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A participant holds an American flag during a naturalization ceremony for 40 new U.S. citizens in New York on July 1. (Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)
John F. Kennedy, a young war hero running in his first congressional campaign, delivered a speech on July 4, 1946, at Faneuil Hall in Boston. It was mostly patriotic bromides about God and country. But it included a haunting meditation on the American soul.
“A nation’s character, like that of an individual, is elusive,” Kennedy said. “It is produced partly by things we have done and partly by what has been done to us. It is the result of physical factors, intellectual factors, spiritual factors. … In peace, as in war, we will survive or fail according to its measure.”
What does our national portrait look like on this Independence Day? Many of us see an angry, traumatized face, rather than the radiant glow of the Founders. That’s the odd thing about this hyperpartisan moment: Nearly every American, whatever their political perspective, has a foreboding that the country they love is losing its way.
How great is the danger of national decline? The Pentagon’s in-house think tank, which has the mysterious name “Office of Net Assessment,” commissioned a study of the problem by Michael J. Mazarr, a senior political scientist at the Rand Corp. It was just published, under the title, “The Societal Foundations of National Competitiveness.” It’s hardly upbeat summer reading, but it can be downloaded free online, and it’s well worth the time.
Let’s start with American ambition and confidence, once our most notable trait. “Writers and scholars alike … have argued that the spirit of adventurousness, experimentation and determination to remake the future have all ebbed in the American character,” Mazarr writes.
He notes polling that three-quarters of those surveyed in 2019 were unhappy about where the country is headed. A 2018 study reported that more than 60 percent of those polled had “more fear than hope.” And Americans across party lines don’t trust our country’s institutions. A 2018 poll registered only 10 percent who were “very satisfied” with how democracy is working; it also found that two-thirds of respondents agree that “public officials don’t care what I think.”
National unity and cohesion are declining, Mazarr believes. A country that was effective (sometimes brutally so) at assimilating diverse groups is more fragmented, and the idea of America as a “melting pot” seems archaic to many people. But our separate identities come at a cost: “A country with a rapidly diversifying population — though it gains competitive advantages from this diversity — will also face greater hurdles to sustaining a sense of coherent national identity,” Mazarr writes.
America remains an opportunity society, in principle, but Mazarr sees growing constraints. He cites the evidence of rising inequality. Between 2001 and 2016, the median net worth of the middle class fell 20 percent, and that of the working class plummeted 45 percent. He notes evidence that in each generation since 1945, children have been less likely to make more money than their parents.
These problems are obvious, but government hasn’t been willing or able to correct them. Mazarr quotes a World Bank assessment of gradually declining “governance effectiveness” in the United States over the past 20 years. It isn’t just a government problem, though. Private-sector productivity has been stagnant for decades, and corporations struggle with bureaucracy and bloat. Universities spend nearly as much on administration as teaching, and administrative costs account for a third of total health-care spending.
Part of America’s DNA is the idea that our problems are fixable. I’m still in that party of optimists. But I found Mazarr’s conclusions chilling. When countries begin to fail, he argues, “it is a negative-feedback loop, a poisonous synergy.” The energy that could reverse decline becomes sapped by mistrust and misinformation. Some people get so angry they want to burn the house down and start over.
We’re not at that cataclysmic point yet. I see positive signs in the slow but growing Republican willingness to challenge Donald Trump, and in the broad, bipartisan anger at the extremism of recent Supreme Court decisions. But bad things can happen to good countries, as our modern history shows.
The American character was once easy to define. We were a young, optimistic nation, fusing “one out of many,” as the Latin phrase engraved on our coins puts it. Wherever Americans had come from, they embraced the aspiration for “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” written in the Declaration of Independence. May it ever be so. | 2022-07-03T11:17:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Is America's national character in decline? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/july-4-america-national-character-decline/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/july-4-america-national-character-decline/ |
An electronic screen projects the logo of online news site Rappler at their offices in Manila on June 29. (Rolex Dela Pena/EFA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
In their Nobel Peace Prize lectures last Dec. 10 in Oslo, both Dmitry Muratov of Novaya Gazeta and Maria Ressa of Rappler, journalists of distinction and grit who faced off against repressive governments, warned of dangers ahead. “The world has fallen out of love for democracy,” said Mr. Muratov. “The world has begun to turn to dictatorship.” Ms. Ressa declared: “Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with our world’s existential problems: climate, coronavirus, the battle for truth.”
They were the first working journalists to win the Nobel Prize since 1936, but just months after the ceremony, their warnings ring more true than they might have imagined. Mr. Muratov’s publication suspended operations in March under President Vladimir Putin’s threat to punish news media that criticize Russia’s barbaric war on Ukraine. On June 28, Ms. Ressa announced that Rappler has again been ordered to close by Philippine authorities after a years-long struggle to expose the underside of President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown on drugs — and other abuses.
They are at the front lines of a global contest of immense importance. A healthy democracy depends on a vibrant civil society in which independent associations and groups act as connectors between the public and its rulers. The press plays an indispensable role, making the system accountable and leading to change. But a regime that holds a monopoly on power cannot tolerate a free and freewheeling press, as both Rappler and Novaya Gazeta discovered. Democracy dies in darkness, the words that grace our front page, also describe a deepening crisis around the globe, from Ukraine to Myanmar, Belarus to Cuba, China to Russia. Journalists are struggling, their backs against the wall in the quest for truth.
Ms. Ressa, who has been an outspoken champion of free speech, founded Rappler in 2012, building a scrappy news website that exposed arbitrary executions in the drug war and took on the difficult topic of social media manipulation and disinformation. On June 29, the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission reaffirmed a 2018 decision that Rappler violated a ban on foreign ownership in mass media — involving an investment by Omidyar Network — and issued a shutdown order. Rappler vowed to appeal, and called the proceedings “highly irregular.” Ms. Ressa said it would not shut down. She has been a target of government harassment for years. “In less than two years, the Philippine government filed 10 arrest warrants against me,” she said in the Nobel address. “I’ve had to post bail 10 times just to do my job. … All told, the charges I face could send me to jail for about 100 years.” She added, “What was meant to intimidate me and Rappler only strengthened us.” | 2022-07-03T11:17:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Dmitry Muratov and Maria Ressa fear for democracy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/nobel-prize-dmitry-muratov-maria-ressa-democracy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/nobel-prize-dmitry-muratov-maria-ressa-democracy/ |
An abortion rights activist flies a U.S. flag upside down outside the Supreme Court building during a June 26 protest. (Samuel Corum/AFP/Getty Images)
I had hoped to write a thoroughly celebratory column about the Fourth of July. It’s when we come together to cheer a nation that has struggled for 246 years to make the principle of equality a reality.
And even this disconcerting moment does not make me feel any less grateful that this is my country. I’m devoted to its boisterous freedom, its energetic inventiveness, its rambunctious culture, its democratic aspirations and its welcome mat (yes, occasionally pulled back) for people from around the world.
The core argument I had planned to make is that we are a constitutional people. We define ourselves not by ethnicity or race, nor blood and soil, but by a set of principles and the documents that reflect them.
Yet thanks especially to this term’s Supreme Court rulings on abortion, guns and the climate, this July Fourth finds us riven about how to read our own founding and the documents the Founders bequeathed us. We are torn about what we love most about our country.
It is a national habit to insist that whatever we happen to be asserting about politics is consistent with what the Founders envisioned. Just listen to how often members of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection and Donald Trump’s lawbreaking have spoken of the Constitution and its obligations.
Even now, when we are increasingly aware of how racism and sexism afflicted the founding generation, most Americans still prefer to be on the side of Jefferson and Madison, Adams and Hamilton. Not for nothing is “Hamilton” a smash hit.
But that’s where the agreement stops. On one side of our divide (the side on which I stand) are those who revere our nation’s capacity for progress and self-correction. We point with appreciation to the figures in our history who battled for the reforms that allowed us to adhere more closely to the commitment to equality embodied in the Declaration of Independence, a document pivotal to the thinking of Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Those of broadly progressive convictions regularly invoke the Preamble to our Constitution and its commitment “to form a more perfect Union.” The implication of that “more” is that we will always find ourselves less than fully perfect and having additional work to do. We have taken steps forward and backward, but on net, we have advanced from 1776, when most Black Americans were slaves and women could not even vote.
In this reading, the Constitution is not a straitjacket designed to keep the country where it was in 1789 or 1868 or whatever other date a nostalgic conservatism might point to. The Constitution is a framework for self-rule and (small-r) republican government that assumed the nation would embrace change when necessary. Remember, as the historian Gordon Wood taught us, the Founders were radicals for their time.
The conservative reading of the same documents is well reflected in the repeated invocation of the words “historical” and “tradition” in the recent Supreme Court decisions on guns and abortion. The majority’s gun ruling used the words “historical tradition” a dozen times.
E.J. Dionne Jr.: The Supreme Court guts gun laws while Congress finally acts
This is what “originalism” as a doctrine really comes down to. If the progressive view of the American experience focuses on the changes needed to live up to our aspirations, the conservative imperative is to preserve — and in many cases move back to — what made the country, well, “great” at some earlier juncture.
What “strict construction” really means is not close adherence to the text, as is often claimed. The gun decision, after all, effectively dismisses the importance of the Second Amendment’s “well regulated Militia” clause.
Michael Waldman: The most dangerous gun ruling in history, at the worst possible time
Together, “originalism” and “strict construction” reflect an effort to invoke the Constitution to tether the country to the past. Both have been used to roll back democratic advances such as the Voting Rights Act and campaign finance reforms as well as regulatory achievements on the environment and labor rights that in many cases date back a century or more. Now, we are torn asunder about guns, abortion and saving our planet.
David Cole: The Supreme Court embraces originalism, and all its flaws
This, then, is the argument that confronts us this July Fourth. It’s a familiar battle from a history in which slavery’s advocates and opponents alike claimed that the Constitution and the Founders support their respective outlooks.
For those on the progressive side who feel they are on the losing end of today’s debates, our national birthday this year can be an occasion to remember those who came before them and never gave up on King’s vision of bending the arc of our story toward justice.
“One can be a critic of one’s country,” the great social thinker Daniel Bell wrote, “without being an enemy of its promise.” On this July Fourth, that promise is still worth celebrating — and fighting for. | 2022-07-03T11:17:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | This July Fourth, we’re torn over what we love about our country - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/this-july-fourth-torn-over-american-ideals/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/this-july-fourth-torn-over-american-ideals/ |
The decision made clear what we already know: We can’t regulate our way out of global warming. Congress has to act.
Perspective by Joseph Majkut
Joseph Majkut is director of the energy security and climate change program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Even in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that puts new boundaries on the EPA's authority, the path to decarbonizing the U.S. economy doesn’t look particularly different today than it did last week. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
When the Supreme Court voted 6-3 Thursday to place boundaries on how the Environmental Protection Agency can use its authority to regulate power plants, advocates for swift action to slow global warming described the decision as a potential death knell for the climate agenda. But the situation is not nearly that dire.
Some background: In the latter part of the Obama Administration, the EPA proposed to regulate power plants through something it called the Clean Power Plan. The aim was not just to cut pollution on a plant-by-plant basis but to treat the power sector as a system. At the grid level, utilities would be required to shift some of their power production from coal to natural gas or renewables via a cap-and-trade system. This was a creative approach to reduce costs and hasten emissions reductions. But everyone was aware from the outset that there was a risk that courts would disapprove.
And indeed, the Supreme Court has now given the plan a definitive thumbs-down. After the court stayed the implementation of the Clean Power Plan in 2016, the rule never took effect. The Biden EPA had no plan of reviving it. But with its decision on Thursday, the court affirmatively rejected as outside the scope of the EPA’s authority both the plan and the systems-based approach it proposed.
This means that the EPA will have to implement simpler regulations on a plant-by-plant level. That’s a setback, but a lot can be achieved through such an approach. And more importantly, the path to decarbonizing the U.S. economy doesn’t look particularly different today than it did last week.
It will take some time for environmental lawyers to parse the nuances of this new decision to understand exactly where the limits on the EPA’s ability to regulate power plants lie. Some may worry that the current Supreme Court has enough skepticism about agency decisions that it will characterize nearly any aggressive regulatory move as too major for the executive branch to attempt on its own.
But that seems unduly pessimistic; the court gave a reasonably clear sense of what it objects to. The decision does not rule out the agency requiring that plants run more efficiently, burn cleaner fuel mixes or install equipment to capture carbon dioxide from exhaust. Such direct regulation may not achieve as much as a cap-and-trade system, but the cost of controlling carbon emissions via technology is improving as more projects are deployed.
The larger reality, however, is that success and failure at curbing climate change does not hinge on the scope of the EPA’s regulatory authority over power plants. Electricity generation accounts for 25 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and coal only half of power sector emissions. Recognizing the importance of other sectors, President Biden’s EPA has already written rules to reduce tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks, as well as methane emissions from oil and gas production.
Last year, Biden pledged that the United States would cut carbon emissions 50 percent by 2030. Such an ambitious goal, entirely justified as a waypoint on the road to climate safety, requires a major coordinated effort involving all levels of government and the private sector to cut emissions from whole economy. Analysis from the Rhodium Group suggests that requirements like tax credits for clean energy — like those under negotiation for the proposed budget reconciliation bill — federal and state regulatory interventions, and voluntary corporate initiatives all working to complement each other, would be necessary to achieve this. Congressional, state, and private-sector action is all the more important now.
There are reasons for optimism, despite this week’s decision. Even though the Clean Power Plan never took effect, the power sector met the rule’s emissions target of 32 percent below 2005 emissions in 2019, a decade early. The falling costs of renewables and natural gas pushed coal off the grid throughout the 2010s and made the United States a global leader in reducing emissions. Admittedly, much of that success came from using more natural gas; deeper emissions cuts will require reliance on more zero-carbon energy.
The Biden climate agenda’s largest domestic victory thus far was the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which focused on technology necessary to reduce emissions. To truly decarbonize, we need to build a better and more resilient power grid, establish supply chains for solar panels and critical minerals and build local support for new energy technologies. Those can’t be regulated into existence. (We might as well call for cutting red tape to allow the faster building of cleaner infrastructure.) Eventually we will need a carbon tax or economy-wide emissions cap to cut emissions in a systemic and cost-effective way but that can’t come from the EPA.
The Supreme Court said this week that “major” regulation must be authorized by Congress. But we already knew that that’s where comprehensive climate policy must come from — even if it happens piece by piece and with compromises climate advocates may be reluctant to make. Republican intransigence on the issue may be frustrating, but for a country targeting net-zero, the path to progress runs through the halls of the Capitol — rightly, and inevitably. | 2022-07-03T11:17:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The climate-change agenda can survive the Supreme Court’s EPA ruling - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/07/03/epa-decision-supreme-court-optimism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/07/03/epa-decision-supreme-court-optimism/ |
By Lily Kuo
Lee Cheng-ling, an Uber Eats delivery driver from Taiwan, holds a bulletproof plate donated by a Taiwanese organization in a hostel in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Courtesy of Lee Cheng-ling)
TAIPEI, Taiwan — When Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky called in February for foreign volunteers to help repulse invading Russian forces, Chuang Yu-wei, a Taiwanese tour guide, signed up the next day.
“Taiwan can’t be a giant baby that cries for help but isn’t willing to help others,” said the 51-year-old from Taoyuan, near Taipei. Since arriving in Ukraine in March, he has joined patrols, helped cook, moved supplies and dug trenches near the front lines in Kharkiv. “It doesn’t matter how many of you come, you just have to come,” he said in a phone interview.
Chuang, who served in Taiwan’s military in the 1990s, is among a small group of Taiwanese volunteers in Ukraine for whom the war is a chance to bring battlefield experience back home — where debate is raging over the island’s military readiness — and show the international community that Taiwan is worth defending.
“I want the world to see that we aren’t the kind of people who lie on the ground waiting to be rescued. If you want people to help you, you first have to help them,” Chuang said.
Taiwan’s leaders try to calm fears over Ukraine invasion, but citizens worry their island will be next
It’s not known how many Taiwanese are in Ukraine. Volunteer soldiers interviewed by The Washington Post estimate that about 10 of their compatriots have joined the war effort.
Taiwan officials caution that war in the Taiwan Strait, the 100-mile-wide corridor between China and Taiwan, is not imminent. Officials point to differences between Taiwan’s situation and that of Ukraine, including the island’s geostrategic significance and close relationship with the United States. In May, President Biden said the United States would defend Taiwan militarily in the event of an attack by China, before the White House backtracked on his statement, maintaining a long-running policy of strategic ambiguity over the extent of U.S. assistance.
Yet the possibility of an attack by Beijing looms larger as Chinese leader Xi Jinping prepares to take on a third term this year, ushering in a critical period to cement his legacy. With China increasingly at odds with Western countries, and continuing an ambitious military buildup, more observers worry that Xi will take inspiration from his friend and partner, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
For Pan, 26, a volunteer fighter from Hsinchu who previously served in Taiwan’s special forces and the French Foreign Legion, these worries motivated him in April to join the International Legion for Ukraine.
“When the war broke out in Ukraine, I rushed over as soon as I could,” said Pan, who gave only his surname out of security concerns.
“In Taiwan, our electronic warfare specialists are secondary to the traditional army, and [the military] is still promoting the use of bayonets,” he said. Pan hopes to open a boot camp when he returns and bring in some of his comrades from Ukraine to teach Taiwanese civilians how to defend themselves.
Now, Ukraine’s plight has renewed questions about the possibility of attack and Taiwan’s overall defense strategy, while bolstering calls to review the role civilians would play in a conflict. It has also highlighted concerns about the quality of training in Taiwan’s military, which requires most men to do four months of service.
Biden vows to defend Taiwan militarily if invaded by China
The government has extended its reservist training program, raised its alert level and said that this year’s main military exercises will be informed by the Ukraine war and focused on asymmetric warfare. Last month, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said Taiwan was “inspired by Ukraine” to strengthen its defense.
But these steps may not be enough to repel a far more powerful opponent like China. Taiwan’s mandatory military service is often likened to a summer camp, where recruits spend more time doing menial labor than learning combat skills. Tactics taught are comparable to those used during the 1991 Gulf War or the Vietnam War.
“The biggest questions are: What kind of war are we going to fight now? Can our equipment, military units and training match the kind of war we will have to fight?” said Lin Ying-yu, associate professor of Asia-Pacific affairs at Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-sen University.
For soldiers from Taiwan, the Ukraine conflict is a chance to see modern warfare up close. From using artillery in conjunction with drones to employing portable missile systems like Javelins and Stingers, “what they experience on the battlefield will definitely be useful,” Lin said.
Some Taiwanese soldiers in Ukraine say the most important skill is one that’s difficult to learn outside a real conflict.
Chen Ting-wei, 27, who trained with an elite amphibious reconnaissance and patrol unit in Taiwan known as the “frogmen,” was assigned to defend a village near Kharkiv in April.
China calls U.S. a ‘bully,’ vows to ‘fight to the end’ for Taiwan
While he was hiding in a trench with his squad one day, a car came from behind and sped past. One of his teammates, a U.S. Marine veteran, advised that they should leave in case the car was Russian surveillance. Less than a minute later, their area was bombed, killing a member of their team who hadn’t escaped in time.
“The most important experience I’ve gained is agility on the battlefield,” Chen said. “Without the experience, you won’t be able to react quickly.”
Others have been moved by public morale. Lee Cheng-ling, a 34-year-old Uber Eats delivery driver from Taichung who joined Ukraine’s foreign legion in April, said he has been most impressed by the will of the Ukrainian people, something he worries Taiwanese citizens lack.
“They have a really strong sense of unity,” he said of the Ukrainians. “I feel that in Taiwan, our solidarity is more like a show for the international community.”
The volunteers are also spreading word of Taiwan’s precarious position. When Chen tells other foreign soldiers he is from Taiwan, they promise they will come to the island’s aid when needed.
“People from Poland, the U.S., Australia, Brazil and Ukraine have all told me that if China attacks Taiwan, ‘we will meet in Taiwan,’ ” he said.
For Chuang, helping Ukraine is like buying time for his homeland. At Kyiv’s Independence Square recently, he took pictures with the Taiwanese flag at a monument to foreign fighters serving in Ukraine. He believes Taiwan should be the one expressing gratitude.
“If Ukraine had been defeated in two weeks, then Xi Jinping would have attacked Taiwan,” he said.
But, he noted, Kyiv withstood the Russian siege — giving him hope for his homeland.
“We can be more confident in ourselves,” he said. | 2022-07-03T12:17:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Taiwanese join Ukraine's fight against Russia, due to China threat - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/03/taiwan-fighters-ukraine-war-russia-china-threat/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/03/taiwan-fighters-ukraine-war-russia-china-threat/ |
Rising prices and soaring rents are taking their toll across the country
Sabrina Barger-Turner and her older son, Aiden Turner, 13, go through her to-do list on June 30 in Abingdon, Md. She was unable to pick up prints she had ordered from the Abingdon Public Library because they asked for a library card number, for which she is not eligible. Print sales are one of Barger-Turner’s sources of income. (Maansi Srivastava/The Washington Post)
Navigating the economy
Rents are rising everywhere. See how much prices are up in your area.
‘Survival mode’: Inflation falls hardest on low-income Americans
Even among those who are still in their homes, the prospect of suddenly being displaced is creeping closer. An estimated 13.7 million Americans were behind on rent or mortgage payments in early June, up 7 percent from April, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. Of those, 4.6 million adults say they are “somewhat likely” or “very likely” to lose their homes by eviction or foreclosure in the next two months, a 32 percent increase from early April.
Jansen, 55, lives on $980 a month in Social Security disability payments. She said there’s no way to make the numbers work. She paid off her $48,000 mobile home in Wyoming, N.Y., years ago, but said she’ll likely be living in her Dodge Nitro SUV. Skyrocketing home values have lifted the median home price in her county by 16 percent in the past year, leaving her with higher property taxes just as groceries, gas and prescription medications have all gotten more expensive.
Every $100 increase in median rent is associated with a 9 percent increase in the estimated homelessness rate, according to the a 2020 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Economists say that figure is particularly troubling as rents continue to soar to unprecedented highs. The national median asking rent jumped to a record $2,002 in May, up 15 percent from $1,738 a year ago, according to Redfin.
Meanwhile, local rents have risen 22 percent from the beginning of the pandemic, making Lopez’s $1,100 budget feel increasingly impossible. She pays $483 a week for a motel room she shares with her sons, ages 3, 5 and 14, but is almost out of money. The few affordable places she’s found have months-long wait lists. She’s already borrowed money from her mother and a cousin, and has nowhere left to turn.
Experts say that about 20 percent of people without a home are considered chronically homeless and living on the streets or in shelters. The vast majority lack a permanent address but are patching together living arrangements however they can.
“I thought everything would be fine once I got housed, but it’s not,” she said. “I’m depressed. ...We are literally starting over from scratch.”
Evans applied to move into a studio where the rent is $800 a month. Rents in the area rose 9 percent since the pandemic began, according to CoStar Group data. But even if they hear back, they can’t afford it. Evans has worked a handful of retail and housekeeping jobs since the pandemic, but fear of getting sick and cutback hours have slashed her income. She and her husband, who has a type 1 diabetes, shop at Walmart for groceries that can withstand the 90-degree heat: bagels, bags of chips, tuna packets. McDonalds or Taco Bell are options “if we can afford it,” Jordan said. They can’t justify paying $158 for window coverings, which means she sometimes wakes up to people peering into the car.
“Some apartments have gone up by $20 [per month], some by $150,” she said. “It’s really hard to find an apartment just in Missouri in general. And in the 20 days we’ve been living in our car, we’ve noticed so many other people living out of their cars, as well.” | 2022-07-03T12:47:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inflation and rent increases are making homelessness worse - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/03/inflation-homeless-rent-housing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/03/inflation-homeless-rent-housing/ |
Perspective by Fuschia Sirois
Do you tend to see the glass as half full, rather than half empty? Are you always looking on the bright side of life? If so, you might be surprised to learn that this tendency could actually be good for your health.
A number of studies have shown that optimists enjoy higher levels of well-being, better sleep, lower stress and even better cardiovascular health and immune function. And now, a study links being an optimist to a longer life.
Researchers tracked the life span of some 160,000 women ages 50 to 79 for 26 years. At the beginning of the study, the women completed a self-report measure of optimism. Women with the highest scores on the measure were categorized as optimists. Those with the lowest scores were considered pessimists.
Why some people are more optimistic than others — and why it matters
Then, in 2019, the researchers followed up with the participants who were still living. They also looked at the life span of participants who had died. What they found was that those who had the highest levels of optimism were more likely to live longer. More important, the optimists were also more likely than those who were pessimists to live into their nineties. Researchers refer to this as “exceptional longevity,” considering the average life span for women in developed countries is about 83 years.
What makes these findings especially impressive is that the results remained even after accounting for other factors known to predict a long life — including education level and economic status, ethnicity and whether a person suffered from depression or other chronic health conditions.
But given that the study looked only at women, it’s uncertain whether the same would be true for men. But another study looking at both men and women also found that people with the highest levels of optimism enjoyed a life span that was between 11 and 15 percent longer than those who were the least optimistic.
So why is it that optimists live longer? At first glance, it would seem it could have to do with their healthier lifestyles.
Healthy lifestyle may increase life expectancy, research suggests
For example, research from several studies has found that optimism is linked to eating a healthy diet, staying physically active and being less likely to smoke cigarettes. These healthy behaviors are well known to improve heart health and reduce the risk for cardiovascular disease, which is a leading cause of death globally. Adopting a healthy lifestyle is also important for reducing the risk of other potentially deadly diseases, such as diabetes and cancer.
But having a healthy lifestyle might be only part of the reason optimists live longer-than-average lives. The latest study found that lifestyle only accounted for 24 percent of the link between optimism and longevity, which suggests a number of other factors affect longevity for optimists.
Another possible reason could be the way optimists manage stress. When faced with a stressful situation, optimists tend to deal with it head-on. They use adaptive coping strategies that help them resolve the source of the stress, or view the situation in a less stressful way. For example, optimists will problem-solve and plan ways to deal with the stressor, call on others for support or try to find a “silver lining” in the stressful situation.
All of these approaches are well known to reduce feelings of stress, as well as the biological reactions that occur when we feel stressed. It’s these biological reactions to stress — such as elevated cortisol (sometimes called the “stress hormone”), increased heart rate and blood pressure, and impaired immune system functioning — that can take a toll on health over time and increase the risk for developing life-threatening illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease. In short, the way optimists cope with stress might help protect them somewhat against its harmful effects.
Optimism is typically viewed by researchers as a relatively stable personality trait that is determined by both genetic and early-childhood influences (such as having a secure and warm relationship with your parents or caregivers). But if you’re not naturally prone to seeing the glass as half full, there are some ways you can increase your capacity to be optimistic.
Ask Amy: My husband is obsessed with being healthy, and I’m not
Research shows optimism can change over time and can be cultivated by engaging in simple exercises. For example, visualizing and then writing about your “best possible self” (a future version of yourself who has accomplished your goals) is a technique that studies have found can significantly increase optimism, at least temporarily. But for best results, the goals need to be both positive and reasonable, rather than just wishful thinking. Similarly, simply thinking about positive future events can also be effective for boosting optimism.
It’s also crucial to temper any expectations for success with an accurate view of what you can and cannot control. Optimism is reinforced when we experience the positive outcomes that we expect, but it can decrease when these outcomes aren’t as we want them to be. Although more research is needed, it’s possible that regularly envisioning yourself as having the best possible outcomes, and taking realistic steps toward achieving them, can help develop an optimistic mind-set.
Of course, this might be easier said than done for some. If you’re someone who isn’t naturally optimistic, the best chance to improve your longevity entails living a healthy lifestyle by staying physically active, eating a healthy diet, managing stress and getting a good night’s sleep. Add to this cultivating a more optimistic mind-set and you might further increase your chances for a long life. | 2022-07-03T12:47:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why optimists live longer than the rest of us - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/03/optimistists-live-longer-why/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/03/optimistists-live-longer-why/ |
July 4 is a time to sing our complicated country’s praises
By Richard Danzig
A participant holds an American flag during a naturalization ceremony held for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services annual Independence Day celebration at Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on July 1 in New York. (Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)
Racism, sexism, inequality, hateful speech, climate change, battles over abortion, immigration and many other issues demand our attention. Amid this maelstrom, many Americans pine for the shared purpose of our Revolution, World War II and its aftermath.
Abortion, guns and the EPA: Post columnists answer questions on what to make of this Supreme Court term
First and foremost, they would see a country in which a majority of citizens devote considerable energy to moral discourse: debating the proper balance of embryonic and maternal life, focusing on injustices and inequalities, quarreling in courts and legislatures about how to govern, including when and whether to admit immigrants (now entering this nation at a rate of 1 million per year) as potential citizens. No one before World War II ever experienced a democracy of citizens this numerous, this diverse and this engaged.
Opinion: As the court forces Christianity on America, it's time for atheists to speak out
Why should we be surprised that, having achieved this, the results are untidy, rowdy, even tumultuous? Americans take it as their birthright to develop and express their political views — and, for that matter, their views about vaccines, international trade, the right to execute convicted criminals, the nature of changes in the Earth’s atmosphere, and so on and so forth. By and large, Americans do this within the bounds of the law; and commonly, though not universally, they do so within the bounds of civility. Do you want it otherwise?
Opinion: The most dangerous gun ruling in history, at the worst possible time
What achievements resulted from the messy, frequently infuriating, sometimes destructive energy of modern America? There was reason to call the heroes of World War II “the Greatest Generation,” but I will lay claim for the generations after them. Over the last two-thirds of a century, we Americans achieved a society that uprooted entrenched, widely prevalent ways of looking at race, gender and sexuality. We remade our ways of living. Alongside this, modern Americans awoke and forced some reckoning with the fact that our species, “the toolmaker,” is also the devastator of our planet and the wanton destroyer of other species.
Would you think that such gains could be achieved without debate, disruption and division? Do you want the America of old — which in fact had much conflict and dissension (even more, as in the 1960s)? Yes, on this July Fourth there is a lot to regret in our country. I wish we fought less and more productively. But our struggles reflect American virtues. I will take this America with its enmities, conflicts and divisions. Indeed, while regretting our country’s faults, I sing its praises. | 2022-07-03T13:18:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | July 4 is a time to sing our complicated country’s praises - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/yes-america-complicated-but-look-how-far-weve-come/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/yes-america-complicated-but-look-how-far-weve-come/ |
Are Things Really That Bad? Actually, No
The houses are nicer than the neighborhood. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
Before I begin, please note: I am not a pessimist. I am not short the market, and I think the world is far more likely to muddle through than to fall apart. Nonetheless, I now believe the future will be far more irresponsible and stupid than I once did.
I am increasingly worried that human success and failure are ruled by taste — the demand side, in economic terms. If there are fewer beautiful and charming residential post-World War II neighborhoods, it is because most people do not want to live in them. If there are fewer movies today with the dramatic impact and compositional rigor of “Citizen Kane,” it is because people do not very much want to see them. It is not that it is too difficult or expensive to make another “Citizen Kane.”
Again, this is not an argument for pessimism. Hollywood movies may be worse, but television programs are much better. Neighborhoods may look less interesting, but the insides of homes are more comfortable. For every potential lost Baroque concerto, there are gains in other areas of life.
Still, it is striking how much the quality of taste can decline — and stay there for long periods.
Social contagion plays a significant role in this process. That is, when some people become interested in a particular genre, many others may follow: Think of the rise of Beatlemania. The process also works the other way: Think of the decline of disco.
The question is why some particular tastes decline, and others rise. There are probably deep structural explanations, but for the most part those reasons are not transparent to our understanding. For all practical purposes, many shifts in cultural tastes are random.
It’s also important to realize that a lot of politics is about aesthetic tastes for a particular set of values, a particular set of people, a particular set of processes and outcomes. There was a series of democratic revolutions starting in the late 18th century, just as there were numerous fascist revolutions starting in the early 20th century and neoliberal revolutions in the 1990s. Social contagion can help explain those as well.
My fear, quite simply, is that we have entered an age in which the popular taste for good political outcomes, and fair political processes, is much weaker than it used to be. You might think that people would always want at least decent political outcomes, but that hypothesis has gotten increasingly hard to defend in the last 10 years, both in the US and globally. Attachment to democracy, for instance, seems significantly weaker, as does love for capitalism. People’s tastes are being pulled in different directions, whether it be the Proud Boys or the extremely woke.
All of which is to say, a rather simple and unglorified possibility is becoming more likely: People have stopped wanting good things to happen.
I realize this explanation is banal and does not hold much emotional appeal. Many people prefer conspiracy theories, or tightly structured theoretical hypotheses, or to pin the blame on some particular political faction, usually one they oppose. Or they focus on some very specific issue, such as climate change.
I view all of those problems, real though they may be, as downstream from the more fundamental issue: Why haven’t our systems of government responded better to whatever particular dilemmas concern us most?
By this point, you may be wondering how I still count myself as an optimist. Allow me to quote Adam Smith: “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” Both America and the world have more talent, and more capital investment, than they have ever had. Even if we make many mistakes, our problems will still not be as bad as what the world was experiencing in 1980, a time of widespread poverty and brutal communist regimes on several continents.
And remember: Tastes can and will shift yet again, in more positive directions. “It’s up to us” can be a source of either joy or despair. Say what you will about modern civilization, but I can’t help but notice that Mozart gets an awful lot of likes on YouTube. | 2022-07-03T14:19:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Are Things Really That Bad? Actually, No - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/are-things-really-that-bad-actually-no/2022/07/03/dca0826e-fad0-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/are-things-really-that-bad-actually-no/2022/07/03/dca0826e-fad0-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Analysis by Romesh Ratnesar | Bloomberg
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 17: People participate in a special naturalization ceremony at the Stonewall National Monument within Christopher Park in Greenwich Village in celebration of Pride Month on June 17, 2022 in New York City. The new American citizens took the Oath of Allegiance across from the Stonewall Inn, the site of the Stonewall Riots in 1969 which started the Gay Liberation movement in America. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) (Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images North America)
Romesh Ratnesar: Immigration is an issue that continues to generate heated political and scholarly debate. You’re the co-author, with Ran Abramitzky, of a new book, “Streets of Gold,” which uses the power of big data to provide an economic history that challenges some of the conventional wisdom about the US immigrant experience. People have studied the economic impact of immigration in America for a long time. What’s different about the way in which you approached this topic?
Leah Boustan, professor of economics, Princeton University and co-author, “Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success”: Originally, Ran and I wanted to be able to put together data for every immigrant who came to the US at any time. We didn’t achieve that goal, but we tried our best given the technology that’s available now. It’s especially hard to find data on immigrants and immigrant families from the Ellis Island period, around the start of the 20th century, but we were able to benefit from recent advances in digitizing historical census records. If you want to go and search your own family members, you can now buy a subscription to Ancestry.com and access all of those underlying data sets. Once we realized we could find records for hundreds of millions of immigrants, we started scraping Ancestry.com to try to get at some of the data in a more automated fashion. We eventually got in trouble with [the company] for doing that, but when they realized we were just academics interested in learning more about immigration history, they started working with us. And so as a result, we got access to millions of historical records that are all in the public domain.
At that point, we tried to follow individuals in the US as they lived their lives. So we might pick an immigrant who arrives at Ellis Island at the age of 20. Using the census data, we can take a look at, you know, did he get married? Who did he marry? Did he move to another part of the country? Did he have kids? Did his occupation change? That sort of thing. We’ve built some algorithms to allow us and other people to follow individuals across the different census periods and then compare the past to the present. What we really are adding to the picture is a much more comprehensive data set for the past.
RR: So what did the data tell you that was missing from previous studies of immigration in the US?
LB: We wanted to look at the economic mobility and economic success of immigrants. Of course, people have been asking this question for at least a century: how did the immigrants who arrived in the US during the Ellis Island period fare when they first arrived and how did their earnings grow as they spent more time in the country? The conventional answer had been that immigrants from the Ellis Island period arrived earning less than the US-born, but within 15 years, completely caught up to and surpassed the earnings of the US-born. And it’s based on that premise that we’ve developed the impression that somehow immigrants who came to the US from Europe 100 years ago were especially talented or had unusual perseverance or grit or a knack for risk-taking. But it turns out that’s completely wrong, because it was based on faulty data.
RR: This is one of the major findings in your book — that the “rags to riches” myth about first-generation European immigrants is just that, a myth. Why is this significant? Won’t that deflate the more optimistic case for immigration if people discover that, well, it turns out the rags to riches thing isn’t actually true?
LB: Not necessarily. Just because the immigrant generation themselves, the people who made the journey to the United States, do not go from rags to riches does not mean that immigrant families are not ultimately quite successful. Much of the mobility that immigrant families experience is in the second generation. These are the children of immigrant parents. Most of them are born in the United States; some were born abroad but arrive as young kids. These are children who are educated in US public schools. They learn English very early in life. And those children do remarkably well, both today and in the past. So I don’t think that being more careful about the rags to riches myth necessarily deflates our optimism, but it does put it onto a longer time horizon. We need to be thinking in terms of generations instead of in terms of 10 to 15 years.
The second thing is that, either implicitly or explicitly ,many politicians are comparing immigrants today to immigrants in the past. We have good data for immigrants today. We see that while there certainly is some earnings growth and closing of the earnings gap with the US-born as immigrants go through their career, it’s not complete. Even when immigrants retire, they’re still earning less than the US-born. And so if we’re comparing the kind of nostalgic view to the facts on the ground today, it would seem to give credence to the idea that somehow the immigrants we’re attracting to the US today are not as high quality or as talented. And people who have that impression are more likely to say, well, maybe we should slow down on immigration or cut the number of immigrants that arrive.
RR: Did you find that the success of second generation immigrants is fairly universal? Are there some groups that that continue to struggle over several generations and maybe never really catch up?
LB: The short answer is that it’s true across the board, for many different countries. If you think about the fact that immigrants earn less than the US-born today, then that means the children of immigrants are on average going to be raised in households that are poor. But if you look at their children and their children’s children, for the most part they’ve completely caught up to the US-born. So in particular, you can pick out Mexico, Haiti and Jamaica, as two or three big sending countries where the parents earn a lot less than the US-born. The children continue to earn less on average, but the gap has closed tremendously. If the gap is, you know, 50% or 60% for the parents, it’s 5% or 10% for the kids.
Then you can make the apples-to-apples comparisons. So, on average, children of immigrants are raised in poor families. But what if we take two families that have similar income levels, and in one case, the parent is US-born and in the other case, the parent is foreign-born — what happens? In that case, for the 45 sending countries that we could get access to in the modern data, we find that for 42 of those 45 sending countries the children of immigrants achieve more economic success in adulthood than the children of US-born parents who were raised in similar households with similar income levels. That’s true for children whose parents were born in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, a lot of the countries in Latin America and Central America that raise alarm bells today. We find that the children of immigrants from those countries surpassed the earnings of the children of US-born parents who were raised at similar income levels.
RR: Politically, we’re kind of stuck in this kind of stalemate on immigration policy, with both sides operating at two extremes. Is there any reason to be optimistic about the possibility for comprehensive and sensible immigration reform?
LB: I’m an economic historian, so my job is to scale out to focus on the changes that have occurred in the US over the past 150 years. That’s what gives me the most sense of optimism. In our book, we turned to the data to try to figure out how attitudes towards immigrants evolved over the past 150 years. We don’t have public opinion polling that far back in time, but we do have access to all the speeches that were ever given on the floor of Congress. And that gives us some window into what the electorate was thinking. So we classified the speeches and found there were 200,000 speeches that were immigration related. Then, using machine learning and computing, we were able to classify those 200,000 as either pro- or anti-immigration.
And what we found is that for, let’s say, the first 60 to 70 years in our data, from 1882 to World War II, speeches about immigration were almost uniformly negative, across both parties and all regions. Americans hated immigrants from 1880 to 1945. But these days, if you go to the Gallup polls, 75% of Americans say that immigrants are good for the country. So there has been a major cultural shift.
And we can pinpoint from this congressional record data that the shift took place very quickly, between the end of World War II and 1960. It turns out that there were a few key presidents who got on the bully pulpit and started to make the case that immigrants are good for America — not only are they good for America, but they are America. That we ourselves are a nation of immigrants. You had Truman, then Kennedy and then LBJ making this case. And they were successful in changing the attitudes of the average American by saying immigrants helped build the country, they fought patriotically in World War II, and in fact they are us. So I take hope from that moment, because I see that there was cultural and attitudinal change within a very short period of time.
RR: One thing that many folks on the pro-immigration side argue for is a skills-based system — the idea being that we need do more immigrants, but the priority should be people with specialized skills that industry needs. Do you think that’s the right approach?
LB: We certainly need to expand high skilled immigration. But we also try to make the case that we should not be afraid of low-skilled immigration, to the extent that the labor market needs low-skilled workers, primarily in agriculture but also landscaping, child care, elder care, restaurant work. I think some people are concerned that well, OK, we might need someone temporarily for this year or the year after, but we don’t necessarily want their families to stay. What will happen with their kids? And that’s why the new evidence on the second generation on the children of immigrants is really important. If we had a number of low-skilled immigrants arrive and their children were sort of consigned to only being able to hold low-skilled jobs, then we might be in a situation where immigrants would make up a sort of permanent underclass. But we’re not seeing that. Instead, we’re seeing that the children of immigrants really rise.
RR: What did you learn about your own family in doing this work? Did learning more about your own family’s immigrant story change some of your assumptions?
LB: Well, the idea that the “rags to riches” arc doesn’t always take place in the first generation is exactly true for my family. My great-grandparents were the immigrant generation. And they held the same occupation with the same low earnings level throughout their life in the United States — they basically had a small mom-and-pop dollar store, sort of one step up from people who pushed carts selling odds and ends, much like street vendors today. It’s the second generation — so that would be my grandfather — who did substantially better. My grandfather was one of eight siblings; his six older siblings didn’t have the experience of being able to finish high school and go to college but he and his younger brother became a doctor and a lawyer. And that was sort of typical of the second generation: they had moved up from their parents, and some had done remarkably well.
RR: We’re heading into the Fourth of July weekend at a time when a lot of people have doubts about the strength of our democratic institutions. People are losing faith in democracy and our ability to sustain the American experiment. The end of your book provides an upbeat antidote to that pessimism. How can immigration strengthen American democracy?
LB: Surveys consistently find that immigrants are more patriotic and are more supportive of American institutions than US born Americans. They’re more likely to believe in the presidency and in Congress, and less likely to be skeptical or cynical. We end the book by saying there’s really nothing more patriotic than a naturalization ceremony. My co author, Ran, is an immigrant. He and his wife have gone through that experience themselves. And so I often turn to my immigrant friends who have a more optimistic and hopeful view of where America is headed.
RR: So if you want to feel good about America, maybe invite some immigrants to your 4th of July barbecue.
LB: Yeah, exactly. Almost all of us have some immigrants that we know in our own lives. And so ask your friends, neighbors, co-workers about their experience and what was it like to come to the US and what drew them here. Maybe you’ve known these folks for years, but never asked them about their immigrant experience. And that might be a fun thing to do.
Romesh Ratnesar is a member of the editorial board covering national security, education and immigration. A former senior State Department official in public diplomacy, he is author of “Tear Down This Wall: A City, a President, and the Speech That Ended the Cold War.” | 2022-07-03T14:19:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Can Immigrants Save American Democracy? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/can-immigrants-save-american-democracy/2022/07/03/dc67b1a0-fad0-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/can-immigrants-save-american-democracy/2022/07/03/dc67b1a0-fad0-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
By Madyson Fitzgerald, Richmond Times-Dispatch | AP
GOOCHLAND, Va. — In a room on the second floor of the Sheltering Arms Institute in Goochland, two women were talking near a window. One was recounting the day she had a stroke and was left on the floor of her home alone for 16 hours. | 2022-07-03T14:20:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Virginia hospital creates mentor program for stroke patients - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/virginia-hospital-creates-mentor-program-for-stroke-patients/2022/07/03/55228bb6-fad0-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/virginia-hospital-creates-mentor-program-for-stroke-patients/2022/07/03/55228bb6-fad0-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
For abortion-rights supporters, the sudden striking down of what was long considered settled law was the latest evidence of a broken democratic system
Abortion rights supporter Mary Wiley sits as protesters gather outside of the federal courthouse in Houston after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on June 24. (Callaghan O'hare/Reuters)
“We have all gone through where we’ve heard people say all the right things, and then they get in a position of power, and they do everything opposite — or a segment, a small portion, just enough to appease or hopefully get reelected,” she said.
Your questions about the end of Roe, answered
While the court is supposed to focus on legal reasoning, not public opinion, the June 24 ruling does not match the views of most Americans. Fifty-six percent of adults opposed overturning Roe, according to a recent Marist College poll conducted with NPR and PBS NewsHour after the court issued its decision. Of those polled, 57 percent said they think the court’s decision was mostly based on politics, while 36 percent said they considered it mostly based on the law.
By May — soon after a draft of the Dodds v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion leaked — approval of the court had dropped by 16 points, to 44 percent, according to a follow-up survey by Marquette. That poll showed a dramatic partisan split, with 71 percent of Republicans approving but 28 percent of Democrats doing the same.
Wisconsin clinics have stopped offering abortions because of an 1849 law that bars abortions unless the life of the woman is at stake. Gov. Tony Evers (D) has asked a court to invalidate that law. Moore, 59, said she is glad Democrats are fighting these restrictions, but she is pessimistic about the possibility for change in her state.
Wisconsin clinics have stopped offering abortions because of an 1849 law
Lailah Shima of Madison, Wis., said the court has been growing more political for decades, but the problem has worsened in recent years. She was frustrated in 2016 when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) refused to hold a hearing for President Barack Obama’s nominee to the court, Merrick Garland. She was further galled when McConnell put President Donald Trump’s three nominees on fast tracks.
In Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey (R) just signed into law a ban on abortions after 15 weeks, and Republicans may try to enact other restrictions. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) has said a law from the mid-1800s that makes it a crime to provide abortions could be applied.
Black women celebrate Jackson’s swearing in: ‘We needed this happy’
Marley reported from Madison, Wis., and Brown reported from Atlanta. Scott Clement contributed to this report. | 2022-07-03T14:20:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trust in Supreme Court falters after Roe decision - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/03/supreme-court-trust/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/03/supreme-court-trust/ |
RIO DE JANEIRO — Butterflies and waxbills flit through the Enchanted Valley just outside Rio de Janeiro’s Tijuca Forest National Park. There are fruit trees, a nearby waterfall and a commanding view out over the Atlantic Ocean. But for decades something was spoiling the idyll: the stench of raw sewage. | 2022-07-03T14:20:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How a favela in Rio got its clean water back, for $42,300 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/rio-de-janeiro-favela-sets-example-by-processing-own-waste/2022/07/03/392d822a-fad6-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/rio-de-janeiro-favela-sets-example-by-processing-own-waste/2022/07/03/392d822a-fad6-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Man fatally shot in Capitol Heights
A man was fatally shot Sunday in Capitol Heights, Prince George’s County police report.
Police said they responded to a mostly residential area just after midnight in the 600 block of Addison Road South, where they found the man inside a vehicle with gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said they are investigating the shooting as a homicide, and provided no further details Sunday morning. | 2022-07-03T15:46:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Prince George's County police investigating after man found slain in car - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/03/man-fatally-shot-addison-road-south/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/03/man-fatally-shot-addison-road-south/ |
Formula One’s Zhou Guanyu conscious after scary British Grand Prix crash
Driver Zhou Guanyu was conscious after being extricated from his car during the British Grand Prix at the Silverstone circuit. (Frank Augstein/Associated Press)
Zhou Guanyu was taken from the Silverstone course on a stretcher after a massive crash early in Formula One’s British Grand Prix on Sunday in Northamptonshire.
The 23-year-old Alfa Romeo driver’s team reported that he was conscious and had been evaluated and released from the circuit’s medical center. “There are no fractures,” the team said. “Considering the circumstances, he’s pretty well.”
Zhou’s car skidded across the gravel and flipped over the catch fence, finishing upside down after a collision involving, among others, Mercedes’s George Russell, who left his car immediately and sprinted to Zhou’s car. Zhou, with the car’s protective halo doing its job, eventually was extricated and taken from the course on a stretcher in an ambulance.
Russell, who received mechanical assistance after the crash, was also out of the race.
“First of all, the most important thing is that Zhou is okay,” Russell tweeted. “That was a scary incident and all credit to the marshals and medical team for their quick response. Obviously gutted to end the race this way and I’m sorry for the team and the fans. Cheering [teammate Lewis Hamilton] on from the garage.”
Russell is fine and out of the car... though Zhou's car rolled over. Hopefully he's uninjured. pic.twitter.com/TPcGbGk6cT
Williams’s Alex Albon and Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly were also involved in the crash. Both drivers sought treatment at the medical center, and Albon, whose car struck the wall, was taken to a hospital for further evaluation. Zhou and Russell exited the race. Esteban Ocon and Yuki Tsunoda, who were also caught up in the affair, had repairs and returned to the grid.
Onboard video showed Gasly trying to move into a gap between Zhou and Russell, who moved to the left. Gasly’s right front touched Russell’s left rear, sending the latter’s Mercedes into Zhou’s car.
Zhou is the first Chinese driver to compete in Formula One.
Formula One officials also said that several fans had attempted to invade the track after the crash. “We can confirm that after the red flag, several people attempted to enter the track,” the organization told the BBC. “These people were immediately removed and the matter is now being dealt with by the local authorities.” | 2022-07-03T15:50:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Zhou Guanyu conscious after scary British Grand Prix crash - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/03/zhou-guanyu-crash-formula-one/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/03/zhou-guanyu-crash-formula-one/ |
Akron police to release video showing police killing of Black man
By Andrea Simakis
Lawyer Bobby DiCello holds up a photograph of Jayland Walker on June 30, 2022. Police in Akron, Ohio, fatally shot Walker on June 27. (Jeff Lange/USA Today Network/Reuters)
AKRON, Ohio — Ohio authorities plan to release body-camera footage Sunday afternoon from the police killing of a Black man, in which officers fired nearly 100 rounds.
The death of Jayland Walker, 25, drew protesters to city buildings and prompted officials to cancel Akron’s Fourth of July festival. Eight officers involved in the shooting have been placed on paid leave pending the outcome of an investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
Police tried to stop Walker’s vehicle at about 12:30 a.m. Monday for investigation of an unspecified traffic violation and chased him when he did not pull over, they said. The Akron Police Department said a gun was fired from the vehicle during the pursuit — an allegation that Walker’s family has disputed. Minutes later, Walker jumped out of the car and ran into a parking lot, with officers following.
An attorney for his family, Bobby DiCello, told The Washington Post that eight officers fired more than 90 rounds at Walker, with more than 60 striking his body. The account was corroborated by WKYC.
Police have not released details on the number of shots fired or the officers involved. They said a weapon was recovered from the vehicle; DiCello said there is no evidence that it was fired at an officer.
Akron’s residents joined Walker’s family in demanding accountability for his death, the third police shooting in the northeastern Ohio city since December. Amid the uproar, Mayor Daniel Horrigan (D) announced the cancellation of the Rib, White & Blue Festival planned for the July Fourth weekend.
In a joint statement, the mayor and Akron Police Chief Stephen Mylett described the shooting as “a dark day for our city, for the families of those involved, as well as for the officers.” They added that “the loss of any life is absolutely devastating to our entire community.”
Shammas reported from Grand Rapids, Mich., and Bella reported from Washington. | 2022-07-03T16:42:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Police to release video of Jayland Walker shooting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/03/akron-police-jayland-walker-video/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/03/akron-police-jayland-walker-video/ |
A portion of the U.S. Constitution. (National Archives via AP) (AP)
More than that, conservative jurists who extoll the theory of “originalism” insist that the only way to interpret the Constitution is according to the way the Founders themselves viewed it. The Supreme Court has just upheld abortion restrictions and struck down gun restrictions based on the dubious claim to be channeling the Constitution’s drafters, even though many historians disagree with the right-wing interpretations.
Is there a sensible middle ground between vituperation and veneration of the Founders? Yes. We should acknowledge their manifold faults, while also paying tribute to their still-radical vision of a world in which everyone has an “unalienable” right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Above all, we must vindicate their desire to create a “more perfect Union” to “secure the Blessings of Liberty.”
For all their blind spots, the Founders created a mechanism whereby the original imperfections of the Constitution could be fixed over time. Two mechanisms, actually.
First, the constitutional amendment process. This enabled a “new birth of freedom” after the Civil War, with amendments to abolish slavery and grant civil rights to African Americans, and again after World War I, with an amendment giving women the vote.
Second, the Founders created a Supreme Court that had the ultimate power to interpret — or reinterpret — the often-opaque articles of the Constitution. This allowed the court of the 1930s, after initial resistance, to ratify the creation of a rudimentary welfare state, and the court of the 1950s and 1960s to strike down school segregation and expand rights of privacy that are now under attack.
The United States of America would not have survived this long if we had not done so much to modify the original Constitution and the way it was interpreted in the republic’s early days. In particular, we have greatly scaled back the pernicious doctrine of “state’s rights” that too often has been a cover for the supremacy of a few powerful white men. As urged by future vice president Hubert Humphrey at the 1948 Democratic convention, we finally marched in the 1960s “out of the shadow of states’ rights” and “into the bright sunshine of human rights.” Unfortunately, we are now walking back into the darkness. Because of a benighted Supreme Court, 40 million women are about to lose their reproductive freedom.
Most of the Founders knew better than to try to shackle their progeny to their own worldview. Thomas Jefferson rejected the tendency to “look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.” He argued “that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times.”
We need not go as far as Jefferson did in urging that “every constitution … and every law” should expire every 19 years. But our institutions do need to be significantly reformed to “keep pace with the times.”
But there are other steps we can take, even without amending the Constitution, to make our political system more democratic and representative. We should, for example, expand the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court. They reached their present size in 1912 and 1869, respectively, when the country was far smaller. (The U.S. population has tripled in the past century.) We should also end the Senate filibuster, whose use has dramatically expanded in recent years, creating a de facto supermajority requirement that gives a small minority of the population a veto over all legislation.
Instead of acrimoniously and endlessly debating whether the Founders were good or bad, let’s focus on improving the system they created so that it better serves Americans in the 21st century. As Jefferson knew, “institutions must advance” along with society. | 2022-07-03T16:47:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Don’t venerate or vilify the Founders. Vindicate their radical vision. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/dont-venerate-vilify-founders-constitution-july-fourth/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/dont-venerate-vilify-founders-constitution-july-fourth/ |
The Republican Party cannot survive with Trump as 2024 presidential nominee, she adds
From left, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) during a House Jan. 6 select committee public hearing on Capitol Hill. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection could make multiple criminal referrals to the Justice Department of former president Donald Trump over his role in the U.S. Capitol attack, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the committee’s vice chair, said in an interview that aired Sunday.
The interview was Cheney’s first since the Jan. 6 committee began holding public hearings, and it was taped days after Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, gave bombshell testimony about Trump’s actions — and inaction — on the day of the Capitol attack.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), the only other GOP member on the Jan. 6 committee, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that more witnesses have come forward since the hearings began, including since Hutchinson testified.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the Jan. 6 committee, said Ornato’s memory “does not appear to be as precise” as Hutchinson’s but hesitated when asked whether Ornato had given his testimony to the committee under oath.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), another member of the Jan. 6 committee, said Sunday that he could not go into detail about what Engel and Ornato had previously shared with the committee but that committee members would be interested in having the two men return to “shed light” on what happened inside the presidential limo.
“That’s a very dangerous idea that the Founders would have never subscribed to — even more dangerous, I think, in the case of Donald Trump,” Schiff said. “Donald Trump is someone who has shown, when he’s not held accountable, he goes on to commit worse and worse abuses of power.”
Nick Miroff contributed to this report. | 2022-07-03T18:27:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jan. 6 committee could make multiple criminal referrals of Donald Trump to Justice Dept., Rep. Liz Cheney says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/03/jan6-trump-criminal-referrals-cheney/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/03/jan6-trump-criminal-referrals-cheney/ |
Tyler Clippard entered Sunday with a 2.51 ERA in 32⅓ innings for the Rochester Red Wings. (Stephen Lasnick/Rochester Red Wings)
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Sometimes, simple questions bring the most complicated answers. For example, find Tyler Clippard at Frontier Field, one call and hundreds of miles from a big league mound, and ask him how his season’s been. See how he smiles through a side-eyed glance. Then consider the weight of what he does and doesn’t say.
“It’s been weird. It’s been frustrating. It’s been fun. It’s been awkward,” Clippard said in Rochester on Tuesday, after he threw before a game against the Worcester Red Sox, not the Red Sox he’s faced 32 times in a decade-and-a-half. “It’s kind of been everything, an all-encompassing year. But obviously there’s been some good things, too.”
At 37, Clippard wants another shot at the highest level. He wants it with the Washington Nationals, the team he pitched for from 2008 to 2014, straddling its worst seasons and a sharp turn to contention. And he wants his work with the Rochester Red Wings, the Nationals’ AAA affiliate, to mean more than it already has.
When Clippard signed a minor league deal with the Nationals in March, he expected a short trip to Rochester before heading to Washington. Instead, he entered Sunday with a 2.51 ERA in 32⅓ innings for the Red Wings. He last time he threw this much in the minors was in 2009. On April 16, the first game after the pitch clock was introduced in AAA, he yielded two hits, three walks and five earned runs without recording an out. Across his next three outings, he walked eight batters in 3⅓ frames, trying to adjust to a new tempo.
Clippard also mentioned something in his personal life affecting him around then, which he wants to keep private. The point, though, at least in a baseball sense, is that his strong numbers were juiced by that rocky stretch. Twenty-two of his 26 appearances have been scoreless. But when the Nationals have needed a reliever, it was Erasmo Ramírez and Carl Edwards Jr., then Sam Clay and Francisco Perez, then Jordan Weems and Reed Garrett.
Sometimes the Nationals wanted a multi-inning option. Sometimes they wanted a lefty. Sometimes the choice over Clippard has felt harder to explain. Each of those pitchers are like him, scratching for a chance. Yet none have Clippard’s history with the club.
“It’s not the results, right? It’s certainly not the results,” said Clippard, who missed a bulk of last year when he injured his shoulder with the Arizona Diamondbacks. In 15 years, across stops with the Nationals, Diamondbacks, New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics, New York Mets, Houston Astros, Chicago White Sox and Toronto Blue Jays, Clippard has a 3.13 ERA and mostly stayed healthy.
“Other than that one outing, really, it’s been dominant and really good and pretty much right where I thought I’d be heading into the season,” he continued. “I don’t know, it just has to be the right situation for them. That’s part of the process and I’ve been around long enough to get it. I hope it works out in D.C. This organization has meant everything to me. My fondest memories in the game were with the Washington Nationals. I wanted to put that uni on in the big leagues one more time. But if it doesn’t happen, that’s okay, too.”
On Tuesday, Clippard played catch with 23-year-old righty Cade Cavalli, the Nationals’ top prospect. Before leaving the field, he walked by a few other pitchers and offered tips. Matthew LeCroy, the Red Wings’ manager, had a long list of what Clippard can teach his staff: how to stay on the mound; how to take care of your body to pitch deep into your 30s; how to use video like major league coaches and catchers; and how to get outs without elite velocity, even if that’s what some of the younger arms possess.
With the Diamondbacks in 2021, Clippard’s average fastball velocity was 89.1. The highest mark of his career, 93.3, came with the Nationals in 2012. To compensate for the dip, he’s mixing in sidearm pitches to catch hitters off guard. And yes, he still throws change-ups at the top of the zone.
“When he came here, I think he probably assumed he was going to throw a little bit and go to the big leagues and that didn’t happen,” LeCroy said. “And then he had to go through a little adjustment with the pitch clock. The pitch clock killed him for about three or four outings where he just wasn’t used to that rushing and sprayed his pitches a little bit. It wasn’t the same Clippard. Now he’s used to it.
“I would love to see him get back up there. Without him telling me, it seems he wants to show people that he can keep doing it at his age without 95.”
LeCroy was spot on there. About 24 hours earlier, Clippard stood by the Red Wings’ dugout, leaning on a rail, and described that — bucking convention, proving people wrong — as his main motivation. Clippard could have opted out of his minor league deal by now. But after the trade deadline, there could be openings in the Nationals’ bullpen.
Maybe one goes to him. Maybe, having stuck it out in Rochester, Clippard’s phone will ring.
“I want to basically show the new generation, the new wave of front offices and the way baseball is viewed, that there still is a place in the game for somebody like me,” Clippard said. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. I guess at this point I don’t need to prove anything to anybody. But I want to.” | 2022-07-03T18:53:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tyler Clippard waits in Rochester, hoping for a Nationals call-up - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/03/tyler-clippard-rochester-red-wings-nationals/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/03/tyler-clippard-rochester-red-wings-nationals/ |
Devouring the rainforest
By Terrence McCoy
Júlia Ledur
The pattern is clear: First, the forest is razed.
Then the cattle are moved in.
And America will be an accomplice.
Cattle ranching, responsible for the great majority of deforestation in the Amazon, is pushing the forest to the edge of what scientists warn could be a vast and irreversible dieback that claims much of the biome. Despite agreement that change is necessary to avert disaster, despite attempts at reform, despite the resources of Brazil’s federal government and powerful beef companies, the destruction continues.
[How deforestation is pushing the Amazon toward a tipping point]
But the ongoing failure to protect the world’s largest rainforest from rapacious cattle ranching is no longer Brazil’s alone, a Washington Post investigation shows. It is now shared by the United States — and the American consumer.
In the two years since Washington lifted a moratorium that was imposed on raw Brazilian beef over food safety concerns, the United States has grown to become its second-biggest buyer. The country bought more than 320 million pounds of Brazilian beef last year — and is on pace to purchase nearly twice as much this year. The biggest supplier is the beef behemoth JBS, whose fleet of brands stock some of America’s major retail chains and businesses: Kroger, Goya Foods, Albertsons (the parent company of Safeway, Jewel-Osco and Vons).
JBS, the world’s largest beef producer, has repeatedly been accused by environmentalists of buying cattle raised on illegally deforested land. Greenpeace first alleged such ties in a 2009 report. In 2017, Brazil’s environmental law enforcement agency, Ibama, fined the company what was then more than $7.5 million, alleging that two of its Amazon meatpacking plants had purchased nearly 50,000 such animals. In October, federal prosecutors focusing on deforestation alleged widespread “irregularities” in the company’s direct supply chain from January 2018 to June 2019 in Pará state.
A truck with JBS signage drives near the company's beef production facility in Greeley, Colo., in June 2021. JBS is the world's largest beef producer. (Michael Ciaglo/Bloomberg News)
But in a forest where some beef producers still don’t track cattle origins, and in a country where no law specifically prohibits the purchase of cattle from illegally deforested land, JBS considers itself one of the good guys. It says it has prioritized the environment and blocked more than 14,000 cattle ranches that didn’t comply with company standards. It has signed agreements with environmentalists and federal prosecutors promising not to purchase cattle from ranches that were illegally deforested. It publishes the names of the ranches from which it purchases cattle.
None of it has been enough.
A series revealing how crime, corruption and greed are speeding the destruction of the world’s largest rainforest. Terrence McCoy, who covers Brazil for The Washington Post, reported this story over 18 months.
How deforestation is pushing the Amazon toward a tipping point.
By reviewing thousands of shipment and purchase logs, and analyzing satellite imagery of Amazon cattle ranches, The Post found that JBS has yet to disentangle itself from ties to illegal deforestation. The destruction is hidden at the base of a long and multistep supply chain that directly connects illegally deforested ranches — and ranchers accused of environmental infractions — to factories authorized by the U.S. government to export beef to the United States.
Between January 2018 and October 2020, records show, JBS factories with that authorization made at least 1,673 cattle purchases from 114 ranchers who at the time owned at least one property cited for illegal deforestation. Several ranchers from whom JBS bought cattle were notorious — alleged by authorities to be among the Amazon’s most destructive actors. The supply chain, the examination found, was infected with dozens of ranches where land had been deforested illegally. Satellite imagery showed that several of the operations had cattle on land where grazing was prohibited at the time — in what environmental regulators called a violation of Brazilian law.
“Environmental control in the beef supply chain needs to be much more rigorous,” said Suely Araújo, who directed Ibama from 2016 to 2018. “Meatpackers need to stop complaining and actually control their supply networks. We’ve talked about cattle tracking for three decades but have never done it in a real way.”
President Biden has been outspoken about the need to conserve the Amazon, a vital carbon sink that scientists say must be preserved to avert catastrophic warming. But the U.S. agency that authorizes Brazil’s meatpacking plants to export to the United States says it doesn’t try to determine whether the operations cause environmental damage. Seven plants greenlighted by the U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service are in the Amazon.
[Climate Solutions: Are my hamburgers hurting the planet?]
Brazil’s Environment Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. The Agriculture Ministry blamed “historic land-use problems,” not the beef industry, for deforestation.
Senior officials at JBS say Brazil’s cattle supply chain is one of the world’s most complex, involving thousands of ranches spread over expansive territories, and is extremely difficult to monitor. Marcio Nappo, director of corporate sustainability at the beef giant, told The Post that the company has gone beyond what other companies have done to root out deforestation.
“JBS has been in the top five, top 10 companies in eliminating deforestation in its supply chain,” Nappo said. “…We can say with great confidence that we have already advanced enormously.”
The company has moved aggressively to stop purchases from operations that graze cattle on illegally deforested land, he said, using a “pioneering” monitoring system. He said the company plans to root out all deforestation in its supply chain by 2025 and has already succeeded in stopping purchases from ranches that have carried out illegal deforestation.
But the biggest problem in Brazil’s cattle industry today, and a key reason deforestation in the Amazon has reached a 15-year high, isn’t the direct supplier. That hasn’t been the case in years. The biggest problem is the indirect suppliers — ranchers who know how to work the system, shuffling cattle from ranch to ranch to conceal their illegal origins and sell them off.
The game is called “cattle laundering.” The forest is full of players, swaggering ranchers who built their businesses from the embers of the forest. Today, one Amazon cowboy, Zaercio Fagundes Gouveia, says cattlemen like him have a new focus:
“The United States.”
Cattle in a holding pen on a ranch in São Félix do Xingu in Brazil's Pará state. (Jonne Roriz/Bloomberg News)
A cycle of fire and beef
The life of an Amazonian steer typically amounts to climbing a ladder. At the bottom rung, where the system is least regulated and where most illegal deforestation occurs, are operations focused on breeding. Then the young animals are moved to properties that nurture them through adolescence. Next up are the fattening farms.
With each rung climbed, the system is more closely monitored and regulated, until the animal reaches the top of the ladder, the processing plant, where it is slaughtered and its meat butchered.
There was a time when nearly every stage of the process involved burning down forest, a cycle of fire and beef that transformed much of the Amazonian state of Mato Grosso — Portuguese for “thick forest” — into a checkerboard of cattle ranches. But a decade ago, leading beef producers signed a pair of agreements to clean up the industry.
One was a 2009 accord with Greenpeace that committed signatories to eliminating deforestation in their entire supply chains. The other was an agreement with federal prosecutors, in Brazil’s last real attempt to take on the powerful sector. Its most important signatory was JBS.
In the agreement, the producers promised to stop sourcing cattle from ranches that continued illegal deforestation. The effort would include stopping all cattle purchases from operations with environmental embargoes — citations that prohibit ranchers from grazing cattle on land that in most cases was illegally deforested.
But rather than cull deforestation from the industry, investigators say, the reforms pushed it further out of sight. Cattle are not tracked individually in Brazil, as they are in neighboring Argentina and in Europe. All that ranchers with embargoed land have to do is ship their cattle to properties with clean environmental records. Once the animals reach a ranch that doesn’t have a history of deforestation, they are effectively born again — cleansed and ready to be sold to producers such as JBS for slaughter and shipment.
“This is cattle laundering,” said Raoni Rajão, an environmental scientist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. “The scheme has become institutionalized.”
The Post, in a collaboration with the Dutch environmental research organization Aidenvironment, analyzed thousands of cattle purchase and shipment logs that provide a glimpse into this world. The analysis, which focused on three U.S.-authorized JBS plants located in areas of large-scale deforestation in the Amazon, did not seek to capture all ties to deforestation. It was based on Ibama embargoes, which, according to a 2015 study, cover less than one-fifth of deforested areas.
Level of damage in pasture areas
around JBS meatpacking plants
Meatpacking plants
Indigenous territory
Confresa, Mato Grosso
20 MI
Vilhena, Rondônia
Barra do Garças, Mato Grosso
The documents nonetheless expose loopholes and failings that investigators say bedevil the wider industry. They reveal what’s on the surface: JBS does direct business with ranchers who have extensive histories of deforestation; 3 percent of the plants’ cattle purchases between January 2018 and October 2020 were from ranchers who had been cited for deforestation by Ibama. They also reveal what’s beneath the surface, leading into the labyrinth of the indirect supply chain, where illegally deforested farms are hidden.
The documents draw a direct line. It begins at cattle ranches accused of illegal deforestation. It leads to ranches with no environmental infractions. It then travels to JBS slaughterhouses certified to export meat to the United States.
At the first step in the process, in the supply chains of two of the three JBS plants, The Post and Aidenvironment identified 71 ranches where Ibama had embargoed a section because of deforestation. (The Post was unable to obtain cattle shipment records for the third plant.)
The analysis found that those properties had shipped at least 7,912 head of cattle to clean ranches that directly supply JBS.
Finally, the examination revealed that those clean ranches made at least 263 sales of an unspecified number of cattle to JBS factories authorized to export to the United States.
Shuffling cattle from dirty ranches to clean ones isn’t against the law: It’s a workaround. What is against the law is using embargoed land to raise cattle — which Ibama inspectors say happens frequently. “The cattle produced there is commercialized normally,” said one Ibama agent in Mato Grosso, who like other government regulators spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk freely. “The state has lost its function. Society is acting however it wants, regardless of the law.”
At The Post’s request, the geospatial company Maxar Technologies produced satellite imagery of five indirect JBS suppliers with embargoed land. The images showed that three of the ranches had cattle on land that was embargoed at the time.
One of them is Nova ranch, located in rural Santa Cruz do Xingu in the state of Mato Grosso. The town is home to about 2,700 people and 127,000 head of cattle.
One of the many ranches in the area cited for environmental infractions, Nova had nearly 3,000 acres of its land embargoed in 2016, prohibiting ranchers from grazing cattle there. But the ban didn’t stop them.
Using close-up satellite images, The Post discovered cattle in multiple places on land embargoed at the time.
In this image from May 2021, five years after the embargo was imposed, cattle are seen grazing near a pond in an area that had been deforested.
Another image shows more cattle on the other side of an area embargoed at the time.
Livestock activity is also spotted close to a ranch in the middle of the restricted area.
Luiz Alfredo Abreu, attorney for Nova ranch owner Ricardo Eugênio Palmeira, said state authorities had given the rancher permission to use those areas. “He can sell cattle even to the president of the United States,” Abreu said. “This embargo is nothing.”
Ibama and state officials called that assertion inaccurate. “The embargo remains valid — so much so that the farmer was recently fined for disobeying it,” Ibama said in a statement. Local authorization does not override Ibama embargoes, state and federal officials said.
Palmeira is also a direct supplier to JBS. But his deforestation record is paltry compared with those of some ranchers with whom JBS has done direct business, The Post found.
One was José de Castro Aguiar Filho, who has been assessed more than $11 million in environmental fines. He has been described by the Intercept Brasil as one of the “25 biggest destroyers of the Amazon.” (In audio messages to The Post, the rancher called authorities who fined him “not very correct” and said he barely sells cattle now.)
Another supplier, Mário Quirino da Silveira, was described by the federal government in 2008 as one of the Amazon’s biggest deforesters. (Repeated attempts to contact Quirino da Silveira were unsuccessful.) Another was Vitor Elisio Poltronieri, accused by environmental authorities in 2009 of being one of Mato Grosso’s biggest deforesters. (Poltronieri didn’t respond to requests for comment.)
Two more direct suppliers, Aldo Pedreschi and his son Aldo Pedreschi Filho, both named two of Mato Grosso’s biggest deforesters, have been cumulatively assessed more than $3.6 million in environmental fines. (Pedreschi died in 2020. Efforts to contact his son were not successful. A former family lawyer denied wrongdoing: “The family never committed any environmental crime!”)
Presented with The Post’s findings on its supply chain, including the names of the particularly notorious suppliers, JBS said it had severed ties with the men. The company acknowledged that its deforestation monitoring system targets ranches, not their owners, though many operate multiple properties — some sanctioned and some not — and can shuffle cattle between them.
Once the animals arrive at the JBS plants, the process leading to export to the United States can begin. Shipment records provided by Panjiva, the trade research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence, show that JBS exports almost all of its U.S.-bound beef to its own American facilities.
But neither the U.S. government nor the American consumer knows where it goes from there. Once imported beef passes inspection, it can be stripped of all labels that identify it as foreign-sourced and be sold as if it were produced domestically. No federal agency tracks the domestic sale of imported beef. And retailers aren’t obligated to inform consumers of the raw beef’s country of origin. That labeling requirement was repealed with the passage of the 2016 omnibus spending bill.
To try to locate the beef, The Post asked 16 national grocery and restaurant chains whether they sell JBS beef from Brazil. Only Kroger and Albertsons said they did — but a very small amount. Goya Foods has imported nearly 2 million pounds of canned Brazilian beef since March 2020, trade records show. The company didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Kroger said it has a “no-deforestation commitment” and has “engaged the JBS team to further review the situation.”
JBS, citing “commercial restrictions,” declined to divulge its list of U.S. buyers. It did not respond to questions about whether it informs American retailers of the meat’s country of origin.
The beef of the Amazonian steer has finally reached the top rung of the ladder: the American consumer. But many of those buyers will have little idea it is Brazilian.
Cattle graze on land recently burned and deforested by ranchers near Novo Progresso in Pará state in August 2020. (Andre Penner/AP)
‘A land without men for men without land’
How cattle, the most common of animals, became central to the decimation of the world’s most valuable forest is a story of intention, not coincidence. It begins in the mid-1960s, when Brazil was ruled by a military dictatorship. Worried that vast stretches of uncontrolled territory in the Amazon would invite foreign invasions, generals set out to conquer what had until then been unconquerable.
The mission: “Operation Amazon.” The rallying call: “A land without men for men without land.”
The tool of conquest: cattle.
The bovine was seen as a crucial ally in taming — and then claiming — the wildest of terrain. A relatively small number of the animals can range across large expanses of land. Their grazing keeps the jungle from regenerating. And their meat provides both sustenance and income.
“The idea was conquest, to conquer and integrate the interior into the rest of the country,” said Antoine Acker, a historian of the Amazon at the University of Zurich. “The cow was a powerful animal for that. It occupies a lot of land and is really cheap.”
With investment benefits, tax breaks and a new web of highways, Brazil persuaded local and foreign investors alike to bet on the seemingly paradoxical endeavor of cattle ranching in the rainforest. The goal of the dictatorship was to have at least 20 million head of cattle in the Amazon within a few decades. Brazil transitioned to democracy in 1985, but exceeded that benchmark for raising cattle by 1990 and has since more than quadrupled it.
People rich and poor rushed into the Amazon, burned chunks of forest, put down cattle and claimed the land by means both legal and illegal. In a vast region largely beyond government control, slave labor was pervasive, violent land disputes erupted and Indigenous communities were massacred. By the early 2000s, farmers were burning enough forest each year to cover New Jersey.
Lawmakers tried to curtail the destruction. Under the forest code, farmers and companies were limited to burning only 20 percent of their properties. Knocking down more — or razing public and Indigenous lands — would make the deforestation illegal. But what was said in faraway Brasília was one thing. What happened in the Amazon was another.
Ranchers continued to burn forest to widen their pastures. Land grabbers and squatters invaded and burned land to steal it. Environmental authorities struggled to patrol the vast territory: One of their primary law enforcement tools was the embargo. But the comparatively few citations that were issued had little effect. Few environmental fines are paid. Others are contested in the byzantine Brazilian appellate system in cases that drag on for years. The slaughterhouses had little incentive to stop buying cattle that came from illegally deforested land. And the ranchers had little incentive to stop selling it.
Incentive was exactly what federal prosecutor Daniel Azeredo hoped to provide. A native of southeastern Brazil — a wealthier, largely urban region where the Amazon feels as distant as a foreign country — he arrived in Pará state in 2007 and quickly realized conditions were unsustainable. Pressuring ranchers to stop burning forest wasn’t working. His office was inundated with cases against them — all dead ends. He needed to exert pressure another way.
He assembled a list of ranches with embargoes to determine which meatpackers bought their cattle. Then he followed which grocery stores bought that meat. Then he started suing. He threatened Brazil’s largest grocery stores, alleging that they hadn’t ensured their meat was free of ties to deforestation. The fallout was immediate: Several grocery stores started to boycott the slaughterhouses linked to the destruction.
“It was decisive,” said Beto Veríssimo, co-founder of the Amazon Institute of People and Environment. “It had impact.”
In 2009, the largest slaughterhouses signed an agreement with Azeredo’s office declaring that they would no longer source cattle from ranches that were being deforested illegally or had been cited with an embargo. The reforms contributed to one of the century’s great environmental success stories. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon plummeted.
But even then, Azeredo couldn’t shake the feeling that the gains wouldn’t last. There were gaps in the reforms. It wouldn’t be long before ranchers found them.
A JBS facility in Tucumã in Pará state, seen in October. (Jonne Roriz/Bloomberg News)
Following the beef rush
The São Judas Tadeu ranch sits at the cusp of the Amazon rainforest like a giant anchor, more than half the size of Manhattan. It has smoldered and burned for years. Thirty-six fires raged through the property in 2005 alone. An additional 13 in 2008. And seven more in 2013. In all, according to a fire analysis by University of Maryland geographer Louis Giglio, more than 100 fires have scorched the ranch since 2004.
Only one-fourth of the ranch still has remnants of native vegetation, property records show. Its history of fires suggests “forest clearing,” said Giglio, who studies global fire emissions. Embargoes have been issued for sections of the ranch, but satellite imagery produced by Maxar showed cattle on a swath where they were prohibited at the time.
Tadeu ranch
São Judas Tadeu ranch
The ranch is also an indirect supplier to a JBS plant authorized to export beef to the United States.
From January 2018 to January 2019, government cattle shipment records show, the São Judas Tadeu ranch transferred at least 3,173 head of cattle to the nearby, embargo-free São Sebastian ranch. In the months after the transfers, the clean ranch made at least 24 cattle sales to a JBS plant in northeastern Mato Grosso. The records show that both properties are owned by a single rancher.
Zaercio Fagundes Gouveia — short-cropped hair, gold bracelet, big aviators — is from the southeastern city of Ituiutaba. He arrived in Mato Grosso three decades ago, when his father joined the beef rush to become an Amazonian rancher. They knocked down a section of the forest — “permitted and cleanly legal at that time,” the son said — put down some cattle and built a ranch. Gouveia, then 19, never moved back home.
The region was forest and little else then — a blanket of green that would have been an environmentalist’s Eden. But to Gouveia, “it was awful, just terrible.” The closest telephone was more than 150 miles away on a dirt highway. There were few paved roads. Schools were out of the question. His daughter was home-schooled. To build what he has — an agribusiness with six ranches and 200 employees — and to help bring an economy to a region largely without one took sacrifice. More, he said, than most ranchers could handle.
And now: “It’s wonderful.”
Much of the forest is gone. The terrain is latticed with a network of roads and dotted with cattle ranches, churches, towns — all powered by beef. The region developed and prospered, he said, by the grace of settlers like him and a market poised to continue its growth.
Current locations of
JBS meatpacking plants
Global beef consumption, a traditional marker of development, is projected to continue to rise over the next decade. The United States is the largest market: It is home to 4 percent of the world’s population but eats about 20 percent of its beef.
Gouveia said he’s here to provide it. There’s just one obstacle in his way.
“The environmentalists,” he said. “I have so many environmental problems. So many. It’s not easy.”
Authorities have cited Gouveia eight times since 2008 for environmental infractions. At the time of his sales to JBS, he stood accused of knocking down at least 5.4 square miles of forest and had been assessed nearly $3 million, a sum researchers say puts him among the most-fined ranchers in the Amazon.
Gouveia blames the infractions on fires started by others and on environmental regulators who were incompetent and inexperienced. He denies wrongdoing. One large embargo was recently dismissed, and he is appealing at least one fine. The accusations, he said, once wouldn’t have impacted his supply chain much. Ranchers could continue sending cattle directly to the meat plants. But with this “extremely serious and unjust environmental pressure on top of us,” he said, ranchers had to find a workaround.
“A different system,” he called it.
Gouveia continued to raise cattle at São Judas Tadeu — but not, he said, within prohibited areas, which had accounted for more than one-third of the ranch. From São Judas Tadeu, he said, he would ship the cattle to another of his operations to fatten them. Then they’d be sold off to slaughter.
When told The Post had obtained satellite imagery that showed cattle on land embargoed as of May 2021, he shrugged.
“Well, generally, I tell them not to put cows there,” Gouveia said.
Workers stand outside the JBS beef-processing facility in Greeley, Colo., in April 2020. (Michael Ciaglo/Bloomberg News)
JBS cut ties with Gouveia’s Amazonian ranches after it was informed of The Post’s findings — a decision Gouveia bitterly mourned. “You hurt me with this report,” he said. “I talked to you with an open heart.”
He still had reason to be optimistic. The agricultural industry, which managed to grow during the coronavirus pandemic, now accounts for 8 percent of Brazil’s gross domestic product. The lifting of the U.S. moratorium on raw Brazilian beef two years ago has opened up a massive new market. And President Jair Bolsonaro is in power.
“We’re now the most important industry in Brazil, aren’t we?” Gouveia said.
A boat carrying trucks loaded with cattle passes through the meeting point of the Xingu and Fresco rivers in São Félix do Xingu. (Jonne Roriz/Bloomberg News)
The problem is not without a solution. The maze of the cattle supply-chain system has a key. But Brazil has failed to seize it.
Every time cattle are moved in the country, a shipment log called a “Guide of Animal Transport” is created. The purpose of the document is sanitary: to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases and ensure proper cattle vaccinations. But those records, current and former government officials say, can be used to create a cattle-tracking tool and illuminate even the murkiest sections of the supply chain.
Researchers have done it. But not the federal government.
“Does Brazil have the capacity to do this? It does,” said Izabella Mônica Vieira Teixeira, Brazil’s environment minister from 2010 to 2016. “What it lacks is the political will.”
In late 2018, environmental regulators, supermarket chains and beef producers gathered in Brasília to develop a system that would incorporate the cattle shipment logs into a tracking tool. Then Bolsonaro, who’d spent the presidential campaign criticizing environmental regulations, was sworn in. Participants in the discussions say the effort soon fizzled.
“We had the money,” said a senior government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment. “But people believed there was no way to continue. Things had changed politically.”
The government has since made tracking cattle more difficult. In mid-2019, months into Bolsonaro’s tenure, federal and some state governments sharply restricted access to the records. Documents that were once available to download on Agriculture Ministry websites — albeit painstakingly, one by one — are now even harder to obtain. Even meat producers complain, not without reason, that they’re criticized for not tracking cattle when the government has deprived them of the tools to do it.
“The federal government doesn’t make this data available to third parties,” Brazil’s Agriculture Ministry told The Post in a statement, because it includes confidential information. “It’s essential for the maintenance of the animal health system. Therefore, there is no reason for it to be released for demands that don’t involve the health of animals.”
In that restriction, environmentalists see the contours of what has become a political Rubik’s Cube. Bolsonaro, under international pressure to save the Amazon, has committed to ending illegal deforestation by 2030 and making Brazil carbon-neutral by 2050. But few think those goals can be reached without curbing rapacious cattle ranching. And even fewer think Bolsonaro, who sees those who practice it as a crucial base of support, will do it.
“Brazil is a green power,” Bolsonaro declared during November’s international climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. “We are part of the solution. Not the problem.”
Days later, the federal agency charged with monitoring deforestation released its annual report. Deforestation had reached a 15-year high. The Amazon’s losses for the year could nearly cover the state of Connecticut.
A few weeks after that, one more report was released, this one by the national association of Brazilian meat producers. The year 2021 was another banner one for beef. Brazil, which shipped out over 2 million tons, was once again dominant in the global export market: the reigning king of beef.
Heloísa Traiano, Gabriela Sá Pessoa and Reinaldo Chaves contributed to this report.
Editing by Matthew Hay Brown. Copy editing by Vanessa Larson and Martha Murdock. Graphics by Júlia Ledur. Graphics editing by Kate Rabinowitz. Photo editing by Chloe Coleman. Video editing by Alexa Juliana Ard. Design and development by Allison Mann. Design editing by Matt Callahan. Project management by Julie Vitkovskaya and Jay Wang.
Sources: Data on deforestation (from 1988 through 2020), forests and water bodies, Indigenous territories and official Amazon borders are from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE). Pasture areas and levels of damage, as well as the location of meatpacking plants, are from the Atlas das Pastagens, a digital atlas of Brazilian pastures. Pasture areas are as of 2019. Biomass data is from NASA’s ORNL DAAC at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Data on the number of cattle in the Amazon is from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, Municipal Livestock Survey. Satellite images are from Maxar Technologies and Landsat/Copernicus via Google Earth.
Cattle purchase and shipment logs
The Post identified three JBS slaughterhouses located in what Brazil defines as the Legal Amazon — a region of nine states that fall within the Amazon basin — that are authorized to export to the United States. The Post obtained the purchase logs of the processing plants through the beef producer’s traceability database, which included identifying information for ranchers who sold to the company. The Post then referenced the names against an Ibama database of federal embargoes. In collaboration with Aidenvironment, an analysis of the indirect supply chain of two of the slaughterhouses was carried out using Guide of Animal Transport (GTA) cattle shipment records in Mato Grosso state. Those records were also referenced against an Ibama database of federal embargoes.
Pasture-quality data
Developed by the Image Processing and Geoprocessing Laboratory of the Federal University of Goiás (Lapig/UFG), the Atlas das Pastagens maps pasture areas in Brazil and their quality. Researchers developed a machine-learning model to analyze nearly 300,000 satellite images from Landsat 5 and Landsat 8. They detected, quantified and classified damage in pasture areas in Brazil from 2010 to 2018. They also conducted field research on pasture areas to create an archive of samples that helped refine the data collected by the two satellites.
Degradation is quantified using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, in which a value of 1.0 correlates with dense, live, green vegetation. Values between 0.4 and 0.6 correlate with moderate damage; values of 0.4 below correlate with severe damage. The accuracy rate of the model is 92 percent.
Júlia Ledur is a graphics reporter covering foreign news at The Washington Post. Before joining The Post in 2021, she worked as a graphics editor at the COVID Tracking Project at the Atlantic. Previously, she was on the graphics team at Reuters, covering Latin American politics, the environment and social issues with data and visuals. Twitter Twitter | 2022-07-03T18:57:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Americans' love of beef is helping destroy the Amazon rainforest - Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/amazon-beef-deforestation-brazil/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjM1MTIwNzEiLCJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNjU2ODUzNTU3LCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNjU4MDYzMTU3LCJpYXQiOjE2NTY4NTM1NTcsImp0aSI6ImEwNWQwZjAwLTU5YmItNDk5MS04ZGU3LWRiZGQzM2U3YzU0MiIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS93b3JsZC9pbnRlcmFjdGl2ZS8yMDIyL2FtYXpvbi1iZWVmLWRlZm9yZXN0YXRpb24tYnJhemlsLyJ9.31F_weLwMzxNYonwC6MpELKYVgQgo0BPXIitw5u7yHY&itid=gfta | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/amazon-beef-deforestation-brazil/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjM1MTIwNzEiLCJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNjU2ODUzNTU3LCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNjU4MDYzMTU3LCJpYXQiOjE2NTY4NTM1NTcsImp0aSI6ImEwNWQwZjAwLTU5YmItNDk5MS04ZGU3LWRiZGQzM2U3YzU0MiIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS93b3JsZC9pbnRlcmFjdGl2ZS8yMDIyL2FtYXpvbi1iZWVmLWRlZm9yZXN0YXRpb24tYnJhemlsLyJ9.31F_weLwMzxNYonwC6MpELKYVgQgo0BPXIitw5u7yHY&itid=gfta |
DOVER, Del. — A boat formerly used as a floating casino was recently sunk to the ocean floor off the coast of Delaware to become part of the state’s artificial reef program.
“With today’s sinking of the Texas Star on Redbird Reef, one of 14 separate reef sites in the Delaware Bay and along the Atlantic Coast, we continue to enhance and expand the recreational fishing and diving experience in Delaware,” Shawn Garvin, the department’s secretary, said in a statement. | 2022-07-03T20:24:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Another vessel joins Delaware's artificial reef system - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/another-vessel-joins-delawares-artificial-reef-system/2022/07/03/707540d0-fb06-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/another-vessel-joins-delawares-artificial-reef-system/2022/07/03/707540d0-fb06-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
An advance for non-heterosexual medical students and health care
The Biden administration’s new ruling that students deserve to learn free from harassment, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, is enraging conservatives across the country, as the June 24 news article “In Title IX proposal, Biden seeks to strengthen protections for trans students” reported. They believe that it’s discriminatory, unnecessary and — while not actually coming out and saying it — morally offensive.
I’m a conservative, and I’m also the president of a medical school. I believe these protections are not only just, but they also can improve the delivery of high-quality health care for U.S. citizens.
The idea that there shouldn’t be rules in place to safeguard the rights of students who belong to oppressed groups is absurd. It’s especially inane at medical schools, where it has become a growing priority to attract, train and encourage students who are from these groups and are culturally competent.
According to the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, cultural competence is defined as “the ability of medical providers and organizations to effectively deliver health care services that meet the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of patients.”
By making it safe and welcoming for non-heterosexual students to prepare for careers in medicine, we’re making it possible for these future doctors to improve the cultural competence of their fellow heterosexual students, increase the quality of care and reduce health disparities for non-heterosexual patients. The Biden administration’s ruling that delivers such protections should be embraced, not scorned.
David Lenihan, St. Louis
The writer is chief executive of Ponce Health Sciences University, a medical school, and co-founder of Tiber Health. | 2022-07-03T20:25:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | An advance for non-heterosexual medical students and health care - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/an-advance-non-heterosexual-medical-students-health-care/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/an-advance-non-heterosexual-medical-students-health-care/ |
We can’t lose sight of the climate crisis
The Environmental Protection Agency in D.C. in 2017. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
The July 1 front-page article “Ruling curbs EPA power on climate” showed how the climate crisis and related issues are being overlooked.
In recent years, and particularly recent months, the Supreme Court has made it clear that it does not care about precedent or public opinion.
It is vital that environmental issues not be placed on the back burner. On Thursday, the court issued a ruling that would greatly curtail the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce carbon emissions. This will further remove the United States from meeting President Biden’s goal of being carbon-neutral by 2050. The Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, before the current urgency of rising temperatures and wildfires.
Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent included the line “I cannot think of many things more frightening.” Mr. Biden and Congress should immediately push for legislation that will reduce carbon use. But we also cannot allow laws to be undermined by an activist court, and it is urgent for the number of justices to be increased.
Regardless of your political leanings, climate change affects everyone. Even with all the problems facing this country, we cannot lose sight of this.
Emily Morhaim, Towson | 2022-07-03T20:25:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | We can’t lose sight of the climate crisis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/we-cant-lose-sight-climate-crisis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/03/we-cant-lose-sight-climate-crisis/ |
World Cup veteran Rose Lavelle, seen here against Colombia's Elexa Bahr in a June 28 friendly in Sandy, Utah, is expected to play a key role in the U.S. midfield at the Concacaf W Championship. (Rick Bowmer/Associated Press)
MONTERREY, Mexico — The U.S. women’s national soccer team, a mix of ages and experiences but missing several eminent figures, has come to this mountain-draped metropolis carrying a three-part mission statement.
Qualify for the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, a project that, barring historic upsets, will come to fruition in short order.
Qualify for the 2024 Olympics, which will require substantial work.
Reclaim the regional mantle from gold medalist Canada after stumbling at the Tokyo Games last year.
All three quests will play out over two weeks in two stadiums in one eight-nation tournament, the Concacaf W Championship. Four teams will qualify for the World Cup but just one will earn an automatic Olympic berth. The second invitation to France will be decided in a playoff next year between the second- and third-place finishers here.
“The tournament, the significance of it, is a little bit bigger because we do try to qualify for two major tournaments,” said U.S. Coach Vlatko Andonovski, whose team will begin group play Monday night against Haiti. “We can look at Canada [but] our focus is to be the best we can in the first game and then we’ll move on to the next one.”
For the opportunity to pursue a third consecutive World Cup trophy next summer, the top-ranked Americans are required to finish first or second in the group stage here. To accomplish that, they will probably need only to defeat the 60th-ranked Haitians and then No. 51 Jamaica on Thursday.
In 11 combined meetings, the United States has won every match, and by a 72-0 aggregate.
Should results in the other Group A matches leave mathematical uncertainty, the Americans might need another point July 11 against No. 26 Mexico.
The U.S. record in the Mexico series is 39-1-1, but a big crowd is expected to support an improving home side that’s chasing a third World Cup berth in four attempts. Furthermore, that one defeat came in the 2011 World Cup qualifiers in Cancún, a result that shipped the Americans to an intercontinental playoff.
There is greater room for error these days, thanks to FIFA expanding the World Cup field, starting in 2023, with 32 teams, an increase of eight, and four Concacaf slots instead of three.
The U.S. team will look much different here than in recent years. Only six of the 14 players who appeared in the 2019 World Cup final against the Netherlands are on the current roster.
Carli Lloyd has retired and Tobin Heath didn’t make the cut. Crystal Dunn and Julie Ertz are on maternity leave. Christen Press, Sam Mewis, Abby Dahlkemper and Tierna Davidson are hurt.
Newcomer Catarina Macario, who quickly became one of the world’s top players, tore an ACL last month. Lynn Williams is also sidelined.
Andonovski filled the voids with, among others, the Washington Spirit’s Ashley Hatch, Ashley Sanchez, Trinity Rodman and Andy Sullivan (Lorton, Va.); Racing Louisville’s Emily Fox (Ashburn, Va.); and Gotham FC’s Margaret Purce (Silver Spring).
They have joined a core of 30-somethings: Megan Rapinoe, captain Becky Sauerbrunn, Alex Morgan, Alyssa Naeher and Kelley O’Hara, who is one of seven Spirit players on the 23-player roster.
The young players have “done [an] incredible job so far, but at the same time, we also know and understand they can’t take everything [on] themselves,” Andonovski said.
The middle layer, in terms of age and experience, includes 2019 World Cup hero Rose Lavelle, Lindsey Horan and Mallory Pugh.
It was important, Andonovski added, to invite players who add maturity both on and off the field.
“They need to help [the younger players] for stressful environments like this tournament,” Andonovski said. “These young players, as good as they’re doing, they’re doing even better now with the experienced players around them.”
Assessing the team as a whole, Sauerbrunn said, “This is a motivated, hungry group. And just being with this group, the last week and a half, two weeks, the vibes are just really good. The energy is really good and, going into a major tournament, that’s one of the most important things I look for: How does it feel? And right now it feels really good.”
Biden to award Medal of Freedom to Megan Rapinoe, among others
In the opener, the United States will face an opponent with several players who are Haitian-American.
The probable starting goalkeeper is Lara Larco, a Florida native and rising sophomore at Georgetown University. She was third string last fall and redshirted.
Defender Claire Constant, a senior at the University of Virginia, was The Post’s 2018 All-Met Player of the Year at T.C. Williams High School (now called Alexandria City High). Midfielder Milan Pierre-Jerome, a Florida native, transferred this year to George Mason from Maryland.
“It’s a very special game for these players,” Haiti Coach Nicolas Delépine said. “We talk about that with the players because it’s not so easy for [them] to play against the USA. We have a lot of young players in the team, and the [best opportunity] to get confidence is to play against the best team.”
The Haitians see the big picture, which is finishing ahead of Mexico and Jamaica in the group.
“If we [do] something wrong or something good [Monday], it’s not really the most important,” Delépine said. “What’s most important is to get confidence, get experience for the two next games.”
Canada, Costa Rica, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago comprise Group B, which will begin play on Tuesday.
Notes: CBS Sports, which owns English TV rights to the tournament, will carry Monday’s matches and the July 14 semifinals on CBS Sports Network and Paramount Plus, a pay streaming service. All other games are on Paramount Plus only. ViX, a streaming service owned by Univision, will show matches in Spanish. | 2022-07-03T20:26:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | USWNT begins World Cup qualifying quest at Concacaf W Championship - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/03/concacaf-w-championship-uswnt-qualifying/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/03/concacaf-w-championship-uswnt-qualifying/ |
Peter Brook was a dazzling stage explorer of humankind’s complexity
The seminal British theater director of ‘Marat/Sade’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ died July 2 at 97
Peter Brook in 2011. (Jacques Brinon/AP)
Theater as we know it was born 2,500 years ago with Aeschylus. And reborn 97 years ago, with Peter Brook.
With Brook’s death in Paris on Saturday at 97, a chapter closes on modern theater history, and the world loses one of the seminal theater minds of the 20th century. Or maybe it’s simply that a new chapter begins, for no one advocated the erasure of rules and the devising of new ones more emphatically than Brook. If heaven has a vanguard, Brook was admitted by acclamation.
Whether you are aware of it or not, if you are a lover of what comes to vibrant life in an empty space, your experience was nourished by Brook. “The Empty Space,” in fact, is the title of his renowned book, the slim volume that has schooled generations of directors, actors, designers and audiences in the endless, adventurous possibilities of meeting in a room for the enrichment of the soul.
“A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged,” Brook wrote. That sentence is etched in figurative marble on the walls of every rehearsal room, drama school classroom, conventional auditorium or repurposed warehouse in which theater unfolds. The statement was an abiding feature of his own artistry, which took him on a kind of reverse journey, from some of the grandest halls of his profession to far humbler ones.
“It declares that theater is the art form of human beings,” Gregory Mosher, the Tony-winning director and friend for 50 years, said Sunday of Brook’s ethos. “We’re about the complexity of being alive. That’s the theater, and that mystery — because people are a mystery — was a lifelong quest for him.”
Brook was not contained by theories. He led by example. In 1970, he revolutionized how we saw Shakespeare by staging “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in a white box (designed by Sally Jacobs) with actors on trapezes. (Among them, Ben Kingsley, Frances de la Tour and, a year later, Patrick Stewart.) The Royal Shakespeare Company production expunged “limits” from the vocabulary of classical staging, a controversial service he provided again in dazzling fashion a decade later for opera, with a compressed and restructured version of Bizet’s “La Tragédie de Carmen” on carpets and sand.
He out-Brecht-ed Brecht with Peter Weiss’s “Marat/Sade” for the RSC in the 1960s, a shattering coup de théâtre with Glenda Jackson as an asylum inmate and Patrick Magee as the Marquis de Sade. He daringly ventured further afield for textual inspiration, with a nine-hour production of the Sanskrit epic “The Mahabharata.” At the height of his powers in the ’70s, he set up shop in Paris at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, the location that would be his creative engine for much of his ever-metamorphosing career.
“He had been working with the greatest actors in the English language and walked away from that,” observed Mosher, now professor and theater department chair at Manhattan’s Hunter College. “He sat down in a burned-out old theater on the north side of Paris, and with this group, tried to figure out what theater was — at a time when he was the most important director in the English language.”
Brook coined the cautionary phrase “deadly theater,” which exists as a challenge to every director and actor. Brook was both an inveterate showman — he owned Tonys for both “Marat/Sade” and “Midsummer” — and an advocate for those coming up after him, urging they not be held back by custom. “We talk of the cinema killing the theatre,” he wrote in “The Empty Space” back in 1968, “and in that phrase we refer to the theatre as it was when the cinema was born, a theatre of box office, foyer, tip-up seats, footlights, scene changes, intervals, music, as though the theatre was by very definition these and little more.”
His work with text was nonpareil; his 1962 RSC production of “King Lear,” for instance, starring the incomparable Paul Scofield (and later made into a movie) presented a tragedy in stark and forbidding coldness. That inclination for authenticity of language didn’t perforce yield greatness: His stripped-down version of “The Cherry Orchard” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1988, performed in the barest of surroundings, on Persian rugs, prefigured other minimalist revivals of Chekhov. But it proved a tediously long sit, freighted perhaps by an underwhelming translation.
It was, though, an indicator of Brook’s trajectory as a theater artist, as he intensified his search in his later years for what is quintessentially human in the empty space. In 2005, Mosher, then at Barnard College, brought Brook’s “Tierno Bokar,” a fable about a Muslim ascetic, set in a West African village, to a converted gymnasium at the college. What I remember most about it was its stillness, and my unsuccessful effort to adjust my overactive metabolism to its soft rhythms. As I reflect on Brook’s visionary prescriptions, I wonder whether, in these turbulent times, I’d be better able to appreciate the outstretched hand from another culture.
Then again, in what would prove to be a twilight exhibition of Brook’s greatness, one could sense the fullness of this incomparable director’s journey. “The Suit,” performed at the Kennedy Center in 2014, a South African story by Can Themba (with direction and music by Brook, Marie-Hélène Estienne and Franck Krawczyk), seemed at one with Brook’s long-ago ruminations about theater’s boundless potential. The tale is of the revenge a cuckolded husband exacts on his wife, in the form of a suit her lover has left behind. It prompted me to write: “The suit, propped on a chair at the dinner table, its arms hanging loosely, resembles a corpse. And when we gaze at it, what we see is a kind of death — the mortal remains of a troubled union.”
That mystery of human complexity is what animated Brook. The lyrical power of that evening reminds me of the words with which he ends “The Empty Space”:
“In the theatre, ‘if’ is the truth,” he wrote. “When we are persuaded to believe in this truth, then the theatre and life are one. This is a high aim. It sounds like hard work. To play needs much work. But when we experience the work as play, then it is not work any more. A play is play.”
No one played with more joy, and more freedom, than Peter Brook. | 2022-07-03T21:53:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Peter Brook was a dazzling interpreter of human complexity on the stage - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/07/03/peter-brook-theater-died/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/07/03/peter-brook-theater-died/ |
Mark Budzinski is in his fourth season with the Blue Jays. (Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)
“This devastating loss is felt by our entire organization and we grieve alongside Bud and his family,” Ross Atkins, the team’s general manager and head of baseball operations, said in a statement. “I have known Bud for more than 25 years and have always admired his commitment as a dad and husband first. He is loved and well-respected by our entire clubhouse and holds a special place in all our hearts.”
Budzinski had left a game Saturday against the Rays in the third inning. He was accompanied by Toronto Manager Charlie Montoyo, who was temporarily replaced by bench coach John Schneider, while bullpen catcher Luis Hurtado took over as first base coach.
Rays Manager Kevin Cash said before Sunday’s game that his thoughts were with Budzinski and the coach’s family, as well as the Blue Jays organization as a whole.
“I know yesterday was a rough day; today is a rough day,” said Cash. “So we’re heartbroken as well.”
The principal of Julia Budzinski’s high school in Henrico County, Va., said on Twitter that a celebration of her life would be held Sunday evening outside the school. He did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Tonight from 7:30-8:30 pm we welcome our community to come together to mourn the loss of Julia Budzinski. Our thoughts and prayers are with the entire Budzinski family and those affected by this terrible loss. #oneteamoneheartbeatonefamily https://t.co/86q3sT749u
— GAHS BOTC (@GAHSBOTC) July 3, 2022
A 48-year-old native of Severna Park, Md., Budzinski is in his fourth season as the Blue Jays’ first base coach. He appeared in four major league games in 2003 as an outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds before ending his playing career in 2005.
After spending several years as a real estate agent in Virginia, Budzinski returned to the game in 2014 and began managing minor league teams in Cleveland’s organization. In addition to the opportunity to be a major league coach, Budzinski was lured to Toronto because of his longtime friendship with Atkins, a former teammate during their minor league playing days.
Tigers Manager A.J. Hinch, another former minor league teammate of Budzinski’s, expressed his sorrow on Sunday.
“He’s someone I consider a dear friend,” Hinch told reporters before a game against the Kansas City Royals. “His daughter is the same age as my daughters. Tough morning.” | 2022-07-03T22:44:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Blue Jays coach Mark Budzinski leaves team after daughter's death - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/03/blue-jays-mark-budzinski-julia-budzinksi-death/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/03/blue-jays-mark-budzinski-julia-budzinksi-death/ |
Sun 74, Mystics 72 (OT)
The Mystics' Alysha Clark, left, forces a jump ball on Connecticut's Brionna Jones as Shakira Austin helps on defense Sunday. (Sean D. Elliot/The Day/AP)
Mike Thibault put it plainly: He didn’t have an easy answer for what happened Sunday afternoon, when his Washington Mystics let a 15-point halftime lead disappear.
In a matchup of WNBA title contenders in Uncasville, Conn., the Mystics fell to the Connecticut Sun in overtime, 74-72, after managing just 17 points in the second half, their lowest-scoring half of the season.
“I don’t have a simple answer for you,” the Mystics coach said. “If I had, I would have fixed it.”
The Mystics (13-10) followed one of their best halves with their worst. They shot a blistering 56.2 percent in a dominant opening 20 minutes for a 49-34 halftime lead. It appeared the Mystics had benefited from having four days between games, the most of the season so far for the team that has played the most games in the WNBA. That stretch following Tuesday’s rout of the visiting Atlanta Dream allowed for some much-needed practice time and a chance to rest their legs, but that didn’t seem to matter after halftime.
The Mystics’ first four possessions of the second half: turnover, turnover, long missed three-pointer, rushed missed three-pointer. After their first-half dominance, the Mystics made 9 of 37 shots (24.3 percent) after halftime. Their 10 third-quarter points matched a season low — and then they had seven in the fourth. The Mystics were 0 for 9 from behind the arc after halftime, and Thibault didn’t think they read the defense particularly well.
“I thought the first four minutes of the third quarter were key,” he said. “[Connecticut] played at a much more aggressive pace, particularly on the defensive end. ... And then we missed some of the same shots we made in the first half. That takes the life out of a team. You can’t have starts like that. I told our players just now in the locker room, ‘We gave them confidence in those first couple minutes of the second half.’ ”
Still, the Mystics had their chances. Natasha Cloud missed a layup with 6.3 seconds left that could have won the game in regulation. Connecticut’s Brionna Jones blocked a short Cloud jumper with 2.8 seconds left in overtime that would have tied it, and then Myisha Hines-Allen missed a three-pointer as time expired.
Ariel Atkins had 18 points, four steals and four assists. Alysha Clark added 13 points and seven rebounds, including the 1,000th of her career. Hines-Allen grabbed a season-high 13 rebounds but shot 4 for 14 for eight points.
“I think we stopped being as aggressive,” Atkins said. “In the first half, you saw us with our eyes up, looking down the floor, looking down the lane. I feel like when we got to the second half, we were more focused on passing it around the perimeter. ... I don’t think I was as aggressive in the second half as far as not only hunting shots but hunting shots for my teammates as well.”
Alyssa Thomas led the Sun (14-7) with 23 points and nine rebounds, and Courtney Williams had 15 points, six rebounds and four assists.
“The first-half defense was pretty solid,” Mystics center Shakira Austin said. “But that four-minute drought where we relaxed a lot, it hurt us. They got most of their points just off our simple turnovers and just getting second-chance opportunities.”
Here’s what to know about the Mystics’ loss:
Delle Donne out
Elena Delle Donne had been scheduled to play Sunday, but the Mystics announced Friday that she would not travel to Connecticut. Thibault said the medical staff made the decision to hold her out after she had played the previous three games, including her first consecutive road games at Seattle and Las Vegas on June 23 and 25.
“It was just recommended that we don’t do it,” Thibault said. “I’m not making the final choice on this, so it was recommended that we don’t do it and that we get this one game [Wednesday at Atlanta] and we get another break with all-star break [next weekend] and then kind of be in a better position going down the stretch the last third of the season.”
Austin returns
Austin was back with the team and in the starting lineup after missing practice Wednesday following the death of her grandfather. The No. 3 pick in this year’s draft had 13 points, three rebounds, two assists and a blocked shot in 29 minutes.
Tiebreaker matters
The Sun and Mystics entered the day separated by one game in the standings. Head-to-head record is the first tiebreaker for playoff seeding and home-court advantage, so the Sun’s victory could carry significant weight at the end of the season.
“We missed wide-open threes. We missed layups at the rim. We turned it over,” Thibault said. “I say this all the time, and it’s not more complicated: If you have an open layup and you don’t make it, well, what can anybody else on your team or coaching staff do to fix that?” | 2022-07-03T22:44:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Washington Mystics collapse for overtime loss to Connecticut Sun - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/03/mystics-sun-overtime/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/03/mystics-sun-overtime/ |
The Beverly Hills of Singapore Shows Signs of Froth
People at Merlion Park in the central business district of Singapore, on Wednesday, May 19, 2021. In the financial mecca of Singapore, technology companies have been steadily growing their footprint in recent years, chipping away at the dominance of banks in the island-state’s central business district. Photographer: Lauryn Ishak/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)
Les Maisons is a low-rise development of just 14 units coming up on Nassim Road, a leafy street nestled between the bustling shopping district of Orchard Road on one end and the expansive quiet of the Singapore Botanic Gardens on the other. As Business Insider described it, Nassim is the Lion City’s very own Beverly Hills. And right now, property prices along this mile-long stretch of hyper-exclusivity are scorching hot.
In May, a 6,092 square-foot apartment in Maisons Nassim was sold by its Hong Kong-based developer Shun Tak Holdings, which is run by the late Macau gambling tycoon Stanley Ho’s daughters Pansy, Daisy and Maisy. It went for S$37 million ($27 million), the fourth-highest per square foot price on record for a new Singapore condo, according to OrangeTee & Tie, a property brokerage.
The buyer’s identity isn’t known. It could be a Singaporean tycoon who wrote the check, but the Les Maisons unit might well have been one of the 84 snapped up in May by foreigners, marking a big-bang return of global interest in Singapore property after the first quarter’s lull. Nor would it be a surprise if the money came from an expatriate banker: Permanent residents bought 142 units in May, compared with 79 the previous month.
Mind you, such things weren’t supposed to happen this year. For both foreigners and PRs, already-steep additional stamp duties were further raised in December. Foreigners have to shell out a 30% levy, while PRs now pay 25% on their second homes and an unchanged 5% on first purchases. Only Singapore citizens buying their first homes are exempt from additional duties, which sit on top of the standard graded rate that rises to a maximum of 4% above S$1 million of market value. Despite such high taxation, there’s suddenly no dearth of homebuyers in Singapore, either local or foreign. The inescapable conclusion is this: The city-state’s latest property curbs have already lost their sting.
Will the Singapore authorities need to introduce more draconian restrictions? Maybe not this year, provided the U.S. Federal Reserve remains hawkish enough to deliver a second 75-basis-point increase in interest rates in July.
Since the 2009 start of the global cheap-money era, Singapore has made 11 attempts to rein in speculation in its residential property market. The goal has been to prevent prices from rising too fast too soon; the tools have ranged from higher stamp duties to lower mortgage loan-to-value limits and stricter debt servicing ratios for homebuyers. But the effect of these so-called cooling measures doesn’t last. “Sentiment typically recovers around two to six months after each round,” says Christine Sun, senior vice president of research and analytics at OrangeTee & Tie.
This time, it’s back to business-as-usual in five months. After surging 10.6% in 2021, Singapore home prices inched up by just 0.7% in the first quarter. However, developer sales for May seem to suggest strong pent-up demand. What’s more, activity appears to be heating up when money is no longer cheap. DBS Group Holdings Ltd., the island’s largest bank, recently raised the rate on its two-year fixed rate package by 0.3 percentage points to 2.75% per annum, according to The Straits Times. Other banks have already made their mortgage plans more expensive.
One reason why potential condo buyers are still keen is skyrocketing rents. According to a Bloomberg News survey of real-estate agents, rental prices are rising 20% to 40% on average for private homes leased by expatriates. Tenants are coming back. “Foreigners have begun to, slowly but surely, return to the city as the country further relaxes safety management measures and opens its borders,” says PropertyGuru Pte., which runs a popular online property portal. That changes the buy-or-rent equation for self-occupiers even at higher mortgage interest rates; it could also bring in yield-seeking investment, or at least offset the impact of higher annual property taxes for non-owner-occupiers from 2023. (Unlike the stamp duties, the property taxes aren’t a cooling measure; their main goal is to keep a lid on wealth inequality in the financial center.)
Limited supply of new homes is also attracting buyers to new projects that are getting launched. Billionaire Kwek Leng Beng’s City Developments Ltd. and its partner MCL Land Holdings sold 77% of their jointly developed 407-unit Piccadilly Grand over one weekend in early May at an average price of S$2,150 per square foot.
A rare Nassim Road property can afford to be pricey; Piccadilly Grand, too, sits on a location central enough to command a premium. But if like last year, the froth starts to spill over into middle-class, suburban homes, authorities will have to come in and break up the party. For now, though, they just might wait for the Fed to do the job.
But will it? Singapore’s rapid post-pandemic re-opening offers a stark contrast with arch-rival Hong Kong. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that new-home sales in the Chinese special administrative region could fall 20% this year. It’s in Hong Kong — and not Singapore — where the rising cost of capital may really come to bite. That’s because weak economic activity means lackluster rental demand. A landlord who’ll earn a rental yield of 2.2% on an investment property, and pay a floating mortgage interest rate of 2.2% — subject to a sharp increase — may as well head over to Singapore. Looks like they already are.
• Singapore Landlords Don’t Fear a Global Economy: Andy Mukherjee
• Singapore Property Is Hot Even Without Expats: Andy Mukherjee
• Disquiet Over the Housing Market Is Only Growing: John Authers | 2022-07-03T23:27:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Beverly Hills of Singapore Shows Signs of Froth - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-beverly-hills-of-singapore-shows-signs-of-froth/2022/07/03/ac83883e-fb24-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-beverly-hills-of-singapore-shows-signs-of-froth/2022/07/03/ac83883e-fb24-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Dec. 14. (Bandar Aljaloud/AP)
Cengiz and Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a human rights organization Khashoggi founded before his death, filed a lawsuit in 2020 against the crown prince and two dozen co-defendants. The suit alleges that Khashoggi was tortured, murdered and dismembered under the directives of the crown prince, who is often referred to by his initials MBS.
U.S. District Court Judge John Bates said in an order on Friday that the U.S. government can submit a statement of interest regarding, among other things, “the applicability of head-of-state immunity in this case.” The Biden administration can also declare that it will not submit such a statement. If the U.S. does declare its interests, Mohammed and the other defendants will have until Aug. 16 to respond, Bates ruled.
The crown prince “has immunity not only from his immediate familial relationship to the King, but also from his own ‘high-ranking office,’” Mohammed’s lawyers argued in a motion to dismiss the lawsuit that was filed last year. Lawyers for Cengiz and DAWN have countered that courts have previously rejected claims that “de facto” leadership, by virtue of being crown prince, confers immunity.
The federal judge’s order comes just before President Biden is scheduled to travel to Saudi Arabia later this month for the first time in his presidency, a trip that has made even some Democrats uneasy and that has prompted accusations of Biden flip-flopping on his promise to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” after Khashoggi’s murder.
On Oct. 2, 2018, Saudi agents killed Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. What has been done in the aftermath? (Video: Joyce Lee, Thomas LeGro, Dalton Bennett, John Parks/The Washington Post)
Khashoggi was killed Oct. 2, 2018, after visiting Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents that would allow him to marry Cengiz. In the months that preceded that visit, he had been writing columns for The Washington Post that were sharply critical of the crown prince, who effectively rules Saudi Arabia and has carried out a harsh crackdown on rivals and dissidents.
Spencer S. Hsu and Nick Miroff contributed to this report. | 2022-07-03T23:28:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Judge asks Biden administration whether Saudi crown prince MBS should be immune from civil lawsuit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/03/saudi-arabia-khashoggi-mbs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/03/saudi-arabia-khashoggi-mbs/ |
Bezos and White House clash on gas prices
Bezos, White House clash on gas prices
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos late Saturday criticized a tweet from President Biden calling for oil executives to reduce gasoline prices.
Bezos was responding to Biden’s criticism of companies running gas stations and setting prices for consumers. “This is a time of war and global peril,” the president tweeted Saturday. “Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now.”
The White House took to Twitter again on Sunday to push back against Bezos, who owns The Washington Post. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the elevated prices are “not ‘basic market dynamics.’ It’s a market that is failing the American consumer.”
John Kirby, a senior National Security Council spokesman at the White House, said Biden has proposed measures, including at the Group of Seven summit, that could lower U.S. gasoline prices and has freed oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Bezos has accused Biden of “misdirection” before. In May, he hit back on a tweet from the president saying inflation could be tamed by making corporations “pay their fair share.”
Two killed and four wounded in shooting
A gunman killed two people and wounded four others, including three police officers, before taking his own life in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, police said Sunday.
Detective Matt Spillane of the Haltom City police said none of those wounded in the shooting Saturday evening have life-threatening injuries.
Spillane said the officers returned fire after being shot at while responding to a report of gunshots at a home about 6:45 p.m. One officer was hit in both legs, and the other two were shot in the arm.
A woman was found dead inside a house and a man was found dead outside, Sgt. Rick Alexander said late Saturday. A woman who called 911 was wounded, he said.
The gunman died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. The Dallas Morning News reported that he was found a couple of blocks away after a search. He had a “military-style rifle” and a handgun, Alexander said.
World War II hero will lie in state at Capitol: Hershel W. "Woody" Williams, the last remaining Medal of Honor recipient from World War II, will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) announced at a memorial Sunday where Williams was remembered for his courage, humility and selflessness. Williams, 98, died Wednesday. "One of Woody's last wishes was to lie in state at the US Capitol to represent all WWII Medal of Honor recipients," Manchin wrote on Twitter, adding that Williams will lie in state "in the coming weeks."
Missouri lawmaker quits after conviction: A Missouri legislator has resigned her seat after being convicted of falsely claiming she was giving patients stem cell treatments for covid-19. Rep. Tricia Derges, a Republican from Nixa, sent her resignation letter to the House speaker Friday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Sunday. She was convicted in June on 22 counts including wire fraud, illegal distribution of controlled substances and making false statements to investigators. Federal prosecutors said she claimed nearly $900,000 in federal funding for covid treatments that weren’t performed or had already been performed. | 2022-07-03T23:28:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bezos and White House clash on gas prices - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/bezos-and-white-house-clash-on-gas-prices/2022/07/03/f4823e04-f9b3-11ec-a7e4-03590838919f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/bezos-and-white-house-clash-on-gas-prices/2022/07/03/f4823e04-f9b3-11ec-a7e4-03590838919f_story.html |
Several dead, suspect held in mall shooting
A man opened fire inside a mall in Denmark’s capital on Sunday, killing several people and wounding several, police said.
A 22-year-old Danish man was arrested after the shooting, Copenhagen police inspector Soren Thomassen told reporters, adding that there was no indication that anyone else was involved, though police were still investigating.
He said it was too early to speculate on the motive for the shooting at Field’s, one of the biggest malls in Scandinavia.
Thomassen gave no specific casualty count beyond saying that several people were dead and several wounded. He said the suspect was an “ethnic Dane,” a phrase typically used to mean someone is White.
Danish broadcaster TV2 published a grainy photo of the alleged gunman, seen wearing knee-length shorts and a tank top and holding what appeared to be a rifle in his right hand.
Danish media reported that a concert by Harry Styles, scheduled for Sunday night at the nearby Royal Arena, was canceled.
The shooting occurred a week after a mass shooting in neighboring Norway, where police said a Norwegian man of Iranian origin opened fire during an LGBTQ festival, killing two and wounding more than 20.
Scientist accused of treason dies after arrest
A Russian scientist who was arrested in Siberia last week on suspicion of state treason and flown to Moscow despite suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer has died, lawyers and a family member said Sunday.
Physicist Dmitry Kolker, 54, had been taken from his hospital bed, where he was being fed through a tube, and bundled onto a flight of more than four hours to Moscow.
The lawyers said he was taken to Lefortovo prison and later died in a hospital.
“He was a scientist, he loved his country, he was working in his country despite many invitations from leading universities and labs to go work abroad,” Dianov said.
The family and lawyers said Kolker was detained, and his house searched, by the FSB security service. They said the treason charges were based on lectures Kolker had delivered in China, even though the content had been approved by the FSB.
On Saturday, state news agency Tass said Russia had detained a second scientist in Novosibirsk on suspicion of state treason. It was not clear whether the two cases were connected.
A number of Russian scientists have been arrested and charged with treason in recent years on suspicion of passing sensitive material to foreigners. Critics of the Kremlin say the arrests often stem from paranoia.
6 hikers killed as Alpine glacier chunk detaches: A large chunk of an Alpine glacier broke loose and roared down a mountainside in Italy, sending ice, snow and rock slamming into hikers on a popular trail on the peak and killing at least six and injuring eight, authorities said. It was not clear how many hikers were in the area when the avalanche struck. The glacier, in the Marmolada range, is the largest in the Dolomite mountains in northeastern Italy but has been rapidly melting away in recent years. It was not clear what caused the section of ice to break away. But the intense heat wave gripping Italy since late June could be a factor.
Heavy rains, floods prompt evacuations of Sydney suburbs: Thousands of residents in the suburbs of Sydney were told to evacuate their homes after heavy rains caused floodwaters to rise and rivers to overflow in what authorities described as life-threatening emergencies. The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe weather warning for heavy rain and flash floods and winds of up to 55 mph along the coast of Australia's most populous city and other parts of New South Wales state. People were told to avoid any nonessential travel, including on public transport, with some roads already underwater and others at risk of flash flooding.
Nigerian authorities rescue 77 kept in church for rapture: Police in Nigeria freed at least 77 people who were kept in a church basement by pastors who preached to them about Christian believers ascending to heaven with the second coming of Jesus, authorities said. The people rescued in Ondo state included 23 children, some as young as 8. Residents said some Whole Bible Believer Church members had been kept there since last year. Two pastors are in custody. | 2022-07-03T23:28:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Digest: July 3, 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-july-3-2022/2022/07/03/250cd64a-fad3-11ec-a07f-799ab6d06557_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-july-3-2022/2022/07/03/250cd64a-fad3-11ec-a07f-799ab6d06557_story.html |
A meeting of the WHO’s Emergency Committee on June 23 determined that, at present, the event doesn’t constitute a public health emergency of international concern. Just over a week later, Hans Kluge, the WHO Regional Director for Europe, intensified a call for governments and civil society groups to scale up efforts to prevent monkeypox from establishing itself across a broader area, after cases in the region tripled in two weeks. Small numbers of cases have been reported among household members, heterosexual contacts, and non-sexual contacts, as well as among children. Where information is available, close to 10% of patients were reported to have been hospitalized either for treatment or for isolation purposes, and one patient has been admitted to an ICU, Kluge said.
(Updates to add pregnancy risk in section 2.) | 2022-07-04T00:59:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Understanding Monkeypox and How Outbreaks Spread - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/understanding-monkeypox-and-how-outbreaks-spread/2022/07/03/6ac36c8e-fb2e-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/understanding-monkeypox-and-how-outbreaks-spread/2022/07/03/6ac36c8e-fb2e-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
At least 3 dead, several injured after rare shooting at Copenhagen mall
People embrace outside Field's shopping center in Copenhagen on July 3. (Ritzau Scanpix/Via Reuters)
Three people were killed and several more were injured in a shooting at a Copenhagen mall, officials in the Danish capital said Sunday.
At around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Copenhagen police received reports of a shooting at Field’s, a shopping center east of the canal that bisects the city of about 800,000. Officers arrested a suspect near a highway exit 13 minutes later.
The suspect, a 22-year-old Danish man, is believed to have acted alone, police said after a preliminary investigation. He will be charged with manslaughter, Chief Police Inspector Soren Thomassen said, according to Danish broadcaster TV2.
A man in his 40s, a young man and a young woman were killed in the shooting, according to law enforcement. Police were working to inform relatives of the deaths.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen described the shooting in a statement as a “cruel attack.” She offered her sympathy to the victims, their families and “to all the Danes who have been close to the eerie events.”
The attack was a shock for many Danes, as mass shootings are rare in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries, which have strict firearms laws.
“We have all been brutally torn out of the bright summer we had just begun,” Frederiksen said. “It is incomprehensible. Heartbreaking. Pointless.”
Norway revises account of bow-and-arrow attack, casting doubts over terrorism
Copenhagen hosted opening events this weekend for the Tour de France, whose organizers said in a statement they were “extremely shocked and saddened to hear of what has happened in Copenhagen. The people of Copenhagen had given the peloton one of the greatest welcomes in the sport’s history.”
British singer Harry Styles also canceled a Sunday night concert located near Field’s.
The shooting comes as Copenhagen’s Nordic neighbor, Oslo, reels from a shooting at a gay club that left two people dead and 10 seriously injured. | 2022-07-04T02:00:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Copenhagen shooting: Denmark mall attack leaves 3 dead, several injured - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/03/copenhagen-denmark-mall-shooting-suspect/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/03/copenhagen-denmark-mall-shooting-suspect/ |
His financial situation is bad, and he knows mine is. He lives about three hours away.
We message several times a week. He started out calling me “hon” or “honey” and on occasion “sweetheart.” He ends each message with a heart emoji. He has told me that if he was financially stable, he would race to meet me.
He mentioned recently that when he was between marriages, he had met a woman online and had traveled to meet her. That’s when a bell went off.
Am I the one who's reading more into this — or is he?
Wondering: According to your account, a bell went off when you learned that this man raced to meet a woman he had met online when he was between marriages. He wasn’t married at the time, and so he wasn’t cheating on anyone when he did that.
I suspect that he has other “hons” and “sweethearts” out there, and whether this is for his emotional or financial gain or for friendship (possibly all three) — this is how he rolls. It is possible for a very nice person to have relationships with lots of other online sweethearts; all the same, he is not a good match for you.
Your extremely lengthy relationship experience has been to suppress your needs to serve someone else. I hope you will grow into your own strength and find real-world experiences that are honest as well as fulfilling.
I have a neighbor who is very nice and kind. We wave to one another across our gardens, and we occasionally engage in a little small talk.
Yesterday, she brought me a really nice plant from her garden. She said, “Hey, lady, I thought you would like this.”
I’ve introduced myself several times and it seems super-awkward to do this again. Can you give me a graceful way to handle this?
Neighborly: You might handle this by dropping her a note (maybe along with a plant from your garden), thanking her and signing the note with your name. If, after that, she continues to address you as “Lady,” you might consider it your nickname and go with it.
Elder: You are fortunate that your township offers this service, and you are smart to use it! | 2022-07-04T05:07:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: Should I end our conversations after he asked to meet in person? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/04/ask-amy-online-friend-married/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/04/ask-amy-online-friend-married/ |
Dear Carolyn: What’s your take on getting justice for long-ago wrongs? I grew up in the South in the 1980s and 1990s, when no one cared about kids. I was bullied and sexually assaulted (once) and harassed repeatedly by the same group of boys. My parents and the school did nothing.
I’ve already done years of therapy. Nothing helped.
But the one thing that did was holding those adults in my life accountable. When I filed a complaint against a former doctor, who still practices today, I found myself getting the justice I deserved for so long. I also have an appointment to talk to school officials about a potential investigation, and the police are next. My intention is to hold four adults — who still have their jobs — and that group of boys accountable.
I’m feeling better, but my husband isn’t so sure. I don’t live in my hometown, but it is small. All the people I’m accusing still live there. I’m not scared, because the truth is on my side, and I’m not the only victim. Unlike my husband, I don’t care what happens to the people I accuse. It’s not my responsibility.
I don’t need my husband to agree with me, but I do need him to understand. Also, if getting fired or embarrassed or labeled is the worst thing that happens to any of these people, that barely compares to what I endured.
— Justice?
Justice?: First, good good good for you. Go get all of them. Yes. Second, I am sorry these things happened to you.
Third, I am sorry your husband’s sympathies lie, essentially, with the perps. I’m sure he doesn’t see it that way, but sometimes things actually aren’t complicated, and if you have the facts to prove offenses for which these people can be held legally accountable, then that puts the responsibility for “what happens to the people I accuse” squarely onto them. For their own wrongdoing.
Now, of course, there can be consequences to an accusation even when there isn’t enough proof to support legal accountability, but that’s a byproduct of our system. Your burden is to be sure you are accusing the right people of the right things, and once met, you deserve your husband’s full support — unless he’s worried about what will happen to you in doing this.
Which brings us to your remark, “I don’t need my husband to agree with me, but I do need him to understand.” When you use the word “need,” there’s an implied “or else.” As in: Humans need oxygen, or else they die. So you need your husband’s support, or else what? You can’t pursue justice? Can’t trust him as a partner? Can’t stay married? Can’t be at peace?
My advice is to think carefully about your “or else,” then talk to your husband about it frankly. Such as: “I am doing this, with or without your support. If you can’t at least understand why, and recognize that their getting fired or embarrassed barely compares to what I endured, then I can’t ____.”
A settling of accounts often does become bigger in scope as you go along, but you don’t need to hear that from me. I admire your courage. | 2022-07-04T05:07:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Husband won’t support seeking justice for childhood abuse - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/04/carolyn-hax-husband-abuse-support-justice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/04/carolyn-hax-husband-abuse-support-justice/ |
With millions of citizens displaced and the country’s infrastructure in ruins, Ukraine will be unable to support itself for years, possibly decades, to come. An impoverished or dysfunctional state the size and importance of Ukraine on Europe’s border would be vulnerable to future aggression and a source of economic and political instability. Preventing such an outcome will require the democratic world to finance much of the country’s reconstruction, just as the US did in Europe after World War II with the Marshall Plan. Even as the conflict rages, Western governments would be wise to begin that effort now.
While it makes little sense to rebuild a structure that will just be shelled again, there is plenty Ukraine’s allies can do now. Building pontoon bridges and other temporary vital infrastructure can help move millions of pounds of grain out of the country. Farmers and agribusinesses need support for planting this year as well as stronger storage facilities, such as the temporary grain silos promised by the Biden administration along the border with Poland.
Where feasible, the reconstruction of residential areas should be accelerated. Prefabricated housing for those internally displaced by the war and for returning refugees is needed to restore some normality. In areas where violence has sufficiently subsided, outside experts can help to de-mine swathes of Ukraine’s land (the agriculture ministry has estimated that 30% of farmland is occupied or unsafe). Large numbers of Ukrainians can’t return to their homes until those areas are secure.
Perhaps the biggest challenge about the reconstruction process will be paying for it. While many governments and international financial institutions will be involved, it makes sense for the EU — which has just made Ukraine a candidate for membership — to lead this process. A few principles should guide it. First, while loans will be part of any aid package, saddling Ukraine with too much debt just risks a crisis down the road. Like the Marshall Plan, Ukraine’s reconstruction should be predominantly funded by grants, on the condition that Ukraine’s government and business match a fraction of the funds. As part of any negotiated settlement to the war, Russia should have to pay some kind of long-term tithe — just as Iraq paid to Kuwait after the first Gulf War — though simply redistributing seized Russian assets is legally dubious and a dangerous precedent. A key international conference on reconstruction starting Monday is an opportunity for Ukraine’s partners to hash through these issues and at least agree on a common platform and priorities. | 2022-07-04T05:33:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Start Planning the Reconstruction of Ukraine Now - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/start-planning-thereconstruction-ofukraine-now/2022/07/04/f8dd0ce6-fb56-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/start-planning-thereconstruction-ofukraine-now/2022/07/04/f8dd0ce6-fb56-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 03: Novak Djokovic of Serbia plays a backhand against Tim van Rijthoven of Netherlands during their Men’s Singles Fourth Round match on day seven of The Championships Wimbledon 2022 at All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on July 03, 2022 in London, England. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images) (Photographer: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images Europe)
Tickets for marquee sporting events don’t come cheap. A top Premier League match, where a stadium can pack 40,000 to 60,000 football fans, easily runs £100 ($121) for club members, with prices far higher on the secondary market. A weekend at the just completed Silverstone Grand Prix starts at a mere £155, but prices quickly get into the thousands for the full hospitality experience.
Only at Wimbledon, though, is a readiness to spend on tickets nowhere near enough to get you through the gates. You must also be lucky or tenacious, and often both. And yet fans at the tournament and even those who watched on television noted all the empty seats as major stars such as Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and last year’s surprise US Open champ Emma Raducanu took to the court.
For die-hard tennis fans, or those who just relish a quintessentially English event, the hassle, uncertainty and queuing are all part of the experience and the tradition of the most storied tournament in the sport. But does it have to be?
There are a number of ways to get tickets to Wimbledon — where total capacity is around 42,000 — but none are straightforward. Pre-pandemic, fans from around the world could apply for tickets in a public ballot (a lottery) that closed the previous December. This year, those who had won the right to buy tickets in the cancelled 2020 tournament had them carried over so there was no new public ballot.
Wimbledon attendance is down 7% this year compared with 2019. That’s not surprising given how hard it is to get a ticket.
Members of the Lawn Tennis Association, which governs British tennis, could opt in to a ballot to purchase a pair of Wimbledon tickets. For those who remembered to opt in and were lucky enough to get an allocation, it was then a six-step process to respond to a series of emails telling you how to purchase tickets, then how to access them in the Wimbledon app. At each stage there was a time limitation (10 days for this or that). I had to set reminders in my phone.
Ballot-winners can’t be choosers and you take the date, court and seats you are offered or nothing. Returned tickets can be purchased by others online, but these go fast, and there’s no guarantee.
It would be nice to gift a pair of tickets to your significant other and tennis-mad child, but if you are the lucky ballot winner, you have to be at the tournament in person with your ID. And don’t just click on the Terms & Conditions without reading. Last year, fans took to Twitter to express their frustration when ticket purchases were cancelled because they had used the same credit card for more than one purchase, which was apparently verboten. (I couldn’t find the same restriction this year, but I might have missed it.)
There are other ways to get to Wimbledon if money or time are no object. You can apply for a debenture, which gives the holder the right to a premium seat each day for five straight tournament years. The price of a Centre Court debenture in the 2020 to 2025 series was £80,000 (which rose to £120,000 in the month before the tournament). No. 1 Court debentures in that series went for £46,000.
That can be a decent investment: Debentures are the only tickets that can be legally transferred or sold and the price is often right for the seller. Last I checked, debenture tickets for this week were selling at around £2,700 or more. Getting hold of a debenture, however, even if you have the dosh to splurge, is not easy and some people wait years for the opportunity.
The final option is to queue, and what could be more British? A 2017 queue was reportedly 7,000 people long. The queue for this year’s tournament began on the Friday before Monday’s start. Ground passes gained this way cost only £27 and the Championship releases 500 tickets for each of the three main show courts each day along with an unspecified number of ground passes. But — forgive the repetition — there are no guarantees of success. Each year there are stories of jolly campers and the excitement of the queue, but I know many more people who are daunted by the prospect or can’t take the time off work. I’m not surprised numbers are reportedly down this year.
The other three Grand Slam events in the tennis calendar operate ticketing systems that don’t require advanced knowledge of game theory or saintly levels of patience. The US Open is the easiest, perhaps to be expected given that the enormous Arthur Ashe stadium has a seating capacity of 23,000. But even the French and Australian tournaments, where the main court seats around 15,000, similar to Wimbledon’s Centre Court, offer straightforward ticket-purchasing options. All have systems that help fans access tickets, provide some flexibility but restrict the ability of profiteers and touts to corner resales.
One difference is Wimbledon is the only of the four grand slams run by a private member’s club. The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club (AELTC) is one of the most exclusive clubs in the world, with a limit of only 500 members. It can afford to be. It must also look after its corporate sponsors and debentures who pay for the full experience and the exclusivity of the event — and occasionally opt to hang out at the Gatsby Club or swill gin in hospitality sections instead of filling their premium seats in the show courts.
The profits from the Championships are transferred to the LTA to fund grass-roots tennis; that amounted to £52.1 million in 2019. A successful tournament means more money to spend on British tennis, though, to be clear, while there have been some improvements and more British players breaking into the top, tennis is still an expensive and exclusive sport in Britain compared to many other countries. And yet one of the objectives of the LTA, and the Championship, is to enhance accessibility.
For all the brilliance of the tournament, there’s more to be done on that front. The Ralph Lauren uniforms, the green and purple flower boxes, the recycling bins and the net-zero pledges project an image of both timeless tradition and hip modernity. But those rows of empty seats and the sight of long queues of punters reinforce a narrative that there is something both elitist and a bit backward about it all.
Wimbledon this year is as exciting as ever to watch, but also at odds with the sport’s attempts to be more inclusive. The overly complicated ticketing system recalls Mark Twain’s observation: The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of. Hopefully Wimbledon will prove him wrong. | 2022-07-04T05:33:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Is It So Hard to Get Wimbledon Tickets? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-is-it-so-hard-to-get-wimbledon-tickets/2022/07/04/f96d64c6-fb56-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-is-it-so-hard-to-get-wimbledon-tickets/2022/07/04/f96d64c6-fb56-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
FILE - In this image released by Hong Kong Government Flying Service, a helicopter with rescue crew members approaches a sinking ship in the South China Sea, 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of Hong Kong on July 2, 2022, as Typhoon Chaba was moving in the area. A fourth crew member has been rescued Monday, July 4, 2022 after the typhoon sunk the engineering vessel earlier this week, according to a Chinese state broadcaster. (Hong Kong Government Flying Service via AP) (Uncredited/Hong Kong Government Flying Service) | 2022-07-04T05:34:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fourth crew member rescued after engineering ship sinks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/fourth-crew-member-rescued-after-engineering-ship-sinks/2022/07/04/57f707f8-fb4e-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/fourth-crew-member-rescued-after-engineering-ship-sinks/2022/07/04/57f707f8-fb4e-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
NEW ORLEANS — Zion Williamson agreed Saturday to a five-year, $193 million extension with the New Orleans Pelicans that has the potential to be worth as much as $231 million, two people familiar with the situation said.
WASHINGTON — The Washington Nationals exercised their contract options for general manager Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez on Saturday.
SILVERSTONE, England — Carlos Sainz Jr. won his first career Formula One race with a victory in the British Grand Prix on Sunday.
LEXINGTON, Ohio — Scott McLaughlin picked up his second career IndyCar victory, which may go down as one of the most special wins of his career. | 2022-07-04T07:05:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Weekend Sports in Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/weekend-sports-in-brief/2022/07/04/4d34642e-fb66-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/weekend-sports-in-brief/2022/07/04/4d34642e-fb66-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Daniel and Tanya Snyder helped unveil the franchise's new name in February. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Snyder’s fey conduct — and his clear lack of respect for a woman at a dais, committee chair Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) — reminds you of nothing so much as a line the great sportswriter John Schulian once wrote about another sneering, shrinking little martinet of the sports world, Billy Martin: He is like “a rat studying to be a mouse.” | 2022-07-04T09:41:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Has Daniel Snyder changed? The evidence isn't kind. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/04/daniel-snyder-changed-investigation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/04/daniel-snyder-changed-investigation/ |
Heir ponders tax implications on inheritance if split with sibling
For 2022, the estate tax cutoff is $12.06 million. This means that if you die and your estate is valued at an amount lower than the $12.06 million limit, you owe no federal estate taxes at all. (iStock)
Q: My mom recently passed away. She was 91. We sold her condo this year while she was still alive. We put the proceeds from the sale in an account, which I held with her jointly, with rights of survivorship. I have had this arrangement with her for some 20 years. The account was exclusively for her benefit. All of her known bills are paid. I held a power of attorney for financial matters for her while she was alive.
The condo sale was for $150,000. She qualified for the personal residence exclusion. I am assuming that the title company will report the sale to the IRS. Are there any tax implications for the money I received from the joint account? I plan to split what remains in the account with my brother, and we are good and totally transparent with each other.
A: Our condolences on your mom’s recent passing. But it sounds as though you and she had her affairs in order, and your good relationship with your brother will undoubtedly be helpful as you heal from this loss.
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You mentioned that your mom sold her home before her death and that she qualified for the home sale exclusion. We assume you’re referring to the IRS code provision that allows homeowners to sell their home and not pay taxes on up to $250,000 in profits. If you are married, you can exclude $500,000 in profits from tax with the IRS.
As we’re sure you’re aware, the rule requires the homeowner to have lived in the home as their primary residence for two out of the last five years. There are other rules, but those are the big ones. You can get the full rundown of the requirements from IRS Publication 523, “Selling Your Home.”
Given that your mom probably lived in the home for many, many years and it was her primary residence, the sale of her home would not trigger a taxable event with the IRS. You should be good on that end. Having said that, make sure the title company reported the entire sale on your mom’s Social Security number. Unless there’s something else going on that you didn’t share, there wouldn’t be anything owed to the IRS.
Now, let’s deal with the bank funds. After the deal closed, the settlement agent or title company sent the proceeds of the sale to your mom’s bank account. You and your mom were both on this account. Based on the information you provided, it appears that the total value of your mother’s estate was low. In any event, it’s likely to be far less than the number that would trigger any federal estate taxes. As such, your mom’s estate would not have any federal estate taxes to pay.
Finally, you inherited the money in her account at the time she died and you don’t have to pay any tax on that inherited money. When it comes to estate taxes, the giver of the gift may have taxes to pay, but as we mentioned, your mom didn’t have any federal estate taxes to pay. For 2022, the estate tax cutoff is $12.06 million. This means that if you die and your estate is valued at an amount lower than the $12.06 million limit, you owe no federal estate taxes at all.
At the state level, you might have some taxes to pay, but you’d need to look into that with an estate attorney or tax practitioner that knows the estate laws of the state in which your mom lived.
As far as splitting the money between you and your brother, the tax implications should be the same for both of you. There is one issue that is of interest. Since you inherited all of the money in your mom’s account at the time of her death, you might want to check with a tax practitioner about the tax implications when you split the money with your brother.
If the IRS considers all of the money yours, you can give your brother $16,000 per year without any federal tax consequences. But if you give him more than $16,000 in a year, you might have to file a tax form for a gift tax with the IRS. You can still share the money, but in this situation, the money you give him would count against your $12.06 million estate limit (which is scheduled to be reduced significantly in 2025, although we’re not sure this will ever happen).
If you wind up talking to your tax preparer or an estate attorney about whether your mom owes estate taxes, you might want to ask what is the best way to handle the transfer of funds to your brother. You’re looking for a win-win: You want to handle the funds properly, but make sure you don’t wind up with any unintended negative consequences for you.
Ilyce Glink is the author of “100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask” (Fourth Edition). She is also the chief executive of Best Money Moves, an app that employers provide to employees to measure and dial down financial stress. Samuel J. Tamkin is a Chicago-based real estate attorney. Contact them through the website, BestMoneyMoves.com. | 2022-07-04T10:07:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Heir ponders tax implications on inheritance if split with sibling - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/04/heir-ponders-tax-implications-inheritance-if-split-with-sibling/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/04/heir-ponders-tax-implications-inheritance-if-split-with-sibling/ |
Studio condominium in Arlington lists for $258,000
Prospect House, built in 1980, is within walking distance of bike trails and is 0.6 miles from the Rosslyn Metro station. (HomeVisit)
Many home buyers in the D.C. region see Arlington as an ideal place to live. It’s outside the city limits yet offers quick access to downtown D.C., walkability, public transportation and parks. That desirability means home prices are high in the Northern Virginia suburb. In May, the median sales price for a home in Arlington was $676,200, according to Bright MLS, higher than the median sales price of $650,000 in D.C.
But buyers willing to sacrifice a little space can find a place to buy even if their budget tops out at $400,000. For example, a studio in Arlington’s Prospect House, a familiar building on the skyline in North Arlington near the Potomac River and the Iwo Jima Memorial, is priced at $258,000.
The unit, at 1200 N. Nash St., No. 1165, has a monthly condo fee of $436 and annual property taxes of $2,479. The condo fee includes all utilities, common-area maintenance, management and reserve funds. This unit comes with an assigned space in the parking lot.
Two-bedroom condo on Connecticut Avenue NW lists for $350,000
Building amenities at Prospect House include a swimming pool, fitness center, laundry room, 24-hour security and concierge services, a bike room, meeting room, convenience store and dry cleaner. Pets are not allowed.
Built in 1980, Prospect House is within walking distance of bike trails and is 0.6 miles from the Rosslyn Metro station. Restaurants and shops are less than a mile from the condo. The Pentagon, Reagan National Airport and the Georgetown Waterfront Park are less than five miles away.
The 11th-floor studio unit faces west for sunset views. It is 485 square feet with space for an eating area, full-size couch and queen-size bed in the main room. The galley-style kitchen has white cabinets, granite counters and new stainless-steel appliances, including a refrigerator, gas stove and built-in microwave. The studio, which is partially carpeted, also has a walk-in closet, a full bathroom with a combination tub and shower, central air conditioning, and gas heat and hot water.
Photos are available here.
For more information, contact principal broker Will Wiard with Pareto at 202-818-8722. | 2022-07-04T10:08:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Studio condominium in Arlington, Va., lists for $258,000 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/04/studio-condominium-arlington-lists-258000/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/04/studio-condominium-arlington-lists-258000/ |
Owner Dana Smith leads a class at Spiritual Essence Yoga Studio on June 29 in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
In the tiny Virginia town of soybean fields and no stoplights where Kimberly Matthews-Williams grew up, her Black church was family, and that felt really good — on Sundays. On her own later, as a student in D.C., something was missing, and she looked for a spiritual practice that felt to her like a connection to the universe, one she could carry into her every day, and began Buddhist chanting groups. There, she’d rarely see faces and bodies that looked like hers.
The past few years, with pandemic-stressed teens in her house and racism constantly reflected back in the national news, Matthews-Williams badly needed a change. In the fall of 2020, sitting in her home in Takoma Park, she googled “meditation for people of color.”
She took her first class the next day. Right away, “I exhaled. You know the first time you’re away from your family home and you come home and go: ‘Home,’” she said. “I literally was like: ‘This feels good.”
That can mean simply classes where teachers and students are mostly Black. It can mean spaces where people can raise issues like the Will Smith/Chris Rock incident or Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings and everyone understands why those may feel like deep challenges to inner peace. It can mean getting that some of your relatives think mindfulness puts the spiritual above God, or above the Black church. Or being on the mat next to a woman wearing a “yoga has curves” t-shirt.
In abortion debate, echoes of another battle: Reproductive rights for Black women
According to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, 9.3 percent of non-Hispanic Black Americans did yoga in 2017 and 13.5 percent meditated. The overall use of these practices is up sharply since 2012, when the CDC said the percent of Americans who did yoga went from 9.5 percent to 14.3 and meditation from 4.1 percent to 14.2 percent.
Rhonda V. Magee, a University of San Francisco law professor who writes, leads workshops and teaches on the intersection of mindfulness and race, said mindfulness has been popularized and shaped for decades “through a White lens.”
“We’re opening up options for people and creating the kind of spaces that may not exist to serve us right now. With the rise in white supremacy and hate everywhere, it should surprise no one that many of us might feel comforted by affinity group space,” she said, using the term for people who share a common interest.
“It’s not about just creating re-segregation or re-Balkanizing the world with meditators at the lead. It’s instead about deepening our capacity to heal the wounds that we carry. So people of color don’t need to feel they are the victims of microaggression or worse. If you’re leading with the goal of minimizing suffering at the core of mindfulness and Buddhism, you want to create spaces where people can just feel safe.”
A focus of Magee has been integrating mindfulness into higher education and the legal field. Among the new mindfulness programs she’s seeing are those created for veterans, people with disabilities and the fat rights community.
“In church I felt really good on Sunday, and my Monday I was like …” and Matthews-Williams trails off into a silent pause. “With my mindfulness practice it’s not getting to a place, it’s being where I am, carrying it with me at all times.” Matthews-Williams, 55, works in human resources policy for the federal government.
“This is harmful. There’s just a sense of disconnect; we’re not watching the same movie the same way,” is how Hughes describes it.
Ali grew up in D.C., where her grandfather was a deacon at the historic Third Baptist in Shaw. She explored ideas including Science of Mind, an early 1990s philosophy, as well as the Nation of Islam, Sufism and Orthodox Islam. She started practicing mainstream Western mindfulness more than 15 years ago but felt alienated by what she saw as an emphasis on quiet — a type attainable through privileged means such as the ability to get to rural centers or studio spaces and time inaccessible to many Americans. She felt the experience of non-White practitioners was not understood or shared.
She joined with Hughes, who grew up playing trumpet and piano in church in Richmond, and came to D.C. to attend Howard University in 2006 where he studied music and went on to the divinity school. He became a Baptist pastor but began feeling separate from the concept of “God” he understood and began exploring Buddhist mindfulness, including the book “Living Buddha, Living Christ,” a classic text by the famous late Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, that emphasizes the shared teachings of compassion and love.
“What mindfulness gave me was this capacity to get to know myself for myself in a way that was grounded in kindness and a deep acceptance of who I was. I was a minister and a student of theology and I was feeling separate from God. Mindfulness practice was the tool, the means, that helped me to begin to ask myself: Who am I and what does it mean to be human? Before that my focus was to acquire and reach God outside of me. This practice invited me to look at myself and be considerate of how I’m looking.”
Think meditation could help cope with microaggressions? There’s an app for that.
Juneous A Pettijohn’s path into mindfulness came through holistic wellness and yoga, in 2008. Raised Baptist, Pettijohn eventually balanced mindfulness work with church, and attends Unity Church, which is a Christian denomination that emphasizes spiritualism and universalism.
The classes include acknowledgment of ancestors “we know and that are unknown,” Heart Refuge’s website says, and our “individual and collective lineage of joy and suffering, of power and pain.” It says it offers “an inter-generational understanding of the importance of embodied mindfulness practices for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.”
Another model of mindfulness that aims to be extra sensitive to the needs of non-White people is in Upper Marlboro, where Dana Smith has been teaching yoga and mindfulness and training teachers full-time since 2006 when she ran the operation out of her basement. She has since trained about 500 teachers, including many of the Black-led studios around Prince George’s.
Smith’s Spiritual Essence Yoga is an oasis of pastels and high ceilings in a typical brick and concrete suburban strip mall. Smith, Sanskrit words are placed over rooms that offer reiki and sound healing, or a place to sit with crystals and tea, or practice yoga. Almost all students are not White, mostly African American.
Smith, a 46-year-old mother of three, sought out yoga on line in 2001, when she was grieving a friend lost in the Sept. 11 attacks, facing a pregnancy on her own and rising blood pressure. She began driving an hour each way to classes in Dupont Circle, where she remembers people being kind but emphasized in a way that “felt like a petri dish.”
She began teaching classes in her basement, but was sensitive to her parents, who are strict Christians, and many of the African Americans she knew who ranged from hostile to those who simply said: “I don’t see any Black people. I don’t feel safe.”
Twenty years later, Smith’s classes and center are meant to be welcoming to all and completely universal, not focusing on race. Teachers trained there simply talk about the importance of representation, of seeing people of color and of different sizes and shapes.
“I can see myself on her site, and that is helpful, because our bodies are built differently,” said Niki Newman-Brown, 43, an instructional director for Prince George’s County schools. She said there has been a gradual increase of curiosity and trust in yoga from the church set. Mindfulness teachers have also worked to find inviting ways to disarm.
“Things I’ve said that once offended people of faith, like ‘I need to meditate on that’ — it used to offend and now it doesn’t. Once people get a little more understanding, it starts cross over.”
The Bible was used to justify slavery. Then Africans made it their path to freedom.
Ali said being with people of different backgrounds remains essential to her, in addition to Heart Refuge, because it's what she believes.
“It’s the reason I’m still in White spaces. If you look at the whole thing from a Buddhist perspective, the ‘delusion of separation’ — a core Buddhist issue — is the cause of harm,” she said of a Buddhist teaching that disconnection from other humans and other life-forms is a kind of poison.
Alexis Braswell, 24, began practicing and studying with Smith a year ago. Her father had recently passed away and she was struggling with trying to figure out how to transform and find herself. While she calls yoga “taboo” among some in the Black community, particularly those who are older.
After her first few classes, she found herself lying on the floor, crying, with a feeling of “deep release.”
“Being the healer that Dana has been able to be, and to teach and offer community, and seeing someone who looks like me and I can be like them. I want to become a healer,” she said. | 2022-07-04T10:08:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | People of color creating mindfulness, meditation, yoga spaces for their own - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/04/black-mindfulness-white-meditation-yoga/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/04/black-mindfulness-white-meditation-yoga/ |
(Washington Post illustration; The King campaign; The Perez campaign; Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post; The Schulz campaign; Matt McClain/The Washington Post; The Franchot campaign; Brian Witte/AP; Katherine Frey/The Washington Post; iStock)
John B. King Jr. (D)
Kelly M. Schulz (R)
Daniel L. Cox (R)
Widely considered a thankless job, Perez drew criticism for diminishing power of the party’s superdelegates in the presidential nominating process, resulting in a vote of no-confidence in him from the Congressional Black Caucus. He wrangled the largest presidential primary field in history in 2020, setting debate rules that kept some candidates with little support or funding off the stage, prompting criticism. He also was tweaked by state party chairs over how the DNC handled Iowa Democratic Party’s inability to count the results in 2020 caucuses.
Perez has taken up local officials’ offers to tour legislative districts, winning over some that he just met, such as Del. Robbyn T. Lewis (D-Baltimore City).
He’s not afraid to make enemies within his own party, as he did with Thomas V. Mike Miller (D) when Miller was president of the Senate. Or friends within the opposing party, as he did with Maryland’s current Gov. Larry Hogan (R).
Franchot then went to law school at Northeastern University in Boston, where he met his wife Anne Maher, now a partner at a D.C. law firm. They have two children and three grandchildren. During the 1980s, Franchot spent six years working as an aide to Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.).
As 2014 approached, with O’Malley term-limited from being governor again, Franchot was among several high-profile state Democrats who considered running. But he wasn’t considered a front-runner, and he ultimately decided against it. Instead he coasted through reelection for comptroller.
After the Republican gubernatorial nominee, Larry Hogan, managed an upset win that year, he was quickly befriended by Franchot, with whom he shared many voters. They bonded over strolls along the Ocean City boardwalk and a mutual desire to curb state spending. Franchot dined at the governor’s mansion, something he’d never done with O’Malley.
Fresh polls show the political newcomer toe to toe with established candidates such as Peter Franchot, a state comptroller who has held elected office almost as long as Moore has been alive, and Tom Perez, a former U.S. labor secretary who is entrenched in national party politics. Moore has consolidated support from the state’s heavy hitters, including U.S. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, state Senate President Bill Ferguson, House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones and Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks. He’s also banked more than $7 million over the last cycle, more than any other candidate in race, and won one of the biggest and most coveted labor endorsements, from the 76,000-strong state teachers union.
Winfrey, whose advice he sought about running and who recently appeared at a virtual fundraiser to boost his campaign, asked Moore during the event about a widely circulated myth that he was born in Baltimore. (He was born in Takoma Park.) A decade ago, even Oprah introduced him incorrectly. And later, Stephen Colbert, Princeton University and curriculum teaching his book to K-12 students, among others.
I “didn’t see the need … to call every reporter or every producer out. … It wasn’t some thread where I was like let me ride this out,” Moore said in a recent interview, maintaining that the city helped shape him and that he has what it takes to succeed term-limited Gov. Larry Hogan (R).
Moore was 3 years old when his father died in front of him because he didn’t get the health care he needed for acute epiglottis, Moore said in an interview. His widowed mother, an immigrant from Jamaica, moved him and his two sisters to the Bronx, where they lived with his grandparents, a minister and a longtime educator.
By 11 years old, Moore said he “felt handcuffs on his wrist,” after police detained him for spray painting, and after years of being told to straighten up, he was sent off to military school by age 13. His mother had moved back to Maryland by then, and Moore was spending time in Baltimore, where he now lives with his wife, Dawn, and their two children. After graduating from Valley Forge Military College, he would go on to become the first Black Rhodes scholar from Johns Hopkins University, a White House fellow, an investment banker, a veteran and a chief executive of a large nonprofit.
He flirted with the idea of running for office before, when several power players, including local elected officials, approached him about running for mayor of Baltimore. He opted against it, he said, because his children were too young. He jumped into the governor’s race with his wife, whom he has called his “secret weapon” by his side. Dawn Moore has a long history in Maryland politics, having worked on gubernatorial campaigns for Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Martin O’Malley and in the administration of then-Gov. Parris Glendening.
Moore said he plans to bring all sectors together to address issues like the environment, which has forced students to leave hot school buildings when temperatures soar, resulted in higher asthma rates in cities like Baltimore and caused “once in a century” flooding every few years.
“We need to stop acting like the party of Hogan Democrats and Joe Manchin III Democrats who think that people who are struggling should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and start acting like the party of FDR Democrats … the party of Obama Democrats … and the party of Raskin Democrats,” he said, making a final reference to lead House impeachment manager U.S. Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), who was a strong proponent of liberal issues when he served in the state General Assembly.
While Hogan has been an outspoken Trump critic, Schulz cannot afford at this point to sideline supporters of the former president, Laird said. In the primary, where turnout tends to be higher among more ideological voters, she faces three opponents, including Maryland Del. Daniel L. Cox (R), a Trump-endorsed, staunchly conservative lawmaker also from Frederick. But drawing herself too close to the former president also has its hitches: In the 2020 general election, Marylanders voted 2-1 against Trump.
Del. Kathy Szeliga (R-Baltimore County), the outgoing minority whip in the House, said that she’s been glad to see Schulz rise in rank over the last decade even though she has never found Schulz to be “politically ambitious.”
Now, as Cox seeks the Republican nomination for Maryland governor, he is locked in a tight battle with Hogan-endorsed Kelly Schulz, the former state commerce secretary, in a race shaped by deep divisions across the country between members of the GOP establishment and supporters of former president Donald Trump.
A recent Goucher College poll, conducted in partnership with the Baltimore Banner and WYPR-88.1, found Cox and Schulz in a statistical dead heat, with Cox capturing 25 percent of the vote and Schulz, 22 percent. A majority of likely Republican voters were undecided.
“It may be Maryland, but Republicans are Republicans, and Trump is incredibly popular among Republicans, and he’s immensely popular among the base of the party,” Todd Eberly, a Professor of Political Science at St. Mary’s College, said of the Republican primary. “Cox is the perfect candidate for an election that is all about the base, and when most folks aren’t paying attention.”
Cox, 47, campaigns on hard-right stances he hopes will lift him to a win as they did Doug Mastriano in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial primary: dramatically restricting abortions, banning masks and vaccine mandates for the coronavirus, fighting against transgender rights and demanding a federal audit of the 2020 elections.
Similar to Mastriano, Cox chartered buses for the Trump rally near the White House that preceded the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. They both attended a conference in Gettysburg this spring that promoted Q-anon and conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. According to published reports, Cox was joined there by Liz Harrington, a spokeswoman for Trump; and former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis.
Schulz’s campaign has labeled Cox “unstable” and “unfit for office.” Last year, Hogan, her former boss, called him a “Q-anon whack job.” Meanwhile in a recent phone call to rally Cox supporters, Trump called Cox “a highly respected lawyer who is tough and smart … Dan is MAGA all the way. Unlike his opponent named Kelly Schulz who along with Larry Hogan, bad news.”
Cox, who did not respond to calls seeking comment, told the hundreds — including Mastriano and former U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes — on a Carroll County farm in sweltering summer heat recently that his people-powered campaign, run by one of his daughters, was outpacing the deep-pocketed Schulz campaign.
“We are running ahead in the polls, we are strong we are organized. … We are getting out the message,” he said.
He asked his supporters a string of questions based on his platform. Who among them believed, like his opponent, he said, that events of Jan. 6 were an insurrection and that Trump was responsible for it? The crowd booed. Who thought providing taxpayer-funded abortions to trafficked women from other states and countries was acceptable? They yelled, “No!”
“We’re going to defund the taxpayer-paid abortions,” Cox said to raucous cheers.
Cox said he also wants to see changes in the state’s gun-control laws, including gun-permit laws, a red-flag law that allows the seizure of guns from people who are deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, and a ghost-gun law that prohibits the assembly of homemade firearms.
“I intend to change all of that,” the one-term delegate from Fredrick County said. “These are our freedoms; these are our rights. They can’t take them from us. This is how we protect ourselves. With the riots that have happened, we should have something to defend our families with.”
In the past year he was the prime sponsor on bills seeking dramatically to restrict abortions; limit the governor’s authority in states of emergency; and require that schools provide parents information about the health and well-being of their children. Child welfare advocates argued that schools’ reporting on children could in some instances — including in child-abuse cases — expose children to additional harm.
Cox graduated from Regent University School of Law in 2006, according to his legislative biography. He was born in Washington, D.C., and attended Walkersville Christian Family Schools, where he would later become a teacher. He has also worked as a real estate agent but now runs his own law firm, which sued Hogan over coronavirus restrictions and stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic. He also represented a Harford County man who sued local officials for arresting him at a polling place for not wearing a mask during the pandemic. | 2022-07-04T10:08:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democratic, GOP contests for Maryland governor tight as primary nears - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/04/primary-maryland-governor-candidates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/04/primary-maryland-governor-candidates/ |
While being known for his own false and misleading emails, Trump faces armies of unaffiliated fundraisers who ape his message and sometimes threaten Republicans in Trump’s name
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a candidate for U.S. Senate, was sent a cease-and-desist letter for his fundraising appeals. (Randy Hoeft/AP)
One recent text message solicitation from Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), a recent golf partner of the president who is not running for election this year, urged donors to renew their “2022 official Trump Membership” or “be labeled a Joe Biden supporter.”
The Brnovich campaign did not respond to requests for comment; the Hagerty campaign declined to comment. Brnovich’s campaign is being led by National Public Affairs, a consulting firm founded by two veterans of Trump’s own campaign team: former Trump 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien and former deputy campaign manager Justin Clark.
Another tactic is to just use a large photo of Trump with language that suggests he is the beneficiary of the fundraising, with phrases like “10x Patriot Match” and “Red Wave Supporter Status: Unlocked.” That language was used on a recent appeal by the Republican State Leadership Committee, a group that works to elect state legislators, and by the Republican state parties in multiple states including Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis is running for reelection while his allies drum up support for a potential 2024 challenge to Trump. The only mention on the appeal of where the money would go comes in the legal disclosure fine print.
“It is one of the massive conundrums for the Republican Party today. How do you fundraise without a Trump message?” said one of the party’s digital fundraising consultants. “The reason people do these things is because they work.”
The problem has become more acute in recent months as small-dollar donations to Republican Party efforts have fallen, a trend strategists blame on donors having less disposable income because of inflation and on their fatigue with the relentless fundraising appeals. Receipts from small-dollar donors at the Republican National Committee have fallen significantly in recent months, people familiar with the matter said.
Donald Trump recalibrates his standing in GOP amid midterm setbacks
Trump’s advisers have so far been selective in how they try to police the unauthorized use of his political brand, often reaching out privately in phone calls and text messages to candidates to tell them their behavior is not okay. Defeated Ohio candidate Jane Timken, who did not receive an endorsement from Trump in her campaign for U.S. Senate, was pressured to remove a giant photo of Trump from her “endorsements” website after one such call.
“We’re not at war with them. We want to play ball because we are all in the same party on the same mission,” said one Trump fundraising adviser. “But we don’t want to be taken advantage of.”
Trump has become particularly angry when an ad threatens one of his voters with his punishment if they don’t give or when candidates he is not supporting use his name and likeness, advisers said.
“In Republican politics, President Trump’s endorsement wins races at an unprecedented rate and nearly every dollar being raised and every vote being earned is thanks to the movement and brand he created,” Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich said in a statement. “It’s no surprise that every candidate in the nation is trying to tap into it.”
In March 2021, Trump’s operation sent cease-and-desist letters to the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee. After some public legal wrangling, the threats were resolved with an agreement that Trump’s advisers would be able to approve fundraising solicitations using his name and likeness before they went out.
That has allowed groups such as the NRSC to fundraise with phrases like “Donate now to protect Trump’s legacy” and “What’s going on? Your Trump supporter status is unknown!”
‘Take me up to the Capitol now’: How close Trump came to joining the Jan. 6 rioters
But similar agreements have not been struck with other parts of the party. Trump’s advisers have sent a cease-and-desist letter to Anthony Bouchard of Wyoming, a Republican challenging the Trump endorsee for the U.S. House. They also fired off a letter in April to the campaign of Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), accusing her of “unlawfully” using “the name, image, and/or likeness of President Donald Trump for Nancy Mace for Congress fundraising purposes.”
Mace earned Trump’s ire for criticizing him after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Despite Trump’s endorsement of her primary opponent earlier this year, Mace was able to win renomination to her seat in June. A representative of the Mace campaign declined to comment.
Confusing donors in campaign appeals is largely unregulated, and extends far beyond plays on Trump’s name and likeness. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has been fundraising over text messages with the phrase, “we MUST meet our end-of-quarter goal if we’re going to take back the Senate.”
All the money raised in the appeal goes to Scott’s personal Senate campaign — but he does not face reelection until 2024. | 2022-07-04T10:08:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump cracks down on deceptive fundraising by others using his name - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/04/trump-cease-desist-fundraising/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/04/trump-cease-desist-fundraising/ |
In this image released by Hong Kong Government Flying Service, a helicopter with rescue crew members approaches a sinking ship in the South China Sea. (AP)
The scope of search and rescue has expanded to the northeast direction, Li said, but added it was “difficult to accurately calculate the possible location of the missing crew members” as the wind kept changing course. | 2022-07-04T11:04:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 12 bodies found around Chinese ship sunken by Typhoon Chaba - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/04/hong-kong-typhoon-chaba-fujing-rescue/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/04/hong-kong-typhoon-chaba-fujing-rescue/ |
Supporters of China sing patriotic songs and wave flags in Hong Kong on July 1. (Jerome Favre/EPA-EFE-Shutterstock)
It was no accident that Chinese leader Xi Jinping repeatedly used the word “chaos” to describe Hong Kong as he marked the July 1 anniversary of the 1997 handover of the former British colony. Mr. Xi vowed that Hong Kong would move “from chaos to control.” But what he was really affirming is that China’s leaders will not tolerate democracy and its discontents, and intend to finish off Hong Kong as a beacon of free thinking and openness.
The sight of citizens in the streets demanding their rights to speak freely — which played out in Hong Kong demonstrations in 2019 — frightens Mr. Xi and the leadership of one of the most sophisticated authoritarian systems in the world. “People have learned the hard way that Hong Kong must not be destabilized and cannot afford to see chaos,” Mr. Xi declared at the swearing-in of John Lee, the new Hong Kong chief executive, who had overseen the harsh police response to protests in recent years.
Once upon a time, Hong Kong earned respect for its rule of law and a lively public square. When China took over in 1997, it pledged “one country, two systems,” under which Hong Kong would retain many freedoms absent on the mainland, including free speech. The autonomy of Hong Kong was supposed to last 50 years, but at the halfway mark, China has brought Hong Kong much closer to the stifling unfreedom that rules the rest of the country.
The turning point was introduction of a bill on criminal extradition in 2019, under which, it was feared, anyone could be grabbed and sent to the mainland, lacking rule of law and guarantees of due process. The bill unleashed massive protests, including one in August in which 200,000 Hong Kongers linked hands to form human chains that stretched for miles. While the bill was eventually shelved, a new national security law was imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 with provisions making it easier to prosecute protest and dissent. According to the Economist, nearly 200 people have been arrested under the national-security law, including the prominent newspaper mogul Jimmy Lai. “Almost every prominent Democrat in Hong Kong is now either in jail or exile,” the magazine reports. “A culture of fear and reporting has seeped into the civil service and schools, courts and universities.” Hong Kong residents are encouraged to inform on one another through a tip line, and a “once outspoken legal profession has been neutered.” Teachers, social workers and labor unions have been brought to heel.
As a financial hub and gateway to China, Hong Kong might yet bounce back from pandemic setbacks and closures. But politically, China has smothered it. There’s a tendency to dismiss warnings that democracy is threatened around the world, to think that it just can’t happen. Take a look at Hong Kong under China’s rule. A once-vibrant freedom vanished in only a few years. That is alarmingly real. | 2022-07-04T11:30:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Think democracy isn’t endangered? Just look what happened in Hong Kong. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/04/hong-kong-democracy-danger/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/04/hong-kong-democracy-danger/ |
Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray points to a video display of an unidentified aerial phenomenon during a congressional subcommittee hearing on UAPs on Capitol Hill on May 17. (Alex Brandon/AP)
NASA isn’t saying aliens exist. But it is saying, for the first time in almost half a century, that UFOs are worth paying attention to.
The space agency announced last month that a team led by a respected astrophysicist will examine what the government now prefers to call UAPs, or unidentified aerial phenomena — and along the way, what was once dismissed as conspiracy theorizing has earned the more impressive description of “high-risk, high-impact” research. This move will not come as a surprise to those who have followed the Defense Department’s own evolution on the subject: Senior Pentagon officials in May testified in a historic congressional hearing about their own efforts to track sightings of mysterious flying objects. And the director of national intelligence issued a report last year documenting more than 140 of these perplexing events.
The outcome of these probes so far has been deflating: The unidentified phenomena remain mostly unidentified. That’s precisely why NASA’s entrance to the fray, with a modest $100,000 study slated to start this fall and last around nine months, is so welcome. The Defense Department and intelligence community have a clear interest in examining, for instance, whether what look like aircraft are advanced technology from a foreign power, perhaps designed for military use or to collect data from the skies — though there’s no evidence yet to support that hypothesis. The most cartoonish version of alien planets bent on universal domination, of course, would also pose a national security threat. But NASA’s interests are even broader, and so are its capabilities.
NASA can try to answer national security questions, too, bringing scientific rigor to the project of analyzing available data as well as collecting new data. Part of the problem now is that those 140-some fuzzy images and videos offer scant fodder for confident conclusions, but NASA has access to a trove of observations gathered both by looking up from Earth and by looking down at it. The agency has also stressed its desire to ensure the safety of flying. But, kooky as some have made it sound, the search for extraterrestrial life is in itself valuable — whether it takes the shape of NASA’s existing efforts scouring the ocean worlds of Titan and Europa or, further out of the box, hunting for signs of a technological civilization known as “technosignatures.”
The pursuit will obviously prove worthwhile if NASA or anyone else discovers that aliens do indeed exist. But it will also be worthwhile if — and this is much more likely — researchers land on another explanation for UAPs, and even if they land on no explanation at all. As NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen said in his speech announcing the initiative: “We have the tools and team who can help us improve our understanding of the unknown. That’s the very definition of what science is.” | 2022-07-04T11:30:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | NASA is right to examine UFOs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/04/nasa-ufo-alien-exploration/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/04/nasa-ufo-alien-exploration/ |
Carli Binek, center, plays the board game Blokus with her parents, Donna and Thomas Binek, at their home in Creve Coeur, Mo. Carli Binek is participating in a study tracking biological changes in the brains and bodies of adults with Down syndrome to identify the biomarkers that might herald the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. For the story, go to wapo.st/people_with_down_syndrome. (Whitney Curtis/For The Washington Post)
For people with Down syndrome, a longer life, but under a cloud
Though it is the most common chromosomal disorder in the United States, affecting about 1 in every 700 babies born, Down syndrome research has historically been underfunded compared with other major genetic conditions. But that is changing because of self-advocacy and the efforts of parents, caretakers, physicians and others. Today, more research is being undertaken. Discrimination and disparities still exist, however. And some medical providers still rely on inaccurate or outdated information about the condition.
Want to take a look at the new guidelines? Visit bit.ly/DownGuidelines to download the free guide.
GLOBAL Medical Care Guidelines for Adults with Down Syndrome | 2022-07-04T11:39:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At last, medical guidelines address care for adults with Down syndrome - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/04/down-syndrome-health-guidelines/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/04/down-syndrome-health-guidelines/ |
July Fourth parade led to a massacre of Black people in Hamburg, S.C.
A statue of Benjamin “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman, former South Carolina governor and U.S. senator, in Columbia, S.C., in 2015. Some civil rights leaders want the statue to mention Tillman's violent segregationist views and role in the Hamburg Massacre, where seven Black people were killed in 1876. (Jeffrey Collins/AP)
On July 4, 1876, in Hamburg, S.C., about 40 members of the local all-Black unit of the state militia paraded down Main Street to celebrate the centennial of America’s independence. At about 6 p.m., two young White men in a horse-drawn buggy rode toward the troops and demanded to pass through.
Capt. D.L. “Dock” Adams asked the White men — Henry Getzen and his brother-in-law Thomas Butler — to go around the marchers on the 150-foot-wide grassy street. Getzen refused, asserting he wouldn’t move to the side “for no damned” Black people, using a slur. After a short argument, the troops stepped out of the way.
Four days later, more than 200 armed White men — many of them “Red Shirts” from paramilitary rifle clubs — arrived in Hamburg with a former Confederate general demanding that the militia unit disarm. A standoff led to an all-out bloody battle, which became known as the “Hamburg Massacre” and saw seven Black men murdered and several more wounded.
The massacre spurred additional racial violence in the South in advance of the 1876 presidential election, which ultimately led to more than 90 years of White control and segregation in the region.
Hamburg, founded in 1821 by an immigrant from its namesake in Germany, was a town of about 500 residents, most of them formerly enslaved African Americans. The town was across the Savannah River from Augusta, Ga., a city of more than 30,000 people.
Two days after the July 4 incident, Butler’s father, a prominent local planter, filed charges in Hamburg against Adams for “obstructing the public highways.” The town’s Black magistrate, Prince Rivers, set a trial for the next Saturday, July 8. The Butlers returned with their lawyer, former Confederate general M.C. Butler (no relation), who had lost a leg in the Civil War. The former general demanded that the militia give up its weapons, but the militia refused.
M.C. Butler drove his buggy to Augusta and told some of “the boys” he “might need their assistance after awhile to disarm the negroes,” the New York Times reported. That afternoon, more than 200 White men from Georgia and South Carolina gathered in Hamburg carrying pistols, rifles and shotguns. About 40 Black men, including 25 from the militia, retreated inside the town armory, a brick building near the railroad bridge from Augusta, where the White men took up positions.
At 7:30 p.m., the White men fired the first shots. “The windows were aimed at and were soon riddled with bullets,” the Times reported. Militia members returned fire.
At about 8 p.m., a bullet fired by a militia trooper from the roof struck young Thomas McKie Meriwether in the head. “The ball entered the brain, and he fell dead almost without a groan. His death added to the exasperation of the whites, and it was determined to take the armory at all hazards,” the Times wrote.
By dark, the militia was running short on ammunition, and many of those inside the armory began escaping. At 10 p.m., “a negro attempted to jump a fence in the rear of the building, but was seen and in an instant fell dead, his head being literally honeycombed with bullets,” the Times wrote. He was James Cook, the town marshal. Another Black man, Moses Parks, was also killed trying to escape.
At about 11 p.m., Butler and other White men entered the armory and gutted the building. After finding and capturing a few men hiding there, they began breaking into houses and dragging out Black men.
“Each fugitive when found was greeted with a yell and marched to a tree, where the other prisoners had been carried,” the Times reported. “The moon and the torches gleamed on bright barrels, glittering bayonets and eager and determined faces.”
More than 25 men were captured. At about 2 a.m., guards surrounding the prisoners in a “dead ring” began calling out names. The first to be called was militia Lt. Allen Attaway, who “begged hard for his life,” the Charleston News and Courier reported. “A volley of five or six shots was his only reply, and he fell a corpse in the road.”
David Phillips “was next called and disposed of in the same way and then Albert Myniart, a ball being fired into each man,” the Courier wrote. Hampton Stephens “was then called and told to run. He leaped over a low fence at the roadside as Phillips had done before and was shot before he had gone 5 paces.” Nelder Parker was shot in the back and died the next day.
Pompey Curry’s name also was called. “I knew what was coming, and I was running and dashed off through the high weeds at right angles,” he told the Courier. He was wounded as he escaped. Finally, the Times reported, the White guards “mounted their horses and rode rapidly away, and by 3 o’clock not a sound could be heard in the village where for six hours the work of death had been going on.”
Congressmen called for an investigation. Rep. Joseph Rainey (R-S.C.), the first African American in the U.S. House, asked, “In the name of my race and my people, in the name of humanity and of God, I ask whether we are to be American citizens, with all the rights and immunities of such, or vassals and slaves again?”
M.C. Butler issued a statement blaming the clash in Hamburg on “the system of insulting and outraging of white people, which the negroes had adopted there for several years. Many things were done on this terrible night which of course cannot be justified, but the negroes sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind.”
On Aug. 1, Republican President Ulysses S. Grant called the Hamburg killings a “disgraceful and brutal slaughter of unoffending men.” Grant ordered federal troops to South Carolina and other Southern states to protect Black citizens in the coming presidential election.
The Hamburg massacre ignited a reign of terror against Black voters in the South. (That September, White attackers massacred as many as 100 Black people in nearby Ellenton, S.C.) Adams testified to Congress that during the battle he heard White attackers shouting, “By God! We will carry South Carolina now. About the time we kill four or five hundred men, we will scare the rest.”
That November, Democrat Samuel Tilden of New York and Republican Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio were locked in the closest presidential election in U.S. history. South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida — all of which experienced violent intimidation of Black voters — filed competing slates of electors. An electoral commission gave the election to Hayes by one electoral vote. In a compromise with Democrats, Hayes soon withdrew federal troops from the South, opening the door to the return of White power and racial suppression that continued into the late 1960s.
A coroner’s jury in Aiken, S.C., charged 94 White men with murder in the Hamburg Massacre and other racial attacks in the state. None were ever prosecuted. Two of those charged were M.C. Butler and Benjamin “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman, leader of the notorious Edgefield County Red Shirts. Butler and Tillman later became U.S. senators from South Carolina.
Hamburg no longer exists. A historical marker near the battle site calls the massacre “one of the most notable incidents of racial and political violence in S.C. during Reconstruction.” History shows the Hamburg Massacre, sparked on the day Americans celebrated 100 years of freedom, helped kick off an escalation of racial violence during an election that ultimately led to the destruction of the freedom and rights of Black Americans in the South for nearly another century. | 2022-07-04T11:39:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | July 4 parade sparked Hamburg Massacre in South Carolina - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/04/hamburg-massacre-july-4/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/04/hamburg-massacre-july-4/ |
The glacial ice that collapsed in the Dolomites, killing at least six people. (Pierre Teyssot/AFP/Getty Images)
The slide occurred during an early heat wave that saw temperatures rise to around 50 degrees Fahrenheit on the Marmolada in recent days. The rescue corps said the heat was “abnormal,” the Guardian newspaper reported.
“Fortunately the weather conditions are good but the danger is that there could be further collapses,” a spokesperson told Reuters as Italian state television reported that rescuers had seen dead people alongside “enormous chunks of ice.” | 2022-07-04T12:40:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Marmolada avalanche kills at least 6 amid heat wave in Dolomites - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/04/italy-alps-avalanche-heat-wave-rescue-dolomites/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/04/italy-alps-avalanche-heat-wave-rescue-dolomites/ |
Review by Paul Di Filippo
His latest novel, “The Pallbearers Club,” continues in the macabre vein but adds the dimension of quasi-autobiography. As Tremblay says in his afterword, regarding protagonist Art Barbara, “To be clear, Art Barbara is and isn’t me. Well, fine, he’s mostly me!” The book is set in Massachusetts and Providence, R.I., Tremblay’s own stomping grounds. As it happens, this portion of the country is also my backyard, so I can testify to the verisimilitude of Tremblay’s portrait of this place from the 1980s to nearly the present day.
We first encounter Art as a high school sad sack in 1988. “Nerd” or “slacker” or “eccentric” would be a step up for him. His home life is dismal, and he has no hobbies or passions. Fairly smart and adroit with words (his memoir is replete with startling metaphors and deft storytelling), he is intent on accumulating resume material for his college applications. So he starts the “Pallbearers Club.” Basically, he envisions a squad of student interns who stand in as mourners during the lonely funerals of the unwanted. The scenes at the funeral home that sponsors the students offer plenty of black comedy: “We made it off the stairs [with the casket]… I was not fine. My vision blurred and uninterpretable inkblots encroached at the edges. My head filled with damp peat and moss, and my ears rang as I sank into the bog of myself… One of the men in black suits said, ‘You look blue,’ and the other added, ‘More greenish. Like he’s seasick.’ ”
Two horror novels make sense of our dystopian reality
Paul Di Filippo is the author of the Steampunk Trilogy, “The Deadly Kiss-Off” and “The Summer Thieves.”
By Paul Tremblay
William Morrow. 288 pp. $27.99 | 2022-07-04T13:10:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay book review - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/07/04/paul-tremblay-pallbearers-club-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/07/04/paul-tremblay-pallbearers-club-review/ |
This April 2, 2019, photo provided by the Mississippi Department of Corrections shows death row inmate Willie Jerome Manning. The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Thursday, June 30, 2022, that Manning will not be allowed to seek additional DNA testing on crime-scene evidence from the shooting deaths of two college students nearly 30 years earlier. (Mississippi Department of Corrections via AP) (Uncredited/Mississippi Department of Corrections) | 2022-07-04T13:11:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mississippi justices block more DNA tests in death row case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/mississippi-justices-block-more-dna-tests-in-death-row-case/2022/07/04/c0c761de-fb8e-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/mississippi-justices-block-more-dna-tests-in-death-row-case/2022/07/04/c0c761de-fb8e-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Michael Gerson with his dog, Latte. She died in 2021. (Michael Gerson)
I can still feel the ache at night. Not long ago, my wife told me I had been crying in my sleep. I don’t usually recall my dreams. But in this case I remembered dreaming about the last time I saw Latte, after she was taken out of my arms to be euthanized at the veterinary hospital. She lifted her head and looked back me with her large, sad eyes. And then one of the most steadfast, lavish, uncomplicated sources of affection in my life was gone. (Even now I can hardly write the words.) She died, aptly, of an enlarged heart.
Why my chickens are stuck in their coop
One puppy, lost and found | 2022-07-04T13:11:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Here is why I will never live without a dog again - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/04/why-i-will-never-live-without-dog-love-again/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/04/why-i-will-never-live-without-dog-love-again/ |
FILE - In this photo provided by the Myanmar Ministry of Information, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, center, is welcomed by Myanmar Foreign Ministry representatives and Chinese embassy officials upon his arrival at Nyaung Oo Airport in Bagan, Myanmar, Saturday July 2, 2022. A regional meeting between foreign ministers of China and some Southeast Asian countries took place in Myanmar Monday, July 4, 2022, hosted by the military government which claims that it was a recognition of its legitimacy but opponents protested as a violation of peace efforts. (Myanmar Ministry of Information via AP, File) (Uncredited/Myanmar Ministry of Information)
BANGKOK — Myanmar’s military government on Monday hosted the first high-level regional meeting since the army took power last year with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and counterparts from Mekong Delta nations. | 2022-07-04T13:11:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Myanmar hosts 1st regional meeting since army takeover - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/myanmar-hosts-1st-regional-meeting-since-army-takeover/2022/07/04/ce664d2a-fb96-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/myanmar-hosts-1st-regional-meeting-since-army-takeover/2022/07/04/ce664d2a-fb96-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
U.S. concludes Israeli fire killed Palestinian American journalist
A Palestinian girl stands at the scene where Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead during an Israeli raid, in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, July 3. (Raneen Sawafta/Reuters)
TEL AVIV — An American-led analysis of forensic and ballistic evidence, as well as the separate Israeli and Palestinian investigations, found that the bullet that killed Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh likely originated from an Israeli soldier, but added that there was “no reason to believe this was intentional,” the State Department said Monday.
The Palestinian Authority handed over the bullet to the U.S. Security Coordinator on Saturday, complying with Israel’s demand that without the bullet it would not be able to determine if Abu Akleh had been shot by an Israeli gun or weapons from armed Palestinians in the area at the time of the shooting.
Abu Akleh, a longtime correspondent for Al Jazeera news, was shot in the head on May 11 while covering an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.
“The USSC found no reason to believe that this was intentional but rather the result of tragic circumstances during an IDF-led military operation against factions of Palestinian Islamic Jihad on May 11, 2022, in Jenin, which followed a series of terrorist attacks in Israel,” the statement said. | 2022-07-04T14:37:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. says Israel gunfire killed Shireen Abu Akleh but not "intentional" - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/04/shireen-abu-akleh-bullet-israel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/04/shireen-abu-akleh-bullet-israel/ |
A recent survey by the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System found that, of two dozen financial regulators, 20% are using taxonomies and another 60% plan to use, or are considering using, one. But in a sign of what may come, the EU’s taxonomy became mired in controversy over the inclusion of some gas and nuclear plants to temporarily meet demand for energy, a situation worsened by the war in Ukraine. Two committees of European lawmakers rejected plans in June to label gas and nuclear power as green and the European Parliament is scheduled to debate the issue, with a vote possible in July which could torpedo their addition to the list of sustainable economic activities. | 2022-07-04T14:42:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Saving the Climate Requires a Tough Taxonomy: QuickTake - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/why-saving-the-climate-requires-a-tough-taxonomy-quicktake/2022/07/04/c7cc5c6a-fb9c-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/why-saving-the-climate-requires-a-tough-taxonomy-quicktake/2022/07/04/c7cc5c6a-fb9c-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
(MariNaomi/Illustrations for The Washington Post)
Abortion let me to live the life I wanted. Others deserve that chance.
Perspective by MariNaomi
I had two abortions in my 20s. Now that I’m 48, I see that these abortions allowed me to have the life I’ve always wanted. The next generations deserve this choice, as well. | 2022-07-04T14:42:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Abortion let me to live the life I wanted. Others deserve that chance. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/04/abortion-let-me-live-life-i-wanted-others-deserve-that-chance/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/04/abortion-let-me-live-life-i-wanted-others-deserve-that-chance/ |
Juan Soto said Monday that an MRI revealed that "everything is fine" in his left calf after he exited yesterday's game in the fifth inning. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Juan Soto said before Monday’s game against the Miami Marlins that “everything was fine” following his MRI Sunday on his left calf. Soto was removed from Sunday’s contest before the fifth inning after feeling tightness in the back of the knee.
Still, Soto was not in Monday’s lineup for the season finale. He said he’ll take the injury a day at a time, but doesn’t seem too concerned.
“We’re gonna be good,” Soto said. “They said it’s just a little tight so it’s gonna take a couple days and see how it goes. It all depends on how I feel day by day.”
Soto felt tight behind his knee after running down Bryan De La Cruz’s double in the third inning. An inning later, Soto was caught in a rundown and tried to dodge catcher Jacob Stallings’s tag between third and home. He was pulled from the game and replaced by Lane Thomas before the top of the fifth inning.
“You don’t want to go out of the game that easy,” Soto said. “I want to be out there. I wanted to give my 100 percent, so why not try it again? But definitely, whenever I start feeling something that is not right, I just take the decision to pull out of the game.”
This isn’t the first time Soto has missed time with an injury this season — Soto missed two games with a right knee contusion after he slipped and struck his knee on a dugout bench on June 13. He limped off the field after the top of the ninth and Manager Dave Martinez opted to pinch hit for him in the bottom of the inning instead of keeping him in.
Soto’s absence will halt what has been a good stretch for him at the plate — in the last nine games, Soto is hitting 9-for-26 (.346) with a home run and four doubles and 10 walks. For the season, his batting average is .226 although his OPS is .831 since he leads the majors with 67 walks. | 2022-07-04T16:00:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Juan Soto says everything is fine following MRI of his calf - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/04/juan-soto-injury-mri-everything-fine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/04/juan-soto-injury-mri-everything-fine/ |
(Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Two hundred and forty-six years ago, Americans did something extraordinary, declaring their independence from a colonial rule enforced from a great distance with the cruel and arbitrary hand of oppression. And now it’s time for us to declare our own independence, from Founding Father fetishism.
As we’ve seen recently, the American right has found in the framers an extraordinarily effective tool with which they can roll back social progress and undermine our democracy. It may have found its most ridiculous manifestation in the tea party movement that emerged when Barack Obama was president, when people started prancing around in tricorn hats and every Republican was supposed to have a favorite Founder. But today it has gone from an affectation to a weapon, and a brutally effective one.
We saw it in the recent Supreme Court decisions that supercharged the legal philosophy of “originalism” on abortion and guns. Reproductive rights, said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., are neither found in the explicit words of the Constitution nor “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions,” so they don’t exist as rights. As for states that want to regulate guns, said Justice Clarence Thomas, only regulations that have “a distinctly similar historical regulation” from the 18th century will be allowed. The America of 1789 becomes a prison the conservative justices can lock us all in whenever it suits them.
Originalism was a scam from the start, a foolproof methodology for conservatives to arrive at whatever judicial result matches their policy preferences: Cherry-pick a few quotes from the Federalist Papers, cite an obscure 1740 ordinance from the Virginia colony one of your clerks dug up, then claim that scripture leads us inexorably to only one outcome.
By happy coincidence, that outcome is always the one Republicans seek. Anyone who disagrees, or who shows how absurd the right’s historical analysis is even on its own terms, simply isn’t respecting the divine will of the framers.
I am no spirit medium, able to communicate with the framers through the mists of time, and neither is anyone on the Supreme Court. But I suspect they themselves would find the originalist project as practiced on the right to be utterly absurd. Imagine you could travel back and describe to them the idea that hundreds of years hence we’d all be bound to their utterances and the condition of their society. They’d probably say, “That sounds insane.”
But this is the conceit of today’s right: The Founders were essentially perfect, and only we conservatives are capable of interpreting their will.
One of the lies conservatives tell — and to which they cling all the more fiercely in the face of new understandings of history — is that the founding and the men who drove it were straightforward and easy to understand.
But like the country they shaped, they were complicated. They were brilliant and visionary, and weak and compromised. It does not diminish their accomplishments to see that they were human beings.
So what do you do about a figure such as Thomas Jefferson? He had one of the most extraordinary minds of his age, capable of crafting brilliant works of political philosophy we read to this day and designing structures that still stand. Yet he also owned other human beings.
The answer conservatives have is that we must shield our eyes from Jefferson’s shortcomings (along with those of the other enslavers among the Founders). If you’re Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, you bring public school teachers to a “civics education” seminar where they’re told to instruct children that Jefferson and George Washington were principled in their opposition to slavery; maybe the kids won’t bother asking why that opposition was never so firmly held that it extended to the men, women and children they held in bondage.
But trust me, kids can handle complexity. They want complexity. They walk every day through a rapidly changing world, and they deal with that change much better than adults do.
That’s the thing about America: It’s all about change, and always has been. At its best, it’s about imagination, and dynamism, and progress. That’s what it was in 1776, and that’s what it is now.
We are a country filled with achievements and shortcomings, virtues and vices. We have more Nobel Prize winners than any other nation, yet we’re the only highly developed country that doesn’t provide health coverage to all its citizens. We invent new sports and musical genres and see them spread throughout the world, yet alarmingly few of us speak more than one language. People everywhere thirst for American culture and dream of coming here, yet they look at our unreal levels of carnage and don’t understand how we can live in a society drowning in guns.
I’ve never been more fearful for the future of America than I am today; there are good reasons to believe that the democracy we began to fashion two and a half centuries ago may not survive the next decade. And the people most eager to strangle it are the same ones who most loudly proclaim their devotion to the Founders.
So we need to liberate ourselves from those men. We should study them, and understand them, and honor the great things they did. But they were not gods. They can’t take us to a future of freedom and justice. We have to do it for ourselves. | 2022-07-04T16:14:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | This July 4, let's declare our independence from the Founding Fathers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/04/july-4-declare-independence-founding-fathers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/04/july-4-declare-independence-founding-fathers/ |
An avalanche set off by the collapse of the largest glacier on Marmolada mountain in Canazei, the highest in the Dolomites, in the Italian Alps killed at least six people and injured eight others.
Among the missing from the avalanche are 11 Italians, four Czech nationals, three Romanians, and one French national, local news agency ANSA said Monday.
A UNESCO World Heritage sign of The Dolomites, near the Marmolada mountain and glacier, where an ice serac collapsed.
A rescue team helps with drones at night by illuminating the site where the ice collapsed.
Poor weather conditions on the Dolomites mountains forced rescuers to halt the search operations for survivors.
People look at the Marmolada mountain in the aftermath of the avalanche in Canazei.
Andrea Solero/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
A rescue helicopter flies over the collapsed glacier.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, center, visits the base of rescue operations.
Filippo Attili
Marmolada, which rises to about 11,000 feet, is the highest peak in the eastern Dolomites. The Marmolada is referred to as the “queen of the Dolomites,” an area popular with nature and adventure enthusiasts.
Veneto region's President Luca Zaia speaks to the press in Canazei as rescuers resume search operations for survivors.
A rescue team gathers near the foot of the Marmolada mountain.
Helicopter rescuers take part in search operations.
A report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this year outlined the devastating impact of climate change, including irreversible loss of glaciers by the end of this century. “Mountain regions have always been affected by either too much or too little water,” the report said. “Because of climate change, hazards are changing rapidly and becoming even more unpredictable.” | 2022-07-04T16:14:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The scene following a deadly ice avalanche in the Italian Alps - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/ice-avalanche-italy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/ice-avalanche-italy/ |
Shooting disrupts Chicago suburb’s Fourth of July parade
Police were at the scene of a Chicago-area shooting at a Fourth of July event on Monday. Video from the scene appeared to show blood pooled on the sidewalk and police talking to people in Highland Park, Ill. It was unclear whether anyone had died.
Highland Park authorities canceled the event and asked people to avoid the area. Nearby Deerfield canceled its festivities as a result of the shooting.
Rep. Brad Schneider (D), said he was at the scene and gave “condolences to the family and loved ones” of those who may have been shot. | 2022-07-04T16:48:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Gunman fires into Highland Park Fourth of July parade - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/04/highland-park-parade-shooting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/04/highland-park-parade-shooting/ |
A mainstay of the local music scene is trading D.C. for Australia
Jack O’Dell, the slinkiest drummer in town, is packing up his drumsticks. By the end of the month, he’ll be in a new home, 10,000 miles from Washington.
“I’ve got 3,000 records I have to ship to Australia,” Jack said the other night between sets with the Thrillbillys at Hank Dietle’s. There’s also a drum set, some guitars, some hand tools and various other items one tends to accumulate in 59 years on this planet, though Jack insists he’s pruned his possessions considerably for the move.
I’ve enjoyed watching Jack play, both with the Thrillbillys — a versatile roots rock foursome — and in the Rhodes Tavern Troubadours, the group he co-founded in 2001. With a name that calls to mind a 6-foot-4 sprite — Jack of the Dell — he’s the king of the tasteful groove, with sly flourishes and nary a beat out of place. He’s a good singer too.
What would motivate Jack to move to the literal other side of the globe? A Melbourne singer-songwriter named Suzannah Espie, who Jack met 22 years ago in Texas.
“It is a beautiful, romantic thing,” Jack told me. “Everybody loves to hear this old-fashioned love story, where someone takes a chance, makes a commitment and buys in.”
Jack was born in San Francisco and spent his early years in Berkeley. When he was 10, his professor father got a job at Tulane and the family moved to New Orleans.
“That was quite the culture shock,” said Jack. “I had to get a haircut really fast.”
His father, David, was a James Joyce scholar and amateur drummer. He showed Jack around a drum kit and steeped him in jazz and blues. Being around the music of New Orleans was like “filling a reservoir,” Jack said. “This sounds corny, but it’s true: I would ride my bike around the Tulane campus and stumble upon Professor Longhair doing a free show at the quad.”
After his parents divorced and he moved with his mother, Janis, back to San Francisco, Jack got into punk rock. When they moved to Maryland, he played with Baltimore punk band Null Set.
Eventually, Jack started playing with bands that required he dip into that rootsy reservoir. In 1994, he joined Too Much Fun, providing the bottom end with bassist Johnny Castle as they backed Bill Kirchen, the fleet-fingered guitarist from Commander Cody.
“It was amazing,” Jack said of his time in Too Much Fun. “You’d never experience something like this today. In the early ’90s, every Tuesday Kirchen was at Whitey’s, every Wednesday at Tornado Alley, every Thursday at the Sunset Grille. And every Friday we were at BWI flying to wherever. Then on Monday we’d fly back. We did that for years.”
It was at one of those road shows that he met Suzannah, whose country vocal group, Git, was touring the States and opened a few shows for Kirchen.
“There was kind of this sparky thing between us. But nothing was going to happen, honestly,” Jack said.
Jack had just gotten married, and Suzannah was in a relationship with the man who would soon become her husband.
Still, Jack said, “Apparently, neither one of us forgot it.”
When the pandemic hit and gigs dried up — along with the carpentry that was his day job — Jack started posting videos of himself performing at home. Suzannah saw those, liked them, commented on them, messaged Jack. An online courtship began between the two now-single friends.
“One thing led to another, and it became real,” Jack said.
In January, Suzannah flew here to see Jack for the first time in 20 years. In April, Jack spent a month in Melbourne. In June, he announced the news of the big move on Facebook.
In a weird way, covid came at a good time for Jack O’Dell.
“As amazing as that sounds, it gave me a chance to just be at home and face myself, to sit there with a guitar and write a song, to tell the world how you feel, to be real,” he said. “I’ve wanted to be a songwriter for a long time. I never really gave myself the time or the license to be creative. Covid did.”
What’s been especially hard, though, is a prolonged estrangement from his 21-year-old daughter. In case she should see this column, he asked me to include a message to her: “Dolly O’Dell, I love you.”
Jack’s last shows with the Rhodes Tavern Troubadours are July 13 and 14 at VFW Post 350 in Takoma Park. His farewell to the Thrillbillys is July 23 at JV’s in Falls Church.
And two days after he touches down in Australia, Jack has a gig.
“I’ll be a zombie from jet lag,” he said, “but it’s straight country so I should be fine.” | 2022-07-04T17:36:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Drummer Jack O'Dell rekindled an old flame. He's moving to Melbourne to be with her. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/04/mainstay-local-music-scene-is-trading-dc-australia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/04/mainstay-local-music-scene-is-trading-dc-australia/ |
This letter from Alexander Hamilton to the Marquis de Lafayette was stolen from the Massachusetts Archives decades ago. The letter, which was returned to the state, was put on public display at the Commonwealth Museum on Monday, July 4, for the first time since it was returned after a lengthy court battle. (AP)
Finally, a chance to be in the room where it happens.
Nearly 250 years after Alexander Hamilton, one of America’s Founding Fathers, wrote a wartime letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat and Continental Army general, the displaced dispatch is being shown to the public this Fourth of July after a protracted saga: from a heist to a private sale, a lengthy legal battle, and now, its homecoming.
The Revolutionary War-era document is the centerpiece of the annual July Fourth exhibit at Boston’s Commonwealth Museum, featured alongside Massachusetts’ original copy of the Declaration of Independence.
Jefferson’s powerful last public letter reminds us what Independence Day is all about
Dated July 21, 1780, the letter by Hamilton — who has gained more attention in recent years after a smash Broadway musical — details an imminent British threat to French forces in Rhode Island. Hamilton, an aide to Gen. George Washington, opens with “My Dear Marquis,” giving an impassioned plea to warn others.
The letter was forwarded by Massachusetts Gen. William Heath to the president of the Massachusetts Council with a request for additional troops, according to the Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, who announced the document’s unveiling.
“It illustrates, in a documentary fashion, how fragile the whole Revolutionary War effort was,” Galvin told NBC 10 Boston. “This wasn’t simply a done deal, it was all over, we said, ‘Britain, goodbye.’ ”
And it wasn’t a done deal for the letter after it made it into the Massachusetts State Archives.
‘You are done’: A secret letter to Martin Luther King Jr. sheds light on FBI’s malice
A “kleptomaniacal cataloguer” at the archives stole the letter during World War II, along with other historical records, the government said in a court case about the document’s ownership. The employee was eventually arrested, but by then the stolen items had been sold to rare documents dealers throughout the country.
The letter was sold by a New York dealer to a man named R.E. Crane around 1945, Crane’s descendants said in court filings, and it was passed down through the family.
It was not until 2018, after the death of Crane’s grandson, that the family contracted a Virginia auction house to sell the letter along with other historic documents. Curators estimated that the letter from Hamilton, a prolific writer who was later the nation’s first treasury secretary, could be worth $35,000 or more.
“Everyone’s first reaction was, ‘It needs to go back to where it should be,’ ” Elizabeth Wainstein, the owner of the auction house, told The Washington Post in 2019. “That was never a question.”
Letters found in an attic reveal eerie similarities between Adolf Hitler and his father
And that is how the letter wound up back at the archives, now for you or anyone else to see, free of charge. No need to throw away your shot. | 2022-07-04T17:45:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Alexander Hamilton letter to Marquis de Lafayette hits public display - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/04/stolen-hamilton-letter-display/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/04/stolen-hamilton-letter-display/ |
Book Club: A shelter feels even less like home with its uncertain future
Karina Yan Glaser’s “A Duet for Home” tells the story of a girl and her family figuring out how to make their new living situation work after tough times
A Duet for Home
By Karina Yan Glaser
June Yang thinks her recent string of bad luck may never end. The 11-year-old’s dad died because of a biking accident. In the six months since then, her mom has barely spoken a word. Then, after missing work for three weeks, her mom is fired and the family is evicted from their apartment. June, her 6-year-old sister, Maybelle, and her mom must find another place to live.
When June arrives at the Huey House with her family, she is confused. She puts on a brave and happy face for her little sister, but she doesn’t understand why the apartment building has so many rules, such as a curfew and guidelines on what they can and cannot have in their rooms. Turns out it’s because the Huey House is not an apartment building. It’s a homeless shelter.
The shelter’s director, Ms. MacMillan, speaks harshly about the rules and seems very strict. To make matters worse, June’s most prized possession, her viola, is banned in her new home just as all instruments are. However, the house’s head of security, Marcus, hides it so she can keep it.
June meets a lot of people at the shelter who are kind and happy to help, including fellow residents Lula and Abuela, and the family services director, Ms. Gonzalez.
June also meets three-year resident Tyrell and his best friend, Jeremiah. They start off on the wrong foot, with June and Maybelle becoming the unintended victims of one of Tyrell and Jeremiah’s well-known pranks. But June and Tyrell become good friends.
The two realize that something odd is going on at the Huey House. June sees a memo on Ms. MacMillan’s desk about moving families into new homes and asks her about it. The director doesn’t respond. Then June and Tyrell overhear worrying conversations about the future of the shelter and its residents. With June’s help, Tyrell is determined to figure out what’s going to happen to the place that’s been his home for so long.
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In Katherine Applegate’s “Crenshaw” (ages 8 to 12), Jackson and his family are going through rough times again. They’ve run out of money and may have to live in their minivan. Jackson’s imaginary friend, Crenshaw — a 7-foot-tall cat — comes back into his life. At first, Jackson tries to ignore this product of his imagination, but then Jackson begins listening to the cat’s wise words.
“Hold Fast” by Blue Balliett (ages 8 to 12) tells the story of Early after her dad mysteriously disappears. As Early, her brother and mom realize their dad is in trouble and so are they, they have to leave their apartment and move into a city shelter. Early begins looking for answers to her father’s disappearance, because she might be the only one who can solve this mystery.
What happened to Mami’s cousin Natasha in the Dominican Republic 50 years ago? Twelve-year-old Pilar lives in modern-day Chicago, but she’s determined to ferret out the truth. Pilar is making a documentary about Natasha, who disappeared, like many others, during a brutal dictatorship. Fast-forward a bit, and Pilar finds herself on a strange island full of fantasy creatures and demons from her abuela’s tales. Danger looms, and even if Natasha is hidden here, how can Pilar ever find her — and the way home?
The 2022 KidsPost Summer Book Club has the theme “Speaking Truth,” and we would like to know your favorite books that relate to the theme. Kids ages 6 to 14 are eligible to participate; one entry per person. Have a parent or guardian fill out the top part of the form at http://wapo.st/kidspostYMAL and then share your suggestions by July 28. We may include your favorites in KidsPost. At the end of the summer, we will send a selection of books to three randomly selected kids who sent in suggestions. Winners will be notified by August 30. | 2022-07-04T17:45:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book Club: A shelter feels even less like home with its uncertain future - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/04/book-club-shelter-feels-even-less-like-home-with-its-uncertain-future/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/04/book-club-shelter-feels-even-less-like-home-with-its-uncertain-future/ |
Joey Chestnut reacts after winning the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest. (Julia Nikhinson/AP)
It wasn’t exactly Willis Reed limping onto the court before Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals and inspiring his New York Knicks to a championship-clinching win, but a hobbled Joey “Jaws” Chestnut overcame adversity Monday to claim his record 15th title in Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest.
Chestnut, who arrived at Monday’s annual event on crutches with his lower right leg in a cast, downed 63 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. That was 13 fewer than the record 76 he crushed last year, but more than enough for the 38-year-old to hold off his closest competition, Geoffrey Esper, who finished with 47½. Miki Sudo won her eighth women’s title earlier in the day.
“It hurts when I walk, but I can stand and I can eat, and I’m going to push it to the limit,” Chestnut, who recently injured a tendon in his leg while running, told ESPN before the contest.
Chestnut opened an 11 hot dog lead three minutes into Monday’s event and cruised to his seventh straight title since he was upset by Matt Stonie in 2015. He was unfazed by a person in a Darth Vader mask who pushed his way to the front of the stage and unfurled a sign next to him mid-contest. Chestnut put the interloper in a brief chokehold before returning his attention to the hot dogs on the table in front of him.
As ESPN helpfully pointed out, Chestnut has now won one more mustard-yellow championship belt (15) than Rafael Nadal has won French Open titles. Japan’s Takeru Kobayashi has won the next most Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating titles with six straight from 2001 to 2006.
The Independence Day spectacle, which started in 1916, returned to Nathan’s flagship location in Brooklyn’s Coney Island neighborhood for the first time since 2019. In 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic, the contest was staged at a private location and without spectators. Last year’s event was held at the home ballpark of the minor league Brooklyn Cyclones with limited attendance.
“We are back! We are back!” Major League Eating announcer George Shea shouted before the contest began in front of a large crowd at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues.
“It’s beautiful to be back here in front of this audience,” Chestnut said after winning his 15th hot dog eating title in the last 16 years. “New York is amazing and there’s no place like it in the world.”
Sudo, who missed last year’s event because she was pregnant, won her eighth women’s title by eating 40 hot dogs and buns. Michelle Lesco, who won the 2021 title, finished second. Sudo holds the women’s record with 48½ hot dogs devoured in 2020, when she captured her seventh consecutive title.
“I knew I was excited to come back, but the feeling that you get once you’re actually here is not like anything else,” Sudo said on ESPN.
Sudo, 36, met her husband, fellow competitive eater Nick Wehry, at the 2018 hot dog eating contest. Wehry held the couple’s son, Max, who will turn one on Friday, while Sudo reclaimed her title Monday. Wehry later competed in the men’s division.
Miki Sudo is a seven-time Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Champion.
Nick Wehry is the fourth-ranked competitive eater in the world.
Meet the married couple who continue to break competitive eating records. pic.twitter.com/zuYS0ny8qp | 2022-07-04T18:59:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Joey Chestnut wins Nathan's hot dog eating contest - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/04/joey-chestnut-hot-dog-eating-contest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/04/joey-chestnut-hot-dog-eating-contest/ |
Falling and hitting your head can be scary. In the moment, it can be difficult to figure out how serious your injury is, what you should do next and what symptoms might signal a possible emergency.
A blow to the head can cause a traumatic brain injury (TBI), bleeding in the brain, a concussion or a contusion (a bruise on the brain). But quick action can help mitigate some of the most serious potential outcomes. Here is how to assess your personal risk level after a severe head injury, and when you need to call for immediate help.
What’s your risk?
As people age, they may be more likely to fall and hit their head, says Matthew E. Peters, an associate professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medicine. That’s in part because your strength, balance and reflexes may decline with age, as well as with conditions such as osteoporosis and arthritis.
The risk of a serious head injury is also higher for older adults. One large Israeli study, published in the journal Brain Injury in 2016, found that among all age groups, they were the most likely to be hospitalized with TBI.
“As you age, the brain tends to stiffen and shrink, which means there’s more room inside the skull for it to move around,” Peters says. “That moving can tear blood vessels, which [with age] are more rigid and likely to tear.”
Some medications can also increase the likelihood that a head injury will cause bleeding in the brain. These include blood thinners — commonly prescribed to reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke — as well as the regular use of aspirin and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen, says Matthew Robbins, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. Frequent or excessive alcohol consumption can raise the risk of bleeding as well, Robbins says, along with the risk of falling in the first place.
Is it an emergency?
The first rule of thumb with a possible head injury: When in doubt, don’t hesitate to seek help.
If you’ve hit your head and are experiencing weakness, numbness, a decrease in coordination, slurred speech, or increased agitation or confusion, call 911 immediately or get someone to call for you. Do the same, Peters advises, if you develop a headache that’s either the worst you’ve ever had or that’s not relieved by acetaminophen. (Consult your doctor before taking an NSAID like ibuprofen after a head injury.) Other red flags include a change in pupil size (the black of your eyes), changes in vision (such as blurriness or double vision), seizures or a loss of consciousness. People who sustain a skull fracture could experience delayed bleeding, which can “progress in very unpredictable ways minutes, hours, or days after a head injury,” Robbins says.
Bob Saget died of head injury after falling, autopsy says. Here’s what to know about head trauma.
If you’re at a particularly high risk of a serious head injury — for one of the reasons detailed above, for example — you should seek emergency care after hitting your head even if your symptoms seem mild, says Ula Hwang, an emergency medicine doctor at Yale Medicine and professor at Yale’s School of Medicine.
In a non-emergency situation — you hit your head on a cabinet but otherwise feel normal and aren’t on blood thinners, for example — it’s still wise to check in with your doctor. It’s also a good practice to tell a loved one if you’ve hit your head, even if it seems minor, because the effects of some head injuries can escalate in severity over time.
Simple adjustments to your home can help prevent injuries, experts say. Here are four tips for a safer space.
Remove hazards. Keep clutter off the floor and secure any rugs.
Dress for balance. Wear stable, well-fitting shoes, and use your cane or walker if you need one, Hwang says.
Customize your space. Add railings to your bathtub, shower and toilet areas, and any stairways in your home.
If you need more help, Peters suggests checking to see whether your insurance policy covers fall risk assessments, which are completed at home by an occupational or physical therapist. | 2022-07-04T19:16:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What to do if you hit your head - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/05/head-injury-what-to-do/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/05/head-injury-what-to-do/ |
Police take control of opposition towns
Nicaraguan police took control of five municipalities run by a party opposed to President Daniel Ortega in recent days, dismissing elected leaders and installing ruling party sympathizers in their place, opposition organizations said Monday.
The move comes four months before local elections in 153 municipalities.
On Monday morning, police raided four city halls run by opposition party Citizens for Freedom, or Ciudadanos por la Libertad (CxL). Another in Pantasma — an opposition stronghold also in the hands of CxL — was raided over the weekend.
“All legitimately elected municipal governments under the banner of Citizens for Freedom have been taken over by the regime,” said Kitty Monterrey, president of CxL, on Twitter.
Nicaragua’s government and police force did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CxL was outlawed in 2021 before the election that gave Ortega another five-year term, in a vote decried by the international community as a sham. But the municipalities already run by the party remained in their hands until now.
Gunmen surround, attack army patrol
Altar, about 60 miles south of Sasabe, Ariz., has long been known as a staging ground for immigrant smuggling and is reportedly controlled by a faction of the Sinaloa cartel.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that on Sunday, soldiers had detained three criminal suspects but were quickly surrounded by 10 to 15 pickups and 60 gunmen.
The assailants outnumbered the soldiers 10 to 1, López Obrador said.
He said the assailants offered soldiers $500,000 to free one of the detained suspects, and when the soldiers refused, a gunfight broke out and one soldier was killed.
Sonora Gov. Alfonso Durazo wrote on his social media accounts that four suspects had been detained for weapons possession.
18 killed, hundreds wounded in unrest
Eighteen people were killed and 243 wounded during unrest in Uzbekistan’s autonomous province of Karakalpakstan that broke out last week over plans to curtail its autonomy, Uzbek authorities said Monday.
Security forces detained 516 people while dispersing the protesters Friday but have now released many of them, the national guard press office said.
On Saturday, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev dropped plans to amend articles of the constitution concerning Karakalpakstan’s autonomy and its right to secede. He also declared a month-long state of emergency in the northwestern province.
Official reports said protesters had marched through the provincial capital of Nukus on Friday and tried to seize local government buildings, triggering the worst bout of violence in almost two decades in the Central Asian nation of 34 million.
Karakalpakstan — situated on the shores of the Aral Sea, which has for decades been a site of environmental disaster — is home to Karakalpaks, an ethnic minority group whose language is closer to Kazakh than Uzbek.
Sudan military pulls out of talks, general says: Sudan's leading general said Monday that the country's military will withdraw from negotiations meant to solve the ongoing political crisis after a coup last year, allowing civil society representatives to take their place. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan also promised that he will dissolve the sovereign council he leads after a transitional government is formed. Pro-democracy groups have repeatedly said they will not negotiate with the military and have called for it to immediately hand the reins to a civilian government.
Hurricane Bonnie moves north: Hurricane Bonnie moved roughly parallel to Mexico's Pacific coast Monday, after crossing over Central America from the Caribbean and dropping heavy rain but causing little damage. Forecasters said they expected the storm to stay well out to sea and pose no threat to land. Bonnie had maximum sustained winds of 90 mph Monday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. | 2022-07-04T21:35:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Digest: July 4, 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-july-4-2022/2022/07/04/484a47da-fb93-11ec-a7eb-d66bb98bbf0f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-july-4-2022/2022/07/04/484a47da-fb93-11ec-a7eb-d66bb98bbf0f_story.html |
Court rulings loom over July 4th celebrations in Washington region
Gayle Giblin holds an American flag before the 2022 4th of July Parade in Takoma Park, MD on July 04, 2022. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Washington D.C. celebrated Independence Day Monday with some hallmarks of the nation’s capital: parades, festivals and protests.
This year, the Fourth of July signifies for many a return to normalcy as virtual events have given way to in-person experiences. It also falls in the shadow of monumental Supreme Court rulings on abortion, guns and the environment that have Americans concerned about the country’s future.
Protesters, dressed in red, white and blue, massed in front of the Supreme Court Monday to denounce the overturning of Roe. v. Wade, while other pro-choice demonstrators descended on the National Mall. Around 100 green-clad abortion rights protesters marched down Constitution Avenue, spreading out to span the width of the street.
"They’re counting on us to get tired, they’re counting on us to get complacent,” said Ashli Timmons, 21, of Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights. “Hopefully, everyone will see this and be inspired.”
Some demonstrators took to the highways to air their grievances. About 20 people sat in the road and blocked all lanes of Interstate 495′s inner loop at the U.S. 29/Colesville Road exit Monday afternoon. Maryland State Police said the demonstrators were protesting climate change and were disbanded within hours.
In a separate protest, a group of truckers calling itself the 1776 Restoration Movement, formerly known as the People’s Convoy, blocked traffic on I-95 to denounce vaccine mandates. D.C. police warned of heavy traffic along inbound 395 from Virginia into the District because of the convoy.
Ahead of the Fourth, D.C. police told travelers to prepare for road closures as more events returned to the city. Transit authorities also warned that reduced service on the Metro would likely result in long lines and hour-long waits in stations near the Mall after the fireworks.
People ventured out into the city as events, including the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and A Capitol Fourth concert, reopened to the public after more than two years of coronavirus restrictions.
The National Independence Day Parade returned with marching bands from around the country, military units, floats and balloons.
Neha Sri drove down early from Delaware with her son Naman, 11, so they’d have time to get a good spot in front of the National Archives — and set up folding chairs and a rainbow umbrella to beat the heat.
“It’s our first time we’ve come here,” Neha said. “We’ve heard a lot about this parade so we wanted to see.”
They’re staying for the fireworks, but Naman is most excited about the events in the National Archive. He pointed excitedly to the day’s schedule, listed on a bright red souvenir fan — a scavenger hunt, and a chance to sign a copy of the Declaration of Independence.
Trinisa Fung, 21, and Alessandra Del Rosario, 21, sat along a stone wall by the entrance to the Smithsonian, waving American flags. The two college students met this summer at an internship and spent their day off at their first Fourth of July parade in D.C. Fung had been to fireworks shows back home in Houston, but nothing as big as this.
Del Rosario, from Las Vegas, agreed but said that “the humidity is still something I’m getting used to!” They’ve got a lot on their bucket list for the summer — the Capitol, the Library of Congress, “the most touristy spots” — and they plan to watch the fireworks from the Iwo Jima Memorial with more friends.
Takoma Park, which has held Fourth of July festivities for 133 years, welcomed residents back for its first in-person parade since 2019.
“It’s a wonderful feeling being back," said Tara Marie Egan, a 37-year-old Takoma Park native. "People have missed it and we have a lot of new groups joining.”
Egan herself once marched in the parade as a Girl Scout and is now the vice president of the Takoma Park Independence Day Committee. She has been planning for this since January. The 1.3-mile parade, dubbed Takoma Park Together Again this year, includes marching bands, drill teams, floats, art cars, costumed characters and veterans groups.
“It’s great to celebrate our independence today, but it’s a bittersweet feeling with women’s rights being eroded,” said Laurie-Ann Sayles, who is running for the Gaithersburg County Council at-large seat. “I’m concerned about the direction of our country and I want to make sure we safeguard a woman’s right to choose.”
In a nod to the nation’s ideal as a beacon of hope, George Washington’s Mount Vernon hosted its annual naturalization ceremony Monday. A crowd of 50 immigrants — from Cameroon to Ukraine — cheered and waved American flags as they became citizens. When they rose to sing the national anthem this time it resonated with them differently.
After 20 years of living as a student and a green card holder, Alfred said she can finally leave the immigration paperwork behind every time a company tries to hire her. Becoming a citizen in this political time feels bittersweet, especially now that abortion rights are threatened, she said.
With her citizenship certificate in her hand, Alfred and another dozen new citizens registered to vote on the spot. “I have to make sure that my voice is heard,” said Alfred.
Terence McArdle contributed to this report. | 2022-07-04T22:15:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Court rulings loom over July 4th celebrations in Washington region - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/04/dc-july4th-celebration-protests/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/04/dc-july4th-celebration-protests/ |
Maryland Stadium Authority defends its event revenue decisions
BALTIMORE — Thousands streamed into downtown Baltimore as Beatles legend Paul McCartney’s voice echoed through Oriole Park at Camden Yards in June. The English invasion will continue in a few weeks as internationally popular soccer teams Arsenal and Everton play at M&T Bank Stadium, again attracting excitement, attention and revenue.
The state owns the stadiums, and it has agreements with its tenants, the Orioles and the Ravens, on divvying up the proceeds from special events. However, the Maryland Stadium Authority has granted requests from the privately owned teams that keep it from maximizing its revenue this summer, forfeiting potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“They seem to believe that they exist for the benefit of private entities, is the only thing I can think. And now I’m seriously considering . . . requesting legislation that would take that authority away,” he said. “This is clear: They’re being callous and reckless with the people’s money.”
People who buy tickets to events at the Camden Yards complex pay a 10 percent amusement tax. Of that, 80 percent — or 8 percent of the total ticket cost — typically goes to the stadium authority.
But during a June 7 meeting of the stadium authority’s board of directors, members voted on a request from the Ravens to receive a portion of the stadium authority’s tax revenue generated from the English Premier League match.
The stadium authority said the Ravens asked for more than $150,000 (the team didn’t respond to a request from the Sun to specify the amount), but that was the figure the board unanimously agreed to.
Of the upcoming soccer match’s total profit or loss, separate from the tax, the Ravens will receive 55 percent, while the stadium authority receives 45 percent, as specified in the teams’ leases.
The Ravens’ lease expires after the 2027 season, while the Orioles’ ends at the end of 2023.
The McCartney show was different, yet similar. The stadium authority kept all of the amusement tax from that show (probably several hundred thousand dollars), but agreed to the Orioles’ request to keep all of the event’s non-tax revenue.
The team also would have borne 100 percent of losses if, for instance, the show lost money because of a cancellation (although the team made it clear to ticket holders that the concert would go on rain or shine).
The stadium authority said its idea is to give up some revenue now in hopes that the teams will host more events in the future.
The more concerts, soccer matches, etc., that the Ravens and Orioles host, the more revenue there is for the teams, the city and the state, the stadium authority maintains.
The stadium authority agreed to let the Orioles keep revenue from the 2019 Joel concert to encourage the team to bring in more events, especially because it was the first such show there.
The stadium authority agreed to take the same financial approach it had with the Joel show, although it didn’t calculate what that had cost it. In response to a Maryland Public Information Act request for the amount of revenue from the Joel show, the stadium authority told the Sun it never determined that number. It said it couldn’t calculate and provide those figures because they “appear to contain ‘tax information’ specific to a particular taxpayer (i.e. the Orioles).”
Asked why it didn’t determine the Joel revenue before making a similar deal for the McCartney show, Frenz said: “The Orioles have told us [hosting concerts] is something they want to continue to do. But if they share the revenue [with] us, it’s not sufficient incentive for them to continue to do it.”
Kelso said he looks at it this way: “If we’d said, ‘Oh, no, no, we’re opting in,’ and [the Orioles] never did another concert, how much would we have lost?”
Davis, the state treasurer, challenges the decision to not maximize revenue with a goal of bringing in more events.
Dennis Coates, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland Baltimore, likened the $150,000 headed to the Ravens from the soccer game to a “kickback.”
And he compared the understanding to forfeit money now in hopes of more special events in the years to come to a “lottery ticket.”
“My fundamental problem is: You have these unelected officials making decisions about what happens with tax revenue that they’re really not accountable for in any meaningful way,” Coates said.
Davis questioned the stadium authority recently during a Board of Public Works meeting, and fellow board member and State Comptroller Peter Franchot, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, said he “loved the comments.”
Kelso, who was appointed in 2015 by Gov. Larry Hogan (R), said that “reasonable people can disagree” with the stadium authority’s approach.
“Hopefully, those with concerns will recognize the McCartney concert was an unqualified success, and something to build on for the future,” Michael Ricci said.
The General Assembly passed a bill to create a $10 million fund to attract major sports and entertainment events to Maryland. The fund will award money to events that demonstrate a “positive economic impact” and expect attendance of at least 20,000, among other criteria.
'I have my doubts'
Both Oriole Park and M&T Bank Stadium are known for their primary purposes — hosting pro baseball and football games — but the stadium authority’s vision is for those venues to become something more. Their aspiration is that, by acceding to the teams’ requests, more special events will come to Baltimore, leading to more revenue for all. | 2022-07-04T22:15:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland Stadium Authority defends its event revenue decisions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/maryland-stadium-authority-defends-its-event-revenue-decisions/2022/07/04/574fc744-f997-11ec-86b7-30968eda178a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/maryland-stadium-authority-defends-its-event-revenue-decisions/2022/07/04/574fc744-f997-11ec-86b7-30968eda178a_story.html |
One killed in Sacramento shooting
1 killed, 4 wounded in Sacramento shooting
Police Chief Kathy Lester told the Sacramento Bee that authorities received a call about shots fired shortly before 2 a.m. Monday after a club let out patrons.
The four wounded people were taken to hospitals and reported in stable condition, police said. The person killed was identified by the coroner’s office as Gregory Grimes, police said.
Grimes, 31, was a former football star from Inderkum High School and Boise State University. He had returned to coach at the high school after college and last year started a staffing company, the Sacramento Bee reported.
His mother, Deborah Grimes, told the newspaper that her son was killed leaving the Mix nightclub, and she does not believe he was targeted.
It was second shooting in the downtown area of Sacramento this year. Six people were killed and 12 wounded in an April shooting between rival gangs.
Missing Canadian girl found as suspect held
A 13-year-old girl missing from Edmonton, Alberta, for more than a week has been found in Oregon, and the man accused of kidnapping her is detained in jail, authorities said Monday.
FBI agents on Saturday helped arrest Noah Madrano, 41, on accusations of luring the girl from Canada to the United States, an email from the media office of the FBI in Portland said.
The girl from the Canadian city of Edmonton was found in Oregon City, a suburb of Portland. Madrano was being held on state charges, the email said.
Madrano was at the Clackamas County Jail on accusations of rape, sexual abuse and kidnapping, according to jail records. Oregon City police spokesman Matt Paschall said Madrano is being held on no bail and was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.
The Edmonton Police Service said in a statement that the girl went missing June 24. An investigation by the Edmonton Police Service, Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Oregon City police and the FBI located the girl and the man on Saturday, the statement said.
Her family was notified Saturday morning and arrangements were made to return the girl to her family, the statement said. | 2022-07-04T22:19:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | One killed in Sacramento shooting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/one-killed-in-sacramento-shooting/2022/07/04/1dda837e-f9b4-11ec-a7e4-03590838919f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/one-killed-in-sacramento-shooting/2022/07/04/1dda837e-f9b4-11ec-a7e4-03590838919f_story.html |
The Harlem-raised, Ivy League-educated lawyer spent his career seeking to shatter racial boundaries with statesmanlike calm
By Alexa Mills
Clifford L Alexander Jr. as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1969. (AP)
Clifford L. Alexander Jr., a Harlem-raised, Ivy League-educated lawyer who was a crusading chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the late 1960s and later served as the first Black secretary of the Army, died July 3 at his home in Manhattan. He was 88.
His wife, Adele Logan Alexander, confirmed the death but did not provide a specific cause.
Guided by powerful mentors in academia, law and government, Mr. Alexander was the first Black student-body president at Harvard University, the first Black partner at the elite Washington law firm Arnold & Porter and spent his career seeking to shatter racial boundaries with statesmanlike calm. He seemed destined for elective office but lost a close race for D.C. mayor in 1974, shortly after the city won home rule.
Mr. Alexander came to Washington in 1963 on the recommendation of McGeorge Bundy, a former Harvard dean who served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations as national security adviser. Mr. Alexander helped shepherd the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 and became Lyndon B. Johnson’s personal consultant on civil rights before he became EEOC chairman in 1967.
The EEOC, created under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, had no mandate for legal action but could make recommendations based on its investigations of employment discrimination aimed at racial and religious minorities. Mr. Alexander was the third chairman and first Black official to hold the post.
He immediately launched investigations into the textile and drug industries as well as utility companies and labor unions, and demonstrated the minuscule numbers of minorities in the white-collar ranks of major corporations.
At a congressional hearing in March 1969, Mr. Alexander testified about rampant discrimination against Blacks and Mexican Americans in Hollywood. Senate Minority Leader Everett M. Dirksen (R-Ill.) called the hearing “a carnival” and lambasted the EEOC for using its power to target an industry that had “given employment to hundreds of Negroes.”
“We didn’t intend for the work-givers of this nation — business and industry — to be harassed,” Dirksen said.
Mr. Alexander was unflappable in his response. “It’s important that the law be enforced,” he said, adding that the harassment of African Americans far exceeded that of business executives.
Irked, the veteran lawmaker replied that “this punitive harassment has got to stop, or I’ll go to the highest authority in this government to get somebody fired.”
Shortly thereafter, the Nixon administration announced its intention to install a Republican commission chairman. Mr. Alexander resigned, citing a “crippling lack of administration support” and a Justice Department unresponsive to his requests for help in enforcing racial discrimination. EEOC member William H. Brown III, also African American, succeeded him.
Edward C. Sylvester, an African American who became the first director of the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance, told The Washington Post at the time that Mr. Alexander “gave the commission some life and the legislation some meaning. He grabbed the only thing they had at the time, which was the right to hold hearings, and he did an extraordinary job.”
After leaving government, Mr. Alexander joined Arnold & Porter, where he practiced corporate and discrimination law and recruited new hires from Howard University’s law school. He also hosted a syndicated TV public affairs show, “Cliff Alexander: Black on White.”
In his mayoral race, his opponent in the Democratic primary was Walter E. Washington, the District’s presidentially appointed mayor-commissioner since 1967 and the first Black chief executive of a major U.S. city. Mr. Alexander, who had worked on a home rule bill when he served under Johnson, ran on his civil rights and public service records and garnered 47 percent of the vote, but Washington bested him and became the first directly elected mayor of the city in more than a century.
Mr. Alexander returned to legal work until President Jimmy Carter tapped him in 1977 as Army secretary. His military experience was scant — he had served briefly as a private after law school — but his appointment as the first Black civilian head of a U.S. military branch was hailed as a milestone.
He took charge of the Army at a politically sensitive time, with treaties returning control of the Panama Canal to the Panamanian government and the unconditional pardoning of Vietnam War draft dodgers. In the aftermath of the war, Mr. Alexander defended increases in soldier pay and the military budget. “This is a quality Army,” he told Ebony magazine at the time. “They work hard — often on lonely, sometimes foreign fields. They take their training and their missions seriously.”
He sent the list back to the review board, with a special instruction to look for “any factors that may have held back performance ratings of any candidates,” Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page reported. On the updated list that was returned to him, Mr. Alexander said, was a Vietnam veteran who had been second in his class at the Command and General Staff College: Colin L. Powell.
Clifford Leopold Alexander Jr. was born in Manhattan on Sept. 21, 1933, to a middle-class family. His father, a Jamaican immigrant, worked in building management and eventually oversaw the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.’s Riverton housing development in Manhattan.
His mother was a Harlem community leader who became executive director of Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia’s Committee on Unity, formed after race-related riots in 1943. Five years later, she was the first Black woman selected as a Democratic representative to the electoral college from New York.
His parents surrounded their only child with accomplished family friends — including one of the first Black judges in New York City — and imbued him with abundant self-confidence. Once, he recalled, when a doorman asked his parents to use a servants’ entrance rather than the main entrance to a building, “My mother raised all kinds of Cain and straightened him out pretty quick.”
Mr. Alexander earned a scholarship to the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, a private school in New York. He graduated from Harvard in 1955 and from Yale Law School in 1958.
He spent his early career in Manhattan as an assistant district attorney under Frank S. Hogan; as leader of a neighborhood agency that enforced city housing codes; and was executive director of psychologist and educator Kenneth B. Clark’s Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited program to improve schools and reduce dropout rates.
In 1959, he married Adele Logan, a Fieldston and Radcliffe College graduate. In addition to his wife, who taught history at George Washington University, survivors include two children, Elizabeth Alexander of Manhattan, a poet who chaired Yale’s African American studies department and is now president of the arts-supporting Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Mark Alexander, who became the first Black dean of Villanova University law school, of Radnor, Pa.; and seven grandchildren.
Mr. Alexander left government when Ronald Reagan became president in 1981. He then founded Alexander & Associates, a consulting firm in Washington that advised entities including Major League Baseball on minority recruiting, and served on corporate boards. He moved to Manhattan from the District in 2013.
In published commentaries and before congressional panels, he spoke out with increasing forcefulness against what he regarded as the glacial improvement in opportunities for African Americans in the public and private sections in Washington, New York and Hollywood.
“White America continues to paint pictures of Black America that determine our opportunities,” he said. “You see us as less than you are. You think that we are not as smart, not as energetic, not as well suited to supervise you as you are to supervise us. … And yes, if you see a Black man, you think that you had better cross the street before something bad happens to you.”
In a 1999 essay in the New York Times about the persistent underrepresentation and misrepresentation of minorities on television, he wrote that, decades after he left the EEOC, he “would like to be hopeful, but history teaches us that skepticism rather than optimism is the order of the day.” | 2022-07-04T22:19:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Clifford Alexander Jr., first Black secretary of Army, dies at 88 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/04/clifford-alexander-army-secretary-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/04/clifford-alexander-army-secretary-dies/ |
Lincoln’s political party is recklessly testing his wisdom
A couple admires the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on May 18. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
In his famous 1858 “House Divided” speech about slavery and the fracturing nation, Abraham Lincoln borrowed from a biblical passage found in the Gospel of Matthew: “And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.”
On the Fourth of July — the closest thing our polity has to a high holy day — I reflected on those words. And I worried about how Lincoln’s political party is recklessly testing his wisdom.
And it is impossible for me to pretend that this conflict is anything but asymmetrical. The Republican Party is trying to realize a revanchist vision of America in which much of the progress toward a fairer, more equitable society that we’ve seen over the past half-century is rolled back. The Democratic Party is mostly trying — and failing, thanks to a Supreme Court painstakingly packed by the GOP — to hold onto an increasingly diverse nation’s hard-won gains.
The court’s recent rulings on abortion, guns and the environment all come in defiance of public opinion, according to polls. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is fond of citing another Lincoln quote: “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.”
Can they be prohibited from traveling? Prosecuted upon their return? And what about the doctors who perform the abortions? Can a physician in one of Minnesota’s abortion clinics, which expect a rush of out-of-state patients, be arrested upon setting foot across the border in South Dakota, where ambitious GOP Gov. Kristi L. Noem has doubts about an abortion-ban exception even for a 10-year-old victim of rape? | 2022-07-04T22:19:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Lincoln’s political party is recklessly testing his wisdom - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/04/america-house-divided-guns-abortion-lincoln/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/04/america-house-divided-guns-abortion-lincoln/ |
Returning a right to states that they didn’t use in the first place
Jeremiah Gibson makes a protest sign in response to a Supreme Court ruling on June 29 in Tulsa. (Manuela Soldi/AP)
Regarding the June 30 news article “Court rules on Okla. ‘Indian country’":
The Supreme Court has continued its race to the past by ruling that states, not just Oklahoma, “can” prosecute “some” crimes — committed by non-Natives — on reservations. The states had the power for decades; they mostly chose not to use it.
Being a Native American woman is the single most dangerous category of American one can be. They are raped, murdered and disappeared at a rate that proportionally exceeds that of any other ethnic group in the United States. The brief hope for some justice afforded by giving tribal courts jurisdiction has been snatched away, as with so many rights being eviscerated by this court.
ML Smith, Bowie | 2022-07-04T22:20:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Returning a right to states that they didn’t use in the first place - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/04/returning-right-states-that-they-didnt-use-first-place/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/04/returning-right-states-that-they-didnt-use-first-place/ |
Brittney Griner remains detained in Russia. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)
WNBA star Brittney Griner, who has been detained in Russia since February on drug charges, wrote a letter to President Biden that was delivered to the White House on Monday morning, her sports agency said.
Griner’s wife, Cherelle, and the Griner family were not available for further comment, Wasserman said.
Asked for comment on the letter, Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, told The Washington Post that “[Biden’s] team is in regular contact with Brittney’s family and we will continue to work to support her family.”
Watson said Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have spoken several times with Cherelle Griner in recent weeks and that the White House has been closely coordinating with the envoy for hostage affairs, which has met with Griner’s family and Phoenix Mercury teammates.
“We believe the Russian Federation is wrongfully detaining Brittney Griner,” Watson said. “President Biden has been clear about the need to see all U.S. nationals who are held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad released, including Brittney Griner. The U.S. government continues to work aggressively — using every available means — to bring her home.”
In her letter, the eight-time WNBA all-star and 2016 Olympic gold medalist referenced her father’s military service and how Independence Day no longer feels the same.
She appeared in court Friday for a hearing and said she understood the charges but did not enter a plea before the court adjourned until Thursday to hear more evidence. Griner is slated to remain detained until December, pending the trial’s verdict, which experts believe almost certainly will come back as guilty.
U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Elizabeth Rood attended Friday’s hearing and said the United States was working “at the highest levels” to bring Griner home.
“We care deeply about this case and about Ms. Griner’s welfare, as do so many Americans, and as we do with all U.S. citizen prisoners overseas,” Rood said in a statement Friday. “We were able to speak to Ms. Griner in the courtroom today. She is doing as well as can be expected in these difficult circumstances.”
Matt Viser contributed to this report. | 2022-07-04T23:07:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brittney Griner appeals to Biden, White House in letter from Russia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/04/brittney-griner-letter-biden-white-house/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/04/brittney-griner-letter-biden-white-house/ |
China’s growing influence in the microstates of the Pacific Ocean has raised alarm among the powers that traditionally dominated the region — Australia, New Zealand, and the US. If they want to halt Beijing’s advance, they’re going to have to start offering more in return.
A security pact with the Solomon Islands earlier this year first showed the scope of Beijing’s ambitions, permitting China’s police and military to operate in the country. Similar deals were offered to a group of 10 countries alongside a visit by Foreign Minister Wang Yi in May. Wang is now seeking a meeting with foreign ministers of the island countries at the same time that leaders assemble in July for the annual Pacific Islands Forum, the main multilateral body for the region.
China can afford to be so energetic in its diplomacy because the status quo has grown stale, and is no longer clearly serving the interests of these governments. Traditionally, the Pacific has been divided between an Australian sphere of influence in the mountainous, more populous territories of Papua New Guinea and Melanesia; a New Zealand sphere in the Polynesian archipelagoes south of the equator; and a US one in the smaller islands of Micronesia strung between Hawaii and Guam north of the equator.(1)
It’s hard to argue the region has done very well from this arrangement. Thanks to their geographic isolation and minuscule populations, Pacific states do far worse than small island countries elsewhere in the world. Outside Fiji, tourism is rudimentary; to this day, most goods exports consist of fish, coconut and pearls. The offshore financial centers that helped make Mauritius and many Caribbean countries relatively wealthy were stamped out here before they got established. Income levels, when adjusted for the relatively high cost of living, are on a par with sub-Saharan Africa:
What the Pacific nations lack in terms of economic strength, however, they make up for with one strong card: their sovereignty. If you include East Timor, Pacific island nations make up 13 of the 38 members of the Small Island Developing States grouping at the UN. That bloc, in theory, has greater voting power than the 27 nations of the European Union, or the 22 non-island states in the Americas, helping secure committee appointments and diplomatic wins for its allies(2). Melanesian countries like the Solomon Islands, moreover, are less than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from the coast of Australia, making a Chinese military presence there a worry for Canberra.
Their willingness to entertain more substantial overtures from Beijing is a sign these nations are growing more assertive, according to Sarina Theys, a lecturer in diplomacy at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. “They’re realizing they have more power than they initially thought,” she says. “They’re becoming more vocal and claiming their place on the global stage.”
In that sense, China’s growing interest is seen locally not so much as a threat, but as an opportunity to gain leverage with the traditional major powers on the periphery of the Pacific. Australian foreign minister Penny Wong’s first act after coming to power in the country’s May election was a diplomatic visit to woo governments attracted by Beijing’s overtures. A more open door for labor and permanent migration into Australia is also promised by Wong’s government.
In per-capita terms, the larger Pacific powers have been extraordinarily generous in aid and development assistance over the years. It’s not clear, though, whether Beijing’s promises of investment will happen, or be effective if they do. The experience of countries like Sri Lanka and Pakistan, left with too much debt and under-utilized infrastructure, recommends a policy of caution.
“Climate change is an existential challenge in the region,” says Theys. “It’s the most important security threat the Pacific island states have.”
Still, a more competitive diplomatic space in the Pacific is very much in the interests of the region, even if it annoys neighbors who’ve grown comfortable with the status quo. In entertaining but ultimately rejecting the 10-nation security pact proposed by Wang, island governments have shown that they’re growing skilled at the traditional statecraft of minor powers — playing larger nations off each other.
Major powers will have to pay more attention to the Pacific in their future dealings. For island governments, that’s no bad thing.
• Obesity Is Stalking Poor Countries Where Hunger Once Reigned: David Fickling
(1) France, which has territories in several corners of the region, is an additional player.
(2) To be sure, the presence of France, the U.K. and the U.S. on the U.N. Security Council gives greater weight to those regions. | 2022-07-04T23:50:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | China Has Yet to Learn the Rules of the Pacific Chess Game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/china-has-yet-to-learn-the-rules-of-the-pacific-chess-game/2022/07/04/24e97f36-fbed-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/china-has-yet-to-learn-the-rules-of-the-pacific-chess-game/2022/07/04/24e97f36-fbed-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Capital punishment disproportionately affects minorities. Should it be levied against a white supremacist who massacred Black people?
Pleazant Davis, 22, and Tasha Dixon, 35, at a memorial honoring the victims of the Buffalo grocery shooting across the street from the store on May 15. (Libby March/for The Washington Post)
Some survivors and family members of those killed told Attorney General Merrick Garland during a private meeting in June that they are supportive of bringing a capital case against the 18-year-old suspect, Payton Gendron, according to people involved in the discussion. Their stance conflicts with the long-standing position of civil rights advocates, who have generally opposed the death penalty out of concerns it is unjust and disproportionately used against racial minorities.
“The reality for us is that the system is too often infused with racial bias. That doesn’t change because someone who is White, and who perpetrated violence against Black people, is put to death,” said Maya Wiley, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
President Biden opposed the death penalty during his 2020 campaign, but he has not pushed forcefully for a blanket federal ban on executions since taking office. His administration is under pressure to do more to confront rising white supremacy, a spike in hate crimes and a wave of gun violence.
While Garland’s moratorium does not ban prosecutors from seeking the death penalty, the Justice Department has not filed a notice to seek capital punishment under his leadership, officials said.
Experts said Garland’s decision in Buffalo could send a strong signal to state legislatures. Twenty-three states have abolished the death penalty, while three — Oregon, Pennsylvania and California — have a moratorium against it, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. Robert Dunham, executive director of that center, said data suggests the death penalty is not a deterrent to homicides or mass shootings, given higher murder rates in many states that allow executions.
“The White House has expressed a preference to do away with the federal death penalty, but it hasn’t set a policy,” Dunham said. “In the absence of a policy, [Garland] has to decide, and there are countervailing interests.”
Shooting at July 4 parade in suburban Chicago kills at least six, wounds dozens
Federal prosecutors have charged Gendron with 26 hate crime counts. But it is an additional gun-related charge that carries the potential penalty of death. He also faces state-level first-degree murder and hate crimes charges in New York, which does not allow state-sponsored executions.
In a statement, White House spokesman Abdullah Hasan said Biden supports Garland’s moratorium and has been clear about his concerns over whether the death penalty is “consistent with the values fundamental to our sense of justice and fairness.” But Biden also believes the Buffalo shooter must be held accountable for “the racially-motivated act of domestic terrorism.”
Videos show Akron police shot Black man dozens of times
At Gendron’s initial court appearance, U.S. Magistrate Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder assigned him a federal public defender and highlighted the higher taxpayer costs associated with capital cases, which require more legal expertise. He urged the Justice Department to make a relatively quick decision on whether to pursue the death penalty. U.S. officials say the decision process could take a year or more.
During a June trip to Buffalo, Garland said prosecutors will follow long-standing protocols to make their recommendation, which requires his approval, and that they will seek input from the survivors and victims’ families. “We view confronting hate crimes as both a legal and moral obligation,” Garland said.
Making matters more complex, some of the attorneys representing the families are advocates who vocally oppose the death penalty, including Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights attorney, and Terrence M. Connors, a Buffalo trial lawyer. So do some of Garland’s top deputies, including Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, who joined him in Buffalo.
In 2020, Gupta, then serving as the head of the Leadership Conference, tweeted, “Abolish the death penalty,” in reference to the case of Brandon Bernard, a Black man executed that year for his role in the 1999 abduction and murder of two White youth ministers in Fort Hood, Tex.
“That was not my mother or father or son or daughter who was killed, so I would have to respect their wishes,” Crump said of the Buffalo victims’ families. “But I will be honest with them in terms of my opposition to the death penalty.”
Federal prosecutors saw plea deal in Arbery killing as racial justice. His family disagreed.
Given Garland’s moratorium on executions, Crump said, federal prosecutors “would have to explain their position as to why they are changing their stance” if they seek death for the alleged Buffalo gunman.
In 2020, after the Trump administration ended a 17-year hiatus for federal executions, the Death Penalty Information Center reported that racial minorities have been overrepresented on death row and that the killers of White people were more likely than the killers of Black people to face the death penalty.
In his memo last summer, Garland ordered a review of Trump administration changes to policies and procedures on lethal injection. That review is ongoing.
Garland gained national acclaim in the 1990s for helping lead the Justice Department’s successful capital conviction of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who was put to death in 2001. During his confirmation hearing last year, Garland said he stands by the outcome of that case but has since developed reservations over the death penalty.
At the hearing, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) cited the case of Dylann Roof — a White man sentenced to death for fatally shooting nine Black parishioners at a church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015 — and asked whether Garland would pursue capital punishment in a similar case. Garland responded that it would depend on the Biden administration’s policy.
The Justice Department has continued to back Roof’s death sentence, which was upheld by a federal appellate court last summer. The department also is seeking the death penalty for Robert Bowers, a White man accused of killing 11 people and wounding six in an antisemitic attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
Last year, members of the Dor Hadash congregation — which shares building space with Tree of Life — urged Garland to pursue a plea deal with Bowers, whose defense team has said he would accept life in prison if the capital case was dropped. Jon Pushinsky, who drafted the letter, said the congregation is hoping to spare victims’ families additional trauma from the long, drawn out process of a capital trial. But the Justice Department has not indicated any plans to change course, he said.
In opposing the death penalty, some opponents cite cases in which convicts on death row are exonerated in light of new evidence. But legal experts said the Buffalo case appears to lacks ambiguity: The suspected gunman allegedly wrote a 180-page screed denouncing Black people, shared plans for the attack on social media and live-streamed some of the shooting.
“Congress passed the law allowing the federal death penalty for the most heinous of crimes. If the Buffalo massacre doesn’t qualify, then it’s hard to see what would,” Cotton said in a statement. “Merrick Garland and President Biden ought to put aside their personal feelings, enforce the law, and focus on securing justice for the victims of this horrific crime.”
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The Rev. Al Sharpton, a death penalty opponent who delivered eulogies for two Buffalo victims, said he has not discussed the issue with the families. But Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, emphasized that his group’s opposition to capital punishment won’t change in Gendron’s case.
“This is a moral and civil rights issue,” Sharpton said. “You can’t have case-by-case morality. You can’t have transactional morality. You have to have transformative morality.”
Garland has not been completely clear about his intent in pausing executions, said Nathan S. Williams, a former assistant U.S. attorney who helped prosecute Roof. Though Garland cited technical issues concerning lethal injection in his memo announcing the moratorium, he also referenced fundamental unease about the death penalty’s “disparate impact on people of color.”
Garland’s moratorium “does not resolve what was posited in that memo: ‘Is the death penalty fundamentally unfair in its application?’ If you believe that, you would not pursue it” in Gendron’s case, Williams said.
Attorney John Elmore is helping to represent the family of one of the Buffalo victims, assisting his daughter and fellow lawyer, Kristen Elmore-Garcia. He also has experience defending an accused murderer in a capital case.
In 1998, during a 10-year window in which New York reinstated the possibility of capital punishment, Elmore fought against a death sentence for Jonathan Parker, a Black man who was accused of shooting two police officers, one fatally. A jury sentenced Parker to life in prison.
But Elmore, who is Black, said he believes the death penalty remains appropriate in some instances, pointing to the crimes of McVeigh and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was sentenced to death for his role in the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 despite opposition from the families of some victims.
Garland “showed a lot of empathy,” during his meeting with Buffalo families, Elmore said. “It appeared to us that he could feel the victims’ pain, and that it’s going to be a tough decision for him.”
The victims’ families are grieving, Elmore added, and have not thoroughly discussed the question of the death penalty. “But this is a case where this guy, Gendron, showed no remorse, and he had a long effort in planning and scoping out multiple sites,” he said. “White supremacy is a significant danger to our country. So deciding what they’re going to do will not be a quick decision.” | 2022-07-04T23:51:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Buffalo shooter could face execution — Garland's decision is fraught - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/04/buffalo-death-penalty-garland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/04/buffalo-death-penalty-garland/ |
Massacre in Highland Park joins other recent mass shootings that have restarted emotional debate over gun control
Crime scene tape marks off an area close to bikes and other belongings after the parade shooting in Highland Park, Ill. (Youngrae Kim/AFP/Getty Images)
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill.--A gunman perched on a rooftop fired dozens of rounds at spectators at a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb on Monday, killing at least six people and adding yet another name to the list of American towns caught up in a countrywide wave of mass-casualty shootings.
More than 30 additional victims were treated at hospitals after the shooter, described by police as a young man armed with a high-powered rifle, blasted seemingly at random into a crowd gathered to cheer on local marching bands in Highland Park, Ill., a community of about 30,000 people on greater Chicago’s affluent North Shore.
At least two long bursts of rapid gunfire left five people dead at the scene and sent hundreds of people fleeing in panic, leaving a wake of overturned lawn chairs, coolers and strollers. The wounded included young children as well as people in their 80s. One spectator, a father, put his young son in a dumpster for safety as he scrambled to find and shield other family members while bullets rained down.
Seven hours after the shooting, at about 5 p.m. local time, police identified a “person of interest” in the manhunt: Robert E. Crimo III, 22, who was thought to be driving a 201o Honda Fit and was described as “armed and dangerous.” Earlier, law enforcement officials had described the shooter as a young White man with long black hair.
Witnesses told of seeing a gunman standing on the roof of a store on the parade route, firing at the crowd with a long gun as if shooting into a cattle pen. Police recovered a rifle at the scene, but, unsure whether the shooter had additional weapons, ordered residents to remain indoors.
The motive remained unclear late Monday. Highland Park, one of the country’s wealthiest towns and the setting for such Hollywood films as “Home Alone,” has large Jewish and Asian communities and a historically low crime rate.
The shooting comes weeks after high-profile, mass-casualty shootings at a Buffalo grocery store, where 10 Black people died and a suspect has been charged with a hate crime, and at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex., where 19 children and two adults lost their lives.
Both of those events involved 18-year-olds armed with assault-style rifles. So far this year, the United States has recorded more than 250 mass shootings, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive.
Those shootings have driven the debate over firearms in the United States to a new level of intensity in recent weeks. Congress late last month passed the first notable gun-control legislation in decades, expanding background checks for some buyers and taking other steps. At the same time, the Supreme Court struck down a New York state law requiring that residents show a special need to carry a weapon.
The occurrence of yet another mass shooting — this one at a gathering celebrating the quintessential American holiday — set off anguish and despair as it added more fuel to the political debate over gun control.
President Biden, in a joint statement with first lady Jill Biden, said he was “shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day.” Biden, who just eight days ago signed into law the rare, if modest, congressional package of gun-control measures, said there is “much more work to do.”
Biden also briefly alluded to the shooting during remarks at the White House gathering to celebrate Independence Day with military families.
“Things will get better still, but not without more hard work together,” Biden said. “You all heard what happened today. Each day we’re reminded, there’s nothing guaranteed about our democracy — nothing guaranteed about our way of life. We have to fight for it, defend it, and earn it by voting to refine, evolve and extend the calling of Americans to move forward boldly and unafraid.”
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s response was far harsher.
“There are no words for the kind of monster who lies in wait and fires into a crowd of families celebrating a holiday with their community,” Pritzker (D) said. He added: “Prayers alone will not put a stop to the terror of rampant gun violence in our country.”
Opponents of gun control pushed back, denouncing the shooting but rejecting the notion that America’s mass-shooting problem is related to easy access to firearms, including rapid-fire rifles such as the AR-15.
“The shooter is still at large, so let’s pray for justice to prevail, and then let’s move on. Let’s celebrate the independence of this nation,” Bailey said in the video, surrounded by supporters holding “Fire Pritzker” signs.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) tweeted a reference to a weekend shooting at a shopping mall in the Danish capital of Copenhagen that killed three people. For Denmark, which has strict gun laws, it was the first mass shooting since 2015, when two people were killed and five wounded in a shootout with police. “It’s time to admit that gun laws DO NOT stop mass shootings,” Boebert wrote.
According to police accounts, the Highland Park shooting occurred about 10 a.m. local time, just after the midway point of the parade in the community’s business district. As parade spectators lined the streets, the shooter apparently climbed a ladder attached to one of the buildings along the route.
Despite a heavy police presence at the scene, access to the alleyway where the ladder was located was “unsecure,” Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake County Major Crime Task Force, said at a news conference.
Cellphone video captured a chaotic scene as the parade was suddenly halted by at least 40 gunshots, all fired within a minute. Police responded quickly and the gunman stopped shooting as officers approached, but he managed to flee the scene.
Lake County Coroner Jennifer Banek said at a news conference that six people were confirmed dead — five adults who died at the scene and one other person who died in a hospital. The age of the victim who died at the hospital was not available, she said.
Highland Park Fire Chief Joe Schrage said crews transported 23 people to local hospitals, while others walked into emergency rooms. At least one of those transported was a child in critical condition, he said.
“Crews were on scene very quickly. There were bystanders as well that rendered aid,” Schrage said. “They were quick to tie tourniquets and do bleeding control, which definitely assisted the fire department on scene.”
One witness, Gabriela Martinez-Vicencio, 33, was watching the parade with her 9-year-old daughter, Nina, along Central Avenue near Second Street when she heard a quick succession of pops.
“We thought it was fireworks at first,” she said. “But as soon as I turned to my right-hand side, I looked up and saw a person shooting towards us. He was standing on top of the Ross Cosmetics building, aiming down and firing towards the crowd.”
The gunman appeared to be holding a long gun and the shots came fast. Martinez-Vicencio’s heart began to race, and she felt her legs buckle.
“Everything in me was like ‘Run!’ but my body just betrayed me, and I fell to the ground,” she said.
Quickly recovering, she began looking for her daughter as the crowd panicked. Grabbing Nina, she threw her body over the young girl, trying to shield her as bullets hit the pavement around them. The scene was chaotic, with people running over each other and trying to get to safety. She and her daughter pushed their way into a sporting goods store — what used to be Uncle Dan’s — where Martinez-Vicencio said that she and others who had taken shelter could still hear gunfire.
She clutched her daughter, who was shaking, and called her ex-husband, Nina’s father, who raced to the scene to pick them up. As they waited, Martinez-Vicencio said she kept thinking of other mass shootings, including the one at Robb Elementary in Uvalde. “I never thought it would happen here,” she said.
Another witness, Richard Isenberg, 77, was sitting with his family in a stand along Central Avenue “where we always sit.” When gunfire erupted, the family ran to a nearby shopping center and hunkered down with others. People were running in all directions, he said.
“It’s something you watch on television, but you don’t think you’ll see it in your own life,” Isenberg said. “Fourth of July has always been my favorite holiday of the year. I don’t think that’ll be the way anymore. We’ve come to our last parade.”
Kornfield, Bikales and Warrick reported from Washington.
Lateshia Beachum, Praveena Somasundaram, Gerrit De Vynck and Holly Bailey contributed to this report. | 2022-07-04T23:51:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At least six dead in shooting at parade outside Chicago - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/04/fatal-shooting-independence-day-parade/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/04/fatal-shooting-independence-day-parade/ |
Chairs and bicycles lie abandoned after people fled the scene of a mass shooting at a Fourth of July celebration and parade in Highland Park, Ill., on Monday. (Tannen Maury/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — At first, Gabriela Martinez-Vicencio thought the “pop-pop-pop” sound was fireworks.
“Everything in me was like, ‘Run,’ ” Martinez-Vicencio, 33, told The Washington Post. “But my body just betrayed me, and I fell to the ground.”
Parade-goers had dressed in stars and stripes, and set up lawn chairs for an age-old patriotic celebration in a suburb best known as the backdrop of movie classics like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
But in an instant, the day’s festivities were transformed by a tragedy all too common in the nation they were celebrating. A mass shooting left six dead, 40 wounded and another American city shattered.
“We didn’t think it was gunfire until it stopped and started again,” Straus said in an interview.
She felt debris strike her skin, then saw people on the ground, bleeding. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” someone said.
“You never saw so many people running in your life,” Straus said.
They took shelter inside, Martinez-Vicencio clutching a trembling Nina. The gunfire was audible even from inside, she said. It went on probably another two or three minutes, Martinez-Vicencio said, “but it felt like forever.” She called her ex-husband, Nina’s father, who started racing to the scene to find them.
“And that was the worst part of all this, because being a father and hiding your children and seeing a little boy carried away — I can’t imagine what that family’s going through right now,” Sandoval told the TV station.
Bodies were down on the sidewalk along the storefronts, strewn beside toppled chairs, crepe-paper decorated children’s bicycles and miniature American flags.
Those who could help — many of them nurses and doctors — tried to, applying pressure and tourniquets to the wounded. Paramedics soon began determining that others were dead.
David Baum, an OB/GYN at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, who tended to the fallen, described the injuries he saw as “horrific.”
“Those bullets eviscerated people,” Baum said.
Into Monday evening, hours after the first shots were fired, the shooter remained at large. Authorities were telling Highland Park residents to stay indoors, unsure whether he remained within the city. Police identified 22-year-old Robert E. Crimo III as a “person of interest” in the attack, and took him into custody Monday night after he led them on a brief chase.
Brad Schneider, 35, and his family huddled in their home, on edge, ready to run if they spotted “anyone sketchy going down the street.” He and his wife had already sprinted a half-mile from the parade to their car, their young children in their arms.
“My daughter is screaming and asking is there a fire, or is there a bad guy?” Schneider said. “My daughter is asking questions, and I don’t know what to say or what to do.”
“Nowhere is safe,” she said.
Shammas reported from Grand Rapids, Mich. and Bailey from Minneapolis. | 2022-07-05T00:38:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Survivors of Chicago-area shooting describe fleeing as gunfire exploded - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/04/highland-park-shooting-survivors/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/04/highland-park-shooting-survivors/ |
A public service billboard along Interstate 64 near Charlestown, W.Va., on July 20, 2017. The state consistently ranks first in the country for drug overdoses. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
In a blow to claims that drug companies fueled the opioid crisis, a federal judge ruled Monday that the nation’s three major drug distributors did not cause a public nuisance by shipping millions of addictive pain pills to a West Virginia community that was among the hardest hit.
In a legal win for AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson, Judge David A. Faber dismissed the argument made by Cabell County and its seat, Huntington, that the distributors bore responsibility for the consequences of an inundation of opioids, according to the judge’s order filed in the U.S. District Court in West Virginia.
The increase of pills going to West Virginia was due in part, he said, to “good faith dispensing” as well as the rise in product thresholds set by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“The opioid crisis has taken a considerable toll on the citizens of Cabell County and the City of Huntington. And while there is a natural tendency to assign blame in such cases, they must be decided not based on sympathy, but on the facts and the law,” Faber wrote in his ruling. “In view of the court’s findings and conclusions, the court finds that judgment should be entered in defendants’ favor.”
“The extension of the law of nuisance to cover the marketing and sale of opioids is inconsistent with the history and traditional notions of nuisance,” he wrote.
“We are deeply disappointed personally and for the citizens of Cabell County and the City of Huntington," the plaintiffs’ attorneys said in a statement. “We felt the evidence that emerged from witness statements, company documents, and extensive datasets showed these defendants were responsible for creating and overseeing the infrastructure that flooded West Virginia with opioids.”
Representatives of the drug companies cheered Faber’s ruling.
“We continue to be deeply concerned about the impact that the opioid crisis is having on families and communities across our nation,” McKesson said in a statement. “McKesson maintains—and continuously enhances—strong programs designed to detect and prevent opioid diversion within the pharmaceutical supply chain. We only distribute controlled substances, including opioids, to DEA-registered and state-licensed pharmacies.”
“We applaud the Court’s ruling, which recognizes what we demonstrated in court, which is that we do not manufacture, market, or prescribe prescription medications but instead only provide a secure channel to deliver medications of all kinds from manufacturers to our thousands of hospital and pharmacy customers that dispense them to their patients based on doctor-ordered prescriptions,” Cardinal Health said in a statement.
AmerisourceBergen said in a statement: “We’re pleased with the court’s decision which struck down the notion that the distribution of FDA-approved medications to licensed and registered health care providers in Cabell County and the City of Huntington was a public nuisance.”
While the pandemic delayed trials across the country and other lawsuits were resolved with settlements, West Virginia’s trial moved forward. During the nearly three-month bench trial in Charleston in the summer of 2021, plaintiffs argued that the companies should have been alarmed by the significant rise in drugs shipped to the Appalachian community during the height of the pill crisis.
The judge’s decision comes after public nuisance claims were dismissed by a California state judge and the Oklahoma Supreme Court. But the argument has prevailed elsewhere: In New York State Court, a jury ruled against Teva Pharmaceuticals after the state accused the Israel-based drugmaker of engaging in misleading marketing practices. And in northern Ohio, a federal jury ruled in favor of communities arguing major retail pharmacies — CVS, Walgreens and Walmart — allowed opioids into the wrong hands without controls.
A trial in West Virginia state court concluded after the state attorney general settled in April for $99 million with Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutical and for $161.5 million with Teva Pharmaceuticals, AbbVie’s Allergan and others.
Paul Farrell, a West Virginia lawyer representing the communities, began his opening argument by referencing Eric Eyre’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting that first disclosed distributors shipped 780 million pills to the state in a six-year span.
“This newspaper series triggered a congressional investigation into pill dumping in West Virginia and has launched what has been described as the most complex and largest litigation in the history of the country,” Farrell told the judge.
The massive wave of drugs also caught the attention of the DEA, according to Joe Rannazzisi, the former head of the its Office of Diversion Control, who testified that the agency warned the distributors to take a closer look at their customers, especially “large quantities of controlled substances going downstream to pharmacies without any appropriate review, due diligence, reporting.”
“They were just shipping,” he said.
“I’m not looking for a money grab," he testified. “All I’m looking for is the capacity to be able to make sure that my community can heal.”
During the trial, Robert Nicholas, a lawyer for AmerisourceBergen, acknowledged the toll of the epidemic but said blame put on the distributors is “misplaced" and “contrived.”
“No one in Cabell County or Huntington got a prescription for an opioid pain medicine without a doctor,” Nicholas said.
Attorneys for the county and city presented evidence that executives made light of the public health crisis in emails. They questioned AmerisourceBergen executive Chris Zimmerman about a parody song about “pillbillies” addicted to OxyContin when he testified in May. Public outrage over the news of the email spurred death threats, according to the company’s lawyers.
“I shouldn’t have sent the email,” testified Zimmerman, the company’s senior vice president and head of investigations. But he added that the exchange was cherry-picked and that the corporate culture at AmerisourceBergen was the “highest caliber.”
“NO Justice,” Ed Bisch wrote. | 2022-07-05T01:22:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Federal judge rules against hard-hit West Virginia community in opioid trial - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/04/federal-judge-rules-against-hard-hit-west-virginia-community-opioid-trial/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/04/federal-judge-rules-against-hard-hit-west-virginia-community-opioid-trial/ |
Alex Morgan scored twice in the first half against Haiti on Monday night in Monterrey, Mexico. (Daniel Becerril/Reuters)
MONTERREY, Mexico — There was never much question whether the U.S. women’s national soccer team, standard-bearers for the game for more than three decades, would defeat Haiti on the opening night of the Concacaf W Championship.
Taking that suggestion a step further, there is little doubt the top-ranked Americans will breeze to a 2023 World Cup berth and perhaps claim the region’s first Olympic berth.
But there is work to do over a fortnight here, and Monday night at Estadio Universitario, the four-time world champions passed their first light test with a 3-0 victory that was more concerning than convincing.
Alex Morgan scored twice in a seven-minute span of the first half and substitute Margaret Purce added an 84th-minute goal, but No. 60 Haiti was far from overwhelmed. If not for a failed one-on-one and a missed penalty kick before intermission, the second half would have been compelling.
As it were, the Americans were neither rattled nor carefree in defeating Haiti for the eighth time by a 49-0 aggregate.
Needing one more victory to all but secure passage to the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the United States will play Jamaica’s 51st-ranked Reggae Girlz on Thursday at Monterrey’s other tournament venue, Estadio BBVA.
Mexico hosted Jamaica in the other group match late Monday.
The greater challenge for the United States is winning the tournament for the ninth time in 10 attempts, an aim that probably would require a victory over Canada, the reigning Olympic champions. The tournament champion will receive a berth to the 2024 Paris Olympics, while the second- and third-place teams must clash in a two-leg playoff next year for a ticket to Paris.
In the week leading up to the match, U.S. Coach Vlatko Andonovski did not have many difficult lineup decisions. The backline, midfield and wide attack were set. There was some question, though, about the starting striker, though Morgan’s prosperous form with the San Diego Wave in the National Women’s Soccer League suggested she would beat out Ashley Hatch for the job.
The greater intrigue was in goal, where 2019 World Cup star Alyssa Naeher faced stiff competition from newcomer Casey Murphy. Andonovski opted for Murphy, a 26-year-old from the North Carolina Courage who had made her U.S. debut in November.
Haiti’s lineup featured eight players from the French league and three U.S. college players: Georgetown goalkeeper Lara Larco; Virginia defender Claire Constant, The Post’s 2018 All-Met Player of the Year from T.C. Williams, now Alexandria City High; and Ruthny Mathurin of Louisiana Lafayette.
The match uncoiled the way most do for the United States: abundant possession against an opponent that saw no other option but to sit back and eye counterattacks and set pieces. The challenge for the Americans was remaining patient in trying to break down hardened resistance and supply service from the wings.
Haiti did have three major threats. Early in the half, Kethna Louis’s header off a free kick flew fractionally wide of the far post. Late in the half, Melchie Dumornay burned Becky Sauerbrunn only to have Murphy block her clear shot. Then, after Emily Fox took down Nerilia Mondesir in the box, Roselord Borgella drove the penalty kick off the left post as Murphy dived the other way.
In between those scares, Morgan scored twice to increase her career total to 117 in 193 appearances.
Moments after hitting the crossbar with a header, Morgan broke the deadlock with a clever touch in the 16th minute. Mallory Pugh crossed from the right wing. Morgan made a near-post run and, without looking at the target, left her feet at the edge of the six-yard box and used the outside of her right shoe to redirect the ball into the net.
In the 23rd, Kelley O’Hara delivered a high ball that Morgan headed with an arc over Larco from seven yards.
The second half was slow and predictable. The Americans weren’t able to flex their muscles, but Haiti wasn’t good enough to make a move. Andonovski made all five subs in the first 28 minutes of the half, in part to inject needed energy but mostly to rest starters and provide minutes to his deep bench.
Megan Rapinoe set up Purce for an apparent goal, but video replay showed Rapinoe was offside on the buildup. Rapinoe supplied Purce again, but Larco thwarted the chance. Purce finally got her goal by settling the ball in the heart of the penalty area and slotting it into the left corner for her fourth goal in 16 U.S. appearances.
Notes: Two players from D.C.-area high schools started — left back Fox (Stone Bridge) and defensive midfielder Andi Sullivan (South County) — and forward Purce (Good Counsel) entered at halftime. ...
FIFA announced two New Zealand cities, Auckland and Hamilton, will host a 10-nation playoff tournament in February to determine the final three World Cup teams. Participants will come from Asia (Thailand and Taiwan), Africa (two teams), Concacaf (two), South America (two), Europe (one) and Oceania (one). The third-place teams in Concacaf’s group play in Monterrey will advance to the playoffs. | 2022-07-05T01:22:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | USWNT beats Haiti in Concacaf W Championship opener - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/04/uswnt-haiti-concacaf-w-championship/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/04/uswnt-haiti-concacaf-w-championship/ |
On July 4, a reminder of the zoo animal that made a bid for freedom
On Independence Day, a recent report from the National Zoo prompted thoughts of one of the best-known incidents in Washington of zoo animal independence.
On Friday, the zoo posted on its website a report of recent acquisitions at its facility in Virginia. Titled “Meet the New Red Pandas,” it described three new arrivals at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal.
On a day devoted to reflection on liberty and freedom, the announcement aroused recollection of Rusty, a red panda who fled the National Zoo in 2013.
Rusty’s escape made the news around the world, apparently in part because of its rarity and seeming ingenuity.
Rusty was soon found strolling the streets of the Adams Morgan neighborhood and was returned to confinement.
Later Rusty was transferred to the Front Royal facility, a move, the zoo said, that was intended to give him and his mate an environment more conducive to breeding. Red pandas have been designated an endangered species.
In its Friday report, the zoo listed the new red pandas as Scarlet, Xena and Taizong.
They were sent to Front Royal to breed and to help conservation scientists better understand their health, the zoo statement said.
Scarlet and Taizong came to breed with each other, and Xena is to breed with Rocket, another red panda at the site.
In addition to their striped faces and ringed tails, one trait that characterizes red pandas is their adeptness at escape.
This is associated with their tree-climbing ways, if not necessarily with a desire to avoid confinement.
But it appears that Rusty, who sojourned briefly beyond the zoo’s bounds nine years ago, was not the only member of his species to show a seeming wish for freedom.
News accounts of the efforts of the animals to get away are widespread in the media. A news report published in 2020 told of a red panda that had been missing from a zoo in Virginia’s Tidewater area since 2017. | 2022-07-05T02:49:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | On July 4, a reminder of the zoo animal that made a bid for freedom - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/on-july-4-a-reminder-of-the-zoo-animal-that-made-a-bid-for-freedom/2022/07/04/408d1364-fc02-11ec-a07f-799ab6d06557_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/on-july-4-a-reminder-of-the-zoo-animal-that-made-a-bid-for-freedom/2022/07/04/408d1364-fc02-11ec-a07f-799ab6d06557_story.html |
A man paddles through a flooded street at Windsor, on the outskirts of Sydney, on Tuesday. (Mark Baker/AP)
Australia’s east coast has experienced four major floods in less than 18 months as a persistent La Niña weather pattern has brought cooler, wetter conditions.
“It is hard to fathom that we are seeing a rain event of this magnitude hitting this part of Australia once again," Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino told local Nine Network television on Monday.
A spokesperson for the state emergency services, or SES, said at midday Tuesday that the agency had performed 152 flood rescues in the past 24 hours, and almost 300 since flooding began in some areas on June 28. There have not been any known fatalities, she said. (The death of Sydney kayaker over the weekend was not flood-related, according to police.)
News footage showed water completely covering a bridge in the town of Windsor, northwest of Sydney.
For some Sydney residents, the flood was the third in four months.
“Where do you start? Mentally, physically, financially, it destroys you," Judy White told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She said she was still cleaning up from the last flood when the waters again inundated her home in the Sydney suburb of Londonderry.
Scientists say climate change is increasing the frequency and ferocity of natural disasters, including floods. | 2022-07-05T03:54:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sydney floods inundate region; hundreds rescued as rain continues - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/04/sydney-floods-rain-weather/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/04/sydney-floods-rain-weather/ |
Dear Carolyn: I am pregnant VERY unexpectedly in my 30s with a man I’ve been with for about seven months. After a lot of difficult talks, we’ve decided to go forward with the pregnancy, and I’m now about 13 weeks along. He’s doing his best to come to terms with it, but I’m pretty unhappy. I feel immature, but I’m mourning all these fun plans we had for our lives with each other and my life as a still-single, childless woman.
I’m really struggling with this. Other than taking a prenatal vitamin and skipping alcohol, I haven’t changed my life much. I feel as if I need to be on board, so I can support my partner getting on board. Is this okay, and how do I fix it?
— Pregnant and Bummed
Pregnant and Bummed: It’s totally okay. Really. Every big change is also a big loss, of whatever you had before.
It’s often a loss we don’t grieve much, because we’re excited about what’s coming next, but I think it’s more typical to feel at least some twinge at the goodbye element of a change, such as moving from a well-loved home, leaving colleagues or knowing you’ll never see some of your classmates again. That doesn’t make you “immature.”
Pregnancy is not exempt from these feelings. Even if you planned this, you could face a hard goodbye to your plans, your autonomy, your life as you’ve always known it. It just feels transgressive, like you’re rejecting your child, but you’re not. It’s a typical hard goodbye.
Let yourself feel it instead of trying to push it away. Yes, you will miss your old life! That doesn’t mean you hate your baby. It means you loved your life.
Try applying that love to your future: You could regard your old life as great and Baby as different, and therefore great life + Baby = something no longer great. Or you can choose to see your great life as something you built using your great-life-building skills. So, great life + Baby = something great with Baby.
These are just mental calisthenics, and they can wait until you’re ready. Facing your big change is the real thing happening now. It’s okay to say, “Yikes, that’s big,” and forgive yourself for your unhappy thoughts.
It’s also very, very okay to believe your partner needs to be on board so he can support your getting on board. This is a great time not to sleepwalk into any gender roles. Besides the role of actually growing a baby.
Re: Bummed: When I got pregnant at 34, I loved drinking coffee, reading quietly and traveling to Europe. For me, at least (YMMV), having a baby meant: someone who perked up at the sound of the espresso machine and giggled every single time, someone who loves books as much as I do, and who went on numerous international trips with me. It was so fun that, five years later, we had another child. Babies are a great reason to do the things in your life that you love. They do it with you, on their own terms, and it’s the best.
Anonymous: Or they hate the activity you love — and you adjust by finding other things to share while you save your special activity for your own time. But, yes, you start by introducing a new generation to your old favorites — then you see how it all unfolds. Fascinating regardless.
· My first child was totally planned, but I grieved HARD for my wonderful single-girl life.
· In case a smile will help: I used to have a job that involved traveling the world at my own pace and discretion. When my daughter came along, I shifted my work to be home with her nearly every day. Years later, when she was learning about places in history class, she said: “Paris. Rome. Tokyo. You gave up all those places to stay with me? What were you THINKING, Dad?” | 2022-07-05T04:12:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Unexpected pregnancy has her mourning her single life - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/05/carolyn-hax-unexpected-pregnancy-mourning-single-life/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/05/carolyn-hax-unexpected-pregnancy-mourning-single-life/ |
What questions do you have about the Nationals? Ask The Post.
On the face of it, the Nationals aren’t that interesting. They have lost five in a row, including the last four to the once-lowly Miami Marlins. They are not only in last place in the National League East, but only Oakland and Cincinnati have worse records in all of the major leagues. Ouch.
But as I wrote after Monday’s July Fourth game against Miami, the Nats are absolutely at a pivotal point in their history. Think of all that awaits in the coming month: They are working on a new long-term contract with star Juan Soto. They have the fifth pick in the July 17 draft. They are likely to overhaul their roster by trading major league players for prospects.
Oh! And the Lerner family is actively pursuing a sale of the team — which means the fundamental direction of where things will go is likely to change.
Because of all this, I thought it would be best to bring aboard Nationals beat writer Jesse Dougherty — who’s in Philadelphia for the Phillies series — to help me navigate some central Nats questions as these issues percolate. Join us at 1 p.m. Tuesday for answers, but please submit your questions early at the link below.
Svrluga: Four outs in an inning? It was a surprise to the Nationals, too. | 2022-07-05T04:25:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Q&A: Barry Svrluga answers your questions about the Nationals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/washington-nationals-juan-soto/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/washington-nationals-juan-soto/ |
Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., on Monday, June 27, 2022. Money managers betting on a sustained global rebound will be left sorely disappointed in the second half of this crushing year as a protracted bear market looms, even if inflation cools. (Bloomberg)
Getting the Story Straight
Markets run on narratives, and as the second half of the year begins there is a new story. But there’s still discomfort over whether the new narrative, which doesn’t have a happy ending, is really going to happen.
Broadly, the year started with the “transitory inflation” tale largely intact. The view was that price rises would come under control without drastic action, while the reopening of the economy would drive growth. That soon gave way to a belief in an aggressive Federal Reserve that would need to raise rates again and again to counter inflation. With mid-summer has come a different story: The Fed won’t have to be so aggressive because it will soon squeeze the life out of the economy.
For asset allocators, the prospect of lower growth and falling rates would mean that it makes sense to buy bonds. Stocks still don’t look terribly attractive. And the way investors are embracing that narrative grows clear from the sharp decline in bond yields ahead of the Fourth of July holiday.
The latest reason for pessimism about the economy comes from the June ISM supply manager surveys for manufacturing. They were unambiguously disappointing. Over time, the surveys have been good leading economic indicators, scaled so that a number below 50 means a contraction, while numbers above it signal growth. On that basis, US manufacturing is declining fast, but is still not yet into recessionary territory:
The detail of the report is more concerning. The ISM includes indexes for both new orders and inventories, and this is a good way to track the “re-stocking” cycle. When new orders exceed inventories, that suggests growth ahead to meet demand. When new orders are below inventories, however, things look much more contractionary. This signal grows even more discomfiting if the new orders number is below the recessionary cutoff of 50. All times when these conditions have been met since 1990 are circled in the chart below:
There have been a couple of false alarms, in early 2012 and in 1995, so this isn’t foolproof. But the sharp decline in new orders while inventories remain robust is unambiguously bad news. The odds on a recession are rising.
That feeds into a narrative that had already taken root among asset allocators. The latest survey of international money managers by Absolute Research Ltd. asks respondents to estimate the probability of various outcomes and shows that “TINA,” the idea that There Is No Alternative to stocks, is more or less at an end. Stocks usually outperform bonds over a given 12-month period; but now, only 53% of money managers believe that they will do so over the next year. That is the lowest figure since the survey started in 2015:
That’s hard to square with an enduring belief in stagflation, in which bonds can be expected to take a pummeling. The loss of enthusiasm for equities instead reflects a belief that bond yields have risen about as far as they need to. Also, the strangely symbiotic relationship between the two asset classes affects bullishness over stocks. Historically low bond yields have supported stocks for a while; now that bonds have taken a fall, the risk is that stocks will be next in line.
The ebb and flow of belief in a recession shows up clearly in the relative performance of stocks and bonds this year (proxied, as I usually do, by the SPY and TLT exchange-traded funds that track the S&P 500 and Bloomberg’s index of long-dated Treasuries). This has been a historically awful year for bonds; yet on July 1, as Wall Street prepared for Independence Day, bonds at one point had outperformed stocks for the year:
The chart attests to the volatility of sentiment over inflation, and over the likely effect on the economy. After the invasion of Ukraine, stocks dipped badly relative to bonds as a recession seemed more likely. Stocks then enjoyed strong outperformance as the inflation figures worsened; and now, with worrying numbers on growth, stocks have fallen back again. Inflation fears are receding, but only because of confidence that the economic slowdown will be so drastic that it will extinguish pricing pressure.
Within the stock market, the declining fear of inflation is also evident. Societe Generale SA keeps an index of the stocks in the MSCI World index that are most closely correlated with inflation — in other words, they tend to do better when inflation is high. These inflation proxies had a terrible time of it in the years leading up to the pandemic, and they’ve been rallying ever since. Then in the last couple of weeks, they endured a sharp reversal:
The narrative has unmistakably changed, and growth fears may now even be more important than worries about inflation. Rather than keeping a lookout for signs of moderating inflation, attention now will be hogged by any evidence that the economy is slowing down.
For those who still find the stagflation narrative more realistic, the twist in the tale does create an opportunity. Selling bonds or buying inflation proxies can now be done for much better value than a few weeks ago.
Return to the Bottom Line
The macroeconomy matters to the stock market, but chiefly for the way it affects the two key variables that drive share prices: the earnings that a company makes, and the multiple that people are prepared to pay for those earnings. Multiples are driven by many things, but we can agree that higher bond yields and fears of a recession are not good for them. Investors will be less inclined to pay more for a future earnings stream in such circumstances. By any sensible yardstick, multiples last year reached infeasibly high levels.
That means investors started 2022 braced for declines in multiples, and that’s exactly what they’ve had. However, the Absolute Strategy survey shows that even now, most big money managers are still working on the assumption of further declines over the next 12 months.
Nobody expects a rebound then. Instead, the critical variable will be earnings themselves. Investors are very, very bearish about them, as the following chart from the Absolute Strategy survey demonstrates. After years of widespread confidence that earnings would keep rising, a clear majority of fund managers are now hunkered down and waiting for a decline:
It’s easy enough to see why. Rates are going up, taking borrowing costs with them, while everyone seems to assume that a recession is coming. That is likely to translate into declining earnings.
But the top-down logic so clear to asset allocators doesn’t seem so obvious to the brokers who compile the earnings estimates that are then compounded by Bloomberg and other data services. Expectations for both the quarter just finished and the one starting are higher now than they were at the beginning of the year — quite significantly so for the third quarter.
Energy stocks, which benefit from higher oil prices, do cloud the picture. Exclude them, and earnings expectations for the rest of the stock market have fallen over the last six months, but not to the kind of extent that would be implied by the macro gloom. The following chart is from Andrew Lapthorne, chief quantitative strategist at Societe Generale:
The MSCI World index of stocks in the developed world tends to be strongly correlated to profits growth, with a fall generally presaging an imminent tumble in profits. That certainly seems to imply that the market is braced for lower profits, even if the analysts in brokers’ research departments don’t say so:
The mathematics of the situation are merciless. Either profits are about to fall or, if they don’t, central banks will have to keep raising rates until they do. That would continue to put pressure on multiples. To quote Lapthorne:
The problem facing equity investors is if a slowdown/recession is indeed on the way, then today’s earnings forecasts are way too optimistic, and there have only been a limited number of downgrades so far (currently, globally there are as many upgrades as there are downgrades). This surely must change during the upcoming reporting season; otherwise, we assume, that both demand and price increases are holding up and the central banks would need to continue hiking.
If the new story of imminent slowdown and a limited monetary tightening campaign turns out to be true, then the narrative on earnings will have to change. That positivity about earnings is what is keeping stocks from selling off far more. Asset allocators plainly don’t share that upbeat view and believe stocks will lag bonds. The next couple of weeks will bring critical macro data on inflation and employment; but immediately after that the earnings numbers will start to flow. It might not be pretty.
The Fourth of July weekend has been fun, as it usually is, despite all the indications of discontent in the US. In Boston, where the War of Independence means a lot, I was lucky enough to see the Red Sox actually win by four on the Fourth. Quite a party. Earlier in the weekend, however, I went to the Museum of Fine Art for the first time in decades. It’s a great museum, radically redesigned since I was last there. The centerpiece of the museum at present is Turner’s Modern World, a quite extraordinary exhibition of the 19th century painter’s work, featuring many pieces that normally stay in storage in London’s Tate Britain. There was far more to him than twee seascapes. Turner was also a brilliant chronicler of the Industrial Revolution and its effect on the world, and a searing political critic.
Try looking at Slave Ship, which is part of the MFA’s permanent collection. There’s a ship in trouble, a stormy sea and a dramatic sky. Then as you look closer you see hands reaching from the sea in the foreground, black manacles floating, and birds and fish homing in to feed on the human carrion. It’s based on the true story of British slavers’ practice of taking sick and diseased slaves and dumping them alive into the sea. The insurance they could then claim would be worth more than the weakened slaves would have brought in auction. The more you look at it, the more disturbing the painting becomes. There’s a video about it here. Or if you just want to study and understand the man’s technique, I found this video on how to paint a Turner watercolor to be quite engrossing. With any luck, the video excerpts will help give a flavor of Turner’s vision. He also painted everything from the burning of the Houses of Parliament, the Battle of Trafalgar, or the Rheinfall waterfall in Switzerland. The exhibition is in Boston for only another week; otherwise, it’s on a world tour and worth seeing if you have a chance. It’s exciting, and art can soothe and clarify the mind. Enjoy the rest of the week, everyone.
• Does Getting To Wimbledon Have to Be This Hard?: Therese Raphael
• Buffett Has Advice for Barbarians at Japan’s Gate: Gearoid Reidy
• Are Things Really That Bad? Actually, They’re Not: Tyler Cowen | 2022-07-05T05:57:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Slowdown Story Comes With an Ugly Ending for Stocks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-slowdown-story-comes-with-an-uglyending-for-stocks/2022/07/05/a2909826-fc23-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-slowdown-story-comes-with-an-uglyending-for-stocks/2022/07/05/a2909826-fc23-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
After years in ISIS prison camp, they now face an uncertain welcome home
A washed veil dries outside a tent in the Jeddah camp, in Qayyarah, Iraq. (Younes Mohammad for The Washington Post)
QAYYARAH, Iraq — Iraq’s midday summer sun blasted down as the women huddled in the shade of their tent and reflected on how far they had come. The distance to Iraq from al-Hol detention camp in Syria was not far, just a few miles, but the journey home had taken years.
The situation back in the Syrian camp had been hellish: Frequent killings in the night caused dread to descend with the darkness. Years after the official defeat of the Islamic State, its followers there had turned the camp into a new theater of violence and control.
The return to their homes in Iraq through this new camp, which signs declared a rehabilitation center, prompted Hadeer Khalid, 34, to shed tears of relief. “To be back in our country means everything,” she said, as her children giggled impishly in the corner. “The situation for them was so bad there,” she said, glancing at the smallest ones. “We couldn’t breathe.”
Al-Hol camp remains one of the most intractable problems for the region — effectively an open-air prison holding tens of thousands of mostly women and children from around the world, many with family ties to the Islamist militants and few with home governments willing to accept them back.
Syrian detention camp rocked by dozens of killings blamed on Islamic State women
In Iraq, the Islamic State’s rise and fall have left deep scars, and memories of the bloodshed are fresh. The question looming across the militants’ former territories is how, or indeed if, the communities that were ripped apart can be stitched back together again — and whether they will accept their former neighbors returning from the camp.
Unlike most countries, Iraq is actually trying to bring its people home. Diplomats from the Western countries that have refused to take back their citizens have described el-Hol as a festering sore on the global conscience. “Governments have tried to wash their hands of those people,” one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue in their home capital.
Since May 2021, almost 2,500 Iraqis have been repatriated from al-Hol, which houses about 30,000 Iraqis among its 55,000 inhabitants. More returns are expected to follow, officials say.
Although Iraq’s remaining camps for the internally displaced have often grown ramshackle from lack of funding and neglect — the government closed most of them last year — the facility housing the al-Hol returnees is orderly and well run. In some cases, the inhabitants have painted bright murals on the outside of their tents. There are psychologists giving sessions to those with signs of trauma.
When Washington Post reporters visited the Jeddah camp, almost all returnees interviewed said they had been in al-Hol since 2017, meaning that they had fled the Islamic State’s “caliphate” several years before its fighters made a final stand in the Syrian border hamlet of Baghouz.
Women often say they had little control over family decision-making. In some cases, a husband or a father had joined the group as a fighter. In others, male relatives had been ordered to continue working in municipal jobs.
Psychologists who have visited the Iraqi camp say signs of trauma are most acute among the children. They can be anxious and withdrawn. Involuntary urination due to stress or fear is not uncommon. Small noises can make them jump. Some have had suicidal thoughts.
In Syrian camp for women and children who left ISIS caliphate, a struggle even to register names
Residents said they had mostly kept their children inside their tents in al-Hol, fearing violence and indoctrination outside, and so sons and daughters are only now learning to play in the open air. “It’s taken them a while to feel like they can do that,” said Alia Ibrahim, a 65-year-old from Tal Afar, a predominantly Shiite Turkmen city that Islamic State forces controlled for three years.
Her 3-year-old granddaughter, Maria, was sleeping on the floor of the tent, alongside a doll with its arms ripped off. Although her father, Abdullah, who also spent years in al-Hol, wanted to take his little girl home to Tal Afar, he was wary. “It’s not an easy idea,” he said. “We know that people will judge us.”
If getting people across the border is one challenge, taking them the rest of the way home is yet another.
Across government ministries, high-ceilinged conference rooms and town hall meetings, Iraqi officials are trying to work out how to do that.
In the city of Irbil recently, Saeed Jayashi, an adviser to one of Iraq’s national security bodies, looked around a table of notables from next-door Nineveh province who had gathered in a busy hotel to hear what he had to say ahead of the planned return of several hundred people to their hometowns.
He took a deep breath, and began.
“Each Iraqi, whether he was good or bad, we’re responsible for them,” he told the group. “Please be honest with me today. Whatever is concerning you — I’m all ears.”
Many agreed that children should not be punished for the crimes of their parents. But most of their questions still focused on the security screening process. Participants had watched lurid videos from al-Hol showing women and children attacking media crews, and chanting defiantly in support of the Islamic State.
“We have a problem — these people still believe in the ideology,” said one man. Another nodded. “We don’t want to bring ISIS people back,” he told the room.
Iraqi authorities say the slow pace of repatriation is partly attributable to the lengthy screening process. Individual returnees are vetted by multiple security agencies for involvement in alleged crimes, although rights groups point out that the criteria for decision-making is not transparent.
As the conversation returned repeatedly to how Iraqi authorities could truly know what was in the minds of the returnees, Jayashi addressed the questions one by one.
“We should be clear here,” he said. “We’re not bringing back ISIS people, we’re bringing back innocent people. We have to separate out these terms.”
More than 80 percent of the millions of Iraqi civilians displaced by the war against the Islamic State have returned home. But for those whose families joined the group, acceptance has varied. While there are few reports of violent retribution against returning families, many describe lives of destitution and ostracism. Mothers do not like their children playing with the returnees. Neighbors who once shared meals now keep their doors closed.
The U.S. built a hospital for Iraqi children with cancer. Corruption ravaged it.
In Mosul’s Old City, its skyline still jagged after U.S. airstrikes pulverized the district during the militants’ final stand, most residents said they struggle to believe that anyone from al-Hol could ever return. “You think they’d come back here?” 56-year-old Ghassan Abdul Ghani, a shopkeeper, asked incredulously.
The militant group called Mosul its capital, and it ruled with an iron fist for three years. With the traumas of that period still etched in homes and bodies, residents of the Old City said they would have a hard time living alongside returnees from al-Hol.
“I mean, it’s impossible. No one would accept it,” said Abdul Ghani.
Iraqi special forces take the lead in hunting down ragtag bands of Islamic State fighters
Forty miles south in the town of Qayyarah, where several families are due to return in coming months, residents were divided on who should be allowed to come home. Most agreed that women and children should be treated as “without guilt,” but the the idea of the returnees living among them made many anxious.
In his pharmacy on a side street, Jamal Jihad, 42, was resigned to it, although he didn’t like it much. “At the end of the day, it’s the officials who are going to decide this, not us,” he said as he bustled about the pharmacy he’d rebuilt once the militants had left.
“People here have suffered a lot,” he said. “Whatever happens now, we’ll just have to accept it.”
Nearby, 47-year-old Fares Ahmed said he could not even picture the families’ return. He paused a second, and his brow creased sharply, as if a jolt of pain had passed through. “They killed seven of my brothers when they controlled this place,” he said quietly. “I collected their bodies from the morgue.”
Surely no one in this small town would allow anyone linked to the group to come back, he said, would they? | 2022-07-05T07:23:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In Iraq, residents of the ISIS al-Hol detention camp are coming home - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/05/iraq-syria-al-hol-return/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/05/iraq-syria-al-hol-return/ |
FILE - This photo taken from video provided by Ramzan Kadyrov’s Official Telegram channel released on Saturday, July 2, 2022, shows Russian troops including soldiers of Chechen regiment waving Russian and Chechen republic national flags as they pose for a photo in front of a destroyed building in Lysychansk, Ukraine. After more than four months of ferocious fighting, Russia claimed full control over one of the two provinces in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland. (Ramzan Kadyrov’s Official Telegram channel via AP, File) (Uncredited/Ramzan Kadyrov’s Official Telegram) | 2022-07-05T07:28:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | High cost of Russia gains in Ukraine could limit new advance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/high-cost-of-russia-gains-in-ukraine-could-limit-new-advance/2022/07/05/ac8657d2-fc2b-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/high-cost-of-russia-gains-in-ukraine-could-limit-new-advance/2022/07/05/ac8657d2-fc2b-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
NEW YORK — Brittney Griner has made an appeal to President Joe Biden in a letter passed to the White House through her representatives saying she feared she might never return home and asking that he not “forget about me and the other American Detainees.”
HAVANA, Cuba — There were some cheers for “The Star-Spangled Banner” before USA Basketball’s game in Cuba on Independence Day. And then the Americans celebrated the holiday with a big win.
WASHINGTON — Bryan De La Cruz hit a two-run homer off the foul pole in the 10th inning to keep the Miami Marlins’ domination of the Washington Nationals going with a 3-2 victory.
DETROIT — Jonathan Schoop had two singles to close out a six-hit day, Eric Haase had his sixth home run and Tyler Alexander pitched three-plus scoreless innings of relief to lead the Detroit Tigers to a 5-3 win in the second game for a sweep of the day-night doubleheader against the Cleveland Guardians.
CHICAGO — Luis Arraez had three hits, including a tiebreaking RBI single in Minnesota’s four-run 10th inning, and the Twins beat the Chicago White Sox 6-3.
MONTERREY, Mexico — Alex Morgan scored a pair of first-half goals and the U.S. women’s national team defeated Haiti 3-0 in the opening match of the CONCACAF W Championship. | 2022-07-05T07:28:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Monday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mondays-sports-in-brief/2022/07/05/13cd9354-fc2e-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mondays-sports-in-brief/2022/07/05/13cd9354-fc2e-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Chaos at Fourth of July events as fireworks are mistaken for gunshots
Katerina Ang
Aerial footage shows large crowds running along Benjamin Franklin Parkway after two officers were shot in Philadelphia on July 4. (Video: Reuters)
Crowds panicked and ran away from loud noises in Orlando, Harrisburg, Pa., and Washington, suggesting a nation on edge following a recent spate of high-profile mass shootings, including one Monday morning in Highland Park, Ill., that left six people dead.
“It is devastating that a celebration of America was ripped apart by our uniquely American plague,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) said Monday. “… While we celebrate the Fourth of July just once a year, mass shootings have become our weekly — yes weekly — American tradition.”
The bloodshed in the Chicago suburb of about 30,000 shattered the Fourth of July festivities, a highlight of summer in many Midwestern towns. The aftermath of Highland Park’s parade was not candy wrappers and loose streamers, but pooled blood and abandoned strollers after residents fled the scene, taking shelter for hours as a manhunt unfolded across the area.
Multiple people were killed and injured in a shooting at Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill. on July 4. (Video: The Washington Post)
At a fireworks show in downtown Orlando, people fled as loud pops echoed throughout the area, and some spectators suffered minor injuries during the commotion, police said. In the ensuing pandemonium, some people jumped into a nearby lake, an eyewitness told a local news channel. Authorities said there was no shooting and that the confusion had probably been caused by the sound of fireworks.
In Harrisburg, the sound of firecrackers being thrown on the ground was likely the cause of panic among hundreds of people right before the main fireworks show, police told the local ABC News affiliate. Authorities likewise said there was no shooting there. “The fact that you have to be ready for a mass shooting at any moment is proof of a country rotten to its core,” a local resident wrote on Twitter.
In the District, two loud noises near 11th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW prompted people nearby to rush, fleeing toward the National Mall. Authorities on the scene confirmed the sounds were fireworks and said the noises probably sparked the alarm.
Caroline Pineda contributed to this report. | 2022-07-05T08:59:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fourth of July crowds across U.S. mistake fireworks for gunshots - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/05/july-fourth-fireworks-shooting-chaos/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/05/july-fourth-fireworks-shooting-chaos/ |
11 weeks after Jackie Robinson’s debut, Larry Doby arrived
Larry Doby threw out the first pitch before the 1997 MLB All-Star Game in Cleveland. (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)
Larry Doby, who debuted as the first Black player in American League history 75 years ago Tuesday, could have wound up in D.C. if Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith hadn’t whiffed on an opportunity to land him.
In October 1945, Doby was serving with Senators star Mickey Vernon in the Navy on a small island near Guam when they heard on the radio that the Brooklyn Dodgers had signed Jackie Robinson to a minor league contract.
“I was very surprised, like a lot of people,” Doby recalled in 1997. “… Mickey said to me, ‘There’s your opportunity,’ and he wrote a letter to Clark Griffith recommending me. They weren’t ready to integrate, though.”
Vernon returned to the Senators in 1946 after a two-year military hiatus and didn’t miss a beat, leading the American League with a .353 batting average and 51 doubles. Doby rejoined the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League, where he put up similar numbers, hitting .365 with a league-high 10 triples in 59 games.
The Cleveland Indians signed Doby to a major league contract in the first week of July 1947, a move that player-manager Lou Boudreau called “a routine baseball purchase — in my mind. Creed, race or color are not factors in baseball success.”
Indians owner Bill Veeck said Robinson had proved to be a legitimate major leaguer. “So I wanted to get the best of the available Negro boys while the grabbing was good,” he said. “Why wait? Within 10 years Negro players will be in regular service with big league teams, for there are many colored players with sufficient capabilities to make the majors.”
Doby, then 23, played in his first game July 5, 1947 — becoming the second Black player in modern baseball history, less than three months after Robinson broke the sport’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Griffith, meanwhile, dug in for years after other teams integrated.
“I will not sign a Negro for the Washington club merely to satisfy subversive persons,” he said in a 1952 Sporting News retrospective piece at 82. “I would welcome a Negro on the Senators if he rated the distinction, if he belonged among major league players.”
The Senators didn’t sign a Black player until 1954 — making them one of the last teams to do so.
An escort from the team owner
As Griffith refused to rock the boat in D.C. — still a Southern, segregated city at the time — Veeck made the historic decision to integrate the American League midway through the 1947 season. But he later confessed to having doubts about whether his city was ready.
“It is usually overlooked, but if Jackie Robinson was the ideal man to break the color line, Brooklyn was the ideal place. I wasn’t that sure about Cleveland,” he wrote in his autobiography, “Veeck as in Wreck.”
Veeck recalled receiving 20,000 letters after signing Doby, “most of them in violent and sometimes obscene protest. Over a period of time I answered all. In each answer, I included a paragraph congratulating them on being wise enough to have chosen parents so obviously to their liking.”
“Signing Doby was Veeck’s first defining moment as a major league owner,” wrote Paul Dickson in “Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick.” The move “gave him a voice as a progressive and social critic.”
In a 1997 New York Times interview, Doby praised Veeck as a man who “didn’t see color. To me, he was in every sense colorblind. And I always knew he was there for me. He always seemed to know when things were bad, if things were getting to me. He’d call up and say: ‘Let’s go out. Let’s get something to eat.’ ”
Veeck escorted Doby onto the field at Chicago’s Comiskey Park for his first game, posed for photos with the rookie and patted him on the back with these words of advice: “Just remember you’re only another baseball player. Keep loose and be a good rapper.”
“I’m really nervous,” Doby told sportswriters. “Last night on the train was the first time in four nights I got any sleep.”
He received a loud ovation from the Chicago fans when he came out on the field before the game and again when he came up as a pinch hitter in the seventh inning. Doby struck out with runners on first and third and one out but got another ovation as he returned to the dugout.
But the response from his teammates was quite the opposite — several refused to shake his hand when their manager introduced him, the New York Times later reported.
Washingtonians got an early glimpse at Doby, who helped swell crowds for a weekend series at Griffith Stadium a few weeks later. The Senators averaged 16,500 fans for the three games — a big increase over their average crowd of just over 11,000 that year — but Doby played in only one of them, going hitless in two at-bats, dropping him to 2 for 16 for the season. The Washington Post reported that despite the slow start, “there is a calm assurance about the big Negro boy that the future will work out all right.”
“So far I’ve been pretty much a flop but maybe I’ll get into this kind of pitching in a little while,” Doby said after the one game he appeared in. “It’s good, this big league pitching. It’s awful good, really.” Unlike Robinson, Doby went straight from the Negro Leagues — where he had been hitting .354 — to the majors without a minor league stint in between. He admitted he might fail with the Indians.
Years later, Doby expressed appreciation for the support he got from Washington fans. In a twist, the segregation of Griffith Stadium wound up making him feel welcome. As David Maraniss wrote in The Post in 1997, Black fans were relegated to the bleachers, close to Doby’s position in the outfield.
“When people say, ‘You played well in Washington,’ well, I had a motivation factor there,” Doby told Maraniss 50 years after he broke in. “I had cheerleaders there at Griffith Stadium. I didn’t have to worry about name-calling. You got cheers from those people when you walked out onto the field. They’d let you know they appreciated you were there. Give you a little clap when you go out there, and if you hit a home run, they’d acknowledge the fact, tip their hat.”
‘The crap I took was just as bad’
Doby called the question that he got asked most often — did Robinson make it easier for him? — “one of the stupidest questions that’s ever been asked. Think about it. We’re talking about 11 weeks — 1947. Now it’s 50 years later and you still have hidden racism, educated racist people. How could you change that in 11 weeks?”
Or as he told Jet magazine in 1978: “Jackie got all the publicity for putting up with [racial abuse]. But it was the same thing I had to deal with. He was first, but the crap I took was just as bad. Nobody said, ‘We’re going to be nice to the second Black.’ ”
In his first year with Cleveland, Doby hit .156 in 32 at-bats, mostly as a pinch hitter. The next season, the team brought in Hall of Fame outfielder Tris Speaker to tutor the young player, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported in 2012: “Once rumored to have been a member of the Ku Klux Klan, Speaker became Doby’s advocate and showed no signs of racial prejudice.”
Doby hit his stride that year, batting .301 to help lead the Indians to the 1948 World Series title — still the franchise’s most recent. As Boudreau, the player-manager, said in September 1948: “Without Doby, we would not be fighting for the pennant. We probably would have been in fourth place.”
After Doby hit a home run off Boston Braves star Johnny Sain that helped the Indians win Game 4, a photo went on the wire of Doby and a White teammate, pitcher Steve Gromek, embracing cheek-to-cheek with wide grins. The picture generated a lot of attention — what we would call going viral today.
Jackie Robinson’s last plea to MLB: ‘Wake up’ and hire Black managers
“That was a feeling from within, the human side of two people, one Black and one White,” Doby said later. “That made up for everything I went through. I would always relate back to that whenever I was insulted or rejected from hotels. I’d always think about that picture. It would take away all the negatives.”
Gromek later recalled to the New York Times that back home in Hamtramck, Mich.: “People who were close to me would say, ‘Steve, how can you do it?’ That stuff didn’t bother me.”
Doby led all Indians regulars with a .318 batting average and a .500 slugging percentage in that World Series. He would play 13 seasons in the major leagues, helping the Indians return to the Fall Classic in 1954, when he hit 32 homers and drove in 126 runs, finishing second in the MVP vote to New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra.
That year, Washington’s first Black player, Cuban-born Carlos Paula, made his debut, going 2 for 5 with two RBI in a victory over the Philadelphia Athletics on Sept. 6.
Also baseball’s second Black manager
Doby retired in 1959, and Robinson wrote in a 1965 column that Doby had sought a job at the executive level.
“The men in control, the men at the top are not really ready to give a Negro a chance at the top — unless he is the kind of Negro they can count on to be an errand boy,” Robinson wrote in the Chicago Defender, a Black newspaper.
“Larry Doby gave his all to the game. He is intelligent. He could make a meaningful contribution in the front office. But Larry Doby has a characteristic in common with me. He is outspoken. They do not want a Negro like that. … There is a brick wall which confronts the Negro player when his playing days are over.”
But Doby did get a shot at managing years later. Veeck, the former Indians owner, tried to buy the Senators in 1967, and he planned to install Elston Howard as the sport’s first Black manager. He wound up buying the Chicago White Sox, hiring Doby halfway through the 1978 season to replace Bob Lemon. That made Doby the second Black manager following Frank Robinson, who had piloted the Indians from 1975 to 1977.
The White Sox went just 37-50 under Doby and fired him after the season, and he never managed again. Doby died in 2003.
“Baseball wasn’t the all-American game in 1947, because all Americans couldn’t play,” Doby told the Chicago Tribune in 1987. “And it’s still not the all-American game, because all Americans cannot work in most positions in baseball, even though they are qualified,” he added, citing the scarcity of Black managers, coaches and executives.
“How they can keep saying it’s hot dogs and apple pie and motherhood and all that, I don’t know.” | 2022-07-05T09:12:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | When Larry Doby broke the American League's color barrier - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/larry-doby-american-league-cleveland-indians/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/larry-doby-american-league-cleveland-indians/ |
Souad Mekhennet
Austrian soldiers prepare a Russian flag before a one-day visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Vienna in June 2018. (Roland Schlager/AFP/Getty Images)
VIENNA — “Polizei!” barked the officers who stormed a third-floor apartment in the Austrian capital, moving to intercept a thickset man standing near a kitchen nook. The suspect — a long-serving official in Austria’s security services — sprang toward his cellphone and tried to break it in two, according to Austrian police reports.
The phone data from last year’s raid, along with a laptop, USB sticks and a mother lode of documents, is now proving critical to an explosive case that has gained newfound urgency in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it is fueling questions about the extent to which Moscow’s influence came to permeate this European nation.
Egisto Ott managed undercover agents in the Austrian domestic security service and also served in Turkey and Italy as an intelligence officer, and he is suspected of having sold state secrets to Russia, as well as providing information on perceived enemies of the Kremlin in the West, according to European security officials and Austrian investigative documents.
The still-developing Ott case, security officials say, is one of many internal problems that contributed to last year’s dissolution of Austria’s domestic intelligence agency — the BVT — and has led other European agencies to curtail their links with Vienna or cut it out of intelligence sharing on some matters relating to Russia.
The 60-year-old Ott has become emblematic of Russia’s deep penetration of European Union member Austria in politics and industry as well as the intelligence field. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has accelerated a reckoning on the risks for countries that fall under Moscow’s sway. In ongoing, closed-door hearings, Austrian lawmakers have been probing Russian interference in the intelligence services and contracts that the partly state-owned gas giant OMV had with Russia. Lawmakers also are examining business links that senior Austrian political figures and parties have had with the Kremlin and Russian state-owned companies.
“Russian influence in Austria has to be investigated thoroughly,” said opposition parliament member Stefanie Kiesper. “For many years, connections to Moscow permeated our political system. Now, the economic and political dependence on Russia has finally become visible to everyone as a security threat.”
This article is based on hundreds of pages of documents either obtained or reviewed by The Washington Post, as well as on interviews with more than 12 current and former Western officials and other people familiar with the Ott case and related matters. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. Ott’s lawyer acknowledged a request from The Post to interview his client but then stopped responding.
European security officials and investigative documents suggest that Ott was forming a plan with other Austrian intelligence officers to reorganize the security services as a new department within the Foreign Ministry.
At the time, the Foreign Ministry was led by Karin Kneissl, a diplomat and academic brought into government by the far-right Freedom Party. A government coalition partner from 2017 to 2019, the Freedom Party established particularly warm ties to the Kremlin, dispatching members on a 2017 official trip to Russian-annexed Crimea. Russia seized the Ukrainian territory in 2014 in a move that the United States and the European Union have refused to recognize, instead imposing economic sanctions on Russia.
Kneissl’s 2018 wedding in Austrian wine country became the most visible symbol of the political elite’s embrace of Russia. The guest list was a who’s who of Austrian politics — including former chancellor Sebastian Kurz. The star guest, however, was Russian President Vladimir Putin. During the festivities, Kneissl waltzed with Putin and was photographed curtsying to the Russian leader as he kissed her hand.
There is no indication in the investigative documents that Kneissl was aware of the reorganization plan, which was not realized. In WhatsApp text messages to a Washington Post reporter, Kneissl said she was “not giving interviews” and had emigrated from Austria because of “death threats.” She said she had no knowledge of the plan and had “never heard of Mr. Ott.”
Jailed for three weeks last year, Ott was released and suspended from his job pending further investigation. He has publicly denied all allegations, claiming a conspiracy against him for being a whistleblower who decried department excesses and requests from “friendly” foreign intelligence agencies that he said were “illegal.” He has challenged the official account of the raid of his Vienna apartment, claiming that officers did not announce themselves as police and that he initially resisted because he mistook them for robbers. This year, a court upheld his claim that excessive force had been used during his arrest.
“They are accusing me of giving out state secrets to Russia, but I haven’t,” Ott told an Austrian website. He added, “They have seen too much TV.”
Too much trust in Russia
If some nations in Europe — especially Poland and the Baltic states — viewed Russia under Putin as a strategic threat, Austria was among those that instead saw Moscow as a golden opportunity.
Partitioned after World War II into sectors occupied by the Soviets, Americans, British and French, Austria moved into the mid-1950s as an officially “neutral” nation. That neutrality — including legal codes that made espionage a crime only if directed at Austria — turned its graceful capital into a haunt for spies, a status that was accentuated by its hosting of international bodies including the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In the 2000s, the rise of a strongman — Putin — in the Kremlin was seen in pragmatic terms in Austria. Russia ranks among this nation’s top foreign investors. At the end of 2021, Russian companies held $25.5 billion worth of assets in the country, including a major hub for Moscow’s all-important European natural gas exports. Austria became a major investor in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would have doubled the flow of Russian natural gas into Europe, but Nord Stream 2 was scrapped after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine despite initial Austrian resistance to jettisoning the project.
A revolving door opened between the highest ranks of the Austrian government and major Russian state companies. Two years after leaving government, Kneissl, for instance, took a highly paid position on the board of the Russian state energy giant Rosneft. She additionally wrote opinion columns for RT, a Kremlin propaganda outlet.
Former Austrian chancellor Christian Kern was on the board of Russian Railways. Wolfgang Schussel, another former chancellor of Austria, was on the board of Lukoil, another Russian energy giant.
Kern and Schussel both resigned from their positions after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Kneissl resigned her post with Rosneft in May.
Some of Austria’s major companies also became deeply entwined with Russia, particularly in its energy sector. In 2015, OMV, an Austrian energy firm partly owned by the government and currently the country’s second largest company, hired a new chief executive, Rainer Seele, a German national. In his previous position, with Wintershall Holding, a German crude oil and natural gas producer, Seele had worked with Gazprom, the Russian natural gas behemoth, and was a strong supporter of the Nord Stream pipeline.
In June, OMV’s supervisory board announced an internal inquiry into Seele’s tenure, specifically looking into contracts that made Austria increasingly dependent on Russian natural gas, as well as a $20 million sponsorship deal with Zenit St. Petersburg — a soccer club said to be Putin’s favorite. Seele, who stepped down from OMV last year, has denied any wrongdoing.
On June 15 — less than two weeks after the investigation was announced — Gazprom informed the company that the volume of gas delivered to Austria would be cut.
“Looking back, we have to conclude that the investments made in Russia after 2015 were based on too much trust in Russia and Russia’s role in the international community,” Mark Garrett, the chairman of OMV’s supervisory board, told shareholders in June.
From 2017 to 2021, Ott is alleged to have been cooperating with a former senior Austrian intelligence official, Martin Weiss, as well as Jan Marsalek, 42, an Austrian businessman wanted in Germany and believed to be in hiding in Russia, according to security officials and investigative documents.
Weiss admitted to passing on requests for searches for background information, including personal data, on names he would submit to Ott on behalf of Marsalek. The requests contained up to 25 names at a time. Before he fled, Marsalek served as chief operating officer of Wirecard, a secretive financial processing firm. In 2019, stories in the Financial Times documented fraud and fictitious reserves at the company, which was declared insolvent in 2020.
German officials are probing possible links between Marsalek and Russian intelligence, including the question of whether Wirecard may have been used for Russian money laundering operations, or whether its client list — which included people who used the secretive service to pay for pornography, according to European security officials — could have proved useful to Moscow.
A European security official said that Marsalek — who disappeared after taking a private flight from Austria to Belarus in June 2020 — resided for a time in a Moscow apartment complex controlled by one of Russia’s intelligence agencies. That official also said Marsalek has been provided with a new Russian identity.
Lawyers for Weiss and Marsalek did not respond to interview requests.
Security officials said that Ott had been under suspicion for years before his arrest last year but that Austrian authorities were never able to bring a prosecution. As early as Nov. 22, 2017, he was stopped by police at Vienna International Airport as he arrived to board a flight to Amsterdam. Austrian officials had been warned by the CIA 10 months earlier that Ott was suspected of selling information to the Russians. The Americans renewed their warning that November and threatened to pull out of a security conference in the Netherlands if Ott was allowed to attend, according to the European security officials.
The American warnings were first reported by Austria’s Die Presse. The CIA declined to comment.
The CIA ultimatum led the Austrians to obtain a search warrant for Ott’s 3,200-square-foot home in the emerald hills of the Austrian south on the grounds of “suspicion of giving up state secrets.”
The search, however, failed to uncover key evidence, according to Austrian officials. The intelligence agency nonetheless sought to suspend him pending further investigation, but an administrative court for civil servants blocked that action. The Austrian authorities then reassigned Ott to work in a police academy, where he was supposed no longer to have access to Western intelligence databases.
Officials, however, believe Ott used his new posting to tap a network of intelligence contacts inside and outside Austria. Telling colleagues at other agencies that he was conducting official business as part of his new job, Ott requested hundreds of illegal searches in secure databases for information on people across the continent, according to the investigative documents.
In one instance, according to European officials, Ott allegedly sought information from British intelligence that could have been used to determine whether a woman previously accused of being a Russian spy was still on the radar of Western security services.
Among the queries that stood out was one he allegedly conducted in December 2020 into Christo Grozev, the executive director of the investigative outlet Bellingcat, the documents show. The outlet’s reporting had uncovered the true identity of Vadim Krasikov, the Russian national who was convicted last year of gunning down a Chechen opposition figure in Berlin in 2019 after Krasikov entered Germany on a false passport. The German authorities said Krasikov was operating on behalf of Russia’s state security agency, the FSB.
Asked by The Post whether he had knowledge of Ott’s searches, including for his home address, Grozev said he had been informed by authorities and had concluded they were done on behalf of Russia. “It could just be intimidation, it could just be keeping an eye on me, tailing me, or preparing an assassination,” he said.
In addition, a three-page analysis was discovered on Ott’s cellular phone that appeared to assess the shortcomings of the Russian operation in Berlin and offer recommendations on how Russian intelligence could do better in the future. The analysis, which Western officials believe was written by Ott, suggested a mole or defector might have provided information that compromised the plan after Krasikov failed to escape undetected.
“Immediately stop all planned operations until the mole or defector has been eliminated,” the document warned.
What comes next in the Ott case is unclear. Current and former security officials outside Austria remain skeptical that the various parliamentary and other investigations will probe deeply enough.
“These are things the Austrian government needs to question and get to the bottom of, but I personally don’t know whether the Austrians will go that far,” said Sonya Seunghye Lim, a former CIA station chief in Europe. “I think their attitude for decades, going back to the ’40s and ’50s, has always been that they’d rather not uncover uncomfortable truths.”
Emily Rauhala in Brussels and Shane Harris in Washington contributed to this report. | 2022-07-05T10:00:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After invasion of Ukraine, a reckoning on Russian influence in Austria - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/05/austria-russia-infuence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/05/austria-russia-infuence/ |
Samson Otiago, a doctor specializing in reproductive health, attends to a patient at his clinic in the densely populated Kayole neighborhood, providing services to victims of sexual violence in September 2021. (Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images)
NAIROBI — Fauziah was attending a dinner party in 2016 at her friend Aisha’s home in Mathare, an informal settlement in Nairobi. Around 11 p.m., Aisha began complaining of a stomach ache and put on a sanitary pad. Within minutes, blood had seeped through her clothing. At 2 a.m., writhing in pain, Aisha asked her friends to take her to the cheapest public hospital.
They rushed her into reception. A single mother of a 1-year-old daughter, Aisha had immigrated alone from Uganda to Kenya. She had resorted to sex work to care for her child, and she had become pregnant.
“In Africa, when a woman wants to do abortion, it’s not something that someone can tell just anyone about,” said Fauziah, who told this story on the condition that only her first name be used for privacy reasons. “She felt like her getting pregnant, we would call her reckless and irresponsible. She never told any of us. So she was doing this all by herself.”
They later found out Aisha had visited one of the unlicensed pharmacists in the slums who are known to defraud poor women in exchange for sham abortion services. He sold Aisha a pack of pills, and she ingested them that day. Fauziah doesn’t know what her friend took, but women say they’ve been given quinine tablets, which are ineffective, or even large packs of birth control pills, which can result in vaginal bleeding. The practice is common enough that the nurses realized what was happening, Fauziah said, and made no effort to hide their scorn.
She begged the nurses to admit Aisha, but it was already too late — she died on the hospital floor, in a pool of her own blood.
“That thing has never [left] my mind,” Fauziah said.
Although Kenya has gradually liberalized its abortion laws in recent years, activists are concerned that the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court could set back their progress. But they are determined to continue their fight, drawing inspiration from Latin America, where three countries have expanded abortion rights in the last year.
“I think the wave that started in Mexico, in Argentina, in Colombia, is catching fire in Africa,” said Tabitha Griffith Saoyo, a Kenyan lawyer working to expand reproductive rights. “[T]here’s room for Africa to lead by showing that abortion is an African issue, it’s not a Western concept, and that we’re ready to protect our women.”
Pregnancy is a deady gamble in Sierra Leone
Kenya’s original abortion laws were outlined in its colonial-era penal code, which imposed harsh penalties on any woman who terminated a pregnancy and any doctor who assisted her, except in rare cases where the woman’s life was at risk.
Unsafe abortion became a leading cause of death and injury for Kenyan women and girls. A 2013 study conducted by Kenya’s Ministry of Health, in partnership with health and civil society organizations, found a rate of 30 induced abortions per 100 births. More than 157,000 women that year sought care for symptoms stemming from unsafe abortion attempts, and 37 percent of them experienced severe complications, such as high fever, sepsis, shock or organ failure.
“We have seen all manner of grotesque cases,” said Anne Kihara, a practicing OB/GYN and president of the African Federation of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “Women who have had to have their uteruses removed, infections, the instruments that have been used, the crude things that we’ve had to remove.”
Kenya’s constitution, written in 2010, clearly states that life begins at conception. Abortion is not permitted unless a health professional deems it necessary to protect the woman’s “life or health” or “if permitted by any other written law,” a clause that left the door open for future reproductive rights legislation. The 2017 Health Act broadened the definition of “heath” from the absence of disease to include physical, mental and social well-being.
In 2019, a landmark court ruling gave victims of sexual violence the right to an abortion. In another case decided this year, a judge found abortion care to be a fundamental constitutional right — specifically referencing key points from Roe — but the decision is under appeal.
For now, abortion on demand remains illegal, and unsafe abortions are still common. The most recent data from 2017 shows a maternal mortality rate of 342 deaths per 100,000 live births in Kenya. The United States, by comparison, which has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries, recorded 17 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2018.
Abortion rights advocates here say the implications of overturning Roe v. Wade extend far beyond the United States. “The fact that it’s happening in the United States, the distance doesn’t matter,” said Angela Akol, Kenya country director for Ipas Africa Alliance, a global reproductive rights organization. “What matters is the weight of importance that the United States plays in foreign policy, especially in health policy.”
Many Kenyan reproductive health programs rely heavily on U.S. government grants and took significant financial hits when the Trump administration reinstated and expanded the “global gag rule” in 2017. These organizations fear that more antiabortion policies and funding cuts could be on the horizon.
Among these groups is CitizenGO, an ultraconservative Spain-based petition mill. It has already launched a successful campaign to temporarily stall the passage of Kenya’s 2019 Reproductive Healthcare Bill, and its Africa campaign manager is part of the group appealing this year’s court decision that declared abortion a constitutional right.
“We’ll start seeing the opposition groups lobbying, poking holes into some of the progressive policies and laws we have in the country,” said Nelly Munyasia, executive director of Reproductive Health Network Kenya, a coalition of health professionals. “And, definitely, they’ll want to cite the Roe v. Wade decision.”
Global data from the United Nations shows that restricting access to abortions doesn’t make them less common, but it does make them more dangerous. Forty-five percent of abortions in the world are unsafe, the U.N. calculated.
“Women who are desperate to get an abortion will get it, by whatever means,” said Akol of Ipas. “Because of the restrictive environment, people go underground and do all sorts of things to get an abortion. They die.”
Saoyo, the Kenyan lawyer, said she and other advocates will keep fighting for abortion rights. “There’s still room to fight back as a movement,” she said. “This is the time for Africa and Latin America to lead the way.” | 2022-07-05T10:26:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Activists in Kenya to keep fighting for abortion rights after end of Roe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/05/kenya-unsafe-abortion-restrictions-roe/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/05/kenya-unsafe-abortion-restrictions-roe/ |
How to drain swampy yards and stop wet basements
If the footprint of your house’s roof is close to 1,600 square feet, a rainstorm that dumps 1 inch of rain will create just over 1,000 gallons of water falling off the roof. (iStock)
Ande lives in Puyallup, Wash., and reads my weekly column in her paper. She’s got a very common problem. In fact, tens of thousands of people suffer from it in places where there’s abundant rainfall for many months during the year.
Ande’s backyard turns into a miniature Okefenokee Swamp when it rains. Her crawl space also floods. She asked for my assistance in solving the problem. Fortunately, my college degree is in geology with a focus in hydrogeology — the study of groundwater.
Each spring, I receive hundreds of emails from homeowners who are suffering from water leaking into basements and crawl spaces. Most have soggy yards as well. The good news is that in almost all cases you can solve these problems with moderate effort and minimal expense if you can do most of the work yourself.
I do lots of phone coaching with homeowners like you, and in a vast majority of the cases the builder caused most of the problems. The three biggest pain points are:
· Roof water is dumped onto the ground next to the house.
· The ground has not been sloped away from the house foundation.
· The lot was improperly graded before the house was built, impeding drainage of surface water to the natural lowest spot.
You’d be surprised at the amount of water that falls onto your roof. If the footprint of your house’s roof is close to 1,600 square feet, a rainstorm that dumps 1 inch of rain will create just over 1,000 gallons of water falling off the roof. The last thing you want to do is dump all this water onto splash blocks at the base of downspouts. This water needs to be piped to municipal storm sewers or piped to the lowest part of your lot where water would have drained naturally before your home was built.
The soil that touches up against your home must slope away from the foundation. If your home was built on a mountain peak, by default all the water would slope down and away from each side of your foundation. You can achieve the same thing by making sure the top of your foundation walls are at least 18 inches higher than any ground within 10 feet of the foundation.
The building code suggests that the slope of the ground should fall at least six inches in the first horizontal 10 feet away from the foundation. Note that this is a minimum standard. More slope is better.
Once you have the ground sloping away from the foundation on all sides, you do what’s necessary to slope your yard so water flows to the lowest point of your lot. This takes care of all surface water. It’s now time to deal with the water flowing through the topsoil.
More Builder: How to repair a bathroom window with wood rot — and preventing it in the first place
When it rains, water flows into the topsoil and occupies the space previously taken up by air. The water then is pulled by gravity down and then sideways. Many soils have a clay component, and as you go deeper into the soil, the denser the clay becomes. This is why in the Midwest, South and many other parts of the United States it’s easy to create a pond. The clay soil acts like a giant pottery bowl.
If you know that this subsurface water is moving downslope toward your home, you simply have to intercept it before it hits your foundation. You then redirect this water around your home and send it on its way to the ocean. That’s where all water wants to end up if given the chance unless you live in the Great Basin in the U.S. Southwest or similar locations in the world.
I feel the best way to intercept the subsurface water is to dig a six-inch wide trench about 24 inches deep. In most situations this gets you into the dense clay subsoil. I like to put about one or two inches of clean rock in the bottom of the trench. This rock should be the size of large green grapes. Be sure there’s no sand in the rock or smaller pieces of rock.
I then put a perforated four-inch pipe on this gravel and then fill the trench to the top with the same grape-sized gravel. Water flowing through the soil hits this gravel, immediately drops down and finds its way into the drain pipe.
The trench might be L- or U-shaped as it goes around your home looking for daylight. As the ground slopes away from your home the drain pipe will eventually pop out of the ground if you keep the bottom of the trench level or have a very slight fall to the drain pipe of ⅛-inch per foot. In wet periods you’ll see enough water flow out of the pipe to fill a five-gallon bucket in a minute or two!
You can get access to a 90-minute step-by-step video showing you how to install one of these trench drains going here: GO.askthebuilder.com/trenchdrain.
(Subscribe to Tim’s free newsletter at AsktheBuilder.com. Tim now does a live stream Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. Eastern time youtube.com/askthebuilder.) | 2022-07-05T10:31:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to drain swampy yards and stop wet basements - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/05/how-drain-swampy-yards-stop-wet-basements/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/05/how-drain-swampy-yards-stop-wet-basements/ |
A monitor with stock market information on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., on Monday, June 27, 2022. Money managers betting on a sustained global rebound will be left sorely disappointed in the second half of this crushing year as a protracted bear market looms, even if inflation cools. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
This is an environment in which it is hard to argue for silver linings, especially when so many analysts are warning that additional losses may be ahead in both public and private markets. Yet three are already evident.
• Cuban Crisis Parallels Give Stocks a 1962 Look: John Authers
• Bond Market Rebound Is Bad News for the Economy: Gary Shilling | 2022-07-05T10:31:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Believe It or Not, the Market Has Three Silver Linings - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/believe-it-or-not-the-market-has-threesilver-linings/2022/07/05/0a7f4b14-fc4a-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/believe-it-or-not-the-market-has-threesilver-linings/2022/07/05/0a7f4b14-fc4a-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
What the Biden administration’s new rules for charter schools say
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Jan. 27 in Washington. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The Biden administration is moving to overhaul the federal Charter School Program with new rules finalized last week that make it harder for for-profit organizations to win taxpayer money and require greater transparency and accountability for grant applicants.
The program has awarded billions of dollars in grants over the past several decades for the expansion or opening of charters, which are publicly funded but privately operated, often with little or no public oversight. President Biden said during the 2020 election campaign that he wanted to end federal funding for for-profit charter schools, but the final regulations don’t go that far.
Charter school supporters strongly objected to a draft set of rules released earlier this year, saying they seemed intended to kill the program outright, which the Education Department denied. Nina Rees, president and chief executive officer of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said in a statement that the final regulations appear to be “less harmful than the original proposal,” but added that more analysis of the details was needed.
Critics of the federal Charter School Program said both the draft set of regulation changes and the final versions were important moves to stop waste and fraud in the federal program and provide more transparency to the operation of charters.
Charter advocates say these schools offer necessary choices to families that want alternatives to troubled schools in traditional public school districts. Critics say charter schools drain funding from public school districts that educate the vast majority of children in the United States, and are part of a movement to privatize public education.
The Network for Public Education, an advocacy organization that opposes charter schools, has published several reports since 2019 on the federal program, revealing the waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on charter schools that did not open or were shut down. The reports also showed that the Education Department did not adequately monitor federal grants to these schools. You can read about two of those reports here and here. A third report details how many for-profit management companies evade state laws banning for-profit charters.
This post analyzes the final rules that the Education Department released last week — though more details are yet to come. The following was written by Carol Burris, an award-winning New York school principal who is now executive director of the Network for Public Education and who wrote or co-wrote the reports mentioned above. Burris has written extensively about charter schools and other school reform efforts for more than a decade on The Answer Sheet.
What Biden should say to charter school supporters now attacking him
By Carol Burris
Last week, efforts to clean up the wasteful federal Charter School Program (CSP) made remarkable progress. First, the fiscal year 2023 House Appropriations bill report not only made cuts to the CSP program budget, it demanded improvements. Then the day after the passage of the bill by the House Appropriations Committee, the long-awaited final regulations for the Charter School Program were published by the Education Department. Although a few concessions were made to the charter lobby, nearly all proposed regulations remained intact from a draft version released earlier this year.
Let’s start with the fiscal year 2023 House Appropriations bill. It reduced the Charter School Program budget by $40 million from President Biden’s request to keep funding for next year the same as this, at $440 million. The bill also called on Congress and the U.S. Education Department to phase out for-profit management organizations, and encouraged further investigations and reforms. In short, it supported the proposed CSP regulations.
During a June 30 hearing on the bill, two amendments — the first to defund the Department of Education’s regulation efforts and the second to restore the $40 million budget cut — were defeated in committee votes.
When Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) offered his amendment to kill the new regulations by defunding them, (watch beginning at 3:20:37), Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.), chairman of the committee, expressed her “strong opposition.” She accused the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools of “peddling un-credible exaggerations” and “misrepresentations” to defeat what she characterized as modest reforms. She further stated that they had been “willing to take desperate measures to block accountability and transparency” to protect for-profit education management organizations. She voiced her strong support for reform of the CSP to address long-standing concerns. Moolenaar’s amendment was defeated 32 to 22.
The following day, on July 1, the department held an informational briefing on the final new regulations, the priorities, and the assurances applicants must provide to secure a grant from the Charter School Program (CSP). Following the meeting, three documents were posted here. The first describes the submitted comments and the department’s response to them as well as the new requirements for the three grant programs within the overall CSP (SE, or State Entity; CMO, or charter management organization; and Developer, or charter school developers).
The department received 26,580 comments on the proposed regulations, most of which were generated from letter-writing campaigns. Of all of the comments, 5,770 were unique. According to the department, “the majority [of comments] expressed general support for the regulations and the priorities.”
For those who have long advocated for overhauling the CSP program, here are the significant gains.
Schools managed by for-profits will have a difficult time securing CSP grants and, in some cases, will be excluded from funding.
If an applicant has or will have a contract with a for-profit management company (or a “nonprofit management organization operated by or on behalf of a for-profit entity”), they must provide extensive information, including a copy or description of the contract, comprehensive leadership personnel reporting and the identification of possible related party transactions. Real estate contracts must be reported, and “evergreen contracts” in which there is automatic contract renewal are prohibited. The school cannot share legal, accounting or auditing services with the for-profit. The state entity that awards the grant must publish the for-profit management contract between the awardee and the school.
The final regulations also include the reporting and exposure of the for-profit’s related entities. The Network for Public Education recommended the addition of “related entities” in its comments to the department. Our report, “Chartered for Profit,” explains how for-profit owners create separate corporations with different names to mask the complete control of the for-profit over operations of the school.
The story of a charter school and its for-profit operators
Finally, the applicant must assure that “the [for-profit] management company does not exercise full or substantial control over the charter school,” thereby barring any charter school operated by a for-profit with a “sweeps contract” from obtaining CSP funds.
There will be greater transparency and accountability for charter schools, State Entities, and CMOs that apply for grants.
This is probably the most underreported win for those who support charter school reform.
Transparency gains include:
An assurance that the grantee holds a public hearing on the proposed or expanded charter school. These hearings must be well advertised and include information on how the school will increase diversity and not promote segregation. Schools are obligated to reach out to the community to encourage attendance and then provide a summary of the hearing as part of the application. These public hearings are required of direct grantees and subgrantees — both SE and CMO.
The publication of for-profit management contracts.
The publication of the names of awardee schools and their peer-reviewed applications by states and CMOs.
A requirement that the school publish information for prospective parents, including fees, uniform requirements, disciplinary practices, transportation plans, and whether the school participates in the national free or reduced-price lunch program.
Accountability gains include:
More substantial supervision by state entities of the schools that are awarded grants, including in-depth descriptions of how they will review applications, the peer review process they will use, and how they will select grantees for in-depth monitoring.
Restrictions regarding the spending of grants by unauthorized schools. Charter schools not yet approved by an authorizer will be eligible to use planning grant funds; however, they cannot dip into any implementation funds until they are approved and have secured a facility. This new regulation will limit, though not prevent, all funding that goes to charter schools that never open.
Regulations to stop White-flight charters from receiving CSP funding and ensure the charter is needed in the community.
Is the Charter Schools Program financing White-flight academies?
The final regulations are good, but not as strong as initially proposed.
One of the more controversial aspects of the new regulations was the need for the school to conduct a community impact analysis. The charter lobby focused on one example by which a school could show need (district over-enrollment) and used it as a rallying cry to garner opposition to the regulations. In the new regulations, the department clarifies that there are other ways to demonstrate need, including wait lists and offering a unique program. It also eliminated the need for the applicant to provide a district enrollment projection.
The community impact analysis is now called a needs analysis. That analysis must include evidence of community desire for the school; documentation of the school’s enrollment projection and how it was derived; a comparison of the demographics of the school with the area where the students are likely to be drawn; the projected impact of the school on racial and socio-economic district diversity; and an assurance that the school would not “hamper, delay or negatively affect” district desegregation efforts. Applicants would also have to submit their plan to ensure that the charter school does not increase racial segregation and isolation in the school district from which the charter would draw its students.
The department went to great pains to reassure applicants that schools in racially isolated districts would not need to show diversity (this straw man argument had been used by the charter lobby and even some editorial boards to fight the regulations, although the original rules had made that clear). Those schools that are unlikely to be diverse due to the school’s special mission would also have to submit an explanation.
Still, there are some concerns about unintended consequences of the regulations.
With the additional caveat regarding “special mission,” the department is trying to preserve grants to schools that are themed to promote, for example, Native American culture in an area where Native American students are a minority population in the district. That is understandable.
However, White-flight charter schools could skirt the regulation by arguing that their mission is to provide a Eurocentric, classical curriculum.
For example, charter schools opened by Hillsdale College — a small Christian college in Michigan that promotes a “classical” curriculum — are disproportionately White. These schools could claim that their mission appeals to students with European backgrounds and that the strong “anti-CRT” message in their “1776 curriculum” does not appeal to Black families. Although Hillsdale College does not take federal funds, Hillsdale charter schools do. We have identified nearly $7 million awarded to Hillsdale member charter schools up to April 2021. Newer schools have likely secured CSP grants as well.
Priority 2 — which encouraged charter/public school cooperation — was retained but categorized as “invitational” for the 2022 cycle.
The second straw man argument the National Alliance for Public Charters used to fuel their #backoff campaign on the regulations was the claim that charter/public school district cooperative projects were required. They were not. They were a priority, and priorities can be mandated, competitive (assigned a few points), or invitational (looked up favorably but no point value).
As I explained here, it is rare for a priority to be mandated. For example, of the six priorities for the 2022 State Entities grants, only one is required, which is that authorizers use best practices. The department now makes it clear that it is unlikely that charter/district cooperative activity will ever be a mandated priority while leaving the door open to it becoming a competitive priority after the 2022 award cycle.
All regulations, priorities and assurances go into effect for this 2022 grant cycle with one exception: Developer grant applicants, a small program in which individual schools apply, do not have to submit a needs analysis in 2022 only. That is because applications are due shortly.
Since 2019 when the Network for Public Education issued its reports on the federal Charter School Program, the program has come under increased congressional scrutiny. We have followed up by submitting letters to the department, often co-signed by other groups, demanding reform and exposing abuses of the program.
These new regulations are an essential first step in making sure that fewer tax dollars go to schools that never open, schools that quickly close, and for-profit operators. Unscrupulous individuals who used the program for their enrichment will find it more difficult to do so. State Entities that have pushed money out the door will now be forced to provide more oversight and supervision. And so they should. State Entities get 10 percent of every grant, representing millions of federal dollars, to use for such supervision.
We do not doubt that some applicants will still provide false information, as we found time and time again, but now as all peer-reviewed applications go online, groups such as ours will serve as watchdogs and report falsehoods and misrepresentations to the Office of the Inspector General.
And for all of the charter schools that are fronts for for-profit organizations, the Education Department just put a big sign on the door that says “you need not apply.” | 2022-07-05T10:31:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What new rules for U.S. charter school program say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/05/new-rules-us-charter-school-program/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/05/new-rules-us-charter-school-program/ |
A woman undergoes acupuncture treatment for migraines. (iStock)
People who have chronic tension headaches might be able to reduce the frequency of those headaches by as much as 50 percent with acupuncture, according to research published in the journal Neurology. Tension headaches, which are the most common type, are sometimes described as feeling pressure as if you had a tight band around your head. They are considered chronic if they regularly occur at least 15 days a month.
The study involved 218 people who had experienced tension headaches for an average of 22 days a month for 11 years. They were randomly assigned to one of two groups, either to be given what the researchers describe as “true acupuncture” or “superficial acupuncture.” Acupuncture, a component of centuries-old traditional Chinese medicine, involves penetrating the skin at specific points with extremely thin needles and then gently moving them.
More than 50 percent of people worldwide have headache disorders
The aim is to improve the flow of energy in the body (known as “qi,” also spelled “chi”), which is believed to improve health. When needles are inserted to the proper depth, the de qi sensation occurs, and the patient feels a numbness, heaviness or tingling. This sensation is considered key to successful acupuncture treatment. Study participants in the “true acupuncture” group achieved the de qi sensation, but in the “superficial acupuncture” group, needles were not inserted deep enough to create this sensation. Both groups were given 20 treatments in a two-month span and then tracked for six additional months.
The number of tension headaches gradually decreased after treatment for people in both groups, but about two-thirds of those given true acupuncture experienced at least a 50 percent reduction, compared with half of those given the superficial type. For the “true” group, headache days fell from 20 a month at the start of the study to seven days a month at the end, compared with a drop from 22 to 12 days a month for the “superficial” group. | 2022-07-05T10:31:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Acupuncture could reduce tension headaches by half - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/05/acupuncture-eases-tension-headaches/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/05/acupuncture-eases-tension-headaches/ |
Detailed map was carried ashore during the WWII invasion of Normandy
“It’s a miracle of mapmaking,” Robert Morris, the Library of Congress's cartographic acquisitions specialist, said of the donation from Joseph P. Vaghi Jr.'s family. (Maansi Srivastava/The Washington Post)
Joe Vaghi’s top secret map of Omaha Beach survived the stormy trip across the English Channel that day.
The map made it through the explosion of an enemy artillery shell that killed a comrade and set Vaghi’s clothes on fire.
And it lasted with his penciled notations intact as he directed men coming ashore in France on D-Day, June 6, 1944, yelling into his megaphone: “Move Forward!”
Joseph P. Vaghi Jr., a Bethesda architect who died in 2012 at the age of 92, cherished the map in the years after the war. Its meticulous detail had saved his life, he told his family.
On June 27, Vaghi’s family formally donated the map to the Library of Congress, where it was hailed as a rare artifact from one of World War II’s most historic events.
“It’s a miracle of mapmaking,” said Robert Morris, the library’s cartographic acquisitions specialist.
It contains a rendering of the Normandy coast, showing topography, sand dunes, hedges, houses, cemeteries, mud flats, villages, orchards, water depths, tidal charts and the “Easy Red” sector of Omaha Beach where Vaghi landed.
“It was almost like something protected him,” Vaghi’s son, Joseph P. Vaghi III, said his father’s friend related. “He was a tall man. ... He had a megaphone. He was up and down the beach. ... How he didn’t get killed no one knows to this day."
Vaghi, a lieutenant commander, was a Navy “Beachmaster.” Equipped with his map and other equipment, his job was to direct the traffic of thousands of men and tons of material pouring onto the beach amid enemy’s artillery and machine-gun fire. He was 23.
The military map he carried, based on intelligence and low-level reconnaissance flights, was labeled “TOP SECRET” in green letters.
“The Germans were in their pillboxes and bunkers high above the beach on the bluff and had an unobstructed view of what we were doing,” Vaghi recalled in a later account for the U.S. 6th Naval Beach Battalion website. “The atmosphere was depressing.”
“LCI will beach here,” he scribbled on one spot, referring to the Landing Craft Infantry vessel that was to land him and others, not far from where the Normandy American Cemetery is today.
Morris said, “All these pencil annotations are contemporary, and he would have made them either prior, probably just prior, in preparation for the landing.”
“He was a survivor,” Morris said as he recently examined the map in a library vault. “And this is a survivor."
“We have a lot of maps relating to wars, obviously,” he said. “War is a great mapmaking business. But to my knowledge we have none that actually we can document went on to D-Day. That’s what makes this a particularly special piece."
“Thankfully, he was a chronicler,” Morris said. “This guy knew he was a part of something.”
Vaghi was one of the nine children — six boys and three girls — of Italian immigrants from Bethel, Conn. After the war he studied at Catholic University, became an architect and lived in Kensington in a house he designed and helped build.
Joseph P. Vaghi III said his father barely spoke about the war until the 50th anniversary of D-Day in 1994. “For 50 years he never told ... any of us” what he had done, he said. “We had no idea.”
“Growing up we never talked about the war, never,” he said.
“When he came back, he wanted to move on with his life,” the younger Vaghi said. But if he heard fireworks or a loud bang “he would jump a mile.”
“He was very religious man,” his son added. “He believed, ‘Okay, this is the Lord’s will. This is what we have to do and we move on.' "
“The map was the one thing that he said: ‘The most important thing in my life besides my wife and my kids has been this map. It got me on that beach, and got our group on that beach safely that day,' " the younger Vaghi said.
Vaghi said his father had considered donating the map to several other institutions, but couldn’t decide. He said his father gave him the map and said “hang on to it, at the right time you’ll know it.”
“As fate would have it, there’s no better place in the world than the Library of Congress,” he said.
“D-Day. Landed 0730 June 6, 1944. Used this chart during stay on the beach."
Then he signed it: "Joseph P. Vaghi Beachmaster Easy Red Beach.”
Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this story.
More on World War II
Lost grave markers surface from a distant World War II battlefield
To liberate Auschwitz, David Dushman drove a Soviet tank through its barbed wire. Horrors awaited inside. | 2022-07-05T10:31:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Top secret D-day map of Omaha beach goes to the Library of Congress. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/05/d-day-omaha-beach-map-library-congress/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/05/d-day-omaha-beach-map-library-congress/ |
Policing abortion won’t stop at abortion
How White female police officers historically targeted abortion providers.
Perspective by Elizabeth Evens
Elizabeth Evens holds a PhD from University College London that looks at female medicolegal professionals that their role in policing other women’s sexuality and reproduction.
Police surround the Arizona Capitol during June 24 protests in Phoenix, following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. (AP) (Ross D. Franklin/AP)
Abortion bounty hunters in Texas. Doctors reporting patients’ miscarriages to the police in Indiana. Internet search histories used to prosecute individuals following a pregnancy loss. The Supreme Court majority decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has certified a new era of “uterus surveillance,” in the words of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). Justice Clarence Thomas has suggested that the decision in Dobbs could lead to reviews of other landmark rights for marginalized groups, including contraception and same-sex relationships. The state’s expansive and expanding surveillance apparatus will ensnare ever more in the absence of robust constitutional protections.
In the 21st century, such surveillance relies on high-tech innovations. But historically, would-be regulators had to devise new and innovative methods to police abortion, sexuality and reproduction. Over a century ago, White women joined police departments, including the New York Police Department, under the guise of reform and improving the treatment of women by the police. However, in practice, female entrants to police forces tended to extend the state’s surveillance apparatus, reinforcing existing gender, race and class hierarchies. Having devised new means to police abortion, policewomen’s regulatory work expanded to suppress other behavior.
For much of American history, abortion was widely tolerated by legal and political authorities. Any antiabortion statutes on state books were typically poorly enforced and shaped by the principle of “quickening.” This doctrine held that a pregnancy did not begin until the pregnant person first felt the fetus move, typically around the 16th week of pregnancy. Pregnancy was thus a female preserve, determined by pregnant women themselves and the female midwives who supplied the majority of maternity care.
The political will to surveil abortion intensified in the mid-to-late 19th century, however. At this time, White male doctors were seeking to establish their supremacy in the competitive health care marketplace by founding medical schools, journals and organizations such as the American Medical Association, established in 1847. These physicians were particularly troubled by women’s authority over pregnancy, as well as nativist fears that White Protestant women were having fewer children than the large number of Catholic and Jewish immigrants then arriving in America. Most women, especially immigrants with fewer economic resources, relied on midwives for maternity care. Midwives’ expertise stemmed from their historic leadership of birth, and they were a trusted and attractive resource for women patients because they shared a community — gender, race, ethnicity, language — with those they cared for and could often be more flexible on payment options.
As part of their ambitious quest for status, physicians declared a war on abortion. Lobbying legislatures, doctors sought to make abortion at any stage of pregnancy a crime — and in the process to associate midwives with immorality and criminality, while claiming maternity as the site of their expertise. By the early 20th century, they had succeeded; abortion was illegal in all states.
But the state struggled to actually police abortions, even as it criminalized them. Existing policing tools were ill equipped as abortions took place in private, female spaces that eluded male police officers’ grasp.
Would-be abortion regulators had to devise new methods to suppress the practice. One of the most insidious new approaches was the NYPD’s deployment of policewomen to hunt down suspected “abortionists.” In the 1910s, the department established “Special Squad no. 2,” a vice squad that consisted of women officers, including Isabella Goodwin — the first female detective in the country. These early women officers’ “success” in the profession was intimately connected to their ability, and willingness, to extend state surveillance of other, more marginalized women.
Prosecution records at the New York City Municipal Archives reveal that these policing efforts did not focus on White physicians, who served the city’s genteel women and practiced in affluent neighborhoods.
Instead, female investigators predominantly targeted ethnic neighborhoods’ midwives, especially those from Central, Southern and Eastern Europe, who provided maternity care for working-class, immigrant women and children. At this time, the state was targeting these same populations though policing, social reform aimed at “Americanization” and immigration restrictions.
Policewomen’s methods betrayed these policing priorities. They dressed in disguises and used foreign language skills to convince to midwives that they needed abortions. They told stories of reproductive vulnerability, of poverty, of widowhood, of the existing children they had and of their desperation for a lower fee. Once midwives agreed to help them, the officers used their willingness to do so as evidence to prosecute them.
Although these investigations led to comparatively few convictions, they inspired arrests, protracted trials and sensationalist newspaper accounts. An investigation conducted by an undercover female police officer led to the closure of the first-ever U.S. birth control clinic — Margaret Sanger’s Brownsville Clinic in Brooklyn — in 1916. Sanger’s clinic did not provide abortions, but by sending female officers undercover to close the birth control clinic, the NYPD attempted to destabilize and dismantle another aspect of women’s control over their own reproduction.
For the policewomen, undercover work proved a route for promotions and professional acclaim. Early female investigator Mary Sullivan recalled in her autobiography that there were “few things in the world” that were “more thrilling” than “the moment of revealing [her]self to a trapped and startled crook as a woman detective.” Success was won at the expense of other women.
Having honed these undercover methods during abortion investigations, policewomen expanded these methods to control other types of sexuality that regulators deemed to be “deviant.”
American police forces and the military had already used undercover techniques to investigate gay men, such as the Ariston Bath Raids of 1903 or the Newport Sex Scandal of 1919. In 1926, Mary Sullivan was one of two policewomen sent to investigate “Eve’s Hangout,” a lesbian tearoom in Greenwich Village. Like many of the midwives targeted a decade earlier, Eve Adams was a Polish Jewish emigre, born Chawa Zloczewer. Her adopted name referenced the gender nonconformity that she embodied. As Sullivan described her, she had “cropped hair that was combed back in a ragged pompadour, and a mannish suit supplemented with a collar and tie.”
The policewomen posed as patrons of the tearoom, visiting three times in attempt to make Adams’s acquaintance. On the third occasion, officer Margaret Leonard arranged to visit the theater with Adams where they flirted, danced and kissed. At the end of the date, Leonard visited Eve’s rooms and secured a copy of a collection of studies Adams had written, entitled “Lesbian Love.” The policewomen then orchestrated Adams’s arrest for “disorderly conduct” and authoring an “indecent” book. Officers Leonard and Sullivan later furnished the key evidence at an immigration hearing that led to Adams’s deportation.
In the early 20th century, the NYPD devised new, innovative methods to police reproductive health care, targeting marginalized residents of the city: working-class, immigrant midwives and their clientele. Thereafter, they expanded these same methods to surveil other conduct they deemed to be immoral.
Women’s entry to policing, while making apparent strides toward gender inclusivity, brought some White women into proximity to power at the expense of more marginalized individuals. They helped institutions gain access to female spaces that male officials could not reach. In this way, the coercive work of policing women’s sexuality and reproduction emerged as an obligation of this new cadre of White female professionals.
Today, as a century ago, we see the development of insidious new surveillance tactics to police abortion and further limit the reproductive health care options available to the most vulnerable in society. These methods undermine the trust networks that safe abortion depends upon on, rendering providers and patients scared and unsafe. And history shows us that these tactics have the potential to be expanded and extended. | 2022-07-05T10:31:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Policing abortion won’t stop at abortion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/05/policing-abortion-wont-stop-abortion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/05/policing-abortion-wont-stop-abortion/ |
FILE - A soldier of the French army is shown in position at the corner of a building in the St. Eugene district of Oran in Algeria, April 28, 1962. Algeria is celebrating 60 years of independence from France on Tuesday July 5, 2022 with nationwide ceremonies, a pardon of 14,000 prisoners and its first military parade in years. Tuesday’s events mark 60 years since the official declaration of independence on July 5, 1962, after a brutal seven-year war which ended 132 years of colonial rule. The war, which killed at least 1.5 million people, remains a point of tension in relations between Algeria and France. OAS (Organization of the Secret Army) French dissident graffiti reads “Algeria French”. (AP Photo/Horst Faas, File) | 2022-07-05T10:32:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Algeria marks 60 years of independence with military parade - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/algeria-marks-60-years-of-independence-with-military-parade/2022/07/05/a8a81e2a-fc44-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/algeria-marks-60-years-of-independence-with-military-parade/2022/07/05/a8a81e2a-fc44-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
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