touches for 62 yards against the Chiefs), San Francisco dropped below .500 and is in need of a strong showing against Los Angeles, which could say the same thing. The 49ers have been outscored in the third quarter of every game, so maybe the answer is to skip halftime.
Giants (6-1) at Seahawks (4-3), 4:25 p.m.: With a passing game that Coach Brian Daboll has geared toward chipping away at the defense rather than relying on Daniel Jones, the Giants quarterback has been intercepted only twice and has lost just two fumbles. New York has outscored opponents 97-55 in the second half and is 4-1 when trailing in the fourth quarter. (In the previous five seasons, the Giants’ record was 3-58 when trailing in the fourth.) The Seahawks are suddenly the only team in the NFC West with a record better than .500.
Packers (3-4) at Bills (5-1), 8:20 p.m., NBC: It wasn’t so much a question of what is ailing Aaron Rodgers, who turned in decent stats for anyone other than him in Green Bay’s third straight loss Sunday at Washington, but the turmoil surrounding the team. Why, for instance, were the Packers trying a desperate hook-and-lateral on the final play with the game’s Hail Mary master on their side? And why was Green Bay unable to convert a single third down? (The last time that happened to the Packers, Rodgers was 15 and Brett Favre was the quarterback in 1999.) It’s not all Rodgers’s fault — it’s just that he has always compensated for the team’s deficiencies and mistakes. All of which makes this a bad time to play one of the league’s top teams, which is coming off a bye week and is winning its home games by a 34.5-point average.
Bengals (4-3) at Browns (2-5), 8:15 p.m., ESPN, ESPN2: Joe Burrow seems to be Joe Burrow again. Sure, he passed for 481 yards last week against the Falcons, but more importantly, on passes released in fewer than 2.5 seconds — a necessity given the Cincinnati offensive line’s struggles to protect him — Burrow had an 84 percent completion rate (21 for 25) for 254 yards and two touchdowns, according to NextGen Stats. Burrow is winless in three career games against the Browns, but anything can happen on Halloween. | 2022-10-27T10:10:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFL Week 8 schedule, matchups and five-minute guide - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/nfl-week-8-schedule/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/nfl-week-8-schedule/ |
In Eldorado, where President Jair Bolsonaro lived from ages 11 to 18, bananas are sold from a stand run by the family of a plantation worker. (Rafael Vilela for The Washington Post)
ELDORADO, Brazil — João Evangelista remembers the lanky teenager fondly. How he would fish in the Ribeira de Iguape River, then sell his catch to help his family, or to buy a movie ticket. A “normal guy” who teased his friends with insulting nicknames and declared, with what appeared to be absolute confidence, that he would one day become president of Brazil.
Over the years, Evangelista, 67, has witnessed in awe how his childhood friend Jair Bolsonaro, born into a poor family with five brothers and attending public schools, became the most powerful man in Latin America’s largest country — and somehow managed to stay true to himself.
“I see him on TV and always think, he has not changed one bit!” Evangelista said, and laughed. “He is the same simple, foul-mouthed guy.”
Irineu Boaventura also spent his childhood with Bolsonaro, playing soccer — the future president was a goalie — swimming in the Iguape or shooting his rifle at targets. Decades later, the retired teacher calls his old friend an irresponsible leader, a barbaric “myth of madness,” and a threat to democracy.
Welcome to Eldorado, the poor, sleepy town of 14,600, some three and a half hours southwest of São Paulo, surrounded by banana plantations and protected Atlantic forest, where Bolsonaro lived from age 11 to 18.
Today, Eldorado presents in microcosm the polarization that has riven Brazil leading into the second and final round of the presidential election on Sunday. Residents, including the president’s former friends and neighbors — the people who in some ways know him best — are deeply divided over the favorite son.
In the first round of the election this month, the right-wing Bolsonaro defeated left-wing former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Eldorado by 400 votes — a much narrower margin than his victory in São Paulo state as a whole.
“A large part of this town feels proud that the president is from here,” Boaventura said. “Another one is embarrassed of it.”
Eldorado is where in the 1960s and ’70s Bolsonaro developed some of the ideas and beliefs that have animated his presidency.
It was here that the 15-year-old Bolsonaro witnessed a firefight between Carlos Lamarca, an army deserter-turned-communist guerrilla, and military police in the city’s main square. Lamarca escaped unscathed; authorities launched a massive military operation to capture him.
Friends said the event stunned the otherwise quiet rural town. It left the young Bolsonaro with a deepening admiration for the armed forces and a growing antipathy toward communism. He would enter the army’s prep school a few years later, at the height of Brazil’s military dictatorship, and become an officer.
Like his Portuguese ancestors who settled in Eldorado, Bolsonaro looked for gold in the Usina River, friends and neighbors say, but never found any.
Edouardo Fouquet, a former mayor and retired army officer, met Bolsonaro in the 1970s, when they were both cadets at Brazil’s principal military academy. It was Bolsonaro’s unapologetic love and support of the military, along with the influence of his evangelical church, that won Fouquet’s vote in 2018.
“I feel like I did my part by giving him a vote of confidence in 2018, but not again,” Fouquet said. Bolsonaro’s chaotic handling of the pandemic, which has killed more than 687,000 people in Brazil, his mocking of those who got sick, his brash manner and authoritarianism have caused him to reconsider his support.
If Bolsonaro were reelected, Fouquet said, he worries “Jair” would weaken the country’s democratic institutions: “If he wins again, no one will be able to get him out of there.”
But it’s precisely Bolsonaro’s bellicose, unvarnished presentation that resonates with many here.
Bolsonaro is outspoken in his opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and homosexuality. (In 2011 he famously declared he would rather “have a son die in an accident than show up with a mustachioed man around.”) He has loosened gun restrictions and expressed admiration for the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, saying it should have killed 30,000 “corrupt” people, including then-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
Supporters say Bolsonaro’s ethnic and racial slurs, homophobia and constant attacks against women, are proof of his authenticity and radical honesty.
“He is the best thing that has happened to this country since the dictatorship,” said Andre Beber, 23.
His father, Valmir Beber, one of the biggest banana producers in town, praised Bolsonaro for limiting banana imports from Ecuador, relaxing restrictions on pesticides and stabilizing inflation. He called the president a “humble and honest man” who tells it like it is, and stands for their values: family, religion and the freedom to carry guns.
He spoke of the “economic progress” Brazil made during the military dictatorship and claimed, without evidence, that Lula would close churches and legalize abortion.
Lula publicly reiterated his opposition to abortion again this week.
Some of the opposition to Bolsonaro in Eldorado comes from the quilombos, autonomous communities on the outskirts of town populated by descendants of formerly enslaved people who have fought for decades for land rights and historically have supported Lula.
“His government has meant a big step backward for us,” said Elson Alves da Silva, leader of the Ivaporunduva quilombo. He pointed at the dismantling of Lula-era social programs under Bolsonaro.
He also cited Bolsonaro’s infamous remarks in 2018, when he said the “thinnest Afro-descendant” weighed seven arrobas — a measure used for cattle — and “they don’t do anything, I don’t think they’re even good for procreating anymore.”
“He speaks for that veiled racism that exists across the country,” Alves da Silva said.
But Mari Miranda, 62, said her father lost property when Lula granted land rights to quilombos, whom she described using slurs. She said Bolsonaro is a good person who supports “hard-working people.”
“In heaven is God,” she said. “On earth is Bolsonaro.”
The racism and homophobia didn’t cost Bolsonaro in 2018. His anticorruption message and Lula’s imprisonment on corruption charges — his convictions were later annulled when the Supreme Court found he was denied due process — helped the fringe congressman win his long-shot bid for the presidency in 2018.
Bolsonaro outperformed expectations again during the first round of this year’s election, winning more than 43 percent in a field of 11 and denying Lula a majority. Political columnist Thais Oyama said this unexpected success, which came despite the scandals that have engulfed his administration, the chaotic response to the coronavirus and attacks on democratic institutions, critics and the media, show the strength of a right-wing movement.
“A large number of these conservative voters had literally no one who spoke for what they believe in,” Oyama said. “No one had ever said outright they were in favor of arms, against abortion, against gender issue discussions.”
One recent humid morning, dozens gathered inside a large white church for prayer. Women in white veils sat on wooden benches on the right side of the Christian Congregation of Brazil; men on the left.
“Gloria!” they chanted in unison. Brazil’s rapidly growing evangelical Christian movement has emerged as a driving force rallying conservative voters, largely behind Bolsonaro.
“He is a good, family man and I will vote for him,” said Telma Coutinho Resende, a housekeeper who became a Christian 15 years ago.
Pedro Pereira, owner of a palm tree production company, said it was a “privilege” to have a president from Eldorado. He praised Bolsonaro as “authentic and honest.”
Pereira voted for Bolsonaro in 2018. But he’s torn over whether he’ll do so again. It’s difficult to judge his administration fairly, he said, because he faced extraordinary circumstances, including the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine, which has affected the economy.
“It’s like being handed a car without gasoline,” he said.
Pereira said Lula, during his eight years in office, and other local elected officials from his Workers’ Party did “a lot for the poor and for Eldorado, probably even more than” Bolsonaro.
“Many of us expected he would do more for his own hometown,” he said. “But he didn’t.” | 2022-10-27T10:19:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bolsonaro running only slightly ahead of Lula in his Eldorado hometown - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/27/bolsonaro-eldorado-lula-president-election/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/27/bolsonaro-eldorado-lula-president-election/ |
More activists are gluing themselves to art. Their tactics aren’t new.
There’s a long history of such protests in museums — going back to an angry feminist and a hatchet
Eben Lazarus and Hannah Hunt are glued to “The Hay Wain” area at London's National Gallery in July. (Richard Feldgate)
When Eben Lazarus and Hannah Hunt showed up at London’s National Gallery in July armed with tape, glue and hidden Just Stop Oil T-shirts, they didn’t come to look at art. But five minutes before they glued themselves to the frame of John Constable’s “The Hay Wain” and called on the British government to stop new oil and gas licenses, they paused in front of Diego Velázquez’s “The Toilet of Venus.”
It was not Velazquez’s soft brushstrokes that drew them in but an edgier story they had heard about the 17th-century work. In 1914, Canadian suffragist Mary Richardson attacked the painting with a hatchet, slashing the figure’s back and hips, to protest the arrest of a fellow activist and condemn the work’s misogynist imagery. Richardson’s act inspired so many copycats that some British museums temporarily banned women from visiting.
Looking at the painting, Lazarus felt swept up in a bigger history of civil disobedience. “It was this surreal connection to those who had come before us and fought for basic rights that we now take for granted. It just solidified our conviction in what we were about to do,” he said. “It was actually quite a peaceful moment.”
Shortly thereafter, Lazarus and Hunt covered “The Hay Wain” with a poster showing a chaotic, apocalyptic vision of the English countryside and glued themselves to the original work’s frame. Kneeling on the floor of the gallery, Lazarus cried out, “When there’s no food, what use is art? When there’s no water, what use is art?”
That day, the pair joined the notable annals of an idiosyncratic protest movement that sounds more like a Dada-inspired performance piece. In the past few months, activists around the world have been affixing themselves to the frames and glass coverings of artworks — a Picasso in Australia; a Botticelli in Italy; a Raphael in Germany — and demanding their governments stop supporting the fossil fuel industry. In early October, Just Stop Oil activists threw soup at Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in the National Gallery before gluing themselves to the wall beneath the work. A tactic borrowed from street protests, the glue increases the time protesters have to deliver their message from what, in an instant, can become an international stage.
These Super Glue subversives have been derided as publicity-seeking Philistines and hailed as martyrs for a vital cause. But lost in the noise is the reality that these acts are part of a long history of protest in museums. That activism has reached a fever pitch in recent years, with protesters calling on institutions to rethink their collections, diversify their staff, return looted artifacts and expunge toxic donors. At a time when museums have become ground zero for rewriting narratives of the past, it should be no surprise that climate activists have also turned to them in hopes of rewriting the future.
Western museums have long presented themselves as objective keepers of history and sanctuaries, separate from current events. This is, of course, an illusion. In the 1960s, artists like Hans Haacke started creating works that directly challenged museums themselves, sparking a movement known as Institutional Critique, which would go on to include works by Andrea Fraser and Louise Lawler.
Haacke’s famous “MoMA Poll,” made during the Vietnam War, asked museum visitors if the fact that Gov. Nelson Rockefeller — then chairman of MoMA’s board — had not “denounced President Nixon’s Indochina Policy” would dissuade them from voting for him. For another work meant to critique the divide between art and the outside world, Haacke set up a telex machine to print live news updates on a seemingly endless paper scroll.
Speaking about the work in a 2008 interview, Haacke said, “What concerned me at the time and what is still important for me today is that people coming into a gallery, a museum, or another art exhibition venue, are reminded that these art spaces are not a world separate from the rest of the world. The world of art is not a world apart.”
Climate activists have embraced this thinking. Through their actions, a John Constable painting becomes more than some escapist countryside fantasy — it becomes a poignant reminder that the natural landscape is endangered. Pablo Picasso’s “Massacre in Korea” doesn’t just show history, it warns of war and famine that could come with a warming Earth. And Sandro Botticelli’s “Primavera” isn’t about celebrating the beauty of spring — it’s about mourning the biodiversity we are at risk of losing.
Leonardo Basso, a 23-year-old student in Padua who helped Ultima Generazione activists with planning before they protested in front of Giorgione’s “The Tempest,” says these actions give renewed power to art. “If we just keep that art locked in the museum, and we don’t do anything with it but show it to some paying customers who post it on Instagram, then art just becomes like the coffee we get at Starbucks,” he says. “The art is still available to us. We need to use the art.”
Kirsty Robertson, a professor at Western University and author of “Tear Gas Epiphanies: Protest, Culture, Museums,” sees parallels between activists like Basso and the Situationist International, an anti-capitalist group of artists and thinkers active from 1957 to 1972. The group’s slogan, “Sous les pavés, la plage!” (“Beneath the pavement, a beach”) gets at the logic behind gluing yourself to a painting: Scrape the varnish off the status quo and you’ll find something better below.
Like the Situationists, today’s protesters are “using this act of disruption to jolt people out of their normal, everyday lives,” Robertson says. The setting amplifies the shock. “What’s so special about museums is that they are this point of contact between a wealthy elitist history and the public,” she says. “The artwork is an emergency button.”
Beka Economopoulos, the Not An Alternative co-founder and activist behind the push to remove climate change denier David Koch from museum boards, sees this movement as part of a “continuum” of arts-focused climate activism that includes organizations like BP or Not BP and Liberate Tate. Recent economic strain — including England’s cost of living crisis — gives these buzzy actions depth, she says.
“We just see the value of art going up and up while low-wage workers and communities are having a harder and harder time making ends meet. Our values are topsy turvy, and that is brought into stark relief in a museum setting,” she says. “It’s not attacking the sunflower painting as much as it is attacking something that can symbolize the deep violence of an economic system that creates extreme wealth and extreme poverty.”
Critics say these activist groups aren’t challenging museums, they’re just using them as particularly sensational soapboxes. BP or Not BP gave witty, Shakespearean-style performances and Liberate Tate did creative art actions — including faking an oil spill on the museum floor — all to ask British institutions to stop taking money from Big Oil. But the groups gluing themselves to paintings and riding their fame to headlines don’t have such tangible demands for the institutions they occupy.
When protesters stage actions in museums, “you’ve got to ask yourself the question, why are you in a museum? What are you saying to the museum?” says Emma Mahony, a professor who studies museums and activism at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. She praises Liberate Tate for bringing art lovers to their side and worries that the super-gluers are pushing away potential supporters. “You’re not going to make friends with oil bosses, but you have to bring the 99 percent onboard if you want to achieve something.”
While Lazarus insists Just Stop Oil isn’t trying to be popular, at the National Gallery over the summer, he took pride in bringing at least a few people onboard. As he and Hunt walked into the gallery where “The Hay Wain” hung, they saw a group of schoolchildren studying a painting nearby. They stopped, unsure whether to go through with the protest. “I think it was just because of that tendency to protect children,” he said. “But, actually, they deserve to know the truth. Everyone does.”
As they finished their speeches, the children — who are more likely to face the harsh realities of the climate crisis than many of us — erupted into cheers. | 2022-10-27T10:58:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Activists are gluing themselves to art. Their tactics aren't new. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/27/climate-activists-glue-art-trend/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/27/climate-activists-glue-art-trend/ |
When John Singer Sargent went to Spain, it unleashed his best art
Sargent’s travels in Spain are the subject of a major show at the National Gallery
From left, John Singer Sargent’s copy of Diego Velazquez’s “Las Meninas,” his original work “La Carmencita” and “Venetian Interior” are on display at the “Sargent and Spain” exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post)
John Singer Sargent made his first trip to Spain in 1879. He was 23 and had just completed his artistic training in Paris. His teacher, Carolus-Duran, had urged his charges to study “Velazquez, Velazquez, Velazquez, ceaselessly study Velazquez.” That advice, inevitably, entailed a visit to the Prado in Madrid.
Without Spain, in other words — and without its great artists, El Greco (born in Crete but forever associated with Toledo), Velazquez, Murillo, Ribera, Zurbaran and Goya — French Romanticism and Realism are all but unthinkable. So it’s hardly surprising that Sargent, having completed his apprenticeship in Paris, decided it was high time he, too, went to Spain.
Sargent’s travels in Spain are the subject of an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art. The show, though somewhat dowdily presented, is a delight; the catalogue is full of new research (including previously unseen photographs taken by the artist), and you will see Sargent — a glorious painter — at his best.
What you won’t see, unfortunately, are “El Jaleo,” and “The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit,” the two large-scale masterpieces Sargent painted in full Hispanophile mode. The first, a dusky rendering of Spanish flamenco, is permanently installed in a Spanish-style cloister at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; the second, Sargent’s richly complicated homage to Velazquez’s “Las Meninas” (The Maids of Honor), is also in Boston, at the Museum of Fine Arts.
Happily, compensations abound. The show kicks off with some of the young Sargent’s lively copies of works by El Greco, Velazquez and Goya. They’re sprinkled among actual paintings by Spanish masters from the NGA’s collection, among them Velazquez’s “The Needlewoman,” Goya’s “Señora Sabasa Garcia” and a version of El Greco’s “Saint Martin and the Beggar” (a separate copy of which Sargent kept in his London studio).
In Spain, freed from the tiresome (but lucrative) obligation to make the great, the good and the heavily insured more attractive than they were, Sargent was able to express his curiosity and indulge his infatuations. He usually went and returned by steamship through Gibraltar. He traveled most often to Madrid and Barcelona, but he also went to Granada, Ronda, Toledo and the island of Majorca, as well as an array of less famous towns in northern Spain (along the old Santiago pilgrimage route), around Madrid and in Catalonia and Andalusia.
Sargent was not an Impressionist, if by that term we mean a painter who represented the world using discreet units of color, all of similar size and weight. He was a tonalist. That’s to say, he used paint to reproduce the way the eye reads volume and space by registering subtle shifts in light and shade. Combining tonalism, which he learned from Velazquez, with vivid, lifelike color, he employed a dazzling variety of fast and loose-looking brushstrokes to convey not only the contingency of light but the speed and richness of our embodied visual perceptions. “Embodied” is key: In Sargent’s best paintings, touch is everything.
Sargent doesn’t need to outline her chin or fingers. He simply uses smudges of darker paint to set off the illuminated parts, which is both an efficient way to suggest volume and more true to visual experience than laborious outlines. That most of the painting is inchoate and hard to read adds to the sensation of physicality — the sense we have of sharing the picture’s space in that same twinkling light, where things dynamically morph in and out of visibility and the mind must infer what it can’t see.
Brush with genius
Although it was painted in Venice, not Spain, the curators have also included Sargent’s “Venetian Interior” (c. 1880-1882) because it demonstrates what the young painter had learned from Velazquez after his first trip to the Prado. It shows a dim hallway illuminated by bright light coming through an open door at its far end. On the hallway’s right-hand wall, Sargent captures light reflecting off picture and door frames with single brushstrokes so devastatingly deft, the sensation is like news of a windfall whispered in your ear.
Sargent’s oil paintings and his marvelous watercolors (which are scattered throughout the show) dramatize the differences between tonal painting and photography. Photographs serve up traces of light, fixed by chemicals. They are, in a sense, touchless. Paint is moved about with a brush held in a hand, connected to an arm, directed by a brain. Oil paint, in particular, sits up on the surface. It has textures, miniature peaks and troughs, variations in direction, thickness and speed of application. It is a substance which, for all these reasons, ignites a sense of immediacy. You cannot guess at the force of that immediacy from looking at the pictures accompanying this article, which are themselves photographs. You have to see the paintings with your own eyes.
The show also includes landscapes, portraits and lovely scenes of family life caught on the fly. “Mosquito Nets,” for instance, from the Detroit Institute of Arts, shows Sargent’s sister, Emily, and their friend Eliza Wedgwood reading in a room in a villa they had rented in the mountain village of Valldemosa. Their heads are protected by framed nets resembling domed hair dryers in a salon. It’s such a lovely intimate scene, and as with so many Sargent works, you become aware as you watch that it’s something you haven’t previously seen in a museum.
His depictions, from his final trip to Spain in 1912, of Roma dwellings, olive groves, fishermen on Majorca and farm courtyards, are bravura displays. In all these pictures, the complexity of the light, often dappled by grape vines, thatched roofs or olive tree leaves, allows Sargent a freedom he didn’t permit himself in his finely observed portraits and fastidious architectural studies. To see how he captures the broken, scudding quality of light on rough painted walls or used dry brushes, flicks, smudges and twists of the wrist to depict sloping, dappled hillsides is to feel oneself in the presence not just of mastery but of freedom. Sargent felt free in Spain, perhaps in more senses than one. He expressed that freedom with the traveler’s willingness to glance, capture and move on. Nothing in his best pictures feels belabored. | 2022-10-27T10:58:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | John Singer Sargent’s travels in Spain are the subject of a major show at the National Gallery - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/27/sargent-spain-manet-impressionism-roma/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/10/27/sargent-spain-manet-impressionism-roma/ |
What it’s like to buy and sell in the new, weird housing market
Rising mortgage rates, high prices and low inventory mean nobody feels like they’re winning
(Paige Vickers for The Washington Post)
When Larry Frum listed his townhouse in Laurel, Md., this past August, his real estate agent assured him it would sell in three or four days. But that’s not what happened for the communications professional, who needed to relocate to Seattle by the end of September for a new job.
“Three to four days became a week, and then it became two weeks, and then it became a month,” he says. At two months, Frum reduced the price by $20,000.
Such a move would’ve been unusual only weeks earlier. In July, the average home in Frum’s area was selling for over asking in about 12 days. He’d entered the market, it turns out, during the final gasp of the nationwide seller’s bonanza that finally stalled once interest rates started to climb. By the time Frum’s townhouse was for sale, they’d risen from the historic lows of a couple years prior to about 5 percent. In October, they hit 7 percent, or more than double what they’d been at the beginning of 2022, putting mortgage payments out of reach for many buyers.
As a result, the rhythms of buying and selling have significantly slowed. For sellers who, a year ago, watched their neighbors field multiple, contingency-free offers, the idea of having to negotiate can be tough to accept. Buyers, meanwhile, may not have to compete, but their money won’t go nearly as far.
In this new, weird housing market, nobody really feels like a winner.
What it’s like to be a buyer
For starters, many buyers have given up, at least temporarily, thanks to soaring rates.
Emma Aarnes and her husband began hunting for a two-bedroom apartment in their Manhattan neighborhood last spring after finding out they were expecting a baby. In June, when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by the largest amount since 1994, the couple’s search took on more urgency. By July, they’d found an ideal co-op, but the very same day they made an offer, the Fed hiked rates again.
“We were like, okay, we’re stretched as is. And if the interest rates keep going up, our confidence in being able to sell our current apartment [will go] way down,” Aarnes says. The couple decided to pull their offer. “So we are still in our one-bedroom, which we have rearranged so that there is a nursery for our incoming arrival.”
For buyers still in the hunt despite the rates, the decreased competition means they can actually negotiate and take a night (or two or three) to consider their purchase. “They don’t have to make a buying decision within a couple of hours, which is what it was like a year ago,” says Seth Neal, an agent with Silvercreek Realty Group in Boise. What’s more, they can conduct a proper home inspection; there’s no pressure to waive appraisal or financing contingencies either.
Offers using nonconventional financing, such as Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Affairs loans, or first-time home buyer assistance programs, now stand a chance in a way they didn’t during the buying frenzy (when sellers had their pick of all-cash offers or offers with conventional financing).
Nonetheless, buyers must still contend with high prices because sellers have one major bargaining chip left: The number of homes for sale remains excruciatingly low. The same economic uncertainty keeping a lot of buyers on the sidelines is also discouraging many would-be sellers from listing. The scarce supply of houses on the market is the reason that prices haven’t declined more dramatically. (Fannie Mae predicts an average home price decline of percent in 2023).
One additional twist for buyers: Even with 7 percent interest rates, some are finding that renting isn’t any better. As of August, rents nationally had risen more than 12 percent over the past year, according to data from Zillow.
Middle-school teacher Binh Thai started looking to buy after his Brooklyn landlord raised his rent last summer by nearly 80 percent, from $3,100 a month to $5,500. When Thai began his search in August, lenders were quoting him rates of 4.9 percent. Now that he’s found a place, he’s looking at nearly 6.9 percent. But that monthly payment still comes out to less than his new rent.
“I have had moments where I was like, ‘Am I making a mistake?’ ” he says. “Ultimately, this is my one opportunity. I’ve always wanted to own a home. With a teacher’s salary, it’s been really challenging.”
What it’s like to be a seller
Sellers today have to hustle to make deals happen. “Listing agents and sellers are having to work a lot harder than they did in the last couple of years,” says Erika Levack, an agent with Compass in Austin.
Sellers are now assisting with closing costs and offering to make repairs. Many are helping their buyers cover the cost of “buying down” their mortgage rates (when you pay a fee at closing to knock down the rate).
Peter Anderson is getting ready to sell his home in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. “We needed a new roof, which we went and did this summer, and we had to buy a new heat pump in the spring,” he says. “A year ago, we probably could have sold the house as-is and not had to do that.”
10 easy ways to boost your home value
Levack worked with buyers who put contracts on new-construction homes last December, when rates were about 3 percent. The buyers who didn’t pay extra to lock in those rates long-term are now looking at monthly payments that may be unaffordable.
For one set of clients, Levack says she approached the builder to say her buyers would have to back out “unless you guys do something.” In return, the builder gave them $46,000 to buy down their rate. A year or two ago, Levack says the reaction would’ve been more along the lines of: “ ‘Fine, walk away. We’re going to sell this house for more money anyway.’ And now they are struggling to move their inventory and they’re offering all kinds of incentives.”
Some sellers have started advertising these sweeteners right out of the gate, including offers to help with closing costs in the listings themselves. Others need more convincing.
“I’ve seen a lot of people who have listed a little high based on prices from the summer, early spring, and [the listings are] just kind of sitting there,” says Mackenzie Grate, an agent with the Machree Group in New York. “They’re not quite willing to accept that the market has shifted.”
Levack has been warning sellers that the market is changing every few weeks. To arrive at a realistic listing price, she says, “We have to look at the data very closely.” What it reveals can be painful.
Levack currently has a listing in Austin with the same floor plan and finishes of a nearby home that sold for over $1 million last November. “We are in contract [for] way below that, and that’s just the nature of where things are,” she says.
Larry Frum, the Maryland seller who listed in August so he could move for a new job, finally got an offer on his townhouse in October. As part of the terms, Frum will have to pay the buyer’s closing costs.
When he gets to Seattle, he plans to rent. | 2022-10-27T10:58:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What it's like to buy and sell in the new, weird housing market - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/10/27/housing-market-high-mortgage-rates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/10/27/housing-market-high-mortgage-rates/ |
She provided an abortion to a 10-year-old. She’s still fighting for her patients.
Caitlin Bernard is an OB/GYN in Indianapolis. (Kaiti Sullivan for The Washington Post)
In the rare moments of quiet, when Caitlin Bernard can pause to think about all that is happening throughout a post-Roe America, everything is distilled to a single image in her mind, the one that matters most to her as a physician. She sees the patient, the person who just found out they are pregnant, or that something has gone terribly wrong in a pregnancy; the person who needs Bernard’s care but might not be able to reach her in time, or at all.
In June, that patient was a 10-year-old child, a rape victim who was forced to travel from Ohio to Indiana to receive an abortion from Bernard, a 38-year-old OB/GYN and an assistant professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine. After it was reported in July that Bernard had performed the procedure, she found herself plunged into the center of a furious political clash over reproductive rights. Her name was emblazoned in national headlines, her face flashed across television screens, her reputation assailed by right-wing pundits and politicians. The attorney general of Indiana claimed that Bernard had violated her patient’s privacy and failed to properly document the procedure. Bernard and her family, including her two young children, became the targets of harassment and threats.
The tumult of that episode has since calmed somewhat. But Bernard is still thinking of the faceless patient, the one she knows is always out there somewhere, as she navigates the perpetually shifting legal landscape in her home state. On Sept. 15, one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country went into effect in Indiana. One week later, the law was blocked by a judge who issued an injunction. The future of the law remains unclear — the Indiana Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the injunction at a hearing in January — and there is no way for Bernard and her colleagues to know what will happen next, or how those developments might affect the people for whom they are trying to provide medical care.
“At the end of the day, I’m a physician,” Bernard says, “and I’m just trying to take care of my patients.”
Doctor in 10-year-old rape victim’s abortion faces AG inquiry, threats
She is also a parent, and in that role, “obviously, your family’s safety is the most important thing,” she says. “I always try to balance protecting my family with the responsibility that I feel to my patients and to other providers to stand up for them, and to publicly say what needs to be said, which is that we are physicians trying to take care of our patients, and that these laws that are hindering our ability to do so are dangerous. And it’s always hard to know where that line is.”
In the final hours before the new law went into effect, Bernard focused on caring for the nearly two dozen patients who had come to see her that day. One started to cry as she sat with Bernard and explained that she wasn’t weeping for herself. “She was saying, ‘I know that I’m lucky; I know that there are people who are not going to be able to make it here,’ ” Bernard says.
The confusion and the trauma of these circumstances have taken a toll on her patients and, in turn, on their doctor.
“It’s been emotionally very difficult,” Bernard says. “You rise to that occasion … you find the strength from somewhere to be that person for them, to be present for them. But, you know, there’s definitely a certain amount of trying to compartmentalize, so that you don’t bring it all home every single night.”
But inevitably, she says, “there’s so much spillover.” Earlier that same morning, she took a call in the car, talking to another physician about a patient in urgent need of care, and she suddenly became aware that her daughter was echoing her mother’s words from her car seat: Bleeding, bleeding! The reality outside was there at the periphery of her little girl’s awareness, even if she couldn’t yet fathom what it meant.
Bernard tries to hold a certain line between her work and the rest of her life, she says, but — especially at moments like this one, when the political has become so deeply and irrevocably personal — “you realize it kind of takes over.”
She was only a child herself when she knew that this was the career she wanted. Before she reached high school, Bernard says, she was sure she wanted to study reproductive medicine.
Bernard grew up in Upstate New York, the younger of two daughters whose perception of the world was shaped by their parents. Her mother, an outspoken feminist who worked for the state health department, took her daughters to Take Back the Night marches, Bernard says, and taught her girls how important it was “to support other women and to not ever feel that there’s something that you can’t do because you’re female.”
Her father, a carpenter and a community organizer, took Bernard with him to Guatemala when she was in 10th grade. She worked alongside him as he helped run a medical care clinic. One day a woman came in, bleeding profusely after delivering her newborn, and there was no one present who was equipped to help her. Bernard’s father arranged a transfer to a hospital, and they never learned what happened to the woman or her baby after that.
The woman’s vulnerability made a lasting impression on Bernard, she says: “It was so obvious … how important skilled care at that time in a woman’s life is.”
While in college, Bernard volunteered as a doula and also spent time at an abortion clinic, guiding patients through their options. She felt a deep similarity between those roles, she says: “It was supporting women, being there for them at a time that is critical in their life, being able to have that rapport,” she says. “To be able to provide that support in all situations is really an honor.”
She attended medical school and completed her residency at State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, where her mentor, then in his 80s, had been one of the first physicians to provide abortions in the state after the procedure was legalized.
“He had seen the time in which abortion providers were murdered, where clinics were bombed,” she says, and because of this, he had internalized the conviction that it was best not to talk about their work.
“Even in New York, there was such shame around patients seeking abortion and doctors providing abortion,” she says, “and this idea that if we just stay quiet, we can protect ourselves, you know, from being murdered.”
She deeply admired her mentor, she says, but she couldn’t abide this mind-set. “I just thought it was the most insane thing I’ve ever heard, this idea that we are doing something wrong, that we can’t protect our patients and stay true to the values of honesty and transparency,” she says. “I just felt that was so wrong.”
Bernard would take a different path, choosing to speak openly about the importance of reproductive health care. “I thought my generation could be those people,” she says. “For him. That he couldn’t, he couldn’t —” she pauses, her voice breaking, “but that we would be able to.”
Long before she was nationally known, Bernard was a prominent voice among those who fight for reproductive rights in Indiana, says Tracey Wilkinson, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, who has worked alongside Bernard and joined her in testifying against antiabortion legislation introduced in the state.
“She is the most competent, passionate and fierce person that I know,” Wilkinson says. “She’s the first person I call when I have a patient that I don’t know what to do with. She’s the first person I call when there is legislation that we have to fight. And she is also one of the first people that I call when I just need support as a professional, or as a mom.”
Fighting for abortion access in a state like Indiana is “an uphill battle,” Wilkinson says, and now that the fight for reproductive rights has moved to the state level, “having people like Dr. Bernard is incredibly important,” she says. “We need 100 Dr. Bernards in every single state.”
She has always known that her visibility would come with risk. Bernard was in her last year of medical school when George Tiller, a nationally known Kansas physician who had provided abortions for more than three decades, was shot to death in his church. While Bernard completed her fellowship training at Washington University in St. Louis, where she became certified in complex family planning — which includes training in performing second-trimester abortions — swarms of protesters often gathered outside the clinic where she worked. They screamed at her. They took pictures of her face and her car’s license plate.
“Even then I felt the fear that, you know, there has been violence toward people like you, and that you are now in their sights,” she says. “I knew that that was going to be a part of my life.”
When Bernard became a parent, her commitment to her work remained unwavering; being pregnant, she says, “only made me feel closer to my patients.” The experience instilled a new empathetic understanding, and it has sometimes meant navigating particularly sensitive circumstances.
“Being visibly pregnant when you have a patient whose baby is going to die and you’re providing abortion care for them — that is challenging, that’s emotional,” she says. “I remember at the end, when I was close to going out [on maternity leave], just trying to wear the biggest scrubs that I could, and my jacket would cover my belly, because I just know how hard it is for them.”
Even as the risks of her exposure became more high-stakes with the arrival of her children, she also felt a new awareness of how her efforts might shape the future they would inhabit.
“If I don’t do everything that I can now, then I can’t guarantee that they will be protected, that they will be safe later. I think that is the responsibility of every generation to make as much positive change as you can during your time,” she says, and pauses. “But that was easier to do when it was only my own personal risk that I was taking.”
In 2020, she says, the FBI investigated a kidnapping threat against her older daughter. Bernard remembers her toddler curiously touching a GPS tracker in her jacket, mercifully unaware of what it was or why she was wearing it.
“It’s just really hard when it becomes so personal, and so involving of your children,” Bernard says. But even then, she says, she had no intention to yield to threats: “We are not doing anything wrong, and I am not going to change what I'm doing to give in to them,” she says. “That is not going to happen.”
She hopes her kids will eventually see that side of her, too. “That their mother can be strong, and outspoken, and help people,” she says. “You want them to view those things, view the world in a positive and open and adventurous way.” But this also means constantly trying to shield them from the darker truths. “When we had security outside … my daughter would be like, ‘Who are those people?’ And we’d say, ‘Well, those are our new friends, and they’re sitting on our porch,’ ” Bernard says. “Trying to protect them at the same time is definitely really hard.”
There is a tension in balancing the enormous demands of her work with her family life. “I’m working on creating more boundaries,” she says. Bernard sometimes looks at her infant daughter and thinks of all that she has missed these past few months, she says, “because it was just so crazy.”
The furor grew all-consuming in early July, after the report about the 10-year-old rape victim was picked up by news media worldwide and President Biden highlighted the story in remarks condemning the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade: “Ten years old — 10 years old!” he said. “Imagine being that little girl.”
Pundits and politicians pounced on the story, many first claiming it couldn’t be true; then, when the report was confirmed, they took aim at Bernard’s reputation and motivation for speaking out about the case. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita announced an investigation to determine whether Bernard had properly reported the child’s abortion to Indiana state officials. Records have shown that Bernard fulfilled this duty as required, and her employer, Indiana University Health, has stated that Bernard has consistently complied with patient privacy laws.
In a statement to The Post, a spokesperson for Rokita’s office said, “Our legal review continues.”
Kathleen DeLaney, an attorney representing Bernard, said she filed a tort claim notice in July, potentially setting the stage for a defamation suit against Rokita. Bernard has two years to decide whether she will pursue a defamation claim, DeLaney said in a statement, and is still considering her options.
“No matter my client’s ultimate decision, we will not let the Attorney General’s agenda distract from the important work at hand, which is the care that Dr. Bernard and her fellow physicians provide to patients every day,” DeLaney said.
Despite the barrage of criticism and harassment from antiabortion activists, Bernard says, she was overwhelmed by the support she received. Her colleagues sometimes called her at home, she says, holding the phone to the hospital answering machine so she could hear the people who had left messages to thank her. Handwritten notes poured in. Vice President Harris called to express her support and gratitude.
“I’m literally still receiving mail from people thanking me for speaking out for them, for their daughters, for their sisters. … It definitely gives me a lot of hope for the future,” she says, and any measure of hope feels welcome.
For now, in the state of Indiana, abortion remains legal up to 22 weeks. After the judge blocked the new abortion law on Sept. 22, Bernard could call the people she had turned away only days before and tell them she could see them now after all.
“We don’t know how long it’s going to last,” she says. “It could all be reversed right away.” In the meantime, the reality for health-care providers on the ground is still chaotic and confusing. She knows there are patients who won’t understand what an injunction is, or how it might impact their specific circumstances. Already, Bernard says, unseen people are falling through the cracks, which makes even an incremental victory seem hollow.
“Because it feels so temporary and uncertain and the long-term impact is still unclear, it doesn’t feel better,” she says, “It doesn’t.”
She can’t control the legislators or the lawyers, the pundits or the judges. There is a phrase she often repeats — I am a physician — and what she can control is how she responds to the patient in front of her. She recalls the woman who recently came to her office to obtain contraception, and told the doctor: I am literally hanging on by a thread. If I get pregnant, I will fall apart.
“It’s those people that I want to be able to reach and say, ‘You are not alone,’ ” Bernard says. “‘You do not have to force yourself into something that is going to tear you apart. We will help you. We will get you to where you need to be, however and whatever you need to get there.’”
Faced with the unknown path ahead, she remembers her mentor, who came of age in a time when silence felt safest. She thinks of the society her own children will inherit. And she knows what to say to the medical students and the residents she works with, the ones who are following her into the field and into the fight.
“There’s so much in the world that can bog somebody down, to where they think that they can’t speak out for fear, or that they aren’t powerful enough to make change in a system that seems so powerfully against them,” she says. “I try to remind them as much as possible … that they do have a voice, that they can make a difference. I try to instill in them their power.” | 2022-10-27T10:59:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Caitlin Bernard is still fighting for her patients' abortion rights in Indiana - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/10/27/abortion-doctor-indiana-caitlin-bernard/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/10/27/abortion-doctor-indiana-caitlin-bernard/ |
Candidates for Md. lieutenant governor emphasize their immigrant pasts
The candidates for Maryland lieutenant governor are Aruna Miller (D), left, pictured at a campaign event in Silver Spring, Md., on Oct. 14, and Gordana Schifanelli (R), seen campaigning in Huntingtown, Md., on Oct. 21. (Eric Lee and Michael Connor for The Washington Post)
One candidate fled the former Yugoslavia as bombs fell, only to rally against what she sees as echoes of the communist state in her backyard.
The other left a “lovely life” as a child in India for more opportunity in America — and found it.
Maryland lieutenant governor candidates Aruna Miller, a Democrat, and Gordana Schifanelli, a Republican, are both immigrants. Both are mothers — Miller, 57, has three daughters and Schifanelli, 51, has three sons — and both would be the first immigrant to hold the office.
But their similarities end there. The American Dream energized Miller, filling her with optimism. Schifanelli’s adopted nation has disappointed her at every turn, leaving her wistful for the life depicted in the stories she watched on television as a girl.
Although the lieutenant governor is elected as part of a ticket, the office’s job description is thin. The lieutenant governor serves as acting governor when needed and chairs several state commissions, but otherwise has no formal responsibilities. If possible, they’re expected to add something to the ballot — whether it’s issue expertise, political acumen, professional experience or geographic balance.
Miller and Wes Moore, the Democratic candidate for governor, have used their center-left bona fides to excite Democrats — who far outnumber Republicans in this blue state — giving them a massive lead in polls and fundraising.
Schifanelli and Dan Cox, the Republican candidate for governor, won the nomination by espousing views that resonated with far-right Trump supporters. Cox beat a moderate protege of Gov. Larry Hogan (R) with the help of Schifanelli, who had drawn attention after a high-profile dispute with the former superintendent of her child’s rural school district.
Miller, a civil engineer, has legislative experience that Moore lacks. She served eight years as a state delegate, losing the 2018 primary for a congressional seat to David Trone. She says Moore wants her to focus on expanding public transportation in underserved communities, promoting STEM studies among girls and people of color, and mental health treatment.
“Wes Moore didn’t pick me just to be a shadow for him. He picked me to be a partner with him,” she said this month during a meeting of Democrats at Riderwood Village, a retirement community that spans Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.
Ann Klein, a former clinical social worker in the audience, asked how Miller would improve treatment of mental illness. Miller said she advocated for union workers fighting privatization of Western Maryland Hospital Center in Hagerstown, mistakenly calling it “Washington Hospital Health Center.” She repeated an often misquoted line from Martin Luther King Jr. and said she and Moore would gather experts to figure out solutions.
Klein said afterward: “It was vague. It’s like she was saying she doesn’t know what to do.”
A far-right following
Schifanelli, a first-time candidate, was born in Belgrade and raised largely by her grandmother, a Holocaust survivor.
Schifanelli’s said her grandmother’s determination and kindness influenced her, as did her support. Growing up in a communist society, she still was able to watch American TV shows such as “Little House on the Prairie” and “Dynasty.”
At night she attended an English-language school opened by the British Council and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Belgrade.
In 1998, Schifanelli met the American man who would later become her husband while he was assigned to Yugoslavia as part of a NATO peacekeeping mission. The next year she left the country during a bombing attack. She says she stuffed her diplomas in her backpack “because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to prove to anyone my education, what I have in my head. Everything was in the diplomas.”
She worked as a financial adviser in the United States, had children and earned a degree from the University of Baltimore School of Law, changing careers to become an attorney. But so much in the United States seemed out of step with her values. Schifanelli was dismayed when she had to teach her dyslexic son cursive writing because his school in Queen Anne County said it was an obsolete skill. When she lamented that another son’s soccer team lost, she said the coach admonished her.
“You can’t tiptoe and be scared to say to first graders, ‘Hey, you lost the game,’” she said. “So they what, feel hurt? Good. It’s a good thing. So next time you’re going to try again and win … When they grow up and lose, they throw a fit. You have 35-year-olds who are insulted every time they don’t get their way. It’s bad for the nation. Of course, it starts in school.”
Identity politics will destroy the United States the way it destroyed Yugoslavia, she said, referring to the country’s breakup in the early 1990s that set off wars among ethnic Serbs, Croats and Muslims. She says she sees the same divisiveness in the United States.
In June 2020, as protests were erupting over the killing of George Floyd in police custody, Schifanelli took offense to a message that she and other parents received from Queen Anne County Schools Superintendent Andrea Kane.
Kane said systemic racism exists at all levels of society and that saying “Black Lives Matter” is not intended to disparage any race but to acknowledge the “disparate brutality and overt racism” experienced by Black people, including herself.
Schifanelli said she was alarmed that anti-racists and communists both use the revolutionary symbol of a clenched fist, a familiar image in her past.
“And of course my hair got in flames. My whole history of where I grew up, it just kind of hit me like rock in my face and it was like, ‘No fist!’ That’s like the communist symbol,” Schifanelli said.
She and other parents created Facebook groups to oppose Kane’s message and coronavirus protocols, inflaming culture wars in the conservative county. Her husband and a like-minded candidate ran for school board and won — Schifanelli managed their campaigns — and Kane left the county.
Mileah Kromer, director of the Sarah T. Hughes Center for Politics at Goucher College, said the Queen Anne’s County situation probably would be more problematic for the candidates if the race were closer.
“I don’t know how much it’s top of mind to a lot of voters,” she said. “Both Dan Cox’s record and her record haven’t been that scrutinized because they have been so behind in the polls.”
The Black Lives Matter dispute gained Schifanelli a national following on the far right. She has since spoken out on everything from critical race theory, which is not taught in the state’s K-12 schools, to standing for the national anthem. She says she doesn’t know if Donald Trump won the 2020 election and that “There is no LGBTQ kid in kindergarten or school. They are children. They don’t need to be bothered, ‘Are you this or are you that?’”
When Cox asked her to be his running mate, Schifanelli resisted at first — “I said, ‘No, I’m not working for the government. I hate the government,’” she said — but he explained she would be working for the people.
At a meeting in Rockville, Md., last month of the group United Against Racism in Education, she joked to the supporters that her campaign started like her life in the United States, “with no money,” and said she’s running to protect her children’s future.
“We are going to stop communism spreading through our great nation and through the state of Maryland,” Schifanelli said to applause. “We are going to have to fight hard for our children because no one else will.”
‘So much gratitude’
Miller’s family came to the United States soon after the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which lifted racial quotas and ushered in programs that allowed her father to work in the United States. Raised by her grandmother in India, she was the last to arrive, at age 7.
“I was a stranger in a strange world,” she said.
At school in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Miller was the only Indian girl and “didn’t know a word of English.” When she got ill from drinking cold milk for the first time, a classmate came to her front door with a stack of get-well paintings made by the other students. The simple gesture made her feel like she belonged and took her pain away “instantly,” she said.
“It was the educator in the classroom who taught every one of those students the importance of empathy for others. I believe that is the most important quality of a human being, especially when you get the great privilege of leading,” she said.
That lesson has run like a thread throughout her life, leading to her attending protests in D.C. and Germantownover police brutality. Social injustices, such as racism and health-care disparities in the wake of the pandemic, underscore the need for the government to step up, Miller says.
She was dismayed when Republicans took aim at critical race theory, a term that has become a catchall for any examination of systemic racism in education.
“There have been communities who have suffered for generations because of policies that have held them down, from our African American communities, Native Americans, the Chinese, the Japanese, Hispanics, LGBTQ … You can love your country, you can love your state and you can still criticize it.”
Although Miller’s father never became a citizen, he loved John F. Kennedy and deeply believed in Democratic values, she said. But he suffered from bipolar disorder, which cost him his job, friends and dignity. “It all came crashing down,” just as she was getting ready to go to college, Miller said. A Pell Grant helped her pay for her bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri-Rolla.
“I have so much gratitude to this country, and that’s why I want to give back as a public servant,” she said.
A governing partner
The Maryland legislature abolished the role of lieutenant governor in 1867 and didn’t bring it back until more than a century later, when Gov. Spiro Agnew became Richard M. Nixon’s running mate, leaving the state in the lurch.
Current Gov. Larry Hogan (R) trusted Lt. Gov. Boyd K. Rutherford to take charge when he was battling cancer or needed someone to cover for him on the powerful Board of Public Works. Rutherford has also used his platform to lead an opioid task force, visit all 75 state parks and coordinate private investment in depressed communities.
Although lieutenant governor often is seen as a stepping stone to higher office, in Maryland only one became governor and none has been elected to the top job, said John T. Willis, executive in residence at the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore.
But the state’s lieutenant governors often move on to high-profile roles. Michael Steele chaired the state GOP and the Republican National Committee. J. Joseph Curran Jr. ran for Maryland attorney general in 1986 and held the job for a record 20 years.
Most recently, former lieutenant governor Anthony Brown went on to win three terms in Congress after Larry Hogan defeated him in the 2014 governor’s race. Brown is now the favorite for state attorney general.
“The lieutenant governor role, if done correctly,” Kromer of Goucher College said, “can really be a partner in governance.” | 2022-10-27T11:02:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miller and Schifanelli vie for Maryland lieutenant governor - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/27/maryland-election-miller-schifanelli-lieutenant-governor/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/27/maryland-election-miller-schifanelli-lieutenant-governor/ |
Karen Weaver teaches a course about college sports at the University of Pennsylvania. (Mark Makela/For The Washington Post)
PHILADELPHIA — “I’m having trouble understanding,” Rich Michal said. “Are women really doing better?”
Michal, a senior vice president at the Purdue Research Foundation, was sitting in a classroom on the University of Pennsylvania campus on a recent Saturday morning, surrounded by more than a dozen other administrators from across academia.
He was looking at a slide, blown up on a screen in front of the class, that showed endorsements for athletes since the NCAA last year began allowing them to earn money outside of their scholarships.
The data, professor Karen Weaver explained, showed that women were receiving more deals than men (though male athletes receive more total money). She added, “That’s why we’re here — to help you all understand how things are changing.”
The class is part of a doctoral program in higher education management that caters to midcareer administrators looking to advance, with many hoping to be university presidents one day. They fly in on weekends to study education policy and budgeting.
This weekend, the class had a two-day seminar on something a little different: sports.
For the two-day class, Weaver starts with the basics, including the role of the NCAA and the different divisions in college sports, because she is often dealing with people who haven’t followed sports.
But the fact that her curriculum exists, Weaver said, is a testament to athletics’ growing influence on campuses. Winning teams mean notoriety; scandals can bring down presidents; boosters are an increasingly powerful constituency; football coaches are collecting millions not to coach. Weaver covers all of that, but she also wants to give her students a nuts-and-bolts primer on NIL rules, Title IX compliance and the Big Ten’s lavish new media rights deal.
“There is a recognition that you can’t become a college president without really trying to wrap your head around athletics,” Weaver said in an interview after the class. “And it’s especially important if you haven’t followed sports.”
Added Michal: “Will the NCAA survive in its current form or have to evolve if the Big Ten gets bigger and there’s even more money? It’s all fascinating and really important for everybody in the class to know. Karen helps make us aware.”
At one point during the class, Weaver raised the issue of the new media rights deal signed by the Big Ten, which is worth around $1 billion per year. She asked the students what they would do with the money if they were Big Ten presidents. “Please don’t spend it all on the football coach,” she joked.
The answers offered a cross-section of views on the purpose and direction of college sports.
Kristina Alimard, chief operating officer for the University of Virginia’s Investment Management Company, raised her hand and offered: “As the resident capitalist in the room, the only people who want to go to XYZ school for the women’s swim team are female swimmers. Whereas tons of kids are like, ‘I want to go to XYZ school because of the football games and basketball games.’ I would spend as much money as I needed to maintain dominance in whatever sport is driving enrollment at my school. ”
Rebecca Sale, senior director of education in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, said: “I would throw money into women’s soccer. I think you could attract people to women’s soccer. If you could pay for a football stadium, you could invest in something else. Do we try to create equity?”
“Is there anything, outside of moral and ethical issues, that says you have to spend that money on female sports, or can they take it all and spend it on whatever they want? ” asked Tim Folan, a senior associate athletic director at Penn.
They could, Weaver answered, spend it on whatever they want.
Asked later where she thought college sports was headed, Weaver said she worried about college basketball because football is the main driver of revenue. The College Football Playoff operates outside the NCAA’s jurisdiction, she noted, and mentioned $13 million salaries for coaches, which prompted one Division III administrator in the class to say: “How are [the players] still student-athletes? How are we even having this conversation in the context of higher education?” (The administrator was not authorized by her university to speak publicly.)
Weaver, 64, played college field hockey and then coached for several years before landing a job as an associate athletic director at Minnesota. She was then athletic director at Penn State Abington, a Division III school. She graduated from the Penn program in 2009 and wrote her dissertation on the launch of the Big Ten Network.
“I was fascinated because I was like: ‘These college presidents don’t know anything about media. What are they doing?’ When I was writing and interviewing them, they weren’t so sure how successful it was going to be, but, oh my gosh, it did change everything.” A few years later, she pitched adding sports to the Penn program and started teaching it in 2012. (There are other similar degree programs, but Weaver believes Penn’s is the only one that offers a sports component.)
Some advocates for reforming college sports preach about reducing the money involved or preserving various ideals of the student-athlete. Weaver’s approach is less to editorialize about the direction of college sports than to accept its reality. Her course is less philosophical and more practical.
There are some people in academia — often the non-sports fans, Weaver said — who tend to stay quiet when sports come up on their campuses. But the goal of her class is to make those people feel comfortable enough to start participating in those conversations.
As she told her students: “Every single leadership team, because of how fast this environment is changing, needs to have this conversation: ‘Where do we fit in this transformative era?’ I’m hopeful some of you feel like you can go back to your campuses and say, ‘Let’s talk about this; let’s think about this.’ ” | 2022-10-27T11:07:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inside a Penn graduate class in the business of college sports - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/penn-college-sports-class/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/penn-college-sports-class/ |
Our analysts expect the Ravens to start strong and Lamar Jackson to throw short
Can Lamar Jackson and the Ravens continue the Buccaneers' misery? (Washington Post illustration/AP Photo/Terrance Williams)
This can’t be what Tom Brady envisioned when he decided to postpone his retirement and come back for one more season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The season has featured back-to-back losses to potential playoff teams in the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs, which is understandable. It also has featured another set of back-to-back losses to teams in transition, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Carolina Panthers, who were featuring backups at key positions such as quarterback and running back. Now the 3-4 Bucs are 1½-point home underdogs Thursday night against the 4-3 Baltimore Ravens after opening as three-point favorites a few weeks ago.
The Buccaneers have struggled in part because they have gotten off to slow starts, posting zero first-quarter touchdowns in seven games and only 15 total points. They’re averaging 5.3 yards per play in the first quarter, which actually is slightly better than their overall average of 5.1, but they have struggled to do much of anything when they get remotely close to the goal line. In seven first quarters, the Buccaneers have run all of seven plays inside their opponents’ 20-yard line and have not advanced past the 15. The Ravens’ late-game collapses are well-documented, but they’re averaging 5.3 points in the first quarter (which ranks ninth in the NFL) and have allowed only 1.9, which is tied for the lowest in the league with the same Panthers team that kept the Bucs off the scoreboard in the first quarter of Sunday’s win. | 2022-10-27T11:07:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ravens-Buccaneers picks and best bets for Thursday night football - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/ravens-buccaneers-picks-thursday-night-football-odds/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/ravens-buccaneers-picks-thursday-night-football-odds/ |
Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman and Republican nominee Mehmet Oz shake hands before their debate Tuesday In Harrisburg, Pa. (Greg Nash/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
This has been a big week for the midterm elections, as debates among Senate and gubernatorial candidates were held in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Colorado. There has been plenty of discussion about which candidates won, who had the worst “gaffe,” what will show up in campaign ads and whether it will all affect the election outcome.
Which is exactly why candidate debates as they’re practiced are utterly terrible, both for voters and for democracy.
The best you can say about them is that when most voters see the candidates in only 30-second TV ads or one-minute online videos, debates offer the most extended look we get at them. But everything about the debates’ format — which is almost identical in every race, as though it has been handed down on stone tablets — makes them worse.
At the most fundamental level, debates are terrible because it’s now taken for granted that they should be seen as a performance, meaning we judge the candidates as though they were figure skaters at the Olympics. Oops, Mehmet Oz bobbled the landing on that triple salchow, that’s a major deduction! Why would we think this helps us understand who would do a better job in office?
It doesn’t, because debates are unlike anything officeholders will do in their job, until two or four years from now when they run for reelection and debate again. They might spend plenty of time talking about the policies they undertake, but they don’t face off against opponents in high-stakes, rule-bound media events.
Let’s think about those rules. Why is it that in the vast majority of debates, candidates have to stand at lecterns, rather than sitting down? Are we testing their ability to stand for long periods? Why the rapid back-and-forth, with one-minute responses and 15-second rebuttals? Why aren’t candidates allowed to bring notes? Is there some moment when a governor will have to make vital decisions about the future of her state, but will be forbidden from checking her facts? Of course not.
For some reason, we decided that the ability to speak fluidly without notes is a key indication of one’s fitness for office. But it isn’t. It does, however, increase the likelihood of a “gaffe,” in which a candidate says something that comes out wrong in some shocking way, and which she would never say again given the opportunity to correct herself.
Gaffes don’t help voters understand their choices any better. In almost every case, they merely provide a vivid illustration of whatever people already believed about the candidate who made the mistake.
Which brings us to perhaps the most fundamental problem with debates: They’re constructed around the needs and preferences of the already shallow way campaigns are conducted.
Few voters watch the debates. Instead, they see snippets that get replayed on the news or in ads. Which means that the debate gets reprocessed through the news media, with all their pathologies.
If you were a candidate with a compelling argument about health-care reform that takes three or four minutes to lay out, but you knew that all people would ever see of it is an eight-second clip, what would you do? You would distill it to a single zippy sentence, even if that sentence couldn’t begin to explain your full argument.
What if you further knew that clips that get played on the news almost always involve conflict, the nastier the better? You would forget about your compelling argument and come up with a clever insult to toss at your opponent. Which is exactly what they do.
Because a debate is an event — an actual thing that happens, as opposed to a proposal to solve some policy problem — we in the news media give debates lots of coverage. We try to find something new and exciting about them, to make all that coverage worthwhile. And in our relentless need to cover politics like sports, we focus on who “won” a debate as though it were a vital question that must be answered.
The only appropriate response is, “Who cares?” What could it possibly matter who “won,” if the point is supposed to be to learn more about the candidates so voters can decide between them? If you encountered someone who said, “I didn’t see any of the debate or any clips from it, but I heard Oz won it, so I’m voting for him,” you would think that voter was a fool. And you would be right.
So what would better debates look like? Some simple changes would help. Let the candidates sit down, and let them bring notes; whether a candidate remembers all eight points of his economic plan at a moment of stress is less important than whether the plan is a good one. Focus on a single issue area — economics, public safety, domestic programs, climate change — so we can explore ideas in depth rather than skating over dozens of areas without much substance.
And for the journalists who participate: Forget about surprising the candidates, or encouraging them to attack each other, or asking why one of them is struggling in the polls, or creating dramatic moments.
Above all, we should stop caring whether a debate will affect a race’s outcome. If we can wrap our heads around that, political debates might actually become worthwhile. | 2022-10-27T11:16:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why candidate debates are so awful — and how to fix them - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/27/how-to-fix-political-candidate-debates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/27/how-to-fix-political-candidate-debates/ |
What L.A.’s mayor’s race will tell us about the homelessness and crime crises
Democratic mayoral candidate Rick Caruso in East Los Angeles on Monday. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES — “I’m curious to find out — first of all, who the hell did it?” mayoral candidate Rick Caruso told me as I hitch a ride with him from a Saturday campaign event in central Los Angeles to one in the southern neighborhood of San Pedro.
He’s referring, of course, to the surreptitious recording of three Latino members of the L.A. City Council and a labor group president that has upended the city’s politics. In a 2021 meeting about the City Council’s redistricting, the leaders complained, often in crude terms, that Latinos had too little political power in the city, and that Blacks had too much.
The leak, which included a racist remark about the Black son of another council member, forced the resignation of the council’s president, Nury Martinez, and thrust the city’s ethnic tensions onto the national stage. Those tensions are all the more salient because L.A.’s political leadership tends to be uniformly progressive. But the mayor’s race is offering Angelenos a political alternative.
Caruso, a billionaire real estate developer and self-described centrist, is running against Karen Bass, the progressive congresswoman and former speaker of the California Assembly who was on Joe Biden’s shortlist to be vice president. Though Bass is the betting markets’ favorite, the race has tightened. A recent Southern California News Group poll showed a virtual tie, with Caruso leading 40 to 37 percent. He has already spent at least $62 million of his own money on the campaign.
Caruso said he’s been in the room at the L.A. County Federation of Labor building where the now-infamous conversation was apparently recorded, to meet with the group’s president, Ron Herrera (who has also resigned). He assumes the room was bugged and wonders for how long. “It’s so out of a movie set,” he told me. “I don’t know if I’ve been recorded, too.”
That prospect doesn’t seem to worry him, and he’s using the leaked recordings to press his case. “I have to admit, I feel a little bit vindicated,” Caruso told the audience in San Pedro, a neighborhood that includes the Port of Los Angeles and is one of the five of 15 districts where he outperformed Bass in the election’s first round in June.
Alleged corruption in City Hall (three former members of the council have been indicted since 2020) has been a Caruso theme since the start of the campaign. The leaked recording, he continued, showed politicians “dividing up this city like it was their personal piece of property,” illustrating the need for leadership outside the ranks of “entrenched career politicians,” including Bass.
But the scandal also complicates Caruso’s campaign strategy. He has pinned his hopes on high turnout among Latinos, who make up nearly 49 percent of the city — so much so that he awkwardly claimed at the last debate that his Italian background made him “Latin.” How will a scandal engulfing the city’s Latino leadership affect the electorate’s demographic balance?
Some Angelenos might respond to the racist remarks caught on the recording by rallying around Bass, who would be the city’s second Black mayor. Her base, the Berkeley poll suggested, is concentrated among both Black and White Angelenos, who make up 8.8 and 28.5 percent of the city, respectively. But the scandal could also widen fissures in the “Black-brown” coalition that has sustained progressive politics in L.A. — Martinez, after all, had endorsed Bass (though the Bass campaign website has removed her name).
Nilza Serrano — president of Avance, a Latino Democratic club that has endorsed Caruso — told me “that whole controversy with the recording is being overplayed, and it’s going to upset Latinos.” She added, “I think that the president should have never gotten involved,” referring to the Biden White House’s call for the city councilors on the recording to resign. Whether fallout from the scandal translates into apathy or greater turnout among Latinos could determine the outcome of a close election.
Ethnic politics is an old story in Los Angeles, as in all great American cities. What’s notable about this campaign is actually the relatively minor role identity is playing compared to policy substance. Dan Schnur, who teaches campaign strategy at Berkeley, told me that “the last competitive mayoral campaign” in L.A., in 2013, “was a very status quo election.” Ideological differences between the candidates were fairly muted.
Not so this year. Two issues — homelessness and crime — “both exploded on the city’s consciousness over the last decade,” Schnur said. Caruso’s campaign reflects this. His town halls project a grim and precarious assessment of life in the City of Angels. For example, Caruso said in San Pedro that he recently visited L.A. Fire Station 11, where 90 percent of the calls “are the homeless situation and overdosing, or the lighting of fires. They put out 20 doses of Narcan” — an anti-opioid-overdose drug — “a shift, and they run out.” He continued: “It’s really insane what’s happened. We’ve got the free sale of drugs on the streets now.”
On the way to San Pedro, Caruso told me that he had recently met in New York with Mayor Eric Adams to “pick his brain from his viewpoint on homelessness, in particular” because “they house 96 percent of the homeless.” Adams, Caruso said, had recently been to L.A. and “couldn’t believe how bad” the city’s homelessness problem is.
Adams’ office didn’t respond to a request for comment, but the extent of the homeless encampments in L.A. — not just in the impoverished Skid Row neighborhood, but under overpasses and on embankments alongside freeways — will surprise any visitor from the East Coast. About 42,000 Angelenos are homeless.
City leadership agrees it’s a crisis. The main divide is over the extent to which it is a political choice. I suggested to Caruso that New York might be more successful because the cold winters prompt the homeless to seek housing. “I don’t know if it’s the cold,” Caruso said. “I think it’s the commitment.”
Both Bass and Caruso have elaborate, overlapping plans on their websites for how to shepherd the homeless into housing or treatment. But while Caruso threatens to enforce the city’s anti-camping ordinances, Bass warns against a punitive approach. She said at the final candidates’ debate, “we can’t warehouse them, we can’t round them up.”
Caruso is likely overstating his capacity to “end” homelessness in L.A. through sheer executive competence. Mental illness and drug addiction are deeply rooted scourges. But the city can deter public camping by enforcing rules against it.
A recent article in the Nation highlighted changing attitudes on the political left of center: “Ceding central cities to homeless encampments,” it said, “oughtn’t to have become the default in cities up and down the West Coast.” You don’t need to be a housing wonk to recognize that that decision, at least, can be reversed.
Street violence also looms large. Caruso told the San Pedro audience that his wife described an incident to him in which “a lady was walking down the street and [was] stabbed in the head with scissors.” (News reports confirm the North Hollywood incident, and say the woman is recovering.) “We all need to say we’ve had enough of this,” he told the audience.
Earlier in the afternoon, Caruso, who was president of the city’s police commission in the 2000s, criticized the current mayor for kneeling at an anti-police protest in June 2020. “To have Eric Garcetti bend a knee — literally went down on his knees — that’s not leadership,” he told me.
Both candidates call for more police officers on the street, but Bass wants 250 while Caruso seeks 1,500. In San Pedro, he made the case for a prevention model of policing: “If they see an officer walking down the street,” he said, “the bad people go somewhere else.”
Given his focus on public order, it’s not surprising that Caruso’s events attract right-of-center Angelenos. One woman at the central L.A. town hall said she participated in the 2021 recall campaign against Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. An elementary-school-aged child raised his hand to read a monologue, clearly written by a parent, inviting Caruso to denounce critical race theory in public schools (he demurred).
Caruso made clear to the audience that he “never supported Donald Trump” and “didn’t think he was the right person to be president.” But wise to the range of voters he will need to defeat Bass, he added: “Some of you may think he was, and that’s fine — that was just my opinion.”
Both Caruso and Bass are Democrats, but Caruso’s campaign directly challenges core tenets of progressive urban governance. Before American politics was hyper-nationalized, Caruso would likely have run in liberal California as a Republican. In fact, before American politics was hyper-nationalized, Caruso was a Republican.
He publicly became an independent in 2012, and it’s a testament to the toxicity of the GOP brand in California — especially after the Trump presidency — that he felt compelled to announce this year, before running for mayor, that he changed his registration to Democratic. Most Democratic elected officials have endorsed Bass — though Newsom, notably, has stayed on the sidelines.
The great California historian Kevin Starr wrote that “since its emergence in the early 20th century, Los Angeles had been a city in which the oligarchy exerted decisive influence.” A Caruso victory would support that thesis. The progressive apparatus is so dominant in California that the few political figures who can credibly challenge it need an independent source of wealth and notoriety — think of centimillionaire former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, billionaire former insurance commissioner Steve Poizner and billionaire former gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. Caruso’s Forbes-estimated net worth is $5.3 billion.
I can’t help but think of Trump when Caruso tells voters that his ability to self-fund his campaign means he’s not beholden “to anybody.” But if Caruso’s real estate empire has helped him bypass traditional party politics, it has also helped prepare him for the campaign trail. Campaigning “is not very different from what I’ve done my whole life in getting communities to support a project we’re building,” Caruso tells me. “Our business model is, we’re only going to build in areas with high barriers to entry.”
His flagship property is the Grove — an immaculate shopping center in the city’s Fairfax neighborhood featuring an Apple store, a Nordstrom and a trolley ride. To anyone walking around the Grove, Caruso’s portrait of L.A.’s social and commercial decline might sound like it depicts an entirely different city — a reminder that problems of homelessness, crime and decaying public spaces are less visible to many well-to-do Angelenos.
More than the ethnic politics that absorb the national press, this might be L.A.’s most important divide. Caruso has his share of wealthy supporters attracted to his support for business and opposition to new taxes, while Bass is supported by affluent cultural liberals. The real competition will be among poor and working-class voters across the racial spectrum who will decide whether the extent of homelessness and crime merits a fundamental change in the city’s trajectory.
“The level of frustration,” Caruso told me, “is at a level — I’ve never seen it before, and I’ve been in this city all my life.” Just how frustrated Angelenos are, we will find out in a matter of weeks. Caruso told supporters in central L.A. that he takes a “Jeffersonian” approach to public service: “Go serve your country, go serve your city, go serve your state. And then go home.”
That classical view of politics is not widespread in Western democracies, though it is still available to the rich. The progressive machine’s grip on the reins of power in L.A. should never be underestimated — but nor should the appeal, in a time of professional political failure, of the oligarchic alternative. | 2022-10-27T11:16:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | L.A. mayor's race issues include homelessness and crime - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/27/los-angeles-mayor-race-homeless-crime/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/27/los-angeles-mayor-race-homeless-crime/ |
Samsung appoints former convict and heir Lee Jae-yong as chairman
In this file photo, Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman, Jay Y. Lee, speaks during a news conference at the company's office building in Seoul on May 6, 2020. (Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)
South Korean giant Samsung Electronics appointed former convict and third-generation heir Lee Jae-yong as its executive chairman on Thursday.
The move cements Lee’s rehabilitation within the family-run company, after he was jailed in 2017 for bribing South Korea’s former president, Park Geun-hye. The high-profile corruption scandal ignited national protests and led to Park being impeached and removed from office.
Lee, who goes by Jay Y. Lee in the West, received a presidential pardon a few months ago, clearing the five-year employment ban that had been a part of his sentence and paving the way for him to formally resume control of the conglomerate.
The Samsung board of directors said in a brief statement that they had “approved the appointment of Jay Y. Lee as Executive Chairman of the company.” The board cited the “current uncertain global business environment and the pressing need for stronger accountability and business stability,” in coming to its decision, the statement added.
South Korean president pardons Samsung heir for bribing predecessor
Lee, 54, had already been seen as de facto leader of Samsung after his father and former chairman Lee Kun-hee was taken ill and later died in 2020. Lee Kun-hee had also been separately convicted of bribery and tax evasion, and then pardoned.
Samsung, which means “three stars” in Korean, gained global recognition in the 1970s as it began mass producing home appliances. It swiftly became a consumer powerhouse boasting dozens of affiliates from electronics to hotels and insurance among others. Samsung made about 76 trillion South Korean won ($54 billion) in the third quarter of 2022 and has a market capitalization of almost $300 billion. It is one of a handful of family-controlled conglomerates known as chaebol, which dominate economic life in South Korea — others include LG and Hyundai Motor Co.
Lee had been convicted in 2017 of bribery, embezzlement, illegally moving assets overseas, concealing criminal proceeds and perjury, after being found guilty of bribing South Korea’s former president Park Geun-hye and her confidante to win favor for a merger deal. He was given five years in prison but was paroled after serving 18 months of his sentence.
The presidential pardon Lee received in August from President Yoon Suk-yeol reflects Samsung’s size and influence as well as the political popularity of extending forgiveness in the name of economic necessity. Polling shortly after his pardon showed overwhelming public support for the decision — with more than three-quarters of the South Korean public backing it.
Lee takes the helm of the multibillion dollar company as it weathers a global economic downturn. The company, which makes smartphones and semiconductor computer chips, will feel the pinch of less consumer spending and soaring inflation along with the ongoing Ukraine war, which has stifled international trade.
On the same day as announcing Lee’s promotion, the company issued its third quarter financial results noting a “challenging business environment.” It reported its operating profit had declined 23 percent from the previous quarter to 10.85 trillion Korean won ($7.7 billion) for the July-September quarter. It also noted a “decline” in memory chip business earnings and noted demand for consumer products “remained weak.”
Despite this, the company said its cellphone business was seeing “record revenue” and it expects overall “annual revenue to surpass the historical high set in 2021,” although “geopolitical uncertainties” were likely to continue to weigh in 2023, it added.
Lee said the company was at a “pivotal moment” that required swift and bold action, during a meeting with Samsung’s top executives earlier this week, the Associated Press reported.
Hamza Shaban and Aaron Gregg contributed to this report. | 2022-10-27T11:33:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Samsung appoints convicted heir Lee Jae-yong as executive chairman - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/27/samsung-lee-jae-yong-chairman/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/27/samsung-lee-jae-yong-chairman/ |
Despite years working with executives, I’m treated as support staff
Is it because I’m the only gay person in the office? Could a career coach help?
Reader: I have been at my job for many years and am on my fourth progressive job title. The problem is that for as long as I have been here, I have held executive-level responsibilities while being treated as an underling. I am expected to present at events alongside executives and to offer guidance based on my experience, but I have been sidelined from “team building” and put on a need-to-know basis about many things.
I've heard some words of encouragement, but never any commitment to changing my situation. Every year I’m told I am “indispensable” and that there are opportunities for growth, but positions above me are filled from the outside. I have been here long enough to know that going to human resources would only result in passive-aggressive maltreatment.
I’m often relegated to being a personal assistant. We have support staff available, but the executives regularly email me documents to print and deliver, have me schedule meetings, and interrupt my work to have me plug and unplug electronic equipment for them.
A part of me feels I am being kept in this servile position because of my sexuality, as I am the only gay person in the office. I am regarded as a high-functioning behind-the-scenes “ace assistant,” something that I realize has been done to women since they entered the white-collar workforce.
I like my job. I like most of the people. I don’t want to leave. I’ve created such a unique role for myself that I have difficulty determining what other positions I am qualified for. I have had trouble garnering responses to job applications or scoring interviews.
Would career coaching be beneficial? I’ve always been under the impression it’s not a worthwhile investment, but it may be my best option for improving my situation. If you think this would be worthwhile, how can I find someone effective?
Work Advice: I’m being offered a promotion, but I’m happy where I am
Karla: You definitely sound pigeonholed into a support position. I don’t know for sure whether it’s because you’re gay, but I do know that women, people of color and other marginalized workers frequently struggle to move beyond roles they’ve outgrown when they stay at the same company for a long time — especially if they don’t resemble the majority of faces in the C suite.
I’m sure conscious or unconscious bias plays some part in keeping management from envisioning them in higher-level roles. Also, odd as it sounds, management may worry it will be harder to replace and train reliable, competent support staff than it will be to bring in new executives.
And it’s possible that you are undermining your own growth in ways you don’t realize — that even though you have the qualifications for a higher position, and have asked about advancing, you’re unconsciously signaling that you’re content deferring to others. When you grant requests instead of deflecting them onto the appropriate staff, your responsiveness may seem so effortless that others don’t realize they’re imposing. Then again, declining those requests could be perceived as “not being a team player.” It’s a Catch-22.
I’ve been promoted, but my old boss seems to think I still work for him
No matter how many titles you hold, this employer is unlikely to see you in the role you envision for yourself. Changing your employer will be the fastest way to change your status.
But that change doesn’t need to happen right away, especially if you’re not yet practiced in presenting yourself as the candidate for the roles you want. That’s exactly what a career coach can help with: refining your résumé to emphasize your leadership readiness rather than your support skills, as well as projecting more executive presence in your demeanor and interview responses.
In fact, given how long you’ve been struggling with these challenges, you might even go beyond career coaching to a career counselor: someone with therapy training who can help you delve into your feelings and frustrations to help you identify and fully inhabit the professional persona you want others to see.
There is no single source for finding qualified career coaches or counselors who fit your needs. Targeted searches on LinkedIn or online discussion groups relevant to your field may turn up some coaching recommendations; your company’s Employee Assistance Program or your health insurance provider may be able to point you to career-focused counselors. Word-of-mouth referrals from friends and contacts outside your workplace can lead you to professionals who are especially attuned to your personal interests and challenges.
From there, it’s like engaging any service provider. Make some phone calls and have an initial consultation with a few providers to see if they feel like a good fit for you and your budget. Ask for references from current or past clients. Beware of too-good-to-be-true guarantees, especially ones that demand a steep upfront investment or that promise a one-size-fits-all solution.
I understand your reluctance to throw money at services you’re not sure you need. But when you’re stuck in a loop and nothing you’ve tried has worked, that is exactly the time to try something new. | 2022-10-27T11:33:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tired of being treated as support staff while doing executive-level work - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/27/work-advice-executive-respect/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/27/work-advice-executive-respect/ |
By Sarah Kaplan
Victoria Okonkwo enters a canoe on a flooded street close to the bank of Benue River in Makurdi, Nigeria, in September. (Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)
Despite a high-profile promise to boost ambitions at last year’s U.N. climate summit, nations have shaved just 1 percent off their projected greenhouse gas emissions for 2030, a new United Nations report found — leaving Earth on track to blow past a safe temperature threshold by almost a full degree.
Thursday’s report on the emissions gap — the gulf between national plans to reduce carbon pollution and the actual cuts needed to avert catastrophic warming — found that countries’ strongest climate pledges put the Earth on a path to warm by a dangerous 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. And few nations have implemented the policies needed to meet even these lackluster targets, the report said.
In the face of the war in Ukraine, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and widespread economic upheaval, the emissions gap report shows, nations have made little progress toward meeting the Glasgow climate summit goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.
Extreme climate change has arrived in America
“The world has got to learn that crises will continue, and we can’t afford to lose our attention,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. environment program, which oversees the report.
Unless people take dramatic action to transform economies and eliminate fossil fuels, Andersen warned, humanity faces a hellish future that will make today’s climate disasters seem mild by comparison.
The new emissions gap analysis — the 13th study of its kind from the United Nations — comes on a wave of new findings about the world’s climate failures. On Wednesday, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) reported that only a small minority of countries had revised their climate pledges since the end of the Glasgow conference, leaving the world “nowhere near” the emissions cuts needed to avoid climate catastrophe.
Another study released Wednesday by the World Meteorological Organization found that methane emissions are rising faster than ever before, raising questions about humanity’s ability to limit the greenhouse gas that is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the near term.
Climate pledges are improving, but still leave the world on a disastrous path
In its annual “Countdown” report on the health effects of climate change, the prominent medical journal the Lancet warned that “overreliance on fossil fuels could lock in a fatally warmer future.” Even as rising temperatures put billions of people at risk from unbearable heat, violent disasters and surging infectious disease, the report said that many governments spend more of their national budgets on fossil fuel subsidies than on public health measures.
Meanwhile, a new report by seven climate nonprofits looked at 40 indicators of climate progress and showed that not a single one is on track for the world to meet its 2030 targets. Public financial support for clean energy and other climate projects is one-tenth of what it needs to be, the “State of Climate Action” report found. Efforts to phase out coal need to happen six times faster. Fossil gas is on track to become an even greater source of electricity by the end of the decade, even as scientists say its role has to shrink.
Yet the emissions gap report shows it’s still physically possible — if politically challenging — for people to achieve the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal, Andersen said.
There are some glimmerings of progress. In its authoritative World Energy Outlook released Thursday, the International Energy Agency said investments in clean energy this year hit $1.3 trillion — edging out fossil fuels, which received about $1 trillion.
“Even with current policies, by 2030 clean energy investments will reach $2 trillion,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol. “This is real money being put on the table, rather than strategies.”
“Now is the time to step up,” Andersen said, referring to political leaders. “It is in our distinct interest to handle this now” — before it becomes impossible to handle.
The emissions gap report represents the most comprehensive annual assessment of the world’s warming trajectory, summarizing estimates from the United Nations as well as independent sources to analyze how much temperatures will increase under four distinct emissions scenarios.
Global greenhouse gas pollution is still on the rise, the report found. Pending a final assessment of how much carbon was released and absorbed by natural ecosystems, it seems likely that 2021 set a record high for carbon emissions — reversing a temporary decline linked to economic shutdowns during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
To avoid exceeding the 1.5 degrees Celsius target, humanity can afford to release roughly 360 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere between now and the end of time (or, at least, the end of our climate models). But if current policies don’t change, scientists said, the world will blow through that budget in about a decade.
At today’s rate of emissions, global average temperatures have a better-than-even chance of rising 2.8 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, the report found.
Postcards from Earth's climate futures
This represents only a slight improvement over last year’s outlook, largely due to the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress this summer. The $370 billion investment in renewable energy and other climate-friendly technologies is expected to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by about 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by the end of the decade.
Yet that reduction still falls short of the U.S. promise to limit its 2030 carbon output to about half of 2005 levels — a cut of more than 2 billion metric tons. And it is an order of magnitude smaller than the global 45 percent reduction from current levels required to stave off the worst effects of climate change, said Joeri Rogelj, a lead author of the report.
“We are falling terribly short of what we should be doing,” added Rogelj, a climate scientist at Imperial College London.
Next, the scientists looked at countries’ carbon-cutting pledges under the Paris climate agreement, known in United Nations jargon as “Nationally Determined Contributions,” or NDCs.
The outcome of the Glasgow conference included a promise that all nations would revisit their NDCs and adopt stronger commitments by the end of this year. But according to the UNFCCC, only 24 countries have submitted new pledges as the end-of-year deadline approaches — and most of these aren’t meaningfully different from countries’ previous plans.
If nations follow through with their “unconditional” NDCs — the pledges that don’t rely on financial assistance or other forms of support from the global community — they should be able to curb their 2030 emissions by about 5 percent, reducing projected warming to 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit)
And if developing countries do get the help they need to fulfill their “conditional” NDCs, emissions in 2030 will be 10 percent lower than if they stick with their current policies, allowing the world to limit warming to about 2.4 degrees Celsius, the report found.
These estimates are slightly different from the projected 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming laid out in Wednesday’s UNFCCC report — a discrepancy that Rogelj said could be explained by the fact that the emissions gap report summarizes multiple independent warming estimates while the UNFCCC study represents just one.
But both estimates fall within the acceptable range of uncertainty, Rogelj said. And neither prospective future would be tolerable for vast swaths of humanity. Already, this year’s record-setting drought in the United States, floods in Pakistan and famine in East Africa have shown the dangers of a world that is no more than 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than during the preindustrial era, he pointed out.
Humans have pushed the climate into ‘unprecedented’ territory, landmark U.N. report finds
The emissions gap report also examined the longer-term promises made by some countries to zero out carbon emissions by the middle of the century. If nations make good on these commitments, future warming levels could be as low as 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit), it found.
But unlike the NDCs, these “net zero” promises are not binding international agreements. And the gulf in ambition between nations’ modest near-term targets and their long-term aspirations raises the question of whether these far-off commitments are truly credible, Andersen said.
Shifting from these dangerous trajectories to a path toward just 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming will require nothing less than “economywide, society-wide” transformation, Rogelj said. To have a hope of getting on a safer path, the world must avoid building new fossil-fuel infrastructure that locks in continued pollution, rapidly expand renewable sources of electricity, promote energy-efficient buildings and invest in cleaner forms of transportation.
“We cannot do it just by setting low targets and tinkering here and there,” he said. “We really need to reimagine our societies.”
Steven Mufson contributed to this report. | 2022-10-27T11:34:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UN emissions report: World falls ‘pitifully short’ of meeting climate goals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/27/emissions-climate-change-temperature-rise/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/27/emissions-climate-change-temperature-rise/ |
Meet seven D.C. street artists whose works grace the city’s walls
You know their colorful murals. Now find out what inspires them.
Cita Sadeli, the independent art director, muralist, designer and illustrator known as Miss Chelove, works on “Winds of Evolution” with her assistant Julian Peterson. (Shuran Huang for The Washington Post)
The streets of D.C. have a charge to them. It’s not the rush of New York. It’s not the glow of LA. It’s a quieter buzz. A static electricity, let’s call it.
People often come here wanting to change the world. You overhear their dreams fleshed out in bars and cafes. You see them in the starry eyes of the fresh-faced intern. You sense them in the rush of downtown-bound bodies on a Tuesday morning.
Utopias and dystopias. Should-bes and could-bes. Alternate realities bumping into each other, like clouds, creating sparks. We’re a city of dreamers, even if our khakis and our cynicism disguise it.
In the city’s murals, these dreams live out loud. In rainbow-hued declarations and pencil-wielding warriors. In pink-petaled flowers and Indigenous-inspired landscapes. The District’s abundant street art is to the city what a sketch is to a painting: an attempt, an experiment, a hope, a wish. But to understand the calls from the artists on our walls — for equity and safety; for human connection and preserving memory — we have to first know their stories. Here’s a look at seven of D.C.’s most prolific and eye-catching muralists.
A new museum celebrates D.C.’s graffiti artists, past and present
Cita Sadeli
Cita Sadeli, better known as Miss Chelove, remembers vividly the hours she passed as a child waiting for her mother to finish orchestra practice at the Indonesian Embassy. The “din of Indonesian language” filled the halls, and haunting stories about the cursed Hope Diamond, which used to be housed in the same mansion, fascinated her. But what the artist recalls most fondly are the shadow puppets: hundreds of intricately patterned, meticulously carved figures known as “wayang kulit” or “shadows from the hide” that framed the stage. “Just staring at all of these puppets for so many decades, I think that really led into my work,” she says. “I’m always adding these tiny details.” A golden shadow puppet appeared in Sadeli’s temporary installation piece “Reseeded: A Forest Floor Flow” — a printed-fabric sheet that was recently hung from the facade of the National Museum of Women in the Arts — and you can see the art form’s influence more subtly in “Wings” at Goding Elementary. As a girl jumps into the air, she is caught by a billowing cloth with highly detailed patterns from around the world: Ethiopian tilet, Greek meanders, Japanese asanoha and other cultures represented by the student population. Sadeli’s family history stirred her interest in the international cultures that shape D.C. “I’m Javanese American, and half the people don’t know where Indonesia is,” says Sadeli, who grew up in Hyattsville. These days, Sadeli’s work, which often features women of color, is both an embrace of multiculturalism and a defense of it. “When I see demographics changing and folks being pushed out, I definitely feel compelled to create folks of color and weave them into pieces,” she says. It’s a way “to keep those faces present in places where they’re vanishing.” Murals can get a bad rap — for whitewashing communities and presaging gentrification — but not Sadeli’s. Two gladiator-like women of color stand seven stories high in Thomas Circle, like guardians over the offices in which too few of them are represented. In Columbia Heights, warm faces greet patients at Unity Health Care on 14th Street, where the word “welcome” is written in various languages spoken among the patient population. Sadeli uses her medium not to erase local culture, but to amplify it.
Don’t miss: “Every Day I See Something New,” one of Sadeli’s earlier murals, still stands at Kalorama Road and Champlain Street in Adams Morgan. A playful montage of symbols representing the area — from Julia’s Empanadas to the Meridian Hill Park drum circle — it’s a burst of neighborhood pride.
Mural-rich Washington is an open-air art gallery
Chris Pyrate
The first time Chris Pyrate painted his signature floral pattern, the artist was trying to break through a creative block, when an angry red ape appeared on his canvas. The dragon-riding primate wielded a sword with flowers flowing out of it. Pyrate talks about his work like it’s an artifact he’s trying to decode. Was it about frustration? Peace? Both? The next time they appeared, he was brainstorming ideas for a billboard. An astronaut was falling into a bed of blooms and reaching out for a single cherry blossom. Pyrate called the work “Missing Home From Paradise, What a Fool.” Then it hit him: “The cherry blossom, that’s D.C.” Pyrate, a District native, had been living in Miami at the time, and had recently started hearing about friends dying from gun violence. He couldn’t shake the survivor’s guilt, and the cherry blossom proved a clarion call. Pyrate returned to D.C. and started filling walls with his signature pink pattern, a tribute to those he’s lost and a love letter to his hometown. They’ve greeted Metro riders at Dupont Circle. They’ve bloomed along a parking lot by St. Elizabeths Hospital. And they’ve swallowed up a brick building on H Street NE. With Pyrate’s touch, it’s as if we can see the city daydreaming about spring. The artist aspires to give D.C. a logo, like the Miami street artist Atomik, who filled his hometown with smiley face oranges. “You see [Atomik] more than the Miami Heat logo,” Pyrate says. (Pyrate is edging in on that territory. This year, he’s designing merch for the Washington Wizards.) In Pyrate’s ideal world, everyone would have a favorite artist, not just those who have the means to collect art or who feel comfortable visiting museums. Growing up near Southern Avenue SE, he felt a disconnect from the art world in Washington. “I’m pretty sure the White House political circles, they were buying art. But it wasn’t native art,” he says. “There was no career pathway, like, ‘Oh, someone like me has done this before.’ ” He hopes to change that: “I want my pieces to show that you can be an adult and you can find work through your childhood dream.”
Don’t miss: Travelers along Florida Avenue in Truxton Circle are greeted by one of Pyrate’s murals at North Capitol Street NE. With more pink doodled flowers and letters that spell out “Washington,” as if scribbled on a piece of paper, the un-self-conscious mural reads like a note — hello or goodbye — from a friend.
Federico Frum
Federico Frum, who makes art under the name MasPaz (“more peace”), likens his art to a prayer. Gracing a tire shop in Ivy City or a convenience store in Columbia Heights, paintings of Rock Creek Park critters or Potomac River eagles are meant to bring something “sacred into a space and reconnect people with nature,” the artist says. “That’s our problem in society nowadays. People just go about thinking everything is fine and dandy, when our Earth is collapsing.” Frum’s creations have a way of not just showing the ties between humanity and the natural world, but actually making you feel them. Unlike in the real world, where we have to push ourselves to see the connections, in Frum’s intricately patterned universe, it is difficult to see difference. For the Colombian adoptee who grew up in D.C., art is a way of piecing together his own past. References to family recur in his work — a way of grappling with what he calls an elusive concept. “Art became a way of me speaking my truth that I never really understood,” he says. As a graffiti writer in the 2000s, Frum came into his own style when he grew tired of lettering and began adding flourishes inspired by traditional Mola tapestries made by Indigenous peoples in Panama and Colombia. “It didn’t look like what my friends were doing. And I felt more connected with who I was,” he says. Frum takes inspiration from nearby, too, especially Rock Creek Park — where “sometimes it feels like I am in Nicaragua or Colombia, walking by the stream,” he says. And perhaps it is this sense of interrelation that allows Frum to create art that, much like a prayer, reminds us we are linked to something greater.
Don’t miss: At the intersection of West Virginia Avenue and Central Place NE in Ivy City, “Each Blessed Step” spans a 175-foot wall, honoring seemingly disparate themes: industrial labor and the Potomac River. Look closely and you’ll see distinct shapes emerge from a pleasing tangle of white, black and gold: a bird, a worker, the Earth.
Rose Jaffe
Rose Jaffe’s playful human figures aren’t fat or skinny, tall or short. They know no race, no gender, no pant size. In a new mural on the side of a home at 1217 W St. NW, six of these colored forms know only motion. Their arms wave, their backs bend, and their bodies stretch and twist, like plants leaning toward different suns. For the lifelong Washingtonian, whose work is informed by a love of Keith Haring and the human form, the mural represents something personal. “I think there’s so much beauty in the diversity of our shapes and sizes, and I like celebrating the variety of humanity,” she says. That’s helped her look at her own body in a healthier way, too. “I have been on a journey of my own, living in this society as a woman, and I think there is never enough of celebrating our bodies in the exact way that they are.” Such celebrations can have surprisingly high stakes. In early 2021, after alt-right protests in the city, Jaffe says she discovered that a mural she painted for the National Women’s Law Center — advocating for access to birth control — was pocked with what looked like bullet holes. “That one hit a little closer to home,” she says. Angered but undeterred, she remembers doubling down, thinking: “Let’s fix it. I’d like to put more of those murals up.” Jaffe believes that art can induce a “positive, visceral reaction.” Whether it’s a burst of color on the back of the D.C. Jewish Community Center or a look at D.C. jazz history on the side of Shaw’s Right Proper Brewing Co., she says, “I want people to feel uplifted.”
Don’t miss: Jaffe is best known for her 2019 Ruth Bader Ginsburg mural near the intersection of 15th and U streets NW, where mourners flocked when the Supreme Court justice died in 2020.
A D.C. Dream Day with local artist Rose Jaffe
Aniekan Udofia
Aniekan Udofia is not one to avoid moral lessons for fear of seeming pedantic. If — as Oscar Wilde wrote — life imitates art, Udofia hopes it imitates his. Maybe you’ve seen the small army of warriors he’s been painting around the District. One stands proud over the intersection of New York Avenue and First Street NE like a ninja. Another keeps guard over Columbia Road NW on the side of Metro Wine & Spirits, fist raised. But these are no ordinary fighters. Rather than nunchaku or swords, these Black heroes are armed with pencils. Udofia, who was born in Washington and spent his adolescence in Nigeria, says the murals are a response to movie violence. “What people don’t know is how subtly these things affect the way we think,” he says. “You watch an action movie, and you really think to resolve something, you have to shoot or punch someone.” With the pencil — a symbol of creativity and knowledge — “you can break the rules of nature itself. … That power is bigger than the bullet or the bomb.” Part of Udofia’s frustration with Hollywood might come from the way he fell under its superheroes’ spell. “It targets a certain part of a child’s brain,” he says. “When I first saw Spider-Man, I can’t even explain the ecstasy.” When Udofia returned to the U.S. at 24 to pursue a career in illustration, “I thought it was going to be like the America you see in the movies,” he says with a laugh. “Like, I’m walking down the street, and oh, there’s Snoop Dogg right there. I thought it was going to be super easy.” Eventually, illustrations for hip-hop magazines led to album covers and then prolific murals. You can see his early work on the Columbia Road Safeway, where he says he “struggled” with the spray paint medium, and his accomplished Marvin Gaye mural at Seventh and South streets NW.
Don’t miss: Udofia’s masterwork is a sprawling tribute to Black historical figures on the wall outside Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street NW — a hip-hop-infused, soulful piece that all began with a pencil.
Take a walk in D.C. and find these 7 murals off the beaten path
Lisa Marie Thalhammer
Lisa Marie Thalhammer, a St. Louis native who moved to D.C. in 2004, traces her interest in art back to her all-girls high school, where she learned about female artists like Artemisia Gentileschi. Her first mural, “Boxer Girl,” channeled some of that feminist spirit: It was painted in an effort to curb violence against girls in her neighborhood. Standing three stories high on a Bloomingdale brownstone in front of a rainbow of stars — red gloves raised, feet in a fighting stance — “Boxer Girl” has a don’t-mess-with-me look on her face, like some sort of urban scarecrow. Many neighbors did not approve. For months, they called meetings to have the “hideous” mural removed. To Thalhammer, it was clear: They couldn’t handle a strong woman. “I think it’s just not common to see a large, empowered woman on the street, even in graffiti culture,” she says, unbothered. For Thalhammer’s purposes, the mural was a success. She says that, according to police, crime halved in the area in the months after it went up. “If you’re going to mug somebody,” she reasons, “you’re not going to do it in front of a 32-foot-tall rainbow boxer girl.” While Blagden Alley’s Instagram-friendly “Love” mural — which Lady Gaga is said to have visited — might seem like a departure from “Boxer Girl,” it came out of a similar urge to “create spaces that help us see each other as humans,” the artist says. While recovering from a concussion, Thalhammer started learning about the spectrum of colors associated with the chakras, which inspire her rainbow-infused works. She welcomes the associations with the LGBTQ+ movement but adds that her work expands the colors of the pride flag to a 12- or 13-color spectrum. “It’s really referring to the intersections of all of our lived identities,” she says. “I see it as the colors of the human flag.”
Don’t miss: Thalhammer recently collaborated with area artists Nia Keturah and Maggie O’Neill on a mural, “Together,” at the intersection of Ninth Street and Naylor Court NW. She is also planning to paint versions of the “Love” mural in all 50 states to celebrate its fifth anniversary.
Kaliq Crosby
Kaliq Crosby can’t get enough of history. D.C. suffragists, Chinese terra cotta warriors — you name it, he’ll read about it. He likens the National Gallery of Art to “an amusement park.” And when he shops for books, he doesn’t just want them to be about history, he wants them to feel historic. The more yellowed and the mustier, the better. If the artist didn’t spend his time painting D.C.’s walls with pictures of the past, he’d make a career of studying it. But Crosby reaches more people than most history books ever will. “I think people aren’t really into history,” he says. “It needs to be fun. I think we’ve got to hide the knowledge, trick people into learning. Put the medicine in the candy.” For Crosby, spray paint brings that sweetness. On U Street NW, he’s memorialized the go-go scene; honored Lee’s Flower Shop, one of the few Black businesses in the neighborhood to survive the 1968 riots; and highlighted Dorothy Height, a civil and women’s rights activist, at 3211 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. in Congress Heights. “I love what she represents,” he says. “She has a lot of light, and I feel like you can just understand her personality just from looking at my mural.” Crosby has wanted to be an artist since elementary school and credits a teacher for his love of bold color and his serious approach. “Mrs. Chambers would make sure that we had our stuff together, that we weren’t just some poor public school kids,” says Crosby, who studied at Baltimore’s Maryland Institute College of Art and has since returned to the Columbia Heights home his parents bought decades ago. “I never grew up thinking that there wasn’t a way to make [an art career] work. And I’m still kind of lost when people say that.”
Don’t miss: At an alley near 17th and Q streets NW, Crosby has memorialized recent history: Amanda Gorman, the young poet who performed at President Biden’s inauguration, smiling on a radiant yellow wall. | 2022-10-27T11:34:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Meet seven of the street artists whose works grace the city’s walls - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/27/dc-street-artists/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/27/dc-street-artists/ |
President Biden looks to former president Barack Obama after signing an executive order on the Affordable Care Act on April 5 at the White House. They are joined by Vice President Harris, Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
Communities of color recorded huge health insurance coverage gains from 2020 to 2022 due in large part to improved affordability and increased outreach efforts to get people enrolled, according to a report this week from the Department of Health and Human Services.
“This underscores the importance of outreach and enrollment assistance,” said Cynthia Cox, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, where she is also director of the program on the ACA. “We know that there were large numbers of people, particularly Hispanic people, who were eligible for free or reduced cost coverage but weren’t taking it up.”
The Trump administration slashed federal money for advertising, community outreach and “navigators” who serve as enrollment coaches helping people navigate the byzantine system of plans and subsidies.
“The Biden administration, when it came in, not only restored dollars that had been there before, but increased them,” said Linda J. Blumberg, a research professor at Georgetown University and Urban Institute fellow whose recent work analyzes the ACA.
That “big new influx of dollars and assistance” — coupled with increased subsidies for marketplace shoppers through the American Rescue Plan, credits extended through 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act — means “we’ve got a situation where the dollars available to reduce the price of marketplace coverage … is much better,” Blumberg said.
“One thing that’s really important for people to know is if they don’t actively shop on Nov. 1, they’ll be automatically re-enrolled in the same plan, but the cost can significantly change from year to year,” Cox said. “It’s not just getting people in the door in the first place, but making sure they are able to keep their coverage going from one year to the next.”
The nation’s rate of uninsured reached “an all-time low” in early 2022, according to the federal report. And this, health policy experts say, is a good thing because it improves access to medical care. Being uninsured means being less likely to have health-care needs met, which translates into being diagnosed with an illness later, receiving lower-quality care and being at greater financial risk should a medical emergency arise.
“We also saw public health emergency provisions during the pandemic that allowed a new enrollment period for people enrolling through the federal marketplace and more flexibility in staying enrolled,” said Katherine Baicker, dean of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. States, for example, weren’t allowed to kick anyone off Medicaid during the pandemic in exchange for increased federal dollars to support the public insurance program.
“We’re going to see some of those provisions expire when the national public health emergency expires,” Baicker said. “That may lead to some churn off of insurance for people.”
Georgetown’s Blumberg agrees “a decent chunk” of the people will lose Medicaid coverage when the public health emergency ends, but she said she thinks they will be eligible for subsidies to make marketplace coverage more affordable.
“We wanted them to be permanent,” said Murray, whose trade organization represents more than 70 nonprofit safety-net health plans that provide coverage to more than 20 million people with low incomes and complex health needs. “You can’t address some of the health equity issues without people getting coverage, but we want to make sure people are not drawn to junk insurance because of the low rates.”
“Junk insurance looks affordable” and the coverage looks great, she said — “until you get sick.” | 2022-10-27T11:34:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Communities of color record big gains in health insurance coverage - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/27/health-insurance-gains-blacks-hispanics/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/27/health-insurance-gains-blacks-hispanics/ |
Abortion initiatives expose the promise and peril of direct democracy
Ballot initiatives, referendums and other forms of direct democracy have a mixed track record of empowering the people.
Perspective by Elisabeth S. Clemens
Elisabeth Clemens, author of "The People's Lobby" (Chicago 1997), is a political sociologist at the University of Chicago. Her most recent book, "Civic Gifts" (Chicago 2020) explores the role of voluntarism in the making of the American nation-state.
Elder Leslie Mathews, an organizer with Michigan United, joins leaders of the Reproductive Freedom for All campaign as they speak to supporters on July 11 in Lansing, Mich., after turning in 753,759 signatures to qualify for Michigan's November ballot. (Joey Cappelletti/AP)
Seemingly endless campaign ads make it clear: Abortion will be on the ballot this November. This is true in a general sense, as candidates spar over the issue. But in some states, notably Michigan, abortion also appears in the form of a popularly initiated proposed constitutional amendment. There it will join proposed amendments on term limits and early voting.
In many states, including Michigan, ballot measures have addressed a multitude of issues: the minimum wage, funding for education, expanding eligibility for Medicare and legalizing marijuana. But just winning the vote is only part of the fight. In 2018, 65 percent of Florida voters supported Prop. 4 to restore voting rights to felons, but delays, confusion and restrictive policies on the payment of fines have blunted the measure’s true impact. “Letting the people speak” turns out to be no simple matter.
The stakes are evident in those ballot proposals that concern direct democracy itself. Arizona voters will weigh proposals to expand the legislature’s ability to repeal or amend approved ballot propositions. As one opponent argued, because “some politicians and wealthy corporations don’t like the decisions” the voters have made, “they are trying to rewrite the rules to get their way no matter what the majority wants.”
These fights are the latest battles in a deeper struggle over the meaning of popular sovereignty. The Founders came down squarely in the middle — or perhaps in a muddle. The Constitution included elements of both direct and indirect representation (the House and the Senate, respectively), but dictated that ratification would be done not by state legislatures but by popular conventions embodying “the only Source of just authority — the People.” But if the people were to rule, should that rule be direct or indirect? While some argue that this can be reduced to a sharp choice between “a democracy or a republic,” for the past two centuries the answer embodied in our political institutions has been both.
This built-in ambivalence has fueled waves of conflict, change and invention, including the mobilizations that established what we now know as direct democracy. By the late 19th century, there was a chorus of complaints that, purportedly, democratic institutions were no longer accountable to citizens. Repeatedly frustrated in efforts to advance causes ranging from workers’ protections to women’s suffrage, advocates advanced their case for new methods that would allow “the people” to speak directly in political decisions and protect the expanding powers of state government from corruption and capture.
These activists saw themselves at war against legislatures and political parties, with direct democracy as their best weapon. Ballot initiatives enabled citizens to put forward their own propositions, undercutting the ability of legislators, lobbyists, donors and party bosses to keep issues off the agenda. The referendum, which might be required by legislators or demanded by voters, represented a check on the power of elected officials. The direct primary and the recall gave voters — rather than parties — the power to select and discipline their representatives. One final measure, the direct election of senators by the voters (rather than selection by the legislature) was ratified in 1913 as the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As one proponent rejoiced, “The Initiative, Referendum and the Recall are the people’s weapons!”
Calls for direct democracy were particularly intense in the Western states and parts of the Midwest. In 1898, South Dakota was the first to adopt the initiative and referendum (although initiatives to amend the state constitution would not be added for more than 70 years). Over the next two decades, nearly 20 other states followed suit, embracing some or all of the elements of direct democracy.
Oregon, above all, was home to the People’s Power League, which secured passage of the trio of initiative, referendum and recall. At the head of this movement was William S. U’Ren, who understood these efforts as a path toward fundamentally limiting the power of legislatures and their insulation from popular preferences and demands. In the East, liberal elites and intellectuals adopted a moderated stance in which direct democracy figured as a seldom-to-be-used curb on elected official rather than a meaningful alternative to legislative efforts themselves.
These new weapons enabled Americans to fight the interests they saw as subjugating them. In 1913, the president of the Washington State Federation of Labor declared that citizens had to be “ready to do battle” against lobbies, legislatures and parties to secure social and industrial justice. Their battle plan? To take advantage of Washington, Oregon and California adopting “the Initiative, Referendum, Recall and Direct Primary,” which could be “methods of warfare to accomplish the actual will of a majority of our people.”
Over the long run, this optimism was not entirely warranted. Even as these new methods were adopted, critics charged that these “wicked innovations” would substitute the will of the mob for the reasoned deliberations of elected representatives. Whether backed by popular opinion or corporate initiative, the growing number of successful initiatives constrained the space for legislatures to act. Critics from both the left and right also complained that direct democracy drew the courts more deeply into electoral politics as they were called on to determine whether ballot proposals had met the requirements of state law — and then to interpret sometimes vague language.
Where popular movements had once provided the machinery for collecting signatures in support of initiatives, candidates and corporations cultivated a new industry of political consulting to support ballot proposals that advanced their own interests — often cloaked in legal language that would mystify many voters. California’s Proposition 13, passed in 1978 to limit increases in property taxes, exemplified how individual political entrepreneurs could advance new policy through ballot proposals that, in the case of Proposition 13, would profoundly alter the state’s budgetary politics for decades to come.
Complex issues such as the regulation of auto insurance were targeted by competing initiatives in a single election. If more than one proposal passed, the measure receiving the most votes would become law. Insurance companies, trial lawyers and consumer groups all channeled vast sums into the effort to “fix” the initiative, echoing the efforts of the “Interests” of an earlier era to “fix” the legislatures and city councils.
In this high-stakes, no-holds-barred warfare over direct democracy, opposing sides search for legal technicalities to knock initiatives off the ballot. For example, in Michigan, the “Reproductive Freedom for All” measure only made it onto the ballot after the state denied a challenge based on inappropriate spacing on printed petitions, which threatened to upend the principle of popular sovereignty.
Beyond such battles over technicalities, the success of activists in getting measures on the ballot and passing them has fueled efforts to make it harder to do so. This fall’s ballot in Arizona is just one example of these countermeasures. In Arkansas, legislators have put forward a proposal that would require a 60 percent supermajority to approve ballot measures. South Dakota voters rejected a similar measure over the summer, which would have imposed a supermajority requirement for initiatives related to taxes and spending. That proposal was designed to make it harder to expand Medicaid eligibility.
These ongoing conflicts over the power and scope of direct democracy remind us that political innovations — including direct democracy as “the people’s weapons” — may be advanced for one cause only to be borrowed, modified and used to great effect by other interests. Speaking at Gettysburg in November 1863, President Abraham Lincoln assured his audience “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.” But in the same breath, he described this political system as an “unfinished work.” In the upcoming election season, direct democracy is very much in play, both as a vehicle for policy issues and as an effective vehicle for the people to speak. This reminds us that Lincoln’s words remain prophetic as our political system remains an “unfinished work.” | 2022-10-27T11:34:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Abortion initiatives expose the promise and peril of direct democracy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/27/abortion-ballot-initiatives-democracy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/27/abortion-ballot-initiatives-democracy/ |
The Freedman’s Bank Forum obscures the bank’s real history
The bank’s history highlights flaws in using public-private partnerships to address racial inequality
Perspective by Justene Hill Edwards
Justene Hill Edwards is an associate professor of history at the University of Virginia. A 2022 Andrew Carnegie Fellow, she is the author of "Unfree Markets: The Slaves’ Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina" (Columbia University Press, 2021).
Vice President Harris at the Freedman’s Bank Forum in Washington on Oct. 4. (Yuri Gripas/Sipa/Bloomberg News)
On Oct. 4, the Treasury Department hosted its seventh annual Freedman’s Bank Forum, an event designed to highlight racial and economic inequality in America and outline possible policy solutions. Key speakers included Vice President Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen. Named in honor of the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Co. — also known as the Freedman’s Bank — founded in 1865 for Black Americans recently freed from slavery, speakers at the forum discussed well-intentioned policy goals.
Specifically, Harris celebrated the Economic Opportunity Coalition (EOC), a partnership between the federal government, financial institutions and philanthropic organizations. The EOC was created in July 2022 to funnel capital into communities that have been historically underserved by the financial services industry.
The forum invokes the legacy of the Freedman’s Bank to highlight the historical injustices committed against communities that have been economically exploited and ignored. Moreover, Harris remarked that the bank’s mission was guided by the notion that all Americans should “have access to the financial resources they need to succeed, to thrive, and to determine their own future.”
It’s true that the Freedman’s Bank represented African Americans’ economic ambitions, but the forum paints an inaccurate picture of its historical legacy. The real history of the bank offers a more sober perspective on the plight of African Americans after the end of slavery in 1865. Understanding the bank’s rise and fall exposes the challenge of public-private partnerships to solve racial and economic inequality in America.
The Freedman’s Bank was established by White abolitionists, bankers and philanthropists on March 3, 1865. The bank’s charter specified that it would receive deposits “on behalf of persons heretofore held in slavery in the United States.” The Freedman’s Bank was not unlike other savings banks in America during the 19th century. It was guided by a board of trustees, men with political and economic influence, who were chosen to be good stewards of the bank’s finances. It also had a benevolent mission: to encourage habits of hard work and frugality among its depositors.
The Freedman’s Bank administrators believed that freed African Americans needed help learning how to earn and save money. “Don’t waste money; save the small sums” was the bank’s maxim as agents traveled around the South in the late 1860s encouraging African Americans to open bank accounts. Depositors received biannual interest payments to encourage them to save as much money as they could.
Yet African Americans in 19th-century America knew how to save money. For example, Black soldiers who enlisted in the United States Colored Troop regiments had been earning wages for their service since they were allowed to enlist in July 1862. They successfully fought to receive pay equal to their White counterparts, something that was granted in June 1864. This move increased the need for Black soldiers to have access to a bank of their own.
In response, Union Generals in New Orleans, Beaufort and Norfolk opened military savings banks in 1864 to serve Black soldiers’ financial needs. The success of these savings banks set the groundwork for what would become the Freedman’s Bank. These banks also proved to bankers in New York and Philadelphia that Black Americans were an underserved population.
During the bank’s first five years, Black depositors helped to make it one of the nation’s most successful financial institutions. Individuals and institutions opened accounts. Howard University held an account. The university’s founder, Union General O.O. Howard, was himself a bank trustee. By 1870, the bank had accepted more than $25 million in deposits. By 1872, there were 37 branches in 17 states throughout the former South, including in Washington, D.C.
The bank’s success was short-lived, however. As trustees approved adding more branches, the bank’s overall operating expenses increased. In 1868, the trustees, led by bank President John Alvord and banker Henry D. Cooke, supported an effort to lobby members of Congress to approve amending the bank’s charter to allow it to offer loans.
One of the plan’s opponents was Sen. Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania. Cameron didn’t believe that the bank’s trustees had the depositors’ best interests in mind, arguing that gambling with the savings of Black depositors would be risky at best, a bellwether of destruction at worst. Despite his objections, Congress approved the proposed amendment in May 1870, which paved the way for a complete reorganization of the bank and its mission.
Almost immediately, millions of dollars in unsecured loans went to White businesspeople, most of whom had political or social ties to the bank’s trustees. The bank’s finance committee chair, Henry D. Cooke, and the actuary, D.L. Eaton, controlled the lending guidelines. Loan amounts varied, from $500 to $50,000. Cooke’s own brother, famed investment banker Jay Cooke, received a $50,000 loan, secured by fragile Northern Pacific Railroad bonds.
Yet, few loans went to African Americans. The exceptions were a handful of Black churches in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
Ultimately, this shift in focus proved disastrous, and borrowers began to default on loan payments. Bank administrators failed to maintain a full accounting of who received loans. Some borrowers offered worthless stocks and bonds as collateral. Others used their relationships with bank trustees to repeatedly amend the terms of their loans.
Then one of the bank’s biggest debtors, the investment bank of Jay Cooke & Co., declared bankruptcy in September 1873. Jay Cooke & Co. was overleveraged and could not pay its creditors, one of which was the Freedman’s Bank. The company’s failure sparked an economic depression known as the Panic of 1873.
Though Congress had ultimate regulatory authority over the bank, no official investigation occurred until February 1874. When John J. Knox, comptroller of the currency, directed bank examiner Charles Meigs to conduct an official examination in January 1874, the bank’s business was put on public display. Meigs determined that it did not hold enough money to pay depositors.
Mismanagement of millions of dollars in Black Americans’ deposits combined with lax oversight by the federal government portended the bank’s demise. But African Americans had begun to sense that all was not right with the bank. Some branches could not meet the needs of depositors who wanted to withdraw money from their accounts.
Not even Frederick Douglass, who the trustees had successfully encouraged to assume the role of the bank’s president in March 1874, could rescue its tarnished reputation. The trustees had hoped that Douglass could restore the depositors’ faith in the bank. Douglass believed that if he and other freed people invested in the bank, a representation of Black peoples’ “thrift and economy,” that “more consideration and respect would be shown to the colored people of the whole country.” The brilliant orator, however, could not restore African Americans’ trust in an unreliable institution.
Congress ordered the bank to cease operations and close on June 29, 1874. The 61,144 depositors who still held accounts, many of whom poured their savings into this financial institution, collectively lost almost $3 million (approximately $80.65 million today).
Although politicians and the comptroller of the currency could have pressured bank administrators to do right by the depositors, they did nothing. Congressional hearings were held between 1874 and 1910, with members of Congress sponsoring bills to reimburse defrauded depositors. But as the federal government retreated from protecting African Americans’ citizenship rights during this period, the plight of the Freedman’s Bank depositors drifted from politicians’ view as well.
The Freedman’s Bank Forum, and the Biden-Harris administration’s most recent strategies to combat racial and economic inequality, deploy the legacy of the Freedman’s Bank’s initial mission. But connecting this important policy goal to a bank with a fraught legacy in African American communities obscures the ways in which the federal government and the financial services industry protected their interests over the economic security of the formerly enslaved.
The bank was founded as a vehicle for African Americans to build a stable economic foundation as they emerged out of slavery. Instead, it shaped the exploitative relationship between the banking industry and minority communities in America — one that continues today. | 2022-10-27T11:34:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Freedman’s Bank Forum obscures the bank’s real history - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/27/freedmans-bank-black-communities-banking/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/10/27/freedmans-bank-black-communities-banking/ |
China strives to ramp up election influence this year
Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202! My cat Julius “Jules” Jonas Jonah Jameson is awfully affectionate, but when he gets enthused about a new toy, it’s like I hardly exist, and I am but a vehicle to manipulate to his whims. This has been going on for several days now. Cat father < a decommissioned swimming trunks drawstring.
Below: The White House launches a cybersecurity sprint for the chemical sector, and the U.S. government sanctions alleged recruiters for Iranian hackers. First:
China and allied groups are emerging as election troublemakers
A pro-China influence campaign pushed messages on social media seeking to discourage U.S. voters from casting ballots in the midterms, security researchers said Wednesday.
The group, nicknamed “Dragonbridge,” has criticized U.S. society before, but “its targeting of the U.S. political system through attempts to discourage Americans from voting shows a willingness to use increasingly aggressive rhetoric,” according to Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm Google acquired last month.
The research adds to a mounting body of evidence that the Chinese government and groups championing Chinese aims are quite interested in playing a hand in the 2022 elections. What do they hope to get out of it? Undermining the U.S. democratic system while boosting China.
Beijing has embraced a strategy to strengthen its “discourse power,” its term for the ability to achieve more global influence.
“One of discourse power’s central themes, and what Chinese policymakers talk openly about, is that the West’s governance model is disorganized, chaotic and frankly incapable of addressing the world’s 21st century problems,” Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, told me. “Those were all themes that were addressed in that social media campaign,” he said, referring to Dragonbridge.
Another clue
Mandiant’s Dragonbridge report came on the heels of other signs that China and pro-China groups are trying to stir things up in the run-up to the midterms.
The Cybersecurity 202 reported last week that the FBI was warning political party organizations that apparent Chinese government-affiliated hackers were scanning their systems, a potential precursor to hacking operations.
Also this month, the cybersecurity company Recorded Future released a report that examined a Chinese state-sponsored influence campaign designed to divide U.S. voters, which the firm said signified “a shift in tactics from previous US elections, where China’s influencers were less active in attempts to influence US voters.”
Facebook and Instagram parent Meta said in September it had taken down a small network of fake accounts originating from China and targeting U.S. voters on both sides of the aisle, focused on domestic politics ahead of the midterms. “Chinese influence operations that we’ve disrupted before typically focused on criticizing the United States to international audiences, rather than primarily targeting domestic audiences in the US,” the company explained.
Also this week, the social media analytics company Alethea Group said it “had identified at least 165 Twitter accounts, presenting as Americans on both sides of the U.S. political aisle, that posted politically polarizing content related to the 2022 U.S. midterm elections” and resembled the work of Dragonbridge.
There’s little evidence any of those efforts accomplished much. For instance, the Chinese hackers didn’t appear to breach any of the political party targets they scanned. But the mere existence of such would-be meddling attempts reveal intriguing dynamics.
In the case of Dragonbridge, “there’s no evidence that suggests they've been successful in changing hearts and minds,” Sandra Joyce, head of global intelligence for Mandiant, told me. “But what to me is very interesting is they’re incredibly resilient. They continue to put out content and they continue to scale their operations even though they’ve been detected worldwide.”
What’s less clear is why China might be choosing now to step up its activity. Beijing has broadly and routinely denied allegations of malfeasance in cyberspace.
China didn’t interfere in the 2020 presidential election, and contemplated but didn’t proceed with influence operations that cycle, a U.S. intelligence community assessment concluded. The assessment said China likely reasoned that it wouldn’t benefit from either presidential candidate taking office more than the other. The same report said Russia and Iran, however, meddled in the U.S. presidential race in one way or another.
What little evidence there was of Chinese election interference in 2020 was indirect. A U.S. intelligence official said ahead of that Election Day that China “is expanding its influence efforts to shape the policy environment in the United States, pressure political figures it views as opposed to China’s interests, and counter criticism of China. Beijing recognizes its efforts might affect the presidential race.”
(There are other, prior signs of China making moves on social media or with cyberespionage in past elections, but with substantial differences from the 2022 cycle examples.)
The midterms have lower stakes, globally — which may actually have made them an inviting target for low-level operations, according to Norma Krayem, vice president and chair of Van Scoyoc Associates’ cybersecurity, privacy and digital innovation practice group.
“The 2022 elections are an easy way for them to have a test case to see how successful they can be,” Krayem, who has held executive branch posts, told me.
For Singleton, who doesn’t see a major difference between China’s 2020 and 2022 activity, any increased Chinese willingness to mess with U.S. elections reflects the slow degeneration of Sino-American relations and China’s resulting embrace of different tactics.
“It’s clear that in the last 18 months or so, China understands that U.S.-China relations are not going to be improving anytime soon,” he said. “As Beijing has come to that realization, I think it’s willing to take more risks, and I think it’s willing to engage in this more extreme form of discourse warfare to achieve its political objectives.”
White House announces cybersecurity sprint for chemical sector
The 100-day initiative aims to boost chemical operators’ focus on the biggest risks from cyberattacks, increase information sharing and encourage manufacturers to improve their ability to detect threats, CyberScoop’s Christian Vasquez reports. It’s the latest sprint that the Biden administration has launched for a critical sector.
“The sprints were first launched as a pilot with the electric sector in April 2021 and followed up with the pipeline, water and railway sectors,” Vasquez writes. “Biden’s memorandum on improving critical infrastructure control systems codified the exercises and amounted to a rare moment for the White House to acknowledge industrial control cybersecurity.”
Biden administration sanctions alleged recruiters for Iranian hackers
Experts explain what exactly Iran's morality police do, and why women are risking their lives on the frontlines to fight against it. (Video: Julie Yoon/The Washington Post)
The U.S. government sanctioned Iranian cybersecurity and hacking school Ravin Academy and its co-founders, Seyed Mojtaba Mostafavi and Farzin Karimi, who are members of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, according to the Treasury Department. The Biden administration also sanctioned an Iranian firm, Samane Gostar Sahab Pardaz Private Limited Company, which it said is one of Iran’s “main operators of social media filtering services.”
They’re the latest batch of sanctions targeting internet- and cybersecurity-related Iranian firms and people in the wake of protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran’s “morality police” 40 days ago.
Protests have broken out across Iran for weeks, and Iranian authorities have limited internet service and cut off access to some major U.S. tech apps.
This month, the U.S. government also sanctioned Iranian Communications Minister Eisa Zarepour and Iranian Cyber Police head Vahid Mohammad Naser Majid for their alleged roles in blocking internet service and monitoring internet users.
Alleged dark net market operator arraigned
Daniel Kaye is accused of being an operator behind “TheRealDeal” dark net marketplace, a platform where stolen credentials for U.S. government systems, hacking tools, drugs and weapons were allegedly bought and sold, the Record’s Jonathan Greig reports.
Last month, Kaye “consented to his extradition from Cyprus to the United States,” the Justice Department said. He previously spent more than two-and-a-half years in a British prison for his role in overwhelming Liberia with internet traffic in a 2016 distributed denial-of-service attack.
Indianapolis Housing Agency responds to massive system-wide ransomware attack (Indianapolis Star)
OpenSSL to patch first critical vulnerability since 2016 (SecurityWeek)
Nevada county begins conspiracy-inspired ballot hand count (Associated Press)
Privacy patch
Inside TheTruthSpy, the stalkerware network spying on thousands (TechCrunch)
The Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board meets today.
National Cyber Director Chris Inglis and Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser, speak at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event today at 10 a.m.
Mandiant senior manager Jason Atwell speaks at a CRDF Global event on the theft of intellectual property fueling weapons of mass destruction proliferation today at 10 a.m. | 2022-10-27T11:35:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | China strives to ramp up election influence this year - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/27/china-strives-ramp-up-election-influence-this-year/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/27/china-strives-ramp-up-election-influence-this-year/ |
Democrats aren’t saying much about reducing poverty and unemployment. Why?
Often, candidates and parties have highlighted those parts of the economy that have improved on their watch
Analysis by Christopher Howard
A sign directs voters to a polling location as early voting continues for the midterm elections in Americus, Ga., on Tuesday. (Cheney Orr/Bloomberg News)
As the U.S. midterm elections loom, Republicans and Democrats clearly disagree over which issues should be front and center. Republicans want to talk about inflation, the economy, crime and “woke” liberals. Democrats want to focus on abortion and MAGA extremism.
Though Democrats’ reluctance to discuss the economy is understandable in some ways, it’s puzzling in others.
While inflation is high, Democrats could be reminding voters that the Biden administration has overseen significant drops in unemployment and poverty. That they don’t is part of a larger pattern, one that may reveal how much (or how little) Democratic officials care about people with low incomes.
When President Biden took office, the unemployment rate was 6.4 percent. By September 2022, the rate had dropped to 3.5 percent. Unemployment has been just as low this year as in former president Donald Trump’s best year.
The covid-19 pandemic threw the economy into recession, which usually leads to more poverty. After the Great Recession of 2008, the U.S. poverty rate rose to 15 percent in 2010 and stayed there through 2012. Since the unemployment rate peaked at a higher level during the pandemic than it ever hit during that recession — almost 15 percent compared with 10 percent — and GDP shrank more, we would expect to see historically high levels of poverty in recent years.
That did not happen. Based on the official measure, the poverty rate increased just a little, from 10.5 percent in 2019 to 11.6 percent in 2021. The government’s Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which is more accurate, shows that the poverty rate actually dropped from 11.8 percent in 2019 to 7.8 percent in 2021. Reducing poverty by any amount during a brutal pandemic is a major accomplishment.
A recent study of child poverty offers more good news. Using the SPM, researchers calculated that one out of four American children lived in poverty in 1993. The figure for 2020 was just one in 10. Policymakers sometimes dream about cutting child poverty in half; in fact, the government did exactly that.
Why? Government programs. Unemployment insurance and the Child Tax Credit were deliberately enlarged during the pandemic, providing millions of Americans with income support. By design, enrollment in Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps) expanded as people lost private health insurance and their paychecks. Over the past three decades, Social Security, the Earned Income Tax Credit, SNAP and low-income housing assistance have lifted millions of children out of poverty.
So why aren’t Democrats bragging?
Currently, Americans say they trust Republicans more to handle the economy. In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll, likely voters from both parties said the economy and inflation are the two most important problems facing the country. An observer might therefore expect Democrats to be eager to prove they can do good things for the economy. And with so many close races, Democrats might want to motivate low-income voters to turn out in November. Yet they have said remarkably little about bringing down poverty and unemployment. Why?
The short answer is, old habits are hard to break.
While writing a book about the social safety net, I analyzed how different parts of society talk about poverty. One chapter focuses on public officials, drawing from national party platforms and presidential State of the Union addresses between 2000 and 2020. These documents give us a good sense of priorities because they are so broad in scope.
Not surprisingly, Democrats have talked more about issues such as poverty, hunger and homelessness than Republicans have. But Democrats haven’t paid much attention to these issues. Nor do they often mention people who are poor, low-income or needy.
Rather, Democrats have devoted attention to workers, working men and women, working families and working Americans. For instance, their 2020 platform declared that “Democrats believe that it is a moral and an economic imperative that we support working families.” And they have consistently championed programs that benefit workers above and below the poverty line; prominent examples include Social Security, the Earned Income Tax Credit, pro-union laws and equal pay for women.
Studies by the Census Bureau and by poverty expert Robert Greenstein have found that inclusive and targeted programs have both been important in reducing hardship. Nevertheless, by devoting so much attention to problems that affect a wider range of Americans, Democrats have arguably made it harder to discuss their own accomplishments in reducing poverty and unemployment. This may have made it easier for Republicans to focus on inflation as the economy’s defining indicator.
Of course, touting progress against poverty might give Republicans a chance to label Democrats as the party of handouts and “welfare,” as they have in the past. But Democrats, if they wished, could find ways to counter that. They might point out that the biggest income support programs — Social Security, the Earned Income Tax Credit, unemployment insurance — only benefit people who are employed or have a history of paid work. Democrats could note lower rates of unemployment and child poverty. And they could cite poll results from this year showing that two-thirds of Americans think the federal government is doing too little to help lower-income people.
It is not unusual for voters to name “the economy” as one of the most important issues in an election year. But the health of the economy can be measured in many different ways. In previous elections, candidates and parties have highlighted those parts of the economy that worked in their favor. Democrats may be missing an opportunity to do the same this year.
Christopher Howard is the Pamela C. Harriman Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William & Mary and author of Who Cares: The Social Safety Net in America (Oxford University Press). | 2022-10-27T11:35:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats aren’t saying much about reducing poverty and unemployment. Why? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/27/democrats-republicans-economy-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/27/democrats-republicans-economy-midterms/ |
The laser-powered chip could mean faster broadband speeds for consumers and an internet that requires less electricity to run
These are colored fiber optic data cables. (Bloomberg Creative Photos)
FCC calls 25 Mbps ‘broadband’ speed. The push is on to up it to 100.
Despite pandemic promises, many rural students still lack fast internet
The benefit is the chip’s simple design, he said. Using that, along with a fiber optic cable that is specialized, but not incredibly hard to get, makes it possible companies might use this method to transmit data in the future, he said. “This is not a one-off thing,” he said. “It’s not a crazy exotic you think we’ll make once and never again.”
Is your internet service unreliable? There may be fiber in your future.
He acknowledged, however, that the design is still in the research phase and could take years to become mainstream. It’s unlikely, he added, that internet companies will tear up fiber optic cables powering the internet that lay under the sea and replace them using this method.
It’s more likely, he said, that this technology will be used in efforts to roll out local, shorter distance, 5G networks that data-hungry advances, such as autonomous vehicles, will need to rely on to function better.
“Everybody is clamoring for 5g,” he said. “That’s an extraordinarily [large amount] of power and bandwidth, capacity-hungry proposition.” | 2022-10-27T11:37:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | This chip transmits an internet’s worth of data every second - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/27/laser-powered-chip-internet-data-transfer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/27/laser-powered-chip-internet-data-transfer/ |
The social media firm’s ongoing shakeup raises doubts about its ability to rein in election lies
Elon Musk, shown here in a photo illustration, takes over Twitter just as it's mobilizing for a critical U.S. election. He has indicated he'll cut staff and take a more laissez-faire approach to misinformation. (Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images)
With less than two weeks until the midterm elections, about 20 employees from across Twitter have volunteered to help the social network’s internal “Election Squad” enforce its rules at a crucial moment for U.S. politics. In crash-course training sessions this week, the volunteers learned the basics of how to spot election misinformation, detect bots pushing propaganda and flag potential violations of Twitter’s rules to the company’s policy staff.
Since 2018, the call for volunteers has been part of an all-hands-on-deck approach to major elections, as the company’s overstretched content moderators work around the clock for a week before and after the vote to stanch the tide of viral falsehoods, intimidation campaigns and foreign influence operations.
But this election cycle, the company is in greater disarray than ever — increasing the risk that cagey political operatives will be able to use the platform to deceive voters or undermine the legitimacy of results. Twitter has weathered a year of managerial chaos since a CEO change, hundreds of employees have reportedly left and a high-level whistleblower warned that the company lacks the resources to enforce its own election policies globally.
Adding to the uncertainty is that billionaire Elon Musk is expected to close his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter by Friday. He has indicated that he will roll back Twitter’s content moderation efforts, reinstate some of its most notorious purveyors of election lies and lay off as much as 75 percent of its workforce. How his changes will affect Twitter’s midterm plan is unknown.
EXCLUSIVE: Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce
“Given the rapid growth in the scale of disinformation since 2020, it’s reasonable to doubt whether they can keep up,” said Eddie Perez, Twitter’s former product director for civic integrity, which includes its election policies. Perez is now a board member at the OSET Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit devoted to election security and election integrity.
Twitter spokesperson Katie Rosborough confirmed the call for volunteers ahead of midterms and said the company had previously done the same during the 2020 U.S. presidential election as well as the recent elections in Brazil.
Musk did not respond to The Post’s request for comment about what he will do in his first days of ownership. He visited Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday to speak with executives and is expected to address employees on Friday. Since launching his takeover bid, he has consistently criticized the company for what he sees as an overly censorial approach to online speech.
Musk has also suggested he might lift the company’s ban on former president Donald Trump, whose erratic tweets were capable of rewriting the country’s political agenda on any given day.
From the Arab Spring to the Trump presidency to #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, Twitter has played a pivotal role in global politics that belies the company’s relatively small size compared with rivals such as Meta and Alphabet. Like its rivals, Twitter began investing more heavily in content moderation following revelations in 2017 of Russian influence campaigns that used social platforms to inflame societal conflicts in the United States ahead of the 2016 presidential election. It has tapped its employees’ zeal to “protect the conversation” around major political events.
Yet it has often seemed overmatched by the hordes of bots and the pace at which lies can ricochet across its platform.
The midterms have been particularly tricky for social media platforms such as Twitter, in part because hundreds of GOP candidates have embraced former president Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Those candidates and their supporters have turned to social media to spread conspiracies about election-rigging.
The stakes of Twitter’s decisions are high. Experts have said such misinformation on social media could erode Americans’ faith in the electoral process. And the companies have to make tough decisions about what content to leave up or take down in a campaign season in which control of both the House and Senate is up for grabs.
In August, Twitter announced a 2022 midterms plan that largely mimicked the strategies the company deployed in previous election cycles, including promoting accurate information about the election while suppressing the reach of misinformation. Twitter said it would apply misinformation labels or remove posts that undermine confidence in the electoral process, including 2020 claims that the election was rigged.
The company previously pulled back on this so-called “civic integrity” policy after the 2020 election ended, despite internal concern that election deniers were still using it to push lies and distortions, said two people familiar with internal debates, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe them. Rosborough said the company had “ramped down enforcement” of its U.S. election policies “as harms and risks around the contest evolved.”
The company also started state-specific event hubs promoting credible news reports about the primaries, creating candidate account labels, and redesigning its labels for misinformed tweets. And it pulled volunteers from across departments away from their normal work in the coming weeks to help safeguard “the authenticity and integrity of election-related conversation on the platform,” as the internal #ElectionSquad memo put it.
The memo asked the volunteers to sign up for four-hour shifts over a two-week period from Nov. 1 to 15. They were also asked to list their foreign-language skills. The audit in the whistleblower report found that Twitter was so short on language capacity that many of its content moderators resorted to Google Translate.
Rosborough said the Election Squad is made up of leaders from different departments at the company who have been meeting regularly for more than a year to prepare for the election. She said the call for volunteers with specific skill sets was a way to “ensure we had redundancies in place” at a critical moment, adding that it has “worked well” in past elections.
Twitter has also conducted “a number of table top and threat model exercises around the midterms,” Rosborough said. She declined to comment on whether the company has planned for what might happen to its election integrity efforts if and when Musk assumes ownership.
Twitter employees involved in the company’s efforts around midterms are forging ahead for now, but many are privately worried that Musk could soon halt or undo some of their work.
“I think he could tear up those policies around civic integrity and halt enforcement pretty much immediately,” said one employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. “Imagine we’ll see a ton of intimidation videos of people voting, and misinfo narratives about who they are, doxing them, watching their names trend, and nothing can be done about it.” | 2022-10-27T11:37:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Elon Musk's Twitter could influence the midterm elections. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/27/musk-twitter-trump-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/27/musk-twitter-trump-midterms/ |
A free trip to D.C., a private chat with Obama and an hour in the Oval Office with Biden: The Democrats are rolling out the red carpet for social media influencers
President Biden greets digital content creators at the White House on Oct. 25. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
The trip, which was organized by the DNC, was the most visible effort to date of Democrats attempting to leverage TikTok’s vast audience to influence the midterms and is likely to prove controversial with Republicans, many of whom have been harshly critical of TikTok’s Chinese ownership. Former president Donald Trump at one point ordered TikTok to be shut down in the United States, then tried to force the sale of its U.S. operations. Those efforts failed, however, though Republicans have continued to accuse the app of being a threat.
“I think the DNC brought me in as a fairly independent, attempting to be a nonpartisan, creator who did not vote for Obama,” said V Spehar, host of Under the Desk News, a TikTok news channel with 2.7 million followers.
The DNC covered the creators’ travel costs and expenses for the trip but is not compensating them directly for the videos they post. “Content creators have platforms that can reach millions, and we’re excited about this collaboration as part of our effort to reach young voters to remind them of the stakes in this election and how to make a plan to vote,” said Shelby Cole, deputy chief mobilization officer at the DNC.
DCCC leadership welcomed the creators to the organization’s offices on Monday. The influencers held a meeting with high-level DCCC staffers who projected the midterm election battleground map on to a large screen and outlined key districts they hoped the TikTokers could help them sway. They also instructed the group on effective messaging strategies.
After a long Monday, the influencers dined with DNC staffers at Brasserie Liberté, a French restaurant in the city’s Georgetown neighborhood.
On Tuesday, the group received a private tour of the Capitol. As they walked through the halls, a tour guide explained the branches of government and how the House and Senate operate. They saw the House chamber and Nancy Pelosi’s office, though the congresswoman was not there. At one point, a creator pointed out that there were images of corn etched into the columns right before the old Senate chamber and the group joked about the “it’s corn” TikTok meme.
“Nobody in our group was recognized by the press,” Spehar said. “After they tried to steal our seats, they didn’t have any other questions or curiosity about why we were there or who we were.”
“In all my years in politics, I’ve never seen a single strategy that could flip a state on its own,” said Madeline V. Twomey, founder of digital consulting firm Rufus and Mane who also worked to organize the trip. “TikTok is that strategy — it impacts culture and politics in a way that no other media reaches.”
Rise of TikTok: Sorry you went viral
“We’re seeing more politicians and the party establishment start to embrace this new medium and incredibly effective way of reaching young people,” said Aidan Kohn-Murphy, founder of Gen Z for Change, a group that was formerly known as TikTok for Biden. “We’re seeing a lot of campaigns and party organizations start to embrace the tactics that digital organizers have been saying work for years.”
Kat Wellington, 24, a lifestyle and fashion content creator, said she was previously hesitant to get political on her TikTok account, but that was likely to change after the D.C. meetings. “I realized I want to share more about what I believe in,” she said. “This trip helped me make the push to use my platform for that. I don’t want to be afraid to share my genuine beliefs about politics, even if it’s going to upset some people.” | 2022-10-27T11:37:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats hope TikTok creators will help sway voters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/27/tiktok-democrats-influencers-biden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/27/tiktok-democrats-influencers-biden/ |
Thursday briefing: How the U.S. economy is doing; soaring methane levels; Mark Meadows; Thanksgiving turkey shortage; and more
We’ll learn a lot about the U.S. economy this morning.
What’s happening? A quarterly report on the nation’s GDP — the broadest measure of economic activity — will be released.
What to expect: Experts predict that the economy grew a lot between July and September, a turnaround from the first half of the year.
Is that good news? It would mean the country isn’t in a recession. But economists say we’re not out of the woods yet — especially with prices still rising.
Donald Trump’s former chief of staff must testify before a Georgia grand jury.
Who? Mark Meadows. He played a key role in Trump’s efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia in the 2020 presidential election.
What’s new? A judge yesterday ordered Meadows to cooperate with an investigation into those efforts.
Earlier this week: The Supreme Court put an order that Sen. Lindsey Graham appear before the grand jury on hold.
The amount of methane in the atmosphere is soaring.
The numbers: There were record increases of the powerful greenhouse gas in 2020 and 2021, a new study found.
Why? Natural sources like tropical wetlands may be starting to release more methane as the planet gets warmer, scientists said.
Why it matters: Methane is the second-biggest contributor to climate change, and countries are nowhere close to hitting emissions cuts needed to avoid drastic warming.
A man was convicted in last year’s deadly Wisconsin Christmas parade attack.
What to know: A jury found Darrell Brooks Jr. guilty yesterday of first-degree intentional homicide, among other charges. He faces life in prison.
What happened? Brooks drove an SUV through a crowd near Milwaukee last November, killing six people and injuring 48 others. He had been released from jail on bail just five days before the parade.
An anti-government uprising in Iran is now in its sixth week.
How it started: Iranians, fed up with years of repression and economic neglect, mobilized after a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, died in custody of the “morality police” last month.
The latest: Thousands gathered in Amini’s hometown yesterday and marched to her grave. Iranian security forces responded with more violence and arrests.
Prepare for a turkey shortage this Thanksgiving.
What’s going on? A bird flu outbreak that’s shaping up to be the worst in U.S. history. Six million — 14% of the turkeys in the U.S. — have already died.
What this means: There probably won’t be enough to go around, pushing up prices by 20% or more.
You might see ads the next time you take an Uber.
Why? The company is launching ads that will pop up in the app before and during your ride, and it’s testing in-car advertising screens.
Will it make my ride cheaper? Don’t count on it. The move will probably just make Uber richer while potentially aggravating its customers, experts said.
And now … small changes alone won’t stop climate change, but you don’t need to feel helpless: Here are 10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint. | 2022-10-27T11:37:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Thursday, October 27 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/10/27/what-to-know-for-october-27/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/10/27/what-to-know-for-october-27/ |
Disability advocates say the Pennsylvania Senate campaign shows the added scrutiny that candidates with disabilities receive
John Fetterman, who is having lingering auditory issues after a stroke, used a TV monitor with closed-captioning to process questions during a debate. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
The moment Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman began speaking in the debate Tuesday night against his opponent Mehmet Oz, the social media reaction quickly divided into two camps.
Some applauded Fetterman’s bravery in revealing the lingering auditory processing challenges he faces following a stroke last May. Others criticized his verbal missteps, calling it “painful to watch” and a sign that he probably can’t do the job if elected.
“Disability and disability accommodations are a question mark for a lot of people — they raise questions, they raise suspicion,” said Andrew Pulrang, co-founder of CripTheVote, a campaign to encourage people with disabilities to get more involved with politics.
An analysis of more than 36,000 politicians between 2013 to 2017 found that while the number of elected officials with disabilities has gone up, they are still underrepresented in politics — making up 12 percent of politicians on the local level and only about six percent of politicians at the state and federal level. By comparison, the federal estimates suggest that about 26 percent of U.S. adults have a disability.
“The silver lining of what’s happening with Fetterman is I think it’s hopefully opening up the floor to discussion about things that people with disabilities have been dealing with for a very long time,” said Jumaane Williams, who has ADHD and Tourette’s syndrome and recently lost the Democratic primary for governor of New York.
Questions about intelligence
Yuh-Line Niou, an openly autistic New York state assembly member, ran this year to represent New York’s 10th District in a bid to become the first openly autistic politician in Congress.
Niou lost her primary. She said has faced a certain degree of harassment from the public over her disability, including people who called her “mentally ill” or used a slur for people with intellectual disabilities. Niou said it was clear people don’t understand that people with autism are intelligent, empathic beings.
“I got all these questions like, ‘Are you going to be able to do your job? Like, can she even think?’ ” Niou said. “ ‘Can she service people if she doesn’t know what they’re feeling?’ ”
“I think that it’s very unfair for somebody to say that, because I probably am more empathetic than anyone else,” she added, explaining that as an autistic person, she just expresses her emotions differently.
Disability advocates and researchers say these types of doubts are often predicated on a narrow definition of “fitness” that has historically prevented candidates with disabilities from entering politics — particularly those with any type of cognitive or communication differences.
While the presence of openly disabled candidates is starting to challenge this type of stigma, they said the fact that Fetterman’s lead has shrunk in the weeks since he revealed his auditory processing issue is a sign of the pervasive ableism that disabled candidates run up against.
And not all disabilities are treated equally by voters, according to co-directors of Rutgers University’s Program for Disability Research Douglas L. Kruse and Lisa A. Schur. In their research on politicians with disabilities, they found that someone who has a hearing disability or who has difficulty walking or climbing stairs is much more likely to be in office than someone with a vision, mental or cognitive disability.
“People assume if you have one type of disability, you’re more likely to have another,” Kruse said. “This especially applies to any cognitive disability, a difficulty with auditory processing or speech impairment. People assume something must be wrong with their mind.”
‘Ableism’ in the political process
Fetterman’s health has become a focal point for both campaigns, and during the debate, he was asked repeatedly by moderators about his ability to serve. The debate included closed captions as an accommodation for Fetterman, but the captions, which were provided through stenographers who transcribed everything onto a large monitor behind the moderators, lagged several seconds behind and may have resulted in some delays as Fetterman presumably took time to read the captions before answering.
The debate format also involved rapid-fire questions and 15- and 30-second response times that, at times, seemed difficult for Fetterman to manage. On Twitter, a number of people commented that watching the debate made them more aware of how the debate process is skewed in favor of people who don’t have disabilities.
Johnathan Perkins, an equity and higher education lawyer who is originally from Philadelphia and now is based in Los Angeles, said he was rethinking disability equity after the debate and tweeted that the fact response periods are timed “seems relatively ableist,” and unfair for someone reading captions.
“I never thought about it much until tonight when I saw how much of an obvious disadvantage Fetterman had.”
Kristen Seversky, 35, a native of Edinboro, Penn., who now lives in New York, also tweeted that she is more aware of how rapid-fire debates like tonight’s can be “disadvantageous” to those who rely on captions.
“I’m left with a disappointed feeling because I trust folks will be judging based on whether an answer is given in 15 seconds while prompts are still being formed on the screen,” she wrote in a message.
“Extra time is an extremely common disability accommodation,” tweeted Sara Luterman, a journalist for the 19th who is autistic. “The debate was basically what happens when disability isn’t adequately accommodated. I do not think it was an accurate or fair reflection on Fetterman’s fitness for office.”
Niou agreed that the structure of political debates can make it more difficult for candidates with disabilities to win over voters. In her case, she said she has a harder time picking up on political jabs and is uncomfortable speaking over others. This often results in her having less speaking time and may make her seem “weaker” when she doesn’t respond to subtle attacks.
Niou has served since 2017 as one of only three openly autistic elected legislators in the United States — with the other two being Pennsylvania state Rep. Jessica Benham (D) and Texas state Rep. Briscoe Cain (R).
Criticism of someone’s disability can also scare away voters that would have otherwise voted for a disabled candidate, making it even harder for them to win, according to Gabriele Magni, an assistant political science professor at Loyola Marymount University.
Magni co-authored a study, which is still under peer review, that surveyed over 6,000 likely U.S. voters and found that voters strongly discriminate against candidates with disabilities and health challenges, but not always because they believe the candidate can’t do the job. In some cases, voters may say a candidate is “unelectable” due to the prejudices of others, he said.
“In a way, this becomes sort of a vicious cycle because there’s not many successful examples or role models to say ‘Hey, we can win,’ ” Magni said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has dyslexia and said he knows firsthand what type of encouragement his disability disclosure gave to others with similar learning difficulties. In continuing to run and openly using captions, he said he believes Fetterman’s high-profile campaign will have a positive impact on the perceptions of others with cognitive disabilities.
“He’s created more space for more people.” Newsom said.
Similarly, Niou’s success encouraged Lydia X.Z. Brown (D) to run for a state assembly member office in Maryland as another openly autistic candidate.
In addition to being autistic, Brown has an auditory processing issue and has requested closed captioning as an accommodation in the past. Brown also speaks Spanish and Arabic and teaches college level courses, but said opponents still question their intelligence. Brown said they could relate to the scrutiny that Fetterman is now facing over his need for captions.
“To hear literally thousands of people make the very same assumption about a very capable person who has the exact same experience that I was dealing with and still do — that was infuriating to me,” Brown said.
Public speaking challenges
Michael Anderson (D), a candidate for Florida’s House, said he has been similarly underestimated due to his disability, including by members of his own party. Anderson has cerebral palsy and developmental delays, which cause him to stutter and sometimes struggle to speak.
By running, Anderson said he hopes to challenge conventional expectations of what political candidates should look and sound like. But, phone banking to drum up support from voters is challenging for him because of his anxiety around phone calls and the annoyed reactions he can receive when he takes longer to say something.
He said he has also been pressured by other politicians and by voters to shorten his speeches or stick to certain time limits, but doing so is not always possible.
“My mouth and my speech and anxiety is going to do what it’s going to do,” he explained. “Yes, it’s going to take me two minutes instead of 60 seconds to do a speech, but that’s who I am,” he said. | 2022-10-27T11:37:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fetterman’s openness and stumbles reveal a divide about disability - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/10/27/fetterman-oz-debate-stroke-disability/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/10/27/fetterman-oz-debate-stroke-disability/ |
ECB to announce new jumbo rate hike despite European opposition
David J. Lynch
The European Central Bank (ECB) headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022. (Alex Kraus/Bloomberg)
PARIS — The European Central Bank was expected to announce another major interest rate hike on Thursday, despite vocal opposition from some of the eurozone’s biggest economies, including France and Italy.
Thursday’s announcement would amount to another significant effort to address Europe’s inflation challenge, but may not do much to help. Much of the problem is linked to rising energy prices, largely triggered by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to limit natural gas supplies to European customers.
Inflation in the euro area rose in September to 9.9 percent, up from 9.1 percent in August, well above the ECB’s 2 percent annual price stability target. The ECB’s deposit rate was negative as recently as July, before the bank implemented its first rate hike in 11 years. Last month, in its largest-ever hike, it raised rates by three-quarters of a percentage point.
European Central Bank raises rates to tackle inflation, despite slowdown risks
But Europe’s central bankers fear that if they don’t act, expectations of higher inflation will become embedded into consumer and business planning and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So the ECB has been raising rates to slow the economy even as the euro area appears headed for a recession, and as business activity has slowed down faster than expected in recent weeks.
ECB action to shrink the bank’s ballooning balance sheet — an issue that may also be discussed on Thursday — could be another way of addressing inflation.
Inflation is affecting countries across Europe to varying degrees. In tiny Estonia, it hovers near 24 percent, while in France, prices are rising at an annual rate of only about 6 percent.
France has spent heavily over the past months to cap energy price increases and limit inflation, and President Emmanuel Macron has been among the most vocal critics of a rate hike. In an interview published last week, he said he was “worried to see many experts and certain players in European monetary policy explaining to us that European demand should be broken to better contain inflation.”
“Unlike the United States, we are not in a situation of European overheating,” Macron told the Les Echos business newspaper.
Italy’s new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is also eyeing increased government spending to tackle the energy crisis, said an interest rate hike would be a “rash choice.”
Looming over the disputes between E.U. leaders and the ECB is at least in part the financial market revolt that was prompted by the economic policy proposals of former British prime minister Liz Truss last month. She had planned to use borrowed money to pay for tax cuts while spending heavily to insulate consumers from soaring energy bills. But in response, the British pound fell to an all-time low against the U.S. dollar.
In anticipation of a likely ECB rate hike, the European STOXX 600 index fell when shares opened on Thursday. The losses were limited, however, which analysts attributed to markets having already factored in a substantial rate hike.
The latest ECB action would be part of the broadest campaign of rate hikes by central banks since the late 1990s, according to Citibank. The easing of pandemic-era restrictions on business activity — coupled with higher food and fuel prices resulting from the war in Ukraine — have pushed up prices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe and dozens of developing countries.
The ECB this year has trailed the Federal Reserve, which has lifted its benchmark lending rate by 3 percentage points since March and is expected to announce an additional jumbo increase at its Nov. 1-2 meeting.
Lynch reported from Washington. | 2022-10-27T11:37:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ECB to announce rate hikes despite France, Italy opposition - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/27/ecb-rate-hike/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/27/ecb-rate-hike/ |
Pope Francis at a meeting with indigenous communities in Canada, on July 24, 2022. (Cole Burston/Getty Images)
Pope jokes he is ‘still alive’ despite some bishops wishing him dead
“It is not my world, but you must use it,” Francis said in comments about the benefits and risks of the internet. He asked his listeners to excuse him for mentioning porn, but described it as “a reality.”
Top executives quit Pornhub’s parent company amid more controversy
“I will not say raise your hand if you have had at least one experience of this,” he added, asking them to reflect on it personally.
During his pontificate, Francis’s more outspoken — and at times less conservative — overtones than his predecessors, including his invitation of LGBT advocates to the Vatican, have drawn global attention and pushback from within the church.
Is Pope Francis nearing the end of his pontificate?
In 2020, the Vatican said it would look into into how the pope’s official Instagram account appeared to have liked a Brazilian model’s photo, in an incident that she quipped would help get her into heaven. The pope’s Instagram account, managed by a team under the username franciscus, has 8.9 million followers. | 2022-10-27T11:46:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pope Francis says priests and nuns should avoid watching porn - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/27/pope-francis-porn-priests-nuns/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/27/pope-francis-porn-priests-nuns/ |
Ohio State running back Miyan Williams could have a big day against Penn State. (Washington Post illustration/Photo by Jay LaPrete/Associated Press)
This column treaded more water in Week 8 of the college football season, finding the window with underdog Liberty’s outright win over BYU and with the Oregon-UCLA game going over the total. But Northern Illinois’ predicted starting quarterback never saw the field and the Huskies lost as a favorite to Ohio, and suddenly struggling James Madison couldn’t keep Marshall off the scoreboard. It was another 2-2 week, and I’m 18-13-1 for the season.
The game of the day
You’re going to hear all week about how Penn State always plays Ohio State tight, and that certainly has been true recently: While the Buckeyes have won five straight in the series, their average margin of victory over that stretch has been just seven points. Ohio State was favored in each of those games, three times by double digits, but is 0-5 against the spread against Penn State over that span.
You’re also going to hear that the Buckeyes have yet to be truly challenged, and it’s hard to argue with that: Ohio State has played just one team (Wisconsin on Sept. 24) that resides in the top 25 of Bill Connelly’s SP+ metric. And even though the Buckeyes won that one by 31 points, which is in line with their 34.7-point average margin of victory, their soft schedule is getting a lot of attention.
I’m here to tell you that these narratives are keeping this point spread down and the Buckeyes should be favored by more than two-plus touchdowns.
Ohio State should be able to take advantage of Penn State’s two main weaknesses: running the ball consistently and stopping the run on defense. Nittany Lions running back Nicholas Singleton has put up a few remarkable statistical performances, but 54 percent of his rushing yards have come in two games: against Ohio (93rd in defensive rushing success rate) and Auburn (97th). Take away those outings, and he is averaging a pedestrian 4.2 yards per carry. In a near-loss to Purdue (21st in defensive rushing success rate), he had 10 carries for 31 yards, and in a blowout loss against Michigan (27th), he had six carries for 19 yards. Ohio State’s defense ranks third nationally in success rate on rushing plays.
Flipping sides, Ohio State boasts two running backs — Miyan Williams and TreVeyon Henderson — who can attack a Penn State defense that ranks 93rd in rushing-play success rate and 90th in rushing explosiveness allowed. Williams is averaging 6.97 yards per carry (17th in the country), with Henderson averaging 5.93, and Penn State recently was seen giving up a ghastly 418 rushing yards to Michigan in that 41-17 loss on Oct. 15. I think we see a similar score here.
No. 16 Syracuse (-2.5) vs. Notre Dame, noon, ABC
Orange standout running back Sean Tucker averaged nearly 11 yards per attempt in last weekend’s loss at Clemson. The problem: He only got the ball five times. This week, Syracuse Coach Dino Babers told reporters that was a mistake that would not be repeated.
“When it comes to Tucker having five carries, that’s something that should not happen,” he said. “I agree with everyone else that he should have more carries than that in a football game, and that has been addressed.”
Tucker and quarterback Garrett Shrader (who gained more than 100 yards on runs against the Tigers but lost yardage thanks to five Clemson sacks) should be fed plenty against a Fighting Irish team that struggles to stop the run. In Notre Dame’s 44-21 win over UNLV last week, Runnin’ Rebels running back Courtney Reese had 11 carries for 142 yards, which were 71 more yards than his previous career high against Idaho State of the Football Championship Subdivision on Aug. 27. UNLV ranks 20th in rushing success rate, so its success on the ground isn’t all that unexpected, but Notre Dame — whose defense ranks 112th nationally in expected points added per rush — also gave up 219 rushing yards to Marshall (83rd in rushing success) and 164 to BYU (106th). Syracuse’s offense ranks 14th.
The Fighting Irish were gifted seven possessions that began in UNLV territory last week, thanks in part to two first-quarter blocked punts. They scored on six of those possessions, missing a field goal on the one they didn’t. Syracuse is far less likely to be so generous, and I like the Orange to bounce back after its loss to Clemson.
Rutgers (+14) at Minnesota, 2:30 p.m., Big Ten Network
Taking a double-digit underdog in a game with a low total (40.5 in this case) is almost a no-brainer, and this is especially true when Scarlet Knights Coach Greg Schiano is catching all those points in a Big Ten road game. Schiano’s teams are 16-6 against the spread on the road in conference play and 6-1 ATS when the total is 45 or lower.
Like last week, when our fade of cratering BYU paid off, we’re going against a team in Minnesota that is in free fall, having lost three straight and failing to exceed 17 points in each of them. The Golden Gophers’ passing attack has been feeble since losing star wide receiver Chris Autman-Bell to a season-ending injury, and Minnesota’s wideouts have a grand total of four catches over the past two games. Opposing defenses seem to know that the Golden Gophers’ offense now consists mainly of handoffs to running back Mohamed Ibrahim, who last week carried 30 times but averaged only 3.4 yards. The Rutgers defense ranks 19th nationally in expected points added per rush and is led by coordinator Joe Harasymiak, who held the same role at Minnesota the previous two seasons.
I’m wading into some dangerous waters again when it comes to quarterback injuries: Minnesota’s Tanner Morgan missed last weekend’s loss to Penn State with a head injury, and there’s no telling whether he is going to play Saturday. I still like this bet even if Morgan plays, but if he doesn’t, those 14 points are going to be a whole lot more valuable. Give me Rutgers.
No. 19 Kentucky at No. 3 Tennessee, under 63.5 points, 7 p.m., ESPN
The Wildcats nearly have the slowest-paced offense in the country, averaging 30.6 seconds per play. (Only Air Force, at 32.3, is slower.) They’ve held the ball on average for 56.3 percent of their games in terms of time of possession, which ranks sixth. Yet despite all that, they’re averaging only 2.19 points per drive (69th in the country) and just 0.62 of a point per drive when starting inside their own 20-yard line (115th).
With such a plodding offense and a defense that’s pretty good (14th nationally in overall success rate), it’s no wonder the under has gone 6-1 in Kentucky games. Plus, the one Wildcats game that went over did so by a single point, and Northern Illinois needed 10 garbage-time points over the final 5:26 to make that happen Sept. 24.
I think that continues here, even though Tennessee’s offense is potent. The Vols have been fairly adept at pinning their opponents inside their own 20-yard line, with an average defensive starting field position that ranks 12th in the country. Anytime you can force a slow, nonexplosive offense such as Kentucky’s to travel long distances, scoring tends to stay low.
Kentucky’s defense has held Mississippi State, Mississippi and Florida — the best offenses it has faced — to 17, 22 and 16 points. And while the Vols rank No. 1 in SP+ offense and lead the nation in yards per game, their offense can’t score if it’s not on the field. I’ll take the under here. | 2022-10-27T12:16:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | College football best bets, locks, favorites, underdogs, over/unders - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/college-football-betting-preview/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/27/college-football-betting-preview/ |
Prince Harry has a tell-all book with an already controversial title: ‘Spare’
(Random House Group/AP)
Prince Harry’s memoir finally has a release date. It will be published on Jan. 10 — almost exactly three years to the day since Harry and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, announced their intention to “step back” from their roles as senior members of Britain’s royal family, in one of the institution’s most high-profile upheavals in decades.
The book will be titled “Spare” — in a possible reference to Harry’s role growing up as third in line to the throne, behind his father, Charles, now King Charles III, and older brother, William, now Prince of Wales.
On social media, observers immediately zeroed in on the title. “The power and the pathos of one word,” said Peter Hunt, the BBC’s former royal correspondent.
Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan to surrender their ‘royal highness’ titles
In making the announcement on Thursday, publisher Penguin Random House billed the book as a “landmark publication” written with “raw, unflinching honesty.” It’s been described as a “tell-all.”
But in the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s death, and a signs of a possible rapprochement between Harry and the royal family following their dramatic split in 2020 and his subsequent move to the United States, questions have emerged about how revelatory the book’s contents will truly be.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment through a spokesperson when contacted by The Washington Post.
In a promotional website launched Thursday, the publishing house said the book will come out in 15 languages, including French, Polish and Chinese, in addition to English. It will also be released as an audiobook, read by Harry himself.
The announcement is sure to elicit mixed reactions in the United Kingdom, where Harry, once a well-regarded senior member of the royal family, has attracted the ire of parts of the British public for his high-profile break with Buckingham Palace and the stunning allegations he and Meghan have levied against the royal family, particularly those contained in an interview last year with Oprah Winfrey.
Among them: that when Meghan was pregnant with her first child — a son she and Harry later named Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor — a family member prompted “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”
Since then, both Harry and Meghan have signed lucrative deals with media powerhouses like Netflix and Spotify from their home base in Santa Barbara, Calif., revealing more — but, many suspect, not all — about their time as working royals and about Harry’s childhood.
Meghan and Harry are becoming your typical American mega-celebrities
Of all those projects, Harry’s memoir has attracted the most fevered speculation. It was announced in July 2021, with an anticipated publishing date of “late 2022.” At the time, Harry said in a news release that he looked forward to sharing “a firsthand account of my life that’s accurate and wholly truthful” — a possible dig at British tabloids, with whom he and Meghan engaged in a years-long legal battle over claims of privacy violations, among other things.
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, wins court victory in privacy fight with British tabloid
But the release date was pushed back to next year after Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, died at the age of 96 in September. Some speculated that Harry was growing uncomfortable with the possible ramifications of the book on the royal family.
At the queen’s funeral, he and Meghan projected a united front with other members of the royal family. According to the Telegraph, royal commentator Tina Brown said earlier this month that she thought the book wouldn’t “see the light of day.”
It’s clear the book will go ahead, but the announcement of its title and release date are sure to fuel speculation as to its contents — possibly to its publisher’s delight.
William Booth contributed to this report. | 2022-10-27T13:04:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Prince Harry's new tell-all book called 'Spare,' out in 2023 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/27/prince-harry-book-title-spare/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/10/27/prince-harry-book-title-spare/ |
WASHINGTON, MICHIGAN - APRIL 02: John Gibbs a candidate for congress in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional district speaks at a rally hosted by former President Donald Trump on April 02, 2022 near Washington, Michigan. Trump is in Michigan to promote his America First agenda and is expected to voice his support of Matthew DePerno, who is running for the Michigan Republican party’s nomination for state attorney general, and Kristina Karamo, who is running for the party’s nomination for secretary of state. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) (Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images North America)
Critics, including some within the Democratic Party, feared that the project could easily go awry and lead to more extremists in office. Those who defended the strategy insisted that politics sometimes demanded rough-and-tumble tactics, especially when victory would mean keeping election deniers and other extremists out of office.
Democrats wound up targeting only 13 races, and the fringe candidate they supported won in six of those contests: two House districts, one Senate, and three governors.(1)
We don’t know how the midterms will turn out, but we can see what polls and other indicators tell us about the state of the races. And right now, according to FiveThirtyEight projections, none of the six Republicans are favored to win.
One race is close enough that it falls in the toss-up category: Republican John Gibbs was given a 43% chance of winning in Michigan’s 3rd congressional district. Democratic spending helped Gibbs, who has declared President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 “simply mathematically impossible,” defeat Republican incumbent Peter Meijer in the primary. While it’s impossible to know whether Meijer would be running better than Gibbs against the Democratic contender, Hillary Scholten, it’s very likely that a Republican incumbent would have been able to hold the seat in a year that should be pretty strong for the GOP.(2)
The other five Republicans who got a boost from Democrats are even less likely to be elected; the one with the strongest chance, according to FiveThirtyEight, is New Hampshire Senate candidate Donald Bolduc with a 22% likelihood. The others are huge longshots. We can’t know for sure what might have happened in these races with a different Republican nominee, but one measure of the tactic’s effectiveness is that Bolduc is polling far behind the state’s mainstream Republican governor, Chris Sununu.
Similarly, extremist Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano is polling far worse than Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, who is running as a mainstream Republican.
It’s also worth a quick look at the races where Democrats tried to help select their opponent but were unsuccessful. Democrats appear to be in good shape in three of those, but the Republican candidate has a solid lead in one House race, while two other House contests and the Nevada gubernatorial race are toss-ups. It’s quite possible that had Democrats put more money into meddling that they might have swung a total of five House seats and one Senate seat — a total that might have been enough to secure majorities in both chambers. Just in terms of outcomes, that potential upside seems well worth the possibility that one or two more extremists wind up in office.
After all, a whole lot of Republicans who falsely claim that fraud determined the outcome of the 2020 elections were nominated and will be elected without the benefit of Democratic meddling. And they will be a lot more influential if they are backed by partisan legislative majorities, even if many of their fellow Republican lawmakers are perfectly sensible and fully support democracy.
Of course, the outlook might change for some of these seats before Election Day. And we don’t know that Democratic meddling actually made any difference in those primaries, let alone that it provided the margin of victory for the winning candidates. And yes, it’s fair to note that the “attacks” were only effective to the extent that Republican voters were willing to vote for extremists in the first place, even in swing districts where it might hurt them in the general election. The blame for that falls squarely on Republicans, not Democrats.
What that meant is that the Democratic Party was faced with only bad choices in these swing districts. Had they refrained from “meddling,” they would be putting their majorities further at risk. If they meddled, as they did, they were risking accidentally electing extremists. As it is, they seem to have targeted their attacks well, minimizing the risk and maximizing the chances for gains. I’ll score this one for the campaign professionals and candidates who took the risk.
Obama Is More Valuable as a Pundit Than as a Politician: Matt Yglesias
Democrats Are Focusing on the Wrong Issues: Ramesh Ponnuru
State and Local Elections Are Now Critical: Jonathan Bernstein
(1) There may have been other meddling, but it’s unlikely it made much difference. For example, a National Review item makes much of a Democratic “email blast” to reporters knocking the Democrats’ preferred candidate as insufficiently loyal to Republicans. The chances that such a maneuver by itself or any similar small-bore actions in other primaries had any effect at all outcomes seems far-fetched indeed.
(2) Democrats’ bet that Scholten would have a better chance knocking out Gibbs than the relative moderate Meijer put the party in a position of spending money to defeat one of the few Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill siege, which made that the most questionable of these investments. | 2022-10-27T13:05:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats Were Smart to Meddle in GOP Primaries - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/democrats-were-smart-to-meddlein-gop-primaries/2022/10/27/e36bb0ae-55f3-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/democrats-were-smart-to-meddlein-gop-primaries/2022/10/27/e36bb0ae-55f3-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
Two Atlantic disturbances could develop into named tropical storms
While both may avoid the United States, it’s a sign that hurricane season still has some fight left
The National Hurricane Center’s outlook map. (NOAA/NHC) (NOAA/NHC)
We’re in the back half of Atlantic hurricane season for sure, but that doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods quite yet. A pair of disturbances run the risk of becoming named tropical storms, with at least one system set to potentially materialize in the Caribbean and eventually pose a threat to land.
The National Hurricane Center is monitoring two tropical waves — one northeast of the Dominican Republic and Haiti and the other a few hundred miles east of the Windward Islands. The former could gradually develop over the next several days, but the latter can barely even be spotted on weather maps yet. It’s the one that could become a concern for Central America.
By the books, hurricane season in the Atlantic runs until Nov. 30, though the atmosphere ultimately does whatever it likes. Leading up to the 2022 season, experts across the board predicted an unusually active season, and were surprised when August passed without a single named storm forming for the first time in 25 years.
Since then, eight named storms have formed, bringing the season’s total to 11 thus far. Five storms became hurricanes, including Ian, a Category 4 that slammed into southwest Florida on Sept. 28. It was one of two Category 4 storms this season, the other being Fiona, which attained that strength west of Bermuda before metastasizing into a record-breaking nontropical storm and wreaking havoc in Atlantic Canada.
Presently, the Atlantic has racked up 74 percent of the ACE, or Accumulated Cyclone Energy, that it would typically see by this point in the season. ACE is a product of storm intensity and duration, and represents how much energy from warm ocean waters is expended by storms on their strong winds. Approximately half of this season’s ACE was churned through by Ian and Fiona.
Southwest Atlantic disturbance
On Thursday morning, the National Hurricane Center had highlighted an area of downpours between the eastern Caribbean and the southwest Atlantic as having a 40 percent chance of eventual development into a tropical depression or storm. The diffuse area of convection, or downpour and thunderstorm activity, was located about 500 miles northeast of the Dominican Republic, and 700 miles east of the Bahamas.
Broad low pressure associated with the thunderstorms will begin to consolidate sometime late Friday or Saturday. Strong winds aloft to the north/west may acutely hamper this process, but eventually a more concentrated low pressure center could form. If that is the case, the system may become a transient tropical depression as it drifts southwest of Bermuda before being scooped east away from any land areas early next week.
Watching the Caribbean
Of greater concern is the area the National Hurricane Center has included in its outlook maps in the southeast Caribbean. The agency indicates a 50-50 shot of eventual development in the next five days.
The system hasn’t actually formed yet, and its ingredients are still in the fledgling stages. Among them is a disorganized region of thunderstorms near the border of Venezuela and Guyana, just southeast of Trinidad and Tobago. Over the next day or two, this small cluster of downpours will work northwest.
By midday Friday, it will exit Venezuela and move over the southeast Caribbean, where warm water temperatures should foster its maturation. Winds in the upper atmosphere will be weak, meaning there won’t be much to disrupt its vertical organization. In fact, clockwise-spinning high-altitude winds over the nascent system may enhance its outflow, or exhaust. Healthier outflow means a storm can evacuate more air away from it at the upper levels, in turn allowing it to ingest more warm, humid “inflow” from below and strengthen.
At present, we don’t know much about whether the system will even form at all, much less where it may head, but several weather models plant the seed of a storm and suggest it could eventually head toward Central America. Environmental conditions are favorable for whatever develops to strengthen. The Caribbean should be closely watched in the next week to 10 days. | 2022-10-27T13:05:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tropical update: Two disturbances could develop into named storms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/27/atlantic-tropical-weather-update-caribbean/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/27/atlantic-tropical-weather-update-caribbean/ |
In the late 1970s, Sendak embarked on a second career as a costume and stage designer. His design work for operas included Krása’s “Brundibar,” Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” and “The Goose of Cairo,” and Prokofiev’s “The Love for Three Oranges.” A video on repeat at the exhibit features the design work Sendak did for a new production of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker commissioned in 1981 by the Pacific Northwest Ballet. | 2022-10-27T13:05:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Columbus art museum debuts major Maurice Sendak exhibit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/columbus-art-museum-debuts-major-maurice-sendak-exhibit/2022/10/27/a65b92d0-55f1-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/columbus-art-museum-debuts-major-maurice-sendak-exhibit/2022/10/27/a65b92d0-55f1-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html |
Campaign signs along a stretch of Adelphi Road near the University of Maryland in College Park on Nov. 2, 2018. (Arelis R. Hernández/The Washington Post)
Larry Hogan, a Republican, is the governor of Maryland.
Early voting has begun in Maryland. As Marylanders head to the polls to exercise their fundamental right to choose their elected leaders, they can be confident in the integrity of our elections.
A recent nonpartisan report found that Maryland ranks second in the nation in election integrity. Despite weeks of headlines, campaign rhetoric and lawsuits surrounding the process, our elections remain free and fair. When the results are counted — whether we like them or not — we must accept them.
The foundation of our democracy rests on the legitimacy of our elections. And the legitimacy of our elections depends on honest leaders who recognize that the office they hold is bigger than they are or partisan politics.
I get that losing an election is hard to swallow, because I’ve been through it myself. In 1992, I ran an unexpectedly competitive challenge to Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.). At 11 p.m. on election night, our campaign was ahead in the early returns by nearly 20 percentage points. However, this lead was eventually reversed in the final count. As tough as this loss was for me personally and professionally, I understood that it was my responsibility to accept it and move forward. In my successful elections in 2014 and 2018, Democratic gubernatorial nominees Anthony G. Brown and Ben Jealous returned that graciousness by quickly conceding after hard-fought campaigns.
Over the past eight years, just down the road from the nation’s capital, Maryland has set a shining example for how democracy can work to make life better for all of our citizens. Though the divisiveness and dysfunction in Washington have only continued to grow worse, I believe we have shown how to bring people together to get things done.
Now, the toxic politics of Washington has morphed from partisan gridlock and name-calling to something even more destructive: casting doubt on the integrity of election results and the fundamentals of our democratic process. Once again, Maryland cannot succumb to these dangerous trends. We must continue to show the nation a better path forward.
When the results are counted, we must respect them and move forward together as one state, recognizing that there is more that unites us as Marylanders than divides us.
Opinion|Anthony Brown’s lessons from 2014 paid off in 2022 | 2022-10-27T13:06:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Larry Hogan: Maryland's free and fair elections must be respected - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/27/larry-hogan-respect-maryland-free-fair-elections/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/27/larry-hogan-respect-maryland-free-fair-elections/ |
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