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D.C. passes law banning companies from firing workers for marijuana use
The D.C. Council. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Private companies in D.C. will not be allowed to fire workers who test positive for marijuana use, under a law passed by the D.C. Council on Tuesday that now heads to Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s (D) desk for her signature.
Recreational marijuana use has been legal in the District since a 2014 ballot initiative, and council members said they believe no worker should be fired for using a legal substance.
The new law makes exceptions, however, for workers in “safety-sensitive jobs,” including operators of heavy machinery, construction workers, police and security guards who carry weapons and medical professionals. While the District already created protections for city employees who use marijuana, the District’s government cannot bar the federal government from disciplining federal employees for marijuana use.
The council noted a report from the American Addiction Centers that found government jobs were most likely to require drug tests from workers — likely blunting the impact of the legislation, which was introduced by Council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8).
Still, council members said the local law would protect some workers, especially people of color. They pointed to a 2013 Yale study that found 63 percent of Black workers have jobs that conduct drug testing, compared with 46 percent of White workers.
At Tuesday’s legislative meeting, the council also argued over where to draw the boundaries for D.C.’s most micro level of local governance, advisory neighborhood commissions, which must be revised once a decade.
Residents of Cleveland Park had objected to a plan to divide their neighborhood across two commissions. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) convened a recent meeting attended by more than 100 residents who mostly opposed the proposed map, and Mendelson tried to introduce a new map Tuesday that would have included many of those attendees’ requests.
But Ward 3 Council member Mary M. Cheh (D), who represents the area, and at-large member Elissa Silverman (I), who chaired the redistricting committee, fiercely objected to Mendelson’s revision of the redistricting committee’s map, which was crafted over months of community meetings. Cheh referred to Mendelson’s actions as “highhanded and fundamentally anti-democratic.”
Mendelson argued that the tight timeline from the delayed 2020 Census through the redistricting process gave him little choice but to get involved, with just days left to amend the boundaries. “It brings criticism on the council to say that this is last-minute, as if there was another possibility,” he said.
The council sided with Cheh and Silverman, voting 10-3 in favor of their suggestion for the Ward 3 neighborhood boundaries. | 2022-06-07T22:38:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. passes law banning companies from firing workers for marijuana use - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/07/dc-marijuana-testing-employers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/07/dc-marijuana-testing-employers/ |
Uvalde shooting prompts calls in Northern Virginia for stronger gun laws
Anti-gun violence activists protest in front of the National Rifle Association's Fairfax headquarters in 2015. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Fairfax County on Tuesday urged Virginia state lawmakers and Congress to do more to prevent gun violence following the mass shootings in Uvalde, Tex., Buffalo and elsewhere in recent weeks.
After honoring the memories of the 19 students and two teachers who were killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, the Northern Virginia county — home to the National Rifle Association’s headquarters — pushed for the General Assembly to pass a host of what a resolution calls “common sense gun safety” measures as quickly as possible.
Among them: a ban on assault weapons, raising the state’s legal age to purchase certain types of firearms from 18 to 21, and giving local jurisdictions more authority to enact their own gun violence prevention measures.
“People have had it,” said Jeffrey C. McKay (D-At Large), the board of supervisors chairman. He introduced the resolution, which was approved on a 9-to-1 vote. He said that as the father of two children who attend county public schools, the shooting in Uvalde was particularly unsettling.
“No other country has to deal with the challenges that we’re dealing with,” McKay said. “No other parents have to fear, when they put their kids on a school bus every morning: Are they going to come back alive?”
Virginia passed a host of gun violence prevention laws in 2020, fueled in part by a mass shooting in Virginia Beach the year before that killed 12 people.
But, amid protests in Richmond by gun rights activists who arrived from around the country, the then-Democratically controlled state legislature stopped short on an assault weapons ban, partly because it proved difficult to define the weapons and agree on how to enforce a ban.
The prospect of more police at schools is not comforting to Black parents
With Republicans now controlling the governor’s mansion and the House of Delegates, the state has mainly sought to stem fatal shootings through violence prevention programs and calls to beef up security inside local schools — with a few failed attempts by GOP lawmakers to overturn some of the 2020 laws.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) repeated the calls for improved safety after the Uvalde shooting, noting that the state budget included funding for more school resource officers and that Virginia now requires safety audits to be conducted at schools in cooperation with local law enforcement agencies.
His administration is working to make sure that “local school boards and local law enforcement are collaborating and communicating immediately, so that if some, God forbid, copycat criminal decided to try to replicate this, we would be prepared,” Youngkin said during a news conference last week.
On Tuesday, Del. Don L. Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) — the House’s newly elected minority leader — argued that Youngkin should convene another General Assembly special session so the state can do more about gun violence.
“We can ban AR-15s if we wanted to,” said Scott, speaking a few hours after another shooting killed three adults and critically injured another adult in Portsmouth. “We can ban high-capacity magazines if we want to. They are weapons of war. They should not be in our communities.”
Other officials in Northern Virginia have been working to increase the pressure on Youngkin and other Republican leaders.
Two days after the Uvalde shooting, Arlington County’s board called for local licensing and registration requirements for buying and selling guns and for anyone in the state openly carrying a firearm to be required to get a state permit and license.
“The fact that this keeps on happening is gutting and infuriating,” said Katie Cristol (D), the Arlington board chair.
The Alexandria City Council is considering a resolution promoting the state’s red-flag law and some of the other measures passed in 2020.
In Fairfax, several supervisors pointed out that gun violence has become the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the nation, surpassing automobile accidents in 2020, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
While violent crime is relatively low in Fairfax — with 21 homicides and 8,020 assaults in the county of 1.1 million residents last year — the pervasiveness of guns in the country puts every community in jeopardy, McKay said.
Pat Herrity (Springfield), the sole dissenting vote on the measure and the Fairfax board’s only Republican, argued against the idea of the state granting localities more authority to enact their own gun laws.
“It has the potential to create a web of confusion for law-abiding gun owners,” Herrity said.
Fellow board member Rodney L. Lusk (D-Lee) said any effort to prevent the loss of someone’s life by gun violence is worth it.
Lusk sponsored a separate motion that the board also approved, directing the county staff to study how to take more firearms out of circulation through a county gun-buyback program.
The Fairfax Police Department accepts unwanted guns, but the county doesn’t offer any financial incentives for people to surrender their weapons. Under state law, those firearms can be sold in a public auction if the person relinquishing them requests it.
The board directed the county to explore how a gun-buyback program would work under state law.
“If we can get even one gun off the street that would prevent one death, we’ve done something important,” Lusk said.
Teo Armus contributed to this report.
More stories about Northern Virginia
Va. students question Tim Kaine on guns: After shootings, ‘nothing happens’ | 2022-06-07T22:47:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Uvalde shooting prompts calls in Northern Virginia for stronger gun laws - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/07/uvalde-shooting-fairfax-county-gun-laws/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/07/uvalde-shooting-fairfax-county-gun-laws/ |
FILE - Dr. Judea Pearl, father of American journalist Daniel Pearl, who was killed by terrorists in 2002, speaks in Miami Beach, Fla., April 15, 2007. Joseph Weinberg, a musician and recent graduate of Pittsfield High School, who wants to make classical music more accessible to more diverse performers and audience members, has been named the 2022 recipient of a college scholarship founded in honor of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File) | 2022-06-07T22:51:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Making music accessible the goal of Pearl scholarship winner - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/making-music-accessible-the-goal-of-pearl-scholarship-winner/2022/06/07/7767ad5c-e6ab-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/making-music-accessible-the-goal-of-pearl-scholarship-winner/2022/06/07/7767ad5c-e6ab-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
FILE - Todd Chrisley, left, and his wife, Julie Chrisley, pose for photos at the 52nd annual Academy of Country Music Awards on April 2, 2017, in Las Vegas. The couple, stars of the reality television show “Chrisley Knows Best,” have been found guilty in Atlanta on federal charges including bank fraud and tax evasion Tuesday, June 7, 2022. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-06-07T22:52:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Todd and Julie Chrisley found guilty on federal charges - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/todd-and-julie-chrisley-found-guilty-on-federal-charges/2022/06/07/831df554-e6a9-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/todd-and-julie-chrisley-found-guilty-on-federal-charges/2022/06/07/831df554-e6a9-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
By Barkha Dutt
People holding placards demand the arrest of Bharatiya Janata Party member Nupur Sharma for her comments on the prophet Mohammad, in Mumbai on June 6. (Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters)
Nupur Sharma, the now-former spokeswoman for India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, has been shamed on the global stage for insulting the prophet Muhammad on prime-time television. After unprecedented backlash from Muslim-majority nations — starting with Qatar and including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indonesia and Maldives — she was suspended from the party and Naveen Jindal, a BJP spokesman in Delhi who also tweeted derogatory remarks about Islam, was expelled.
In reality, however, the diplomatic kerfuffle is unlikely to draw any long-term red lines around the Hindu right wing’s anti-Muslim rhetoric. If anything, positions might become even more hard-line.
Sure, for now, media representatives of the BJP will watch their words when they appear on panels. But let’s not kid ourselves. For hundreds of thousands of far-right supporters of the Modi government, Sharma is a cause célèbre. Just look at the flood of “I stand with Nupur Sharma” comments on social media and calls to boycott Qatar Airways. This mass messaging once again appears to be coordinated by a well-oiled, centralized machinery. I wouldn’t be surprised if, after some time, Sharma’s political career is eventually made rather than unmade by this ugly controversy.
Should India be lectured on pluralism and human rights by undemocratic nations, some of them theocracies with poor records on diversity? There is some merit to the questions being raised along these lines. Even the most ferocious critics of the BJP’s Hindutva politics are often uncomfortable with sermonizing from external powers, including strong democracies such as the United States. Many applauded India’s foreign minister when he recently reminded the United States that any dialogue over human rights has to be between equals and not framed as a patronizing admonition. And India’s Muslim politicians have repeatedly pushed back against Pakistanis who offer commiserations to the community.
But this only makes the ultranationalist BJP more answerable for why it responded to outrage from governments of at least 15 Muslim-majority nations, but did not react to the hurt triggered in its more than 200 million Muslim citizens. Perhaps the answer lies in the billions of dollars of trade, oil, food exports and remittances at stake in these countries. Or it could be that Prime Minister Narendra Modi — who has had considerable success at enhancing diplomatic relations with the Muslim world — feels his personal brand has been sullied. India’s vice president, who was on a visit to Qatar when its government summoned the Indian ambassador over the issue, has been embarrassed abroad.
Whatever the reason — and perhaps it is a combination of several — the BJP and the government took days to act against Sharma, and only did so when it became an international issue.
That the government ignored domestic criticism speaks to what retired diplomat Navdeep Suri calls the “duality” of the BJP. “The party thought … the government, the diplomats and the prime minister could woo the Muslim world, but back home the politics of polarization could be pursued for electoral gain,” Suri, who served as Indian ambassador to the UAE, told me. “Is this a diplomatic failure for India? No, it is a political failure that diplomats have to fix.”
In truth, the furor over Sharma’s comments were initially ignored because the BJP has never had to pay a political price for the othering of the Muslim community. Nor is it especially bothered if religious diversity and inclusiveness get rolled over by its victorious electoral juggernaut. There is a chance that the party might soon have no Muslim in parliament. If that happens, it won’t be sheepish.
But today the Modi government is having to firefight on two fronts: with angry Islamic nations, where millions of Indians live and work, and rabid sections of its own base who are apoplectic about what they see as surrender. Online right-wing platforms are full of provocative outbursts about “betrayal.” Clearly, the BJP's backers believe the last word has yet to be spoken.
The perfect enabling environment for these dog whistles is provided by India’s private television news channels and their toxic culture of coarseness. Every evening, anchors deliberately pit the most extreme voices against each other, chosen precisely for how undignified, venomous and unsubstantial they are. Noam Chomsky has lamented the “manufactured consent” of mass media; Indian channels upend that with a theatrical model of “manufactured dissent.” While the newspaper arms of these media conglomerates publish editorials on the perils of polarizations, their broadcast businesses thrive on being factories of hate. This has continued even in the aftermath of the fracas with Persian Gulf nations.
Supporters of Sharma have argued that the response from the gulf countries is a result of an organized campaign by India’s adversaries. Reports of threats by al-Qaeda to carry out suicide attacks over the ‘“blasphemous” comments will only bolster this narrative.
It goes without saying that all violence, including threats to Sharma, is indefensible. But the irony is that — while terrorists issue threats with impunity, politicians argue and point fingers, great powers joust for strategic one-upmanship and performative television hosts debase the profession — ordinary Indian Muslims and their voices will likely remain on the margins.
Sharma might have been disingenuously labeled “fringe” in India’s official clarifications. But chances are that today’s “fringe” is tomorrow’s mainstream. | 2022-06-07T22:52:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Barkha Dutt: After Nupur Sharma's comments, why did India listen to Arab governments before its own citizens? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/07/india-bjp-nupur-sharma-anti-muslim-gulf-nations/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/07/india-bjp-nupur-sharma-anti-muslim-gulf-nations/ |
Angels fire Joe Maddon after strong start devolved into 12-game skid
Joe Maddon finished with a 157-172 record in two-plus seasons with the Angels. (Matt Slocum/AP)
In determined pursuit of their first playoff appearance since 2014 — and their first postseason win since 2009 — the Los Angeles Angels fired manager Joe Maddon on Tuesday afternoon. Third base coach Phil Nevin will serve as interim manager beginning with Tuesday night’s game against the visiting Boston Red Sox.
The Angels, who are on a 12-game losing streak that dropped their record to 27-29, are the second playoff hopeful to fire an experienced manager in the past week; they join the Philadelphia Phillies, who jettisoned Joe Girardi on Friday and proceeded to sweep the Angels at Citizens Bank Park over the weekend.
The final game of that series was particularly devastating for Maddon’s team, which led 5-0 in the fifth inning and 6-2 in the eighth before the Phillies rallied for a walk-off win. The Red Sox then shut them out, 1-0, on Monday.
Less than a month ago, a move like this was nearly unthinkable. Maddon and the star-studded Angels were 10 games above .500 and charging toward October. Shohei Ohtani was pitching well and hitting plenty. Mike Trout was healthy. The pitching staff was better. The Angels had committed the most money in franchise history to this roster, and it appeared to be worth it.
But then injuries struck. Steady infielder David Fletcher required hip surgery. Upstart Taylor Ward (hamstring) and former all-star Anthony Rendon (wrist) also hit the injured list.
And Trout, the future Hall of Famer and franchise centerpiece, slid into the longest hitless streak of his career, which ended at 0 for 26 when he singled Monday. Other teams experience injuries, too, but few see things crumble the way the Angels have in the past two weeks. Entering Tuesday’s games, they were 8½ games behind the Houston Astros in the American League West — but still just 1½ out of the AL’s third wild-card spot.
The Angels hired Maddon ahead of the 2020 season amid frustration about their always-talented roster’s inability to make a playoff push. Maddon had proved himself capable of winning in a variety of situations, having led the wily Tampa Bay Rays to an AL pennant in 2008 and the beleaguered Chicago Cubs to their curse-breaking World Series title in 2016.
But his magic didn’t translate in Anaheim, where he finished 152-172 and posted sub-.500 records in both of his full seasons. His teams were undone by a lack of reliable pitching and were frustrated by their lack of competitive late-summer baseball.
Maddon, 68, also faced questions about his hiring decisions. It was Maddon, in conjunction with then-general manager Billy Eppler, who brought pitching coach Mickey Callaway to the Angels after the 2019 season. MLB banned Callaway after it investigated multiple complaints of lewd behavior and sexual harassment and found them to be credible.
Maddon said he was surprised to hear of the accusations against Callaway and called it a “difficult subject to speak about.” Eppler was fired as GM after the 2020 season and is now general manager of the New York Mets.
Maddon’s dismissal is an awkward chapter in the young tenure of General Manager Perry Minasian, whom the Angels hired in November 2020. Minasian is as affable and patient of a GM as you can find — careful, not reactionary. That he decided to fire Maddon now — well before the all-star break and as injuries have undermined a roster that looked competitive when healthy — displays a new kind of urgency around a team that has declared it, but not shown it, over and over in recent years.
Minasian hands the reins to Nevin, who was hired in the offseason after spending 2017 to 2021 as the New York Yankees’ third base coach. Nevin’s name was in the mix for several managerial jobs in recent years, including the Washington Nationals’ opening when Matt Williams was fired after the 2015 season. On an interim basis, he’ll get his first chance with the Angels. | 2022-06-07T22:53:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Joe Maddon fired by Angels amid 12-game losing streak - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/06/07/joe-maddon-fired-angels-losing-streak/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/06/07/joe-maddon-fired-angels-losing-streak/ |
Transcript: Transportation for All
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're going to be talking about the future of transportation in America, and we'll have two segments, so please stick around for them both. I'm going to be starting by talking about electric vehicles with Michael Berube, who is the deputy assistant secretary for Sustainable Transportation at the Department of Energy.
Michael Berube, a very warm welcome to Washington Post Live.
MR. BERUBE: Thank you, Frances. It's really an honor be here today.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Well, we're thrilled to have you, of course, and a word to our audience before we begin, you can tweet questions for Michael to @PostLive. That's @PostLive. Any Twitter questions, please send them in.
So I'd like to start, Michael, by asking about President Biden's ambitious goal. I think it's 50 percent sales of electric vehicles by 2030. Are we on track for that?
MR. BERUBE: I think we are on track for that. You know, it's always a little dangerous to make forecasts nine, eight years out now, but, you know, as your piece at the beginning intro said, Europe hit 20 percent last year, and EV sales in the U.S., the sales rate doubled in the last six months, trending up to 6 percent here. The number of new models that are coming out are astounding, and that's really important because it will increase the range of the types of vehicles. I mean, just watching all the‑‑you know, whether it was the Super Bowl earlier this year or the other football games, right, the hallmark of auto advertising, every ad seemed like it was for a new EV, including pickup trucks, which certainly will be a game changer.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Well, I've taken a look around, and costs remain high, right, for many of these vehicles. Of course, they'll go down as numbers go up, but what's the government doing to help the process of bringing down the cost of these new vehicles?
MR. BERUBE: You know, one of the things‑‑I just got off the phone with people from J.D. Power who have an overall affordability index, and when they look at payback, resale value of the vehicle, all the factors, they were actually saying that the affordability index is only like 4, 5 percent higher on the EV right now than the conventional gas vehicle.
Now, that said, we actually anticipate that by the time we get to that 2030 date, you'll actually have the EVs, the full cost of the EV, both up front and the operating cost, will actually be a savings for people, which is just‑‑you know, and that's before, quite honestly, gas prices were at the level that they are today. So I think that is a tremendous accomplishment for us to get there.
We are driving battery costs down with new battery technology but also all the other parts of the vehicle itself, improving durability and the length of the batteries, which also help with resale value. I mean, today we're seeing that people are all worried about will my battery last the life of the car. That really has not been a problem at all so far. So we're pretty bullish.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Clarify that for me. The up‑front cost, you say is going to be competitive?
MR. BERUBE: I think the up‑front cost will be very close to competitive, and when you take into account the lower operating cost, even today, it's $6,000 lower maintenance and repair cost on top of the lower actual fuel price cost as well. So there might be a little bit of tradeoff in there between that up‑front and then the ongoing operating cost.
And when you think about resale value of the vehicle, the resale value of the vehicle is a lot based upon its ongoing operating and maintenance cost for a used car. Well, an electric vehicle is going to have the lowest ongoing maintenance and operating cost from a technology perspective. So that should make the resale value really valuable for these cars, which will help people in the used car market as well.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So talk to me a little bit about last year's infrastructure bill and what it has done to help with this process.
MR. BERUBE: Well, last year's infrastructure bill truly was game changing in so many ways. On the electrification front, probably the biggest single item is $7.5 billion towards the EV charging infrastructure build‑out. The Department of Transportation, Department of Energy are working very hard on that with all of the different states and territories for that EV‑charging network. So I think that will provide a lot of confidence for people when they see the growing EV‑charging network. But it really goes beyond that. There's tremendous funds in the bill for battery supply chain, helping to develop a domestic battery industry, developing the processing the materials here in the U.S. That will help with stability and the cost long term as well. There's a significant amount of work on electrifying school buses and transit buses, which will help certainly reduce emissions in those sectors but also increases the exposure of people to the technology, increases the demand for domestic batteries, and in some ways, that's like the tip. Those are the really big marquee programs, but there's more on top of that that will help, that will help now with regard to electrification.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So I wanted to ask a little bit about miles per gallon. I think there's a target by 2026 of 55 miles per gallon for light trucks and cars, and automakers are struggling with that. What's the federal government going to do to help with that process?
MR. BERUBE: Well, I think, as you said, there's recently out of EPA and DOT the new updated fuel economy standards. Really, when you‑‑I worked many years in the automotive industry. When you look now at 2022, 2025 those products are largely‑‑those are designed and being built, and I think those standards were set with that well in mind, understanding where the industry is at.
I think a lot of what we're really focused on is what happens after that. How do you‑‑when you get to that 50 percent of vehicles being electrified by 2030, that becomes‑‑it's just a whole different game, right? You're really now talking about moving away completely from that fossil fuel‑based new vehicle market.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So you spoke earlier about in Europe, I think, 20 percent of sales already being electric vehicles. Why are the U.S. automakers so late to the game?
MR. BERUBE: You know, I think‑‑as I say, I worked in global auto industry for a European, North American manufacturer. I think we're literally talking a matter of one‑year difference here. The U.S. was actually quite a bit ahead on EVs and thinking about EVs and this deployment, and then, if you remember Dieselgate and all the issues around diesel that happened over in Europe who had a very heavy focus on diesels for their, you know, gas and fuel economy. So, when that got pulled out from under them, it was an immediate crisis and a very quick switchover to say we have to move to electric. Whereas, I think on the U.S. side, that that is going to be happening. It's just a little bit off.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Well, we can't go to EVs without enough charging stations. How are we going about that, and is there a specific ratio for the number of charging stations per cars to make this all work?
MR. BERUBE: You know, I don't think there is a‑‑there isn't an exact type of ratio. I think there's two big things that we have to do. Even though most driving is done locally, only about 10 percent of miles driven really are these long‑distance trips. People need to feel confident that they will have chargers.
So one of the first things that we're doing under the infrastructure bill is building out the corridors across the country. Make sure that the typical person who says, "Hey, I'm going 2‑, 300 miles," right‑‑that would be a typical long‑distance trip today‑‑that they are confident that they can get charging. So, through the infrastructure bill, the plan is to cover every corridor, every interstate, and every major highway after that with sufficient charging. I think that gives people the confidence for the longer‑distance trips.
Then we have to make sure that people have charging where they live. For people that park their car at their home in a garage, that's not that complicated, and we know from all the data and the studies that 80 percent of all charging and electronics will actually want to happen at home. That's when it's the most convenient for a person. It's also when it's the cheapest.
But one of the things we have to think about is what about those people that don't have charging or don't park their car in a house. They live in a multiunit dwelling or an apartment building. That can be true across a lot of different cities. So we're really focused on how do we develop new models for that. What's the best way to provide people charging there and to do it affordably? Because we want to make sure that we have an equitable transition. As we start moving to more and more EVs, we want to make sure that all communities can benefit from that, not just the better off or wealthy.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Yeah. But what about the length of time for these charges if you are on a long‑distance trip and you need to charge? I know how long it takes me to fill my gas tank. I've had a different experience sometimes with electronic vehicles. Can that be sped up?
MR. BERUBE: Oh, it can and it has been dramatically. The battery technology that exists today, which is going to get improved and improved several times over the next seven or eight years is already pretty fast. We're talking about 150 kilowatts to 250 kilowatts of power. So the bottom line is our goal is to be able to fill up your vehicle in 15 minutes, and there's a lot of data industry has done to look at what time is acceptable to people, how long do they really spend when they stop, and I think that's a golden time frame. And that's really to fill it up. A lot of times, you may say, well, I don't need to fill it up completely. You know, I'll only put in half, you know, half of my vehicle's charging load. It will get me to where I want, and I can plug in overnight there where it's lower cost. So we think that the charging time, the technology will solve that, and that won't be the barrier.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So you mentioned equity, but how about political opposition? Are there states that resist the notion of putting in charging stations or transferring to electric vehicles from traditional forms of power?
MR. BERUBE: You know, I haven't really seen that. I think at the end of the day, when I think about the transition to a clean energy future and in transportation, we have to make sure that the solutions work, they work for all Americans, but they got to work for people. They've got to like‑‑as you say, they've got to charge up fast enough, and they have to be affordable. I don't think anyone will be opposed to the idea of a way to get people to work, to their jobs, if they can do it at a lower price than they do today, right? That's key, and that's where some of the technology improvements really have led us, and it also provides a diversification of energy sources as well. And then we have to remember that as the electrical grid is also getting lower and lower greenhouse emissions‑‑and over time, it will continue to improve‑‑your electric car just continues to get better over its life. A typical gasoline vehicle over its life actually gets dirtier as the engine degrades, but an electric vehicle, as electric power plants clean up and renewable energy grows, then the electric vehicle actually gets cleaner over its life. So there's not really a lot to be opposed to.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Michael, we're beginning to hear from people in the audience, and I have a question here from Matt Fenton that I'd like to read to you. Matt says, when will full EV charging be less than 10 minutes, which is needed for equality with gasoline vehicles?
MR. BERUBE: You know, I'll take the liberty of saying at about 10 minutes versus the less than 10 minutes. I think when we get to around‑‑when we look at the technology pathways, the technology in the last part of this decade, call it 2028, five, six years from now, you'll be approaching exactly that level, around 10 minutes.
Now, it will depend a little bit on the range of the vehicle. I just saw one OEM say they're going to start targeting at least one of their models with a 500‑mile range. A lot of people will, I think, actually buy vehicles with more than 300, 250, and that, of course, will influence how long it takes you to charge it up.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So I wanted to ask you about batteries, which you've mentioned, of course, but we seem to be in sort of a new gold rush, a lithium rush, in some ways, and much of it is in China. What is the U.S. doing to win this global battery arms race?
MR. BERUBE: Yeah. We are working very aggressively. The Department of Energy has announced over $7 billion actually in funding to help develop domestic, both the cells but also, as you said, the critical minerals and materials inside of those cells that make up the batteries. There are domestic sources of lithium, and I think, like a lot of things, when there's an increase in demand, right, people get innovative and creative and come up with new technologies to find those and to re‑find them, literally, and process them, and we are starting to see that.
There's a lot of activity you're hearing about out in California and the Salton Sea, which has a tremendous amount of lithium inside, and we know it's there. It's a matter now of developing the economic processes to get it out, but you've seen several billion‑dollar‑plus investments announced in that vein, and I think you're going to see more across all the different parts of the supply chain.
And I will also say, you know, working with other countries that are‑‑that have other minerals of interest, there are a number of countries that have different parts of the battery supply chain, and I think the United States is working very, very closely across those different countries.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: We've got another great question coming in from our audience, so let me turn to another one of those. This is from James Stockmal, and he says, what is the plan to handle old EV batteries? Great question.
MR. BERUBE: Excellent question. Yeah, yeah.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: It is, indeed.
MR. BERUBE: Perfect. Really, the answer there is that's where a number of those critical minerals are going to come. We're doing a lot of work right now on how do you recycle those old EV batteries as well as all those consumer electronic batteries to extract those minerals. We think, then, in the future, up to 40 percent of the raw material that we need for batteries will actually come from those recycled batteries, and that really helps improve the economics because when that battery is done its life in the vehicle, the actual material itself has already been processed. You've taken some‑‑maybe some material from raw ore to a processed form. If you can extract that, you save all the cost of having to reprocess virgin material.
So we think there's going to be a very, very robust battery recycling industry. You're already starting to see a lot of activity there, new companies forming. There is, I think, technology that we can improve upon there to make it more economical, higher volume, and that will also help quite a bit.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So these new vehicles are only, obviously, as environmentally friendly as the electricity we use to power them. Where does the U.S. stand with that? Can you give me a little bit of a sense of where the electricity is coming from and the future of it?
MR. BERUBE: Yeah, definitely. We're actually about to publish an update to a big study that we do with the automotive industry, with the energy companies, and the utilities that looks at the whole life‑cycle emissions of all different technologies, and it will‑‑it shows that today, even at the current power mix, that the typical electric vehicle is definitely‑‑has lower greenhouse gas emissions than its comparable gasoline vehicle. And, of course, we have a goal in the United States to have 100 percent of our electric grid from clean electricity by 2035. Achieving that goal, of course, then will directly translate to very, very low emissions from an electric vehicle.
And, of course, you know, whether we hit that 100 percent exactly in 2035 or get very close to it, as we're improving‑‑and we are seeing those renewables grow dramatically, significant announcements out of Washington in the last day or two on solar, of course‑‑will help begin to accelerate that. That will make a typical EV even cleaner.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So actually, go over‑‑this was yesterday. President Biden, I think, announced a 24‑month tariff exemption for solar panels from Southeast Asian countries. Tell us the significance of that and why it's taken so long.
MR. BERUBE: You know, I'm not the expert on the solar side, so I can't go that deep. But what I will tell you from a significance is as we increase the solar penetration and wind in the United States and in other forms of renewable, that significantly cleans up the grid, which helps with all types of technology. Electric vehicles, we're talking about, but as many in the audience might have heard, there's a lot of work going on in hydrogen, hydrogen made from electricity, and you want that electricity to be from renewables, also electrification in industrial sources. So there's a lot of aspects of achieving a net‑zero greenhouse gas across the economy that really rely upon moving to very high levels of renewables across the electric grid. So I think the announcements yesterday will help move us in that direction.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So I have a very short last question. I'm sorry. We're running out of time, but I wanted to ask you. We're going to be talking to a private investor, obviously, later. What is the role of public‑private partnerships or private business in moving ahead towards a cleaner future for transportation?
MR. BERUBE: You know, it cannot be understated. I think it's dead‑on right that you have that conversation coming.
You know, even though the infrastructure bill was historic in terms of investment on the public side, it still is not going to be nearly as big as the total amount of private‑sector dollars over the coming decades that are going to go into green energy.
I think a large part of what we can do in the federal government, right, is to be that incubator, to set clear direction, to help launch some of these industries, and help provide confidence that this is the way of the future, and that helps unlock the private‑sector capital globally, quite honestly, for investments, whether that be in electrification or in hydrogen or sustainable aviation fuels, which we haven't talked about, in order to decarbonize aviation.
So I think the public‑private partnerships will be key. We at DOE have a tremendous amount of work we do with the private sector recognizing that, you know, the government can design and bring the technology, the national labs, some of that early funding, but at the end of the day, the private sector really is the one who launches the businesses and that will have to make some of the really, really big investments down the road.
And, quite honestly, there's opportunity there, right? Those investments are being made because there's economic opportunity, and that also leads to jobs here in the U.S., which is another critical, critical aspect of the government's role, right, is to help develop that industry so we can get those jobs here in the U.S.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: We'll be following all those trends closely. Michael Berube, thank you so much for joining us at Washington Post Live.
MR. BERUBE: Thank you so much. Have a great day.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: I'll be back in a few moments with the next segment when I'll be speaking with Wes Edens. Please stick around.
MR. ABDESSAMAD: Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us. My name is Hicham Abdessamad. I'm the chairman and CEO of Hitachi America. I am pleased to be joined by my esteemed colleague, Andy Barr. He's the global CEO of Hitachi Rail. Today's discussion will be around sustainable transportation, specifically focused on railway.
Before we get started, I'd like to tell you a little bit about Hitachi. We're a global technology and industrial company founded in 1910. We have over 300,000 employees around the world, $84 billion in revenues, and we operate in a number of different sectors, including industrial manufacturing, energy, health care, digital and IT, which is a big part of what we're doing, and of course, transportation and mobility, which is the topic of today's discussion.
Our vision is very simple. We call it "social innovation," which means using innovation to solve big problems in society, focusing primarily on sustainability and quality of life.
Andy, thanks for joining us.
MR. BARR: Good to be here. Thank you.
MR. ABDESSAMAD: Great. So the first question is simply, obviously, you've been in the industry for such a long time. If you can just kind of paint a picture of how the railway business has evolved over the last 10 years as an industry but also specifically how Hitachi has evolved in its railway business over the last 10 years.
MR. BARR: So Hitachi Rail has been established for 15 years, outside of Japan, and we're now in over 30 countries, and we have 14,000 people globally. So we're a key part of the rail industry.
In Hitachi, our origins go back to 1920s when we built steam trains, and then more recently, we built the famous bullet train, and that started running in 1964 for the Olympics.
But now we're a key part of the rail industry, and in recent times, our growth outside of Japan has focused very much on new business, and for North America, it's a really key part of our business because we are now delivering train control systems into Alaska, driverless rail metro in Hawaii and in Baltimore, and also we're building a new manufacturing plant in Maryland. So, already, we're a key part of the industry, and we're looking forward into the future to being a major part of the U.S. business and to help expanding that network and to create new sustainable journeys for people into the future.
MR. ABDESSAMAD: Great. Just to unpack that a little more, especially in North America and the U.S., so the Biden administration has signaled a large focus on sustainability and also modernizing the country's infrastructure, and railway is a big part of it. Can you just talk a little bit about the investments that Hitachi has made in North America and how we're going to play--what role will Hitachi Rail play in sort of modernizing the U.S.'s railway infrastructure?
MR. BARR: Well, I think it's a really exciting time to be part of this industry in North America because of the investments going in and also the move towards expanding existing systems and new ones.
We have been successful in a project to build 256 new rail cars, and that's going to serve D.C. and Maryland, and to support that, we're building a $70 million factory new to the capital of Maryland. And this factory will be a key part of the growth and employing 460 people directly and over 1,300 people in the supply chain, and alongside that, we've got local businesses as a key part of the construction.
In San Francisco, we're modernizing the city's Bay Area system, providing new digitally controlled systems to make that modernization work and also to increase capacity by over 40 percent. So right now, we're a key part of this industry, and we're looking forward to growing that technology and developing it into the future in other cities around the U.S.
MR. ABDESSAMAD: That's great. And just to add to that, you know, Hitachi overall has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 across our value chain and then by 2050 within externally, and that's a major commitment. And, you know, we believe that success in the next decade will depend on digitalization. So there's this natural convergence between digital and all the industries, manufacturing, transportation, and it's an important part of our mission moving forward.
And I know that you've touched on driverless trains and autonomous. There's a lot of digital technology and innovation and a lot of data analytics and automation that kicks in that's part of that, and Hitachi is very focused on digital transformation as a way to help to transition sustainability but also to optimize a lot of the assets that we have, make them reliable, safe, and also smart.
If I want to ask you--I'd like to ask you a question more on the future of railway transportation. The future of--you know, in the next 10 years, obviously, we see rail as a carbon-free-emission way of moving from Point A to Point B and moving assets and people. What do you see the future of railway, especially in the United States? How do you see it kind of evolve from your experience and point of view?
MR. BARR: Well, I think into the future, there's many ways that we're going to contribute. We're lucky that rail already is a sustainable means of transport, and expanding that network will be really important for that, for our passengers. I think they'll get a much more sustainable journey that's controlled in a better way so that they can have more choice to enable them to move away from their own transportation on to public transport.
For our customers, expanding that digital technology, to be able to use our experience from elsewhere around the world, means they get the best access to that for the future.
And for the broader economy, I think moving people in to cities more efficiently can only be a benefit, and to actually grow that sustainable footprint into the future means that there's a huge amount of new benefits that could be gained from this.
So, for the U.S., the benefit in both passenger and freight means more people get access to sustainable transport, and we can control that ever more digitally into the future.
MR. ABDESSAMAD: That's fantastic, and it truly is exciting. And I'm excited that Hitachi will play a big part of that future.
So thanks again for your time, and I'll hand it back to The Washington Post.
MR. BARR: Thanks, Hicham. Thank you.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Welcome back to Washington Post Live. For those of you just joining us, I'm Frances Stead Sellers, a senior writer here at The Post.
We're continuing our talk about the future of transportation, and I am delighted to welcome Wes Edens, who is the founder and co-CEO of the Fortress Investment Group. He is the chair of Brightline, and for those of you who are basketball fans out there, he's also a co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks, which sounds like a lot of fun.
Wes Edens, a very warm welcome to Washington Post Live.
MR. EDENS: Thank you so much. Glad to be here.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And, again, to our audience, don't forget to tweet questions to us. That's @PostLive. Tweet questions to @PostLive, and we'll pick up some of them and ask Wes about them.
Wes, to start with, I just wanted to ask about Brightline. Tell us what the company does.
MR. EDENS: It's the first privately financed and built passenger train in this country in the last 100-plus years. So we right now have--
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Say that again? The first?
MR. EDENS: First privately financed passenger train in the United States, I think, since 1894, since Henry Flagler's train in Florida.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Wow.
MR. EDENS: And so right now, we have operations from Miami to West Palm Beach. The rail line is under construction to be completed by the end of the year to go to Orlando. We have a second train, which we are in the final stages of permitting from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, so lots of activity in the private railway space for us.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: A lot for you, but we don't hear an awful lot about private companies coming into this area. What drew you to it?
MR. EDENS: I'm sorry. What was the--
MS. STEAD SELLERS: We don't hear a lot about private companies coming into this space. What drew you to it?
MR. EDENS: It really all started out, I read a book. I mean, I read the book on the history of Henry Flagler in Florida called the "Last Train to Paradise," and we have been investors in transportation assets, infrastructure assets for a long time, and so, at the time, we owned the Florida East Coast Railway, which is a very famous freight railway. Obviously, it runs from Jacksonville down to Miami. It used to go all the way to Key West. And about eight years ago, I read the book about the founding of that railway and the work that Henry Flagler had done, and I'm a big fan of private passenger railway in Europe and read the book, and we looked at all the pieces. And we thought why not take a real stab at it, and eight years later, here we are just on the edge of it being completed.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So I understand that you and your team did look overseas. You talked about Europe just now. What did you learn about high-speed transportation and trains from other countries? And you can also talk about Japan, of course, which is such a leader.
MR. EDENS: Yeah. I mean, it's been very--you know, the business model is one that is proven around the world. So we sent teams out. I personally went and visited many of the different train systems in Europe as well as in Asia. What you find, of course, is that it's the preferred means of transportation.
And, in particular, the space that occupies the too-far-to-drive, too-short-to-fly, the city pairs, think, you know, Paris-London, Paris-León, Madrid-Seville, you know, Rome-Milan, those are extremely competitive markets for train. They compete very well with both airline traffic as well as passengers, and we knew that we had city pairs that looked just like that with the same kind of characteristics here in the United States that we thought would be very successful.
We picked what we thought was the first one, the most obvious one, given our position in Florida. So we went from Miami to Orlando, so one of the most popular cities in the United States to visit internationally, Miami to one of the biggest visitation centers in the world, which is Orlando, so that's an obvious place to start, Los Angeles to Las Vegas also very compelling, but there's many others in the United States, you know, Dallas-Houston, Austin-Dallas, you know, Charlotte to Atlanta, et cetera, et cetera. So you have to begin with one before you can do others, but it's clear that the business model worked among these different, different places. Among--
MS. STEAD SELLERS: I just can't--I can't resist asking you just a little bit of history there. This country was built on the steam train. You go to Flagler's mansion in Palm Beach, it's enormous. It made an awful lot of money for people. What happened to develop the romance with the vehicle, the car?
MR. EDENS: I think we're the victims of our own success in this country in the interstate highway system. I think actually we made interstate travel by car so easy. It was so inexpensive, relatively speaking. Gas was 30 cents a gallon, whatever. Cars were plentiful and cheap, and we were very successful with it.
And, ironically, when you look at the United States, we have the best freight travel system in the world, and we transport people by car. So it's literally the polar opposite of what you find in Europe where freight goes by trucks and the people go on rails, but I think that there's a lot of room to mesh those two, and our first train, we think, is a good example of that.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So is there something specifically now that's making America lag in picking up on this and making the sort of transition that you're talking about?
MR. EDENS: I think that there's a confluence of factors. I mean, obviously, you know, climate change is the stop of everyone's agenda. I think that cleaner, safer ways of transport is a big issue.
In California, for example, 50 percent of all the emissions in California come by way of their transportation system. So there's a massive impact that you can have on the environment by moving people around by rail. It's also much safer, and then not to be forgotten, it's better. It's more fun. It's more enjoyable. It's a way for you to be productive while you travel. So I think it's got a lot of the checks in the right column, and we think it's going to be very successful here.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Talk about Brightline a little bit more. What would you say the biggest challenges are to growth at this point for a company like yours?
MR. EDENS: You know, there's been a lot of lessons. That's a great question because there's a lot of lessons we've learned from it, and I think the one on the top of the list would be using existing transportation corridors is probably the easiest way to really proliferate these railways.
So, in Florida, what we've done is really a combination of this. We go up the Florida East Coast Railway line from Miami to Cocoa Beach. We then turn left and go next to Route 528 to the Orlando Airport. So we do--we both use existing rail infrastructure, and we develop new.
In Las Vegas-Los Angeles, we do solely in the middle or the median if I-15. So it goes all the way from, you know, Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga.
I think in hindsight, that's the preferred way of doing it. I think it's cheaper to do it that way. I think you could make the rail system more secure because you could build a fence around it, the median, and keep, you know, cars and people and animals away from it, so that's probably the right way to do it. But, certainly, existing transportation corridors is the right thing.
But the biggest challenge that we have in rail infrastructure development, in my opinion, in this country is the permitting process. The permitting process is one that takes too long, costs too much money. It's too cumbersome. I have lots of thoughts about how we can make it more streamline, but, you know, to just give an example, the actual project that is on the precipice of getting permitted from Vegas to L.A. started actually 15 years ago. We got involved in it about three and a half years ago. The total cost, the hard-dollar cost by the time we get our permits and are ready to start construction, it would be about $550 million. So over half a billion dollars in cash outlay to get to the starting gates just make it too hard, and we're fortunate enough to be there. But I think if you want to see this happen in a lot of other places, as I do, we have to make it a little bit easier for people to access.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So tell me a little bit more about what those permits are for and how you actually go about getting them. Is it state permitting or--
MR. EDENS: Yeah. It's basically you--the most critical agreement you need is the right-of-way. So you need to have the continuous right-of-way to get from Point A to Point B.
I-15 is a big interstate highway. So just simply utilizing that transportation corridor, largely going down the middle in between the two lanes of traffic is the way we get there. So we got right-of-ways from the state of Nevada, right-of-ways from the state of California, right-of-ways from the city of Rancho Cucamonga for the last--and San Bernardino for the last mile. So the right-of-ways are a first part of it.
Then the permits that you need are construction permits, obviously, to be--to actually build it, put it in place, but you also need the environmental permits. And that's--that permit is the last one to come and the most challenging to get, but there's so many benefits environmentally of this versus the millions of cars you're taking off the road. But it's a sensible thing to get. It just takes a long time.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So talk to me a little bit more about some of the benefits. I mean, obviously, the pleasure, you've mentioned of being able to do your work, and being on a train, it's more fun. But these are very specific trips you're talking about between certain cities. Do you see business people going back and forth? Tourists? What's the big pro here?
MR. EDENS: I think it's both. I think when you look at these city pairs, if you go from the Eurostar, which is a very successful line--from your accent, I suspect you may have been on it at some point or another.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: [Laughs] I've been on it, yes.
MR. EDENS: Yes, exactly. So you have both a mix of both business and individuals, just like you do on airlines, right? So it's--and it's very affordable. Our estimate of revenues for Point A to Point B on these things is roundly $100, right, plus or minus. Obviously, there's premium travel and there's budget travel and there's different times of day, but that's a good metric to kind of hone in on.
And, you know, when you look at the--Vegas-L.A. is the most compelling. There's 50 million people that make that trip. It's the most deadly highway in America, literally. There's hundreds of people that are killed on it annually, right? So it's a very, very--a very, very challenging highway. There's not a lot of places to stop. So there's no real reason to compete for other modes of transportation, and you can get there faster, cheaper, and much more sensibly. So it's a very compelling value proposition.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So I have been on the Eurostar. I've also spent a lot of time on the Northeast Corridor, and very little of the time, the trains even working on that track reach the speeds they could. Why is that, and is that something you see improving through private investment, or is that just an entirely different animal?
MR. EDENS: Absolutely. I mean, so we're--we have two different forms of it. In Florida, we're using existing rail infrastructure. So you can't electrify it. So you can't build the catenary for your train that then can't service the others that--the other freight trains that are on it. That's why I say it creates more challenges when you use existing rail infrastructure. Your limitation on speed, there's about 125 miles an hour.
What I would say is when you talk about using the trains in Europe if you're going to go from, you know, Zermatt to Zurich, nobody really asks you how fast you're going to go there. They want to know how long it takes, and that's the--so a three-hour trip is a very compelling trip versus other forms of transportation, and that's what we really focus on in city pairs.
When you look at the Las Vegas and Los Angeles line, because it's a virgin track, we're building it literally from scratch, we can build it in a very controlled environment. It has its own electrical system. We expect it to be run on largely, if not exclusively, renewable powers. It's the greenest train line, quite possibly, in the world, and there, you can reach proper high-speed trains. It will be the first high-speed train in America, top speeds of, you know, 200 miles an hour, total travel time from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, where it connects into the L.A. Metro System, about two hours and 15 minutes, so it depends.
But, you know, the limitations of the Northeast lines are using existing infrastructure, and that limits their ability to do certain things, you know, mechanically, but we don't have those same issues when we start from scratch.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Right. So dream big a little bit for me. Where do you see high-speed rail in the real future of American transportation? And you have Brightline up and running. Who are your competitors going to be?
MR. EDENS: You know, I think that--I think there will be plenty of competition. You know, I think that proof of concept is a very, very powerful tool, and so you're going to have a train running in Orlando, you know, hopefully by Christmastime, the train in Las Vegas hopefully in construction then and up and running three years later. So I think and I hope that we will have lots of competition because it will mean that actually we're being successful ourselves and that other people are coming into the market.
The U.S. is, quite possibly, the most single attractive rail market in the world that doesn't really have much of a rail market other than the Northeast Corridor today. So, you know, given the dimensions of the country, the economic prosperity, it's a very compelling opportunity for folks, and so I think we'll see a lot of people come in that will be competing with it. And I hope we'll see railway to all these different city pairs that I've mentioned.
We estimate there's about 20 pairs. So, as I said, the ones in Texas are obviously very compelling, so Houston-Dallas, Austin--Austin-Dallas, et cetera, Charlotte to Atlanta, St. Louis to Chicago, Portland to Seattle. There's a number of city pairs that we think are really compelling, and I think with all things, once you get proof of concept, you show what the revenues are. That should make it more and more competitive to even go to more markets. So I really do believe this is the first of many of these systems you'll see developed in the next 10, 20 years.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: So we just talked to Michael Berube about the government's role. Where do you see it?
MR. EDENS: Well, you know, the government can play an enormous role, and I think I'm very grateful for the infrastructure bill that was passed. I think it's actually very, very responsive to this.
If you think about it, there's a couple of different models. There's the Amtrak model, which is the government-owned model. They have a hard mandate in that they have to be all things to all people. So they're very successful in the Northeast Corridor, but they have to take trains in a lot other parts of the country. So that's a more difficult mandate for them to accomplish.
But then there's the state model, which you see in the California high-speed rail. Based on our experiences and what we've learned in the last eight years, I think they'd be well served to look at existing rail corridors for a portion of that because I think they could build it faster and cheaper than they're doing. But to give some context to it, we estimate that the California high-speed rail costs about $200 million a mile. Our biggest, L.A., is about $35 million a mile. So you can definitely do it cheaper, we think, and have great results, you know, for that.
But the government, with the grants programs, we think Washington will be very helpful. I think that on the permitting side is where perhaps the government could have the greatest impact. Something I've talked to a number of governors about is simply the notion of going out and creating your own right-of-ways and getting your permits and then auctioning it off to people like us to come in and build your train for you, and I think that would be--you know, the government has got really, obviously, super powers when it comes to permitting things and getting things entitled and ready to go, and if they took that upon themselves, I think that that's an idea that could have a lot of merit in terms of really helping out the development of this stuff because, you know, the only commodity you can't buy is time, and it takes a lot of time to build these things. That's what really kills a lot of these projects. So I think if we can shorten that time, I think you'll see a lot more success.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Wes, I want to turn to a question from Twitter. It's from Bob O'Malley, and I mentioned the Milwaukee Bucks, your basketball interest. This is about Aston Villa, the soccer team in London. So let's hear from Bob. It says, to celebrate Brightline's expansion to Orlando, do you have any plans to have Aston Villa Football Club come to Florida to play?
MR. EDENS: I would love to come play in Orlando City.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: [Laughs]
MR. EDENS: We take a summer tour. This year, our summer tour is headed to Australia. We play a couple local Australian teams, and we play Leeds and we play United--Manchester United over there, but I think coming back to the U.S. next year is what we need to do. So I'm also a big, big football fan. Orlando has done a great job with their program down there. So we'd love to come play there.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Oh, and will they be traveling by train when they do so? [Laughs]
MR. EDENS: I think--I think that the train can actually--between Miami and Orlando for the rivalry of those two clubs is going to be wonderful for them. So I think rather than march to the match, they're going to take the train go the match. So we're excited to be hosts of that.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: Well, Wes, thank you so much for all those interesting insights and also your sporting insights, and thank you for joining Washington Post Live.
MR. EDENS: Thank you very much for having me on. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
MS. STEAD SELLERS: And thank you to our audience. As you know, you can go to WashingtonPostLive.com to see about our future programming. Don’t hesitate to tune in. We enjoyed having you stay. I’m Frances Stead Sellers. | 2022-06-07T22:54:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Transportation for All - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/06/07/transcript-transportation-all/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/06/07/transcript-transportation-all/ |
‘Capehart’ with Robin Thede
Robin Thede is the creator, showrunner, executive producer, writer and star of HBO’s “A Black Lady Sketch Show.” On Tuesday, June 14 at 5:15 p.m. ET, Thede joins Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart to discuss the third season of the Emmy Award-winning series and her career as a comedy writer and actor.
Creator, Showrunner & Star, “A Black Lady Sketch Show” | 2022-06-07T22:54:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Capehart’ with Robin Thede - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/06/14/capehart-with-robin-thede/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/06/14/capehart-with-robin-thede/ |
John Porter, 10-term Illinois congressman, dies at 87
He was a Republican who helped increase funding for biomedical research
Rep. John E. Porter (R-Ill.) in 1995. (Lucian Perkins/The Washington Post)
John E. Porter, who represented Chicago’s northern suburbs for two decades in Congress and helped increase funding for biomedical research, died June 3 at a hospital in Fairfax County, Va. He was 87 and a resident of Alexandria.
The cause was pneumonia, said his stepdaughter Robyn Porter.
Mr. Porter, a Republican who chaired the House Appropriations Committee’s labor, health and human services panel, served in Congress from 1980 to 2001. He was a fiscal conservative who held moderate social views, backing abortion rights and gun control — positions that are almost unheard of in today’s Republican Party.
Among other things, he helped lead the successful effort that created the 1994 assault weapons ban, which has since expired. He also was a supporter of international human rights and helped increase funding for scientific and biomedical research.
“The whole rough-and-tumble of classless politics was anathema to his character,” Mark Kirk, who succeeded Mr. Porter in the U.S. House before being elected U.S. senator in 2010, told the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill. “The district wanted an independent leader, and he was that independent leader.”
Kirk, who started as an intern in Mr. Porter’s office becoming its chief of staff, said Mr. Porter’s main legacy was “in doubling funding for the National Institutes of Health and funding the unlocking of the human genome.”
John Edward Porter was born in Evanston, Ill., on June 1, 1935. His father was a judge, and his mother was a homemaker. He graduated from Northwestern University in 1957 and the University of Michigan law school in 1961. He served in the Army Reserve, was in private legal practice in Evanston and served in the Illinois House from 1973 to 1979.
He ran unsuccessfully against incumbent Abner J. Mikva (D) in 1978, but two years later won a special election after Mikva resigned to become a federal appeals court judge.
Mr. Porter did not seek reelection in 2000 and subsequently became a partner in the international law firm of Hogan Lovells. He also helped to create the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, a voluntary group that worked to identify, track and end human rights violations all over the world.
His marriages to Margo Clark and Kathryn Cameron ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 15 years, Amy McGuire Porter of Alexandria; three children from his first marriage; four stepchildren; and 14 grandchildren. | 2022-06-08T00:05:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | John Porter, 10-term Illinois congressman, dies at 87 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/06/07/john-porter-dies-congressman/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/06/07/john-porter-dies-congressman/ |
Prince George’s council would appoint some members of police review board
Legislators changed the language of a police accountability bill to allow themselves to select five members of a board that reviews allegations of police misconduct
Community advocates hold a news conference outside council offices before the vote on proposed amendments to a police accountability bill in Prince George's County on Monday. (Jasmine Hilton/The Washington Post)
A highly debated police accountability bill is one step closer to being finalized after the Prince George’s County Council approved an amendment that would allow lawmakers to select members who will serve on a board designed to provide more community oversight of police. During a council meeting on Monday, lawmakers changed the language of the bill and allowed themselves to select five members of the Police Accountability Board (PAB), while the county executive appoints the five other slots along with the board’s chair.
It was among many of the changes made Monday that the council said were a compromise to account for requests from community members. Many said they were frustrated by the bill’s implementation process and wanted to play a larger role in the formation of the board and selection of its members.
“I think we’ve just spent probably the last five hours going over this bill, amending this bill, asking questions about this bill, and I think ... it’s going to be trial and error like any piece of legislation,” Council member Todd M. Turner (D-District 4). “This is what democracy should be. This was about compromising.”
But, some community members and advocates said they were still disappointed by the council’s changes, saying the approved amendments, specifically on the member appointment process and the powers of the board were “watered down.”
“This was a kick in our chest,” said Dawn Dalton, a community activist.
The PAB and Administrative Charging Committee (ACC) that would review alleged police misconduct were both born out of the Maryland Police Accountability Act passed by the General Assembly in 2021 as a response to cries for police reform following George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis officers. On Monday, more than a dozen activists, parents and families of victims of police violence spoke during public comment emphasizing that the boards should be designed to deter police violence with the community involved in the disciplinary process.
In recent months, some community members have raised concerns over the PAB member selection process and the strength of its investigatory powers. Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D) has selected a list of 11 nominees for the council to consider for confirmation. But community advocates wanted members to be selected by the County Council, rather than the county executive.
“In order to change the way that we do policing in this state and in this county, we must shift the power into the hands of the community,” Yanet Amanuel, public policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, said in Monday’s meeting. “The problem for too long has been that the power over the police has been centralized in the county executive and police chief. And so allowing the county executive to appoint all or the majority of the board will continue that same practice.”
The council approved changes to the bill by a vote of 10-1, with a final vote on the legislation pending.
Council member Edward Burroughs III (D-District 8) was the only council member to vote against the bill, expressing concern about the board’s chair remaining as a position appointed by the county executive and urged the council to reconsider.
“It appears there is an attempt to get to a better place as it relates to the composition, where the county executive is not appointing every member,” Burroughs said. “But, I still have real concerns about the county executive appointing members to the PAB, particularly the chair.”
The council also addressed amendments relating to the PAB’s powers, meeting frequency and funding. Approved amendments included requiring the PAB to be made up of members who “reflect the racial, ethnic, gender, gender-identity, sexual orientation, cultural and geographic diversity of the County and should be required to include members with a range of professional or lived experiences.” Other changes included increasing the funding for the boards to 1 percent of the police department’s annual budget starting next year. Last week, the council approved a $5 billion county budget that includes $1.4 million for the new boards, and $372 million for the police department.
Advocates had demanded the board have its own powers to independently investigate police misconduct complaints and to submit its findings to the ACC. But the council backed an amendment on Monday that would allow the board to investigate evidence, interview witnesses, review body cameras and issue subpoenas as part of its review of the outcomes of the ACC’s disciplinary matters. Council members also decided to push a vote on an amendment relating to the ACC’s powers until it gets feedback from the attorney general’s office, which could delay a final vote on the bill. The deadline to establish the boards is July 1 under the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021.
During public comment, Maryland Fraternal Order of Police First Vice President William Milam urged the council to establish a PAB that “both represents the county and is fair to police officers.” He said the council should not be swayed by “special interest groups” when determining the board.
“It is you along with the county executive that should rightly have the ability to establish the police accountability board,” Milam said. “Your path and authority to deal with such an important issue should not be watered down or be obfuscated or punted to some other entity.”
Sheila Colson, the mother of a Prince George’s police officer who was shot and killed by a colleague, traveled two hours from Philadelphia to attend the council meeting. She said she wanted to be there in person to support community efforts to create a community-centered police accountability process. Colson urged the council to “pass this bill,” and involve residents.
“As far as the death of my son, we didn’t receive justice when justice was due,” Colson said of Jacai Colson to the council. “No transparency. No accountability.” | 2022-06-08T00:18:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Prince George's County Council would appoint some members of police accountability board - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/07/police-accountability-vote-prince-georges/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/07/police-accountability-vote-prince-georges/ |
Dervla Murphy, intrepid author of travel books, dies at 90
She began her prodigious and free-spirited career with an epic solo bicycle journey in 1963 across Europe to India
By Jori Finkel
Dervla Murphy in 1990. (NUTAN/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images)
Dervla Murphy, an Irish travel writer who began her prodigious career with an epic solo bicycle journey in 1963 across Europe to India and went on to explore vast stretches of the developing world by foot — defying social expectations of women along the way — died on May 22 in her home in Lismore, Ireland. She was 90.
Her London publisher Eland Books announced the death. She had recently suffered a series of strokes.
Decades before Cheryl Strayed hiked the Pacific Crest Trail with little preparation and turned it into her best-selling memoir “Wild,” Ms. Murphy inspired generations of readers by embarking on one trip after another with minimal equipment but an abundance of grit.
For Ms. Murphy, her serious traveling started in her 30s after many years of caring for her disabled mother. Later, as a single mother, she supported herself and her daughter on her travel writing. She published a total of 26 books.
“She provided a role model for independence, for freedom of spirit, for a whole generation of women when there was no one else like that in Ireland,” said fellow travel writer Manchán Magan in the 2016 documentary film “Who Is Dervla Murphy?”
Most active from the 1960s to the 1990s, Ms. Murphy was drawn to parts of the world nearly untouched by industrialization, urbanization and consumer culture, where people lived without access to modern plumbing or electricity, not to mention the satellite televisions and cellphones to come.
At home in Lismore, where she lived in a warren of old stone rooms without central heat, she never learned to drive a car or use a computer. She avoided small talk and regularly declined book tours and interviews. “Interviewing Dervla is like trying to open an oyster with a wet bus ticket,” Jock Murray, her first publisher, once said.
She gave up basic comforts when she traveled, often sleeping in a tent and using latrines, and acknowledged being “impervious” to discomfort. “It literally doesn’t matter to me whether I’m sleeping on the floor or on a mattress,” she said in the documentary. “I simply don’t notice the difference. And that really is a big plus when you’re traveling.”
She also insisted that it was not accurate to call her brave. “You’re only courageous if you do something you’re afraid of doing. I’m fearless when it comes to the physical, and that’s a totally different thing,” she said.
Her debut book, “Full Tilt” (1965), was billed as a journey “from Ireland to India” but was more accurately the story of a trip from Dunkirk, France, to Delhi. She conceived of the journey after receiving a bicycle and an atlas for her 10th birthday but kept her plan to herself, she wrote, “avoiding the tolerant amusement it would have provoked among my elders. I did not want to be soothingly assured that this was a passing whim because I was quite confident that one day I would cycle to India.”
She began the self-funded journey some two decades later, on Jan. 14, 1963, on “Roz,” a 37-pound man’s bike stripped of its three-speed derailleur and loaded with basic supplies, including blank notebooks and a compass. When she reached Delhi after six months, she had written thousands of words and pedaled for some 3,000 miles. Her total expenses amounted to £64.
Her journey began in the middle of a blizzard — which would go down in British history as the Big Freeze of 1963 — as she cycled despite frostbite along icy roads. Gales on the roads in Slovenia were strong enough to knock her off her bike and, when the snow began to melt, the raging Morava River separated her from Roz.
She faced down other dangers: wolves that nipped at her in Bulgaria, a Serbian man who entered her bedroom at night uninvited, and three men carrying spades along a road near Tabriz, Iran, who tried to steal Roz. In each case, she used the .25 pistol she brought for the trip to protect herself, killing a wolf with a bullet through the skull and firing warning shots to scare away the men.
Her adventure took her through small villages, and she dedicated “Full Tilt” to her “hosts” in Afghanistan and Pakistan, who often greeted her with warmth and food despite their befuddlement over a woman undertaking such a trek. She did not know their languages but took time to learn about their customs, religions and governments. She also sold her pistol in Afghanistan, “becoming an arms dealer,” she joked in the documentary, and after that carried a knife instead of a gun, which she feared would escalate violence.
Her following books, set in Tibet, Nepal, India, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Peru, blended food reviewing, political and religious reporting, and poetic musings of the Romantic-sublime variety, for example when the thrust of a mountain peak or stillness of a glacial lake overcame her. But the writing never veered far from her main subject: everyday encounters with the landscape and its inhabitants, from rowdy children to pompous local officials to semi-domesticated animals.
In “Eight Feet in the Andes” (1983), she travels far off the grid with her 9-year-old daughter, Rachel, and the mule who carried her, Juana (hence the “eight” feet). A good part of their quest involves locating alfalfa or oats for Juana to consume each day. In “Cameroon With Egbert” (1990), the most memorable in a near-Biblical litany of calamities — including clouds of biting flies, rainstorms and hailstorms, malaria, mountain paths that abruptly end in precipices, food shortages and lack of shelter — occurs when their trusted packhorse Egbert is stolen.
Over time, Ms. Murphy’s writing grew more politically explicit. She traveled to Northern Ireland amid the decades of sectarian violence known as “The Troubles” to better understand the militant Irish Republican Army. Subsequent books focused on the Rwandan genocide, turmoil in the Balkans, the legacy of the Vietnam War in Laos and the cycle of violence in the Gaza Strip.
Some readers criticized her later books as polemics, preferring the colorful travelogue entries to her anti-capitalist and sometimes anti-American diatribes. But it was difficult to separate her deeply held environmentalist convictions and opposition to globalization from her joyous discovery of some of the world’s most remote locations.
As she wrote in “Eight Feet in the Andes”: “There is much more to such experiences than visual beauty; there is also another sort of beauty, necessary to mankind yet hard to put in words. It is the beauty of freedom: freedom from an ugly, artificial, dehumanizing, discontented world in which man has lost his bearings.”
Ms. Murphy began her lengthy journeys after the death of her parents, Irish Catholics from Dublin. The day they married, the couple moved to Lismore so her father could take a job as the county librarian. Dervla Murphy — their only child, who was officially named Dervilla Maria Murphy to appease a priest who deemed her first name pagan — was born on Nov. 28, 1931.
Her mother suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. “By my first birthday she could no longer walk without the aid of a stick and by my second she could no longer walk at all,” Ms. Murphy wrote in her 1979 memoir, “Wheels Within Wheels.” After attending secondary school at the Ursuline Convent in Waterford, she dropped out at age 14 to care for her mother. She did so for the next decade, until her father died of influenza complications in 1961 and her mother, of kidney failure, in 1962.
While her mother’s immobility helped to inspire her travel, so did some maternal advice. “She was the first person who suggested I travel on my bike,” Ms. Murphy noted in the documentary. “She thought it would be a substitute for the education I had missed.”
In the mid-1960s, Ms. Murphy was romantically involved with Terence de Vere White, then literary editor of the Irish Times, who was married with children. He was Rachel’s biological father but by mutual agreement was not involved in her upbringing, and for years they kept his paternity a secret.
Ms. Murphy is survived by her daughter and three granddaughters.
As she grew older, Ms. Murphy was increasingly mistaken for a man while traveling. Her voice was deep, her hair short, and she was brawny enough that hammering down her first on a table, or taking one swing at someone, was enough to scatter potential assailants.
By the time she was 55 and traveled to West Africa with Rachel, then 18, for “Cameroon With Egbert,” locals were convinced of her manhood. Several assumed she and Rachel were husband and wife.
She hypothesized that this misgendering occurred not only because of her physique but also because the idea of women traveling by foot alone through the countryside was unthinkable. She tried to correct the misperception with limited success, until midway into the Cameroon journey she tried another approach: She took to unbuttoning her shirt in public at the first sign of misunderstanding. It was, like her literary voice, frank and persuasive. | 2022-06-08T00:22:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dervla Murphy, intrepid author of travel books, dies at 90 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/06/07/dervla-murphy-dies-travel-writer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/06/07/dervla-murphy-dies-travel-writer/ |
Camila Alves McConaughey holds the lime-green Converse tennis shoes that were worn by Uvalde, Tex., shooting victim Maite Rodriguez, 10. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
In the aftermath of mass shootings, the country looks for heroes. In Uvalde, Tex., there have been mere humans — some brave, some flawed, some trying their best. And some gravely wrong.
Perhaps some cape-less crusader will emerge in the coming days with a tale of grace and salvation — a narrative to counterbalance the confusion, misstatements, inaccuracies and crushing silences that have managed to heighten the horror of 19 dead children and two murdered adults inside Robb Elementary School. When the experts and the victims testify Wednesday in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, perhaps a hero will be revealed, one who looms large enough that we can believe all this gun violence can be stopped.
As timeline emerges, police criticized for response to school massacre
We are willing to look for heroes almost anywhere we can. We turn to the student activists who emerged after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. We turn to the parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. We turn to those who come to Washington to testify and bear witness. We look to an actor.
But we have long ceased to believe legislators will show signs of heroism. Finally, in the last weeks, they’ve come to the table to talk, which is to say they have acknowledged they have a job to do. But after more than 200 mass shootings so far this year, it’s too late for anyone on Capitol Hill to be a hero. But perhaps this time, there won’t be so many cowards. | 2022-06-08T00:23:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Neither heroes nor cowards - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/07/neither-heroes-nor-cowards/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/07/neither-heroes-nor-cowards/ |
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — There’s nothing Matthew Smiley can do to change Buffalo kicking off into the end zone on a fateful play which contributed to the Bills squandering a three-point lead in the final 13 seconds of regulation of a thrilling and heartbreaking overtime loss to Kansas City in an AFC divisional playoff game in January. | 2022-06-08T00:24:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Communication cited as issue in Bills' blown lead at KC - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/communication-cited-as-issue-in-bills-blown-lead-at-kc/2022/06/07/d0d0920c-e6b3-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/communication-cited-as-issue-in-bills-blown-lead-at-kc/2022/06/07/d0d0920c-e6b3-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
The National Labor Relations Board hearing, in which Amazon is set to to present its objections to the Amazon Labor Union’s election victory, is currently scheduled for Monday.
Amazon's JFK8 distribution center in Staten Island, New York in November 2020. (Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters)
Amazon is slated to present its objections to the Amazon Labor Union victory in Staten Island before a National Labor Relations Board judge on Monday — but the company is trying to keep the proceedings under wraps.
On Tuesday, Amazon’s lawyers filed a motion to close the hearing, according to a filing provided by ALU attorney Seth Goldstein to The Washington Post.
Amazon argues in its motion that, because the hearing is being held on Zoom, it makes it difficult to know if witnesses who aren’t supposed to be able to observe the proceedings are in attendance, or if the hearing is being recorded and shared with those witnesses.
“There is no practical way in which the Hearing Officer can effectively police who will be viewing the hearing via the publicly available Zoom invitation — including potential witnesses,” the filing says. “Nor can she control or even know whether unauthorized attendees are photographing or recording the proceedings on personal electronic devices and making those available to others — including potential witnesses.”
Amazon workers vote to join union in historic move
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment, or questions about whether members of the press would be permitted to attend the hearing if the company’s motion is granted.
The motion, which requests the general public be barred from attending, specifies the parties that Amazon say should be allowed to attend the full proceeding, including witnesses and legal teams, but does not explicitly mention members of the media. The motion describes media coverage of the union election in Staten Island as “unprecedented.”
“I’ve never heard of this happening before, this is fantasy,” Goldstein, the lawyer representing the union, told The Post. “It again shows that Amazon is out of touch with the importance of transparency, so that everybody understands what is happening.”
The NLRB’s regional office will determine this week whether Amazon’s motion will be granted.
In May, independent labor organization Amazon Labor Union won a historic union election at JFK8, an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island. Amazon has not acknowledged the union’s win, and has since filed objections to the union’s conduct in hopes to get the result overturned. In documents filed with the board in April, Amazon said it planned to argue that the election should be invalidated in part because the union “misled employees by telling them that they would lose their benefits if they did not support the ALU.”
Since the Amazon Labor Union won the election at JFK8 in May, the group said it has received hundreds of requests for support from Amazon employees around the country who are also interested in unionization. Monday’s hearing, if it remains public, will be closely watched both the media and organized labor.
Amazon has also filed objections in an ongoing union election at a warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. The union organizing workers there, the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, has also filed objections and the result of the election remains undetermined. | 2022-06-08T01:11:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amazon files motion to close hearing on Amazon Labor Union victory to the public - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/07/amazon-union-hearing-closed/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/07/amazon-union-hearing-closed/ |
Derek Fisher, above, will be replaced by the Sparks on an interim basis with former assistant coach Fred Williams. (AP Photo/Andy Clayton-King, File)
The Los Angeles Sparks announced Tuesday that they had parted ways with Derek Fisher, who was in the midst of his fourth season as head coach and general manager of the team.
Fred Williams was promoted from an assistant role to be the interim head coach, and the Sparks said they will “now begin a search” for a new general manager.
The 47-year-old Fisher, who won five NBA championships as a player for the Los Angeles Lakers, was let go after a 5-7 start this season that has the Sparks in eighth place in the 12-team WNBA standings. Los Angeles is coming off a 12-20 season that saw it miss the playoffs for the first time since 2011 and only the third time in the past 23 years.
Asserting that Tuesday’s move was made after “a thorough evaluation of the state of our team,” Sparks managing partner Eric Holoman said in a statement: “On behalf of our ownership group, I want to thank Derek for his efforts and contributions to the Sparks franchise. We wish him the best moving forward.”
In a statement shared by the Sparks, Fisher thanked Sparks officials, players and fans for “the opportunity they have afforded me over the last four years as a part of this historic franchise.”
“Their support has allowed me to grow as both a coach and front office executive,” he said, “and I am proud of what we have accomplished. … It has been an amazing ride and I wish the entire LA sparks [sic] organization great success moving forward.”
Fisher, who posted a regular season record of 54-46 and a postseason mark of 1-4 with the Sparks, added that he was set to “shift my focus back to pursuing other opportunities and private endeavors.”
A first-round pick by the Lakers in 1996 out of Arkansas Little Rock, Fisher spent 12-plus of his 18 NBA seasons with the team. After retiring in 2014, he was immediately hired by Phil Jackson, a former coach of Fisher’s with the Lakers, to be the head coach of the Knicks. New York went a franchise-worst 17-65 in his first season before starting the next one with a promising mark of 22-22. After losing nine of their next 10 games, however, the Knicks fired Fisher midseason.
Fisher then found work as a television analyst before the Sparks hired him in December 2018 to replace former coach Brian Agler. Fisher led the Sparks to a combined record of 37-19 over his first two seasons with a pair of playoff appearances, but the team’s fortunes took a turn for the worse in 2021.
Why did WNBA stars flock to Russia? It wasn’t just the money.
Holoman said Tuesday that he had “full confidence” in Williams, citing the coach’s “wealth of experience leading WNBA teams.”
Williams, 65, has previously served as head coach of the Utah Starzz (1999-2001), Atlanta Dream (2012-2013) and the Tulsa Shock/Dallas Wings (2014-2018). The Sparks noted that with the Wings, Williams coached Liz Cambage, a four-time WNBA all-star who is now the starting center for Los Angeles.
“I appreciate the opportunity to steer the team under these circumstances, alongside assistant coaches Latricia Trammell and Seimone Augustus,” Williams said. “We have a talented group of players focused on making a run to the WNBA playoffs and we will collectively embrace this challenge.” | 2022-06-08T01:41:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Derek Fisher fired by Los Angeles Sparks as head coach - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/06/07/derek-fisher-fired-los-angeles-sparks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/06/07/derek-fisher-fired-los-angeles-sparks/ |
New Mexico’s Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, middle, meets with local officials as she surveys wildfire damage in Mora County, N.M., Tuesday, June 7, 2022. Gov. Lujan Grisham says the destruction caused by the largest wildfire burning in the U.S. has been devastating for thousands of residents, saying their lives have been forever disrupted and altered. The largest blaze has charred close to 500 square miles over the past two months. (Office of the Governor of New Mexico via AP) (Uncredited/Office of the Governor of New Mexico) | 2022-06-08T01:54:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Damage estimates climb from massive New Mexico wildfire - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/damage-estimates-climb-from-massive-new-mexico-wildfire/2022/06/07/b4e5d9c0-e6c8-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/damage-estimates-climb-from-massive-new-mexico-wildfire/2022/06/07/b4e5d9c0-e6c8-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
Suspect in D.C. slaying picked up in Arizona
The man was stopped by Border Patrol, according to D.C. police
A Border Patrol agent drives a van between a gap along the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico in Yuma, Arizona on June 1. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images)
A man who was wanted in a killing in the District was taken into custody in Arizona, and was charged Tuesday, the D.C. police said.
The Border Patrol picked up Alvin Cruz-Garcia, 24, who had no known address, on May 13 in Douglas, Ariz., the police said. He was extradited to Washington and charged Tuesday on a warrant from the D.C. Superior Court with second-degree murder in the death of Ramon Gomez-Yanez, 38, of Northwest Washington.
Gomez-Yanez was killed March 23, 2021, in the 1500 Block of Ogden Street NW, police said. They said he died as a result of blunt-force trauma. | 2022-06-08T03:21:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Suspect in D.C. slaying found in Arizona, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/07/dc-murder-suspect-arrested-arizona/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/07/dc-murder-suspect-arrested-arizona/ |
Transcript: WP Subscriber Exclusive: David Duchovny, Actor & Author
MS. HORNADAY: Welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Ann Hornaday, and this is a subscriber exclusive. Today’s guest is award‑winning author, actor, and director, David Duchovny, who is here to talk with us about his new novella, “The Reservoir.”
Think back to more than two years ago when so many of us were quarantining at the beginning of the pandemic. David has penned a new mystery that is relatable on so many levels during this tough time, and the book is only the latest in a series of award‑winning books that he's written.
Welcome, David Duchovny.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Oh, thanks for having me. Nice to meet you.
MS. HORNADAY: It's great to meet you too. We're glad you're here.
I didn't read this book; I inhaled this book. This is‑‑it is just‑‑it's a deep dive in more ways than one, and I really want to stay away with what happens in it because it is so compressed and so concentrated, and every little moment matters. And I don't want to‑‑I don't want to deny readers the pleasure of that discovery. So I'm going to sort of work around the edges, if you don't mind.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Well, have a great time. Thank you for having me on. Good night.
MS. HORNADAY: Yes, okay. Anyhoo, but we can start‑‑so I will sort of work around the edges, and one of‑‑I guess one way to come into this is through your main character who is this‑‑as the intro said, this former Wall Street investment banker named Ridley, and we're catching him at a moment of his life when he is very introspective and gazing out of his window on to the Reservoir in Central Park in New York.
But tell me a little. Who is he? And tell me how he came to you.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Well, the kind of inspiration for the whole caper was I would look out the window and take time lapses of sunrises myself at the‑‑during the pandemic, and I just started to conceive of this idea that maybe in one of those time lapses, I'd see flashing lights and that that would be like "Rear Window" or there'd be, you know, Rapunzel, some damsel in distress reaching out across the moat of the park to make a connection to this lonely person, and then I just decided that that lonely person was going to be one of these guys. And I imagined it was a Wall Street guy, one of these guys who has thought, you know, he has an artistic soul, but he's never‑‑he's never indulged it. He's never had the chance to be an artist, one of these guys who thinks they're an artist because they own a lot of art, and it began kind of as a satire of this kind of acquisitive, money‑centered consciousness.
And then, you know, I learned over the past writing that it's a difficult position to be in, at least for me to be a satirist, because I tend to fall for even the villains in my stories. So that's what happened with Ridley as I began to write about his interior life, because I knew I had a general kind of an action that I was going to follow that he was going to, you know, make contact with this mystery person across the park, and since it's during the pandemic, that there might be consequences from physical contact.
So I knew. I saw that arc even when I was beginning, but I didn't know that I was going to kind of not‑‑you know, not fall in love with Ridley but fall for him as a suffering human being and treat him more than just an object of satire, which is what I began as.
MS. HORNADAY: Yeah. That's so fascinating because you can detect some traces and some artifacts of that satirical voice because often this book is very funny in this very observant, kind of wry New York way, but‑‑and I think it's interesting too that you did‑‑that you made him a banker. So there are echoes of the last sort of tragic period in New York's history, which was 9/11, and that that was‑‑that's kind of in his consciousness as well.
MR. DUCHOVNY: That was a complete either example of me being open enough to the smarter nature of my own unconscious or me just being lucky because I had no idea that 9/11 was going to figure into this story at all or‑‑I mean, maybe I could have thought that because there's been two events in my lifetime that were cataclysmic, 9/11 and the pandemic. And it's very‑‑it's very instrumental in the story that the kind of outreach that occurs after these cataclysms, social outreach that happens, to make connections with other people or to say, "Hey, I get it now. I get what's important in life. It's not‑‑it's not chasing the dollar. It's not chasing fame or achievement or whatever. It's family. It's the love of those close to me, and we all say that when these things happen. We say that we learned this lesson, and then we forget it quite quickly, and that's always been something that I wanted to look at, I guess, and that's something that Ridley looks at.
And in the book, it's kind of symbolized by, you know, the joke with the bear and the man who might be a bear, and the idea that that kind of deep unbearable‑‑I don't mean that pun. Just in this moment, I guess I do. But that unbearable love that one has for one's children or one's loved ones is so dangerous in a dangerous time because of loss and sickness and death. How do you live with it? How do you live with the intensity? How do you express that intensity every day? You can't. You kind of have to suppress it, and then the joke, it becomes, you know, the bear will either kill you or fuck you. Forgive me for putting it that way, but it's a joke, and it's a joke that I like.
And I forget what your question was. I think I kind of answered around it, but‑‑
MS. HORNADAY: No, you didn't. No, you answered. You answered it very directly and very articulately and‑‑
MR. DUCHOVNY: Until the end.
MS. HORNADAY: No, that was‑‑it was‑‑you nailed it. You stuck the landing, as you always do, as only you can.
You know, it occurred to me in a‑‑I think you know that one.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Oh, wait, wait. I knew where I was going. I'm sorry. I knew where I was going. I'm sorry. Wall Street. You said Wall Street. That was your question I didn't answer.
So I was talking about the unconscious. So, when I‑‑I just made him a Wall Street guy because I wanted to satirize that consciousness, and then I didn't know that 9/11 was going to be thematically important to this book. And then when I got to that point where I started writing about, you know, the two cataclysms, 9/11 and the pandemic, I was like, oh, okay. I'm glad. He could‑‑he was there. He was there at 9/11. He was actually right near the Towers, and it became, okay, that's‑‑that's why I made him a Wall Streeter, but I didn't know that at the beginning.
MS. HORNADAY: It's so fascinating, and again, I wanted to talk a little‑‑I'm interested in why you chose the novella. It's such a specific form, and it's sort of a lost form, and we don't really see them anymore. So tell us a little bit about how you‑‑and clearly, you were inspired by the work of Borges and Thomas Mann and, you know‑‑who Thomas Mann gets name‑checked in the book along the way, but tell us‑‑
MS. HORNADAY: Tell us a little bit about that form and what attracted you to it.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Well, I think it chose me. I thought I was writing a short story, and then it got longer. I had never written a short story. I thought, okay, I haven't‑‑you know, my book came out a year ago, and I'm not starting‑‑I haven't started a new one. I should write something. I'll write a short story. I've never done that, and then I'll try to sell it to magazines, whatever one does with a short story these days.
And then it became this ungainly kind of length that is not publishable in magazines or elsewhere. So I was with this kind of tweener, you know, 125‑page thing, and they call it a "novella." I never‑‑I never set out to write a novella, a novelette, a novelsicle. I could come up with other diminutive names for it. But Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice," I think it's called a novella. I'm not sure. Maybe it's called a short story, but it's one of my favorite works of literature, obviously. And that was, you know, the main inspiration, at least the main literary inspiration or precursor of this book, where you have a man, a middle‑aged man kind of rekindling his interest in passion in a plagued city, where it can be very dangerous.
MS. HORNADAY: Indeed. And I picked up‑‑if you'll forgive me, I picked up notes. You know, it's like a fine wine. I picked up "Grace Notes" of Ballinger‑‑Ballinger and Fitzgerald with the "Blinking Light" and even‑‑and even Virginia Woolf and Joyce, you know, with the conscious, that sort of modernist evocation of consciousness and this stream of consciousness that you get to.
MR. DUCHOVNY: So all very possible. I mean, I can't‑‑I can't claim that I'm guilty of ripping any of them off, but I'm sure I am just because those were writers that I studied pretty deeply in college and graduate school. So I think they're part of my verbal DNA or writer consciousness DNA at this point, you know, beyond kind of saying I'm imitative or an homage. It's just that's kind of how I write, and I think it's due to having studied and fall in love with those, those writers and those kinds of books when I was a student.
MS. HORNADAY: Exactly. So I'm also fascinated by your journey because, as you just intimated, as a student, you were an English student. You went to Yale for grad studies in English. It felt like‑‑I think I read somewhere that you knew you would be a poet as early as 15. It felt like you were very much on the poet, literature track, and then‑‑and then, wait a minute, I'm going to go to New York and do acting. So tell us a little bit about that pivot and what brought that about.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Yeah. It's a little like what I was saying with Ridley's‑‑with my decision to make Ridley a Wall Streeter or anything like that. It's all‑‑my life, my career path has been largely unconscious choices, I think, or just kind of leaning into certain vectors.
I think I wasn't sure that I wanted to be an academic. So I had‑‑I had done a lot of work towards that, and I was in my mid‑20s, mid to late 20s already when I discovered really acting class, and in this place, you know, I was a kid who had been rewarded for intellectual achievement and to‑‑also probably rewarded to repress myself emotionally. And then I found a place where it was the upside‑down world where intellect was not rewarded and emotionality was, and there was a great kind of‑‑not only a freeing sense for me, but also an education. You know, I do believe that there's‑‑there's an intellectual education, and there's an emotional education, and I think that that's what I embarked upon at that point.
And it just so happened that I got kind of caught up and a little competitive and wanted to get work. I didn't have a career anywhere. I was 27, 28 years old. I am sure I started feeling some pressure to get my ass in gear, and so I just threw my ambition into acting at that point.
MS. HORNADAY: Was it because you were coming from such a strong intellectual tradition and culture just personally and also temperamentally, did you need to kind of resist the temptation to intellectualize? Were you kind of deconstructing scripts as literature rather than finding the emotional way in? Was that kind of a different muscle that you had to develop?
MR. DUCHOVNY: That's really an interesting question because I think probably, but I think I was always a very, very emotional person. I just wasn't in the habit of expressing it, and it took a while for me just to feel comfortable using those muscles. They had never‑‑or avenues. They'd never really been used.
And I think to answer your question more specifically, later on, when I did "The X-Files," at that point, you know, I had left plot behind. As a graduate student, you know, the last thing you do is walk into a class and talk about what happened in a book. That's not important. It's beside the point for a graduate student. When you're making television or movies or writing thrillers, potboilers, what have you, plot is king, and plot was king of "The X-Files."
And it took me two or three years to open my eyes and go, "Oh, I can live in a world with plot." You know, I had banished plot from my consciousness, which was, I think, a terrible mistake. It's almost like banishing emotionality. It's like‑‑because plot is satisfying. Plot is‑‑there's something deeply necessary in humans that love a plot. There aren't that many. I guess there are books that give you all the plots or whatever, but we love a story. And I had lost that love, and I'm not blaming anyone or graduate school or whatever, but you focus so specifically on the language, on what's not being said, going, you know, sociopolitical critiques of the work, anything but the plot, really.
And I fell in love with plot again, and it was so lucky for me that I don't think I could have actually‑‑people think I became a writer because I went to Yale. I think I became a writer because I got to go to the school of "The X-Files" for a while and just go, hey, that's‑‑that's a good story. Duh. You know, like I don't have anything smart to say about it. I just liked it.
MS. HORNADAY: Right. And that's good. And that's good enough.
MR. DUCHOVNY: It's enough, and now I see, you know, the good plots are‑‑and what I've realized talking about this book a little bit, which isn't necessarily plot‑heavy, but, you know, I think that myself as a writer, I write stories. Now I like stories, and I write stories kind of to find out what is the emotion underneath it. What is the unsaid thing that I'm trying to say by hanging it on this story? And in this case, it's the father‑daughter love, you know, the father‑daughter fissure that's haunting Ridley in this book.
And I did not know that either. You know, I didn't know that. Like I said, "Rear View"‑‑the story came to me plot‑wise. "Rear Window," "Death in Venice," okay. I got a‑‑I know where I'm hanging this guy. I know where he's going to hang out, and then as I wrote it, as I got to almost the very end, I was like, oh, it's‑‑it's his broken heart here about his daughter, and that's the‑‑he's looking for the key to all mysteries, all conspiracies, you know, and really, the key to his mystery is his daughter. It's small, and it goes back to the themes of what I was speaking about earlier, which is, you know, these cataclysms remind us that, you know, as we're talking about the ballots and we're talking about it's a false‑flag operation and all this crap, conspiracy stuff, the real conspiracy is always a very small rupture of some kind of love, I think, you know, if that makes any sense.
MS. HORNADAY: It makes total sense, and as just on a personal note, I lost my father earlier this year, and it rang absolutely true. It just rang absolutely true. So you get to something very deep and very real and sort of ambush in a good way and the best way possible, the reader.
And, you know, you mentioned Ridley and his daughter, and because you're working in this concentrated form, everything matters, every choice, word choice, and especially names. And so I'm curious about the names Ridley‑‑and his daughter's name is Coral. Could you tell us a little bit how you came to those names‑‑
MR. DUCHOVNY: Yeah.
MS. HORNADAY: ‑‑and what they mean to you?
MR. DUCHOVNY: I never like to throw away a name, you know. They are precious in books.
Well, Ridley, I know a guy named Ridley for years, a friend of mine, and that's his last name. And we just call him "Ridley," and I always liked Ridley. I loved Ridley Scott. I love that it's a riddle. It was like the Riddler. It was a question, you know, because this man was somehow unknown to himself.
And Coral to me was something that keeps growing, something that is submerged under water and‑‑that is an ecosystem unto itself, existing deep below the surface. So to hit the nails on the head, that's what I was going for.
I hope anybody that hears that forgets it as soon as I said it.
MS. HORNADAY: No, it's lovely. It's just‑‑I just‑‑it's always so interesting to me.
So you had mentioned earlier, you know, you have that kind of scaffolding, and then even you were a little bit surprised about where it ultimately went and what the themes ended up being. So I guess I'd like to ask you just about your personal. You intimated that you did have your own view of the Reservoir. You were experiencing a lot of those same feelings we were all experiencing during pandemic, but just how personal is this for you?
MR. DUCHOVNY: You know, everything I do is extremely personal, but it's not confessional. I have very little interest in writing a memoir or in confessing anything specific or writing about anything specific that either happened to me or my family. I don't see the art in that. I don't see the‑‑I don't see the benefit of it. I guess I'm from a different age. I just feel a little‑‑here's a literary word. I feel a little icky about talking about those kinds of things head on.
I value privacy, maybe not secrecy, but I value privacy. So there's‑‑I will say this. You know, I have two children, you know, and if my son were to read this, he'd go, "Hey, what the fuck? You know, where am I?"
MS. HORNADAY: [Laughs]
MR. DUCHOVNY: And I love them equally. So, with my‑‑with my daughter, a couple of things happened with her. I mean, the kind of penultimate realization for Ridley of having taken his daughter out in the water and exposed her to rough water when he should have known better being a lifeguard and all that, that's just taken right from my life. And I can talk about it because it has a happy ending, but, you know, it's just one of those archetypical moments where dad is showing off, you know, take you into the deep water, daughter, and then this big set came in. And I just grabbed onto my daughter, and we got whipped around for, you know, what felt like an eternity, but it was probably 30 seconds. I kept on pulling her under the waves and pulling her under the waves, and after they passed, she was like, "What were you doing? You were dunking me. I was fine," you know, but I was terrified that if I let go of her that I'd never find her again. And that's haunted me. I know it's a silly moment, but to‑‑exactly what happened to Ridley is we‑‑I didn't let her know, you know, that I was scared because I thought, well, I didn't want to confess that. I didn't want to confess your father is an idiot, your father is‑‑your father didn't think enough. Your father didn't plan enough. Your father took a chance that was‑‑that was wrong, you know. So she‑‑we left it at like, oh, I was roughhousing with her, you know.
And then I remember going back, getting back to the shore, and my knees were‑‑I couldn't‑‑I just kind of sat, and she was like, "Hey, let's go." And I was like, "No. I'm just going to like sit here and get some sun. I'm good. I'm just enjoying‑‑I'm enjoying my day at the beach," but I was just thinking, "What kind of an ass are you? What kind of an ass are you?"
MS. HORNADAY: You know, who among us? Every‑‑I had experiences like that with my own parents which became‑‑because they all‑‑you know, the few of them that there were had happy endings. So then it becomes part of family lore.
MR. DUCHOVNY: [Laughs]
MS. HORNADAY: And now that I'm a parent, I have my own.
But that scene in the book, it's so vivid, and it's just that‑‑those jelly knee, you know, just that utter depletion and inability to function almost while you're processing that. I mean, it was just absolutely brilliant and real.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Yeah. Well that's‑‑
MS. HORNADAY: And I will say‑‑
MR. DUCHOVNY: That's the most personal‑‑yeah, go ahead. Sorry.
MS. HORNADAY: And it rings. It resonates that way.
But, also, I would say, you know, even though you kind of frame it that you were self‑protective in terms of not telling her how much danger you were in, you were protecting her too because that would have really undermined her whole feeling of safety. Right. So‑‑
MR. DUCHOVNY: Yeah. And in the book, it's Ridley questions himself of whose ass am I saving, mine or hers, by lying to her that, "Oh, yeah, I was just going around, and I was in control the whole time." Yes, that gives her‑‑it maintains, I think, a necessary illusion of the omnipotent father, and I think that's a good thing for a child to have up until a certain age. But it's also maintaining, you know, Ridley's kind of position as that guy, you know, for himself, and he questions the motive of why he needs to keep up that illusion.
But I would do it too, you know, and I would‑‑I would applaud somebody else doing that. I think it's important for kids to feel safe, and they don't need to know all the truth until they can handle it.
And there's a little of that in the book as well. As they're in the Reservoir, father and daughter, you know, he's going deeper, and at some point, he thinks she's not ready for this at this point in her life. And it's a symbolic dive at that point, and it's courting death as well. And he does it again, but instead of‑‑instead of holding onto her this time, he lets go.
MS. HORNADAY: So another inspiration that shows up throughout the novel is a Led Zeppelin song‑‑
MR. DUCHOVNY: Yep.
MS. HORNADAY: ‑‑called "Kashmir." Tell us how does that‑‑what does that song mean to you, and how did you decide to give it pride of place in this narrative?
MR. DUCHOVNY: Well, again, this is going to seem like it's a total autobiography, but "Kashmir" for years, mostly because I'm bad with phones, was my wakeup call for years. I could have‑‑I didn't know how to change it. I liked it. Most people would think that's a nightmare to wake up to, but it's very effective. I guarantee you that that beat is very effective of getting you out of bed or at least finding your phone to turn it off at that time of the morning.
MR. DUCHOVNY: But I love the song, aside from using it as an alarm, and I had used an epigraph from "Kashmir" in the book and had used it right up until the point where I requested permission from the publisher and from Led Zeppelin, and they wanted $3,000.
MS. HORNADAY: Oh, hey.
MR. DUCHOVNY: I said I'll find‑‑I'll find another epigraph, and so I actually found an epigraph that has Robert Plant talking about "Kashmir" for free.
MS. HORNADAY: This is how they make their living, sir.
MR. DUCHOVNY: I think‑‑I think they've made their living. I don't think my $3,000 would have made a big difference, but, you know, as somebody who I write music and I make‑‑I make, you know, quote/unquote, art, and the idea that somebody can just reproduce my art for free, I get it. I mean, I don't‑‑I just felt cheap and didn't want to pay for it.
MS. HORNADAY: Sure.
MS. HORNADAY: Sure. And the Plant quote is fascinating too in its own right.
MR. DUCHOVNY: It is.
MS. HORNADAY: It's actually‑‑it was probably a little bit‑‑you know, that's something we haven't probably seen as much as the lyrics.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Right.
MS. HORNADAY: So it all worked out.
MR. DUCHOVNY: I had never seen it. I was like damn it.
MS. HORNADAY: Yeah.
MR. DUCHOVNY: I didn't want to pay for "Kashmir." Has anybody ever talked about "Kashmir?" I found that quote. I was like this might be even better.
MS. HORNADAY: [Laughs] That's great.
So, to that point about all these different art forms that you work in, how do you‑‑do you compartmentalize your creative life, and if so, how‑‑I mean, do you read other writers while you're writing, or do you try to kind of wall yourself off from other people's work, including scripts, or how does that all‑‑how does that all balance out?
MR. DUCHOVNY: Not scripts because scripts are‑‑they're a weird mongrel kind of a thing. I mean, they're‑‑you know, they're great if they're great, but they're not great literature. Have you ever‑‑
MS. HORNADAY: There's no danger of cross‑pollination.
MR. DUCHOVNY: "I'm going to‑‑I'm going to re‑read that script again." You know, I'm like‑‑
MS. HORNADAY: That's right, exactly. [Laughs]
MR. DUCHOVNY: That movie about 10 years ago, now all of a sudden, I get a script. I'm going to re‑read it. It doesn't‑‑it doesn't work that way.
So, no, I can read any script at any time, but I tend not to read fiction when I'm writing fiction.
In terms of making music, yeah. I'll be listening to music all the time and reading poetry, too, which helps me lyrically, can help me lyrically. You know, I‑‑especially with production, music production. I get ideas by listening to‑‑because I tend to listen to the stuff that I grew up listening to and love, and that's like the bedrock influence on me.
When I was talking earlier about‑‑you mentioned Woolf and those writers. They're the bedrock influence in literature, but, you know, Beatles, Petty, Stones, it's like in me. I don't need to listen to them. I'm already kind of, you know, in that area if I'm writing. So, if I want to be, you know, current or try to grow, it's really the production and the sounds, the different‑‑the different production sounds, you know, the last 10, 15, 20 years, which I know nothing about and don't like naturally gravitate towards, but if I sit down and I listen, I can go, "well, that's super interesting. I'd like to try something that sounds a little like that."
MS. HORNADAY: You know, that's fascinating that you mention production because we're exactly‑‑we were born in the same year, so we have those same sort of, I would imagine, cultural influences, and I feel like‑‑and "Kashmir" is another interesting choice because I think when it came‑‑I remember when it came out, it was like there was this‑‑there was this stigma about being overproduced. Remember? You know, like, oh, it's overproduced. Like, that was such a‑‑that was such a music snob thing to say about that.
But, of course, now in the fullness of time and with wisdom, we think, no, that's absolutely‑‑you know, like there‑‑there's over‑‑that just means it's badly produced, right? Like‑‑
MR. DUCHOVNY: [Laughs] Yeah, right.
MS. HORNADAY: There's something about the multi‑‑you know, the production values of those great pop songs we grew up with. It's just like yeah. Bring it.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Yeah. Well, there's‑‑you know, I think‑‑I think that originally the idea of overproduction was a sense of like, oh, they must be hiding the fact that they're bad musicians‑‑
MS. HORNADAY: Mm‑hmm.
MR. DUCHOVNY: ‑‑which is obviously not the case with Zeppelin, or, you know, this kind of false, you know, sense of ersatz, like it has to sound like‑‑you know, it has to sound human. It has to sound to be authentic. You know, this is inauthentic music because it's produced mechanically. It's not produced organically on the instruments that we grew up learning, but, you know, it always changes. Like, so you have to‑‑it's whatever strikes the ear, right? Like, the ear is very adaptive, I think, and falls in love with things, and so have I, as I've listened throughout my life to mostly pop songs. I'm not a‑‑I'm not a classical guy.
MS. HORNADAY: Well, David, we do have some audience questions that I want to make sure we get to. So I think I'll dive into a few right now. We have Barbara Davis from Ohio wants to know‑‑oh, I love this one. As a writer, I love this one. Does writing energize or exhaust you?
MR. DUCHOVNY: It energizes me. You know, afterwards, it exhausts me.
MS. HORNADAY: There you go.
MR. DUCHOVNY: On a deep, deep, like good exhaustion. Like, I've never done a triathlon‑‑I've done a triathlon. I've never done an Iron Man. Like, I can imagine like that kind of exhaustion, but while I'm involved in it, while I'm‑‑you know, if I'm in the midst of writing something long that's going to take months, I'm super energized, and I'm usually waking up. My mind is waking up, without the aid of "Kashmir" at like 4:30 in the morning or 5:00 in the morning, you know, and not sleeping. You know, just like my brain has been working, always working on it, even when I'm asleep. Just the most wonderful feeling to be fully engaged in something. So it's the engagement that makes me feel energized, and I long for it when I'm not that way. You know, when I'm not writing, I long for that kind of engagement.
MS. HORNADAY: Are you sort of taking notes and filing ideas away and kind of‑‑
MS. HORNADAY: Yeah, I know that feeling.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Yeah. Because I'm kind of, you know, stretched across different media, I'm always like, well, what is this thing here? How far do I want to take it? Do I want to‑‑do I want to write it up as a pitch and give it to another writer and see if we can make it a television show that I can act in or direct or product, or do I want to just horde this for myself and turn it into a book and maybe turn it into a movie? You know, so it's like I am taking notes and I'm thinking of‑‑again, I'm thinking of stories that appeal‑‑appeal to me but also give me the sense that there's an emotional secret underneath that plot unwinding that's going to be interesting to me.
MS. HORNADAY: Is it tempting because you are‑‑you know, you played a‑‑in "The Bubble," the Judd Apatow comedy, really hilarious‑‑and your character was really hilarious.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Thank you.
MS. HORNADAY: But you play this sort of quintessential, pretentious actor who rewrites the script to make it more politically serious and more substantive. Beyond that, the political piece, but as a writer, is it hard to resist that temptation to scribble on it and make it better and offer to rewrite?
MR. DUCHOVNY: Not really, because I think at first, when I was first acting, I thought‑‑and it was really out of weakness. I thought I'm going to put this in my words, you know, and this will be better in my words, and that was kind of a shortcut from not committing enough to the words ad they were and making them work. So, if I was doing these words and they weren't quite working for me or anybody else, I'd say, oh, screw it. You know, I'm just going to rewrite it, when, in fact, there's an integrity, a possible integrity‑‑I'm not saying it's always the case, but there's an integrity. And I have to assume that whoever wrote it spent some time doing it and that there's a rhyme and reason behind it, and my job as an actor is to make that come alive and not to change it.
MS. HORNADAY: Right. And that kind of gets back to trusting the story. It's like trusting that you sort of‑‑you have to have trust in this form, in this process, whatever‑‑whatever it is and commit. If you're committed, you're committed, and that's not bad.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Yeah. And it's like‑‑it's also knowing your job. You know, you're hired. You're hired to be the actor. You're not hired to be the writer.
I mean, there are some directors, writers that you work with that welcome it. They'll say, you know, "Let's work on this bit. Do you have any alts that you want to do? Do you want to improv with it a little bit?" and that's cool. But it's no longer my approach to say, "Hey, I write. Let me rewrite this."
MS. HORNADAY: I think that sounds like a wise course. I want to‑‑
MR. DUCHOVNY: Especially with Shakespeare. I tend not to write‑‑rewrite Shakespeare anymore, which is what I was doing. [Laughs]
MS. HORNADAY: I'm going to leapfrog to a couple. I know people are going to want to talk a little bit about‑‑more about "The X-Files." So there are two questions about "The X-Files," and I have one too. So I'll start with Roger Posiack from North Carolina who wants to know, what was your favorite memory from "The X-Files"?
MR. DUCHOVNY: You know, I have so many memories of it. I don't have a favorite memory, but there were important moments, and I do remember when we first got nominated for a Golden Globe‑‑and I think that was maybe the second year of the show. We were still up in Vancouver. And we were up in Vancouver, we were pretty removed from Hollywood, obviously geographically but also temperamentally. We were one of a few shows that were shooting up there, but we were kind of in a bubble.
And, you know, we were aware that the show was doing well, but we weren't kind of in Hollywood with it. So there was no‑‑you know, we were just working 14 hours a day and with our heads down, and it's going to make it seem like I'm into awards, and I guess I‑‑you know, I like an award as much as anybody else, but, you know‑‑and Golden Globes are whatever they are you know. But I just remember being so shocked and like, "Oh, my God, people are‑‑people like us." So it was really that moment. I was like, oh, I didn't know. I didn't know we were‑‑I knew people were watching, but I didn't know it was like this. And it was just I had a real sense of‑‑because Chris Carter called me and told me like at work, and I just remember thinking, so proud of us. You know, it's like the first‑‑it may seem ridiculous in retrospect, but I just remember thinking, "God damn it, we did it, you know. We're good."
MS. HORNADAY: Aw, that doesn't seem ridiculous. That's actually really moving.
Robert Butterfield would like to know what you think of the latest Washington, D.C. inquiries into UFO activity.
MR. DUCHOVNY: You know, this is going to be very telling about me, but I don't know anything about it. [Laughs]
I know that there was a‑‑I know there were some publications that were around it, but it's not‑‑I don't have a real personal interest in it.
I certainly‑‑if you showed me evidence of UFOs, I'd be as interested as the next guy, you know. I have a graphic novel that's kind of a science fiction, alien‑based thing coming out next November. So I guess I do have some interest in it, but it's really‑‑I hate to say this, but my interest is like allegorical or symbolic more than is it real, is it happening, where are they.
MS. HORNADAY: Understood, understood.
Well, I'd like to ask you my "X-Files" question, which is that "X-Files" came out‑‑I can't remember. It was the 1990s.
MS. HORNADAY: And it feels now, in retrospect, looking back, it ushered in‑‑well, we've always been fascinated by conspiracies, but that was sort of a high point of conspiracies culture. You know, "JFK" had come out, the movie, "JFK," "X-Files." There was a new sort of resuscitation of conspiracy as pop culture and entertainment, and now as we embark on tomorrow‑‑on Thursday night's hearings‑‑
MS. HORNADAY: I just wanted to get your thoughts on that about that migration, if anybody could have ever seen that coming and just how you feel about it.
MR. DUCHOVNY: I did not, but I will say that Chris Carter saw it coming.
And, actually, I did a book about‑‑for this book last night with Chris, and somebody sent me a scene from "The X-Files" iteration that we did in 2016, and Joe McHale, the actor, has this, you know, speech that's right out of the QAnon stuff. And this is 2016, and I just‑‑I tipped my cap to Chris Carter, you know, in this case for seeing it all coming.
I didn't at all, because I don't go in that direction when I think, but I'm as‑‑I'm kind of a little unsettled by the fact that Mulder may be a poster for QAnon and that kind of stuff, and I never‑‑I never saw him that way. I saw him as a‑‑you know, he was always right. He was right about the conspiracies that he was uncovering, and I'm saddened by what I see out there and by what people claim to be believing.
But as I‑‑it kind of circles back to the book because‑‑because I think I do address the need for an answer, and I think that's at the heart of conspiracies because we want‑‑we want a bad guy or girl. You know, we want‑‑we want a villain. It's too hard to handle if you tell me the world is just a chaotic place where shit doesn't make sense and nature is brutal and the planet is dying and we can't do anything about it. I want to blame somebody for that. I get it.
I think if you're a mature person, you kind of sit down in that anger and that despair, and you go, "I can't‑‑I can't blame anybody. Maybe I can help. Maybe I can fight against it," but it's not my‑‑generally, it's not like Mr. Bad Guy who's doing it or a couple cabal of bad guys or whatever and certainly not pedophiles working out of Comet Pizza.
MS. HORNADAY: Mm‑hmm, yeah. Right. It's a contradiction because, like you said, there have been. It's not that there haven't been conspiracies. There have. We're just celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break‑in, and so we know that conspiracies are real. But it just feels like it's morphed into this weird fantasy.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Well, for me, because I got a lot of this when I was doing "The X‑Files." You know, people would ask me, "Is it real?" and I would always say, "Have you ever known anybody to keep a secret in your entire life? One person? Have you ever known somebody to successfully keep a secret? Now you're talking about hundreds, thousands of people keeping a secret that have global consequences. Do you really think that that's possible?"
MS. HORNADAY: We are approaching our own deadline here, and I wanted to talk a little bit about your acting life, and are you back? Is it sort of back to, quote/unquote, normal, pre‑pandemic normal, or what's‑‑
MR. DUCHOVNY: Kind of. I mean, the last year was very busy for me. I have another movie coming out on Netflix with Jonah Hill, Julia Louis‑Dreyfus, and Eddie Murphy, where I play‑‑Julia and myself play Jonah Hill's parents in a kind of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" scenario. Very funny. Kenya Barris wrote with Jonah and directed it. That's next.
I'm probably forget‑‑oh, yes. I did a comedy down in New Orleans called "The Estate," an independent film that I think is really funny, and it's starring Toni Collette.
So, yeah, I've been‑‑you know, after like taking a year off, you know, before and during the pandemic, maybe a year and a half, I've been quite busy the last year and a half since "The Bubble." And I like it. I do like it, and it's a‑‑the business has changed, and it's changing all the time. But, you know, the advent of the streamers have kind of changed the way you can address storytelling. So, for me as a writer and as a director and as an actor, it's interesting to think that my only two options are no longer 25 hours a year or 12 hours a year or a two‑hour story, but I can tell a story in eight hours. I could tell a story in ten hours. It can change the way you tell a story. It can change the kind of stories that you can tell well.
MS. HORNADAY: That's fantastic.
And I understand you are adapting one of your own books. Is that right?
MR. DUCHOVNY: Trying to, yeah. I mean, it's all‑‑it's all like I'm‑‑you know, it's independent filmmaking world of "Bucky F*cking Dent." You know, I hope to be shooting that quite soon, and then "Truly Like Lightning," I was adapting that as a series, but I think I'm leaning more back into that as trying to conceive of that as a two‑hour story. And that's one of those older‑type problems where you've got a long book. It's a bit of an epic, and how are we going to condense them in two hours? But I think we can, and I think we can really make that movie.
MS. HORNADAY: So you are going from being the solitary creator of those two pieces into this eminently collaborative medium. Are you alone doing those screenplays? When you say "we," how collaborative do you get, and how soon?
MR. DUCHOVNY: Very. Collaborative, you know, one could say lazy. I like to collaborate. It's one of the things that drew me into acting in the first place. It reminded me of playing sports, which was my‑‑team sports, which was my first love, really. So I love finding people who do things differently than I do and thinking about, oh, how would they‑‑how would they bring their talents to bear on what I've done already with this thing? So I told the story in novel form. I'm happy with it. I published it. I let it go. Now it's going to take on a new form, and I'm going to let other people engage in creating that form with me.
MS. HORNADAY: That's wonderful.
Well, unfortunately, we are out of time. We have to leave it there. David Duchovny, I cannot thank you enough for joining us today. This has been a wonderful conversation.
MR. DUCHOVNY: Well, this has been a real pleasure. I've enjoyed the conversation myself. Thank you.
MS. HORNADAY: Indeed. Thank you.
And thank all of you for joining us. If you would like to see what’s coming up on Washington Post Live, please head to WashingtonPostLive.com to see what is in store. You can register and find out more information about all of our upcoming programs.
For now, my name is Ann Hornaday. Thank you again for joining us. | 2022-06-08T03:27:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: WP Subscriber Exclusive: David Duchovny, Actor & Author - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/06/07/transcript-wp-subscriber-exclusive-david-duchovny-actor-author/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/06/07/transcript-wp-subscriber-exclusive-david-duchovny-actor-author/ |
Ask Amy: Should racist cousins get invited to my daughter’s wedding?
Fast-forward 30 years and we aren’t as close as we used to be — for various reasons. I relocated to the West Coast, and my family is in the Midwest.
I see my parents and my brother often, but I haven’t seen my cousins since the pandemic began because we have differing opinions on vaccinations and social distancing (I believe in both; they don’t).
Our daughter is engaged, deeply in love and very happy in an interracial relationship. My spouse and I are quite fond of our future son-in-law and his family.
Stressed: If you aren’t comfortable being in proximity to these men for health or cultural reasons, then follow your instincts.
If the cousins don’t make the list and you are asked why, you can tell them the truth: “Your racist views knocked you off the invite list.”
Dear Amy: I have been best friends with “Penny” for over 60 years. Last year, we had an argument over the phone regarding covid vaccines.
In addition to the risk factor of her age, she has health issues, but is an adamant anti-vaxxer. I was concerned for her health and told her that she was wrong not to get vaccinated.
Since that moment, we haven’t texted or spoken. I feel sad about not contacting her, but notice that she hasn’t reached out to me, either.
I think she has written me off. Her birthday is approaching. Do I send a card?
Ex: Your argument with “Penny” seemed focused on how receiving a vaccine would be in her best interest.
If you’re truly done with this relationship, then you should let this milestone day pass without reaching out. But surely, even though you two had an argument, aren’t you on some level happy to see that this fellow human being (who. according to you. has health problems) has reached another birthday?
One: I’ll take the backhanded compliment, and thank you for it. | 2022-06-08T04:04:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: Should racist cousins get invited to my daughter’s wedding? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/06/08/ask-amy-racist-cousins-wedding/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/06/08/ask-amy-racist-cousins-wedding/ |
Miss Manners: My unhappy co-worker thinks I hate the job, too. I don’t.
My other co-workers and I have continuously tried teaching him the same things repeatedly, given him notes, and showed him how to take and organize notes, but it got to the point where we felt it was pointless because after a year, there really wasn't much improvement.
To him: “I’m sorry you feel that way and I hope things work out for you, but please do not speak on my behalf or include me in any formal complaint.”
Miss Manners does not see this as taking the boss’s side over a co-worker’s; she sees it as a necessary defensive move against someone who is seeking to compromise you.
Etiquette does not, in the abstract, object to combining celebrations. But Miss Manners does believe that one outgrows large birthday parties around the time one enters the workforce — which, assuming you are not retiring from kindergarten, would preclude the party you propose. | 2022-06-08T04:04:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: My unhappy co-worker thinks I hate the job, too. I don’t. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/06/08/miss-manners-unhappy-co-worker/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/06/08/miss-manners-unhappy-co-worker/ |
By Maria Sacchetti
A boy and his father from Honduras are taken into custody by U.S. Border Patrol agents near the U.S.-Mexico border on June 12, 2018, near Mission, Tex. (John Moore/Getty Images)
The email exchanges are part of a massive cache of internal documents the Biden administration turned over to lawyers for migrants this year after settlement talks broke down in December, forcing both sides to litigate in open court. Families who were separated have filed more than 20 lawsuits seeking millions of dollars for their pain and suffering. The May 2018 passages came to light Tuesday as part of a court filing seeking more records to bolster a pair of lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Arizona.
Lawyers for the migrants have said the Biden administration’s decision to end settlement talks means that far fewer families are likely to get compensation for the separations, but it also is bringing more information to light, putting high- and middle-ranking officials — including some who are still in the government — under scrutiny.
Family separations: Settlement talks with Biden administration have broken down, attorneys say
Immigration and border officials and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the filing, which was made public just before midnight Eastern time. The Justice Department, which represents the government in the lawsuits, declined to comment on the filings.
The U.S. government separated more than 3,000 children from their parents along the Mexican border in May and June 2018, the peak of Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy to prosecute adults for the misdemeanor offense of crossing the border illegally. DHS officials say more than 5,500 children were separated in all.
The Trump administration argued that the increase in migrant families that year was a scheme driven by smugglers, since adults traveling with children were more likely to be released into the United States.
President Biden said on the campaign trail that he abhorred the separations, and he has vowed to reunite the still-separated families, but the president balked at a proposed settlement that would have paid family members up to $450,000 apiece.
Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen repeatedly said at the time that the goal was to punish migrant adults for breaking the law. But migrants’ lawyers argue that the new disclosures show the government intended to separate families and deter others, and they say that bolsters their claim that the government intended to inflict harm. Many parents were separated but never prosecuted.
“Although the government told the public that family separation was merely a byproduct of a ‘prosecution’ policy, in fact it implemented a far broader policy of separating all families apprehended at the border regardless of whether the parents were prosecuted or even referred for prosecution,” lawyers for the migrants wrote in the court filing Tuesday.
Under the zero-tolerance policy, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would transport migrant parents to federal court for prosecution and then to ICE to face deportation. Their children would be declared “unaccompanied” and sent to U.S. Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), where caseworkers would house them in shelters and try to place them with a parent or guardian.
The process did not go smoothly: Hundreds of parents were deported without their children, others remain separated to this day, and many others were apart for weeks or months. Officials have said the system was unprepared to quickly reunite families, but migrant lawyers said the emails show that federal officials knew in early May, if not earlier, that migrant families were being reunited quickly and worked to prevent that from happening.
On May 10, 2018, Matthew Albence, then a high-ranking official at ICE, wrote in a memo to other officials at the agency that he was worried that parents would be returned to their children in Border Patrol stations too quickly after going to criminal court. Such prosecutions are typically quick: The offenses are so minor that migrants often plead guilty in groups and are sentenced to time served that day. CBP has 72 hours to transfer unaccompanied minors to government shelters.
“This will result in a situation in which the parents are back in the exact same facility as their children — possibly in a matter of hours — who have yet to be placed into ORR custody,” Albence wrote to acting ICE director Thomas Homan and other officials.
Albence said CBP should work with ICE “to prevent this from happening,” such as by taking the children themselves to ORR “at an accelerated pace” or bringing the adults directly to ICE from criminal court, instead of returning them to their children.
Albence’s concern hit a fever pitch that Memorial Day weekend, when his fears were realized in South Texas.
In the May 25, 2018, email, Johnson wrote to Albence and another official saying CBP was “reuniting adults with kids” after parents being prosecuted in McAllen, a city in the Rio Grande Valley, which was the busiest stretch of the border at the time.
Johnson, then a top official in ICE’s custody management division, said the children had already been designated as unaccompanied but that ORR refused to take them to shelters once their parents returned from court.
“Transportation arrangements are now being canceled and presumably the males (heads of households) are being released,” Johnson wrote to Albence. “What a fiasco.”
“We can’t have this,” Albence, then the ICE executive associate director, shot back one minute later.
Another ICE official, David Jennings, wrote a few minutes later that ORR wouldn’t take an accompanied child.
“No consequence at this point,” Jennings wrote. “ORR needs arm twisted.”
Albence’s concerns reached the Border Patrol, the part of CBP that carried out most of the separations and transported parents to criminal court.
Sandi Goldhamer, a CBP official, said in a 10:04 p.m. email among Border Patrol officials that night that officials should “cease the reunification process” in border stations.
“If you are concerned with appearances than (sic) do not return the family unit adult back to the CPC,” she said, apparently referring to a central processing center in the Rio Grande Valley. She said they should take adults to an alternate holding facility, with a handout to help them reunite with their children, and have ICE pick them up.
Around 2 a.m. the next day, Albence messaged CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan, his deputy, Ron Vitiello, and acting ICE director Homan that it appeared that ORR was refusing to take children whose parents had returned from court in Texas. Officials heard the same in Arizona.
“This obviously undermines the entire effort and the Dept is going to look completely ridiculous if we go through the effort of prosecuting only to send them to a FRC (family residential center) and out the door,” he wrote.
Trump ended the policy amid international outcry on June 20, and days later, Albence said in an internal email that HHS would want to know what ICE could do “to facilitate immediate reunification” of the families. Albence said “that wasn’t going to happen unless we are directed by the Dept to do so.”
“We are moving forward w reunification only for the purposes of removal,” he said.
A few days later, a federal judge in San Diego ordered the government to reunite the families.
Nick Miroff contributed to this report. | 2022-06-08T04:57:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. officials under Trump slowed family reunifications, migrant lawyers say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/08/migrant-families-reunifications-delayed/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/08/migrant-families-reunifications-delayed/ |
At home, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is a premier living on borrowed time. He survived an internal Conservative Party no-confidence vote Monday, but his political obituaries are already being written. The scandal of “Partygate” — how he and key allies defied the strict pandemic lockdowns that they themselves had imposed on the country — made his once Teflon brand irredeemably toxic. Johnson’s march to power was animated by his distinct, puckish nationalism. But he may get turfed out of office with voters and rival politicians fixated on his seemingly inescapable narcissism, instead.
Johnson’s approval ratings have tanked and show little sign of lifting. A wing of his own ruling party is in open rebellion against him. There’s no certainty that Johnson, like Theresa May, the prime minister he replaced, can recover from a bruising no-confidence vote to lead the Tories into Britain’s next general election. The British public already delivered a damning verdict: Last week, his appearance at celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee was met by a chorus of boos from the otherwise cheering crowds.
“He is a wounded leader,” my colleagues reported. “He and the Conservatives will struggle to rebuild their brand in the face of soaring inflation and diminished public trust. And allies in Europe and the United States are now on notice that his authority has been undercut by his own doing.”
Yet there’s a conspicuous ally who remains unruffled by Johnson’s domestic woes. On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at a teleconference hosted by the Financial Times that he was “very happy” Johnson won the no-confidence vote, casting him as a “true friend of Ukraine.”
“I’m glad we haven’t lost an important ally, this is great news,” Zelensky said.
This wasn’t simply polite rhetoric. Few Western leaders have tethered themselves as closely to the Ukrainian cause as Johnson, who championed weapons transfers to Ukraine early and visited Kyiv in April, walking about the Ukrainian capital with Zelensky. In May, he became the first foreign leader since Russia’s invasion began to speak to Ukraine’s parliament.
“You have exploded the myth of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s invincibility and you have written one of the most glorious chapters in military history and in the life of your country,” Johnson said via video address. “The so-called irresistible force of Putin’s war machine has broken on the immovable object of Ukrainian patriotism and love of country.”
Johnson, ever eager to summon the spirit of Winston Churchill, described the brave Ukrainian resistance as the country’s “finest hour,” one “that will be remembered and recounted for generations to come.”
Boris Johnson survives but is weakened by no-confidence vote
Over the course of the war, Johnson has set himself up as Western Europe’s most vociferous anti-Russian hawk. Free of the obligations of European Union membership and its drives toward political consensus within the continental bloc, Johnson has taken a more strident line in defense of Ukraine’s interests. His position has made him a frequent target of Russian state media, geopolitical animosity he may welcome as his government struggles to craft post-Brexit Britain’s new “global” identity.
On the day of the no-confidence vote, Johnson tweeted an image of himself in 10 Downing Street, on the phone with Zelensky, along with a message offering “long-term” support for Ukraine. After surviving the vote, Johnson’s office once more pivoted to Ukraine, releasing a statement following a cabinet meeting insisting that it was “vital” that Zelensky not be “pressured into accepting a bad peace” deal and that “the world must avoid any outcome where Putin’s unwarranted aggression appears to have paid off.”
It’s a tacit riposte to other prominent voices, both in the West and outside, calling for dialogue between Kyiv and Moscow to swiftly end the war and stabilize a massively troubled global economy.
Johnson’s enthusiasm has not gone unnoticed in Ukraine. A town near the port city of Odesa has reportedly named a street after the British prime minister. A bougie bakery in Kyiv even concocted a special pastry in his honor — an apple and cinnamon cake decorated with a frilly coating of meringue on top, in homage to Johnson’s consistently unkempt mop of hair.
“Boris Johnson is not just a prime minister but is also now a croissant,” the establishment announced on its Instagram account, according to the Telegraph.
In honour of the no-confidence vote, tried a “Boris Johnson” croissant in a Kyiv cafe today. It’s supposed to resemble his scruffiness and hair. The uncharitable might suggest it wins by being airy and insubstantial. pic.twitter.com/FIJaeEsNJW
In Britain, few are finding Johnson so sweet. The prime minister came under fire, as Today’s Worldview’s Adam Taylor noted a few months ago, for his history of ties to Russian oligarchs, links that extend to much of the Tory political firmament. As mayor of London, he presided over a status quo that saw a web of shadowy foreign elites park their capital in the British capital. The war prompted, critics contended, a much-delayed government backlash against the infiltration of illicit wealth across the country’s economy.
Moreover, for all his loud-throated cheering of Ukraine’s war effort, Johnson and his government have accommodated far fewer Ukrainian refugees than other European partners. In May, Johnson was compelled to stress that Ukrainian asylum seekers would not be shipped off to Rwanda, the African nation 4,000 miles away where Britain is now bent on sending its asylum seekers.
Starting even before Russia launched its invasion, analysts spied in Johnson’s embrace of Ukraine a desperate bid to summon the legacy of Margaret Thatcher’s Falklands War. Thatcher faced rising inflation and mounting domestic anger at her agenda, but the victorious conflict over Argentina in 1982 helped power her to reelection and set up a decade of nation-revamping rule.
“It was a minor post-colonial conflict, yet victory in the Atlantic helped reinforce her reputation as the Iron Lady, one with Churchillian echoes, whose resolute leadership at a moment of crisis helped make Britain great again after a decade or more of drift and decline,” wrote Steven Fielding, a professor of political history at the University of Nottingham.
“Talk of the Ukraine crisis providing a ‘Falklands moment’ for Johnson is simply fool’s gold for desperate Conservatives,” Fielding added. “It shows they are whistling in the dark in the face of dire poll numbers for the Prime Minister and his party.” | 2022-06-08T04:59:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Boris Johnson, sinking at home, has fans in Ukraine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/08/boris-johnson-ukraine-zelensky/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/08/boris-johnson-ukraine-zelensky/ |
Group led by Walmart heir Rob Walton agrees to buy Broncos for $4.65 billion
Rob Walton speaks at the Walmart shareholders meeting in Fayetteville, Ark., in 2015. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston, File)
An ownership group led by Walmart heir Rob Walton reached an agreement to purchase the Denver Broncos for $4.65 billion, shattering the previous record sale price for an NFL franchise.
The purchase price was confirmed Tuesday night by a person familiar with the matter. The Broncos announced the agreement, which is subject to approval by the NFL’s finance committee and other franchise owners, without announcing the price.
“We look forward to earning the confidence and support of the NFL as we take the next step in this process,” Walton said in a statement released by the Broncos. “When the necessary approval procedures are met, our family is excited to share more with Broncos fans, the organization and the community.”
Walton announced that Mellody Hobson, the co-CEO of Ariel Investments, had agreed to join his ownership group. Hobson, who is Black, also is the chair of the board of the Starbucks Corporation and a director of JPMorgan Chase.
“We know she will bring her strategic acumen and leadership perspective to our team,” Walton said.
NFL owners approved a resolution in March endorsing diversity in franchise ownership.
The previous two NFL franchises to be sold were the Buffalo Bills, who were purchased by Terry and Kim Pegula from the Ralph Wilson estate for $1.4 billion in 2014, and the Carolina Panthers, bought by David Tepper from Jerry Richardson for $2.275 billion in 2018.
Forbes, in its annual estimates of NFL franchise values, in August pegged the worth of the Broncos at $3.75 billion, 10th-highest in the league. The Dallas Cowboys led the way at $6.5 billion in the 2021 Forbes estimates.
The Broncos are being sold by the Pat Bowlen Trust. The franchise’s ownership situation had been muddled in recent years by squabbles among the heirs of late owner Pat Bowlen and more recently was complicated further by litigation brought by the estate of another previous owner over a right of first refusal.
“While this purchase and sale agreement is pending approval from the NFL’s finance committee and league ownership, today marks a significant step on the path to an exciting new chapter in Broncos history,” Joe Ellis, the team’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
Forbes listed Walton, 77, as the world’s 22nd wealthiest person with a real-time estimated net worth of $58.2 billion as of early Wednesday. He becomes the NFL’s wealthiest owner.
The new ownership group also includes Walton’s daughter, Carrie Walton Penner, and his son-in-law, Greg Penner.
Stan Kroenke, the owner of the Los Angeles Rams, is married to Ann Walton Kroenke, another Walmart heir.
The deal for the Broncos must be approved by at least 24 of the 32 NFL teams. It was not immediately clear Tuesday night when the transaction will be closed and the deal ratified.
The other finalists in the bidding for the Broncos were groups led by Josh Harris, the owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils; Mat Ishbia, the president and CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage; and Jose Feliciano and Behdad Eghbali, the co-founders of Clearlake Capital.
Ellis and two other trustees retained the authority to oversee a sale. A 2019 lawsuit filed by Bowlen’s two eldest children, Beth Bowlen Wallace and Amie Klemmer, contended that Bowlen did not have the capacity to sign his estate documents and was improperly influenced by the trustees. The lawsuit was dismissed last year at their request.
The sale proceeded after the resolution of a lawsuit brought by the estate for former Broncos owner Edgar Kaiser Jr. Kaiser’s estate contended that it continued to hold a right of first refusal over a potential sale of the franchise, stemming from the agreement when Pat Bowlen bought the Broncos from Kaiser in 1984. A settlement was reached in April.
The record sale price reinforces the financial might of the NFL. The collective bargaining agreement completed in 2020 between the NFL and the NFL Players Association provided labor peace and authorized team owners to implement new revenue-boosting measures like an expanded playoffs and a 17-game regular season.
Last year, the NFL completed a new set of television and streaming deals worth more than $110 billion in rights fees over 11 years. Meanwhile, the league and its teams expected to generate about $270 million last year from sports-betting and gambling partnerships, with an eye toward that figure reaching $1 billion per year this decade. | 2022-06-08T05:57:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Walmart heir Rob Walton agrees to buy Broncos for $4.65 billion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/06/08/rob-walton-group-reaches-deal-purchase-broncos/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/06/08/rob-walton-group-reaches-deal-purchase-broncos/ |
Just over 50 years ago, at a meeting of the world’s top economic powers, US Treasury Secretary John Connally shocked his counterparts by proclaiming the dollar “is our currency, but it’s your problem.” Back then, America wanted a cheaper currency, forcing others to revalue theirs. Half a century later, the global economy faces the opposite challenge: The greenback is hovering at a 20-year high against its fellow major currencies, creating a huge problem for everyone outside America buying dollar-denominated goods. And no commodity is more important than crude oil.
Typically, a strong dollar means weaker commodity prices — and vice versa. The commodity-dollar relationship tends to act as a cushion for the global economy with one offsetting the other, which is particularly important for poorer countries. The last time the world faced surging oil prices was paradigmatic of the symbiosis. In 2008, the cost of Brent surged to an all-time high of $147.50 a barrel, straining the finances of many nations. But that same year, the dollar plunged to a record low against the currencies of the US’s major trading partners, easing some of the pain. For many importing nations, oil became expensive, but not exorbitantly costly in local currency.
That historical dollar-oil price relationship now appears to be broken. Crude has risen 70% in the past year, and currently trades at about $120 a barrel. At the same time, the dollar has gained 10% since mid-2021. That’s creating balance-of-payments crises in many oil-importing nations, particularly in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Malawi, one of the poorest nations in Africa, recently devalued its currency by 25% in a single day. Sri Lanka, among the poorest Asian countries, is on the brink of economic collapse. “The divide between the prosperous and the countries that have a lower ability to pay for commodities is becoming extremely stark,” Mike Muller, head of Asia at Vitol Group, the world’s largest oil trading house, said on Sunday. Even those who can afford to pay sky-high prices in local currency, such as Europe and Japan, are suffering via increased inflationary pressures.
While Brent is about 20% below that 2008 all-time dollar high, it’s changing hands at record levels when expressed in local currency for countries accounting for roughly 35% of the world’s oil demand. India, the world’s third-largest oil consumer behind the US and China, is paying about 45% more than it was 14 years ago due to the steep depreciation of the rupee against the dollar. The euro zone currently pays about 111 euros ($119) per barrel, compared with 93.5 euros in July 2008. The UK faces a similar problem: Brent peaked at about 74 pounds ($92) per barrel in 2008; today, it’s almost a third more expensive at 95 pounds. With the yen down to its weakest against the dollar in two decades, Japan is also hurting. The list of nations struggling to meet their energy bills goes on and on.
Beyond the domestic economic aftershocks, record high oil prices in local currency matter for the energy market itself. Oil traders are looking for signs of demand destruction — the point at which higher prices lead to reduced consumption. For now, oil demand growth has remained robust, boosted by pent-up consumption as the world emerges from the pandemic. But with a significant chunk of the world already facing record prices, demand will soon suffer. Analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reckon that the strength of the US dollar is adding an average of about $20 a barrel extra when measured in local currencies, “to reach levels equivalent to $150/bbl Brent.”
Sorry, But for You, Oil Trades at $250 a Barrel: Javier Blas
Europe’s Partial Russian Oil Ban Is Flawed, But Necessary: Marques & Fickling | 2022-06-08T06:28:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In the Oil Market, the Strong Dollar Is the World’s Problem - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/in-the-oil-market-the-strong-dollar-is-the-worlds-problem/2022/06/08/acec9ba8-e6e8-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/in-the-oil-market-the-strong-dollar-is-the-worlds-problem/2022/06/08/acec9ba8-e6e8-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
Hard Lessons From the War in Ukraine
Now that Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is more than 100 days old and Ukraine fatigue is setting in for most people, I’m finally able to think more or less rationally about a calamity that has turned my world, and that of many like-minded Russians, upside down — though in a much less traumatic way, of course, than it has done for Ukrainians.
Trying to analyze the unjust war my country started will always be difficult; there’s a thin line between being analytical and being desensitized to the horror Russia has wreaked. Still, I’ve lost much sleep following events in minute detail, and I’d like to share the lessons I’ve drawn so far — with a necessary caveat. Being Russian, and having initially underestimated the madness that drove Putin to invade, I cannot make authoritative judgments.
1. Watch the Russian ultranationalists
The fog of war that obscured what was happening on the battlefield during the first weeks of the invasion has thinned somewhat. Military analysts initially relied on data from the Ukraine General Staff and Western intelligence services in part because they couldn’t find trustworthy Russian sources. Since the first days, however, Russian nationalists — both on the ground and on the sidelines — have emerged as a surprisingly useful source that makes parsing official Russian propaganda largely unnecessary.
I get an eerie feeling when the Institute for the Study of War, the think tank that provides some of the most detailed analysis of the battlefield situation, quotes someone called Boitsovy Kot Murz (literally, Purr the Fighting Cat) on the situation inside the Russian and pro-Russian separatist militaries. On the other hand, Murz — nationalist blogger Andrei Morozov — knows what he’s talking about and voices his criticism at no little personal risk. Igor Girkin, known by his nom de guerre Strelkov, also provides credible analysis of the Russian and pro-Russian troops’ troubles with poor command and logistics, as well as Moscow’s strategic failures. One of the key participants in the pro-Russian rebellion in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Girkin openly dreams of a role in the current war, but the Kremlin regards him as not loyal enough to get one. In part because of Girkin’s jealousy and frustration, his Telegram channel has been a must-read during this war.
Nationalists such as Morozov and Girkin root for a Russian victory with all their empire-loving hearts — but their deep hatred of the adversary is interlaced with an equally deep respect for Ukrainians’ fighting ability. The nationalists openly mistrust, often despise, the Putin top brass. They never believed in the blitzkrieg that Putin apparently thought he was about to carry out. They also have access to sources in various branches of the invading army, from the separatist militias to the Wagner private military company to regular units. Weighed against information coming from Ukrainian and Western sources, their insight and analysis provide much-needed balance, a job at which the Putin propaganda machine fails miserably.
The nationalists’ voices are also important because, in the event of a Russian defeat, they probably will be heard loudly; they might even end up as the country’s next revanchist driving force. Their sincerity will buy them popular support if the regime weakens and is unable to keep Russians in check by repression alone. Given that the remains of Russia’s liberal opposition largely have left the country since the war began, giving up any realistic claim on a major role in the post-Putin future, the likes of Girkin and his comrades inside and outside the invading army are the most credible non-regime force left. They are also in many ways more dangerous to Russia itself and its neighbors than Putin and his team of crooks and sycophants.
2. Underestimate neither side and don’t expect a compromise
In the first days of the war, most serious analysts believed a Ukrainian defeat was imminent. In later weeks, haphazard, overoptimistic, poorly planned Russian moves caused the Russian military to be seen as something of a paper tiger. By the 100-day point, however, both sides have proved worthy of each other militarily. The Russians showed they were able to learn from their mistakes: They moderated their unrealistic goals, centralized their operation’s command, focused resources in areas where they felt success was most likely, and improved logistics and coordination among branches. The Ukrainians have quickly converted their ferocious motivation to knowledge of the adversary, which has enabled some successful counterattacks. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, always a great communicator, has blossomed into a figure as heroic as he is skillful at messaging. Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry has done the impossible and kept transport running, the roads cleared, the blown-up bridges replaced and the military supplied.
The first 100 days of the conflict have shown that the war can go either way. Neither side will collapse or give up, and any concessions that may eventually be recorded in a peace deal will be hard-fought. Besides, the atrocities Russians have committed in Ukraine, from Bucha to Mariupol to Odesa, make it politically impossible for the Ukrainian leadership to offer any kind of compromise. Putin’s Russia, on the other hand, is probably unwilling to keep its end of any bargain; after the failure of the Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015, it no longer believes in deals. A negotiated outcome is possible only if one side is thoroughly beaten, and it will resemble that side’s capitulation more than a compromise.
The war that didn’t end in three days, three weeks or three months promises to stretch out for as long as a decisive victory for the invaders or the defenders may take. That can be a very long time, and even then the matter may not be settled, because the loser will be hell-bent on revenge.
3. Take off rose-colored glasses when looking West
There’s a wide gap between Western politicians’ and pundits’ perception of unprecedented unity in support of Ukraine and Ukrainians’ sober view of how much the West has been able to help.
Before the conflict began, the flow of Western weapons — mostly small arms, portable and nonlethal equipment — was sufficient for Putin to see a casus belli, to the extent he needed one, but far from enough to stop his invading force. Ukrainians have had to prove their mettle and keep proving it to receive heavier weapons. They are, however, receiving them more slowly than military necessity dictates, and the need to get trained in using the weapons systems slows the process further.
NATO has steered clear of anything that could be construed as direct intervention. Before the war, as the threat of a Russian invasion increased, it didn’t move to admit Ukraine — though in retrospect, granting Ukraine membership might have been one of the few preemptive moves capable of stopping Putin in his tracks. Now that Finland and Sweden are joining, Putin’s response is surprisingly toothless.
Since the invasion began, NATO has rejected Ukraine’s calls for a no-fly zone, showing Ukrainians as they fought off the full might of Russia’s conventional military that it was intimidated by Putin’s ritual threats of nuclear war. When it comes to actual fighting, Ukraine still stands alone in the blood and the mud, and this will long be remembered in victory or in defeat. The role of foot soldiers in the West’s proxy war with Russia is not one Ukrainians would willingly have chosen, and once peace is re-established, they will bear grudges — bigger ones against their less activist Western supporters such as Germany, France and neighboring Hungary, and smaller but still significant ones against the US, which has the decisive word on the extent of Western support.
All the loopholes in the seemingly severe Western sanctions regime will also be remembered; sure, the sanctions hurt, but they don’t hurt enough in the short and medium term that Putin would lose decisively or reconsider his options.
A Ukrainian defeat would be sure to lead to mutual recriminations and deeper rifts between the US and Europe, between Europe’s west and its east, and even within Eastern Europe between, on the one hand, the Baltics, Poland and the Czech Republic, which have gone above and beyond the call of duty in supporting Ukraine, and a far less enthusiastic Hungary. A Russian defeat would help mask the differences but probably lead to wrangling about sharing the financial burden of rebuilding Ukraine, and squabbling over who did how much during the conflict.
4. Keep thinking of Ukraine
The war has lasted well beyond the typical modern attention span. It’s hard to resist distractions that are, in large part, consequences of the war, too — the inflation caused by rising energy and food prices, the likely recession in Western economies, the stock market sell-off. By the time the war is over, few people outside Ukraine may be interested in its fate — in how much territory it may have to give up to Russia; in the enormous job of rebuilding bombed-out cities, industries and infrastructure; in the fate of the almost 14 million Ukrainians who have been forced to leave their homes. Despite its European geography, Ukraine risks shifting to the periphery of Western minds, as Syria has.
That would be the biggest mistake the rest of the world could make, not only because Putin and the nationalists who may come to rule Russia after him will keep obsessing about Ukraine. If support wanes, if Ukraine is pushed to make a humiliating deal, if the post-war restoration effort is anything short of the kind of investment the US made in Europe after World War II, then more invasions like Putin’s will be likely in every part of the world where a strongman nurtures territorial ambitions. The weaker sides in such conflicts will be strongly motivated to give up rather than fight as Ukraine has done, if only to avoid destruction on a similar scale. If Ukraine is not rewarded and compensated for its sacrifice, others in its position will be discouraged, fearful and uncertain.
Ukraine has fought alone, but helping it get back on its feet and prosper even if Russia grabs more territory is the world’s business. The country cannot rise again on its own. It may seem too early for the world to plan to help after the war — but planning might keep the world from forgetting the price Ukraine is paying now for its iron will to survive.
• Washington Can Bridge the Global Divide Over Ukraine: Editorial | 2022-06-08T06:28:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hard Lessons From the War in Ukraine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/hard-lessons-from-the-war-in-ukraine/2022/06/08/ad48400c-e6e8-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/hard-lessons-from-the-war-in-ukraine/2022/06/08/ad48400c-e6e8-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
One Way Out of the Cost-of-Living Crisis? Retire Early
Remembering. (Photographer: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Europe)
The UK government is desperate to retain its most experienced doctors, nurses and civil servants. Staff vacancies across NHS England are up more than 21,000 compared with a year ago, topping 110,000 for the first time ever. Yet the number of doctors opting for early retirement has more than tripled since 2008. There are 1,343 fewer family doctors today to cope with an additional 3 million patients registered since June 2017.
Those numbers will come as no surprise to anyone who has recently tried to book a doctor’s appointment. Yet the staffing crisis will keep getting worse — unless the government fixes its pension legislation.
There is a myriad of personal and professional reasons why staff are heading for the exit in droves, but an important one is financial.
For many people, a pension is simply a pot of money that they must nurture to ensure their savings don’t expire before they do. Economic conditions such as falling markets and rising inflation encourage these folks to delay their retirement plans.
However, many in the public sector, and a lucky few outside, have so-called final salary pensions, which provide an income for life linked to inflation. The conundrum is that while they are working, this pension entitlement builds in line with their salaries, which are rising slowly in the public sector, if at all. Once retired, on the other hand, their pensions rise in line with inflation. With CPI at 9%, many nearing retirement might be better off leaving now than carrying on working.
Yet the fact that inflation (and therefore their pension) is rising so much quicker than their salary is not the only reason why an older doctor might be better off retiring now.
Pensions are also tax-efficient because the government offers tax relief to incentivize workers to make provisions for their retirement. For every 100-pound ($125) contribution, a basic-rate taxpayer receives 20 pounds of relief. So the net cost of increasing your pension by 100 pounds is just 80 pounds. For higher and additional-rate taxpayers, the relief is even more generous at 40 pounds and 45 pounds, respectively.
The government estimates that the annual cost of this tax relief is more than 41 billion pounds. Since most of this accrues to higher earners, it has taken a series of measures over the years to cap the amount of relief people can claim.
But the way these caps operate is so complex that even many professionals are unable to understand them. When they do struggle through the calculations, they tend to find that their retirement benefits build far more slowly. This further disincentivizes those close to retirement from continuing to work.
There is both an annual limit on pension contributions of 40,000 pounds and a lifetime limit, which is currently frozen at the rather unwieldy figure of £1,073,100.
If you exceed the lifetime allowance (LTA), any excess is taxed at either 55% if you draw it as a lump sum, or 25% if you take it as income (but you will also pay income tax in addition to the charge). To make matters worse, if you earn over a particular threshold (the calculation of which is again needlessly complex), your annual contribution allowance is progressively reduced to as low as 4,000 pounds a year. To be fair, the government has recently increased this threshold to try to retain its most experienced workers.
The government claims that doctors still benefit from continuing to work and making additional contributions, notwithstanding the LTA and AA charges.
In the narrowest of senses, that is true. It is certainly the case for those in the private sector with more standard pension arrangements. For most people, attempting to avoid pension charges by retiring is akin to reducing your income tax by not working.
However, thanks to the ferocious complexity of NHS pensions, there is another factor that makes the cost-of-living crisis decisive for those considering retirement: The main NHS scheme has no late-retirement factor. What that means is there is no increase in pension benefits for delaying your retirement beyond your contracted date.
Many final salary pensions include a sweetener for those working beyond their contracted date to compensate them for the pension they have foregone by continuing to work. Indeed, even the UK state pension rises in value by 1% for every 5 weeks that someone delays claiming it. But in this NHS scheme, any foregone pension is lost forever. And this, of course, also includes any uplift due to inflation.
Faced with such calculus, doctors nearing retirement are voting with their feet.
As far as the government is concerned, the prescription is simple. If they want more experienced doctors to stay, they need to improve the financial incentives and do so in a manner that all can easily understand.
The takeaways are twofold: Having annual and lifetime pension contribution allowances is causing confusion and resentment. Do one or the other, but not both. When the tax code is so complicated, people start spending more time thinking how to legally avoid tax than trying to actually earn money to be taxed on. This is no longer some neo-liberal argument for tax cuts for the rich, it is literally true for senior doctors and civil servants.
The second is simple finance. If you want people to work when they are inclined not to, you must improve pay or conditions, or ideally both.
If you let NHS workers take the full hit of the cost-of-living crisis when they have an inflation-protected pension as an alternative, you don’t have to be a brain surgeon to work out how that one is going to end. | 2022-06-08T06:28:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | One Way Out of the Cost-of-Living Crisis? Retire Early - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/one-way-out-of-the-cost-of-living-crisis-retire-early/2022/06/08/ad9c5dc2-e6e8-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/one-way-out-of-the-cost-of-living-crisis-retire-early/2022/06/08/ad9c5dc2-e6e8-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
GERMANY - DECEMBER 01: The Egg Plc home page is seen on a monitor in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, December 1, 2005. Prudential Plc, Britain’s No. 2 insurer, will offer to buy the remaining 22 percent of Internet bank Egg Plc that it doesn’t already own for 211.1 million pounds ($365 million) as it seeks to carry out a wider strategy in the U.K. (Photo by Adam Berry/Bloomberg via Getty Images) (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
This week marks the 22nd anniversary of a celebrated initial public offering: Egg, the internet bank funded by Prudential Plc, came to market at a valuation north of $2 billion. Less than a decade later, it was gone.
It’s easy to forget amid today’s fintech hype. But the stubbornly high customer acquisition costs coupled with marginally profitable operations that plagued Egg represent inescapable hurdles for the latest iteration of money-losing neobanks.
And yet that hasn’t stopped venture capitalists from throwing money at the sector. Last year alone, they funneled $125 billion into fintech startups. Granted, not all of them target the banking sector and there are some profitable finance niches, but if it’s the prospect of market-beating returns spurring them on, investors may be in for a rude surprise.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the quest to recreate consumer banking in digital form. Neobanks such as Chime, Dave and Varo in the US and Monzo in the UK have raised billions of dollars with the promise that they can do banking better. So far, none has turned a profit.
Take Varo Bank. Founded in 2015, it is currently staffed by “a lot of bankers who wanted to find a new way of banking and a lot of tech people who decide[d] banking could be an exciting challenge.” In contrast to many of its peers, Varo has a banking license, which enables it to “pursue growth and profitability at the same time,” its founder Colin Walsh said in September.
Yet although it has gained lots of customers – Varo has over 4 million depositors in the US – the bank continues to rack up losses. Last year, it lost $265 million and in the first quarter of 2022, another $84 million. It confronts two challenges. First, as the bank itself pitches prospective customers, “we don’t charge many fees.” Average revenue per account is just $24. Second, it costs a lot to attract customers. Last year, the bank spent $45 per new account on marketing.
That means customers have to stick around for a long time for the bank to earn a return on its marketing spend. Yet most of its earnings come from debit-card transactions, which are less sustainable than deposit-related revenue. As an indicator of customers’ relatively weak commitment to the franchise, they have parked just $83 per account in deposits there as at end March.
Similar challenges are apparent at other neobanks. In its most recent annual report, in July 2021, Monzo of the UK warned of “material uncertainties which may challenge our ability to continue as a going concern.” In order to conserve capital, the bank reined in its marketing spend, but the impact on growth has been noticeable. The number of net new current accounts peaked in the second half of 2019 at over 20,000 per quarter and has been falling since – in the final three months of 2021, it picked up just 3,000.
Part of the problem faced by Egg then and neobanks today is that the competition doesn’t stand still. One of the recent crop – Dave – was set up in 2017 to disrupt overdrafts in the US, “a pain point that drives more than $20 billion in annual revenue for banks.” By the end of 2021, 6 million customers had signed up for its service that eliminated overdraft fees. But then many banks stopped charging them, among them Ally, Capital One and Citi, leaving Dave exposed. Months after going public, Dave slashed revenue projections, from $377 million at the time it filed its listing particulars, to between $200 million and $230 million now.
Of course, established banks have vast resources. Bank of America Corp. spends $3.5 billion annually on what it calls “offensive tech investments” within an overall tech budget of $10 billion. However, perhaps more importantly, banks aren’t prone to the mood and priorities of venture capitalists. As market conditions deteriorate and neobanks’ cost of capital rises, the gap with incumbent banks may grow wider. At a conference last week, Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive officer of JP Morgan Chase & Co., was asked whether the nature of competition has changed in recent years with the rise of fintechs. “Well, I think in the recent months, it has come down a little bit,” he replied.
Neobank founders may wish they’d more closely studied the experience of Egg. | 2022-06-08T06:28:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Unprofitable Fintechs at Risk of Laying an Egg - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/unprofitable-fintechs-at-risk-of-laying-an-egg/2022/06/08/ac93264a-e6e8-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/unprofitable-fintechs-at-risk-of-laying-an-egg/2022/06/08/ac93264a-e6e8-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
Man slain in the District, police say
Victim was found on Brothers Place, according to police.
A man was fatally stabbed Tuesday morning in Southeast Washington, D.C. police said.
Orlando Murphy, 60, of Southeast, was found about 11:30 a.m. in the 3600 block of Brothers Place, police said.
The street is east of Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, between South Capitol Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE
Murphy died at the scene, they said.
Murphy was relatively old for a homicide victim in the United States. A recent compilation of characteristics of more than 150,000 of those slain in 2020 indicated that people 60 or older made up less than five percent of the killings. | 2022-06-08T07:29:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man was fatally stabbed in Southeast, D.C. police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/08/man-stabbed-killed-southeast-brothers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/08/man-stabbed-killed-southeast-brothers/ |
Desks and chairs thrown in school melee, sheriff’s office says
Staff member knocked into a locker, according to Charles County sheriff
Students threw desks and chairs and a staff member was pushed into a locker in a melee that broke out Tuesday at a school in Charles County, Md., authorities said.
At least two people were injured in the violence at Thomas Stone High School in Waldorf that started Tuesday afternoon when one student threw a book that hit another student in the head, the county sheriff’s office said.
The staff member who was knocked into a locker was flown by helicopter to a hospital for treatment, the sheriff’s office said. The student hit by the book was taken by ambulance to a hospital, according to the office.
Neither suffered injuries that appeared life-threatening, the sheriff’s office said.
After the student was struck by the book, according to the sheriff’s office, a group of students arrived “to confront the person who threw” it and a dispute ensued.
As things developed, “desks and chairs were being thrown in the classroom” and were also hurled at students trying to get out of the room, the sheriff’s office said.
School resource officers and school staff members intervened and stopped the brawl, according to the sheriff’s office.
The matter is under investigation, the sheriff’s office said.
There are about 1,200 students enrolled at the Thomas Stone campus on Leonardtown Road in Waldorf. | 2022-06-08T07:29:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Staff member knocked into locker in melee at Charles County school, sheriff says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/06/08/melee-charles-schoolinjureddesks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/06/08/melee-charles-schoolinjureddesks/ |
Smartphones must have common charging port by 2024, E.U. says
On June 7, the European Union reached an agreement that will require all new smartphones and tablets to use a common charger by 2026. (Video: Reuters)
The European Union will require all new smartphones and tablets sold within its borders to have a common charging port by the fall of 2024 — and laptops by 2026 — under a new provisional agreement, pushing technology companies such as Apple to fall in line with other smartphone makers that have widely adopted a universal port in recent years.
European Parliament and council negotiators agreed on the law Tuesday, saying in a statement that the move is intended to “make products in the EU more sustainable, to reduce electronic waste, and make consumers’ lives easier.”
The law, which still needs to be formally approved, requires all new smartphones, tablets, e-readers and portable speakers — among a long list of other small electronic devices — sold in the E.U. to use the USB-C type charging port. The requirement for laptops will take effect in early 2026.
The small, pill-shaped port is already used in many smartphones and laptops, as well as Apple’s latest iPads and some of its previous-generation MacBook laptops.
But the mandate puts Apple in a difficult position, as it has clung to its proprietary “Lightning” port on its iPhones and the charging cases for its AirPods in-ear headphones. The Verge, a technology news site, called the European law “a major blow to Apple’s Lightning port.”
Much like how California’s environmental and safety standards often lead to changes across the United States because of the logistical difficulty and financial impracticality of creating different products for different states, the European charging port law could have widespread impact for handheld consumer electronics across the world.
In Germany, the European Union’s largest economy, the three most popular smartphones are all iPhones, according to consumer research site Counterpoint, with the fourth and fifth being Samsung Galaxy phones that use USB-C ports. In France, the bloc’s second-largest economy, iPhones hold the top four spots in the smartphone market.
Apple also recently brought back its proprietary “MagSafe” magnetic charger to its MacBook Pro, and announced Monday it would do the same with its thinner MacBook Air laptops.
The Post's Help Desk covered Apple's announcement of new MacBooks and iOS 16 features. Read more here.
Apple has apparently been preparing for the crackdown, however: Bloomberg reported last month that amid the looming European law, the company has tested iPhone models that use USB-C instead of its proprietary port.
Technology critics have for years bemoaned Apple’s persistence in maintaining its proprietary ports, noting that while many device-makers have conformed to the USB-C port, Apple’s unique charging medium leaves consumers stuck with a tangle of various cables.
But the move could stifle efforts to innovate toward the abolishment of charging ports altogether, such as the use of magnetic-contact chargers instead of ports to allow for extremely thin devices, said Benedict Evans, an industry analyst. He wrote on Twitter that it was “hard to see any meaningful consumer benefit” from the law, which he said outlawed “some ideas” such as sole use of magnetic chargers.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening. When the European law was proposed in September, the company said in a statement: “We remain concerned that strict regulation mandating just one type of connector stifles innovation rather than encouraging it, which in turn will harm consumers in Europe and around the world."
When Apple stopped providing wired headphones and wall plugs with its iPhones in 2020, it said the cutback was for environmental reasons, though some pointed out it was better for the company’s bottom line. | 2022-06-08T07:55:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | E.U. agrees to mandate USB-C as common smartphone charger by 2024 in blow to Apple - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/08/eu-common-phone-charger-law-usbc-apple/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/08/eu-common-phone-charger-law-usbc-apple/ |
Wrestler CM Punk, left, shakes hands with All Elite Wrestling CEO Tony Khan during a press conference in Chicago, Aug. 20, 2021. All Elite Wrestling goes into the summer with plenty of momentum. Khan’s professional wrestling promotion recently celebrated its third anniversary in Las Vegas, where it held its first show in 2019, and made its first trip last week to Southern California. (All Elite Wrestling via AP) (Uncredited/All Elite Wrestling) | 2022-06-08T08:00:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | AEW continues to thrive after celebrating 3rd anniversary - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/aew-continues-to-thrive-after-celebrating-3rd-anniversary/2022/06/08/75932550-e6f7-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/aew-continues-to-thrive-after-celebrating-3rd-anniversary/2022/06/08/75932550-e6f7-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
TAMPA, Fla. — Nikita Kucherov scored on a breakaway and Andrei Vasilevskiy had 33 saves, helping the Tampa Bay Lightning shut down the New York Rangers 4-1 and even the NHL’s Eastern Conference final at two games apiece.
ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Los Angeles Angels matched a franchise record with their 13th straight defeat hours after firing manager Joe Maddon, falling 6-5 to the streaking Boston Red Sox on Christian Vázquez’s go-ahead single in the 10th inning.
NEW YORK — Tiger Woods withdrew from the U.S. Open, saying that his damaged right leg needs more time to get stronger to contend in the majors. | 2022-06-08T08:00:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tuesday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/tuesdays-sports-in-brief/2022/06/08/25f6c5c2-e6f9-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/tuesdays-sports-in-brief/2022/06/08/25f6c5c2-e6f9-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
The Amadea, docked in Fiji on April 15. (Leon Lord/Fiji Sun/AP)
The United States secured a victory in its campaign to punish Russian billionaires for the war in Ukraine when Fiji’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a $300 million yacht owned by a pro-Kremlin oligarch could be seized by American authorities.
The ship, the Amadea, is headed to the United States, Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said in a tweet Tuesday, posting photos of the ship leaving port in Fiji while flying a U.S. flag. “The United States is deeply grateful to the Fijian police and prosecutors whose perseverance and dedication to the rule of law made this action possible,” he said.
The court’s ruling lifted a stay order that had blocked the United States from seizing the yacht.
Yacht justice: A new front in the war drags Russia’s oligarchs into the spotlight
Amadea’s owner is Russian billionaire Suleyman Kerimov, U.S. officials say. The seizure comes about a month after the Justice Department asked Fijian officials for permission to take the yacht after the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Kerimov as part of a group of oligarchs who it says profited from the Russian government through corruption and suspect activity, including the occupation of Crimea. The Treasury Department also said Kerimov was an official of the Russian government and a member of Russia’s upper chamber of parliament.
Fijian authorities seized the ship with assistance from the FBI, executing a U.S. warrant that was approved by Fijian judges. The paper owner of the ship, Millemarin Investments, appealed the seizure in Fijian courts, bringing the case to Fiji’s Supreme Court last week.
Russian oligarch’s $300 million yacht seized by Fiji on behalf of U.S.
But Fijian justices ruled in favor of U.S. authorities. The Amadea “sailed into Fiji waters without any permit and most probably to evade prosecution by the United States,” the justices wrote in their ruling. The yacht “has no interest in Fiji” and “should sail out of Fiji waters,” they said.
Authorities in Fiji, at the request of the United States, seized a $300 million yacht from Russian oligarch Suleyman Kerimov on May 5. (Video: Reuters)
Kerimov and his family have a net worth of $9.8 billion, according to E.U. officials. He has received large sums of money from Sergei Roldugin, a caretaker of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offshore wealth, E.U. officials say. He was one of the oligarchs invited to a meeting at the Kremlin on Feb. 24, the first day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to discuss the war and Western sanctions.
Kerimov has made a career out of investing in distressed companies in Russia, according to Forbes. He lost billions in the 2008 financial crisis but recovered by investing in Polyus, a Russian gold producer.
The Amadea is among multiple yachts that the U.S. Treasury Department has targeted. In the early days of the invasion, President Biden warned Russian oligarchs: “We are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets.”
Since then, governments around the world have seized Russian oligarchs’ assets.
Schadenfreude at sea: The Internet is watching with glee as Russian oligarchs’ yachts are seized
In March, Spanish authorities impounded several superyachts — the Crescent in Tarragona, the Valerie in Barcelona and the Lady Anastasia in Majorca’s Port Adriano.
In April, Germany’s federal police said they had impounded the Dilbar, owned by Gulbakhor Ismailova, the sister of Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov. The same month, U.S. authorities seized a 255-foot yacht in Spain owned by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, the $90 million Tango.
In May, Italian financial authorities said they had impounded a $700 million yacht linked in media reports and by anti-Kremlin groups to Putin, but did not say who the owner might be.
This month, U.S. authorities identified the $65 million Sea Rhapsody, a ship with ties to Andrei Kostin, the top executive of a Russian bank, and the $156 million Madame Gu, which has ties to Andrei Skoch, a Russian politician, as luxury assets with ties to Putin’s allies, but they have yet to announce any seizures. | 2022-06-08T08:00:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fiji rules U.S. can seize Amadea, Russian oligarch's superyacht - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/08/fiji-yacht-russian-oligarch-suleyman-kerimov-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/08/fiji-yacht-russian-oligarch-suleyman-kerimov-ukraine/ |
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2018. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)
Angela Merkel, who served 16 years as German chancellor, said that she won’t apologize for her failed efforts to diplomatically resolve tensions between Russia and Ukraine, in her first extensive interview since retiring from politics last year.
Speaking during an onstage interview in Berlin on Tuesday, Merkel condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. She said that nothing justified the war, which flies “in the face of human rights,” according to German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
But Merkel defended her decision in 2008 to oppose letting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. She also said she did not regret brokering a 2015 peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv, which failed to end conflict in eastern Ukraine that broke after Russian-backed separatists took up arms.
“I tried to work toward calamity being averted, and diplomacy was not wrong if it doesn’t succeed,” Merkel said, according to the Associated Press. “ … It is a matter of great sorrow that it didn’t succeed, but I don’t blame myself now for trying.”
After 16 years, Germany’s Merkel is stepping down. Here’s how she built her legacy.
The conservative leader’s foreign policy, which controversially included deepening economic relations with Moscow, has come under increased scrutiny since Putin started the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in April called out French and German opposition to Ukraine joining NATO, characterizing the position of Merkel and then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy as a “concession” that helped create the horrors of the 2022 invasion.
Merkel’s successor, Olaf Scholz, has partially reversed course since the Feb. 24 invasion. He announced a major increase in defense spending, as well as moved to send heavy weapons to Ukraine. But Berlin has still been criticized for its energy policy toward Moscow, upon which it is reliant for natural gas.
On Wednesday, Zelensky adviser Mykhailo Podolyak also pushed back against Merkel’s remarks on Twitter. He questioned her decision to proceed with the now-abandoned Nord Stream 2 pipeline that drew Berlin closer to Moscow, even as she claimed she was aware of Putin’s antipathy toward the West.
Merkel said that NATO membership would have damaged Ukraine and that Putin would have seen it as akin to a “declaration of war,” according to DW. Other observers have argued that the transatlantic alliance’s collective defense obligation would have deterred Putin from attacking a member state.
Former German chancellor Schröder resigns from Russian energy firm
She also noted that Kyiv suffered from serious internal divisions and systemic corruption at that time, which would have made NATO accession challenging.
While Merkel admitted that the West could have imposed harsher sanctions after Putin annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, she also noted measures such as the suspension of Russia from the Group of Eight nations, an assembly of major economic powers.
The former chancellor was one of a handful of female world leaders that Putin has dealt closely with since he came to power more than two decades ago. Former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who unsuccessfully attempted to reset U.S.-Russian relations, told a literary festival last week that the Kremlin leader was “adversarial” in their interactions and “does not like critics, especially women critics.” | 2022-06-08T08:08:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Angela Merkel won't apologize for Ukraine, Russia policy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/08/angela-merkel-interview-russia-ukraine-war-nato/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/08/angela-merkel-interview-russia-ukraine-war-nato/ |
Kateryna, 19, said she was raped by Chechen fighters in Mariupol, Ukraine. (Karolina Jonderko for The Washington Post)
She quickly realized they were Chechen fighters, forces from Russia’s North Caucuses that have gained a reputation for particularly harsh cruelty toward civilians who have remained in the Ukrainian port city. The soldiers boasted about the superior uniforms given to their cadre. | 2022-06-08T09:31:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | She was raped in Ukraine. How many others have stories like hers? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/08/ukraine-rape-sexual-violence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/08/ukraine-rape-sexual-violence/ |
Christina Pushaw’s disclosure of work for Mikheil Saakashvili came after contact from the Justice Department, her attorney said
Christina Pushaw, press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), has become a prominent protector of her boss and a fierce critic of the media. (Paul Hennessey/SOPA Images/Shutterstock)
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The episode reflects standard enforcement practices under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), said Joshua Ian Rosenstein, an expert on the 1938 law at D.C.-based Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein and Birkenstock. A letter of inquiry may prompt a voluntary registration, he said, to “short-circuit a more formal determination of a failure to comply.”
Enforcement can take place years after the activity in question if authorities receive a complaint or simply act on a public news item, he said. Though the methods are standard, Rosenstein added, there is an increased willingness to use them.
Last month, the Justice Department sued Steve Wynn, a developer and Republican megadonor, seeking to compel him to register as an agent of China. Days before that, a Washington lobbying firm said a probe into its work for Burisma Holdings concluded when it submitted a new filing retroactively detailing its activities on behalf of the Ukrainian oil and natural gas company, which once counted Hunter Biden as a board member.
She has written openly on social media of her work for Saakashvili, who was arrested last year when he returned to Georgia after eight years in exile. Associated with factions critical of the Kremlin, Saakashvili led Georgia from 2004 until 2013 and entered Ukrainian politics after that country removed a pro-Russian president in 2014.
A court in Georgia, now controlled by Saakashvili’s political opponents, convicted him in absentia in 2018. He faced arrest three years later when he made a theatrical return to his country, posting a copy of his plane ticket on social media.
According to Pushaw’s LinkedIn profile, she joined the governor’s office in May 2021 after her time as director of a nonprofit “focused on empowering youth through education and professional development opportunities” based in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. She also lists experience as a campaign strategist for a Georgian opposition party and, on other social media, has identified that party as the United National Movement, which Saakashvili once chaired.
Pushaw’s work for Saakashvili involved going toe-to-toe in 2018 with W. Samuel Patten, a political consultant who had just pleaded guilty to not registering as an agent of a Ukrainian political party. As part of his plea deal, Patten agreed to assist special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in his investigation of foreign influence in the 2016 election.
In communication reproduced at the time by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, Pushaw claims to have contacted the Justice Department about messages allegedly sent by Patten to a former aide to Saakashvili in anticipation of the Georgian exile’s appearance on CNN. In the appearance, which included discussion of Patten’s case, Saakashvili read aloud the messages said to have come from Patten, including a warning to “call off the trolls now, or I will start releasing things.”
“Today, I contacted the DOJ to report Sam’s threat and send over the screenshots,” Pushaw wrote to Turley, who appeared on CNN after Saakashvili. “I believe Sam knew [Saakashvili] would talk about the case on CNN yesterday, since I announced it on Facebook a few hours beforehand. I think Sam sent the threat right before the interview to coerce him into silence.”
Patten declined to comment. Turley said he reproduced Pushaw’s message with her permission. Sherwin, her attorney, did not respond to a question about the 2018 episode. | 2022-06-08T10:05:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Christina Pushaw, Ron DeSantis spokeswoman, belatedly registers as agent of Georgian politician Mikheil Saakashvili - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/08/christina-pushaw-desantis-foreign-agent-saakashvili/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/08/christina-pushaw-desantis-foreign-agent-saakashvili/ |
By Vanessa Williams
Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams at Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in Macon, Ga., in 2018. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
A teenage Stacey Abrams and a friend were watching the movie “Dirty Dancing” when the other girl asked the future Georgia gubernatorial candidate what she thought about a character’s decision to have an abortion.
Growing up in a religious community in the South, Abrams recalled, she had no doubt in her mind about the issue. She said that Penny had been wrong to terminate her pregnancy. Abrams later learned that her friend’s question wasn’t hypothetical.
“She was trying to figure out what she was going to do,” Abrams said in a recent interview. “And in retrospect, I realize just how naive and arrogant I was, because I was opining about something I did not understand and I had not given it careful consideration.”
Today, Abrams, 48, is unequivocal in her support of abortion rights: “For me, the conversion was slow, but it was true and it remained. Because fundamentally, the answer is that this is a medical decision and it is a personal decision. And in neither of those two instances should there be any intervention by a politician.”
And because the Supreme Court may reverse Roe v. Wade, the issue could figure prominently in her race for Georgia governor — a rematch against Gov. Brian Kemp (R), to whom she narrowly lost in 2018.
Kemp, 58, opposes abortion rights. Shortly after taking office in 2019, he signed one of the nation’s strictest antiabortion laws, banning the procedure in most cases once fetal cardiac activity can be detected; this can be as early as six weeks, and before many women know they are pregnant. Abrams says Kemp is out of step with the majority of adults in Georgia and the country. Kemp’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Among Georgia voters, 68 percent said they opposed the Supreme Court overturning Roe, according to a January poll by the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, and 54 percent opposed the state’s six-week abortion ban, with 38 percent supporting it. (In 2019, the margin was closer, with 49 percent opposed to the ban and 45 percent in favor.) Opposition to abortion restrictions was even stronger among Black voters: 87 percent said they did not want to see the Supreme Court completely overturn Roe, and 74 percent opposed Georgia’s abortion ban.
The pattern repeats in nationwide surveys. According to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll, 72 percent of Black Americans oppose recent state legislation that makes it more difficult for abortion clinics to operate, while 24 percent support it. Black Americans are more likely to oppose this type of legislation than White Americans (63 percent) or Hispanic Americans (59 percent). At the same time, White Democrats are more united in opposition to restrictive abortion legislation than Black Democrats: 94 percent vs. 77 percent.
Abrams was still firmly against abortion in the early 1990s, when she attended Spelman College, the historically Black women’s school in Atlanta. Then a conversation with a close friend who worked for Planned Parenthood prompted her to reconsider her beliefs. “When I gave a reflexive answer to something she said about working there, she engaged me. She said, ‘Tell me what you think,' ” Abrams recalled. “I fell back on a religious argument, but we both had very strong religious values and she really pushed back and had me think about what I was saying and what that meant.”
Over the next several years, Abrams found, “more and more I was using the language of choice without ever saying to myself that’s where I stood on the issue.”
When she decided to run for office in 2006, Abrams said, “I wrote myself an essay. I wanted to know what was my belief system and how was I going to answer these questions. … What am I willing to do as someone who is making the laws of the land and the laws that would govern somebody’s body?” It was the first time that Abrams articulated to herself that she supported abortion rights — an experience she has since recounted in interviews and in speeches, to convey that she gets why people struggle with the issue.
Abrams acknowledges the arguments that, in various ways, complicate the conversation in Black communities: the influence of the church, which generally teaches that abortion is wrong; the painful history of enslaved Black women being separated from their children or being impregnated against their will; the distrust of a medical system that has mistreated African Americans, including through unethical experiments. Despite these factors, though, there is “very lopsided support for abortion” in Black communities, said Abrams, which she attributed to “a strain of realism.”
“These are communities that understand,” Abrams said. “They understand ectopic pregnancy, they understand not having the choice, not wanting a forced pregnancy. And they want there to be an option. And that does not mean that that would be the choice they would make. But they understand the necessity of the choice and the right to make that decision.”
Here’s the speech Biden should give about abortion
Monica Simpson is executive director of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, the Atlanta-based group that is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit blocking Georgia’s abortion ban. (The law is on hold in federal court, awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court.) The leaked draft opinion in the Supreme Court’s current abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, has restarted the conversation over the state’s law, she said — and the conversation about abortion’s place in Black politics.
“If we only think that voting rights is going to get us Black liberation, if we only think that saying ‘Black Lives Matter’ and holding police accountable is going to get us liberation, then we are sadly mistaken,” Simpson said.
Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, which has been talking to Black voters in rural communities and cities outside metro Atlanta, said canvassers have recently included abortion in the list of issues they ask voters to rank. “People see the attack on abortion rights with the same lens as they see the attack on voting rights and democracy broadly,” she said. “Abortion becomes another data point in the story about Republicans specifically and the right more generally and their efforts to undermine our individual rights and equality in the country.”
Karen Finney, a board member of the abortion rights group NARAL, said that Black women in particular are experiencing how the issues of reproductive justice and racial justice converge, “especially in this moment where you’re a Black woman in a red state, where you are about to lose the right to make your own decisions about your body, and then you are already seeing your voting rights made harder, and they’re attacking affirmative action, and you’re still fighting to be paid equal wages.”
Georgia has the second-highest maternal mortality rate in the nation — 66 deaths per 100,000 live births — and Black mothers in the state are twice as likely to die than White women. Abrams has made expanding Medicaid for uninsured adults a key promise in her campaign, saying it would help improve reproductive health care for women in poor and rural communities, many of which lack medical facilities and doctors.
Abrams said that while serving as Democratic leader of the Georgia House, she kept her caucus together to oppose abortion restrictions by talking with them — trying to focus their attention on the question of women making their own decisions, while respecting her colleagues’ personal views. “And I had a number of members who were pastors. I had members who, just because of religious or cultural beliefs, would not describe themselves as pro-choice, but we could have conversations,” she said. “My job was to — if I couldn’t get them to agree with me — get them to not take action that would further those bills.”
She takes a similar approach when talking to voters on the campaign trail. “My responsibility is to make certain that we have a full conversation, that if this is what you believe, let’s talk through the consequences of this belief,” she said. “If you believe that abortion rights should not exist, what do you tell that woman who had an ectopic pregnancy, when you tell her she is going to be forced to carry it and knowing what she knows? What do you say to that 11-year-old victim of incest?”
“I believe that you have the right to choose, meaning you can choose to disagree with me, and you can choose to never have an abortion,” she continued. “But what I will not countenance is that it is okay for me to abandon the people who need that choice to be theirs.”
Scott Clement, polling director, and Emily Guskin, polling analyst, contributed to this report. | 2022-06-08T10:05:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stacey Abrams, a prominent champion of choice, once opposed abortion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/08/stacey-abrams-abortion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/08/stacey-abrams-abortion/ |
Ukrainians would never vote against Boris Johnson
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a cabinet meetin in London on June 7. (Leon Neal/Pool/Reuters)
Dalibor Rohac is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has survived a Conservative Party no confidence vote. His numerous critics probably weren’t happy that he managed to stave off this latest challenge. But one group of people was thrilled: Ukrainians.
And it’s hard to blame them. Ukraine, engaged in an existential fight for its survival as an independent nation, rightly views Johnson as one of its most reliable friends in the West. While French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have spent countless hours trying to reason with Vladimir Putin, Johnson was the first leader of a major Western power to visit Kyiv, a gesture that bought an enormous amount of goodwill for Britain among the Ukrainian public. In a recent poll, Johnson scored a net favorability ranking of almost 50 points among the Ukrainians, second only to President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Zelensky himself, by the way, echoed those sentiments when he heard the news of Johnson’s Monday victory: “I’m glad we haven’t lost an important ally, this is great news.”)
That alliance goes beyond imagery. Johnson might have a reputation for being flaky, but British-supplied Javelin and NLAW missiles were essential in derailing early Russian incursions into Ukraine. By European standards, British military aid stands out; in May, Johnson pledged an additional $1.6 billion in assistance to the Ukrainians, almost doubling Britain’s previous commitments. Most recently, the British government announced that it would provide Ukraine with M270 precision-guided rocket launchers, which can strike targets up to 50 miles away.
Britain has also imposed significant sanctions on trade with Russia, excluded main Russian banks from the British financial markets and frozen their assets, and placed restrictions on the access of Russian firms and individuals to financial services in Britain. After decades in which the British accommodated Russian kleptocrats, Johnson’s government has now sanctioned more than 1,000 persons and businesses with ties to the Russian government, including high-profile oligarchs.
To be sure, the credit goes not only to Johnson. At a time when many leaders around the world preferred to ignore Russia’s aggressive tendencies, both Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Defense Secretary Ben Wallace were ringing the alarm bells — and they have remained stalwart supporters of Ukraine since. Even the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, has called Putin a “war criminal,” while Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has said that the Russian dictator “deserved absolute defeat.”
The humiliating result of Monday’s vote, in which 4 out 10 Tory parliamentarians voted against their leader, opens the door to further leadership challenges or perhaps to an early election. In December 2018, Theresa May weathered a confidence vote with 117 of 317 Conservative MPs voting against her. Yet the outcome was seen as a dramatic blow to her authority, leading to her resignation in a matter of months.
Can the current unity on Ukraine be preserved if the Conservatives go through the same cycle again? There are Putin appeasers on fringes of both parties, though far more in Labour than among Conservatives. Supporters of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn continued shilling for Russia right up until the invasion, regurgitating the tired lies spread by Russian propaganda. And they weren’t the only ones. In 2016, a Conservative MP from Shropshire named Daniel Kawczynski bemoaned what he called the “anti-Russian hysteria” in British politics.
The problem is not simply extremist voices in both parties. As energy prices continue to rise and as the war descends into grinding, World War I-style static warfare in the trenches of eastern Ukraine, it will be increasingly difficult to maintain the current political momentum in favor of Kyiv.
The question of the Britain’s future relationship with the European Union, particularly with regard to the Irish border question, continues to act both as an irritant and a distraction from deeper strategic questions. Infighting among the Tories could lead to a full-fledged trade war with the E.U., which could undercut efforts by Britain and its European partners to maintain their shared resolve to push back against Russia.
Johnson’s political future is uncertain — and to a large extent deservedly so. Yet his unequivocal support for Ukraine and the commitment of his government to Eastern European security are two of his legacies that are worth preserving. | 2022-06-08T10:40:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Ukrainians would never vote against Boris Johnson - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/boris-johnson-won-confidence-vote-ukraine-friend-zelensky/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/boris-johnson-won-confidence-vote-ukraine-friend-zelensky/ |
People drive slower and are more alert at crosswalks decorated with murals, study finds
An asphalt art installation in the Jackson Ward neighborhood of Richmond, designed by local artist Chris Visions. Since it was painted in September, potentially dangerous clashes between pedestrians and drivers have decreased by 56 percent. (Bloomberg Philanthropies)
When Chris Visions began painting a ground mural in Richmond, he had no idea his street art might help save lives.
Since the painted crosswalk — which highlights the Jackson Ward neighborhood’s Black culture and legacy — was finished in September, the intersection became safer for pedestrians and motorists, with episodes of cars breaking quickly to avoid pedestrians and other close calls reduced by eight incidents, a decline of more than 56 percent, data shows.
The overall changes were fairly small but still significant in the community, and part of a larger study in various cities that showed far fewer crashes at the art intersections compared with the prior year.
While the initial purpose of the asphalt painting was to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Jackson Ward, it came with an unexpected benefit: The mural has encouraged pedestrians and motorists to “slow down and take safety into consideration,” said Visions, 37, a local comic book artist and muralist.
The mural — which was created with a group of art students from a local arts nonprofit — is one of three new crosswalk art projects in Richmond, all part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Asphalt Art Initiative. The nonprofit has funded 42 street murals in 41 cities across the country since 2019, with grants of up to $25,000.
As part of the project, Bloomberg Philanthropies partnered with Sam Schwartz Engineering, a consulting firm, to explore what effect the street art was having on safety. The results of the study, published in April, showed a drop in the number of collisions in areas with art.
The study examined the crash history at 17 asphalt art sites across the country that have a minimum of two years of crash data. It found 83 fewer crashes at the analyzed intersections — more than a 50 percent decrease compared with data from before the crosswalks were painted.
Video footage of five recently installed art sites across the country was also used to gather information in the study. Following installations, there was a 27 percent rise in the rate of motorists yielding to pedestrians, and a 38 percent decline in pedestrians crossing against the walk signal.
Crosswalk art “can improve behavior behind the wheel and it can protect the most vulnerable people on the road,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, a principal for Bloomberg Associates and the former commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation.
This piano crosswalk was painted by a group of strangers with no training but a lot of harmony
According to Bloomberg Philanthropies, street art has been associated with slower vehicle speeds, which reduces the risk of potential conflicts and crashes. At an intersection in Kansas City, for instance, the average vehicle speed went from about 25 mph before a mural was placed, to just under 14 mph after.
The study aimed to determine whether brightly colored artwork would distract drivers, and found that, in fact, ground murals increase visibility of crosswalks, causing motorists to be more cautious and alert.
“Not only will these projects do no harm, they can actually prevent harm from happening in the first place,” Sadik-Khan explained, adding that aside from the study, there is limited information on the safety impact of street art. “This data shows that safer, sustainable streets don’t need to cost millions of dollars.”
Road deaths in the United States have surged more than 10 percent last year compared with the year before, marking the highest number of fatalities in 16 years. Last year, 42,915 people were killed on roads.
Sadik-Khan said she hopes the study, while small, will help inform policymakers about the benefits of crosswalk art, particularly as the Federal Highway Administration updates its Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for the first time in more than 10 years.
She also said she wants the study to inspire local communities to come together to paint their streets with color. Bloomberg Philanthropies published a free Asphalt Art Guide, filled with tips and tricks for creating successful roadway redesigns.
“That’s what the Asphalt Art Initiative is all about; turning streets into canvases and collecting concrete data,” she said.
Mike Flynn, the principal and national director of transportation and planning at Sam Schwartz, said that in the wake of increased deaths on the road, finding solutions is more important than ever.
“We need to try whatever is going to work,” said Flynn, who worked on the Asphalt Art Safety Study.
“The fact that the overall findings were so positive was eye-opening,” Flynn said, adding that more research is still needed to better understand the impact of asphalt art. “This can be a really important safety tool.”
Plus, he said, making street murals has additional advantages not measured in the safety study.
“It offers other benefits such as community-building and providing a venue for local artists,” Flynn said.
Mensah Bey, a painter and muralist in Norfolk, was elated at the opportunity to design an asphalt art project on Bland Street in the Norview neighborhood. The 100-inch mural is painted with bright shades of blue and red, and West African symbols of togetherness, abundance and unity.
“I wanted it to reflect the culture of the community and inspire them,” said Bey, 33, adding that he worked on the project during the peak of the pandemic, and hoped it would help reinvigorate residents and small businesses.
As the artist-in-residence for the city of Norfolk, Jason Akira Somma oversaw the project, which included two additional murals in the city. All three were placed in police patrol districts, with the goal of strengthening relations between residents and law enforcement.
Community members and police officers painted the murals together. The three murals are intended to engage local residents and make the area feel more lively and welcoming. The painting process brought the community together physically, and the finished pieces have added color and brightness to otherwise drab city streets.
“It created a sense of trust in the community,” said Akira Somma, adding that he also believes the installations have helped curb crime in the area. “Community engagement has shown to be incredibly effective for reducing crime.”
Given the success of the first two rounds of grants, Bloomberg Philanthropies is expanding the initiative to European cities with populations greater than 100,000.
“There’s a deep hunger for these types of projects in every city,” said Sadik-Khan, adding that many murals ultimately emerge as unique landmarks that promote community pride. “It’s exciting to see the demand.”
“It’s not just about painting roads,” she continued. “Streets are really the ultimate gallery. They are where art and life come alive.” | 2022-06-08T10:40:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Art painted on crosswalks makes streets safer, group says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/06/08/crosswalk-art-safety-bloomberg/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/06/08/crosswalk-art-safety-bloomberg/ |
A Native American tried to get the Maryland highway’s name changed to honor the Piscataway tribe
Gabrielle Tayac, a historian who is an enrolled member of the Piscataway Indian Nation, in front of a ceremonial lodge outside her home in Nanjemoy, Md. (Julia Nikhinson/For The Washington Post)
Gabrielle Tayac, a Native American scholar and historian, still remembers as a girl hearing from her father the oral history passed down in his family for over 100 years: How the town of Indian Head and the highway through it got named.
“We were driving down Indian Head Highway, and he said, ‘They killed our people and put their heads on spikes,’” said Tayac, an associate professor at George Mason University. “My father said, ‘That’s why Indian Head was called this.’”
For Tayac and others of the two Piscataway tribes in Southern Maryland, the name of Indian Head Highway — a 20-mile stretch of road that runs from Southern Maryland to the edge of the District — has long conjured up horrific images of a violent time for the Native Americans who once dominated the area.
So in this age of social justice and racial reckoning, it seemed like the right time to propose changing the name of the more than 80-year-old route — to Piscataway Highway to honor the Piscataway Conoy Tribe and the Piscataway Indian Nation, which total about 4,500 members and can trace their roots in the area back centuries.
Tayac supported the effort by a fellow Piscataway, who got a veteran Maryland legislator to sponsor a bill that lawmakers passed unanimously and Gov. Larry Hogan (R) signed into law this spring.
New Virginia state park honors Native American tribes that lived on the land for centuries
But what seemed an easy win turned out to be riddled with troubles: The bill to rename Indian Head Highway did not have the widespread support of Piscataway tribal leaders and members, and many supporters are now realizing that the wording of the legislation was faulty — so faulty that it was not really a win at all.
“This was meant as a good thing,” said Lucille Walker, executive director of the Southern Maryland Heritage Area, which covers Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties and areas that are home to the Piscataways. “I think people in the government wanted to recognize the First People. The problem was the process.”
‘Bad for our tribe’
For starters, Jesse Swann — an enrolled member of the Piscataway Conoy Tribe who identifies himself as chief and who mustered support for the name change — did not have the backing of some tribal leaders.
Swann and a group of supporters got nearly 5,000 signatures in an online petition. He said he had tried for seven years to change the offensive name but had no luck until Del. Jay Walker (D-Prince George’s) heard about his effort and decided to sponsor the bill. (Jay Walker and Lucille Walker are not related.)
“A lot of people just thought the name was wrong,” Swann said. “It’s just bad for our tribe.”
Other proposals had been made in the past to rename the highway after President Barack Obama or Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, but those efforts also failed. This time, Jay Walker gauged support for it at town halls and constituent forums and felt it would succeed.
“When I said maybe we should honor the Native Americans, they were all like ‘That’s a good idea, let’s do it,’” he said.
Plus, he said, the murder of George Floyd “changed the dynamic.”
“The millennials, like my daughter, her generation — they don’t stand for stuff like that,” Jay Walker said. “The timing was there.”
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The bill had support — including from the Maryland Commission on Indian Affairs and Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks — but Piscataways were split on the renaming.
Francis Gray, who identifies himself as the tribal chair of the Piscataway Conoy council, told The Washington Post the council did not support the way the bill was introduced and passed because he felt it was “fast tracked” and no one reached out to him or the tribal council leaders until the last minute.
“Within our tribal community, it is very concerning that this bill was not fully vetted and that no outreach to Piscataway tribal leadership was attempted prior to [the bill] being introduced,” Gray wrote in a March 30 letter.
Plus, he said, the “renaming of this highway has mixed support amongst our membership.” Some were offended by the term “Indian Head,” he wrote, while others were “concerned that the name change will erase references to ‘Indian Headlands,’ a term which was used in historical records to identify the Southern Maryland region where our people resided.”
To further complicate matters, historians and tribal members say there are different versions of how the area came to be named “Indian Head.”
Beheadings or a geography?
Some Piscataways and historians cite the bloody past, while others point to the region’s geography — a promontory jutting into the Potomac River.
The area was once the main territory of the Algonquian Indians, which includes the Piscataway tribe, and they can trace their roots to the land back 10,000 years. The name Piscataway in the Algonquian language means “where the waters merge” and is a reference to the area where the Piscataway Creek and the Potomac River converge, according to Tayac.
A Native American tribe once called D.C. home. It’s had no living members for centuries.
In the early 1600s, the Piscataways numbered around 12,000 and included several interconnected tribes, whose land stretched from Point of Rocks, Md., along the Potomac River and around the Chesapeake Bay.
But due to attacks by colonists and tribes from the north who saw them as “aligned with the colonial government,” the Piscataways suffered a period of massive violence and loss, said Julia A. King, an anthropology professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland who has studied the Piscataways.
Owen Lourie, historian for the Maryland State Archives, said the earliest map he has seen with the word “head” is from 1861.
Lourie said 19th-century maps named the area for its large concentration of Native Americans and used the word “head” to describe the land where they lived because it “sticks out into the Potomac River.”
“They’re using the word ‘head’ in the name as a synonym for a coastal feature,” Lourie said. Another map from the late 18th century calls the area where Piscataways lived “Indian Land.”
In the 1890s, people moved to the town during the post-Civil War depression to work at the newly established Naval Proving Ground. The town of Indian Head was incorporated in 1920, and the first parts of Indian Head Highway were built in the 1940s to give better access between the naval facility and Washington.
In 2012, two groups of Piscataways — the Piscataway Indian Nation and the Piscataway Conoy Tribe — received recognition from the state of Maryland as official tribes.
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While some Piscataways subscribe to the geographical explanation for the name of the town and highway, others adhere to the oral history that elders passed along for generations, as Tayac’s father had shared with her.
“It’s something he carried with him,” said Tayac, who was a curator for 18 years at the National Museum of the American Indian in D.C. “It was a memory he had, and I always knew that story, and it always stuck with me. It’s been like a background noise. It’s like the name of the Washington football team. It becomes a dreadful little hum.”
Rename vs. ‘designate’
Weeks after the legislation’s passage, Swann and his supporters were surprised to learn the highway, which is also called Maryland Route 210, was not being renamed after all.
The bill did not call for a name change but instead said officials should “designate Maryland Route 210, as the Piscataway Highway,” the Maryland Department of Transportation wrote in a March 11 letter to the House Environment and Transportation Committee, adding that the legislation did not “clarify the exact meaning of ‘designate.’”
In other words, the road will still be called Indian Head Highway, although it will get two signs along part of it with the additional name of Piscataway Highway. Jay Walker, the bill’s sponsor, was disappointed with the outcome.
“I don’t think anybody expected it to be that way,” he said. “The will of the legislative body was to rename Indian Head Highway to Piscataway Highway and that has not changed.”
Changing the name of the road and the signs on it would have been a cumbersome, drawn-out and costly process, MDOT said, warning that it would involve replacing signs, reprinting maps and changing mailing addresses. A name change would also make it hard for emergency rescuers to find the road and would cause “confusion and potential costs with legal or real estate documents that reference a road name that no longer exists.” MDOT said there was no estimate for the cost to rename the highway because no one had asked for it.
The bill moved forward with no amendments, passing both the House and the Senate unanimously.
In a letter to Maryland legislators, Swann said he and his supporters felt “bamboozled and defeated” that the name was not being changed. He vowed to push state officials to “get this hiccup taken care of.”
Hogan, in a May 24 letter to Swann, said the legislature had “declined to call for a renaming of this roadway” when it passed the bill, so officials from the state’s highway department will put up two signs that “designate” it as Piscataway Highway. The governor also outlined a few ways to get the roadway officially renamed: The General Assembly can submit a bill to formally rename the highway and pass the law in future legislative sessions, or go through the lengthy standard process of submitting a request directly to MDOT.
Officials said the signs, which cost about $400 each, would go up this fall.
More coverage on Native Americans
Virginia Republicans kill bill giving Indian tribes a role in reviewing development on ancestral lands
Rappahannock Tribe reacquires ancestral Virginia land 350 years later
This tribe helped the Pilgrims survive for their first Thanksgiving. They still regret it 400 years later. | 2022-06-08T10:58:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Effort to rename Indian Head Highway in Md. goes awry - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/08/indian-head-highway-piscataway-tribe-md/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/08/indian-head-highway-piscataway-tribe-md/ |
Chelsea Handler stopped yelling at Republicans. She still has opinions.
Chelsea Handler backstage at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., on June 3. (André Chung for The Washington Post)
Chelsea Handler looks happy and hydrated.
“That’s my new thing: water drinking,” the comedian explained from her Warner Theatre dressing room about an hour before the Washington, D.C., stop on her Vaccinated and Horny tour. But H2O is hardly the most exciting development in the 47-year-old’s life. There’s also her Instagram official “lover,” fellow comedian Jo Koy, the man filling up said water bottle and offering more to a reporter.
“You’re going to leave here as happy as I am,” the headliner predicted.
Okay, this is definitely a new Chelsea Handler, known for decades as a stand-up, talk-show host and author who approached every jabbing punchline with a “too cool for school” air of annoyance. “I was always slightly angry.” That, she said, was before therapy, water and Koy — in that order.
“There’s more buoyancy and more ebullience,” Handler said about the way she walks onto the stage and into her life these days.
Therapy is the subject of Handler’s 2019 book, “Life Will Be the Death of Me,” which tackled the antidote to the intense rage she felt during the Trump presidency — “the gift of self-awareness.” That personal work allowed her to be “open-minded enough” to see Koy, a friend for years who regularly appeared on her E! late-night show “Chelsea Lately” as boyfriend material.
Her dealbreakers were legend. There’s the guy who showed up to a date with an obnoxiously large Hermes belt. “He got up to go to the bathroom and I left the restaurant.” Or basically any man wearing flip-flops anywhere other than the beach. Nope.
“I just had all these kind of judgments about people in general. Going to therapy really helped me take that all apart,” she said. And when the walls came down there was Koy on the other side, whom she described as “an upper.”
“He’s just such a positive vibe, and that’s what I want to be is a positive vibe,” Handler said.
Take the time that Koy, who is currently on his own multi-city comedy tour, took an Uber 2½ hours from his gig in Missouri to kiss his girlfriend good night after her show, only to immediately turn back to make it to his gig.
“I just thought, ‘I would never do that for anyone,’” Handler said with a laugh. Well, she would now.
Her next book (her seventh) will be all about the two comedians finding love. Mushy stuff. But if it seems like a sharp turn for Handler, whose first book “My Horizontal Life” was a recollection of one-night stands, it’s not. “My whole shtick has always been oversharing, good or bad. It’s always been true to what I’ve been experiencing.”
Her advice for any people out there who are single but don’t want to be? Make use of your time alone. “You have to prepare yourself for the person that’s coming. Just get yourself in the most healthy place. It takes a healthy to attract a healthy,” she said.
Comedian Jerrod Carmichael doesn’t have the answers
The road to getting healthier is what led the comedian, who quit her Netflix talk show “Chelsea” in 2017 so she could be more politically active, to reevaluate how she engaged with the news.
“While the situation we’re in I find very harrowing, I try not to let that guide my day. I try not to be like I was when Trump won the election,” she said. “I was spinning out, watching MSNBC and turning to CNN and then back to Fox. And, you know, you’re just basically filling up your body with toxins.”
None of that is to say she can’t tackle a hot topic or two in that particular Handler way — fast, loud and angry, especially when it comes to the way women who speak up for themselves are vilified.
Most recently, comedian Mo’Nique spoke publicly about a headlining conflict between herself and comedian D.L. Hughley, who Mo’Nique said refused to appear if she closed the show. The two comics have been going back and forth on social media about the dispute. Handler is unequivocal in her support of Mo’Nique.
“Of course, she should be talking about it. I don’t know her personally, but I think it’s bull---- that she gets treated in this way. And it is because she’s Black and it is because she’s a woman. You have to be loud about it,” Handler said.
In the case of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp, Handler is equally indignant.
“Why are we lauding Johnny Depp? Can you imagine a woman doing coke with Marilyn Manson? Any woman would be vilified for that behavior. And everybody loves Johnny Depp. Like, come on, there is a very uneven balance here,” Handler said. “In terms of women’s rights and women’s equity and equality, we all have to be barking a little bit louder. And it would be nicer to have men doing that with us instead of us doing it alone.”
So yeah, she still gets mad. She can still spout off about redistricting and gerrymandering. But there has been a shift.
“When I meet a Republican, I don’t start screaming at them. I still am doing all the things I was doing. I’m just not screaming about it,” she said. An acquaintance recently brought up the high price of gas in polite conversation and blamed it on President Biden. Handler somewhat calmly explained that there was, in fact, a war going on and the global supply chain was a mess.
“Five years ago, I would have like pinned that person down and duct-taped them until they understood what I understand,” she said.
So what makes her really angry now? “Guns,” Handler replied instantly. And what, if anything, makes her hopeful?
That answer took a beat, or two or three.
“Children,” she said. “The next generation. I think this is just kind of like a death cough of old White men.”
With that, Handler continued to get ready for Friday night’s show, which she hoped would “bring light and laughter and let people forget about what happened in the last couple of years.” That’s the gift the comedian wanted to give her audience: jokes about her rescue dogs, her pre-Koy pandemic dating tales and how men in captain hats are a no-go.
“I don’t take [my time onstage] for granted,” she said. “I take that really seriously now.” | 2022-06-08T11:02:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chelsea Handler stopped yelling at Republicans. She still has opinions. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/06/08/chelsea-handler-stopped-yelling-republicans-she-still-has-opinions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/06/08/chelsea-handler-stopped-yelling-republicans-she-still-has-opinions/ |
Should you consider an adjustable-rate mortgage?
Applications for adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) are on the rise. (Steven Senne/AP)
With mortgage rates spiking in recent weeks to levels not seen for more than a decade, home loan borrowers are considering their options for financing. Approximately 11 percent of mortgage applications were for adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) in the first week of May, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association — nearly double the share of ARM applications three months ago, when mortgage rates were lower.
We asked three mortgage lenders for advice about ARMs: Brian Koss, executive vice president of Mortgage Network in Danvers, Mass.; Tom Trott, branch manager of Embrace Home Loans in Frederick, Md.; and Kate Gurevich, managing director of Found It Home Loans, a division of Cherry Creek Mortgage in Denver. All three responded via email, and their responses were edited.
Q: Are you finding more borrowers want ARMs now? Are these repeat buyers, first-time buyers or both?
Koss: Borrowers are more open to ARMs right now due to the potential savings. Each situation is different, but we are seeing interest from both first-time and repeat buyers.
Trott: More buyers are certainly reviewing their options as they relate to adjustable-rate mortgages vs. fixed-rate mortgages. In my experience, most first-time home buyers are continuing with 30-year fixed-rate mortgages. Repeat buyers are more open to choosing an ARM.
Q: Why do borrowers want an ARM when rates are rising? Shouldn’t they be worried about rates rising too much?
Gurevich: An ARM can still be advantageous if a borrower knows that they will not carry the property for the typical 15- or 30-year term of a fixed-rate mortgage.
Trott: When rates are rising, borrowers are more likely to consider an ARM with the hopes of rates declining in the future. Some borrowers may know that they only will own the property (or have it financed) for five to 10 years, so an ARM is ideal for their financial plan.
Q: What are the advantages of an ARM?
Koss: ARMs come with a lower rate for an initial period, such as five, seven or 10 years, so the monthly mortgage payment is significantly less than a 30-year-fixed rate loan. Even if the rate adjusts higher in the future, the borrower will usually be making more income by then.
Trott: An ARM provides increased cash flow upfront because of the lower rates associated with the fixed-rate portion of the mortgage before the rate adjusts. An ARM will allow a borrower to more comfortably afford a more expensive home with lower payments.
Q: What are the disadvantages of an ARM?
Gurevich: An ARM will typically have a lower interest rate than a fixed-rate mortgage. However, the homeowner will be subject to market volatility and unpredictable interest rates down the road. If rates rise much higher, it could significantly increase a consumer’s housing payment and potentially put them in financial hardship.
Koss: No one knows for certain what will happen with rates. If rates increase, the borrower might not be in the best financial shape to handle the higher payment.
Trott: The disadvantages in an ARM are related to future uncertainty of the interest rate environment. If the interest rate goes up 2 percent (from 4 to 6 percent) on a $500,000 loan, the principal and interest payment is increased by $610 per month.
Q: Please briefly explain how ARMs work.
Trott: ARMs are set up with an initial fixed-rate period, which is usually five, seven or 10 years. Once the fixed-rate period expires, the rate typically adjusts every six months or yearly.
The new interest rate is determined by a published index plus a margin. If the index is 5 percent and the margin is 2.25 percent, then the new rate would be 7.25 percent. There are caps on how much the rate can increase at the first adjustment as well as subsequent ones. In the above example, if the initial rate was 4.5 percent and the interest cap on the adjustment period was 2 percent, then the new rate would be 6.5 percent instead of 7.25 percent.
Koss: For the initial loan period, usually five, seven or 10 years, you’ll have a lower fixed rate. Depending on your loan terms, at the end of that period, the rate can potentially go up 2 percent a year, but never more than 5 percent over the life of the loan. The rate can go down, too. After the initial, fixed-rate period, your new payment will adjust based on the remainder of principal at that time. For example, your rate may go up 2 percent, but your loan balance may be $40,000 lower.
Q: Any advice on who should consider an ARM and who shouldn’t?
Gurevich: An ARM may be a good option if the borrower knows they will not be keeping the property longer than the fixed-rate period of the ARM. A borrower may choose an ARM if they have the financial ability to withstand major interest rate fluctuations and potentially a significantly higher payment as well. Some borrowers also choose an ARM if they strongly believe that the current trend of high and climbing interest rates is unsustainable, and that rates will drop and allow them to refinance in the future. Most borrowers, however, prefer the financial security of a fixed-rate mortgage product.
Trott: If you have good financial discipline, an ARM is a viable option. If you carry a significant amount of debt that is likely to increase over time, an ARM can be dangerous for you financially. The borrowers who are best served by ARMs are the ones who know their mortgage will be on the property only for the initial fixed-rate period. This scenario avoids the future interest rate uncertainty. | 2022-06-08T11:02:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Should you consider an adjustable-rate mortgage? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/05/31/should-you-consider-an-adjustable-rate-mortgage/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/05/31/should-you-consider-an-adjustable-rate-mortgage/ |
If your ex-spouse’s name is on the mortgage, her name will remain there until the loan gets paid off or if your lender is willing to release her name from the mortgage. (iStock)
A: Let’s start with the difference between the promissory note and the mortgage document. These are two separate things. The promissory note is the obligation to repay the loan. The person who signs the promissory note is the person who had the credit to get the loan and is legally responsible for repaying the amount owed. The mortgage document is the document that creates the lien against the property.
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Since your ex-spouse apparently wasn’t on the promissory note or loan, they have no personal liability when it comes to the loan payments. They’ll probably see little impact by having their name remain on the mortgage. The lender will report on-time payments or late payments only on the name that is listed on the loan. That would be you and not your ex-spouse. If you make a late payment, your credit will get hurt. Your ex-spouse’s credit should show no impact.
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You can call your lender to see if it is willing to issue a release of mortgage for your ex-spouse. We haven’t heard of any lender doing that except in a refinance, even if a judge has required it as part of a ruling or divorce decree.
Just be aware you probably won’t be calling the company that made the original loan. Most lenders sell their mortgage loans on the secondary market or package them as securities. As such, the servicing of the loan is done by a loan servicing company. Servicing companies collect monthly payments, pay money for real estate taxes and insurance from escrow impounds that they collect, and issue a release of lien or mortgage upon the complete payoff of the loan. They may also do loan workouts or modifications, if necessary. (We saw a lot of this during the pandemic and the Great Recession.) | 2022-06-08T11:02:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Homeowner wishes to remove ex-spouse from mortgage without refinancing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/08/homeowner-wishes-remove-ex-spouse-mortgage-without-refinancing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/08/homeowner-wishes-remove-ex-spouse-mortgage-without-refinancing/ |
Police say a 10-year-old girl shot and killed 41-year-old Lashun Rodgers at this Orlando apartment complex on May 30. The girl was arrested on June 7. (Google Maps)
Lashun Rodgers, a 41-year-old grandmother and local volunteer in Orlando, was at a Memorial Day barbecue in her apartment complex’s courtyard when a woman arrived with her daughter — sparking an altercation that quickly turned deadly, witnesses told police.
The two women began yelling at each other — apparently airing grievances over a prior dispute related to a social media post, according to an arrest affidavit. But witnesses say the shouting turned physical after the woman punched Rodgers, who threw a hit in return.
A witness told police Isaac yelled, “You done shot the lady!” Then the witness heard the child scream: “You shouldn’t have messed with my momma!”
Mother charged after 2-year-old finds gun, fatally shoots his father
Rodgers died in the shooting, which has left prosecutors grappling with how best to proceed due to the suspect’s young age.
“This shooting is an unimaginable tragedy that defies easy solutions,” Florida Ninth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Monique H. Worrell said in a statement Tuesday. “Our office will proceed with care, and our primary focus will be on doing whatever we can to support Ms. Rodgers’s family, protect the public, and improve the health of this child going forward.”
The girl — who hasn’t been publicly named because of her age — was reportedly arrested Tuesday and could face a charge of second-degree murder, according to ClickOrlando.com, although Worrell made clear that prosecutors have not yet decided whether they will proceed with a case against her. Isaac, who’s still in custody, is also facing a slew of charges, including manslaughter by culpable negligence, aggravated assault with a firearm, child neglect, and negligent storage of a firearm, according to an arrest affidavit.
Latisha George, Isaac’s lawyer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post early Wednesday. It’s not immediately clear whether a lawyer is representing Isaac’s 10-year-old daughter.
The Memorial Day celebration was cut short by the fatal altercation shortly before midnight on May 30. After the 10-year-old allegedly fired the gun, Isaac took the weapon from the girl and “showed no remorse or care for the injury sustained by Rodgers” as Isaac and her daughter walked back to their residence, police wrote in the affidavit.
When officials arrived, they “observed a pool of blood on the ground and two spent shell casings.” Rodgers was transported to the Orlando Regional Medical Center, but she died shortly after midnight. Police then tried to piece together the story by interviewing neighbors, the little girl and her mother.
The child told officers her mother “wanted to approach [Rodgers] to speak ‘woman to woman,’” according to the affidavit. She said she had seen Rodgers cut her mother’s head with a rock during the fight, though Isaac later told police she hadn’t been struck or cut. The girl added that she had heard Rodgers threatening to “bring her family to jump” Isaac.
“When [the 10-year-old] heard this, she said she became angry, due to having anger issues,” the affidavit states. “She shot one time and saw Rodgers fall down. [The girl] knew she struck Rodgers in the head and stated she was aware Rodgers was deceased after the shooting.”
In the community, the violent incident — compounded by the alleged involvement of a child — has reverberated deeply.
The shooting took place just days after the Orange County Sheriff’s Office in Florida said a 2-year-old fatally shot his dad. The toddler’s mother was charged with manslaughter by culpable negligence, as well as possession of a firearm by a felon.
A vase filled with pink flowers, a candle, a cross and a slew of messages mark the spot where Rodgers, also known as “Bones,” was shot and killed. The night of her death, Rodgers’s family and friends gathered at that makeshift memorial, ClickOrlando.com reported, to grieve the loss of “an awesome woman,” her best friend, Stacey Johnson, told the outlet.
“I know multiple constituents who personally knew both the young girl and [Rodgers],” Orlando Commissioner Regina Hill said, according to the news site. “And everyone’s heart is broken.”
The girl’s age and the circumstances leading to Rodgers’s death will be taken into account when making a charging decision, Worrell, the state attorney, said in her statement. Whatever the decision, she wrote, it “will ensure she receives the interventions necessary to address her behavior, help her change and grow, and ensure the public’s safety going forward.”
“This is one of the most tragic cases I have seen in my 22-year career,” Worrell added. | 2022-06-08T11:03:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 10-year-old Orlando girl arrested, accused of shooting woman arguing with her mom - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/08/girl-child-shoots-kills-woman-orlando/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/08/girl-child-shoots-kills-woman-orlando/ |
Reality television stars Todd and Julie Chrisley have been found guilty of bank fraud and tax evasion charges. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
“In a year we probably spend $300,000, sometimes more, just on clothing,” Todd said.
The show is USA Network’s most-watched current original series, according to its parent company NBCUniversal, and is popular among the 18-49 demographic. It was picked up for a 10th season last month, and the ninth season will begin airing on June 23. The network did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
NBCUniversal also last month renewed a fourth season of a spinoff show on Peacock featuring two of the Chrisley children and greenlit a new dating show on E! hosted by Todd.
Todd and Julie, along with their accountant, began conspiring to defraud the IRS after the family started earning millions from their reality show, prosecutors said. Owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the IRS for his 2009 taxes, Todd opened a corporate account in Julie’s name called 7C’s Production. Millions of dollars were deposited into the account to protect Todd from having to pay the money he owed the government, according to court records. | 2022-06-08T11:03:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Todd and Julie Chrisley found guilty of fraud, tax evasion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/08/todd-julie-chrisley-fraud-tax-evasion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/08/todd-julie-chrisley-fraud-tax-evasion/ |
‘Keeping it real’ has lost its true meaning
How a phrase tied to authenticity and resistance sometimes just dishes out entertainment
Perspective by Megan Ward
Megan Ward is an associate professor at Oregon State University and author of “Seeming Human: Victorian Realist Characters and Artificial Intelligence.”
The mobile phone apps for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are shown on a device. The hashtag #keepingitreal is popular on social media, but is has become divorced from its original meaning. (Richard Drew/AP)
Across the political spectrum, social media users are #keepingitreal by posting their personal truths. The phrase signals a belief in the power of individual experience to push back against constricting social norms. It conveys that, in an era of identity and party politics, we still value the authenticity of individual experience.
But the racial history of the phrase shows that its power has been generated by Black performers and then repeatedly co-opted by White ones. Despite its current popularity, “keeping it real” actually demonstrates that certain types of authenticity are consumed simply for entertainment, leaving the audience (and the world) unchanged.
Like many popular phrases that emerged from marginalized communities, it is difficult to pinpoint a date when “keeping it real” came into use. Communications scholar Baruti Kopano traces the phrase’s origins to a varied set of Black cultural forms in the mid-20th century, each of which performed a version of Blackness for audiences who were in the know. For instance, Black DJs of the 1940s and ’50s, refusing to sound White, broadcast a distinctive mix of straight talk and jokes over the nighttime airwaves. At the same time, 1940s bebop, with its emphasis on improvisation and scat, was a form of musical expression that defined the Black experience.
In both instances, keeping it real meant performing an individual’s experience of being Black in the United States. As such, it became a form of resistance. Insisting on a different reality, one that wasn’t recognized by the dominant culture, empowered Black people to “forge a parallel system of meaning,” according to cultural critic Mich Nyawalo. Expressing that system of meaning established distinct values and norms and, with those, a sense of agency.
The phrase’s roots in racialized resistance, however, were erased when it was adopted by the mostly-White film world of the 1970s and ’80s. Director Stuart Rosenberg voiced the relatively new standards of film realism when he said of actor Jack Lemmon in 1981, “He can keep it real, as opposed to theatrical.” Keeping it real in this context indicated a performance done so well that audiences could forget it was a performance.
This version of keeping it real wasn’t about testifying to personal experience; it was about inventing it. In 1984, for instance, a Newsweek review of the film “Tender Mercies” praised actor Robert Duvall’s commitment to keeping it real through his “scrupulous, egoless authenticity.” To act so realistically, this review suggested, required abandoning personal experience and culture to become someone else. Authenticity became a measure of a performance well done rather than a marker of cultural identity.
By the time keeping it real became a key phrase for rap music in the 1990s, it had blended both meanings. What had been concepts with seemingly opposite definitions — on the one hand, being true to yourself, on the other, forgetting the self — merged in the way hip-hop artists presented themselves.
Within this new Black art form, artists succeeded at keeping it real when they convinced their audiences that they presented a credible version of reality — a reality often characterized by gang and police violence, drugs and casual misogyny. As evidenced by the genre’s popularity with White suburban teens, listeners didn’t need to have firsthand experience of any of these things, or even of life in a city, to feel the power of keeping it real.
That form of keeping it real opened the door to performers who didn’t have firsthand experience but could fake it. Speaking out against those artists, rapper MC Ren released the single “Keep It Real” in 1995. Ren had come to fame as a member of N.W.A., the group known for what they called “reality rap,” no-holds-barred accounts of gun violence and police brutality in their majority-Black Los Angeles neighborhood of Compton. “Our raps are documentary,” N.W.A. member Ice Cube claimed in a 1989 interview.
The word “keep” in the song’s title suggests Ren’s own sense of responsibility to represent his community honestly rather than give in to any industry pressure to glamorize Black violence and poverty to sell records. And, consistent with that tradition, “Keep it Real” pairs stories of growing up and living in Compton with criticisms of the “fools” who filmed music videos in his hometown to capitalize on its credibility, and then “disappeared.”
In representing what a day as a Black man in Compton was really like, Ren positioned himself as the authentic rapper who could speak with authority about the “towed down” state of his neighborhood, as well as describing his community, the games of dominoes and the barbecues that brought people together. But it also acknowledged that his reality had already become a pose — and a lucrative one at that, increasingly removed from the Black experience.
In the present day, “keeping it real” has retained its flavor of resistance, but without any connection to cultural authenticity, it has been drained of any real power for change. Recently, TV personality Kaitlyn Bristowe posted a picture on Instagram that garnered attention for its honesty. Rather than a filtered, stylized image, it featured a sweat-suited (but still stylized) Bristowe looking flatly out at the viewer. The caption describes the depression and panic she experiences with her period. Using an expletive, Bristowe explained that she “loved to” mix this sort of raw content “to keep it real.”
Bristowe’s post has the aura of resistance to Instagram perfection while, at the same time, her self-described “unfiltered moment” is an essential part of her successful Instagram brand — not a departure from it. While her other posts at that time were in the range of 40,000-70,000 likes, this one garnered 138,000 likes. Derided by some as “vulnerability porn,” realness is an attractive and potentially profitable pose, as users demand the performance of authenticity.
Ultimately, keeping it real may still have the potential for resistance through sharing authentic personal experience. But as its history suggests, that potential is easily co-opted by performers motivated by the profit that realness can generate without recognizing its roots in cultural authenticity. That doesn’t mean public figures should shy away from realness — just that audiences should recognize that it may just be entertainment, leaving us unchanged by our brush with another’s experience. | 2022-06-08T11:03:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Keeping it real’ has lost its true meaning - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/06/08/keeping-it-real-has-lost-its-true-meaning/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/06/08/keeping-it-real-has-lost-its-true-meaning/ |
Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.) arrives with his family to vote in the Mississippi primary Tuesday in Brandon, just outside the capital, Jackson. (Hannah Mattix/Clarion-Ledger/AP)
The United States held its biggest primary night of 2022 — by volume, at least — on Tuesday, with voters in seven states nominating candidates for November: California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.
California’s much-watched results will take longer to come in, as will results in some races. So keep checking back for updates. But here are some early takeaways from the races we know about so far.
1. Voters in blue cities send a message on crime — again
It’s become apparent that voters even in blue cities are willing to punish Democrats who are perceived as too soft on crime. Tuesday resulted in some particularly pronounced examples of that trend.
In Los Angeles, Rick Caruso and Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), who was once considered a contender to be President Biden’s vice president, look to be headed for a runoff in the mayor’s race. But Caruso, a former longtime Republican who made fighting crime the centerpiece of his campaign, led Bass by 42 to 37 percent early on.
So we’ll have to keep an eye on that.
3. More incumbent trouble
Guest wasn’t the only Mississippi Republican struggling.
Rep. Steven M. Palazzo is headed for a runoff after trying to fend off a challenge stemming from his alleged misuse of funds. He was at 32 percent, well shy of the majority needed to avoid a runoff, with 97 percent of the votes counted. That’s also a number that suggests an incumbent is likely to lose their runoff. (It appears his runoff opponent will be Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell.)
And in California, Reps. David G. Valadao (R) and Young Kim (R) were trying to finish first or second in their respective districts in the state’s top-two primary system. Valadao was one of 10 Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment, but he escaped having to face a high-profile Trump-backed challenger. (His opponent, Chris Mathys, lost GOP primaries in New Mexico in 2018 and 2020.) Kim was running in a substantially unfamiliar district after redistricting.
Were more incumbents to fall, they would join four predecessors. McKinley and Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-Ga.) lost incumbent-vs.-incumbent matchups, while moderate Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) fell to a more liberal challenger in a substantially redrawn district, and Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) lost after a string of personal problems.
4. The Trump update
Tuesday’s primaries, by contrast, included few big tests. But there still were some notable results.
In New Jersey, Republican Frank Pallotta was poised to defeat the choice of the state GOP, Nick De Gregorio. Democrats had attacked Pallotta for being too Trumpy, in a clear effort to elevate him. Though he backed Pallotta in his failed 2020 bid for the same seat, Trump didn’t endorse him this time. But county GOP endorsements are huge in New Jersey, given those candidates get prominent ballot placement, and a De Gregorio loss would be significant. (The winner faces Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer in a blue-leaning seat.)
If Zinke loses, it would be a significant setback for Trump — given this was a competitive primary in which he actually made an endorsement.
In South Dakota, an attempted workaround to thwart Medicaid expansion failed badly. Opponents of the expansion, which will be on the ballot in November, tried to get the state to adjust the threshold for it and similar ballot measures to 60 percent, rather than a simple majority. The practical impact of this proposed rule, which was on the primary ballot Tuesday, would’ve been a majority of voters deciding to prevent another majority from expanding Medicaid later this year.
6. A rare father-son duo in New Jersey
Come January, it appears New Jersey will be sending two Robert Menendezes (Bobs Menendez?) to Congress. That’s after the senator’s son, Robert Menendez Jr., easily won a primary in the 8th Congressional District.
It’s very common for family members to win the House seats previously held by their relatives. Far less common is two generations of one family serving in Congress simultaneously; the New York Times reported this has happened only a handful of times. The last time appears to be when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) overlapped for two years with his father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), a decade ago. | 2022-06-08T11:03:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What to know about primaries in California, New Jersey, Mississippi and elsewhere - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/08/4-takeaways-primaries-california-new-jersey-etc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/08/4-takeaways-primaries-california-new-jersey-etc/ |
Why Colombia can’t build the infrastructure it needs
Presidential candidates are promising economic development, but the nation’s laws make that hard to fulfill
Analysis by Alisha C. Holland
A girl holds a poster for presidential candidate Gustavo Petro during a rally in Zipaquirá, Colombia, last month. (Fernando Vergara/AP)
Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla, is competing to become Colombia’s first leftist president on June 19. Petro won 40 percent of the votes cast in the first round and had been leading in the polls. But a last-minute surge pushed Rodolfo Hernández, an anti-establishment outsider who has united conservative forces, into the second round. Fears of what a left-wing victory could do to the economy — and in particular, fears that the government would seize companies, pensions and private property — continue to limit Petro’s support.
In a televised debate, right-wing challengers compared Petro to socialist leaders who have brought economic ruin to neighboring Venezuela. Petro has tried to reassure Colombians that he has no such intentions. On April 18, he made a legal commitment “not to expropriate anything, from anyone” — a public pledge that’s similar to ones he made when running in 2018.
But Colombia’s economic growth may depend on the ability to take at least some private property in order to build infrastructure. While such property seizures can scare investors and property owners, my research finds that Colombia’s particularly strong private-property protections have slowed infrastructure construction needed for the country’s economic development.
What are ‘expropriations’?
One of the oldest powers of any government is to take property for such public purposes as roads, subways and social housing. In the United States, this power is known as eminent domain, but it’s usually called a “forced sale” or “expropriation” elsewhere. Legal systems differ in how much owners receive in compensation and who determines a fair value. When governments try to redistribute land, they rely on the same legal provisions, although with equality as the goal rather than construction.
When Colombia was writing its 1991 constitution, participants on the left — spearheaded by the former guerrilla group M-19, which Petro was involved in — proposed including expedited procedures that would allow the government to acquire land for public projects, with compensation. But participants on the right feared that such a provision would be used to redistribute land and could scare off international investors. In the end, the assembly writing the constitution created strong protections for private property and required a judge to sign off on any land sales for public purposes.
In Colombia, an activist, feminist lawyer is running for VP
Strong property rights made it challenging to build infrastructure
Colombia has some of the worst transportation infrastructure in Latin America. While past presidents have promised to fix the problem, they’ve made little progress. My research finds that two-thirds of highway projects in Colombia stalled because of problems getting land. Knowing that a judge would have to authorize any sale, large landowners often refused to sell, calculating that they could get bigger payouts than the government offered by waiting for court rulings. These holdouts repeatedly blocked construction.
A project to expand the Valle del Cauca highway is the most famous example. The government needed to expropriate a roadside stop known as the Parador de Buga to widen the road. The owners refused to sell at the appraised price of $700,000. Construction stalled. A local judge then assessed the stop to be worth $5 million. Leaked audio tapes revealed that the property owners bribed the judge to inflate their payout and thought the government wouldn’t bother appealing, given the need to get construction moving. It took 10 years for the Constitutional Court to reverse the decision and for construction on the highway to continue.
Frustrated by these delays, many politicians and business organizations promoted a 2013 infrastructure law that allows construction to continue while court disputes are resolved. However, landless and minority groups still could use property laws in their favor.
Squatters built shacks in the middle of infrastructure projects — like the placement of electricity lines — to get generous compensation. Black and Indigenous communities used their right to be consulted about projects that affect their land to secure local public goods and redress long-standing grievances. In an interview I did with the director of a highway project in 2018, the person said, “You just ask, what costs more: to delay the project or agree to everything a community asks?” Government agencies and private firms usually try to pay off communities. Strong property rights can drive up the costs or lead to the cancellation of projects altogether.
Colombia’s elections this year could determine the fate of the peace deal
What the election might mean for badly needed infrastructure in Colombia
If Petro becomes Colombia’s first left-wing president, he will face a choice. If he maintains his promise never to expropriate, he probably will calm the fears of international investors and centrist voters. He also will avoid conflicts with marginalized groups that support his campaign. While rural and minority areas often need infrastructure the most, they also end up clashing with the government over projects to address local needs and decades of neglect.
Or Petro could choose to show how the left can build infrastructure. As mayor of Bogotá, Petro promised an underground metro. He had plans in place to buy the land for the metro line, but planning authorities didn’t approve the project before he left office. Petro has proposed to stop new oil exploration and transition to a green economy. But without the tool of taking land, a Petro administration may be unable to build roads, hospitals and renewable energy projects, especially in Colombia’s underdeveloped rural areas.
Colombia’s anti-expropriation sentiment could similarly hinder Petro’s opponent, Hernández, who has pushed his image as a builder and an outsider who can offer change. Supporters call him “Engineer Rodolfo.” He made his money building housing for the poor in his home city of Bucaramanga. But when Hernández ran for mayor in 2015, he promised to build 20,000 housing units for the poor. Although he won office, none got built. Hernández has said he would build thousands of modern houses in the countryside if elected to the country’s presidency. Faced with the tricky process of getting land and negotiating with communities, his engineering plans could produce more of the same, unbuilt infrastructure in Colombia.
Alisha C. Holland (@ProfTortuga) is an associate professor of government at Harvard University and author of “Forbearance as Redistribution: The Politics of Informal Welfare in Latin America” (Cambridge University Press, 2017). | 2022-06-08T11:03:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In Colombia, would Petro keep his pledge against expropriations? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/08/colombia-expropriations-hernandez-petro-presidential-election/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/08/colombia-expropriations-hernandez-petro-presidential-election/ |
For the star of ‘Nollywood Dreams,’ the play’s themes ring true
At Round House, 29-year-old actress Ernaisja Curry portrays a Nigerian aspiring actress who dreams of stardom
From left: Yao Dogbe, Ernaisja Curry, Renea Brown and Joel Ashur in “Nollywood Dreams” at Round House Theatre. (Kent Kondo)
We’ve seen this story dozens of times: A young woman is plucked from obscurity by a powerful man and offered a starring role in a new show. She finds romance and heartache, big breaks and setbacks, but her determination brings her to the stardom she desires. In many respects, “Nollywood Dreams” follows those contours. But what distinguishes the play, now at the Round House Theatre, is that the action takes place in Lagos, Nigeria.
That megacity is the center of a West African film industry, nicknamed Nollywood, that actually releases more movies annually than Hollywood, though not quite as many as Mumbai’s Bollywood. In this play by Ghanaian American Jocelyn Bioh (“School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play”), Ayamma works in her family’s travel agency in early-1990s Lagos but dreams of acting in one of the Nollywood films she compulsively consumes on video. When she hears that Nigeria’s hottest director is holding open auditions for his next movie, Ayamma gets hold of a script and memorizes the whole thing.
“Like Ayamma, I can’t see myself doing anything else but performing,” says Ernaisja Curry, the 29-year-old actress who plays Ayamma. Although Curry has never been to Nigeria, she finds it easy to identify with her character. “You can work in retail and all different kinds of jobs, but nothing brings you as much joy as inhabiting a character and bringing that to an audience. It’s a passion, so I can understand why she wants to do that, why she refuses to give up.
“One of the main differences is that I have one of the most supportive families, both my family at home and my extended family, which I’m staying with here in Silver Spring. They come to my shows; they’re always asking questions. Ayamma doesn’t quite have that.”
Ayamma’s parents are often out of town, arranging tours, and her big sister Dede is a show-biz-crazy extrovert, convinced that her shy sibling could never make it as an actress. Equally skeptical is Fayola, the fading Nigerian star who’s hoping this new film will be her comeback vehicle. She sneers at the idea that this inexperienced, soft-spoken wannabe might be competition. But it’s one of the paradoxes of showbiz that it’s often the introverted kid who suddenly blossoms when pretending to be someone else.
“A female playwright like Jocelyn is going to write realistic female characters,” says Curry, “because she’s lived it. Between Ayamma and Dede, there’s a lot of sparring, but there’s also so much love. The flip side of that is Ayamma and Fayola, which is all about never meeting your heroes. These characters are one person in public and another person with the people who really know them. Ayamma processes what’s going on and realizes that if she really wants this role, she’s going to have to fight for it. She learns the game very quickly.”
Curry had a lot more training than Ayamma before she started getting roles. Raised in Florida, Curry graduated from the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, then won an acting internship with the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. But she recognizes that West Africa doesn’t have the same educational infrastructure as the United States. A working-class girl like Ayamma is going to have to rely on raw talent and determination.
“Jocelyn grew up watching those movies,” Curry says, “but I didn’t know much about Nollywood before I got this role — just a few clips. And it has been fun to delve into this other world. What I love about Nigerian films is they were going to make their art by any means necessary, especially in the ’90s, when this play is set. The films are not perfect. They shoot one or two takes and move on. But it’s their art, and it belongs to them. These are movies made by themselves, for themselves.”
There’s a rags-to-riches, fairy-tale quality to “Nollywood Dreams,” as Ayamma chases not only the lead female role but also the actor playing the lead male role, much to the consternation of Dede and Fayola. But the storybook nature of the tale is countered by its irreverent humor and sexual energy.
“It’s so much fun seeing the parallels between the movie they’re making and their off-screen relationships,” Curry says. “It’s like the movie is jumping off the page into their real lives.”
Round House Theatre, 4545 East-West Hwy. 240-644-1100. roundhousetheatre.org.
Dates: Through July 3. | 2022-06-08T11:04:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At Round House Theatre, 'Nollywood Dreams' follows a star-struck young Nigerian who dreams of being in the movies. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/06/08/round-house-theater-nollywood-dreams/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/06/08/round-house-theater-nollywood-dreams/ |
Aziz Tassal
Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley, just a few hours' drive north of Kabul, has long been an anti-Taliban stronghold and remains the only significant pocket of resistance to the group nearly 10 months after the fall of Kabul. (Susannah George/The Washington Post)
DARA, Afghanistan — Taliban forces have been locked for months in a shadowy on-again, off-again battle with opposition fighters based in the Panjshir Valley. Just a few hours’ drive north of Kabul, the province has long been an anti-Taliban stronghold and remains the only significant pocket of resistance to the group since the fall of Kabul last August.
Taliban officials flatly deny there is any violence in the area, even though thousands of the group’s forces are visible across the valley. “Everything here is fine,” insisted Nasrullah Malikzada, the Taliban’s local information director in Panjshir. “There is no fighting at all.”
The clashes in Panjshir are unlikely to pose an imminent threat to the Taliban’s control of the province or the country, but the violent resistance here punctures key narratives propping up the movement’s claim to legitimacy: that its rule has brought peace to Afghanistan and that its fighters are capable of maintaining security.
Panjshir has a long history of resistance: It was the one province Taliban fighters were never able to pacify after taking Kabul for the first time in 1996. The current anti-Taliban movement is led by Ahmad Massoud — the son of legendary resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by al-Qaeda two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States — and former vice president Amrullah Saleh. Both men fled Afghanistan in late 2021, but they continue to direct operations from exile and are believed to command thousands of fighters.
“We are supported by several countries, but we need more,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“Of course no one knows what is happening here,” a 62-year-old shopkeeper named Gulzar told The Post on the recent visit to the valley. “No one is allowed to come here; I don’t even know how you got here,” he said, cautiously watching pickup trucks and armored vehicles packed with Taliban fighters race up and down the hillside.
The Post was officially granted access to the valley by Taliban leaders in Kabul and Panjshir, who said they wanted media coverage of security and stability in the area. After a guided tour of the province’s capital, The Post team was given permission to travel unaccompanied to villages and to interview civilians. Those interactions offered a small window into an opaque struggle.
Gulzar said the most recent wave of fighting spilled into his village. “I was here at my shop when I heard the gunfire begin,” he said, pointing to the orchards separating him from his family home on the opposite cliffside. He immediately gathered his relatives and fled to the mountains.
The clashes raged for over a day before anti-Taliban fighters ran out of ammunition and surrendered. Gulzar said he watched dozens of men hand over their weapons before being taken away. Two other men from the area confirmed his account.
Malikzada, the Taliban information minister, said the fighting Gulzar described was “propaganda from outside forces” and “entirely false.” He also denied restricting access to Panjshir, though he admitted to having recently blocked at least one international news outlet from visiting the valley because he thought the organization repeatedly published reports filled with “lies.”
Under Taliban rule, information that challenges the official line is increasingly difficult to verify. The country’s media landscape has shrunk, civil society faces constant intimidation, and human rights groups have either disbanded or operate under severe limitations.
“There is a lot of propaganda [on both sides] in the war in Panjshir,” said a farmer in Dara village who was once a member of the Afghan police force.
“It’s a big province. People in one village don’t necessarily know what’s going on in another every single day,” said Ali Maisam Nazary, the head of foreign relations for the resistance. Nazary said the group’s information comes from commanders on the ground and informants inside the Taliban.
“Maybe two or three people have died, [but] it was probably from the cold or from falling off a mountain,” said Malikzada, the Taliban’s information minister. “No one has been killed in clashes.”
Clashes have increased since the end of the holy month of Ramadan in May, according to residents interviewed by The Post. Spring has always marked the beginning of Afghanistan’s fighting season, as the weather in the north becomes milder and makes it easier for fighters to maneuver.
“They wanted everyone to see,” he said. “And they wouldn’t allow the men to move him for burial; they made the women take the body to the cemetery.”
Malikzada conceded that thousands of Taliban fighters have been dispatched to the province, including some of the group’s most elite units. Their forces can be seen everywhere in the valley, and sophisticated military equipment is positioned along otherwise idyllic orchards and rivers.
DadMuhammad Battar, a former Taliban Red Unit commander in Laghman, is now one of the group’s top special forces leaders in the area. He said he coordinates with similar units attached to the Defense Ministry and a Taliban quick reaction force stationed in the provincial capital.
“The situation is completely fine here,” he said, seated beside a bouquet of plastic flowers and a dozen American-made M-16 rifles. “We go on patrol, but we haven’t conducted any operations. We are mainly here to focus on criminal cases.”
Along the road just outside Battar’s base, dozens of Taliban convoys could be seen weaving in and out of the valley as the sun began to fade. Further down, heavy armored vehicles — Humvees and MRAPs — formed checkpoints along the roads leading to and from villages that residents said had seen the most recent round of fighting.
“It’s important for the foreigners to trust us,” Malikzada said at the end of the guided tour. “We don’t lie to the foreign media. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan already proved to the people of Afghanistan that everything we say is the reality.”
Turning to The Post reporter, he added: “There is no reason for you not to trust us.”
Tassal reported from Houston. | 2022-06-08T11:04:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inside the Taliban’s secret war in the Panjshir Valley - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/08/afghanistan-panjshir-valley-taliban-resistance/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/08/afghanistan-panjshir-valley-taliban-resistance/ |
Driver crashes car into Berlin crowd: 1 dead, 8 injured
A car landed in a store after crashing into a crowd of people in central Berlin on Wednesday. (Michael Sohn/AP)
BERLIN — A car plowed into a group of people in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district Wednesday, killing at least one person and injuring several more — “some of them severely,” police said.
It is not clear if the incident was deliberate or accidental Martin Dams, a police spokesman told The Washington Post, adding that a driver had been detained.
The incident occurred close to the popular Kurfuerstendamm shopping boulevard in the west of the German capital, police said.
Local media outlet Berliner Morgenpost reported that the car drove onto the sidewalk and then into the display window of the drugstore Douglas.
On Twitter, actor John Barrowman, who was at the scene, wrote that the situation was “pretty horrific.” Barrowman later uploaded videos that showed emergency services, including helicopters, arriving to help people. “There’s a lot of police, a dead body in the middle of the road,” he said.
Berlin’s fire brigade tweeted that at least 60 of its responders were at the scene.
The corner where Wednesday’s incident unfolded is across from the Breitscheidplatz, a major public plaza, which was targeted by a Tunisian man who killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens more when he drove a black truck through crowds of visitors to one of the city’s most famous Christmas markets. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group.
Hassan reported from London. | 2022-06-08T11:04:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Berlin car crash injures several, kills 1 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/08/berlin-crash-charlottenburg-germany/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/08/berlin-crash-charlottenburg-germany/ |
Raised beds can take a garden to the next level. Here’s what to know.
Vego Garden’s 17-inch raised bed. Kevin Espiritu of Epic Gardening generally recommends buying metal beds over those made of wood. (Vego Garden)
One of the first lessons I learned as a gardener is that if you don’t have high-quality soil, the greenest thumb in the world isn’t going to save your plants. When we moved into our home half a dozen years ago, I soon realized that the dirt in our backyard was not viable for growing. Thick with clay, it was intersected by so many roots that it was impossible to push the shovel into the earth without hitting one.
I needed raised beds to fill with garden-level soil before I could sow my first season’s plantings. I purchased a few kits made with untreated wood — they were cheap and easy to assemble — and packed them with a combination of bagged soil and composted kitchen scraps.
It only took me a couple of years to regret my choice. The side planks buckled, and those resting on the ground rotted away. The rich loam inside began spilling out onto the white pebble pathways around the beds, an eyesore and a waste. This spring, I ripped them out and replaced them with a trio of new raised beds and an herb garden on wheels, but first I spoke with three gardening experts and spent a lot of time researching my options.
Here are the five factors they say you should consider when choosing raised-bed kits.
Materials. Kevin Espiritu, founder of Epic Gardening, generally recommends buying metal raised beds over those made of wood. “When you do the calculation on longevity of metal versus wood, metal beats out wood,” he says. “And during the pandemic, the cost for wood has skyrocketed, so sometimes wood is even more expensive than metal.” He notes that good metal beds will last more than a decade with proper care, which includes ensuring the bed doesn’t flood often or consistently sit in moisture. And line it with geotextile fabric or landscape fabric if you’re growing crops requiring acidic soil, which will corrode the metal.
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Size. Beds should be at least a foot tall, says Josh Singer, a community garden specialist with the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation. “Bigger crops, such as tomatoes and squash, need at least that much room for their roots to grow,” he says, adding that you can even dig up another foot of ground below the bed to give plants space to expand. To ensure that you can easily reach across the entire bed — and that it won’t be so long that the sides bow out — he advises keeping beds two to four feet wide and four to eight feet long.
Beauty. “In urban and suburban areas, you probably only have a patio or small yard, so you’re probably going to want to like what you’re looking at out there,” says Tim Williams, operations manager of Greenstreet Gardens, a landscaping and design company. “But if pretty isn’t a factor for you, don’t worry about it. No one is going to judge you.”
Assembly. “It’s smart to have gloves on hand,” Espiritu says. “I always assemble kits using a drill with a screwdriver bit on it — set to a low torque, so you’re not over-screwing the bolt or stripping it out — because it’s faster. And have someone with you to help with the build. It’ll just be easier.” Don’t forget to ensure that your bed is on even ground, because a raised bed on a slope will get unbalanced moisture distribution and may leak soil. (Have a level handy if you don’t feel comfortable eyeballing it.)
Cost. Last, but never least, consider your budget. A metal raised-bed kit can cost several hundred dollars, plus shipping fees if it’s not available locally. The good news, though, is that by this time of year, many kits will be on sale or on clearance in the D.C. area. “But don’t wait too long, because they will become unavailable, and it will be too late to plant most things,” Williams says.
Here are four raised-bed kits the experts recommend.
Vego Garden’s 17-inch six-in-one modular metal raised bed. If you’ve been browsing raised-bed options on Instagram, you’ve probably seen these eye-catching beds with rounded corners. Williams is a fan. “It’s fantastic how much surface area you can get and the large soil volume for deep root systems,” he says. The 10-piece kit with 17-inch-tall sides can be built into six configurations, both square and rectangular, including 2 by 2 feet and 5 by 3½ feet. It takes about 35 minutes to put together. When attaching the panels in this kit and the others, check that the tops and bottoms are aligned; simply flip the panel if not.
Birdies’ tall modular raised bed. The OG of corrugated raised beds, Australia-based Birdies has been producing them for more than 13 years. Made of galvanized steel with an Aluzinc coating, the bed can be built into nine setups, rectangular and square, such as 40 by 24 inches and 66 by 40 inches. It’s 29 inches tall, so you don’t have to bend over to reach your plants, Espiritu says, “which is great for gardeners who are elderly or who have accessibility issues.” Set aside about 45 minutes to build and install it.
Olle’s 17-inch 12-in-1 galvanized raised bed. The panels are made of galvanized steel and coated with Aluzinc, designed to reflect the sun and maintain a consistent soil temperature. The 12-piece kit of 17-inch-tall panels can be transformed into a dozen configurations, both rectangular and square, including 80 by 40 inches and 44 by 24 inches; it should take about 35 minutes to assemble. Singer likes this kit because of its durability and height. When it comes to filling it, he recommends a blend of 90 percent topsoil and 10 percent compost; the latter will decompose over the year. “Dump a couple of bags of compost into the bed at the start of each year to refresh the organic matter,” he says. “And since the soil compacts, you really have to till it well every year.”
Forever raised beds. “If you want a bed that isn’t wood but will last a long time and looks like wood, this is the way to go,” Espiritu says. Designed to look like they’re built with cedar planks, these beds are made from a composite of recycled wood and plastic. They are available in configurations of 3 by 3 feet or 3 by 6 feet, making them great for smaller backyard gardens. Expect it to take about 15 to 20 minutes to assemble. | 2022-06-08T11:55:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tips for choosing raised beds for your garden - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/06/08/tips-choosing-raised-beds-gardening/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/06/08/tips-choosing-raised-beds-gardening/ |
Manassas Park embraces its youth, diversity and community spirit
With the transformation of its downtown, residents will enjoy new amenities
By Laura Scudder
Manassas Park, about 30 miles southwest of Washington and adjacent to the city of Manassas, began as a Prince William County subdivision. It incorporated as a town in 1957 and as a city in 1975. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Donald Shuemaker has lived in Manassas Park, Va., more than 40 years and worked at its post office for more than 17 years. Thanks to his time there, the former city council member has gotten to know its residents and knows when new faces come into the community.
“I just live three-quarters of a mile from my office,” he said. “So I can usually bike into the office. That’s really huge. I live an urban lifestyle in a suburban place.”
Manassas Park, about 30 miles southwest of Washington and adjacent to the city of Manassas, began as a Prince William County subdivision. It incorporated as a town in 1957 and as a city in 1975, making it the youngest city in the commonwealth. More than 17,000 residents live within its three square miles, according to the 2020 Census. Its diverse population — 39.7 percent Hispanic, 33.1 percent White, 15.3 percent Black and 11.1 percent Asian — is hailed by city officials and residents alike.
“This is a wonderful city to live in,” Mayor Jeanette Rishell said. “We have great diversity, which is our strength.”
Rishell, who has lived in Manassas Park since 1994 and was elected mayor in 2016, said the tightknit nature of the city has allowed residents to become involved in the community through civic service and volunteering.
“Manassas Park is small enough that anyone can become involved in a variety of volunteer activities by serving on the boards and commissions,” she said.
Shuemaker says what he enjoys most about Manassas Park is only going to be enhanced by what’s coming to the city next — a new, mixed-use downtown center.
City Manager Laszlo Palko said city hall and the surrounding area will be transformed.
“What we're constructing right now is a new plaza, which will house a mixed-use building for our city hall, our library and a couple restaurants, one a coffee shop that's connected to the library,” he said.
The downtown, which is expected to be completed in 2024, will have a movie theater and a splash pad, an outdoor sprinkler-like water system. Palko, who has lived in Manassas Park for more than four years, is looking forward to bringing his 6-year-old daughter to it.
“It’s going to be a blast to be able to take her there to enjoy that. Also, there’s going to be a significant improvement in the quality of life in the city,” he said.
Palko noted that the development is bringing not only more fun for families but also more of a nightlife for the city’s residents.
Though the city is embracing a more urban lifestyle, there are still places to explore nature and enjoy the outdoors, such as Blooms Park, which the city acquired just before the start of the pandemic in 2020. The former General’s Ridge Golf Course has 4.25 miles of trails.
Shuemaker noted that the city’s Little League fields have been transformed so that residents can play cricket, a popular activity in Manassas Park and surrounding Prince William County.
For all its benefits, Shuemaker noted that there is a trade-off to living in Manassas Park. While housing in the area might be less expensive than in Fairfax or Arlington, it takes more time to get to D.C.
“I can buy more house than I could somewhere closer in, but the trade is I might have to sit in more traffic and the commute is a little bit longer,” he said.
The heart of the city is the community. When Shuemaker lost his parents 11 months apart, the people of Manassas Park kept him going.
“It's a great community spirit,” he said. “We’re closely tied together as a small city versus some of the bigger places, and I think that's a really nice advantage for people. People feel, in Northern Virginia, which is very transient, that they can really kind of build roots here and really feel like they're home, and they can build families here and stay for a while. It’s a good place to live.”
Rishell added: “I always say that when you are in Manassas Park, you are home. And I believe that is true.”
Living there: Manassas Park is roughly bordered by West Rugby Road and Old Centreville Road to the north, Birmingham Drive to the east, Price Drive to the south and Baker Street to the west. It has a variety of housing options, including rental apartments, traditional townhouses, two-over-two stacked townhouses, condominiums, and single-family homes. The city is within a 15-minute drive of Interstate 66 and Route 28. Manassas Drive bisects the community.
Dori Loar, a real estate agent with Keller Williams Realty, said 28 homes are on the market in Manassas Park and 16 are coming soon.
In the past year, 559 homes sold in the city, with a median listing price of $575,000. The most expensive home sold was a five-bedroom, five-and-a-half bathroom Colonial for $1.3 million, and the least expensive was a one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo for $150,000.
A one-bedroom, one-bathroom basement-unit apartment rented for $1,750, Loar said.
Transit: Manassas Park doesn’t have a Metro station. The nearest station is about a 30-minute drive away. The Virginia Railway Express stops in Manassas Park.
Schools: Cougar Elementary (grades PreK-2), Manassas Park Elementary (grades 3-5), Manassas Park Middle (grades 6-8) and Manassas Park High (grades 9-12). | 2022-06-08T12:12:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Neighborhood profile Manassas Park - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/08/where-we-live-manassas-park/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/08/where-we-live-manassas-park/ |
Weapons collected in a Los Angeles Gun Buyback event displayed during a 2012 news conference. (Damian Dovarganes/AP)
I’m sure you’ve heard the big news: The U.S. Senate is considering some kind of gun restrictions. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) says he’s optimistic that the chamber will have the 60 votes needed to obviate a filibuster and pass some form of new limits on weapon purchases, despite our freewheeling attitude toward them. And House Democrats are pushing for enhanced background checks, incentives for states to pass red-flag laws, and investments in schools and mental health.
Meanwhile, President Biden is urging Congress to raise the minimum age to buy an assault weapon from 18 to 21. | 2022-06-08T12:29:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | our culture is violent. until we fix that. gun violence won't abate - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/americas-violent-culture-means-more-gun-deaths/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/americas-violent-culture-means-more-gun-deaths/ |
By Paul Basken
The 2022 Montgomery Blair High School graduation. (Courtesy of Paul Basken) (Paul Basken)
At a classically beautiful outdoor graduation ceremony on a sun-baked morning, four years of hard work and great accomplishment at Maryland’s biggest public grade school drew to an end for 700-plus students of Montgomery Blair High.
And before they headed out, intentionally or not, they got hit with one last blunt lesson on what awaits them.
Blair, first of all, is a marvel for far more than its size. At a moment when so many of us are wondering if our democracy can survive its demographic and economic stresses, Blair takes a student population that’s three-quarters non-White and more than a third low-income and pulls them together in an imperfect-but-vital community of personal growth, respect for differences and determination to help out.
Its graduates this year included three young moms sitting with their babies. Another student got his diploma after losing both parents to the coronavirus. Blair’s principal, the beloved Renay Johnson, took pride in citing long lists of her students who worked with their teachers through tough family backgrounds to graduate and, in many cases, win some top academic honors.
Many of those students have also grown quite familiar with the harsh facts of the job market, having worked between their classes to help themselves and their families make ends meet. Many of their similarly cash-strapped teachers, on a graduation day of special demands but typical hours, began preparing the ceremony at 7 a.m. At least one was still working 12 hours later in a nearby restaurant serving dinner to celebrating families.
The sharp reminder of such retrograde realities came, of all places, right in the middle of the day’s commencement ceremony. There, between sublime student renditions of “America the Beautiful” and “Lean on Me,” and the concluding parade of graduates in their red gowns and white tassels, Blair scheduled its keynote address — the traditional prose of dreams and aspirations, humor and advice, humility and perspective.
For that honor, Blair chose one of its more conventionally successful alumni, Jacqueline Hinman. Hinman is a 1979 graduate and a former chief executive officer of CH2M, a Fortune 500 engineering company with global experience in fossil fuels and large-scale transportation ventures. She left the leadership post in 2017 after CH2M’s miscalculations on a couple of major projects forced it to seek an outside buyer.
Her speech to the rainbow of Blair students and families lasted less than 10 minutes. In it, Hinman focused on practical tips for getting jobs in the corporate world. She ticked off four specific examples for the graduates: Not answering their phones during job interviews, not having parents intervene on their behalf, closely watching personal appearances and avoiding controversial postings to social media.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with following your dreams, choosing the right career path or working hard to meet your goals,” she told the graduates. “It’s about how you present yourself, to get and keep your job.”
She began her section on appearances by acknowledging it would be “controversial.” She then advised the students to pay attention when seeking employment to “everything from your clothing and accessories, your hairstyle, to tattoos, to piercings, to fingernails, to makeup, to weight loss, to weight gain, to identity — to whatever you think would project a physical image.”
Hinman met beforehand with some of Blair’s elected student government leaders, and she said they had invited her advice on the topic. She listed her credentials as including having hired or overseen the hiring of some 60,000 people — “from engineers, of course, but to garbage collectors, to public relations specialists, to IT geeks” and beyond.
“I know that a career exists for every possible type of physical appearance out there, whether it’s an in-person or a remote job,” she said. “All I’m asking you to do is modulate your appearance to the requirements of the job.”
The intractable nature of inequity in our lives is that the system makes it so tricky to figure out who, if anyone, is to blame for imposing it on us. Hinman herself battled into the rare realm of a woman running a Fortune 500 company, and she no doubt saw her advice as a true service for students trying to rise above their own very difficult circumstances.
As for Blair, it perhaps could have found someone with a message more ambitious than suppress your body image and even your personal identity to get a job, and don’t answer the phone even if you might be a single parent with a child left at home.
Blair, however, is a public school with resources so limited that its seniors had to spend most of their graduation rehearsal setting out their own chairs on their football field. As such, Blair appears to be devoting all it can toward helping students with no parents and those with their own babies somehow miraculously walk across its graduation stage — and then continue to take care of themselves and others around them.
As a reflection of the cold realities she experienced in the world — and that still remain out there — Hinman’s dark vision of the restricted life awaiting Blair’s young adults was perhaps understandable. But as a parting message for arguably one of the biggest and most diverse groups of teenage Americans heading out into the world this year — served up without any discernible misgivings over the perspective and life values she was passing along — made for a sad moment on a picturesque day that otherwise celebrated hundreds of individual and collective wins against the structural confines of that world. | 2022-06-08T12:29:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | A blunt lesson in a Montgomery graduation speech - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/blunt-lesson-montgomery-graduation-speech/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/blunt-lesson-montgomery-graduation-speech/ |
By Bob Casey
A girl stands next to crosses displayed at a memorial outside Robb Elementary School on May 31 in Uvalde, Tex. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)
Bob Casey, a Democrat, represents Pennsylvania in the Senate.
As a lifelong Pennsylvanian, I have always had an abiding respect for one of the commonwealth’s longest and proudest traditions: top-tier hunting. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians head to the woods to hunt white-tailed deer, wild turkeys and more. The practice is passed down in families from generation to generation.
I came to Washington in 2007 with the firm belief that to support and honor Pennsylvania’s deep-rooted hunting culture meant that I should not support restrictions on gun sales or increased regulations.
Then, in 2012, Sandy Hook happened.
Twenty 6- and 7-year-olds and six educators were killed in their school by a 20-year-old with an assault rifle, just before Christmas.
Opinion: These people did not have to die
I will never forget the shock, horror and grief of learning that 26 families would never see their loved ones again. I was struck by the stark realization that we did not have to live like this. The idea that more than two dozen students and educators could be slaughtered in a matter of minutes because a 20-year-old had virtually unfettered access to weapons of war was too much to bear.
So I changed my position. Now it’s time for many of my colleagues in the Senate to do the same.
Our country cannot continue to surrender to the idea that gun deaths are inevitable or unavoidable.
Opinion: The GOP spin on gun rights is wrong — morally and legally
Too many politicians in Washington will tell you there’s nothing we can do to stop this. They want you to believe that the most powerful nation in the world cannot prevent fourth-graders from being shot in their school, or Black Americans from being gunned down at their neighborhood grocery store. They argue that the gun violence plaguing cities such as Philadelphia simply cannot be solved.
The idea that we should give up and accept the status quo, or that any challenge is insurmountable, is contrary to the American experience. And while gun violence is not an issue we can solve overnight, there are basic measures we can take to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people and criminals.
First, we should expand background checks for gun sales and close the loopholes that allow guns to be bought online, at gun shows and through private sales without background checks. This doesn’t mean a father won’t be able to give the gift of a hunting rifle to his son or daughter. But it does mean a person won’t be able to walk into a gun show and buy a gun from a stranger without a background check.
We should also pass “extreme-risk protection” laws to temporarily remove access to firearms from those who might be a risk to themselves or others, while respecting due process. These simple measures would keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous individuals, while having no impact on everyday citizens’ ability to buy or possess firearms.
Opinion: How Florida’s red-flag law helps stop potential mass shootings
We also need to get serious about banning weapons of war in our communities. The manual-action rifles used by generations of Pennsylvania hunters are vastly different from the semiautomatic AR-15-style rifles with high-capacity magazines routinely being used in mass shootings across the country. Those types of weapons were designed to inflict maximum carnage in a war zone. On May 24, they were used to murder 9-, 10- and 11-year-olds at Robb Elementary School in Texas. No parent should ever be unable to identify their children’s bodies because the power of the weapon used against them made them unrecognizable.
These are not radical or new ideas. The overwhelming majority of Americans support common-sense gun-safety laws. There is also historical precedent for limiting civilian access to certain types of weapons.
Since 1934, the United States has heavily regulated the possession and transfer of fully automatic firearms. In 1986, Congress also prohibited the possession of any new fully automatic guns for the civilian market. And, until it was allowed to expire in 2004, the federal assault weapons ban prohibited citizens from purchasing certain semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. Data show that these measures worked.
The reforms we need won’t stop law-abiding hunters from teaching their children the skills their parents taught them — but they will save lives. We can preserve hunting culture while keeping weapons of war out of our schools, grocery stores, churches, synagogues and other parts of our communities.
A decade ago, I changed my position because I didn’t want to see Americans dying every day without doing something about it. I shouldn’t be alone. Our children are depending on us. It’s time for the Senate to act. | 2022-06-08T12:29:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Bob Casey: I changed my stance on guns. I shouldn’t be the only one. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/bob-casey-senator-changed-stance-on-guns/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/bob-casey-senator-changed-stance-on-guns/ |
Religion is not overpowering our politics
Log trucks and tourists drive by the God's Ten Commandments Park, just north of Kalispell, Mont., in August. (Tony Bynum for The Washington, Post)
A fine essay by Nate Hochman in the New York Times makes a compelling argument and should not be missed.
Its thesis, in brief, is this: “The conservative political project is no longer specifically Christian,” Hochman writes. “This new politics has the capacity to dramatically expand the Republican tent. It appeals to a wide range of Americans, many of whom had been put off by the old conservatism’s explicitly religious sheen and don’t quite see themselves as Republicans yet. As the terms of the culture war shift, Barack Obama’s ‘coalition of the ascendant’ — the mix of millennials, racial minorities and college-educated white voters whose collective electoral power was supposed to establish a sustainable progressive majority — is fraying, undermining the decades-long conventional wisdom that America’s increasing racial diversity would inevitably push the country left.”
Hochman, a fellow at the National Review, wrestles mostly with what it will mean for conservatism as the dominance of religious conservatives recedes inside the movement. That has probably already begun.
This drift, Hochman likely knows, will continue long after the elections in November bring a broad Republican wave into office in Washington and elsewhere. All the GOP must do is not face-plant before then.
But there is one error in his assumptions: that Republicans were ever dominated by the religious right. Even in 1980, the first presidential election year of the Moral Majority, the GOP was a secular political party made up of various factions, only one of which identified as “religious right.” Still is. That doesn’t make it the party of organized religion. It has long been common for political reporters to extrapolate a party’s outlooks from its most common denominational affiliations. Nowadays, it’s a dart thrown blindfolded and over the back.
My experience is very different. I have no idea how my fellow congregants at my two church homes (one Roman Catholic, one Presbyterian) feel about politics. The twin spheres of life — religious and civic — are distinct, and I’m certain that neither sanctuary tilts more red than blue. Christians are, above all, obliged to testify to their faith. Not always and everywhere, but certainly, there ought to be enough public evidence, as the saying goes, to convict one of being a Christian.
As a Roman Catholic, I’m far more concerned about the message sent to the American church by the new cardinals named by Pope Francis than I am about what the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops says on Issue A or Issue B. I pay little attention to the bishops’ political statements for they are to politics what I am to golf: amateurs, and bad ones at that.
As a citizen, I deeply hope — and pray — for a huge rebuke to the political left that has seized the Democratic Party, but that is a political judgment informed, but not dictated, by faith.
What Hochman missed is that religious expression in the public square has been loud for brief and intense periods, but it comes and goes and never approaches a constant. I don’t believe anyone got into their pew or left it because of politics, or vice versa. There is very little consensus within American Christianity on much of anything! Any attempt to impose a political order on the spiritual landscape is doomed; we are a country that tends to splinter. Too often, we over-generalize — currently, the fashion is to call any Christian who is not a Democrat a “Christian nationalist.” That lens is grossly distorted. It doesn’t even work on a grossly simplified basis.
The only “political” homilies I’ve ever heard at Mass have been on the dignity of life from conception until natural death. I’ve heard many calls from Presbyterian and Catholic pulpits alike to inclusion and reminders that the colors of the kingdom include every shade on the spectrum. Most pulpits stress care for the poor, and if there is one underlining bit, it is that the taxes one pays don’t substitute for the tithes one owes.
So, if you are close observer of both faith and politics, try your best to understand that these two realms are different worlds and the crossover you see because of some very rare voices is an exception, not the rule. While daily Mass attendees might very likely be Republican voters, there’s a good slice of them who are aligned with the progressive Catholic Worker movement. Presbyterians now come in more varieties than ice cream in the supermarket.
The dissolution of the dominant Protestant culture in the 1960s and 1970s is long past debating. America is less faithful but far more political. The average voter by contrast concerns himself or herself with the country’s political leadership, and very few take their voting cues from any pulpit — if any are to be had. That isn’t “The Way.” And it never has been in my 66 years. | 2022-06-08T12:29:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | religion in the public square remains the exception not the rule - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/religion-in-politics-is-overstated/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/religion-in-politics-is-overstated/ |
The federal budget has 99 problems. This program ain’t one — anymore.
The Social Security Administration's main headquarters in Woodlawn, Md. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
As its title suggests, the Social Security Administration’s “Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds” does not make for light reading.
Nor is this actuarial tome usually a source of good news. In recent years, it has often projected impending insolvency for these giant federal reserves, dedicated by law to paying hard-earned benefits to retirees and working-age adults who are unable to work because of injury or illness.
Yet this year’s edition documents one happy development, of interest to everyone — even non-wonks. It suggests that, despite the general dysfunction in Washington, progress can still happen, however modest, and albeit as a result of unexpected favorable social trends as well as deliberate policy.
Specifically, the report estimates that Social Security’s disability insurance (SSDI) trust fund will remain solvent and able to pay all eligible beneficiaries for at least 75 years. This is in sharp contrast to the trustees’ forecast 10 years ago, which had the fund running out of money in 2016. Media reports warned that roughly 11 million recipients, disproportionately poor, could face cuts of up to 21 percent in benefits that averaged, in 2012, a mere $1,100 a month.
Instead, the SSDI trust fund’s asset reserves bottomed out at $32.3 billion in 2015 — then grew steadily to $99.4 billion at the end of 2021. In five out of the intervening six years, SSDI took in more from payroll tax revenue than it paid out in benefits. There were no benefit cuts.
A small but crucial part of what went right was bipartisan legislation, signed by President Barack Obama in November 2015, that authorized a temporary reallocation of about one half percentage point of the combined 12.4 percent FICA tax from Social Security’s flusher old-age trust fund to the SSDI fund.
That tided SSDI over through 2018, and avoided what might have been a politically devastating wave of distress for disabled workers — or, more likely, an embarrassing effort to pay their benefits by borrowing from the old-age fund — during the 2016 election campaign. However, it only guaranteed the program’s solvency through late 2022, according to projections at the time.
SSDI still faced two structural problems. One was an aging workforce, whose oldest members were more likely to become disabled, yet were too young to qualify for Social Security’s old-age program. The other was the program’s tendency to grow during recessions, as workers turned to it in lieu of exhausted unemployment benefits or jobs that were unsuitable to their abilities, poorly paid — or, in some communities, had permanently disappeared. New disability enrollment peaked in 2010 in the wake of the Great Recession.
Yet new enrollment did plunge after 2010 — more steeply than Social Security actuaries initially anticipated. Partly this was due to demography, as the last baby boomers began to move through their late 50s and early 60s, en route to full retirement. A lower SSDI “incidence rate” appears to be the new normal.
“Over the medium and longer-term, the Trustees believe disability rates have been declining and will not return to prior trend,” says economist Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Policy changes helped, too. SSDI retrained administrative-law judges who determine eligibility and stepped up disability reviews to make sure recipients still qualified. The implementation of the Affordable Care Act brought expanded health care to the working poor, reducing an incentive to go on SSDI, which provides recipients with health insurance after two years on the rolls.
More broadly, the U.S. economy “ran hot” through the 21st century’s second decade. Expansionary fiscal and monetary policy drove unemployment down, and wages, including for low-skilled workers, up. Both factors induced people, including many with disabilities, who had previously left the labor force to return.
More payroll tax revenue for Social Security was a helpful side effect of these trends — which the pandemic-induced 2020 recession, steep as it was, did not reverse.
Now for the not-so-good news. The SSDI trust fund’s solid condition will help extend the life of Social Security as a whole — that is, including both disability and old-age insurance — but only until 2035. That’s a mere one-year improvement since the 2021 forecast. Medicare is projected to exhaust its hospital trust fund in 2028 (two years later than projected last year).
Political reality is such that Congress will undoubtedly borrow and spend whatever it takes to keep these programs going. Economic reality is such that this would necessarily divert finite resources from other needs.
Stabilizing U.S. social insurance programs — permanently — will necessitate structural reform, also known as higher revenue and lower spending. Be glad that SSDI may have surprised on the upside, but wise policymakers would rather be good than lucky. | 2022-06-08T12:29:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The federal budget has 99 problems. This program ain’t one — anymore. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/social-security-disability-fund-solvent/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/social-security-disability-fund-solvent/ |
Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) speaks with reporters in Newark on Oct. 17, 2018. (Julio Cortez/AP)
Pundits and political scientists have claimed for years that there is no hope for a third party. The structural advantages for a two-party system and voters’ aversion to “throwing away their votes” pose a major hurdle for alternative candidates.
Yet in a couple of states, alternate parties thrive. In New York, the Conservative Party and the Working Families Party both endorse candidates. In the case of the Conservative Party, such candidates may also run on the Republican Party line. These sort of “fusion parties” used to be common throughout the 19th century, but the entrenched parties set about to outlaw them to protect their political turf.
Now, as Republicans leap into the abyss of the MAGA movement, such parties might once again serve a useful purpose. The test case is the highly competitive race in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, where moderate Democrat Tom Malinowski will likely face off against Tom Kean Jr., son of the former New Jersey governor and co-chair of the 9/11 commission who used to personify moderate Republican politics.
Kean Jr., unlike his father, cast a Faustian bargain with the far-right wing of the GOP. Like so many cynical careerists, he preferred to jump onto the MAGA bandwagon over the moderate politics that once made his father a revered figure in the state. Local coverage has ridiculed his pandering to the MAGA crowd, including his refusal to condemn the Republican National Committee’s description of the Jan. 6 insurrection as “legitimate political discourse.” The Star-Ledger editorial board lambasted him for “squandering” his family’s legacy.
Malinowski tells me, “I think there’s a desperate need in this country for Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans to strike an alliance” against the increasingly radical, “election-denying” GOP. He adds, “I think a substantial share of Republican-leading voters in districts like mine would be willing to vote for a moderate Democrat if they could do so under the flag of a party reflective of their values.” These are people who say “I don’t want to vote for AOC’s party” but would gladly cast their ballot for a candidate who sounded like, well, the elder Tom Kean.
In this case, that’s Malinowski. And that is where the new Moderate Party comes in.
A news release for the nascent party explains that it has endorsed Malinowski as part of its efforts to “combat growing political extremism and polarization.” It also noted that it is "prepared to push for major reforms to New Jersey’s unconstitutional election laws to allow him to appear on the ballot under both the Democratic and Moderate Party lines.”
The release continues:
The Moderate Party was recently formed by a a group of New Jersey Republicans, Independents, and Democrats turned off by both major parties’ drift to ideological extremes, and creates a home for pragmatic, middle of the road voters committed to protecting our democratic institutions. Unlike most third parties, the Moderate Party will offer its support, and the validation that comes with it, to the major party candidates who best reflect its values, restoring to centrist voters the voice and leverage they have lost.
Moderate Party leaders are prepared to go to court if their petitions to qualify for a ballot position are denied. If they succeed, the Moderate Party and the Democratic Party would both appear on the ballot with Malinowski as the nominee. (It is also possible Malinowski might appear on the ballot with both parties listed below his name.) If the court fight fails or drags on, the state legislature may intercede to amend the prohibition on fusion parties.
Malinowski tells me the Moderate Party’s entry makes sense precisely “because Tom Kean has shredded the family legacy and engaged in a race to the bottom with the MAGA wing” of the GOP. That leaves plenty of stranded Republicans and independent to whom the Moderate Party might appeal.
New Jersey’s 7th district was redrawn this year as an ideal place to test out the Moderate Party’s viability. The district, though it is still closely divided, now has more Republicans than Democrats. As the New York Times reported, it is “largely affluent and suburban ... [and] filled with the type of well-educated swing voters who helped Democrats across the country flip control of the House in 2018 and who are seen as crucial to November’s midterm elections.”
Malinoswki is bullish on the Moderate Party’s plan, citing the violence and election subversion that threatens to tear the country apart unless the center of the electorate can attract the independents and moderate Republicans whom the GOP has abandoned. He says that if he wins by a few thousand votes supplied by voters choosing him on the Moderate Party line, these voters can rest assured he’ll “take them very seriously.”
Similar efforts might be able to influence the two parties’ primaries elsewhere, giving a boost to more centrist candidates. In Utah’s Senate race, Evan McMullin is running as a conservative independent. In Wyoming, allies of Rep. Liz Cheney (R) have invited Democrats to cross over to support her. Other states are implementing ranked-choice voting, which aims to hinder the extremes and bolster the center-left to the center-right voters that the two major parties used to represent.
There is no guarantee the Moderate Party will prevail or that its endorsement will help re-elect Malinowski. But for those looking for way to give moderate Republicans and independents a safe harbor from MAGA radicals and to encourage less extreme nominees from both parties, any success from the Moderate Party could point the way toward saner, more functional politics. | 2022-06-08T12:29:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Could a new political party defang radical politicians? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/tom-malinowski-moderate-party-new-jersey-can-it-defang-extremism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/tom-malinowski-moderate-party-new-jersey-can-it-defang-extremism/ |
The covid economy is harder for Black Americans
Majority of Black Americans say they are hit hard by gas, grocery and housing prices
(Rick Bowmer/AP)
There’s a saying in my community that when America gets a cold, Blacks get pneumonia. The brutal economic fallout of the pandemic on Black Americans affirms that expression.
When there’s an economic downturn like we’re having right now, with rising inflation and dwindling buying power, Blacks get hit harder and take longer to recover. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll of more than 1,200 Black Americans this spring finds some things never change.
Nearly 8 in 10 Black Americans say the affordability of gasoline in their community is “not so good” or “poor” (79 percent), with large majorities saying the same for the affordability of housing (75 percent) and groceries (66 percent). Although others may share concerns about rising prices, long-term data show Black households may have more difficulty weathering such cost pressures.
That housing piece is a concern for me personally. My daughter, who graduated with a degree in early childhood and special education, just accepted a teaching position at an elementary school in Baltimore. I’m helping her look for housing in predominantly Black neighborhoods close to her school.
It’s depressing.
On her starting teacher’s salary, she will need to spend half her net monthly pay to afford a decent rental on her own without a roommate.
“Mom, I don’t want to live paycheck to paycheck,” she said as we searched for apartments online.
If she lives at home, she’ll have a long commute, but it’s increasingly looking like her most economical solution. She’s fortunate. Not everyone has the same option.
Many Americans of all races and ethnicities are suffering. Rising inflation is cutting into their ability to build a financial cushion for themselves. It’s hard to save for the inevitable financial emergency if such a high percentage of your take-home pay has to go to housing, gas, and food.
But as hard as it is for so many, Blacks face even tougher times because of pay and employment disparities. A Pew Research Center poll of Black Americans conducted last fall found that just over a third of Black adults have an emergency fund, compared with over half of adults overall.
“The long-standing differences in economic experiences among Black Americans remain today,” wrote Khadijah Edwards, a Pew research associate focusing on race and ethnicity research.
When folks say, just shop around for better food prices, that’s not always possible. Black neighborhoods have fewer large supermarkets, often living in “food deserts.”
Black Americans also disproportionately face food insecurity, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. USDA says food-insecure households are uncertain or unable to get enough food to meet the needs of all their family because of insufficient funds or other resources.
USDA found that 22 percent of Black households experienced food insecurity in 2020, compared to 11 percent of all U.S. households.
In the Post-Ipsos poll, about 1 in 3 Black Americans (32 percent) say recent price increases have been a “major financial stress” on their household. This view is very similar to the general public.
Confidence in the economy is low among Black households. The poll finds that 25 percent of Black Americans rate the economy as excellent or good, down from 42 percent in early 2020.
None of these survey results surprised me. The struggles of Black Americans were only magnified by the pandemic.
Racism costs Americans trillions. Biden and the Fed say they’re working to change that.
“From Reconstruction to Jim Crow, to the present day, our economy has never worked fairly for Black Americans, or, really, for any American of color,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said earlier this year in remarks at the annual event honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. held by the National Action Network, a civil rights organization.
All the economic news for Black Americans isn’t bad.
Sixty-one percent of Black Americans rate the availability of jobs in their community as excellent or good in the Post-Ipsos poll, although a larger majority of the general public rated the availability of jobs positively (72 percent).
A quarter of Black Americans say their financial situation has been getting better in the last few years, while 22 percent say it’s gotten worse and 52 percent say it has been staying the same. Those views are slightly more positive than the general public — 18 percent say their situation is getting better, 30 percent worse.
Systemic racism, not $200 Air Jordans, suppresses Black wealth
The economic fallout from the pandemic has left many Americans economically vulnerable, but Black households even more so. Pre-covid, the typical White family had eight times the wealth of the typical Black family, according to the 2019 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances.
In 2021, 40 percent of Black adults in a separate Fed survey said they had difficulty paying bills or were close to having difficulty, about twice the share of White adults who said the same (19 percent).
More than two years into the pandemic and with recession concerns growing, I worry that systemic issues that had already left so many Black households behind won’t get better even as the economy recovers.
Emily Guskin and Scott Clement contributed to this column. | 2022-06-08T12:33:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The covid economy is harder for Black Americans. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/08/black-americans-gas-prices-groceries-housing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/08/black-americans-gas-prices-groceries-housing/ |
Analysis by Nir Kaissar | Bloomberg
The US stock market is experiencing the worst start to a year in five decades. Technology stocks, long a favorite of investors, are collapsing. And yet investors don’t seem bothered. I count five bear or near-bear markets in my adult lifetime, and I don’t recall investors ever being this sanguine about a declining market.
Another reason could be that investors are becoming better at tuning out the market’s gyrations. With every selloff, they gain confidence that the market recovers eventually, even from harrowing declines like the dot-com bust in 2000 or the 2008 financial crisis. That may also explain why, by all indications, most investors hung on to their stocks during the pandemic-induced selloff in 2020.
But there may be another, more concerning, explanation. Bear markets have become ever shorter over the past two decades, which may be giving investors the mistaken impression that stock market selloffs are brief, if uncomfortable, affairs. Consider the recent trend. It took the S&P 500 two and a half excruciating years to reach a bottom during the dot-com bust. The next downturn during the financial crisis lasted about 18 months from peak to trough. Then came two near-bear markets, a decline of 19.4% in 2011 that lasted five months and 19.8% in 2018 that lasted three months. And finally, the most recent bear market in 2020 lasted just 33 days.
Interestingly, longer bear markets don’t necessarily mean deeper declines. For instance, the S&P 500 dropped 34% during the 33-day selloff in 2020, but it took nearly two years to decline 27% from 1980 to 1982. While the outcome may be roughly the same, duration makes a big difference. In 2020, investors barely had a chance to catch their breath before the market turned higher again. A multiyear selloff, on the other hand, is so painful for so long that many investors eventually give up.
It’s easy to underestimate the torment of an extended bear market if you’ve never encountered one. Neither millennials nor members of Generation Z were old enough to experience the dot-com crash, the most recent multiyear bear market. Reading about it isn’t the same as living it, obviously, but for the uninitiated, it’s worth reflecting on the anatomy of that downturn.
It didn’t last long. In late May, stocks turned lower again. The S&P 500 dropped an additional 26% and the Nasdaq declined 38% over the next four months. By the fall of 2001, the pain was palpable. Stock portfolios evaporated, and the red on Wall Street spilled into the broader economy, sending it into recession.
Surely, that was the end, or so it seemed when the market rallied through late fall and winter. Then came the knockout punch. From March 2002 to the bottom in October, the S&P 500 gave up an additional 34% and the Nasdaq dropped 41%. When it was all over, the S&P 500 was cut in half, down to 777 from 1,527 when the bear market began, and the Nasdaq had given back nearly 80% of its value.
Nir Kaissar is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering markets. He is the founder of Unison Advisors, an asset management firm. | 2022-06-08T12:33:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Beware of a Bear Market That Is More Than a Cub - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/beware-of-a-bear-market-that-is-more-than-a-cub/2022/06/08/59972dc0-e723-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/beware-of-a-bear-market-that-is-more-than-a-cub/2022/06/08/59972dc0-e723-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
Inflation’s ‘Fun’ Period Was Way Too Brief
Analysis by Jared Dillian | Bloomberg
Consumer confidence has tanked, with the University of Michigan’s widely followed sentiment index at its lowest since 2011. This is incongruous with the fact that the labor market is very hot. The last time confidence was this low the unemployment rate was 9% and people were worried about the potential for a “double-dip” recession so soon after the global financial crisis. Now, the unemployment rate is a miniscule 3.6%. And although things are slowing, consumer spending – which accounts for two-thirds of the economy - is strong.
I went to the local Tanger Outlets shopping mall in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to kill some time over the weekend and look for gym shorts. Most of the stores were busy. You wouldn’t see that if people were pessimistic about the outlook for jobs. We’ve been hearing from smart Wall Street types that the economy is slowing, and that we have an increased probability of a recession, but when it comes to consumption, I just don’t see it. And good luck buying a house without going up against competing bidders even with the jump in mortgage rates.
So rather than jobs, what has consumers gloomy is inflation that has become persistently high, with consumer prices rising faster than wages. The evening newscasts are filled with reports on surging gasoline prices and even people whose rents are going up so much that there is the possibility that they would end up homeless.
These are valid concerns, just not ones that wealthy people are having. Higher income households can absorb price increases on things such as food, fuel and housing costs. Households earning less than the median income of $50,000 is living on a strict budget, and when gas prices, food or rent increase by 20% to 30%, they are forced to make hard economic choices. No wonder that the Conference Board’s index of consumer confidence among those with household incomes of $35,000 to $49,999 a year has fallen twice as much over the past 12 months as the one tracking those with household incomes above $125,000.
So, what’s up with all the reports showing big gains in spending? Is this a case of what consumers do and not what they say? Not exactly. The first part of any inflationary episode is always good for the economy. Economic activity tends to pick up and wage growth accelerates. Between the start of 1971 and mid-1973, GDP expanded at a 6% average annualized pace. The trick is not to get fooled by nominal GDP growth. Inflation becomes a problem if it leads to a dreaded wage-price spiral like what happened in the 1970s after the initial growth spurt that came from inflation.
The only thing I am surprised about the current situation is how short the “fun” inflationary phase was, lasting only about six months before consumers began complaining. But perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised given how fast various measures of what’s known as the misery index, which adds the rate of inflation to the rate of unemployment, have gone from being well below the long-term average to well above. And that’s all due to how fast the inflation rate has risen.
What we are re-learning is that while inflation leads to consumer misery, it doesn’t really slow the economy, at least not initially. The early stages of an inflationary period tend to spur economic activity, with people speeding up their purchases to buy now and often in bulk before prices rise further. The lesson, then, is just because the economy is growing faster doesn’t mean that it is stronger.
In many ways, this is an indictment of Keynesian economics, most of which is about speeding up the economy by expanding the money supply and credit to boost wages. But none of that is guarantee of happiness if it leads to much higher rates of inflation. In fact, maybe its’s the opposite. Take a look at Japan. The country has been dealing with mostly deflation or disinflation for 30 years, and it has a generally peaceful and productive society.
Most low-income households would say the faster economy we currently have is not superior to what we had before and would be willing to trade higher unemployment for lower inflation. Is the Federal Reserve listening?
Jared Dillian is the editor and publisher of the Daily Dirtnap. An investment strategist at Mauldin Economics, he is author of “All the Evil of This World.” He may have a stake in the areas he writes about. | 2022-06-08T12:33:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inflation’s ‘Fun’ Period Was Way Too Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/inflations-fun-period-was-way-too-brief/2022/06/08/f58ad1e0-e71a-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/inflations-fun-period-was-way-too-brief/2022/06/08/f58ad1e0-e71a-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
Oil and gas companies underreported methane leaks, new study shows
The House Science Committee calls for tougher surveillance amid evidence of super-emitters and undetected leaks in the vast Permian Basin
Power lines and oil wells are seen on the outskirts of Odessa, Tex., on April 5. (Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg News)
Big oil and gas companies have internal data showing that their methane emissions in the vast Permian Basin “are likely significantly higher than official data” reported to the Environmental Protection Agency, says a new report by the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
The companies should adopt tougher surveillance measures to detect and control methane leaks, especially giant super-emitters that contribute to the greenhouse gases that cause climate change, says the report.
“A very significant proportion of methane emissions appear to be caused by a small number of super-emitting leaks,” the report says, noting that a single leak experienced by one company may have accounted for more than 80 percent of the methane emissions that company reported to the EPA from its Permian oil and gas production in 2020.
The report was written by the committee’s Democratic staff using materials requested by Science Committee Chairwoman Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.) in a letter to 10 oil and gas companies on Dec. 2. Johnson said the United States could not achieve its goals for reducing methane emissions without a “swift and large-scale decline in oil and gas sector methane leaks.”
The companies were invited by name to provide information, but their results remained anonymous in the final report.
The committee, which will hold a hearing at 10 a.m. Wednesday on detecting and quantifying methane emissions in the oil and gas sector, zeroed in on the Permian Basin because it extends across 55 counties in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico and accounted for 42.6 percent of U.S. oil production and 16.7 percent of U.S. natural gas production in December 2021.
The committee report urged the companies to make greater and more accurate use of the leak surveillance equipment known as Methane Leak Detection and Repair, or LDAR.
“Oil and gas companies are deploying innovative LDAR technologies in a limited and inconsistent manner,” the report said. “Most deployments remain in the pilot phase with scopes that are too narrow to support emissions reductions on a timeline that meets the urgency of the climate crisis.”
One company told the committee that it relied on “lease operator training and in-person inspections (a.k.a. ‘boots-on-the-ground’ inspections),” which the committee report said could not be scaled up over a large area to solve the super-emitting problem.
Currently, the EPA requires oil and gas firms to inspect their facilities for leaks only twice a year.
“The point is brutally clear,” the report says. “The operator’s technology experts were warning that the technology’s biggest risk was not that it would fail, but rather that it would succeed — and in doing so, would find more methane leaks that the operator would then be responsible for, with all of the accompanying repair costs and reputational risks that might ensue.”
President Biden’s climate and social spending bill, formerly known as the Build Back Better Act, would establish a “methane emissions reduction program” to spur oil and gas companies to cut planet-warming pollution. But the measure has stalled in the Senate for months because of opposition from Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.).
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), whose panel has jurisdiction over the methane program, expressed optimism that Democrats could secure a deal with Manchin on the spending bill’s climate provisions before the August recess. “I’m hopeful it can provide a foundation on which a broader agreement can be had,” Carper told reporters Tuesday.
In November, the Biden administration also unveiled a sweeping set of domestic policies to cut emissions of methane from oil and gas operations across the United States. The proposals, announced at the U.N. climate summit, represented one of the president’s most consequential efforts to combat climate change.
In addition, the EPA proposed rules that would establish standards for old wells, impose more frequent and stringent leak monitoring, and require the capture of natural gas that is found in association with oil and is often released into the atmosphere. The package marked the first time the federal government had sought to comprehensively tackle the seepage of methane from U.S. oil and gas infrastructure.
Apart from regulation, efforts to get major oil and gas companies to measure and capture methane emissions have been gaining support among companies and shareholders. A resolution at Chevron’s recent annual meeting called on the company to summarize its methane-detection efforts and inform investors if the measurements strayed from the company’s own published estimates of its emissions. Chevron’s board of directors supported the proposal, which passed with the support of 98 percent of shareholders.
Yet of the 10 operators that provided information to the House Science Committee, nine said that they lack any internal definition of a super-emitting leak, the report said. Two of them said they did not believe current technologies could accurately quantify emissions leaks.
“When it comes to the role of their own super-emitters in the Permian, all ten operators are in the dark,” the report said.
However, one company said that monitoring at scale was “realistic and achievable.”
And the scale can be daunting. Occidental Petroleum, for example, reported it had 14,929 wellheads in the Permian Basin. They released 2,107,191 megatons of methane and other greenhouse gases equivalent to carbon dioxide.
Irving, Tex.-based Pioneer Natural Resources said in a letter replying to Johnson that it aims to achieve a 75 percent reduction of methane emissions intensity by 2030. That covers Pioneer’s operations, but not the greenhouse gases emitted by its customers when they burn natural gas.
Pioneer said it also uses a wide variety of ground sensors and aerial technology developed by a company called Bridger Photonics for broad oil field surveys.
In 2020, Pioneer performed about 7,800 site surveys using a variety of advanced technologies at the company’s wellheads, tank batteries and compressor stations. Those surveys revealed 914 confirmed leaks, which were repaired, Pioneer said.
A Science Committee staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the committee hearing Wednesday, said that “just conducting aerial surveys is a simple first step” and “a snapshot in time,” as is true for any detection technology. Pioneer and other companies needed to identify patterns, he said.
The committee staff recommended the creation of a “Methane Census” and the development of voluntary standards to help quantify data.
The companies that were asked by committee to produce materials included Admiral Permian Resources, Ameredev II, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Coterra Energy, Devon Energy, ExxonMobil, Mewbourne Oil, Occidental Petroleum and Pioneer Natural Resources.
Methane is the second-largest contributor to atmospheric warming, accounting for about 30 percent of global warming since the Industrial Revolution. It is about 85 times as potent as carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and more than 25 times as potent over an entire century.
At the November climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, the United States led the drive for a Global Methane Pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. More than 100 countries signed on, but several major emitters, including Russia, did not. | 2022-06-08T12:34:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oil, gas companies underreported methane leaks, new study shows - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/06/08/oil-gas-methane-house-science-permian/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/06/08/oil-gas-methane-house-science-permian/ |
Former White House aide John Dean III is sworn in by Senate Watergate Committee Chairman Sam Ervin (D-N.C.) in 1973. (AP)
The hottest TV show in the summer of 1973 was the U.S. Senate’s version of the popular quiz show “Truth or Consequences.”
In place of Bob Barker, the host was Senate Watergate Committee Chairman Samuel Ervin Jr. (D-N.C.), who grilled witnesses in his folksy style, quipping, “I am just an old country lawyer, and I don’t know the finer ways to do it. I just have to do it my way.”
Instead of trivia, the participants were asked about their knowledge of the 1972 break-in and phone-bugging at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate office building in D.C.
But if the subject matter was a bit more opaque, the ratings were even better.
As the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol prepares to kick off the first of a series of televised hearings Thursday, some in evening prime time, it’s hard to think of a political spectacle more analogous — and TV-worthy — than the Watergate hearings of nearly a half-century ago.
This summer’s hearings promise to produce fireworks from the start. “The hearings will tell a story that will really blow the roof off the House,” Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.) said.
By contrast, when the Watergate hearings began on May 17, 1973, little was known about the Watergate break-in except that five burglars had been arrested, some with ties to President Richard M. Nixon’s Committee for Re-Election of the President, known to Nixon critics as CREEP. The first witness was one of the burglars, James McCord Jr., who was CREEP’s security chief. His testimony was less-than-riveting TV. “If you like to watch grass grow, you would have loved the opening” of the Watergate hearings, The Washington Post reported.
The drama picked up in June, when former White House counsel John Dean III testified about a Watergate coverup. Dean said he had told Nixon there was “a cancer growing on the presidency.”
Among the spectators during Dean’s five days of testimony were former Beatle John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono. “Since we saw the Watergate hearings on TV, we thought we’d take them in,” Lennon said. The plot took a sensational turn on July 16 when a surprise witness, former White House aide Alexander Butterfield, revealed that Nixon had secretly taped his conversations.
By now, all eyes were on the televised hearings. “The Senate Watergate investigation is proving a television-viewing phenomenon,” columnist Jack Anderson wrote. A.C. Nielsen reported that an estimated three out of four of the nation’s homes watched at least part of the hearings. The drama-filled inquiry outdrew popular daytime soap operas. “I watched the Watergate hearings for three days before I realized it wasn’t the ‘Secret Storm,’ ” wrote humor columnist Erma Bombeck.
People tuned in day and night, newspapers reported. A grave digger in Boston took time off during the day to watch the hearings at a bar to get “an education.” A Chicago woman told a friend: “I’ve gotta hurry home and watch the Senate investigation on TV. It’s more fun than an X-rated movie.” At Washington’s upscale Sans Souci restaurant, business was “dragging” during the hearings, its maître d’ said, because people “were home watching television.”
Chairman Ervin, with his bushy “dancing eyebrows,” was an instant TV star. “Thanks to the Watergate hearings, Sen. Sam J. Ervin Jr. is well on his way to becoming an authentic American folk hero,” United Press International wrote. “Sam Ervin Fan Clubs are sprouting up all across the land,” and there was even a song, “The Ballad of Senator Sam,” calling him the “greatest thing since country ham.”
“After 19 years in the Washington phone book,” Ervin “got an unlisted home phone number to avoid the press” and admirers, Washington Post columnist Jeanette Smyth wrote. “A Dallas woman wanted to marry the 76-year-old senator.”
Ervin’s sidekick was urbane co-chairman Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), who on July 23, 1973, asked the famous question, “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” Smyth reported, “Baker, 47, leads the hit parade with about 100 mash notes and is said to be embarrassed about it. The notes range from that of a lusty 69-year-old who wrote, ‘I could vote for you for President all day and all night, too,’ to the cheeky babysitter who penciled, ‘You broke my heart Sen. Baker! I was all set on marrying you (so what if you’re 30 years older) when I found out you were already married.’ ”
The angry White populist who paved the way for Trump
Ervin and Baker weren’t the only committee senators drawing romantic attention. Smyth wrote: “The switchboard at Sen. Edward J. Gurney’s (R-Fla.) Northwest Washington apartment building lights up with calls from women wanting to know if the wavy-haired 59-year-old is ‘unattached and available.’ (He has been married for 33 years.)”
Boyish-looking Dean, 34, with his horn-rimmed glasses and button-down shirt, appealed to women of all ages. “John Dean was a hit, I was told at the beauty parlor,” one reporter wrote from Harbor Beach, Mich. Some women called him “clean-cut, regular-featured, soft-spoken, the kind of a fellow a woman would want her son to be, or a girl her beau.”
Not everyone involved in the hearings drew such rave reviews. “The best time to go to the bathroom when watching the Watergate hearings,” humor columnist Art Buchwald wrote, is when Sen. Joseph Montoya (D-N.M.) “is questioning the witness.”
The three major TV networks rotated live coverage of the hearings. The Public Broadcasting System’s audience boomed with its gavel-to-gavel coverage, including taped reruns at night. PBS stations tried pairing fundraising drives with their coverage, with mixed results. “We cleaned up with John Dean” but did “poorly” with dour former Attorney General John Mitchell, said a spokeswoman for the PBS outlet in Miami.
As U.S. archivist retires, Jan. 6 looms as his worst day
Nixon, at an Aug. 22 news conference, downplayed the hearings as “water under the bridge.” Republican Senate leader Robert J. Dole of Kansas called for closing down the televised inquiry, contending that “the people want the hearings off the screen.” An Ervin spokesman countered that 90 percent of the 14,000 letters the panel had received since Nixon’s news conference favored continuing the inquiry.
The hearings went on until November. By the next summer, after the White House released the Nixon tapes under order from the Supreme Court, there was talk of new televised hearings — this time to impeach the president. Nixon preempted those by announcing to a nationwide television audience on Aug. 8, 1974, that he was resigning and turning the presidency over to Vice President Gerald Ford. Nixon’s announcement drew 110 million viewers, second all-time among non-sports events only to the 1969 moon landing.
Disclosures in the Watergate hearings were widely credited with forcing Nixon’s resignation. “The live television Senate Watergate hearings were a gradual course in civics and political science. They’re among television’s finest hours.” CBS newsman Dan Rather wrote in 1973. He added a word of advice that feels newly relevant ahead of the Jan. 6 hearings: “Remember Watergate. Somebody, lest we forget, ravaged the Constitution and very nearly stole the government.” | 2022-06-08T12:34:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Watergate hearings, like Jan. 6 hearings, were must-watch TV - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/06/08/watergate-hearings-jan-6-tv/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/06/08/watergate-hearings-jan-6-tv/ |
The musical equivalent of “two great tastes that taste great together” was concocted 15 years ago when Robert Plant and Alison Krauss collaborated on “Raising Sand.” Plant, the legendary rock frontman of Led Zeppelin, found an unlikely duet partner in Krauss, a bluegrass icon. The songs were all covers, and the highlight was the tender and haunting reinterpretation of a song Plant penned with Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, “Please Read the Letter.” In November 2021, they finally released a follow-up album, “Raise the Roof,” which continued to showcase their curation skills (along with those of producer T Bone Burnett), finding deeper cuts from musical compatriots including Lucinda Williams and the Everly Brothers. June 11 at 8 p.m. at Merriweather Post Pavilion, 10475 Little Patuxent Pkwy., Columbia, Md. merriweathermusic.com. $55-$175.
These days, it’s hard to satirize politics or society because everything already feels so absurd and dumb. But thankfully, Quelle Chris is up to the challenge. The prolific Detroit alt-rapper has made his name with knotty raps that shine a light on some of the silly hypocrisies of existing in America — recent standouts include his 2018 collaborative album, “Everything’s Fine,” with fellow rapper (and wife) Jean Grae. Lately, Chris has flexed his skills as a deft curator and producer, including contributions to the score for “Judas and the Black Messiah.” His latest album, “Deathfame,” charts a further evolution of his musical world by blending syrupy piano keys with jagged percussion, but one thing remains clear in the urgency of his words: a better way forward. June 13 at 8 p.m. at DC9, 1940 Ninth St. NW. dc9.club. $15. Proof of vaccination required for admittance.
Mackenzie Scott, whose nom de rock is Torres, has long crafted simmering scorchers about her upbringing in Tennessee and burgeoning queer love. (Her 2013 self-titled debut is still one of the finest opening statements of the past decade.) But on her 2021 album “Thirstier,” everything boils over in a wonderfully ecstatic way. Take Torres’s hardest-driving rock anthem yet, “Don’t Go Puttin Wishes in My Head.” It sounds loud and fun, but there’s a tender, wrenching plea at the heart of its chorus: “If you don’t want me believing that / You’re never gonna leave me, darling / Don’t go putting wishes in my head.” June 15 at 7:30 p.m. (doors open) at Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. blackcatdc.com. $25-$30. Proof of vaccination is required for admittance.
Welcome to the Sheryl Crow revival. The 60-year-old songstress is known for her breezy, radio-friendly country-rock tunes — come on, try not to crack a smile when “All I Wanna Do” or “Every Day Is a Winding Road” is blasting through your stereo as wind sweeps through your hair on a road trip. But her songwriting chops and the sexism she overcame to reign atop the airwaves are finally receiving proper appreciation, including in the recent documentary “Sheryl.” Listen again to one of her most exquisite ballads, “Strong Enough,” and marvel at the way she channels the frustration of a woman who wants to forge a partnership of equals but can’t pin down why she’s feeling so unsure about everything. June 16-17 at 7 p.m. at Wolf Trap, 1551 Trap Rd. wolftrap.org. $49-$127. | 2022-06-08T12:34:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 4 concerts to catch in the D.C area: June 10-16 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/06/08/upcoming-concerts-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/06/08/upcoming-concerts-dc/ |
DNA ties ‘Pillowcase Rapist’ to six cold cases, officials say
Robert Eugene Koehler sits for a court appearance via video link on Jan. 21, 2020. Koehler is now jailed in Miami-Dade County facing charges of assaulting a woman in the early 1980s, Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony said at a news conference on June 7, 2022. (Tim Shortt/Florida Today/AP)
In June 1984, a man broke into a Pompano Beach, Fla., apartment and at knifepoint raped the woman living there, his face obscured with a pillowcase. The assault was similar to other rapes at the time, but the perpetrator was never caught. For decades, the case went cold.
The rape was one of as many as 45 committed in Florida in the 1980s by a serial predator dubbed the Pillowcase Rapist. After DNA helped investigators in 2020 identify a suspect, authorities in Broward County have charged 62-year-old Robert Eugene Koehler with committing six of the rapes.
Koehler is already in custody in a separate rape case in Miami-Dade County. In January 2020, he was arrested and charged with sexual battery in a 1983 case in which prosecutors say he broke into a woman’s apartment, stabbed her in the abdomen, covered her face with a pillow and raped her. DNA evidence has connected Koehler with dozens of attacks that took place in the ’80s, although Miami-Dade prosecutors have charged him in only one case as a strategy to win a quicker conviction, the Miami Herald reported. Koehler has pleaded not guilty.
The ‘Pillowcase Rapist’ suspect eluded capture for decades. Then police got his son’s DNA.
On Tuesday, the sheriff’s office in neighboring Broward County said it had linked Koehler to at least six rapes that took place there in 1984 and 1985. In each case, according to the sheriff’s office, Koehler sneaked into the victim’s home as she slept or prepared for bed, and then threatened to kill her or her family members before raping her and taking her valuables. Sometimes, he’d cover their heads with pillowcases or other material, and sometimes he would cover his own face, authorities say.
Broward County prosecutors have charged Koehler with sexual assault in six cases and plan to extradite him after his trial in Miami-Dade, Sgt. Kami Floyd, a cold-case detective with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, said at a news conference Tuesday.
A lawyer representing Koehler in Miami-Dade did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Wednesday.
Floyd, whom the sheriff’s office credited with cracking the cold cases, said she began examining the Pillowcase Rapist crimes in 2019 after reading a Miami Herald article. After looking through 500 boxes of case files, she found one matching the pattern of the rapist, which led to the discovery of DNA specimens in similar crimes.
“It was a hunch,” Floyd said of the discovery in the Pompano Beach case, which led her to the others.
Around the time of Floyd’s breakthrough, Koehler was arrested in Miami-Dade in connection with the 1983 case, which enabled Floyd to obtain the suspect’s DNA. From there, Floyd told reporters, “we were able to match that DNA to multiple victims in Broward County.”
It was DNA that originally led Miami-Dade investigators to arrest Koehler in 2020. When Koehler’s son was arrested a year earlier on a felony domestic violence charge, his DNA was entered into a database that triggered a close familial match to samples collected in a 1980s rape case, the New York Times reported. That led authorities to Koehler, who was living in Palm Bay, Fla., as a registered sex offender after a 1991 sexual battery conviction.
Matching a suspect’s DNA to the past cases was a long-awaited development. For decades, the Pillowcase Rapist had tormented law enforcement authorities as he continued to attack and rape women in their homes while eluding arrest. Investigators chased thousands of leads, considered hundreds of suspects and distributed more than 1 million fliers in an effort to catch the rapist, The Washington Post reported. Authorities even commissioned a clay bust of his possible likeness, which was shown on local television stations, the New York Times reported in 1986.
In a video released Tuesday by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, women identified as victims of the Pillowcase Rapist shared portions of their stories. Catherine said the rapist “knew my name,” and his attack “didn’t kill me, but he did kill me.”
Another victim, Carolyn, said that as the rapist held a knife to her throat, he told her that he’d been following her. “He deserves to be put away and never come out,” she said, adding, “I got over it pretty well, but I’m sure a lot of women didn’t.” | 2022-06-08T12:34:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | DNA ties ‘Pillowcase Rapist’ to 6 cold cases in Florida, officials say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/08/pillowcase-rapist-broward-charges/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/08/pillowcase-rapist-broward-charges/ |
The ‘massacre generation’ believes government can prevent mass shootings
Our research found a sharp shift in young people’s attitudes from 2012 onward
Analysis by Abigail Vegter
Lillie Perez, 11, holds a sign during a “March for Our Lives” protest for gun legislation and school safety on March 24, 2018, in Houston. (David J. Phillip/AP)
Ten people were killed on May 14 in a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo. Twenty-one were killed just 10 days later on May 24 in a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex. Eight days later, four were killed by a gunman at a hospital in Tulsa.
At least one group believes something can be done: the “massacre generation.”
The massacre generation is a term coined by then-18-year-old Julia Savoca Gibson in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed describing her life as “framed by violence.” As members of the massacre generation ourselves, we understood — and wondered how that experience might shape Americans’ attitudes about mass shootings. We find that this group is much more likely than earlier generations to attribute mass shootings to a lack of government action, and to believe such tragedies could be prevented if the government would intervene.
What is the “massacre generation?”
We use “massacre generation” to refer to Americans who were under 18 when the Columbine High School shooting took place in 1999 or who were born since, which would be 1982 or later. While not the first school shooting in U.S. history, Columbine changed the way Americans conceptualize mass shootings, especially in schools. The term refers to a generation that has lived with the consistent threat of mass violence and does not remember a time before that threat seemed constant.
The shared experiences with gun violence shape whom this group blames for mass shootings — and who it believes could make change.
We analyzed data from eight national public opinion surveys conducted over nearly 20 years, from 1999 to 2018. All were conducted after major mass shootings in the United States. These surveys were fielded and sponsored by a variety of organizations: CNN, USA Today and Gallup (1999-2001), CNN and the Opinion Research Corp. (2011-2015), and the University of Kansas, Brigham Young University-Idaho and Survey Sample International (2017-2018). All were conducted either by telephone or online and asked a nearly identical question about whether mass shootings can be prevented, generally phrased as “Which of the following statements come closer to your overall view?” Respondents could choose a version of one of these two responses: “Government and society can take action that will be effective in preventing shootings like the one in ____ from happening again” or “Shootings like the one in ____ will happen again regardless of what action is taken by government and society.”
Each time pollsters asked the question, they referred to a specific and recent mass shooting, with two exceptions. In the 2001 poll and 2017 survey, respondents were asked, respectively, about shootings in schools and mass shootings generally. The other surveys specifically referred to shootings in Colorado (Columbine, 1999), Arizona (Tucson, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords rally, 2011), Connecticut (Newtown Elementary School, 2012), Charleston (Emanuel AME Church, 2015) and Texas (Santa Fe High School, 2018). Some of these were referred to by more than one poll.
Three reasons Congress is still unlikely to pass new gun laws
Younger people’s attitudes began changing sharply in 2012, the year of Sandy Hook
From 2012 and beyond, younger people have been increasingly likely to believe that government action could prevent mass shootings. When surveys provided respondents’ ages, as in the surveys sponsored by the University of Kansas and Brigham Young University-Idaho in 2017 and 2018, we find that for every one year decrease in age, the likelihood of believing government can prevent mass shootings goes up 1.8 and 1 percent respectively.
After 2012, we find that members of the massacre generation — those who were under 18 when Columbine took place — are significantly more likely to believe that government action could prevent mass shootings than every other generational cohort, as you can see in the figure below.
Since we didn’t find this result in earlier years, we can conclude that the belief that government can take action to prevent mass shootings results not just from being young but from coming of age with a high number of high-profile mass shootings.
That may be in part because 2012 was a turning point for news coverage about mass violence in the United States. In that year, 16 high-profile mass shootings left 88 people dead, including incidents at several schools, at a “Batman” movie screening and at a Sikh temple. The 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in particular, kicked off a new phase in the discourse about preventing mass shootings, especially those that target children.
Further, anyone entering adulthood over a decade after Columbine had gone through “active shooter” drills that earlier generations did not. By 2012, some 18-year-olds may have endured up to five active shooting drills a year for over a decade. Essentially, they have learned to expect this type of mass violence.
We believe that this steady stream of mass shootings and active shooting drills has triggered young people’s anxiety and put shootings forefront in their minds, shaping their tendency to blame government for inaction.
How the NRA 'politically weaponized' its membership
To be sure, this does not mean young people are united on what type of government action can prevent mass shootings. Polling by ABC News/Washington Post last year revealed an ideological divide on certain gun regulation policies, especially those that may be implemented through presidential action. In recent years, however, we find that more than 40 percent of Republicans who belong to the massacre generation still believe that some government action can prevent mass shootings, as seen in the figure below. We expect the shootings of the last two weeks to reinforce this attitude.
Will they prompt action?
In a 1989 article, political scientist Deborah Stone wrote, “difficult conditions become problems only when people come to see them as amenable to human action.” If today’s young people perceive gun violence as something the government can fix, they may increasingly mobilize to influence gun policies. We’ve already seen some suggestions that they will.
After the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting in 2018, its survivors organized national marches and other activities demanding more gun regulation. While that wave of activism may have receded, the experiences that gave rise to it remain. Should a majority of this cohort come to agree on what policies are needed, the massacre generation could shape the gun regulation debate as it comes to dominate the U.S. electorate.
Abigail Vegter (@abigailvegter) is an assistant professor of political science at Berry College, where her research focuses on public opinion, religion and politics, and gun politics in the United States.
Alexandra Middlewood (@alexmiddlewood) is an assistant professor of political science at Wichita State University, where her research focuses on gun politics, public opinion, political behavior and gender. | 2022-06-08T12:35:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Will today's young people change government policies and prevent mass shootings? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/08/uvalde-buffalo-tulsa-mass-shootings-prevention-gun-regulation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/08/uvalde-buffalo-tulsa-mass-shootings-prevention-gun-regulation/ |
Use the tools aurora chasers favor to catch a natural light show across Canada, Alaska and the Midwest
By Karen Schwartz
Northern lights seen in Alberta, Canada in August 2015. (Chris Ratzlaff)
A reindeer-drawn sleigh in Norway might seem like a more romantic setting to view the aurora borealis, but that shouldn’t detract from the view in North Dakota. While many people count the visual phenomena as a big draw for traveling to Scandinavia, it is possible to view the northern lights without leaving North America, even in the summer.
“Just watching it dance across the sky is mesmerizing,” said Chris Ratzlaff, 49, who lives just north of Calgary, Alberta.
Aurora chasers use a combination of planning, luck and patience to see the naturally occurring light show, even in places that aren’t often associated with the dancing waves of light. Because some of these spots are near tourist destinations, there’s plenty to do, regardless of whether the night skies offer a show.
The basic science of the aurora is the same everywhere in the world. The solar wind takes two to four days to travel from the sun to Earth, where some electrically charged particles become trapped in our magnetic field, creating ribbons of light that can be seen when we’re in the right place at the right time.
Without a doubt, the most reliable and vivid visibility for viewing the aurora borealis is near the Arctic Circle. In North America, that includes places such as Fairbanks, Alaska; Churchill, Manitoba; and Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. But these remote northern latitudes can be harder to get to, more expensive and really, really cold. Plus, there are still no guarantees. The lights can be obscured by storms, or sun — there are months when it doesn’t get dark enough at night to see them.
Under certain conditions, the lights can be seen farther south, winter or summer, and for some, that’s worth the chase.
“The nice thing about this far south, we have intermittent opportunities to see the aurora in the summer when your biggest worry is mosquitoes eating at you at midnight,” said Ratzlaff, a software developer who runs the Facebook group Alberta Aurora Chasers, which has 145,000 members. Along with discussions, resources and tips, the page includes a map of members’ favorite viewing sites.
Emily Cook, 30, of Caro, Mich., happily drove for hours to view the northern lights this spring on a trip that took her, her grandfather and her 7-year-old daughter to cloudy Wisconsin, Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota and Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota.
“We took a chance, and it was a phenomenal show,” she said. In North Dakota, she saw the aurora primarily as “white pillars.” But at 3 a.m. in Minnesota, “I could actually see color with my eyes,” she said. “I could see faint green, I could see a lot of pink.”
Her interest in the northern lights began after she stumbled across the Michigan Aurora Chasers on Facebook. In the 15 months that she’s been chasing, she has had both good and back luck.
“I’m okay with taking time off and going some place even if there is the chance it’s not going to happen,” said Cook, a postal worker. “I go for the destination as well as the aurora. I still get to go hiking. I still get to see wildlife. I still get to take pictures, and I still get to spend time with my family.”
Peak conditions
According to tourism organization Explore Fairbanks, people who stay for a minimum of three days and are actively trying to view the aurora between late August and late April have about a 90 percent chance of success during their stay. Experts say a person visiting Banff National Park in Alberta for a week would have approximately a 25 percent chance of seeing them on one night.
Those odds are likely to improve — maybe even double — as the sun continues toward the 2025 peak of an 11-year solar cycle, which often increases the sunspots, solar flares and coronal mass ejections that can lead to more frequent northern light activity.
In planning for aurora watching, a dark sky, solar activity and local weather need to be taken into consideration.
To choose a location away from light pollution, try the interactive New World Atlas of Artificial Sky Brightness, from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Also be cognizant of the phases of the moon, as night skies are darker around a new moon.
Alberta boasts dark sky preserves and good viewing areas in Jasper National Park, about four hours from Edmonton, as well as Elk Island National Park, about 45 minutes from the city.
How to forecast
You’ll want to know the minimum aurora strength, or KP number (an abbreviation for the Estimated Planetary K-index), in the place you plan to travel. In general, you’ll want a KP number of at least five.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration puts out a 27-day forecast every Monday that is mostly just an educated guess, but it’s a place to start. If KP numbers are expected to be in the upper ranges, especially over sequential days, it means that more geomagnetic activity could be possible and it might be time to book a ticket (albeit a refundable one) if possible.
“There is a benefit to some agility when it comes to this stuff,” said Robert Steenburgh, acting lead at NOAA’s Space Weather Forecast Office in Boulder, Colo.
NOAA’s three-day forecast is more reliable because it is based on what is happening on the sun at that moment, rather than what is projected to happen. Because of the time it takes for the solar wind to travel from the sun to the Earth, it’s best to think of the forecast as occurring within a 24-hour range rather than on a designated day, Ratzlaff said. If the KP numbers are low, it might be worth rescheduling the trip. If they’re high, it’s time to head for the airport.
When the three-day outlook and the local weather forecast align, aurora chasers start buzzing with excitement. They compare data from spaceweatherlive.com and write posts advising, “Pants on standby,” a cheeky way to say readers should be ready to get dressed at a moment’s notice.
Finally, there are satellites above Earth that record the location and intensity of the solar winds as they pass by. That 30- to 90-minute forecast helps a person decide whether to head outside and set up their camera. | 2022-06-08T12:36:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to see the Northern Lights from North America - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/northern-lights-canada-alaska-minnesota/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/northern-lights-canada-alaska-minnesota/ |
My daughter doesn’t want to have children. Is that my fault?
Q: I’m a single mom to two daughters, 20 and 17. I adopted both from China, three years apart. I always wanted to adopt, and once I heard about orphan Chinese girls during middle school, I knew it was for me. The birth movie they showed during eighth-grade health class also cemented my desire not to have a birth child, even though my teacher assured us that birth was something women have been going through for centuries and that we would change our minds. (I ran into her years later, pointed to my kids and joked that I never did “get over” the film.)
However, now my oldest has decided that she never wants children. She is studying to be a teacher, so it’s not kids she dislikes; it’s the process. She asked me whether I would be ashamed if she never had kids, and I assured her that it’s her life and that I will support her in whatever she wants. I had enough pressure from my mother to produce grandchildren for her to show off, so I do not want to be “that” mom.
I’ve been open with my kids that I always wanted to adopt, but has my preference for adoption made my daughter refuse to have birth children because I didn’t want them? Or do I just add this to the “mommy guilt file” and move on?
A: Thanks for writing. This letter is yet another example of women feeling guilty by having choices and, although I’m not surprised, I’m always a little disappointed. For time eternal, women have had no control over whether they wanted children, and they certainly have had no choice regarding how they would have said children. Traditional pregnancy and vaginal birth remain the standard by which mothers are measured, and it’s exhausting.
For many reasons, you did not choose a traditional route to motherhood. (I’m guessing there was more to it than a video you saw in eighth grade.) And the truth? You don’t need to provide anyone an excuse for not having children through the traditional routes — and neither does your daughter. Although your guilt is understandable, it’s quite the leap to assume that her decisions have had everything to do with you. Isn’t it possible that your daughter has a different vision for her life, like you did? And isn’t is also possible that she may change her mind?
The power to change our minds is the greatest gift we can give ourselves, and your daughter is only 20. Provide lots of emotional space for her, and remember that your role as a parent of an adult means that you have to stay curious and open to listening. Curiosity will keep you from making assumptions. Try saying: “I’m curious. You worried that I would be ashamed if you didn’t have kids. Tell me more about that.” And if you’re committed to listening, you may learn more about your daughter.
And although you aren’t saying anything about this, we have learned quite a bit regarding the trauma surrounding international adoption (and adoption in general). I’m not saying adoption is good or bad; it’s binary. It is a trauma to leave your biological mother, and there is another wound or trauma associated with not sharing a race or ethnicity with your adoptive parent.
Adoption can be and is a beautiful way to create a family and protect children, but we cannot pretend that the lived experiences of adopted children don’t affect how they understand childbirth, parenting and family. By staying curious and simply listening to your daughter, you can begin to understand her emotional world, whatever that means for her.
You sound like a strong woman, one who chose a different path from the expectations of her mother. That’s courageous. Use that same courage to be there for your children. If you need support, contact Sandi Lerman (adoptionrootsandwings.com). The mother of an adopted young adult, she is also a trauma-informed parenting expert specializing in adoption. | 2022-06-08T12:59:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | My daughter doesn’t want to have children. Is that my fault? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/06/08/daughter-parent-guilt-leahy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/06/08/daughter-parent-guilt-leahy/ |
1 THIS TIME TOMORROW (Riverhead, $28). By Emma Straub. A woman falls asleep on the eve of her 40th birthday, and wakes to find herself 16 again.
4 EITHER/OR (Penguin Press, $27). By Elif Batuman. An ivy league student is determined to find life experiences to write about.
6 THE PARIS APARTMENT (Morrow, $28.99). By Lucy Foley. A woman investigating her brother’s disappearance suspects that his neighbors might have been involved.
8 TIME IS A MOTHER (Penguin Press, $24). By Ocean Vuong. Poems about living through grief from the award-winning poet and novelist.
9 THE CANDY HOUSE (Scribner, $28). By Jennifer Egan. A sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Visit From the Goon Squad” continues the story of tech mogul Bix Bouton.
10 REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES (Ecco, $27.99). By Shelby Van Pelt. A woman develops a friendship with an Octopus living in an aquarium.
5 RIVER OF THE GODS (Doubleday, $32.50). By Candice Millard. A chronicle of the search for the head of the Nile river by two 19th-century British explorers and their African guide.
10 EMBRACE FEARLESSLY THE BURNING WORLD (Random House, $28). By Barry Lopez. A posthumous collection of essays by the National Book Award–winning nature writer.
Rankings reflect sales for the week ended June 5. The charts may not be reproduced without permission from the American Booksellers Association, the trade association for independent bookstores in the United States, and indiebound.org. Copyright 2022 American Booksellers Association. (The bestseller lists alternate between hardcover and paperback each week.) | 2022-06-08T13:21:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Washington Post hardcover bestsellers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/washington-post-hardcover-bestsellers/2022/06/07/4e061e22-e682-11ec-a079-71f26b28893d_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/washington-post-hardcover-bestsellers/2022/06/07/4e061e22-e682-11ec-a079-71f26b28893d_story.html |
Haji Wright, 24, made his U.S. national team debut — and scored — on June 1 against Morocco in Cincinnati. (Jeff Dean/AP)
Haji Wright received the call from U.S. national soccer team coach Gregg Berhalter about six weeks ago — a call that, until this spring, was far from warranted.
For years, while many of his peers excelled overseas, the American striker had drifted around the European club scene without fulfilling the great promise he had shown at the youth national team level.
There were spells with clubs in Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, but without a breakout season, he had become lost in the mix of young U.S. hopefuls overseas.
Then last year Wright moved to Turkey, and by the end of a sterling 2021-22 campaign in which he finished among the Super Lig’s top scorers, the 24-year-old forward had caught Berhalter’s eye.
In a World Cup year — and in need of scoring options as roster decisions neared — Berhalter placed the call to invite Wright to a training camp that included four matches this month.
“I was hoping more than I was expecting,” Wright said of the call-up, “but I wasn’t surprised.”
He was not surprised because he has been scoring like no other American: 14 goals in 32 matches (21 starts) for Turkish club Antalyaspor, including eight goals in seven appearances over a six-week stretch in April and May.
He was productive the previous season, too, with 11 goals for Danish club Sonderjyske, but his ability to sustain those numbers in a stronger league vaulted him onto Berhalter’s radar this year.
In U.S. camp for the first time since 2019, Wright made his senior debut June 1 as a sub against Morocco in Cincinnati. Late in the match, with the Americans leading by two and the team awarded a penalty kick, U.S. star Christian Pulisic handed the ball to Wright, whose conversion capped a 3-0 victory.
“I asked him for it, and he gave me the opportunity to score my first goal, in my first game, and it's a really great feeling,” Wright said.
Pulisic said he wanted to “just give him a bit of confidence.”
“I’m happy to see him score,” he said.
It has been a long road for the Southern California native. While his youth national team career soared with 27 goals in 34 games, Wright struggled to reach club ambitions.
“It’s definitely not linear,” he said. “There have been a lot of ups and downs. Had a lot of good patches and rough patches. I think I’ve persevered through the rough patches and enjoyed the good patches.”
Wright finds himself in a good patch at a good time. While many of the World Cup roster slots are all but set, the striker position remains wide open.
Since last summer, Berhalter has used Josh Sargent, Ricardo Pepi, Jesús Ferreira, Jordan Pefok, Gyasi Zardes and Daryl Dike. None have seized the starting role.
In this camp, the next-to-last before the team reports to Qatar in November, Wright and Ferreira, 21, were the only strikers invited. The competition for call-ups to the two friendlies in September, though, remains wide open.
For the first two matches this month, Ferreira started and Wright came off the bench. In all likelihood, Wright will receive his first start Friday against Grenada in a Concacaf Nations League game in Austin.
“I still don’t think there’s enough of a sample size for Haji,” Berhalter said after a 0-0 draw with Uruguay on Sunday in Kansas City, Kan. “We’ll continue to work with them and, [with] two Nations League games, we’ll see if Jesús and Haji can hit the back of the net.”
Wright’s call-up was embraced by established players who have known him since his youth national team days.
“That was the duo back in the day — me and Haji,” Pulisic said. “We played a lot of games together in the youth national teams, and it’s cool to have him back in.”
Midfielder Weston McKennie called Wright’s return “beautiful.”
“Some players would be knocked down,” McKennie said. “Some players would have their spirits gone. But for him, finding his own path to get back in here is definitely one that is inspirational.”
Midfielder Tyler Adams said he was excited to “see how he has grown, developed and matured as a player.”
Asked about reuniting with those players, Wright smiled and said: “They haven’t changed much. Same goofy guys when we were 15, 14 years old.”
Wright’s journey began in the Los Angeles Galaxy youth academy, shifted to the lower-tier New York Cosmos, then to Schalke’s under-19 squad in Germany. After a loan to German second-division Sandhausen, he made seven Bundesliga appearances and scored once for Schalke’s first unit in 2018-19.
Wright signed with VVV-Venlo in the Dutch top tier, but failed to score in 22 league matches. It was then onto Sonderjyske, where he began to find his way in 2020-21. The Danish side decided to loan him to Antalyaspor this past season.
“Having moved around a lot the last couple years, it has added some life experience and life understanding,” Wright said. “When you witness different styles of play, you learn more instead of playing in one country your whole life. I do understand soccer a little bit more than when I first started off.”
He credited his manager, former Turkish midfielder Nuri Sahin, for tutoring him.
“He puts me in situations where I can help the team score goals and create goals,” Wright said. “He has also taught me a lot about being a striker. He helped me more in my build-up play and link-up play, my positioning. He has put me in places where I can be in front of the goal and the guy taking shots and [getting] rebounds.”
Wright finished tied for seventh in the Super Lig scoring race, and his club finished on a 16-game unbeaten streak to soar to seventh on the 20-team circuit, nine spots higher than the previous year.
“He’s been able to start dominating in games,” Berhalter said, adding that it was the “perfect time” to invite Wright to U.S. camp.
Pulisic appreciates Wright’s arduous path, saying: “I really respect people who haven’t necessarily had it easy. He’s had ups and downs, and to come out the other side and be performing like he is now is impressive.” | 2022-06-08T13:47:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | USMNT's Haji Wright returns to U.S. program - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/06/08/haji-wright-usmnt-return/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/06/08/haji-wright-usmnt-return/ |
Phil Mickelson won’t leave PGA Tour or say whether he was suspended
It has been a rocky road for Phil Mickelson, to say the least, but he has arrived in London and will play for the Saudi-backed LIV golf tour this week. (Paul Childs/Reuters)
Phil Mickelson, his reputation battered by his decision to play in the Saudi-backed LIV golf series, said Wednesday that he does not plan to follow Dustin Johnson and others in quitting the PGA Tour and again stopped short of saying whether he had been disciplined by the PGA.
“I’ve gained a lot from the PGA Tour, and I’ve received a lot,” Mickelson told reporters on the eve of the LIV’s first event, which offers a total prize fund of $255 million, at the Centurion Club near London. “I’ve worked really hard to contribute and add value to the tour during my time there. I worked really hard to earn a lifetime exemption, and I don’t want to give that up and I don’t feel like I should have to.
Mickelson, 51, is back in the sport after taking a break in the hubbub over his comments on the Saudis and the LIV Series. He refused to clear up the question of whether the PGA had suspended him. “I have a lot of strong opinions on things that should and could be a lot better,” Mickelson said. “One of the mistakes I’ve made is voicing those publicly. So I will really make an effort to keep those conversations behind closed doors going forward. I think that’s the way to be the most efficient and get the most out of it.”
Barry Svrluga: When golfers ignore who sign the checks, they miss what's being bought
Sporting a scruffy beard, the six-time major champion frequently paused to weigh his words before answering. He declined to say if reports that he would receive $200 million for playing in the eight Saudi events were accurate and repeated that he does “not condone human rights violations.” Mickelson’s comments on the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi and other human rights violations had prompted a strong backlash against a golfer who has been one of the most popular American athletes for years. The Saudis have denied involvement in Khashoggi’s death.
“I don’t condone human rights violations at all,” Mickelson said. “Nobody here does, throughout the world. I’m certainly aware of what’s happened with Jamal Khashoggi, and I think it’s terrible. I’ve also seen the good that the game of golf has done throughout history, and I believe that LIV Golf is going to do a lot of good for the game as well. I’m excited about this opportunity, and that’s why I’m here.”
Mickelson has not played in a PGA Tour event since missing the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open in late January. The absence followed his comments to biographer Alan Shipnuck that he was willing to overlook Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.
“They’re scary motherf-----s to get involved with,” Mickelson said. “We know they killed [Khashoggi] and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”
On Wednesday, Mickelson declined to address those and other comments to Shipnuck in his roughly 30-minute interview but said he has “said and done a lot of things that I regret. I’m sorry for that and sorry for the hurt it caused a lot of people.” He pointed out that his four-month break was something he hadn’t had in over 30 years.
“I’ve had an opportunity to spend time with my wife, Amy, and spend time traveling to parts of the world, spend time at a place we have in Montana skiing and hike in Sedona. It’s given me a time to continue some of the work and therapy in areas where I’m deficient in my life,” he said. “It’s given me time to reflect what I want to do going forward and what’s best for me and what’s best for the people I care about.”
He intends to play the four majors (the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and British Open), which are not operated by the PGA Tour. The U.S. Golf Association puts on the U.S. Open and it announced Tuesday that any golfer who has qualified for next week’s tournament will be allowed to play at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass. | 2022-06-08T13:47:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Phil Mickelson says he's not quitting the PGA Tour - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/06/08/phil-mickelson-pga-tour-liv/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/06/08/phil-mickelson-pga-tour-liv/ |
From left, former Team USA gymnasts Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols are among the women who have filed a lawsuit against the FBI over its handling of the Larry Nassar investigation. (Saul Loeb/AP)
“My fellow survivors and I were betrayed by every institution that was supposed to protect us — the US Olympic Committee, USA Gymnastics, the FBI and now the Department of Justice. I had some hope that they would keep their word and hold the FBI accountable after we poured out our hearts to the US Senate Judiciary Committee and begged for justice. It is clear that the only path to justice and healing is through the legal process,” Olympic gold medalist McKayla Maroney said in the statement. | 2022-06-08T13:47:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Gymnasts sue FBI for $1 billion over mishandling of Larry Nassar case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/06/08/larry-nassar-victims-fbi-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/06/08/larry-nassar-victims-fbi-lawsuit/ |
Elmer Wyatt in an undated photograph. (Courtesy of Verona Scott)
How a charming cabbie named Elmer Wyatt became a Nixon mole against the Democrats
Even his family always wondered about Elmer Wyatt. By the 1970s, this charmer with the impish smile had been driving a taxi in Washington for more than three decades. But how was it that he seemed to know everyone at the racetracks and the gambling parlors? How was it that so many politicos were not only his regular customers, but his pals?
“He always had a secret side of things,” Wyatt’s daughter, Verona Scott, told me with a laugh in a recent interview. “He always had something going on, you know, some scheme. He just had his hands in a lot of pots.”
Half a century later, mysteries still linger about Wyatt. According to family lore, he used to run numbers in old D.C. Who knows? Yet some of the cabbie’s clandestine life can be pieced together by burrowing into congressional hearing transcripts and peeking into a box of mementos, tucked away for decades and shared publicly for the first time with The Washington Post.
It turns out that Elmer Wyatt was a spy in the scandal of the century: Watergate. And he was the best of spies, according to his handler in the recesses of Richard Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign.
Wyatt’s involvement in Watergate tracks back to 1971 when he had a stroke that kept him from working as a cabbie for six weeks, according to a written statement he provided to congressional investigators in a closed-door interview. That fall, he was easing back to work and called his old friend John Buckley to seek help finding a part-time gig, according to the confidential statement, which was recently provided to The Post by Wyatt’s family.
Wyatt and Buckley had met years earlier when Buckley was an FBI agent. Wyatt was at a gambling establishment where Buckley made a bust, according to Buckley’s testimony to the Senate Watergate Committee. The authorities interviewed Wyatt as a witness, then released him.
When Wyatt called, Buckley had retired from the FBI and was working in the inspection division at the federal Office of Economic Opportunity. He’d been hired by its then-director, Donald Rumsfeld, who decades later served as defense secretary under President George W. Bush during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Buckley did indeed have a job for Wyatt. It dawned on him that drivers have special access to, and proximity to, candidates and campaigns. He seized on the idea of having Wyatt pose as a volunteer for the campaign of Edmund Muskie, the Democratic U.S. senator from Maine who Nixon most feared as an opponent in the upcoming presidential campaign. Once ensconced, Wyatt could spy on the Muskie campaign. Buckley, according to his testimony, got sign-off for the operation from Kenneth Rietz, an official on the Committee to Re-elect the President, known by its nickname CREEP. Buckley used the code name “Jack Kent” while engaged in political espionage, but the CREEP crew called their portly operative “Fat Jack.” Wyatt accepted the assignment immediately, figuring he’d make some easy money.
One day, Wyatt strolled into Muskie campaign headquarters in Washington and told the staff that he liked Sen. Muskie and wanted to help out. They eventually began using him as a courier.
At home in Maryland, Wyatt’s interest in the campaign puzzled his family. “I could never understand why my dad was volunteering for Muskie, because we were Republicans,” Scott, his daughter, says.
Fat Jack’s plan was simple but flawed: The cabbie would call him after collecting documents to ferry from Muskie’s campaign headquarters to the senator’s Capitol Hill office. They’d meet on a street corner in downtown Washington. Fat Jack would sit in the back seat photographing documents while Wyatt drove, then hop out, and the cabbie would continue heading for Muskie’s office. With the sunlight coming in through the windows, Fat Jack was struggling to get good pictures. After a week of frustration, he rented an office instead. He bought an enlarging machine, a camera stand and a better camera. He’d take the film home and develop it. Then he’d meet Rietz on one of two corners near the White House to deliver the material.
But they couldn’t even get that right. Rietz was always showing up late for the photo drop. Fat Jack got annoyed. Rietz was replaced by someone who went by the name “Ed Warren.” He was more punctual. Even though they were conspiring to help Nixon, Fat Jack’s new contact wasn’t entirely transparent with him. After the Watergate scandal broke, Buckley learned that Ed Warren was actually E. Howard Hunt, the former CIA agent who was arrested for masterminding the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in June 1972.
When Buckley was hauled before Congress to testify in October 1973, he was vague about what Wyatt collected for him. He claimed not to remember many details but said the material included not-yet-public drafts of upcoming speeches, position papers and news releases. He remembered seeing a draft of a Muskie letter about the nomination of William Rehnquist to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court and said it was possible that a newspaper column referring to a confidential campaign memo might have come from Wyatt’s cache.
Elmer Wyatt claimed he didn’t really know what was going on until about two months into the operation. By then he’d gotten used to the easy money: starting out at $150 a week, which later got bumped to $175, for just a few hours of non-strenuous labor. In his statement to congressional investigators, he described his eight months as a mole as if it were some sort of well-being regimen that allowed him to make a living while he was easing back into the work world.
“I was able to take thing easey [sic] and regain my health,” the statement to committee investigators reads. “Thanks to the Watergate I am now able to do a days [sic] work, 7 days a week.”
Wyatt and Fat Jack shut down their surveillance in April 1972 as Muskie’s campaign fizzled and the senator dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination. The next month, Wyatt received a signed thank-you note from Muskie that looks like a form letter. At the time Muskie would have been unlikely to know that he was showing his appreciation to a man who’d spied on him — the DNC break-in arrests wouldn’t happen for another month. Still, with all we know now, the letter almost reads like a premonition.
“Political work, perhaps more than most areas of endeavor, demonstrates the qualities that each of us has,” the previously undisclosed letter reads. “The long hours and hectic pace, coupled with often great pressures, tend to bring out the best or the worst in everyone involved.”
The next year, as Congress delved into Buckley’s operation, staffers called in Wyatt to answer some questions. He denied any involvement, according to a transcript of the Senate Watergate hearings. When they called him back a second time, he fessed up.
“I don’t think I did anymore wrong than you or anyone else who walked into Muskie’s office at the time,” Wyatt wrote in his statement to congressional investigators. Buckley insisted, under skeptical questioning from senators, that he and Wyatt were not engaged in illegal activities. But he admitted they were “spying” and involved in “political espionage.” He portrayed their Muskie project as routine opposition research.
Buckley and Wyatt were never charged with crimes. Wyatt, refreshed from his easy Watergate spying job, went back to driving a cab — and faded back into obscurity. He’d host poker games at his house, sometimes waking up his daughter, Verona, to play a hand for him. She was his lucky charm. He’d play the lottery using his cab number: 108.
He died in No. 108 one day in 1981. Just pulled over to the side of the road and breathed his last. At his memorial service, his family played the Kenny Rogers song “The Gambler.”
“For a taxi driver, he led a very interesting life,” Scott says.
In 2005, Wyatt’s son died, and eventually Verona Scott ended up with that box of mementos kept by the complicated, entertaining father she remembers so fondly. Inside was a photo of John R. Buckley, signed “Fat Jack.” The inscription reads: “To Elmer Wyatt, Friend, sometimes taxi driver — other times spy — The most effective, legal and legitimate spy in the whole Watergate mess!” | 2022-06-08T13:56:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Elmer Wyatt, a D.C. taxi driver, became Watergate's 'best spy' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/06/08/elmer-wyatt-spied-for-nixon/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/06/08/elmer-wyatt-spied-for-nixon/ |
Police said the man fled briefly with the child on Tuesday before putting him down and leaving the scene
A man allegedly tried to kidnap a child in Georgetown, police said. (iStock) (iStock)
A man tried to kidnap a child Tuesday afternoon in Georgetown, D.C. police said.
The incident unfolded around 2:30 p.m. in the 3100 block of M Street NW, not far from the waterfront area. According to a police report, the man walked up to three women — one of whom had a child — and “started talking” to the child.
The women and the child started to walk away to a nearby bus stop. While they were waiting with the child at the stop, the man walked up to them and again “started a conversation” with them and the child, according to a police report.
One of the woman took out her phone to check when the bus would come and as she was doing that, police said, the man picked up the boy and ran off with him. She chased after the man “yelling and screaming” before the man put the boy down and fled, police said.
Officials are looking for the man; they did not provide a description of him. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 202-727-9099. | 2022-06-08T14:00:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A man tried to kidnap a child in Georgetown, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/08/georgetown-kidnap-attempt/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/08/georgetown-kidnap-attempt/ |
FUNAFUTI, TUVALU - NOVEMBER 25: An aerial view of a strip of land between the Pacific Ocean (L) and lagoon on November 25, 2019 in Funafuti, Tuvalu. The low-lying South Pacific island nation of about 11,000 people has been classified as ‘extremely vulnerable’ to climate change by the United Nations Development Programme. The world’s fourth-smallest country is struggling to cope with climate change related impacts including five millimeter per year sea level rise (above the global average), tidal and wave driven flooding, storm surges, rising temperatures, saltwater intrusion and coastal erosion on its nine coral atolls and islands, the highest of which rises about 15 feet above sea level. In addition, the severity of cyclones and droughts in the Pacific Island region are forecast to increase due to global warming. Some scientists have predicted that Tuvalu could become inundated and uninhabitable in 50 to 100 years or less if sea level rise continues. The country is working toward a goal of 100 percent renewable power generation by 2025 in an effort to curb pollution and set an example for larger nations. Tuvalu is also exploring a plan to build an artificial island. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) (Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images AsiaPac)
Though lightly populated, the Pacific Islands are critical to the security interests of the US and its allies. In particular, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau — which are bound by so-called Compacts of Free Association that offer the US exclusive military access to their territory — serve as a “power-projection superhighway” linking US forces in Hawaii to forward positions in the theater. Western planners assume China’s ultimate aim is to counter the US by gaining a military foothold itself in countries such as the Solomon Islands or Kiribati, from where it could extend the reach of its navy and threaten lines of communication to Australia and New Zealand.
Given the stakes, US engagement with the region has been mystifyingly inconsistent. Past pledges to deepen economic and security ties — dating back 30 years — have fizzled out after initial fanfare. Efforts by the previous US and Australian governments to improve relations were undercut by their skepticism about climate change — an existential issue for low-lying island nations. US President Joe Biden’s administration sent a terrible signal by letting talks to renew economic assistance to the three Compact nations languish until very recently. The US only ranked fifth in direct aid to the region between 2009 and 2019, behind Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan.
• China Is Winning the Battle for the South Pacific: James Stavridis
• The Islands the West Forgot But China Didn’t: Ruth Pollard | 2022-06-08T14:05:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The US Should Be Paying More Attention to the Pacific - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-us-shouldbe-paying-more-attention-to-the-pacific/2022/06/08/bae38e0e-e72b-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-us-shouldbe-paying-more-attention-to-the-pacific/2022/06/08/bae38e0e-e72b-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
What Did We Learn From Tuesday’s Primaries?
Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump gather at a ‘Stop the Steal’ protest as President-elect Joe Biden is declared the winner of the U.S. presidential election, in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020. Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. has defeated Donald Trump to become the 46th U.S. president, unseating the incumbent with a pledge to unify and mend a nation reeling from a worsening pandemic, faltering economy and deep political divisions. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
Here’s a quick look around another primary night. This time seven states voted, including primaries in most and also a slow-reporting first-round election in California’s top-two system. Three points that I noticed:1. We’re going to hear a lot from Republicans over the next few weeks about how voters don’t care about the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 last year or about former President Donald Trump’s attempts to stay in office despite losing the election. For the most part, I think they’re correct. Voters tend to not care about lots of important things, after all. Or, more accurately, lots of important things don’t normally affect many votes.Regardless, the uncomfortable truth is that quite a few candidates are talking about the 2020 election this year, and those candidates are … Republicans. Last week, Pennsylvania Republicans nominated a gubernatorial candidate running on false claims of election fraud, while a Trump-endorsed candidate for governor in Georgia was badly defeated after he spent much of his campaign talking about 2020. This week, once again, some of the more active contests on the Republican side involved 2020-obsessed candidates. In South Dakota, incumbent Representative Dusty Johnson held off a candidate who ran on a supposed failure to investigate election fraud. In Mississippi’s third district, incumbent Michael Guest was forced into a runoff after voting in favor of a bipartisan commission to investigate Jan. 6, an effort that was defeated by Senate Republicans. And in California, incumbent Representative David Valadao was targeted after voting to impeach Trump. Certainly, a lot of Republican candidates — and at least one former president — think it’s essential to keep focused on the 2020 election.2. Perhaps the biggest headline on the Democratic side Tuesday was the successful recall of San Francisco’s reform-minded district attorney, Chesa Boudin. The vote was so lopsided that news organizations called the result soon after the polls closed, and with half the vote counted the margin was 20 percentage points for the “Yes” side. Yet across the Bay, a reform candidate was leading in first-round voting for Alameda County district attorney. I’ll suggest two speculative explanations. One is that in such contests, where partisanship isn’t present or isn’t relevant (both counties are overwhelmingly Democratic), individual candidates and their campaigns are what matters — and what’s important about those candidates is not necessarily ideology. At the same time, what matters to voters is generally outcomes, not policies — which means that when people are upset about crime, they’re likely to want to throw the bums out and try something different, which will have radically different results depending on which bums happen to be in office in that jurisdiction.Of course, when it comes to the general election, the bums who matter most will be President Joe Biden and the Democratic majorities in Congress. And if people remain upset about inflation and more, Biden will remain unpopular and Democrats are apt to get clobbered.3. Over the course of the day, I noticed several political scientists complaining about how difficult it is to vote in California. Not the mechanics of physically voting; California makes that easy with a form of automatic voter registration and mail-in balloting. But the ballot itself is a mess. As one graduate student said: “the informational burden that our system places on voters is insane! We have far too many elected offices with overlapping and murky spheres of jurisdiction.” In part, this is a necessary trade-off for the ability in a federalist system to have politics at the local level. But politics can’t be meaningfully democratic if there are so many different local governments (cities, counties, school boards, special districts) that it takes considerable attention to even understand which is which. And that’s just the beginning of it.My quickie three-prong reform plan: 1) No judicial elections. 2) Consolidate executive branches as much as possible. 3) No statewide ballot measures. Yes, that would give more influence to elected governors and legislatures (who would choose and confirm judges and statewide officials). But that works, more or less, at the federal level. And it would at least give voters a fighting chance to know what we’re doing. | 2022-06-08T14:05:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Did We Learn From Tuesday’s Primaries? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-did-we-learn-from-tuesdays-primaries/2022/06/08/86fe2dc8-e727-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-did-we-learn-from-tuesdays-primaries/2022/06/08/86fe2dc8-e727-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
Located about 100 miles off the coast of New York City, the Hudson Canyon is one of the largest underwater ones in the world
A computer-generated map, created by professor Peter A. Rona at Rutgers University, shows the Hudson Canyon on the ocean floor in 2006. (Mel Evans/AP)
Long ago, the retreat of ice age glaciers carved one of the largest underwater canyons in the world into the seabed about a hundred miles from New York City. Now hundreds of species live there, including sperm whales, sea turtles and deep-sea corals.
On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced that it intends to designate the area a new national marine sanctuary, which would give it some of the same protections afforded to national parks.
The Hudson Canyon — spanning nearly 7½ miles wide and more than two miles deep in some places — rivals the Grand Canyon in scale. The push to add it to the National Marine Sanctuary System reflects the Biden administration’s broader effort to safeguard critical habitat threatened by development and global warming by conserving 30 percent of the nation’s land and waters by 2030.
“A sanctuary near one of the most densely populated areas of the Northeast U.S. would connect diverse communities across the region to the ocean and the canyon in new and different ways,” said Rick Spinrad, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in a statement. “As someone who grew up in New York City and went on to a career in ocean science, I am excited about how this amazing underwater environment can inspire shared interest in conserving our ocean.”
How protecting the ocean can save species and fight climate change
Wednesday marks World Oceans Day, when global leaders often make commitments to protect areas off their nation’s shores. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland also plans to sign an order to phase out the sale of single-use plastic products in national parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands by 2032. The measure directs the department to find compostable or biodegradable alternatives — an effort to reduce the federal government’s contribution to the 14 million tons of plastic that wind up in the ocean every year.
Some national parks banned the sale of plastic water bottles in 2011 to reduce pollution. Despite evidence that the prohibition was working, the Trump administration ended it six years later.
Environmentalists applauded the Biden administration’s decision.
“The Department of Interior’s single-use plastic ban will curb millions of pounds of unnecessary disposable plastic,” said Christy Leavitt, plastics campaign director for the ocean conservation group Oceana.
The administration will also announce plans Wednesday to craft an ocean climate action plan with guidance on renewable energy development, zero-emission shipping and other ocean-related efforts to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.
Biden officials have not determined the size of the proposed marine sanctuary, which was nominated for protection by the Wildlife Conservation Society’s New York Aquarium in 2016. The contours of the sanctuary — including what it will be called and the types of activities permitted there — will be subject to a public comment period, during which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will seek input from conservationists, the fishing industry and offshore energy developers, among others.
Before the plan becomes final, the agency must conduct an environmental impact analysis and write a management plan, which could take a year or more to complete.
The naturalist William Beebe was the first to explore the Hudson Canyon during his 1925 deep-sea voyage in the Bathysphere, the first crewed submersible. Since 2000, scientists have worked to map the canyon’s sea floor, document the species that live within its steep slopes and investigate the seeps that release methane gas from the seafloor.
Their explorations have revealed an ecosystem teeming with wildlife.
Researchers have found at least 200 species of fish, including Atlantic bluefin tuna and dusky sharks, within the canyon. During the summer months, endangered sperm whales, bottlenose dolphins and threatened loggerhead sea turtles have been spotted in the canyon. Along its steep walls, rocky outcrops and boulders host anemones, sponges and slow-growing coral colonies, some of which are thought to be more than 1,000 years old.
Humans have also made their mark.
The canyon holds shipwrecks and deep-sea communications cables that connect the East Coast to the rest of the world. Massive container ships traveling to the Port of New York and New Jersey pass through its waters, as do whale-watching vessels and commercial fishing boats. Until the 1990s, when the region changed its dumping practices, the canyon suffered from exposure to sewage flows and toxins from New York City and northern New Jersey. Canyon explorers have documented corals covered in plastic and other debris.
Supporters of designating the Hudson Canyon as a marine sanctuary say it would help fund new research and support the local economy by ensuring the survival of fish, scallops and squid that keep fisheries in business.
In its nominating proposal to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Wildlife Conservation Society said the canyon “remains a mysterious deep ocean wilderness.”
“Distance from land and the depth of the Canyon have resulted in limited human presence thereby protecting, in large part, its ecological integrity,” it wrote.
The group has asked that the canyon be permanently protected from oil, gas and mineral development, but did not request restrictions on fishing. And though developers are planning to build commercial wind farms off the Atlantic coast, the canyon’s distance from shore and extreme depths makes it an undesirable location for industrial wind projects.
John Calvelli, the society’s executive vice president for public affairs, said in an interview that the canyon has the potential to become a haven for ocean creatures threatened by climate change.
“The thinking is this area could really become a refuge for species that need colder water,” he said. “We want to make sure we’re protecting it for the future.”
An Alaska Native tribe on a remote island north of the Aleutians also celebrated on Wednesday that its coastal waters in the eastern Bering Sea have been nominated for consideration as a future marine sanctuary.
The Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, a federally recognized tribe, nominated Alagum Kanuux (Heart of the Ocean), an area off the Pribilof Islands that is home to more than half the world’s population of fur seals, as well as Steller sea lions, and numerous birds.
The shores of the Pribilof Islands have been buffeted by ocean plastics and conservation groups participate in regular cleanups that yields tens of thousands of pounds of discarded fishing gear and other debris.
Josh Partlow contributed to this report. | 2022-06-08T14:05:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden proposes new marine sanctuary in Atlantic Ocean - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/06/08/atlantic-marine-sanctuary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/06/08/atlantic-marine-sanctuary/ |
Across the country, educational equity was in vogue. Then it wasn’t.
A Colorado Springs superintendent loses his job after school board elections usher in conservatives
Adam Palmer talks with students in his economics class in Colorado Springs on April 6, 2022. (Chet Strange for The Washington Post)
COLORADO SPRINGS — A racial equity program that began with widespread support and was propelled by George Floyd’s murder all but died on a chilly Wednesday evening in a near-empty school board meeting room.
During a budget debate, a pair of liberal board members were no match for the newly elected majority. The conservatives had taken office after a campaign focused on race and allegations that critical race theory had invaded the local schools, the most diverse in El Paso County.
Their victory last November had already resulted in the superintendent’s departure. Now the equity program he championed was on its way out, too.
“Our hope is the board would see the value of the work of supporting every child,” said school board member Julie Ott in what she knew was a losing case.
If Floyd’s murder forced many schools to consider that systemic racism was holding back students of color, the 2021 elections delivered a backlash. Across the country last year, school board elections became the epicenter of a culture war over race. Conservative victories led many boards to fire superintendents and curtail racial justice initiatives.
After conservatives took over in Queen Anne’s County, Md., in December 2020, the school board dissolved a contract with an equity firm hired to close achievement gaps. It also removed the words “implicit bias” and “systemic,” as in “systemic racism,” from the school system’s equity policy.
In New York’s Smithtown Central School District, three conservative candidates won seats on the board in May 2021 and restricted the use of 34 instructional videos because they mentioned human sexuality and the Black Lives Matter movement.
And in Kansas’s Derby Public Schools, after conservatives won a majority last November, the board forced a high school principal to apologize for showing his staff a four-minute video about White privilege and barred high schools from teaching the novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.”
In Colorado, several school boards were taken over by conservatives promising a new direction. That included Colorado Springs, where Michael Thomas, the District 11 superintendent, was so dismayed by members who campaigned for office against his priorities that he negotiated an exit package, making him one of dozens of superintendents who were ousted or quit in the wake of last year’s balloting.
The result was the end of the equity program before it really began. Plans to beef up recruitment of a diverse teaching staff, to address the implicit biases of teachers and to overhaul discipline practices are all now dead or in limbo.
“My frustration is that schools in our country have become highly politicized, more than they ever have been,” said Thomas, who was hired as superintendent here in 2018. “Our schools are where social warfare is waged in America.”
A new leader arrives
District 11 sits at the foot of Pikes Peak on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, inside a Republican county that is home to some 400 churches and headquarters for Focus on the Family, a conservative social issues advocacy group. The county is politically conservative, voting twice for Donald Trump. In the center is District 11, where about half the students are White and a third are Hispanic.
When the longtime schools superintendent announced he was retiring in 2018, the board looked for a leader prepared to address the lower achievement rates and “opportunity gaps” facing students of color and lower-income students, said Nora Brown, who was on the school board at the time.
“We knew we had a lot of diversity within our different schools, and different areas needed different things in order to succeed,” Brown said.
Thomas was a senior official with the Minneapolis Public Schools when he heard about the job opening. He had worked on issues of diversity and equity in previous jobs; he was hunting for a position where he could drive an equity agenda. In the interview process, he concluded that District 11 was interested in the same things.
During his interview, he told members of the community that equity work is “near and dear” to his life and career and that he was focused on “how we can be more culturally responsive to our communities,” he recalled.
Thomas arrived in July 2018 and soon began work on a strategic plan, adopted in June 2019, that promised “equitable practices to meet the unique needs of all.”
That summer, Thomas and two school board members traveled to Harvard University for a seminar where they worked on developing an equity policy, with the goal of targeting resources — staff or programming — to students who need the most help. In May 2020, the school board voted unanimously to adopt it, and Thomas appointed a director of equity and inclusion to lead a new department, with funding from a private grant.
Floyd’s death propels equity work
About the same time, back in Thomas’s hometown of Minneapolis, a police officer pressed his knee into the neck of George Floyd for nine minutes and 29 seconds, killing him and spurring nationwide protests and a reckoning over systemic racism, including in schools.
Thomas was shaken. He penned an open letter to the community relaying his strong emotional reaction to the killing, observing the pent-up rage “stemming from systemic oppression” and decrying repeated injustices toward African Americans and other people of color. He disclosed publicly for the first time that he was wrongly pulled over by police when he was 18 years old — and how scared he was.
“We have considerable work before us to eradicate the inequitable outcomes within our district,” he wrote.
The letter “got mixed reviews,” Thomas said. He received a lot of support, including a call from the former police chief in the community where he was pulled over as a teenager. But others accused him of “politicizing issues in my role as superintendent," he said. Soon he began hearing questions about whether he was “anti-police.”
“I’m not just seen as a superintendent,” he said. “I’m seen as a Black superintendent.”
That fall, the district contracted with a consulting firm to produce an “equity audit” — a review of district data and policies. These audits have become popular with administrators looking to unpack racial disparities in areas such as test scores, grades, discipline rates, placement in advanced classes and graduation rates.
The results came in June 2021: The audit found gaps in student achievement between schools in the district and within schools. The campuses with a majority of Hispanic and Black students, and with more students in poverty, performed below predominantly White and wealthier schools. Students of color performed below White students attending the same schools.
The report attributed the gaps to a concentration of high-needs students, failure to spend more money where it was most needed, and inequitable access to the best teachers. It also cited implicit bias on the part of teachers and a lack of diversity in the workforce. A survey of teachers showed that those working in high-poverty schools were less likely to expect that their students would go to college.
Fixing these things would require a look at the systems that powered the district. While controversial books and lessons often garner headlines, it’s this work under the hood that makes up much of the racial equity drive in schools.
For Alexis Knox-Miller, the newly appointed equity director, this was personal. She had worked in the district since 2014, as a second-grade teacher, instructional coach and assistant principal. She had felt the sting of microaggressions.
Once, for instance, she was observing a teacher who had her dogs in the classroom. The teacher lifted one up, held it next to Knox-Miller’s hair — which she wore naturally — and said, “You guys have the same hair!” Miller quickly left the room. Even worse, she had heard about a Black custodian being called the n-word by someone who worked in the school.
So she was excited but nervous when she became the district’s first equity director. The audit she would supervise was meant to help the district understand and remedy the problems she had been seeing.
The backlash begins
By the time the results were released, in summer 2021, the mood in America had shifted. Conservative complaints about critical race theory were proliferating across the country, including in Colorado Springs.
“People started protesting that there was even an audit,” Knox-Miller said. “I started getting crazy phone calls every time I sent out anything about equity.”
Lauren Nelson, who has two children in the district, wrote a 15-page letter to the district leadership in June 2021 questioning the equity work, top to bottom, and complaining that Thomas had aired his personal views after Floyd’s murder. She doubted systemic racism exists today.
“It appears District 11 is diverting its focus from education in the basics such as reading, science and math but instead is educating future generations in ideological or political viewpoints,” she wrote.
“Dr. Thomas believes the United States to be systemically racist,” she continued. “He has repeatedly connected these tragic events to racism. Perhaps racism did play a part. How does he know?” she wrote.
When Knox-Miller presented the audit findings to the school board in last August, conservatives were starting to complain about how the district was handling race.
“The number one question that people are asking me: ‘Is critical race theory in our classrooms?’ ” Thomas told the school board at its Aug. 4 work session. It’s not, he said. “When people are conflating equity with critical race theory, they’re grossly mistaken.”
Critical race theory, an academic construct that looks at the consequences of systemic racism, is not taught in K-12 classrooms, though the underlying ideas are part of lessons and policies in many places. And the equity findings that Knox-Miller was about to present were based on the idea that there was in fact systemic racism in the district.
For instance, the audit found that while 49 percent of students were children of color, just 19 percent of teachers were.
The board generally welcomed the results, with a few probing questions. One member, Parth Melpakam, said he agreed with the goal of employing a diverse teaching corps but added it was important that “competence and excellence are not sacrificed.”
Knox-Miller bristled. “When we start talking about equity, we always assume that somehow we are sacrificing excellence, and we are not,” she said. Later, in a letter to the school board president, she complained about comments that Melpakam and another board member had made. “The questions they asked were inappropriate and laced with racist/supremacist tropes,” she wrote.
The school board president shared the letter with Melpakam, and he was offended. Was he not allowed to ask any questions about this effort without being called racist?
As last fall’s political campaign intensified, Knox-Miller continued her work, setting up training sessions for staff and creating a Diversity and Equity Leadership Team to review programs and ensure that they aligned with the district’s equity focus. She also took the audit findings on the road for a series of “equity cafes” where she would discuss the report with parents and other community members.
Among the attendees at these sessions were members of a local conservative group called Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism. They were there not to address the findings but to criticize the equity push as another form of racism. The entire enterprise, members argued, was a damaging form of “race essentialism,” defining students by their skin color.
At the equity cafes, Joseph Boyle, a leader of the group, repeatedly tried to ask questions and was told he wasn’t allowed.
The group “followed me to every community cafe,” Knox-Miller said. “They were there, poisoning the room.”
Boyle’s complaint that the equity work looked at the world through a racial lens felt personal to her. “I’m a Black woman, and I’m sorry, the world looks at me through a racialized lens. We’re not colorblind," she said.
A reckoning at the ballot box
As Knox-Miller pressed on with her equity cafes, a slate of conservatives was running for the school board, including Nelson, who had written the letter questioning whether systemic racism still exists.
They received backing from a group of wealthy business leaders in the county, including Steve Schuck, who for years has advocated for more competition in education, favoring charter schools and taxpayer-funded vouchers for private schools. He paid for the printing of cards showing poor test scores in District 11, the clear implication being that the current administration was failing, and he had little sympathy for the argument that test scores during the pandemic, which were down nationally, might be a poor measure.
Schuck considered the administration’s focus on racial equity to be “a distraction and a diversion” from core academic content. “While people focused on that, they weren’t focused on teaching them how to read,” he said.
More backing for the conservatives came from a secret-donor super PAC. Schuck would not say whether he helped fund the group’s political activity.
Thomas, the superintendent, tried to stay above the fray as he worked to pass a school-tax increase, which was also on the ballot that November. But he could tell, based in part on public comments at school board meetings, that the atmosphere had shifted.
“Concerns,” he said, “were growing in our community.”
A conservative takeover
In November, all three conservatives won their school board races, taking down two incumbents.
Besides Nelson, the winners included Al Loma, a pastor who fills his Instagram feed with a steady stream of anti-LGBTQ, anti-vaccine, anti-masking and pro-gun memes. Sandra Bankes was elected after vowing: “CRT does not have a place in our classrooms.”
Together with Jason Jorgenson, who remained on the board, skeptics of the equity work now made up a majority of the seven-member panel.
The ramifications spilled out even before the new members took office. In December, Knox-Miller suspended the equity committee. She said she couldn’t allow the team to continue working hard if the board might kill the entire program. In March, she went on a medical leave.
“It’s too much of a personal toll,” she said. She was convinced the board would not continue to fund her position anyway.
As the new board took office, liberals grew furious at statements they saw as offensive. In February, Jorgenson posted an anti-transgender meme to his Facebook page. An open-records request showed Loma, in emails, referring to Black men who had spoken at a board meeting as “barking Chihuahuas” he wanted to “gangster slap.” (Jorgenson said he regrets making his “personally held beliefs” public on Facebook; Loma said, “That’s just who I am, how I talk.”)
Board meetings became standing-room-only affairs, with combatants on both sides lining up to speak and scrutinizing every utterance. Thomas was trying to figure out what he should do. Across the country, conservatives were taking over school boards, and several superintendents had already lost their jobs, including one in nearby Douglas County, Colo., where the schools chief was fired without cause by the new board. That led to an ugly public battle and a lawsuit.
“That, for me, was extremely alarming,” Thomas said. He considered what would happen if he was fired.
“I have too much respect and care for this community to let a public debacle like Douglas County happen in this community,” he said. “We are struggling enough to get out of all the pain and suffering from covid, let alone a very public meltdown between a superintendent and a board.”
The feeling that he should leave was evidently mutual, as the school board agreed to pay his salary and health-care costs for 14 months after he left the job, a separation package totaling nearly $300,000. Thomas said he is barred by his agreement from discussing any other details but added, “People are putting two and two together.”
Melpakam, who is now the board president, said he did not ask for Thomas’s resignation. His request, he said, was for him to “set aside politics” and “just focus on students and staff.”
It was called a “mutual separation,” but liberals in town blamed the board. At one meeting, a graduating senior, Delilah Tefertiller, laid into members.
“You forced Doctor Thomas, a progressive and forward thinker who had made amazing strides for D11, to resign,” she said. “You have stopped a committee whose only job was to make sure all students have the same opportunities to succeed. The purpose of a school board is to make choices that benefit each student, and as of right now, you are failing.”
Looking for someone new
Among teachers, there were rumbles that some might need to alter their teaching, though it wasn’t clear how often that has happened. One middle school science teacher, who asked not to be named, said she used to talk to her students about sexual orientation and gender identity during a unit on human sexuality, even though those topics are not required. After the school board changed hands, she said she stopped.
“Now with this hostile school board, I think I could get fired if they heard I was doing anything other than sticking to the script,” she said.
To inform the hiring of a new superintendent, a search firm hosted several community feedback sessions. One evening in April, about 15 parents gathered in a history classroom at Doherty High School decorated with posters Cesar Chavez and Anne Frank. A rainbow flag was tucked into the corner. There was little consensus in the room.
At one table sat a trio of women who are regulars at the school board’s meetings. “This community is majority-conservative — in worldview, politics, culture, faith,” said Pam Berg. She said candidates for the job “need to know that.”
Her friend Jennifer Bertram replied, “We showed that through the polls and the last election.”
On the other side of the room, Jane Adams, the mother of three D11 graduates, said candidates should know: “We have a dysfunctional school board.”
The next evening, the school board met for a work session. On the agenda was a decision about whether to continue funding the equity director’s job. In its first two years, it had been supported by a grant. Thomas had recommended that the district spend $122,840 to maintain the position.
But Thomas wasn’t there to defend his initiative. He was at home, submitting job applications (and would soon be offered a position in Minnesota). Knox-Miller wasn’t there either. She was officially on leave and, unofficially, had simply given up.
Two school board members spoke up for the funding, while others suggested the efforts could be absorbed by other departments.
“The work isn’t done. We know that,” said Ott, one of the two remaining liberals.
Melpakam noted that no one was in the room to defend the program. He said it was hard to justify the spending given a budget crunch that meant cutting about 50 teaching positions.
By now it was late in the evening. Melpakam asked board members to show by thumbs up or down their view on the funding for the equity department. The tally was 4 to 2 against. Loma, the pastor, had left the meeting early and didn’t vote.
Members also indicated they would soon revisit the equity policy itself — the one that had passed unanimously just two years earlier. And this month, the board named a White man, Michael Gaal, as its next superintendent.
Hannah Natanson contributed to this report. | 2022-06-08T14:05:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Conservatives won school-board majorities and reversed equity initiatives - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/06/08/school-board-equity-critical-race-theory/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/06/08/school-board-equity-critical-race-theory/ |
FILE - Debbie Harry, of Blondie, attends a screening of “Blondie: Vivir En La Habana” during the 20th Tribeca Festival in New York on June 16, 2021. The iconic rockers said Wednesday, June 8, 2022, they will release their first authorized collection in their 50-year history, a set that includes 124 tracks, 36 of which were never issued. “Blondie: Against The Odds 1974-1982” drops Aug. 26. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-06-08T14:05:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Iconic rockers Blondie to issue first box set this summer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/iconic-rockers-blondie-to-issue-first-box-set-this-summer/2022/06/08/4bf5731a-e72e-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/iconic-rockers-blondie-to-issue-first-box-set-this-summer/2022/06/08/4bf5731a-e72e-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
FILE - Musician Taylor Hawkins appears at One Love Malibu in Calabasas, Calif., on Dec. 2, 2018. Foo Fighters will honor the rock band’s late drummer Taylor Hawkins with a pair of tribute concerts in September — one in London and the other in Los Angeles. The twin shows will take place Sept. 3 at London’s Wembley Stadium and Sept. 27 at The Kia Forum in Los Angeles. Hawkins died March 25, 2022, during a South American tour with the rock band. He was 50. (Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-06-08T14:06:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Foo Fighters plan 2 tribute concerts for Taylor Hawkins - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/foo-fighters-plan-2-tribute-concerts-for-taylor-hawkins/2022/06/08/d8b271ec-e72c-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/foo-fighters-plan-2-tribute-concerts-for-taylor-hawkins/2022/06/08/d8b271ec-e72c-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
Danielle Allen returns as a Washington Post Opinions contributing columnist
Danielle Allen (Danielle Allen)
The Washington Post announced today that political philosopher and author Danielle Allen will rejoin the Opinions section as a contributing columnist, effective immediately. Allen wrote columns for The Post for several years until announcing in December 2020 that she was exploring a run for governor of Massachusetts as a Democrat. She went on to formally enter the race before ending her campaign this February.
“We are delighted to welcome back Danielle Allen to our roster of contributing columnists,” said deputy editorial page editor Ruth Marcus. “Danielle’s clear-eyed thinking about the promise of American democracy, along with its flaws and vulnerabilities, has always resonated with readers, and she will now bring to her writing the knowledge gained by first-hand experience with the political system.”
Allen is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and director of Harvard’s Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics. She has published numerous books on justice and citizenship, including most recently “Democracy in the Time of Coronavirus,” as well as the acclaimed 2017 family memoir “Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A.” In 2015, she served as chair of the Pulitzer Prize board. She lives in Cambridge, Mass. | 2022-06-08T14:07:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Danielle Allen returns as a Washington Post Opinions contributing columnist - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/2022/06/08/danielle-allen-returns-washington-post-opinions-contributing-columnist/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/2022/06/08/danielle-allen-returns-washington-post-opinions-contributing-columnist/ |
‘The Quarry’ is a standout slasher that takes just a few wrong turns
Review by Alyse Stanley
(Washington Post illustration; 2K Games)
Available on: PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and Series S, Xbox One
Developer: Supermassive Games | Publisher: 2K Games
I’m a huge fan of horror movies, but when it comes to horror games, I’m a wimp. And yet, I’m such a fan of Supermassive Games’ breakout hit “Until Dawn.” It’s an on-rails horror game where your choices determine who survives the night, so it feels more like you’ve been put in the director’s chair to construct your personal cheesy horror movie than being left to face the monsters on your own.
The studio followed it with The Dark Anthology Series, whose entries so far have fallen short of their predecessor. “The Quarry,” which Supermassive Games bills as the spiritual successor to “Until Dawn,” is a commendable effort to tap into that same winning formula. It nails the aesthetic and writing of classic slasher films, and its characters are some of the studio’s most compelling and memorable yet. But it’s not without its problems.
The story unfolds across 10 chapters and hits on all the horror movie tropes you’d expect. Hacket’s Quarry Summer Camp has wrapped up for the season, a group of young counselors ends up stuck there for an extra night, warned by their camp leader to stay inside until morning (who is he kidding?) and horny/scary shenanigans ensue. There’s skinny dipping, summer flings and boatloads of ill-advised decision-making. As in Supermassive Games’ previous titles, players control each of the characters throughout the night, jumping from one to another as they’re hunted down by mysterious, bloodthirsty beasts, which are hunted in turn by a family of menacing-looking locals straight out of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
That parallel feels intentional, one of many self-aware horror references throughout the game. There are Evil Dead jokes (a wink to Ted Raimi, who plays a central character) and fourth-wall breaking. “This isn’t a ghost story, it’s a creature feature and you’re all in it,” a character says at one point. I half expected her to turn to the camera like Jim from “The Office.”
But while undeniably cheesy, the writing rarely feels heavy-handed or cringey. In true slasher film fashion, the characters flirt and crack jokes even as they’re fighting for their lives, and it’s all very stupid, but the right kind of stupid. Lines like: “It’s my beer-dar. Helps me ‘dar for beers.” Or this running gag about how the creatures chasing them could just be bears, an explanation that becomes increasingly ridiculous as the night’s events unfold but that nevertheless keeps getting suggested.
For a story that feels so self-contained, “The Quarry” has an impressive number of branching paths and different endings. In “Until Dawn,” your only goal was to get everyone out alive. Not anymore. In my first playthrough, everyone lived to see another day (yay!) but also got arrested (boo!). Along with surviving the night, you also need to assemble enough evidence to clear the counselors’ names and learn the truth about all the craziness happening. It’s a framing that provides more impetus to explore and replay than previous games in the series, while still fitting convincingly into the narrative.
The game has plenty of scares as well, of course, and it’s very effective at building tension before terrifying sequences. The camera, alongside the creepy music, does a lot of the heavy lifting here. “The Quarry” alternates the standard third-person, shoulder-height camera controlled by the player and preset angles that enhance the scares. As I walk through the woods, a camera at ground level creeps slowly closer behind me, as if something’s following me. Or the camera might briefly switch to a perspective that’s further away, in between the trees, watching from afar. Wait, is that growling I hear? Then, just as quickly, it’s back over your shoulder as if nothing happened.
Frustratingly, though, “The Quarry” makes a habit out of shooting the momentum it so carefully builds right in the face. It’ll jump from action-packed sequences of fighting and quick-time events and mashing buttons to quiet segments where you wander around and search for clues. The pacing would pick up and just as quickly screech to a halt with the next scene, transitioning in one case from a bloody shootout to searching a junkyard for a car part. At another point, within the span of a few minutes, a character gets stabbed and then rifles through documents in an empty room with the knife still lodged between his ribs.
Cutscenes are more interactive this time around with the addition of aiming segments that weave in the same kind of high-stakes, quick decision-making for which the series is known. Armed with only a shotgun, you have to not only hit the target but gauge when it’s best to pull the trigger given the gun’s spread. You also have three extra lives this time around — another new feature — to save characters if you make a decision that ends badly. A warning though: Using one can rewind your progress a fair bit.
There are also additional gameplay options: streamer mode, which ditches “The Quarry’s” soundtrack of licensed music; movie mode, where players can sit back and watch predetermined outcomes; and couch co-op, where players pass the controller back and forth similar to previous games.
It’s not often I have a lot to say about a game’s menu options, but I have to give credit where credit is due: “The Quarry’s” UI is an impeccably tailored and delightful nostalgia trip. The vibes are immaculate. Slasher films saw their heyday in the late ’70s and ’80s, and Supermassive Games fully commits to that aesthetic. The starting screen menu mimics a chunky desktop from the early days of computer graphics. Each of the branching paths shaped by the player’s choices — the equivalent of the Butterfly Effect mechanic in “Until Dawn” — is represented by a VHS tape with a unique cover in the style of vintage horror movie posters. Several have stickers slapped on top: price tags and reminders to “Be kind and rewind!” When navigating the menu, you hear the same whirs, clicks and mechanical sounds as you would watching a tape on a VCR. The tutorials are animated shorts reminiscent of after school specials.
Supermassive Games does its best work when it embraces these kinds of callbacks, committing to the camp and cheesiness of the slasher films that inspired its games. Despite its stumbles, “The Quarry” is a testament to that, and while it doesn’t quite stack up to the original, it’s a compelling tribute that I’ll be playing again and again. | 2022-06-08T14:07:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Quarry review: Until Dawn successor is a slasher standout - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/reviews/the-quarry-review-supermassive-games/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/reviews/the-quarry-review-supermassive-games/ |
Why aren’t there more Republicans like Liz Cheney?
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-W.Y.) testifies before the House Rules Committee on Dec. 14, 2021. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)
Sure, politicians want to be re-elected. They will rarely take risks that run contrary to their political self-interests. But it sure seems like Republicans — with one glaring exception — have been much more inclined to sell their souls in recent years than Democrats.
Consider the confirmation hearings of Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh and Neil M. Gorsuch, specifically picked for their pre-approved views on abortion. But when Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was given a fig-leaf promise that they would not overturn Roe v. Wade, she jumped at the chance to confirm them and save her seat, betraying the abortion-rights movement and millions of women. (Her claim that she was bamboozled by Kavanaugh is hardly credible given the amount of information attesting to his views.)
But remember former Democratic senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota? They all knew their vote against Kavanaugh might cost them their seats. They opposed him anyway.
Regarding the House select committee investigation the Jan. 6 insurrection and the former president’s attempted coup, Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) is the sole Republican on the committee still seeking re-election. She has made clear she does not care whether it costs her in November. She readily agrees that her colleagues have lost their nerve. As she said during an interview with CBS News’s Robert Costa:
Cheney: We have too many people now in the Republican Party who are not taking their responsibilities seriously, and who have pledged their allegiance and loyalty to Donald Trump. I mean, it is fundamentally antithetical, it is contrary to everything conservatives believe, to embrace a personality cult. And yet, that is what so many in my party are doing today.
Costa: Is the Republican Party a personality cult?
Republicans are so petrified about the committee and its work that the MAGA crowd’s network of choice, Fox News, won’t even broadcast Thursday’s hearings live. (Disclaimer: I am an MSNBC contributor.)
Well, it’s easy for all the Democrats to join the Jan. 6 inquiry, right? Not in all cases. The New York Times reports: “Representative Elaine Luria knew from the start that serving on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol could be a political liability in her Republican-leaning district in Virginia’s tidewater.” Sure enough, the MAGA lackeys are using her service on the committee against her. She knows she may lose. “You just want to thumb your nose at that because that’s not the most important thing about serving,” she told the Times. "If I don’t get re-elected because of this, that’s OK.” No Republican but Cheney says the same these days.
With the passing of Arizona senator John McCain — who delighted in his “maverick” label and voted for gun regulations, immigration reform and against repeal of the Affordable Care Act — and the retirement of other Republicans with backbone (e.g., Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona), the party now consists almost entirely of timorous sheep willing to fall in line behind the MAGA base regardless of the consequences.
That’s odd considering Republicans are supposed to believe government is not the be-all and end-all of American life. They routinely sneer at government and attempt to starve it of revenue, yet they mortgage what conscience they have to keep their seats and remain on a government salary. No private sector for them!
It did not used to be that way. President George H.W. Bush arguably lost his presidency because he thought raising taxes was for the good of the country. You have to go back decades before McCain to find a comparably brave character on the GOP side: Maine Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, who stood up to fellow Republican Joseph McCarthy (Wis.).
I asked political scientist Norman Ornstein about the disparity. “I use the cult frame,” he explains. “For Republicans who know better, they are scared they will be shunned, viewed as traitors, excommunicated and even threatened. Not just by party elites, Fox and outside radical groups — by their friends and circles back home.” Ornstein notes that not every Republican is so supine, pointing to Reps. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Fred Upton (Mich.) — both of whom decided not to run for re-election this year. Apparently, the longer a Republican pol lives in a bubble of conspiracy theories, white hysteria and victimhood, the scarier it is to break with the “tribe.”
By contrast, Ornstein argues that, for Democrats, “the fear of backlash is less, and the desire to do the right thing, even if it is risky, is greater.” For one thing, Democrats tend to believe in government and hence are intensely motivated to get the policy “right” despite the career costs.
As the common saying goes, “Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line.” But falling in line is one thing; selling out every prior principle you once had, contributing to mass slaughter of children and undermining democracy are entirely different. Sadly, for too many Republicans, it’s only losing their seats and their right-wing TV spots that seem inconceivable. | 2022-06-08T14:18:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why aren’t there more Republicans like Liz Cheney? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/republicans-jan-6-committee-hearings-why-arent-there-more-republicans-like-liz-cheney/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/republicans-jan-6-committee-hearings-why-arent-there-more-republicans-like-liz-cheney/ |
Man sues American Airlines, says mistake led to 17-day jail ‘nightmare’
Michael Lowe takes a selfie aboard American Airlines Flight 2448 from Dallas to Reno, Nev., on May 12, 2020. (Michael Lowe)
Michael Lowe’s plane touched down in Dallas on May 12, 2020, just in time for him to catch an American Airlines connecting flight to Reno, Nev. But it set off a chain of events that, a new lawsuit alleges, led to his wrongful arrest and 17 days in jail more than a year later.
While locked up on a burglary charge, he endured “life-changing … incomprehensible trauma,” according to the suit filed Monday in Tarrant County, Tex., where part of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport is located.
Now, Lowe is suing American Airlines, which he says provided law enforcement with the information that led to his arrest. Lowe, a resident of Coconino County, Ariz., is asking for a jury trial and seeks unspecified damages.
An American Airlines spokesman told The Washington Post in an email that the company is reviewing what happened to Lowe but didn’t comment further.
Lowe’s attorney, Scott Palmer, told The Post in an email that he believes the blame for his client’s arrest and incarceration lies with the airline. “Without American’s disclosure of Michael’s name and information as the sole suspect the detective never would have issued the warrants,” Palmer wrote. “It all starts with the disclosure of Michael’s name and his name only.”
Disabled woman sues American Airlines, alleging she was ‘humiliated’ when she tried to use the lavatory
The chain of events that led to Lowe being jailed for 17 days started on May 12, 2020, when an unidentified man burglarized a duty-free store in the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. Detectives would later use surveillance video to track the suspect until he boarded American Airlines Flight 2248, which took off for Reno around 7 p.m. — shortly after the burglary.
Lowe was also on that flight, having arrived after a connecting flight from his home in Flagstaff, Ariz.
Unbeknown to Lowe, DFW airport police got a search warrant on June 18 ordering American Airlines to fork over “any and all recorded travel data” for the passengers from Flight 2248. Instead of relaying information for everyone on the flight, however, the company allegedly gave police details about just one: Lowe.
The airline did so, the suit alleges, despite Lowe not matching the suspect description police laid out in the search warrant affidavit: a tall, thin, White or Hispanic man with a short, military-style haircut who was wearing a black polo shirt and blue jeans when he burglarized the shop and then boarded the plane.
The airline’s tip, the lawsuit alleges, led to two arrest warrants for Lowe being issued on June 30 — one for felony burglary of a building and another for misdemeanor criminal mischief. Authorities entered those warrants into the National Crime Information Center database, which connects law enforcement agencies around the country.
There, the warrants waited for more than a year without incident.
Then, on July 4, 2021, police in Tucumcari, N.M., responded to a disturbance at a holiday celebration that Lowe attended while vacationing there with friends. Police checked the identifications of attendees and, after discovering Lowe’s warrants, arrested him.
Lowe told them there had been a mistake; he couldn’t remember the last time he had been to Tarrant County and didn’t know where that was. Realizing he wasn’t going to talk his way out of the arrest, Lowe told his friends not to worry; he would get things cleared up quickly and be back soon.
“He was wrong,” the lawsuit says.
Instead of returning to the festivities, Lowe spent 17 days suffering an “unending nightmare” inside the Quay County Detention Center in Tucumcari, the lawsuit says. Upon arrival, he was ordered to strip naked and prove he wasn’t smuggling contraband into the jail.
Lowe claims he hardly slept while in jail, what he described in his lawsuit as “the most trying physical test of [his] life.” At “the bottom of the pecking order,” he was forced to sleep on the concrete floor for much of the time. Even when he secured a metal bunk, he couldn’t sleep. Inmates banged on the walls and yelled for hours. One inmate, denied medication for his psychiatric conditions, screamed “random and incoherent” church hymns throughout the night, the lawsuit states. Another vomited and moaned for three days straight, it adds.
A “palpable sense of menace” infected the jail, according to the suit. Violence erupted over trivial things — shared TVs, phone access or for no apparent reason. In the suit, Lowe said he “was forced to watch” an inmate punch a younger man three times in the face in rapid succession. A week later, a wall was still stained with the younger inmate’s blood.
“To have to sit in silence and not come to the aid of a fellow human being — particularly someone vulnerable like the younger inmate — was excruciating,” the lawsuit said.
Overcrowding resulted in “grossly unsanitary conditions,” it says. The smell of urine and feces reeked so badly that Lowe often breathed through his mouth and used jail clothing to cover his nose. When he could no longer bear the stench, he asked jail staff for cleaning supplies. They gave him a spray bottle of water spiked with “just a hint of disinfectant and a filthy mop with no bucket.”
Hyper-aware of his “intense physical vulnerability” in the jail shower facility, Lowe avoided washing himself for days until he could “no longer bear the physical discomfort from the filth of his own condition.” He estimated he showered four or five times during his 17 days in jail.
The Quay County Detention Center didn’t immediately respond to a request from The Post early Wednesday.
Officials put the wrong man in a mental facility for 2 years. When he objected, they called him ‘delusional.’
On the 17th day of his imprisonment, a guard called up Lowe and, without explanation, told him that he was being released. Lowe was given the clothes in which he had been arrested and walked out of the jail “to nothing.” He bought a Greyhound ticket and, after being marked as a homeless person and getting kicked out of a McDonald’s bathroom, boarded a bus for what was supposed to be a 12-hour ride home to Flagstaff. But the bus broke down, turning the trip into a two-day odyssey.
“Upon stepping through the threshold of his home, Mr. Lowe allowed himself to sob until he could no longer stand.”
According to the lawsuit, the charges against Lowe were ultimately dismissed. Nevertheless, his arrest and incarceration has “shaken his identity to the core and cast a pall over his view of the world,” the suit alleges. Logically, he knows a repeat experience is unlikely. But “his fear cannot be rationalized away … it infects virtually his every decision and action.”
While shopping, Lowe worries he might forget to pay for something. He gets anxious when he sees patrol cars, according to the suit. He rushes through conversations with National Park Service police, experiences he used to enjoy in the course of his work as an outdoor guide.
“As a result of this sustained severe emotional pain, anguish, anxiety, depression and loss of self-esteem, Mr. Lowe has become a man desperate to find himself,” the lawsuit states.
He blames American Airlines. The company should have provided airport police with information on every passenger on the flight’s manifest, or on those matching a general description of a suspect. Instead, the airline conducted its own negligent investigation and wrongfully identified Lowe as the only suspect of the airport police department’s investigation, the lawsuit alleges.
That, the suit claims, “foreseeably led” to Lowe’s arrest for a crime he says he never committed. | 2022-06-08T14:31:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man sues American Airlines in arrest, 17-day jail ‘nightmare’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/08/american-airlines-mistaken-arrest-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/08/american-airlines-mistaken-arrest-lawsuit/ |
Jim Seals, of 1970s soft-rock duo Seals and Crofts, dies at 80
He and his musical partner Dash Crofts had major hits with ‘Summer Breeze’ and ‘Diamond Girl’
Jim Seals, who as part of the duo Seals and Crofts crafted memorably wistful 1970s hits like “Summer Breeze” and “Diamond Girl,” died June 6 at age 80.
His death was announced by John Ford Coley, who had formed the 1970s duo England Dan and John Ford Coley with Mr. Seals’s younger brother Dan. Complete details were not immediately available. He had a stroke in 2017.
Mr. Seals and Darrell “Dash” Crofts had known each other since they were teenagers together in bands in their native Texas. They started Seals and Crofts in the late 1960s and over the next several years were among a wave of soft-rock groups that also included the groups America and Bread.
With Mr. Seals as the primary lead vocalist of the harmonizing duo, Seals and Crofts had a string of hits in the 1970s that included “Summer Breeze” in 1972 and “Diamond Girl” in 1973, both of which reached No. 6. Another of their tunes, “Get Closer,” sung with Carolyn Willis, was a Top 10 hit in 1976.
Other songs that made the charts included “We May Never Pass This Way (Again)” (1973), “I’ll Play for You” (1975), “Goodbye Old Buddies” (1977) and “You’re the Love” (1978).
The duo broke up in 1980 and had a couple of short-lived reunions in the early 1990s and early 2000s. Mr. Seals also performed on occasion with his brother Dan, who died in 2009.
For several years in the late 1950s and early 1960s, both Seals and Dash Crofts — who survives his partner — were members of a group that bore little stylistic similarity to their later act: the Champs, although they joined after that band had recorded its signature hit, “Tequila.” Seals played sax in that group, and Crofts was on drums.
James Eugene Seals was born Oct. 17, 1941, in Sidney, Tex. His father was in the oil business and an amateur musician.
Young Jim began playing the fiddle when he was about 5. In a 1952 contest in West Texas, Jim won the fiddle division while his father triumphed in the guitar category.
Jim Seals later took up the saxophone, which he played as a young teenager in rock-and-roll bands in Texas. In 1958, he and Crofts joined the Champs — who had recently had a No. 1 hit with “Tequila” — and stayed with the band until 1965, with Mr. Seals on saxophone and Crofts on drums.
Later, Mr. Seals played primarily guitar and fiddle, while Crofts played the mandolin.
The pair moved to Los Angeles, joined a group called the Dawnbreakers and also played for a time behind Glen Campbell. Their manager, Marcia Day, was a member of the Baha’i faith, and the two musicians became Baha’i adherents.
“It was the only thing I’d heard that made sense to me, so I responded to it,” Mr. Seals told the Los Angeles Times in 1991. “That began to spawn some ideas to write songs that might help people to understand, or help ones who maybe couldn’t feel anything or were cynical or cold.”
Seals and Crofts stirred controversy in 1974 by recording an antiabortion song, “Unborn Child,” in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. The belief that abortion was wrong came out of their shared Baha’i beliefs. They released the song over the objections of their label, Warner Bros.
“If we’d known it was going to cause such disunity, we might have thought twice about doing it,” Mr. Seals later said.
After the duo broke up, Mr. Seals moved with his wife and three children to Costa Rica, where they had a coffee farm. He later settled in Nashville. Crofts currently lives in Australia.
“Around 1980,” Mr. Seals told the Los Angeles Times in 1991, “we were still drawing 10,000 to 12,000 people at concerts. But we could see, with this change coming where everybody wanted dance music, that those days were numbered. We just decided that it was a good time, after a long run at it, to lie back and not totally commit ourselves to that kind of thing.”
Mr. Seals stopped performing after his stroke in 2017. Besides his brother, several cousins and an uncle have been performers or songwriters.
Survivors include his wife and three children. | 2022-06-08T14:35:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jim Seals, singer of pop duo Seals and Crofts, dies at 80 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/06/08/pop-singer-jim-seals-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/06/08/pop-singer-jim-seals-dies/ |
Nicole A. Taylor, author of "Watermelon and Red Birds," on her property in Athens, Ga. (Lynsey Weatherspoon for The Washington Post)
ATHENS, Ga. — After I exit the highway heading to my hotel, the first business I notice is a lunch spot called Plantation Buffet. The sign slaps me in the face with irony, as I’ve traveled here to meet with Nicole A. Taylor, the author of the recently released “Watermelon and Red Birds,” the first major cookbook honoring the Juneteenth holiday. The restaurant served as a harsh reminder of Black pain, even as I was there to write about a highly anticipated book centered on Black celebrations. But for Black Americans, the intermingling of joy and sorrow is just a fact of life.
Celebrate Juneteenth with hot links, chow-chow and a virtual cookout
Juneteenth commemorates the anniversary of June 19, 1865, when more than 250,000 enslaved people in Galveston, Tex., first learned they were freed — two months after the Civil War had ended and 2 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The first Juneteenth was celebrated in 1866, and until recently has predominantly been the realm of African Americans with Texas roots. While Taylor recalls hearing about the holiday during her time at the historically Black Clark Atlanta University, it wasn’t until a little over a decade ago, when she stumbled upon a celebration at a Brooklyn park, that she began observing the holiday herself and has done so every year since.
Now it’s a federal holiday, and this year she plans to observe Juneteenth in Athens with friends and family by hosting an event to celebrate her cookbook. Given the time and energy spent writing it, in addition to the past two years we’ve all experienced, particularly the recent targeted killing of Black people at a Buffalo grocery store, “I want to relax as much as possible,” she says. Taylor teared up over lunch just thinking about all of the trauma Black people have gone through, the pain bubbling beneath the surface. “I have to turn it off if I want to get some work done.”
Taylor’s longtime literary agent, Sharon Bowers, first suggested that Taylor write a Juneteenth cookbook, saying it would be her magnum opus. Bowers had learned of Taylor’s Juneteenth celebrations from her first book, “The Up South Cookbook,” published in 2015. “Sometimes in the world of cookbook publishing, publishers use ‘niche’ as a term to denigrate a book’s potential sales,” Bowers said via email. “But I knew that this particular niche was really special, and Nicole’s big-hearted, generous way of celebrating it was highly specific to her. And since she’s a food professional with serious writing chops, it seemed obvious to me that she should write this book.”
Taylor wasn’t convinced. In fact, she says, that very niche-ness — plus the fact that she’s not from Texas — caused her to delete the first email where Bowers brought it up. Bowers kept broaching the idea, and around 2018 or 2019, Taylor finally gave in and started drafting a proposal.
Then the pandemic happened and the murder of George Floyd sparked widespread racial protests, bringing a new national interest in Black life. “In the spring of 2020, after being in lockdown and seeing and being a part of the Black terror, the depressive state caused by the murder, the massacre of unarmed Black people ... being a part of that and experiencing that, I knew that I wanted this cookbook to be a guide to joy,” Taylor says. “I knew for certain that this book is needed, and I can do this.”
This breathtaking quilt depicts Black people’s impact on American food, 406 times over
In June 2020, Taylor and her partner, Adrian Franks, purchased five acres of land, sight unseen, in Athens, where she was born and raised, and moved there from Brooklyn with their young son, Garvey, to ride out the pandemic. The couple call it the Maroon, named after the people who escaped slavery and created their own communities. The house, which they also plan to operate as a retreat, is filled with “touches in each room where you find Black culture and Black life,” Taylor says. They include a Sonos speaker featuring Sheila Bridges’s Harlem Toile pattern and skateboards from Jean-Michel Basquiat in the den; artwork from her husband, who also did the illustrations for the Museum of Food and Drink’s Legacy Quilt; and wallpaper from Malene Barnett in the kitchen where she tested all of the recipes for the book. “You see intentionality because the Maroon house is a creative space for Black people, and it is the space that I grounded myself in to create this cookbook,” Taylor says.
I jokingly call her the queen of Juneteenth, a title she vehemently denies. “I have been blessed to have a microphone to talk about Juneteenth foods. And I want to make that very clear,” she says, citing others, such as Opal Lee, who fought hard to get the day recognized. However, “I would call myself the queen of Black celebrations,” noting all of the cookouts, HBCU homecomings, kickbacks, happy hours and other such events she has hosted and attended throughout her life.
Recipe: Sweet Potato Spritz Cocktail
When it comes to the recipes she has created, “This book is not an attempt to capture the tastes and recipes of that 1866 Juneteenth celebration. This is a testament to where we are now,” she writes. So if you’re looking for more traditional soul food, this is not it. Instead, Taylor’s recipes are a vibrant look at where Black food is today and where it is going.
Calling herself an “intuitive cook,” Taylor says her creative process started with ingredients. “I wanted to make sure that fruits and vegetables from the African American table were in this cookbook in a way that you don’t typically see,” Taylor says.
Take the sweet potato. Though it’s largely canonized in Black food culture via pie or candied casserole, Taylor wanted to find a more seasonally appropriate way to include it in the book. Then she harked back to a sweet potato syrup she makes every winter, usually to mix into whiskey cocktails. The syrup’s flavor mimics those sweet dishes, ripe with vanilla and warming spices, but in the book she includes it in a refreshing spritz cocktail, perfect for summertime sipping. “It’s hands down one of my favorites,” she says.
Another dish that she keeps going back to is her pretzel fried chicken, which she includes in the Everyday Juneteenth chapter. “When I have a hankering for fried chicken and I don’t want to do a full-out special-occasion fried chicken, I do what I call my everyday chicken,” she says, which comes with the added bonus that even her toddler will eat it.
Recipe: Pretzel Fried Chicken
Taylor sprinkles the names of people, books, songs and more throughout the book, breadcrumbs to inspire readers to delve further. In a recipe for “victory” chicken burgers, for instance, she mentions Lou Myers, who played Mr. Gaines in “A Different World,” a canonical show for many Black Americans. (Victory burgers were on the menu at the cafe run by Myers’s character at the fictional Hillman College.) “I don’t want people to forget him.” Cookbooks can play an archival role in documenting society, in all of its forms.
“I’ve been at a funeral and it’s very sad, and then afterwards at the repast, the brown liquor comes out, ‘Before I Let Go’ comes on and you might even do the electric slide a couple of times,” she says. “And I know that for Black Americans and Black people across the globe that that is something innately us. We are always going to celebrate in the midst of sorrow.”
These opposing emotions are also reflected in the book’s title, “Watermelon and Red Birds.” For her, watermelon conjures childhood memories of going to buy the fruit with her aunt, people coming over and her going outside to play. “So when I think of watermelon, I think of happy memories of summer. But it’s not lost on me that for Black people watermelon is often associated with the very gross, disgusting and exaggerated images,” she says. For Taylor, “Watermelon is about ritual, it’s about community and it’s about summertime. So why not have that be a part of the title?” And red birds are meant to represent ancestors returning to bring luck according to certain African American and Native American beliefs.
For Gabrielle E.W. Carter, cooking is about the culture — and how to preserve it
While Black people have technically been free from slavery for more than a century, making the room for joyous occasions is just as important now as it was on the first Juneteenth. Learning how to cope, relax and even celebrate despite fear and tragedy is an integral part of self-care as a Black person in this country. “Every day can be filled with the essence of Juneteenth, which is about joy, which is about freedom, which is about celebrating no matter how rough things have been or how much sorrow continues to be in our life,” she says.
“I want this cookbook to serve as more than just a coffee-table book. Open it up, use it as a guide to have a great party or great happy hour with your family and friends,” Taylor says. “In these times where so much is going on around us, we should lean a little bit more into Black joy because it can be resistance, but more importantly, it can be a healing balm for ourselves and for each other.” | 2022-06-08T14:53:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nicole Taylor's Juneteenth cookbook celebrates Black joy amid sorrow - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/06/08/nicole-taylor-juneteenth-cookbook-watermelon-red-birds/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/06/08/nicole-taylor-juneteenth-cookbook-watermelon-red-birds/ |
Song Hae, a South Korean TV host with staying power, dies at 95
In April, he was named the oldest television music talent show host by Guinness World Records
Song Hae in 2020 at his office in Seoul. (Jung Yeon-je/AFP/Getty Images)
Song Hae, veteran South Korean entertainer and North Korean refugee who over 34 years hosted an immensely popular weekly musical TV talent show that earned him a fan base across generations and a Guinness World Records entry, died June 8 in his home in Seoul. He was 95.
Mr. Song was hospitalized twice this year with unspecified illnesses, most recently in May, and died in his home in Seoul’s Gangnam district, said a spokeswoman for KBS, the station where he hosted “National Singing Contest.” In April, at 94 years and 350 days old, Mr. Song was named the oldest TV music talent show host by Guinness World Records.
Nicknamed the “Nation’s Emcee,” Mr. Song was a widely recognized and beloved figure in South Korea. His past as a North Korean escapee separated from his family during the chaos of war underscored the division on the Korean Peninsula. He pushed subtly for greater inclusion in South Korea’s homogenous society by featuring ordinary people from diverse backgrounds who are not always reflected in mainstream media.
From the early years of his show, Mr. Song advocated for the inclusion of contestants with disabilities — a rare display in a country that still trails behind many advanced economies in its protections for people with disabilities. In recent years, he expressed support for the LGBT community, which was noteworthy given the persistent stigmatization of homosexuality in South Korea.
Since 1988, Mr. Song has been a staple in South Korean homes every Sunday afternoon, with a broadcast that always began with the signature five-note xylophone jingle and featured performances that were sometimes remarkable, other times cringeworthy, and always humorous and endearing.
Mr. Song, a singer and comedian, had a down-to-earth and empathetic approach to hosting, putting at ease contestants as young as 3 and as old as 115 and warmly consoling the musically challenged.
No matter what contestants threw at him in their performances, he went along like an improv performer. A woman in her eighth month of pregnancy practiced bottle feeding on Mr. Song, and a grandmother who brought a portable gas stove cooked him a meal onstage. Mr. Song was stung more than 20 times after one male contestant walked onstage covered in bees.
As the show’s host, Mr. Song took viewers on an exploration of the personalities, stories and cultures in often-overlooked and rural parts of the country, featuring their prized agricultural products and listening to their stories of heartache and struggle.
Despite the rise of K-pop around the world and the many other musical talent shows on air, Mr. Song’s “National Singing Contest” remained the highest rated musical show in South Korea.
In a January interview on a KBS show, Mr. Song said of his career: “Everyone I have met on ‘National Singing Contest’ is my life’s cherished fortune. I don’t have much, but they say the richest people in life are those who have been blessed to meet many different people from all walks of life."
Mr. Song became the show’s emcee in the nascent years of South Korea’s democracy, which followed years of violent protests against the autocratic regime and made way for rapid economic and societal transformation. Through it all, Mr. Song remained a constant and grounding figure who reminded the country of its humble, agricultural beginnings even as it catapulted into a global economic powerhouse.
His neighborly persona earned him widespread popularity in rural and metropolitan areas of the country, from the elderly who viewed him as a friend to younger generations who watched him on television alongside their grandparents. Local communities welcomed his show and treated it like a festival. He has inspired books, movies and a musical. A museum in the city of Daegu is dedicated to his life, and a street in Seoul’s Jongno district is named after him and features a statue of his bust.
Mr. Song’s life arc reflects the history of the Korean Peninsula over the past century.
Born under Japanese occupation in the Hwanghae province in what is now North Korea as Song Bok-hee on April 27, 1927, he used a Japanese name in school and was beaten by teachers if he spoke Korean. He attended music school in the North Korean city of Haeju and toured the country as part of a propaganda band during his school years.
When the Korean War broke out in 1950, Mr. Song became one of millions of family members divided by the war. He fled home to avoid conscription with a hasty and casual goodbye to his mother, assuming he would be back home in a few days.
Instead, he evacuated south on a U.N. ship, which took him to the southern port city of Busan. On the ship, he gave himself a new name: Hae, meaning “sea,” in a nod to the new life that awaited him.
Mr. Song later said that he dreamed of hosting an episode of the “National Singing Contest” in his hometown. He visited North Korea in 2003 as the presenter of “Pyongyang Song Contest,” which gathered singers from both sides of the border. But he never saw his mother or sister again.
Tae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who is now a lawmaker in Seoul, said in a statement Wednesday that Mr. Song “devoted his entire life to share joy and hopes with the public, while keeping yearnings for his own family and hometown to himself.”
Mr. Song joined the South Korean army in Busan and served as a signalman before starting his entertainment career. He told Agence France-Presse that he spent years as a radio host, including for traffic accident updates, until his own son, Chang-jin, was killed in a 1987 crash. “I just couldn’t say ‘be careful of car accidents’ on air after losing my son that way,” he said.
His wife, Suk Ok-ee, died in 2018. Survivors include two daughters.
“National Singing Contest” went on hiatus when the pandemic hit in 2020, and Mr. Song had considered stepping down as emcee due to his age (he also tested positive for the coronavirus in March). But he was still in talks with producers about returning to the show, which he saw had helped transform social values of many Koreans.
In a 2018 interview, Mr. Song recalled a performance that took place more than 20 years earlier, featuring a woman singing while her mother-in-law danced behind her — which drew a standing ovation from the crowd.
But a swift backlash followed when the town’s residents sent “baskets full of postcards” complaining of what they perceived as flagrant disrespect for societal expectations of a subservient daughter-in-law. The Korea Communications Commission launched a review and Mr. Song issued an apology. “I thought I’d be fired,” he said.
A few years later, Mr. Song returned to the town. To his surprise, several residents expressed their appreciation: “Many elderly people came to me and said, ‘Look, it was a misunderstanding. I wrote a lot of postcards complaining to your show. But you were right, and you did the right thing.’ … I’m not sure if we were particularly slow or ahead of the curve, but I knew that deep down, we were pushing for progress in society.”
Min Joo Kim contributed to this report. | 2022-06-08T14:53:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Song Hae, a South Korean TV host with staying power, dies at 95 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/06/08/song-hae-dies-korea-tv/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/06/08/song-hae-dies-korea-tv/ |
Centrists’ new war on crime is also a war on the left
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, center, on June 7 in San Francisco. (Noah Berger/AP)
In the 1980s and ’90s, the Democratic Party embraced big increases in police funding, longer prison sentences and greater use of the death penalty. Part of the rationale was a well-intentioned effort to fight crime. But part of it was also an electoral one — a desire to appease the conservative and anti-Black sentiments of some White swing voters.
Now, many Democrats, including President Biden, are again leaning into boosting police funding, and some of them are trying to reverse recent efforts to make the criminal justice system less punitive. It’s not a full return to the 1990s, but it has worrisome echoes of that era. And in some ways it’s worse, because the underlying rationales are even weaker.
In the 1990s, Democrats didn’t have the evidence that has since accumulated suggesting that many punitive criminal justice policies don’t reliably reduce crime, nor did they have a stream of videos displaying horrible incidents of police brutality. And back then, the political rationale was largely about keeping Republicans out of office. Now, some centrist Democrats are using alarmist rhetoric hyping America’s crime rates and misleading statements about progressive policies to undercut the party’s emergent left wing.
This strategy is at times working, as illustrated by Tuesday’s successful recall of progressive San Francisco prosecutor Chesa Boudin.
It’s important to emphasize that crime is a problem and that Democrats (and all politicians) should address it. The national homicide rate increased dramatically in 2020 and rose again in 2021. (It’s not clear whether that has continued into 2022.) These rates are the highest since the 1990s, although they remain far from that peak. Experts who study crime aren’t sure why the homicide rate surged in the past two years and whether the trend will continue. But they largely agree on at least one solution: reducing the number of guns circulating in the United States.
It’s clear, though, that two things did not cause this increase: “reform prosecutors” like Boudin and the “defund the police” movement. Few cities have actually reduced their police budgets, and homicide rate increases happened in many cities that increased spending. There is no correlation between more progressive prosecutors and homicide rates.
But why let the facts get in the way of a good story that can help you vanquish your rivals? The Democrats emerged from the Trump years with a party divided between more centrist forces and more progressives ones, with the latter on the rise. Then, the homicide rate increased. Whatever the actual causes, everyone knew that the left was allied with more progressive prosecutors and the defund movement. So acting as if the United States is facing an 1980s-style crime wave and pinning it on the left has become a way for the Democratic center-left to discredit progressives.
And that’s what happened over the past year. Centrist Democrat Eric Adams won the mayoral race in New York by emphasizing crime and casting his opponents as weak on the issue. In office, he has attacked Black Lives Matter activists. Boudin was blamed by his critics for basically any crime that happened in San Francisco during his time as district attorney. Republican-turned-Democrat Rick Caruso finished in the top two in the Los Angeles mayoral election to qualify for the general election on Tuesday by emphasizing crime.
These centrist politicians have two powerful allies in using crime electorally: well-established groups in city politics and the media. Politics in large American cities are traditionally dominated by police unions, the real estate industry, developers and wealthy individuals. Because progressive candidates are a threat to those groups — the left wants to increase scrutiny of the police and to take on the wealthy — they often spend heavily in these races to boost centrists.
Meanwhile, the media, and particularly local television news, tends to cover crime a lot, in part because of the perception that this draws viewers. And both national and local newspapers tend to be owned and run by more moderate figures, be wary of left-wing causes and find the left to be a useful foil to demonstrate to conservatives that they aren’t too liberal. As a result, news coverage in these races becomes very favorable to politicians like Adams and unfavorable to ones like Boudin.
All of that is why, in many heavily Democratic cities, much of the new war on crime is really a war on the left.
In a different era, overhyping crime and blaming progressives to win intraparty feuds could be considered harmless political infighting. But the effect of all this tough-on-crime posturing is weakening the much-needed movement to reform the police that emerged two years ago after the murder of George Floyd. The policies of the 1990s helped lead to mass incarceration of Black people in particular, while not playing much of a role in reducing crime. Creating a climate where police have lots of money and power and little accountability helped lead to the killings of Breonna Taylor and Floyd. It is time to try alternative approaches to policing, prosecution and crime reduction — not repeat flawed approaches of the past.
All is not lost, however. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and other reform-minded prosecutors and elected officials have won elections and reelections. And much of the 1990s Democratic agenda on crime has been discredited as both racist and ineffective. So we aren’t likely going back to the days of Democrats like Biden actively encouraging greater use of the death penalty and longer sentences for drug crimes.
But I wish I felt better about where all this is heading. The Democratic left is not yet vanquished. Nor are the Republicans. So if those two groups remain a threat to more centrist Democrats controlling the government, we might see even more electorally motivated rhetoric and policies that are aimed at creating worry about crime as much as addressing it. Taking that approach might or might not win votes, but it will almost certainly move us away further away from the criminal justice system that we need. | 2022-06-08T14:57:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Chesa Boudin was ousted with the help of his own party's war on crime - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/chesa-boudin-recall-centrist-democrats-crime/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/chesa-boudin-recall-centrist-democrats-crime/ |
California offers a warning to Democrats. But how big is it?
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin (D), who was recalled on Tuesday, is shown campaigning ahead of the vote in San Francisco. (Noah Berger/AP)
“Even liberal San Francisco.” “Even liberal San Francisco!”
This is the mantra of the day for political observers, boggling at the results of an effort to recall the deep-blue city’s progressive district attorney. Chesa Boudin (D) came into office in 2020 promising a different approach to fighting crime and, in a lopsided vote, San Franciscans rejected that approach. Even in liberal San Francisco, some leftist policies go too far.
But then there was the larger city to the south. In Los Angeles — even Democrat-heavy Los Angeles! — a former Republican was one of the top two finalists for mayor. In journalism they say that three makes a trend. When pressed, though, two will do, so: Democrats stumbling in their strongest state portends horrors for the party!
Look, there’s certainly no sense in which these results are good news for the party. It’s useful, though, to consider just how bad they actually are.
We should start by establishing some baselines. It is true that both San Francisco and Los Angeles vote more heavily Democratic than the rest of the country. But the two are not equivalently blue. San Francisco has consistently voted much more heavily Democratic than has Los Angeles. If L.A. is blue, S.F. is some sort of iridescent blue that was specially developed in a lab.
That both cities have shifted left is not itself exceptional. Cities overall have, as measured at the county level. A central story of the past few decades is how cities and rural areas have diverged, with urban areas’ leftward shift offset by the larger rightward movement of less-populated rural counties.
Notice that big-city dip in 2020, incidentally. This is an established point of concern for Democrats: are urban voters — particularly non-White urban voters — softening in their support of the party? This question is largely distinct from the results on Tuesday.
There’s another way in which San Francisco and Los Angeles diverge. The emergence of the information economy has caused incomes in San Francisco (and elsewhere in the Bay Area) to spike. The city is no longer the hippie, drifter wonderland it became famous for being.
This has an immediate practical effect: increased housing costs in particular have contributed to homelessness, a central part of discussions about how Boudin and the city’s leadership are failing. It’s not a stretch to assume that wealthier residents who have made substantial investments in property in the city are more wary about threats to property values. When Donald Trump announced he planned to focus on blue-state homelessness during his presidency, he cited complaints from real estate investors.
So that’s the context, particularly important for considering Boudin. As district attorney, he was understandably accountable for the immediately tangible quality of life issues in the city like crime and homelessness. And crime did rise in the city in 2021 relative to 2020, though not exceptionally relative to other big cities. The number of crimes recorded in 2021 was also still lower than in 2019.
In February, a member of the board of supervisors noted that the police department’s clearance rates had dropped — that is, the number of crimes solved — and linked that to the “political rift between the Police Department and District Attorney’s Office” which she worried was “causing a deliberate work stoppage by your Department.”
Boudin’s was not the only successful recall in San Francisco in recent months. Earlier this year, a number of members of the school board were also recalled. As with the district attorney’s race, the situation was complicated, a mix of frustration at leadership, pandemic-era changes and political opportunism. But there was one similarity between the two: recall supporters spent far more money than opponents. In the Boudin recall, the gap was more than 2 to 1 in support of recalling Boudin.
That was part of the story in Los Angeles, too. The former Republican who made the mayoral runoff, developer Rick Caruso, who switched his registration from “no party preference” to Democratic ahead of the primary, spent nearly $34 million in that effort. Rep. Karen Bass, the second-place finisher who Caruso will face in November, spent a tenth of that amount.
Caruso’s success carries that asterisk that Boudin’s loss doesn’t. He made the runoff … but still has to win in a one-on-one contest. Los Angeles has nonpartisan elections, which may also have benefited Caruso’s candidacy. In November, both the larger electorate and Democrats coalescing around Bass may shift the order of finish. Boudin was likely similarly hurt by the nature of the election: low turnout overall, suggesting a more conservative electorate, with recall supporters more motivated to cast ballots.
These are all points of consolation for Democratic leaders on Wednesday morning, as will be Gov. Gavin Newsom’s handy defeat of a recall effort of his own last year. But they should not obscure from the broader problem. Democrats are in charge in Los Angeles and San Francisco and America broadly, given their control of the White House and Congress. And in all of those places, people have real concern about how things are going. One can point to extenuating circumstances or to subtleties of the data or to the role of media in amplifying concerns. But the results in Los Angeles (Caruso made crime and homelessness a focus) and more directly in San Francisco reflect frustration with existing leadership that is likely largely independent of party.
The results in California on Tuesday may not portend a collapse of the Democratic Party over the long term. But they do reinforce the looming danger the party faces in November.
Mother of Buffalo shooting victim 'can feel pieces of that bullet in his back’
2:37 PMThis just in: Man with weapon detained near Brett Kavanaugh’s home | 2022-06-08T15:23:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | California offers a warning to Democrats. But how big is it? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/08/california-offers-warning-democrats-how-big-is-it/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/08/california-offers-warning-democrats-how-big-is-it/ |
Johnny Depp’s lawyers discuss the verdict on multiple morning shows
Actor Johnny Depp, center, stands with lawyers Camille Vasquez and Benjamin Chew last month in a Fairfax County courtroom during Depp's defamation case against his ex-wife, Amber Heard. (Steve Helber/Pool via Reuters)
A week after Johnny Depp prevailed in his high-profile defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard, his lawyers appeared on multiple morning shows and said he was “over the moon” about the verdict.
“It was like the weight of the world had been taken off his shoulders and I feel that finally, after six years, he has gotten his life back,” attorney Benjamin Chew told “Good Morning America” co-anchor George Stephanopoulos.
Chew and fellow Depp lawyer Camille Vasquez appeared Wednesday on both GMA and NBC’s “Today.” Vasquez added on GMA that “the key to victory was focusing on the facts and the evidence and Johnny’s opportunity to speak the truth for the first time.” She said the outcome was “six years in the making.”
A Fairfax County Circuit Court jury found on June 1 that Heard defamed Depp with a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which she described herself as a public figure representing domestic abuse. Heard did not name Depp in the article. Depp, who sued Heard for $50 million, was awarded $15 million (though he will receive $10.35 million, as Virginia law limits punitive damages to $350,000). Heard received $2 million after the jury ruled in favor of a countersuit claim that former Depp lawyer Adam Waldman defamed her.
The weeks-long trial streamed live online, contributing to a social media frenzy — most often in support of Depp. Vasquez became a favorite of Depp fans, and a central figure in TikToks about the case. The videos villainized Heard, calling her a liar over Depp’s claims that she abused him. In a recent Post article, music producer and activist Drew Dixon, one of several women who accused mogul Russell Simmons of sexual assault, said she was alarmed by the “giddy derision” that was directed toward Heard online.
A statement issued ahead of Wednesday’s interviews by Heard’s team said, “It is as unseemly as it is unprofessional that Johnny Depp’s legal team has chosen to do a victory lap for setting back decades of how women can be treated in the courtroom. What’s next? A movie deal and merchandising?”
Vasquez said on GMA that she found the statement from Heard’s team “disappointing” because “we’re only speaking about what happened in this case, right?” After Stephanopoulous noted that advocates also fear the verdict will discourage abuse victims from speaking out about their experiences, Vasquez said Depp’s lawyers “encourage any victim to come forward. Domestic violence doesn’t have a gender.”
Heard lawyer Elaine Bredehoft made the morning show rounds last week, appearing on “Today” and “CBS Mornings.” She told “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie that Heard plans to appeal the verdict — noting that the actress “has some excellent grounds for it” — and stated that Depp’s lawyers were able to “suppress” certain pieces of evidence, such as medical records supporting Heard’s claims.
Bredehoft also said Heard’s team was barred from mentioning to the Virginia jury that Depp lost a libel case against the British tabloid the Sun, which he sued for calling him a “wife beater.” In that late 2020 trial, a judge found enough evidence to support 12 of Heard’s 14 domestic abuse allegations.
On Wednesday’s “Today” show, Guthrie asked Depp’s team to respond to Bredehoft. Vasquez said that the U.K. case was a “different process,” and that each side had “different disclosure obligations” in the recent trial.
“We disagree,” Vasquez stated. “The overwhelming evidence that was presented in this case in Virginia far exceeded what was presented in the U.K., and we believe the jury got it right.”
Depp’s lawyers denied that his team orchestrated social media campaigns against Heard, describing the theory as “categorically false.” Chew said the jury for the most part sided with Depp because he “owned his issues,” whereas jurors “may have perceived that [Heard] didn’t take accountability for anything.”
The day before Depp’s lawyers appeared on television, Depp made news for joining TikTok, where he amassed 8.7 million followers by the next morning. In a caption on his first video, he thanked his “most treasured, loyal and unwavering supporters.” | 2022-06-08T15:36:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Johnny Depp’s lawyers discuss the verdict on multiple morning shows - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/06/08/johnny-depp-lawyers-verdict-interviews/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/06/08/johnny-depp-lawyers-verdict-interviews/ |
The Russian Federation’s Arctic border. (Photographer: Anna Andrianova/Bloomberg)
The US military has its hands full at the moment with a vicious war in Ukraine and US-China tensions over issues from human rights to sovereignty over the South China Sea. But it cannot delay taking action to address climate change, the most persistent strategic threat we face.
It also raises demands on scarce naval resources, as it brings more unpredictable, highly destructive storms. As a naval commander, I’ve participated in many humanitarian relief efforts in response to natural disasters, including massive hurricanes in the US Southeast and Caribbean, wildfires in the American West, tsunamis in the Pacific and storms in Central America. These disasters are only becoming more frequent.
At the same time, climate change poses a new national security challenge by expanding ocean geography. The Arctic (or the High North as our Canadian friends more eloquently call it) has been largely frozen over most of the year throughout recorded history. Now, the ice is breaking up, shipping lanes are opening for much of the year, and rich hydrocarbon deposits are becoming accessible. Thus, the Artic is becoming a broader venue for great-power competition between Russia and NATO countries, including the US, Canada, Denmark, Iceland and Norway, and soon perhaps Sweden and Finland.
The US national security establishment must also cultivate greater international cooperation on climate challenges. The US Coast Guard is especially well positioned to interact with other navies on fisheries enforcement, controlling pollution and dumping activities, and plastics removal.
The Defense Department should also work with other US agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (which houses the Coast Guard) on responding to national and international natural disasters. The Departments of State and Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency all have strong environmental programs that could be synchronized with the DOD efforts. A joint interagency task force exists for counter-narcotics. Why not create one to work collectively on climate-related challenges?
As governments and private corporations put more energy and attention into climate protection, the US national security establishment must also face what may be the threat of the century.
• Saving the Planet Is More Important Than Saving Birds: Tyler Cowen
• Headed for the Beach? Enjoy It While It Lasts: Francis Wilkinson | 2022-06-08T15:36:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Climate Change Is a Military Problem for the US - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/climate-change-is-a-military-problem-for-the-us/2022/06/08/7bed13ee-e73c-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/climate-change-is-a-military-problem-for-the-us/2022/06/08/7bed13ee-e73c-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
Analysis by Adam Minter | Bloomberg
Last week, LaMar Detert walked me through Discover Plastics, his 48-year-old plastic recycling company in Rogers, Minnesota. I was there because I wanted to double-check that it exists.
It’s not alone, either. According to data provided by the Association of Plastic Recyclers, the US is home to at least 180 reprocessors, as they’re known, who recycle billions of pounds of material every year. Thanks to growing demand by consumers, companies and governments for solutions to plastic pollution, their volumes and positive environmental impact are poised to grow substantially over the next decade.
However, those disincentives aren’t the final word. In 2020, recyclers collected 27.1% of the bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate, or PET (commonly used for water and other beverage containers), and 28.8% of the high density polyethylene bottles, or HDPE (often identified as laundry detergent bottles), used in the US. Those rates were down 1.2% and 2.1% compared with 2019 because of several factors, including Covid-related disruptions to curbside recycling and to supply chains.
But even as the collections declined, manufacturer demand grew for the 4.8 billion pounds of post-consumer plastics gathered in the US and globally. That growth is partly a result of the commitment of more than 80 major packaging, consumer-goods and retailing companies globally to boost recycled content by 15% to 50% in their packaging.
In part, it’s also a function of government mandates, such as California’s requirement that plastic bottles have at least 15% recycled content in 2022 (rising to 50% in 2030). It’s also a consequence of high prices for oil and virgin plastic: Manufacturers have been forced to take a second look at recycled plastics. “It’s really opened their eyes,” LaMar Detert said.
The crunch is poised to continue: The US will need an additional 80 recycling plants to meet the 2025 California mandate, according to one recent forecast. Another analysis predicts that global demand for recycled plastics will reach $45 billion by 2025, up 30% from 2020.
The good news is that there is enough plant capacity to bring the US recycling rate for PET and HDPE to over 40% — if the plastic can be collected. That’ll require investing in recycling programs for municipalities that don’t have them, additional infrastructure (like trucks and bins) for those that do, public education and bottle-deposit efforts.
It’ll also mean pushing back against disinformation claiming that plastic recycling is a lie or a myth or doesn’t work. In time, a coordinated effort can have a big impact: In Norway 97% of PET is collected for recycling.
More From Adam Minter at Bloomberg Opinion:
• Don’t Let Congress Slash Exports of Used Gadgets: Adam Minter
• To Solve the Fertilizer Crisis, Just Look in the Toilet: Adam Minter
• Is This a Mine Both Joe Biden and Elon Musk Can Support?: Adam Minter
Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia, technology and the environment. He is author, most recently, of “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale.” | 2022-06-08T15:36:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Plastic Recycling Is Working, So Ignore the Cynics - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/plastic-recycling-is-working-so-ignore-the-cynics/2022/06/08/67d11a08-e733-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/plastic-recycling-is-working-so-ignore-the-cynics/2022/06/08/67d11a08-e733-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
The Jan 6. committee should be looking ahead to election threats in 2024
Establishing what happened in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election is important. It’s even more crucial to fix vulnerabilities in the system.
Perspective by Richard L. Hasen
Richard L. Hasen is the chancellor’s professor of law and political science at the University of California at Irvine and the author of "Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics ― and How to Cure It."
The special House committee hearings investigating the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — which begin Thursday night in prime time — may serve multiple purposes: They could reveal more evidence that could be used to file criminal charges for attempted election subversion against some of former president Donald Trump’s lawyers, against people who tried to manipulate the count of electoral college votes and potentially against Trump himself. They could provide the most comprehensive account yet of the unprecedented attempt by Trump and his allies to disrupt the peaceful transition of power after the 2020 election — a gift to future historians.
But revision of the Electoral Count Act may prove especially important. Imagine that 2024 features a rematch between Trump and President Biden, and Biden once again narrowly prevails in Arizona and Pennsylvania. By that year, those states may have as their governors two leaders who embrace the “big lie” that Biden’s victory was fraudulent: Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee in Pennsylvania, and Kari Lake, who is making a strong bid to be the Republican nominee in Arizona. One or both could reject a state vote tally favoring Biden and attempt to send in an alternate slate of electors in 2024 favoring Trump.
Reforms of the law along these lines would benefit both parties. After all, it will be Vice President Harris who will preside over the counting of electoral college votes on Jan. 6, 2025. Say the presidential election hinges on Georgia, and Trump is narrowly declared the winner of that state — and there are allegations of vote suppression. Feeling pressured to not present Georgia’s votes to Congress for counting, Harris could purport to determine that suppression rendered the state’s election unfair, allowing her to throw out the Georgia results.
Such a move seems very unlikely, because the vice president has never indicated that she would not follow the law. But we should not have to rely on conscience — and we don’t know the ethics of some future vice president who will preside over the Senate.
By showing precisely what went wrong in 2020, and which safeguards held, the committee hearings can make clear to the public the need for new legislation. The story of 2020, the hearings will reveal, is that a few heroic Republicans and Democrats acting in good faith — such as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) — protected our election process from subversion despite our murky and byzantine laws.
In January, after Democrats failed to pass major voting rights reform, reports emerged that Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) were in talks aimed at combating election subversion by, among other things, fixing the Electoral Count Act. New reporting from USA Today indicates that those talks are continuing and that two Jan. 6 committee members, Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), are close to an agreement on their own reform package. | 2022-06-08T15:37:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Jan 6. committee should be looking ahead to election threats in 2024 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/06/08/january-6-commitee-election-risks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/06/08/january-6-commitee-election-risks/ |
FILE - Cars line up for gas at a gas station in Martinez, Calif., on Sept. 21, 1973. An unhappy confluence of events has economists reaching back to the days of disco and the bleak high-inflation, high-unemployment economy of nearly a half century ago. No one thinks stagflation is in sight. But as a longer-term threat, it can no longer be dismissed.(AP Photo/File) (Uncredited/AP) | 2022-06-08T15:38:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Worry about stagflation, a flashback to '70s, begins to grow - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/worry-about-stagflation-a-flashback-to-70s-begins-to-grow/2022/06/08/554af0dc-e735-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/worry-about-stagflation-a-flashback-to-70s-begins-to-grow/2022/06/08/554af0dc-e735-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
CORRECTS FROM GAME 1 TO GAME 2 - Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum (0) loses the ball while being defended by Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (23) and guard Stephen Curry during the second half of Game 2 of basketball’s NBA Finals in San Francisco, Sunday, June 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Jed Jacobsohn)
GENEVA — Most basketball games at the Paris Olympics could end up being played a three-hour journey outside the French capital, a plan that was criticized by the sport’s governing body on Wednesday. | 2022-06-08T15:38:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Paris Olympics considering remote venue for basketball - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/paris-olympics-considering-remote-venue-for-basketball/2022/06/08/80c425d0-e735-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/paris-olympics-considering-remote-venue-for-basketball/2022/06/08/80c425d0-e735-11ec-a422-11bbb91db30b_story.html |
A rendering of an aircraft landing in Iceland. Icelandair's stopover program is among the better-known options. ( iStock)
If you have some flexibility in your vacation schedule, you might want to consider a stopover. An extra day in Istanbul, Lisbon or Reykjavík, Iceland, could cost you little — or nothing.
Jessy Hamel, a travel adviser from Manheim, Pa., just returned from Amsterdam via Lisbon. It was a slight detour, but TAP Air Portugal offered her two nights in Lisbon before she flew back to New York.
Berklich, who edits a luxury travel blog, also liked the price. Turkish Airlines doesn't charge extra for accommodations.
Stopover programs do include some fine print. For example, Turkish Airlines’ offer only applies to certain destinations and hotels. If you’re flying from the United States, you qualify if you’re on your way to Africa, Eastern or Southern Europe, and India, among other locations. If you’re flying in economy class, you’ll get a night in a four-star economy hotel such as the Hilton Garden Inn Istanbul Golden Horn or the Grand Yavuz Hotel Sultanahmet. Business-class passengers get two nights in a five-star property such as the Sheraton Istanbul Ataköy Hotel or Renaissance Polat Istanbul Hotel.
How long should you plan to stop? That’s a common question for air travelers with longer connections. Generally, experts advise giving yourself at least one night. It’s not worth the stress of leaving the airport for just a few hours to tour a destination. And besides, hub airports such as Dubai and Istanbul are virtual shopping malls that are tourist attractions in their own right.
The programs are a timely reminder to make the most of stopovers — voluntary or not. Take Shaun Eli Breidbart’s recent flight from New York to Paris, for example. Delta Air Lines doesn’t have a formal stopover program. But an airline representative asked whether he wanted to change planes somewhere else — maybe Budapest?
“She said I could stay however long I wanted,” says Breidbart, a comedian from Scarsdale, N.Y. “I didn’t have any great desire to see Hungary. But if I’m already there, why not? I spent three days in Budapest, and I’m glad I went.” | 2022-06-08T16:15:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why you should consider a stopover on your next international vacation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/06/08/travel-vacation-airport-hub-stopovers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/06/08/travel-vacation-airport-hub-stopovers/ |
Crime needs to be more than just a gun issue for Biden
Police officers patrol inside a subway station in New York City on May 25. (Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg News)
The Biden administration has been resistant to pleas even from the president’s own party to focus on crime. The moderate think tank Third Way has been stressing the issue as essential to responding to Republicans’ cultural attacks. Yet President Biden to date has only been reactive on the issue.
Other Democrats have shown it’s better to tackle the issue head-on. Democrat Eric Adams won his hotly contested New York mayor’s race almost entirely on the crime issue. As progressive Rep. Ritchie Torres proclaimed this year, “The defund police movement is dead in New York City — and good riddance. And any elected official who’s advocating for the abolition and/or even the defunding of police is out of touch with reality and should not be taken seriously.” Democrat Cavalier Johnson won the mayor’s race in Milwaukee, also emphasizing crime.
But the issue remains a problem for Democrats. On Tuesday, progressive San Franciscans recalled progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin by a 60-40 percent margin, largely due to the perception that he hasn’t addressed crime in the city. The New York Times reports: “The city has been facing persistent property crimes, especially car break-ins and burglaries, but data from the police department showed that many other types of crime, including homicides, have been stable or declined during the pandemic.” Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, real estate tycoon Rick Caruso, relying on the crime and homelessness issue, spent millions to try to beat Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) in the city’s mayoral primary. They will face off in the general election.
Biden, for his part, tried to squash the “defund the police” cry from far-left progressives. “We should all agree: The answer is not to defund the police,” he said in the State of the Union address. "It’s to fund the police.” Indeed, his proposed budget includes generous funding for public safety.
Still, Biden talks almost solely about gun legislation when discussing crime. This isn’t necessarily wrong; gun safety is a huge part of the crime problem. And Democrats on the ballot have the moral and political high ground on gun safety laws. USA Today reports: “Half of Republicans support stricter gun laws, an exclusive USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds, a double-digit increase after a series of horrific mass shootings at schools, stores, streets and houses of worship. The increase in GOP support — from 35% last year to 50% — could boost the prospects for Congress to tighten federal gun laws, an effort that has failed for decades.” Second Amendment zealots don’t even have Republican voters behind them: “Republicans are more likely to blame ‘loose gun laws’ for mass shootings in the USA: 43% in the new poll, compared with 27% a year ago.” So Biden is absolutely right to go all-in on gun safety regulations and hold Republicans entirely responsible if Congress fails to pass meaningful legislation.
But voters remain very skeptical that any meaningful reform will get done. Many will see Biden as focusing solely on something they think is virtually impossible and conclude he is not doing anything right now to address crime. Moreover, voters want to do more than just make it harder to get high-powered weaponry. They want more cops and fewer homeless people (which many associate with loss of physical safety), and they know property crimes are also up.
It’s frankly political malpractice for the White House not to be leading on this issue, especially since the administration has pushed for public safety funding. While the federal government does not have a huge role in crime-fighting aside from funding, Biden can, at the very least, emphasize his budget requests, go after red-state governors who have made it easier for criminals to get guns and push anti-recidivism programs. If the election results on Tuesday don’t push the White House toward a more aggressive stance on crime-fighting, Democrats should be prepared to get clobbered on the issue in November. | 2022-06-08T16:59:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Crime needs to be more than just a gun issue for Biden - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/crime-needs-be-more-than-just-gun-issue-biden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/crime-needs-be-more-than-just-gun-issue-biden/ |
I ran for office full of anger and despair. I felt hope when I dropped out.
By Danielle Allen
Danielle Allen visiting with volunteers at the Cambridge Community Center. (Zachary Goldhammer)
A year and a half ago, I put aside my column with The Post to explore running for governor in Massachusetts. Now, I’m back. Most of the people I know are not in politics, and many of them are asking: What happened? And what’s it like?
First, here’s what happened. The exploratory listening tour went well. It confirmed my sense that this is a time for change — so after six months, in June 2021, I jumped in in full. Then I spent the next nine months fundraising, stumping around the state and building out a policy agenda. I also worked hard to win support from those likely to be delegates at the state’s Democratic convention. Those party delegates are the magic key to placing your name on the primary ballot.
But in February, in the middle of caucus season, I dropped out. We weren’t securing the delegates we needed, and knowing that, I couldn’t raise money in good faith. And if you can’t keep raising money (or aren’t independently wealthy), you’re at the end of the road. It’s just like with sharks. Keep moving or die.
And what it was like? The short answer: It was a very expensive but very effective form of therapy.
I started the process full of anger and despair about the direction of my state and country. When I set out in December 2020, children weren’t back in school yet in Massachusetts, and the state government wasn’t providing clear, timely and stable guidance. We were on the cusp of what turned out to be a pretty unsatisfactory vaccine rollout. Nationally, state and federal governments were at odds — first because of covid-19 and then because of a defeated president seeking to overturn an election.
I wasn’t alone in my feelings. I met people in the trades seething that building inspectors were examining construction sites via Zoom. How could that possibly ensure safety? I spoke to people who took responsibility for feeding the families of workers in the collapsing hospitality industry. The pain of running out of food before the line had barely even begun rang in their voices. One woman broke down telling me how the program she runs for single mothers seeking financial literacy had to be transformed into a site simply aimed at getting people food and diapers.
People were stretched to extremes and felt so alone in the face of overwhelming need. Our state and federal governments let us down in many specific and tangible ways.
And yet. And yet. We did not let one another down. This was the therapeutic part.
When Massachusetts’ vaccine rollout failed to provide appropriate access to the elderly and those lacking transportation, networks of civic leaders pulled together and got the job done. The Black Boston Covid-19 Coalition used get-out-the-vote techniques to help get more of the city’s residents vaccinated. In the western part of the state, the Berkshire Vaccine Collaborative organized a network of small health-care providers to serve as vaccine sites and got the state to knuckle under and deliver vaccine supplies, allowing rural-area residents to stay put for their shots.
After the murder of George Floyd, amid clear calls from communities of color to change the pattern of policing, forward progress was again achieved at the local level. The highly effective mayor of Lynn, north of Boston, helped forge a collaboration between a social justice civic organization and police that led to a pilot program, funded by the city, to build out unarmed response capacity for mental health crises. In Williamstown, in the northwestern corner of the state, community activism achieved an independent investigation into problematic policing practices, resulting in the resignation of the police chief and an effort to make a fresh start.
This is how it was throughout Massachusetts, and it was the antidote to my despair. Good work abounded. Everywhere I found people — with different perspectives — forging alliances to address some of our toughest challenges. Yes, our state government could and should do more to support and help scale it all up. Yes, our federal government is unable to answer even a shock as dire as a massacre at an elementary school. But it is also a fact that problem-solving is underway in every corner of my state. That’s bound to be true of every state.
Having had the chance to see that good work up close left me with a profound understanding of our resilience as a people and our capacity to meet even the exceptionally daunting challenges of our moment. That brought me hope. For this, I will be forever grateful.
I recommend this therapy to everyone losing hope in our democracy. All you have to do is pick an office and run for it. And this too, I believe, is how we’ll at last crack our national gridlock and get the solutions we deserve. | 2022-06-08T16:59:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Danielle Allen: I ran for Massachusetts governor out of anger and despair. I felt hope when I dropped out. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/danielle-allen-run-office-massachusetts/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/danielle-allen-run-office-massachusetts/ |
Television crews and technicians prepare for Thursday night's hearing by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, on June 7. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
For the House select committee’s Jan. 6 hearings slated to start Thursday evening to have lasting impact on the American people and lay the groundwork for reforms and safeguards to our democratic process, the committee must stick as closely as possible to journalism’s five Ws and one H: Tell the public the who, what, when, where, why and how of the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
What isn’t needed during the hearings is a sensation-seeking, look-at-us production aimed at capturing and focusing the nation’s attention exclusively on former president Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
We need the whole, broader story — built on the facts.
Carefully assembled findings stemming from the 11 months of investigations, including more than 1,000 depositions and interviews, and more than 140,000 documents should provide the entire account of what led a mob of men and women to descend on Washington and violently storm the nation’s seat of democracy to disrupt the count of the electoral college ballots during a joint session of Congress.
Hyping the upcoming hearings as blockbuster, designating materials as explosive, predicting a captivated viewing audience — all before the gavel falls — is a recipe for losing American eyeballs. The country has been down this road before. Think two Trump impeachment proceedings in the House.
Admittedly, both of those proceedings had the added ingredient of Republican members who debased themselves trying to obstruct the probes and protect Trump. This time, however, the boycott of the House select committee, led by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), has shorn the panel of all Republicans except Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), the only GOP members to vote to form the committee.
Still, the House select committee ought to make sure its Democratic members don’t become part of the show. There will be, if the hype holds up, plenty of live witnesses and preproduced video for viewers to chew over. But please hold the dramatic background music.
The public would benefit from hearing directly from officials and staff within the Trump administration, Trump’s campaign advisers, and other credible on-the-scene witnesses about coordinated actions aimed at preventing the transfer of presidential power on Jan. 20, 2021.
The insurrection story cannot be told by members preening for minutes before live cameras. Their job is to restrain themselves and act as a committee to leave no questions hanging or accounts open to doubt or speculation.
Because the Jan. 6 hearings are not a show.
The country needs to know who, both in Washington and beyond, was involved in the events leading up to and including the storming of the Capitol. What were they seeking to achieve? How was the plan hatched, coordinated and, if paid for, how and by whom?
We might think we know this story — who hasn’t seen images of the assaults on Capitol and D.C. police, the rampage inside the building, the Senate Chamber’s desecration? But how did the mob get rolling? Was it planned? Was it spontaneous? Was there more to the attack? And, finally, what was the full, unvarnished role of Donald Trump in an indisputable and ghastly assault on American democracy? And what steps need to be taken to prevent such a dastardly deed from ever happening again?
If it does that, the House select committee will not only have achieved its mission but have earned the nation’s gratitude as well. | 2022-06-08T16:59:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Please, Democrats, no showhorses at the Jan. 6 hearings - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/january-6-hearings-democrats-should-focus-facts/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/08/january-6-hearings-democrats-should-focus-facts/ |
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