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Michael Wardian recently completed a run across the country. (Courtesy of Michael Wardian)
Around 6 a.m. Friday, friends, family and curious onlookers cheered Michael Wardian’s arrival at the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach, Del. After crossing his personal finish line, Wardian made a beeline for the water, not bothering to remove his shoes before jumping into the Atlantic Ocean beneath “one of the most beautiful sunrises” he had ever seen.
It was a well-deserved reward for the professional ultramarathoner from Arlington, who had just completed a 61-day run spanning 3,200 miles across the United States. The journey, which took Wardian through 13 states, was inspired by “Forrest Gump.”
“That’s when I knew that people did this type of thing,” Wardian, 48, said of the 1994 movie, which won the Oscar for best picture. “When I became a runner, I thought at some point in my life it might be cool to attempt this. Life gets in the way, but 20 years later, I put a plan into place.”
Wardian’s plan was to raise at least $100,000 for World Vision to help provide families around the world access to clean drinking water while taking no more than 75 days to complete his run. He surpassed his fundraising goal and finished his journey with two weeks to spare.
After setting out from the steps of San Francisco’s City Hall on May 1, Wardian averaged more than 50 miles per day while running primarily along Route 50 over the next two months. His crew chief, Eric Belz, helped organize the run and drove the RV that served as Wardian’s sleeping quarters. (Belz also saved Wardian’s iPhone and AirPods from ruin when he reminded his friend to hand them over before his post-run plunge.)
Wardian’s first run across the country qualifies as the longest of his career, but he’s no stranger to creative feats and pushing the limits of endurance. He twice has completed the World Marathon Challenge, which requires participants to run seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. In 2019, he ran a nearly 90-mile loop around the Capital Beltway. The following year, he ran the equivalent of 10 marathons in a little more than 2½ days — by circling the block in his Northern Virginia neighborhood.
A post shared by Michael Wardian (@mikewardian)
“Luckily I have a great family that knows that I like to do kind of ridiculous endeavors and are supportive of it,” Wardian said with a laugh. “The people that I work with are also supportive. I feel really lucky, and I’m just so grateful that we could do it for a great cause and change so many people’s lives.”
Wardian, a partner at an international ship brokerage firm, took the occasional client call while making his way across the country. He breezed through 35 audiobooks at two-times speed, including Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything” and “North,” a memoir by his friends Scott and Jenny Jurek about breaking the speed record for the Appalachian Trail. He supplemented audio books with podcasts, including “The Fantasy Footballers,” and an eclectic mix of music ranging from AC/DC to Taylor Swift.
A low moment of Wardian’s two-month trek came in Indiana, where he tweaked his hamstring while avoiding an angry driver who tried to nudge him off the shoulder. Wardian said that wasn’t the only incident of him being targeted, but his journey was an overwhelmingly enjoyable experience.
“There’s incredible beauty in the United States,” he said. “Right now I’m super ‘Team America.’ For every one person that tried to run me off the road, I had 10 people that were stopping their car and offering to give me a ride or handing out snacks. I felt so fortunate to get a chance to see parts of the country that I hadn’t seen before and learn a lot about the different places.”
After his dip in the ocean Friday, Wardian ran another few miles to Dewey Beer Co. for a celebration with friends and family. Then he got some rest ahead of Saturday’s Seashore Striders Firecracker 5K. Wardian joked that he might post a personal worst time; instead he nearly averaged a six-minute mile.
What’s next for the real-life Forrest Gump? A pair of 100-mile mountain bike races in Colorado next month.
“I have to shift focus to get ready for that and just get back to running fast again,” Wardian said. | 2022-07-05T11:36:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Michael Wardian runs from San Francisco to Rehoboth Beach - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/michael-wardian-run-across-united-states/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/michael-wardian-run-across-united-states/ |
Live updates Highland Park reels from parade shooting as 22-year-old rapper arrested
A Lake County police officer walks down Central Ave in Highland Park, Ill. on Monday, July 4, 2022, after a shooter fired at a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb. (Brian Cassella/AP)
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — Police arrested “a person of interest” in a hunt for the Highland Park gunman who killed six people and injured dozens at a Fourth of July parade on Monday, shaking the Chicago suburb.
Officers arrested Robert E. Crimo III, a 22-year-old local rapper, “without incident” after a chase, Highland Park’s police chief told reporters Monday evening as nearby towns canceled festivities, fearing more violence. The shooter had fired from a rooftop into the crowd shortly after 10 a.m. Monday, adding to the list of recent mass shootings that have hit American towns and fueled the debate on gun control. Police recovered a high-powered rifle.
Many roads and businesses in Highland Park will remain closed Tuesday as the FBI conducts an investigation, the mayor said, calling the shooting “the bloodiest day that we have ever experienced.” Counselors will await stricken residents at a high school in the affluent town and flags will fly at half-staff.
Five people died at the scene, and one at a hospital. People sent to hospitals for treatment ranged in age from 8 to 85, medical workers said.
Witnesses recalled running to escape the gunfire that rang out at the Highland Park parade. Footage showed blood pooled on the sidewalk. Chairs, toys and blankets were strewn nearby.
Chaos then erupted at Fourth of July celebrations in cities nationwide where people seemed to mistake the boom of fireworks for gunshots and scrambled for cover. | 2022-07-05T11:40:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Highland Park parade shooting live updates: City reels as 22-year-old rapper arrested - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/05/highland-park-parade-shooting-live-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/05/highland-park-parade-shooting-live-updates/ |
It’s the cruelty that will undo the forced birth crusade
Protesters rally in support of abortion rights July 2 in Kansas City. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
When abortion rights advocates accused antiabortion proponents of being disturbingly indifferent to women and even aspiring to cruelly force women to give birth, they were labeled hysterics or exaggerators. But now, just as they were proved correct about the right’s ambition to reverse Roe v. Wade, these advocates can say they had the forced-birth crowd pegged all along. The proof is already here.
Two Republican governors, Kristi L. Noem of South Dakota and Tate Reeves of Mississippi, were asked on Sunday news talk shows about the case of a 10-year-old girl impregnated by her rapist. Are they really insisting that, regardless of the physical harm that giving birth could cause someone so young, the child be further tormented and forced to have the baby? Yes.
Reeves said these are such a “small, minor” number of cases. He wouldn’t say there should be an exception. Noem defended forced birth, insisting, “I don’t believe a tragic situation should be perpetuated by another tragedy.” The tragedy of forcing a 10-year-old to undergo a pregnancy and the pain of childbirth does not register with Noem.
These are not anomalies. Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn (R) said, soon after the decision overturning Roe was announced, that, in his view, a 12-year-old impregnated by incest should be forced to complete her pregnancy. Herschel Walker, a Republican nominee for Senate in Georgia, would agree apparently since he wants no exceptions. Not even to save the woman’s life. Ohio state Rep. Jean Schmidt has called forcing a 13-year-old rape victim to give birth an “opportunity.”
Indeed, the number of states contemplating abortion bans with no exception for rape or incest might shock you. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards — a Democrat — just signed an abortion law with no exception for rape or incest. In Arkansas, Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) seemed open to making an exception, but its absence won’t slow down implementation of the abortion ban in his state.
The New York Times reports, “There are no allowances for victims of rape or incest in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee or Texas.” In Idaho, a woman would have to file a police report to obtain an abortion, something virtually impossible for incest victims and others who live in fear of their attackers.
The monstrous cruelty of such bills shows how little many conservatives care about the well-being of women and girls who have already experienced the unbelievable trauma of sexual violence.
But it gets worse. Many states no longer consider exceptions for the health of the woman or create dangerous uncertainty. In the real medical world, where doctors and patients make decisions based on probabilities, the result of such abortion laws can be deadly for women. If abortion is legal only with the “imminent” risk of death, women can be left in peril, facing what can become fatal complications later in pregnancy — when the chances of survival have declined.
In Tennessee, for example, doctors are supposed to prove the woman couldn’t have lived without an abortion. (They must prove “the abortion was necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”)
Arizona’s 15-week abortion ban provides exceptions for emergencies when continuing the pregnancy will “create serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” for the mother. Oklahoma’s recent ban, the most restrictive in the country, is focused on life-threatening situations.
Mental health is almost never seen as enough of a reason to justify an abortion under the laws, said Carol Sanger, professor of law at Columbia University and the author of “About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in 21st-Century America.”
Republican candidates for governor in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and joined with antiabortion groups to seek bans “that would not allow the procedure even if the mother’s health were endangered,” The Post reports.
Forced-birth advocates can hardly be called “pro-life” when they are willing to gamble with the lives and health of women. To say women will die because of abortion laws or will suffer untold harm, both mental and physical, is not hyperbole. It’s reality for women who are now deprived of the right to make their own decision about their health and even their lives.
When you treat women like less than competent adults, and insist that others, who may have little or no competency, weigh the risks to her health and life, you wind up not with a culture of life but a culture of devaluing women’s lives. | 2022-07-05T11:58:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Forced birth advocates show how barbaric their position is - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/forced-birth-abortion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/forced-birth-abortion/ |
This farmer is wary but optimistic about the global food crisis easing
By Blake Hurst
Winter wheat that is ready to harvest in Corn, Okla., on June 15. (Nick Oxford/Bloomberg News)
Blake Hurst is a corn, soybean and greenhouse farmer.
TARKIO, Mo. — The U.N. secretary general warns that the war in Ukraine, choking off exports of food and fertilizer, is “threatening to unleash an unprecedented wave of hunger and destitution.” Add the effects of drought in some regions, the pandemic and rising inflation generally, and the world is witnessing rapidly rising food prices and increased hunger.
Yet as dire as all this sounds, there are reasons to be at least cautiously hopeful. Encouraging news arrived last week. With a good mix of sun and rain in Australia, Europe and the United States, excellent end-of-summer harvests might be on the way. The price of wheat — the object of much concern this spring — has dropped more than 25 percent since its peak after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Not that farmers like me aren’t worried. We face more uncertainty than I can remember, and I’ve been doing this since Jimmy Carter was president. Prices are high for what we grow and sell, but the cost for the supplies that go into it have doubled or tripled in the past year. And farmers continue to fret about the ability to find needed supplies — at any price.
Yet the resilience and adaptability of agriculture in the United States and many other countries is an underappreciated factor amid current challenges. Yes, some farmers, faced with high fertilizer prices, are reducing applications of fertilizer, which may lead to lower crop yields. But countless other farmers simply shift plans: Many American farmers are expected to move to soybeans, which require less fertilizer.
A record wheat harvest is forecast for Russia, which has kept its grain exports flowing (they’re not subject to sanctions). Distasteful as it might be, some of the wheat was allegedly stolen from Ukraine. But much of the wheat that Ukraine has managed to keep might yet reach markets, despite Russia’s port blockade, thanks to President Biden’s recent pledge to help move the grain overland.
Until the invasion, Ukraine accounted 14 percent of corn exports on the global market. The Agriculture Department predicts a 41 percent decline in Ukraine’s corn production. The country’s corn exports average about 1 billion bushels annually; a shortfall of half that amount could be made up by the United States alone with a good crop in a few months. U.S. farmers plant more than 90 million acres of corn annually; an increase of just a few bushels per acre above the average could do the job.
Here on my farm in Missouri, the corn crop is off to a great start, and I’m optimistic that we’ll see excellent yields. One reason for that optimism is the general nature of farming in the United States: We have used the latest technology, including genetically modified seed and satellite guided precision planting to plant the crop and reduce the chance of crop failure.
Staggering advances in U.S. agricultural productivity over the past century offer reassurance about how the country can help the world weather current problems. As I planted corn this spring, my memories turned to my grandfather. When he planted our family’s first corn crop in this part of Missouri in 1931, his expected yield would have been almost exactly the same as corn planted in the 1870s and 1880s.
My expected yields will be about seven or eight times what my grandfather would have considered a bumper crop. With that plentitude, food as a portion of family expenses plummeted between 1960 and 2000.
The miracle in agricultural abundance resulted from the application of technology to farming, technology developed from research done by both private and public entities. U.S. lawmakers and voters have supported agriculture in many ways, but most importantly by supporting the discovery and adoption of practices that have increased production.
This is not the case everywhere. Sri Lanka has suffered food riots in recent months after a disastrous government-mandated move to organic farming. Long self-sufficient in rice, Sri Lanka is now importing food to fend off starvation. The European Union has adopted a goal of rapidly increasing organic farming. Perhaps the current food shocks will prompt a reconsideration — and a realization that abundance can be fleeting.
I don’t want to be unrealistic: Millions of people around the world, especially in Africa, will struggle for months, maybe years, from this food crisis. But many prosperous nations, in particular the United States, have the ability to dramatically ramp up food production and food aid. Cooperative weather in much of the world over the past few months has also been a blessing. There are already solid signs of progress since the alarms that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Science and experience are the proper tools to increase production and assure that the world’s food supply is rapidly replenished by the miracle that is modern farming. I’m happy we have access to those technologies. I hope you are, too. | 2022-07-05T11:58:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | This farmer is wary but optimistic about the global food crisis easing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/global-food-crisis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/global-food-crisis/ |
Supreme Court Wages War on Public Sector Expertise
Smokestacks at the PacifiCorp Hunter coal-fired electrical generation plant in Castle Dale, Utah, US, on Monday, June 13, 2022. Residential electricity rates have been surging for months and are poised to climb even higher this summer on a combination of tight supplies of natural gas and coal, an unrelenting drought in the Western US, and a nationwide forecast for extreme heat. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
How valuable is expertise? What’s the most efficient and effective way to tackle epic and urgent national challenges such as climate change or a pandemic? Are expertise and problem-solving related?
The Supreme Court’s conservative wing has responded to those questions in recent rulings. And its answers are so doctrinaire and divorced from reality that they will be bad for the economy, public health and, ultimately, the well-being of every American.
On Thursday, the court, in yet another landmark decision, curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to prevent power-plants from polluting the atmosphere. The EPA is populated with scientists and other experts whose mission involves protecting people’s health and reducing environmental risks — including the most glaring existential threat of our era, climate change.
But the court’s majority doesn’t recognize any indispensable virtues in the EPA’s expertise. It believes that the EPA and other federal agencies should act sparingly — and possibly shouldn’t even exist — because they exercise powers that belong to Congress, not to unelected wonks appointed by the president.
When agencies take actions of “vast economic and political significance,” the court ruled, they can do so only with precise guidance from Congress — and not independently. To that end, the court ruled that the EPA should regulate individual power plants state by state and not set sweeping, one-size-fits-all regulations at the national level.
The court claims to operate on the principle that its decisions aren’t meant to establish policy goals but simply reflect where it believes the power to make such decisions should reside. In practice, however, the court is upending preexisting and often effective regulatory processes and inserting itself as the de facto policy maker.
The EPA ruling, for example, guts the Biden administration’s ability to help craft a national response to climate change. In theory, according the court, Congress will now step in and rise to the challenge. That, of course, is unlikely to happen. Congress hasn’t come up with a holistic blueprint for combating climate change despite decades of effort. Corporate energy interests have routinely trumped the public interest by blocking, or simply stalling, legislative solutions; congressional gridlock is tantamount to inaction.
The practical effect of this judicial philosophy is to leave the court — a collection of lawyers who also possess limited expertise and real-world experience — the arbiter of how best to address climate change. “The Court appoints itself — instead of Congress or the expert agency — the decision-maker on climate policy,” Justice Elena Kagan noted in her dissent on the EPA ruling. “I cannot think of many things more frightening.”
But ignorance is bliss, even when it involves well-trained and gifted jurists overseeing the highest court in the land. As my colleague Liam Denning pointed out, the court doesn’t have a complete or sophisticated grasp of the structure or economics of power generation in the US. Yet it deems itself fit to prescribe remedies anyway. The court’s approach, Denning says, will prove to be less efficient, slower and more expensive.
Given those realities, a little humility might be in order. But this isn’t a humble court. Besides, it has larger goals in mind. The EPA ruling is a stalking horse for what will certainly be a broader judicial assault on what the court’s majority likes to call “the administrative state.” And that’s a reflection of nearly 90 years of conservative animus toward New Deal agency-making and the federal bureaucracy that expanded in the decades after the Great Depression and World War II.
One person’s “administrative state,” however, is another person’s “problem solver.” One person’s “faceless bureaucrat” is another person’s “expert.” Everybody likes to embrace terms that confirm their biases. That becomes much more problematic when bias so diminishes the value of expertise that sound advice goes unacknowledged. Avoiding that trap is hard to do when we’re awash in disinformation and mistrust, but it’s our only escape from disaster.
The New Deal and the strong central government and federal agencies it spawned tackled real problems like economic dislocation and global warfare that the private sector and individual states weren’t prepared to address at the time. Critics were right to be watchful for evidence of a wasteful, overweening state and misguided regulations in the years that followed. But they were wrong to dismiss the presence and value of independent, public sector expertise. Experts, whether they ply their trade in the private or public sector, usually have more informed approaches to problems than the rest of us. Denigrating them as “elites” is useful for winning political wars; it’s a recipe for chaos if you care about bold and effective problem-solving.
And climate change is just as threatening now as warfare and a depression were in the last century, perhaps more so. The private sector and individual states are currently unwilling or incapable of fully meeting that challenge rapidly and effectively without a push or an assist from the federal government. The value of that assistance will hinge, in part, on how well expertise is deployed.
Haggling over federal regulatory minutiae matters, especially if ill-considered guidelines crimp the private sector’s dynamism or substitute rule-making for informed policy-making. But history and reality have repeatedly taught the importance of having centralized, well-informed experts at the helm during crises that require national responses — crises such as climate change.
This isn’t where the Roberts court comes down, alas. In a range of recent related decisions involving reproductive rights, gun safety and public prayer, it has also masked its decisions as simple delineations of where the power to make policy should reside. In practice, however, the court is making policy itself.
The court is also justifying its actions by issuing rulings steeped in pseudo-historical word salad and hypocrisy. It is happy to block states from enacting legislation conservatives oppose (such as gun safety) while allowing states to enact legislation conservatives support (such as depriving women of the right to control their pregnancies and health). The court’s majority is authentically committed to its own brand of torch-and-pitchfork conservatism, not to a consistent articulation of the mechanics of effective governance. It should be more honest about that.
While the Supreme Court has cherry-picked how often it empowers states to control their own destinies, it hasn’t really thought through the practical implications of some forms of state control. Good luck effectively confronting pandemics when the battle is balkanized. Let’s see how capable states are of managing the national sports gambling boom the court has unleashed.
Meanwhile, the fate of federal agencies such as the EPA will continue to come up for discussion.
Should it have the opportunity, will the Supreme Court decide, for example, that financial markets are best left to their own devices and that the Securities and Exchange Commission should just be dissolved? Or will it say that members of Congress have more skill and insight — more expertise — than the SEC’s team, and thus should be vested with more of its regulatory and oversight powers? Or will it rule that Congress should be able to respond to every twist and turn in the world’s most innovative and kinetic financial market by constantly outlining exactly what the SEC should do day to day?
Would the court have similar approaches to overhauling how the Food and Drug Administration intersects with the pharmaceutical industry and public health? The Defense Department and military action? The National Transportation Safety Board and airlines? The Justice Department and civil rights?
You get the picture. All of this boils down to deciding who knows best, and how much of that knowledge you’re willing to respect, albeit judiciously.
For its part, the Roberts court envisions Congress as a better receptacle for expertise than well-trained, experienced civil servants at federal agencies. That’s to be expected because problem-solving isn’t this court’s primary concern; how power is delineated comes first. A reckoning for that worldview may have to wait until the planet becomes more of a charred marble than it already is.
• Supreme Court Has Taken Control of Climate Policy: Noah Feldman
• Supreme Court Agrees on Need to Divide Country: Clive Crook
• Praying Coach Case Is About Parental Rights: Stephen L. Carter
Timothy L. O’Brien is a senior columnist for Bloomberg Opinion covering U.S. business and politics. A former editor and reporter for the New York Times, he is author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.” | 2022-07-05T12:02:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Supreme Court Wages War on Public Sector Expertise - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/supreme-court-wages-war-on-public-sector-expertise/2022/07/05/6cfea07a-fc52-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/supreme-court-wages-war-on-public-sector-expertise/2022/07/05/6cfea07a-fc52-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Private Equity’s Goldilocks Era Is Coming to an End
The longer a bear market drags on, the better the chance that pain will spread beyond stocks. So with the US bear market entering its seventh month, it’s not too soon to think about what other risks might be lurking. Private equity is at the top of the list.
The private equity industry, which as its name implies invests in shares of private companies, has ballooned into a sprawling, high-powered, moneymaking machine over the past four decades. In the 1980s, it could legitimately claim to be a small club of rich investors, but no more. Data around private equity is scarce because its dealings are, well, private, but available numbers give a clear enough picture of its enormous scale.
According to Preqin, a leading provider of global private equity research, there were 28 private equity firms in 1980 across the industry’s three chief strategies: leveraged buyouts (buying mature companies using mostly borrowed money); growth equity (investing in maturing but still relatively new businesses); and venture capital (betting on startups). Now there are more than 9,200 firms managing close to $7 trillion.
Suffice it to say, the secret is out. Most institutional investors, including pensions and college endowments, allocate a significant portion of their portfolios to private equity, often a third or more. It’s also a core investment at big money-management firms, notably Wall Street banks. Even Vanguard Group, known mostly for its low-cost index funds, now offers private equity to eligible clients. The only investors who don’t own private equity these days are retail investors, who are prohibited from doing so by US securities laws.
The reason private equity is so popular is that it has made a fortune. Cambridge Associates’ widely followed US Private Equity Index, which includes buyout and growth equity funds, posted a return of 14.3% a year over the past 25 years through 2021. That’s 4.4 percentage points a year better than the US stock market and 6.3 percentage points better than the global stock market, according to Cambridge Associates’ calculations. Its US Venture Capital Index performed even better, advancing 28.7% a year over the same time.
But those heady days are almost certainly over. Private equity was blessed with ideal conditions in recent decades, an environment it may never encounter again. Interest rates fell from record highs in the early 1980s to record lows two years ago, allowing buyout firms to borrow and refinance ever more cheaply along the way. At the same time, equity valuations rose to historic highs from historic lows, lifting the value of most companies. That combination of cheaper leverage and rising valuations is unbeatable.
Private equity had other advantages in its earlier days. Most investors had no exposure to private equity in the 1980s, so there was a lot of room for growth. There was also little competition, so managers had their pick of deals. When money began pouring into the space, more companies were suddenly able to raise capital without going public, which further expanded the field of potential investments. And while valuations were still low, existing private equity firms could sell their investments to newer firms for a hefty profit but still cheaply enough that the newcomers could also make money on a future sale.
Those advantages are no longer in play. Interest rates are rising from record lows; valuations are stretched; private equity is crowded, forcing firms to pay more for lower-quality businesses; and investors who can own private equity already have a sizeable stake. The best private equity can hope for is that interest rates remain low and valuations hang around current levels, allowing the industry to churn out satisfactory – if no longer spectacular — returns investors can live with.
It could get worse, though, and cracks are already beginning to show. Startup valuations are declining, possibly rivaling the selloff in technology stocks, and funding for new ventures is becoming more scarce. Banks are bracing for losses on buyout debt amid rising rates and a broader decline in corporate debt, leaving them more wary about extending new loans. Just as cheaper leverage and rising valuations were once a boon, rising interest rates and lower valuations will bite.
Those warning signs haven’t yet dampened investors’ enthusiasm for private equity, but they also haven’t had to confront them. Unlike publicly traded companies, the value of private businesses doesn’t fluctuate with the whims of the stock market. Absent a transaction to establish price, private companies are worth pretty much what their owners say they are, and private equity is no hurry to concede that its bets may be souring. But if this bear market persists, private equity firms will have to concede that their investments have declined in value, and the writedowns could be substantial.
And it may not end there. The real danger for private equity is a longer-term reversal of the past four decades, where interest rates continue to creep higher while valuations grind lower. It would force private equity firms to continue marking down the value of their investments, causing performance to sag. Just as investors chased private equity when it was hot, they can run the other way when it cools. They’ll start by reducing their allocation to private equity, turning off the torrent of money the industry has long taken for granted.
If the slump lasts long enough, investors will pressure private equity firms for an exit, but it won’t be easy to find buyers for their companies. Amundi SA’s chief investment officer, Vincent Mortier, compared private equity to a pyramid scheme recently. A better comparison might be the game of hot potato. Private equity firms have kept the party going mostly by selling companies to one another, which has allowed them to return money to investors. Also, business owners who sell to private equity often reinvest some of their newly minted fortunes back into private equity. All of that requires a steady stream of fresh capital to keep going.
Without continued investment, private equity firms may have to offer discounts to attract buyers, and investors may eventually want out bad enough that they’re willing to absorb losses. They would do better to hang on, but don’t assume private equity’s “sophisticated” investors are immune to poor financial decisions. Rich investors can chase performance as well as anyone, as the private equity boom has demonstrated. They can also retreat in a panic like any other investor, and perhaps more so because they have more to lose.
A disorderly unwind would be devastating for the industry and investors, but the ripples would extend well beyond. More than a few bankers, lawyers, accountants, consultants and engineers have been richly compensated to grease the wheels of private equity and will face a painful pay cut. And they’re the lucky ones. Private equity now owns large swaths of the US economy, including housing, health care, media and countless other industries and local businesses. A winter for private equity would be hugely disruptive to those businesses and for the workers, families and customers who rely on them.
Just how disruptive and how many are in harm’s way is hard to know because unlike public companies, private equity operates in the shadows. That may have been tolerable when private equity had a smaller footprint, but now it’s hard to justify. One reason public companies are required to disclose details about their business is that there’s a lot riding on their success or failure. The same is now true of many businesses that private equity owns.
While the industry is riding high, it will use its vast treasure and influence to ward off any attempts to regulate it. There have long been calls to close the so-called carried interest loophole, which inexplicably taxes private equity mavens at a lower rate than many ordinary Americans by treating much of their income as capital gains rather than ordinary income. Yet the loophole persists. A reckoning for private equity would give policy makers an opening to make changes. One of them should be to require private companies above a certain market value or with a large number of investors to comply with the same disclosure rules that apply to public companies.
Whatever happens, private equity isn’t going away, nor should it. It plays an important role in the broader financial system by providing capital to new ventures and bailing out struggling but salvageable businesses. But it has grown well beyond that now. Every downturn seems to require some soul searching about risks that escaped notice. Sooner or later, one of those will be private equity.
• Why Did a Fund Chief Call Private Equity a ‘Ponzi’?: Shuli Ren
• Wall Street Has a Big Buyout Loan Headache: Paul J. Davies
• Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: The SPAC Bust Is Expensive | 2022-07-05T12:02:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Private Equity’s Goldilocks Era Is Coming to an End - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/private-equitys-goldilocks-era-is-coming-to-an-end/2022/07/05/9f9fb5ce-fc56-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/private-equitys-goldilocks-era-is-coming-to-an-end/2022/07/05/9f9fb5ce-fc56-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Q: The upstairs bedrooms in my two-story house are always significantly warmer than on the main level. Is there any way to combat this?
A: It’s no mystery why upstairs rooms get hotter than downstairs ones: Heat rises. But it also moves in other directions, and for the top floor of a house, a lot of heat also comes down from the attic.
Close shades or drapes, especially during the hours when the sun hits windows directly. Do this downstairs and upstairs, because it will reduce the load on your air-conditioning system. Exterior shades are even more efficient at blocking heat, because they keep the glass cooler, but they are generally practical only for ground-floor windows. Depending on your house’s floor plan and how you use the upstairs, you can also keep the doors to the hottest rooms closed, so the others stay more comfortable.
Also, take advantage of fans, which use relatively little energy compared with air conditioners. Adjust the fan setting on your thermostat to “on,” not “auto.” This will make the blower fan circulate all the time, which can help even out the temperatures throughout the house. You might also experiment with closing a few vents on the ground floor, so more cool air goes to the upper levels.
Adding a fan in each bedroom and switching it on when people are in the room can make a dramatic difference. A fan doesn’t lower air temperature, and running it in a vacant room can raise the temperature slightly because of the heat from the motor. But when a room is occupied, the moving air boosts evaporation from your skin, even when you don’t seem to be sweating, and the change from liquid water to water vapor pulls heat away from your body.
Ceiling fans are terrific and can be relatively simple to install in rooms that have a ceiling light and access to the ceiling above to install enough bracing to support the weight of a fan. That’s usually easy on upper floors, because of attics. Be sure to purchase a fan that matches the size of the room and is appropriate for the height of the ceiling.
Tim Capps, who, with his wife, Evelyn, owns Capps Mechanical in Huntingtown, Md. (443-684-7914; cappsmechanical.com), said ducts serving upper levels are often undersized, which results in those floors getting less cool air than they need. But breaking into walls to redo ducts would cause a lot of collateral damage to drywall, so a better solution would be to supplement the existing system by installing a ductless system for upstairs.
A single-zone ductless system would start around $5,000. Or, depending on your house, you might want a multi-zone ductless system, with a single heat pump outside connected via two pipes to each indoor unit. A Mitsubishi Hyper-Heating system that serves up to eight zones and delivers 100 percent of the heat you’d need in cold weather down to 5 degrees Fahrenheit would cost about $20,000, including installation, Capps said.
The system automatically adjusts depending on how many zones are switched on, so you wouldn’t have to run it in every bedroom if some are used only occasionally. And if you don’t typically use the bedrooms during the day, you could set a programmable thermostat in each room to switch on close to the bedtime of that room’s occupant and to turn off in the morning.
Capps also recommends installing attic fans or calling an insulation company to give you a bid on installing spray foam insulation on the attic side of the roof. That would keep the attic much cooler, reducing the heat transfer from the attic to the upper-level rooms. DeVere Insulation in Baltimore (410-487-0584; devereinsulation.com), which works in Maryland and other areas, provides free estimates. | 2022-07-05T12:03:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to cool stifling upstairs bedrooms during the summer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/07/05/cooling-upstairs-bedrooms-summer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/07/05/cooling-upstairs-bedrooms-summer/ |
Post Politics Now ‘A lot more work to do’ on guns, Biden says after latest mass shooting
The latest: ‘We’ve got to get this under control,’ Biden says after shootings
On our radar: Garland weighs racial equity as he considers death penalty in Buffalo
Take a look: Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony from the Jan. 6 hearing
Noted: Trump tries to crack down on fundraising by others using his name
President Biden, first lady Jill Biden and family members watch fireworks during the Fourth of July celebration at the White House on Monday. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
Today, President Biden is scheduled to award the Medal of Honor to four U.S. soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War during a morning event in the East Room of the White House.
On Monday, following a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Ill., Biden said the country needs to do more on gun control. He did not offer particulars, and it’s unlikely Congress will act again after its recent passage of a heavily negotiated bipartisan bill that included the most significant changes in nearly 30 years. Vice President Harris is scheduled to be in Chicago on Tuesday for a previously scheduled appearance before the National Education Association.
11:15 a.m. Eastern: Biden awards the Medal of Honor to four soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War. Watch live here.
3 p.m. Eastern: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre provides a briefing. Watch live here.
4:15 p.m. Central (5:15 p.m. Eastern): Harris delivers remarks at a National Education Association meeting in Chicago.
More than a year after Congress approved a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, Republicans in nearly two dozen states have ratcheted up efforts to tap some of those funds for an unrelated purpose: paying for tax cuts.
The Post’s Tony Romm reports that the moves have threatened to siphon off aid that might otherwise help states fight the pandemic, shore up their local economies or prepare for a potential recession.
President Biden on Tuesday is scheduled to present the Medal of Honor to four U.S. Army soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War.
Honorees at the event planned in the East Room of the White House include Staff Sgt. Edward N. Kaneshiro (posthumous), Spec. 5 Dwight W. Birdwell, Spec. 5 Dennis M. Fujii and retired Maj. John J. Duffy.
According to the White House, the Medal of Honor is awarded to members of the armed forces “who distinguish themselves conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of their own lives above and beyond the call of duty.”
You can read the White House announcement about the four honorees here.
Speaking Monday at a White House gathering to celebrate Independence Day with military families, President Biden said the county has “more work to do” on gun safety following the massacre that left at least six people dead at a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Ill.
Earlier, Biden released a statement that referenced his recent signing of “the first major bipartisan gun reform legislation in almost thirty years.”
That legislation, among other things, provides grants to states for “red flag” laws, enhances background checks to include juvenile records and closes the “boyfriend loophole” by keeping guns away from nonspouse dating partners convicted of abuse. But it did not include more sweeping steps that Biden has advocated, such as renewing an assault weapons ban.
Biden’s statement did not mention any particular additional steps but closed by saying, “I’m not going to give up fighting the epidemic of gun violence.”
The Post’s David Nakamura reports that some survivors and family members of those killed told Attorney General Merrick Garland during a private meeting in June that they support bringing a capital case against the 18-year-old suspect, Payton Gendron, according to people involved in the discussion. Per David:
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.
Like no witness before her, Cassidy Hutchinson brought the public inside the West Wing on Jan. 6, 2021, and in the days surrounding it.
With illustrations from Washington Post contributor Lara Antal and audio from the recent congressional hearing at which Hutchinson appeared, you can experience several scenes she described here.
Attorneys for former president Donald Trump have sent dozens of “cease-and-desist” letters in recent years in an effort to stop deceptive fundraising solicitations that bear his name and likeness.
But, as The Post’s Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey report, that hasn’t stopped a flood of such appeals from reaching Republican phones and inboxes daily.
Michael and Josh write:
Eighteen months after leaving office, Trump remains the biggest draw for GOP donors, especially those who give small contributions. While he continues to rake in money, he also faces armies of unaffiliated fundraisers who ape or mimic Trump appeals and sometimes threaten or bully Republicans in Trump’s name to get money.
You can read more from Michael and Josh here. | 2022-07-05T12:03:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘A lot more work to do’ on guns, Biden says after mass shooting at Highland Park parade - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/biden-guns-medal-honor/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/biden-guns-medal-honor/ |
Public risk perceptions in NATO countries shifted after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, our surveys found
Analysis by Tobias Bunde
Tom Lubbock
A worker places flags outside the NATO Summit building on June 27 in Madrid. (Manu Fernandez/AP)
NATO leaders meeting in Madrid last week announced a surge of troops to defend the alliance’s eastern borders and endorsed the alliance’s new Strategic Concept. As our new public opinion data show, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered a convergence of views among NATO’s most powerful members.
In the Strategic Concept, NATO allies describe Russia as “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.” Surveys now show people in Canada, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States have become more willing to push back against Russia.
Our Munich Security Index analyzes public risk perceptions in the G-7 nations, as well as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — the BRICS — through surveys conducted by Kekst CNC, a global communications firm. Participants from the adult population are drawn from online research panels using a random stratified design aimed at producing a sample that’s representative of age, gender and region. Previous editions of the index were based on two waves in March and November 2021, respectively.
In the run-up to this year’s G-7 summit and NATO summit, we conducted a new wave of surveys solely in the G-7 countries to find out how public risk perceptions have changed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This effort was funded in part by the German government’s Press and Information Office. The May results, with around 1,000 participants in each G-7 country, indicate that between 60 and 70 percent of respondents agree with the statement that “the invasion of Ukraine represents a turning point in world politics” — a “Zeitenwende” or watershed moment.
Compared to a November 2021 version of the index, respondents have become far more willing to see their country oppose Russia, both economically and militarily, as the figure below shows. Previous differences in how to continental Europeans and the English-speaking members of the G-7 favored how to approach Russia have almost disappeared. In fact, respondents in Italy, the most reluctant to stand up to Russia in November 2021, are more hawkish now than U.K. respondents — the most hawkish in that month’s survey — were at that time.
Respondents are also willing to provide military support. NATO countries have given Ukraine weapons, intelligence and nonmilitary support to fight off the invasion. Other than Italy, an outlier in other surveys as well, more respondents say their country should do more to support Ukraine with weapons. People in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. are significantly more supportive of doing more than those in continental Europe, however.
Is there a difference between ‘defensive’ and ‘offensive’ weapons?
In contrast, relative majorities in Italy (38 percent), Germany (44 percent), France (48 percent) and the United Kingdom (50 percent), as well as absolute majorities in Canada (51 percent) and the United States (53 percent) agree with the statement that “NATO members should push back harder against Russia even if the risk of military escalation between NATO and Russia increases.” The only countries in which more than a quarter of respondents disagree are Italy (27 percent) and Germany (26 percent).
Respondents also seem ready to consider a major overhaul of NATO’s eastern flank, one of the key issues discussed at the summit. While a considerable part of the public in the NATO members surveyed remains undecided (from 31 percent in Germany to 41 percent in Canada and Italy), pluralities in Canada (43 percent), France and the U.K. (both 46 percent), Germany (48 percent) and the U.S. (49 percent) say that their country “should massively increase its military presence at NATO’s eastern border.”
In the absence of clear public opposition, politicians in Canada, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. can thus build on general support for a major change in NATO’s strategic posture. These are the four countries leading the multinational battalions stationed as NATO’s forward presence in Poland and the three Baltic nations.
NATO leaders again reaffirmed the alliance’s general decision from 2008 that “Ukraine will become a member of NATO” — without offering a timeline. For now, NATO membership for Ukraine is not a realistic option due to the ongoing conflict with Russia and fears of escalation.
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But supporters outnumber opponents in G-7 countries when it comes to whether Ukraine should be able to join NATO, we found. The net scores (those who support Ukraine’s bid minus those who oppose it) we tallied are generally slightly lower vs. questions on E.U. membership for Ukraine, but continental Europeans vs. other NATO members diverge in their views. We found net scores on the question of Ukraine’s joining NATO lower in Italy (+14), Germany (+16) and France (+28), compared to scores in the U.S. (+44), the U.K. (+44) and Canada (+58).
At the summit, NATO leaders decided to invite Finland and Sweden to become members. Net scores in each NATO country we surveyed on whether Finland and Sweden should join the alliance indicate a high level of support — from Italy (+44) to Canada (+65).
Tobias Bunde (@TobiasBunde) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Hertie School’s Centre for International Security (@Hertie_Security) and director of research & policy at the Munich Security Conference (@MunSecConf). He is the co-author, with Sophie Eisentraut, of a new Munich Security Brief, “Zeitenwende for the G7,” which discusses the results of the most recent edition of the Munich Security Index, in the context of Germany’s current G-7 presidency.
Tom Lubbock (@tmlbk) is a public opinion specialist at Kekst CNC and co-founder of J.L. Partners, having previously worked as a political scientist at the University of Oxford.
11:00 AMNoted: Trump tries to crack down on fundraising by others using his name | 2022-07-05T12:03:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Defending NATO's eastern flank is a priority, surveys show - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/nato-russia-putin-threat-opinion-surveys-ukraine-invasion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/nato-russia-putin-threat-opinion-surveys-ukraine-invasion/ |
If Pyongyang carries out a seventh nuclear test, don’t expect China and Russia to back U.N. Security Council moves
Analysis by Andrew Yeo
President Biden, center, with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, left, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, on June 29 during the NATO summit in Madrid. (Susan Walsh/AP)
During last week’s NATO summit in Madrid, the leaders of the United States, South Korea and Japan held a trilateral meeting. The lead topic: security concerns about North Korea, which reportedly has completed preparations for a seventh nuclear test.
This meeting comes just a month after the U.N. Security Council failed to adopt a resolution condemning North Korea for test-firing three missiles, including an intercontinental ballistic missile. These weapons, some analysts argue, suggest North Korea may be capable of delivering a nuclear strike against the United States, South Korea or Japan.
Why democracies win more wars than autocracies
North Korea’s isolation from the global economy, further compounded by the regime’s self-imposed border lockdown during the covid-19 pandemic, has also given the Security Council little left to sanction. Without cooperation from Russia and, especially, China — which accounted for more than 90 percent of pre-pandemic trade with North Korea — it’s unclear how the international community will enforce even the existing sanctions against North Korea.
As multilateral institutions become less effective in an era of stronger China-Russia cooperation, the U.S. and South Korea have shifted to a strategy of defense, deterrence and denial against North Korea. As waiting on North Korea to respond to diplomatic overtures has become increasingly costly, the U.S. and South Korea have opted for a stronger defense posture, including discussions on expanded joint military exercises and positioning U.S. strategic assets such as aircraft carriers and nuclear-capable bombers closer to the Korean Peninsula.
Andrew Yeo is senior fellow and the SK-Korea Foundation chair at the Brookings Institution and professor of politics at The Catholic University of America. His latest book is State, Society and Markets in North Korea (Cambridge University Press, 2021). | 2022-07-05T12:03:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | North Korea’s global isolation also leaves the U.N. fewer options. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/north-korea-sanctions-weapons-unsc-security-council-veto-russia-china/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/north-korea-sanctions-weapons-unsc-security-council-veto-russia-china/ |
Tuesday briefing: What to know about the July Fourth Highland Park shooting; Jayland Walker protests; Brittney Griner; and more
A mass shooting at a July Fourth parade left at least six people dead.
Where? Highland Park, a Chicago suburb. A gunman perched on a rooftop fired dozens of rounds at spectators. At least 40 other people were injured.
The latest: Police arrested a “person of interest” last night, a 22-year-old White man who matches earlier descriptions of the suspect.
Across the nation: Chaotic scenes unfolded at July Fourth celebrations in several cities where firework sounds were mistaken for gunshots.
Protests erupted in Ohio after police released video of a Black man’s killing.
The background: 25-year-old Jayland Walker was shot dozens of times by officers while fleeing a traffic stop in Akron last week. Body-camera footage was released Sunday.
The latest: About 50 people were arrested as protests continued yesterday.
A WNBA star detained in Russia asked President Biden for help.
Who is she? Brittney Griner, arrested on drug charges in February. In a letter to Biden, she wrote: “I’m terrified I might be here forever.”
What else to know: Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday declared victory in Ukraine’s eastern region of Luhansk, where his forces captured a key stronghold this weekend.
A West Virginia community lost a major opioid trial this week.
What happened? A federal judge said the nation’s three big drug distributors aren’t responsible for the harm caused by a flood of addictive prescription pain pills.
Why this matters: It’s a blow to one of the places hit hardest by the opioid epidemic. These three companies finalized a $21 billion settlement this year with most of the communities that had been suing them, but communities in West Virginia weren’t included.
Republican states are trying to use federal covid aid to pay for tax cuts.
The money, around $350 billion nationally, was intended to help states fight the coronavirus and strengthen their economies after the pandemic.
How many are trying this? Nearly two dozen states, including Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis used it to pay for a fuel tax pause.
Why it matters: Some experts are worried that tax cuts like this could soon leave big holes in state budgets, especially if there’s a recession.
Torrential rain is flooding Sydney for the fourth time in 18 months.
How much rain? 1½ months’ worth fell on the Australian city in the first four days of July. The dangerous weather is forecast to continue this week.
The impact: Some suburbs are submerged. There have been hundreds of rescues, and about 50,000 people are affected by evacuation orders or warnings.
A top secret map from D-Day is now in the Library of Congress.
Where it comes from: The family of Joe Vaghi, a Navy lieutenant commander who guided thousands of troops landing on Omaha Beach in 1944 during the allied invasion of the northwest coast of France.
Why it’s special: The map has notes the 23-year-old penciled in just before the landing. It’s a rare artifact from one of World War II’s most historic events.
And now … with vasectomies on the rise after the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling: We’ve debunked some common myths. | 2022-07-05T12:04:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Tuesday, July 5 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/07/05/what-to-know-for-july-5/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/07/05/what-to-know-for-july-5/ |
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn. CT) (KK Ottesen/FTWP)
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn. CT), 48, became a national leader in the fight against gun violence when he was a U.S. representative after a massacre in his district at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, which was one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. This interview was conducted on June 10. Thirteen days later, the Senate passed a bipartisan gun violence prevention bill.
Chris Murphy’s gun-control crusade has arrived back where it began
When you get news of another shooting, particularly a school shooting, how does that hit you, as somebody who’s in the trenches of fighting gun violence and has seen its impact on communities?
The first thing I always think about is the Sandy Hook parents, because I know that they are forced to relive that day every time they see these images on the screen. Very often I’ll reach out to them, text some of my closer friends from Sandy Hook and just tell them I’m thinking about them. And then I start to panic about the script we’re about to go through, like, “Are we going to do this again? Are we going to do ‘thoughts and prayers,’ and then have a burst of conversation about legislative action, and then it all disappears?” I start to think, “What can I do to try to interrupt that script? What can I do to try to make sure that this time is different?”
Having been at the firehouse in Sandy Hook that day, having been with the parents, and then having grown up in the Senate around those parents, I wake up every day thinking about how I can try to honor those kids’ lives. I also am deeply embarrassed by the fact that I didn’t work on this issue before Sandy Hook. It was maybe a month after Sandy Hook that I went to a community forum in the north end of Hartford and the parents there were furious at me. “Where have you been for the last six years?” “Why do you all of a sudden care about gun violence?” “It’s been our reality the entire time you’ve been in public service.” So I feel like I’m also trying to make up for lost time because this epidemic was real for so many people in Connecticut way before Sandy Hook.
How do you get people for whom gun violence hasn’t been an issue to focus on something that hasn’t — touch wood — impacted their lives directly?
Well, I’m very much in awe of these survivors and these moms and dads, who, in the middle of their grief, have chosen also to be activists. They are 10 times more impactful than I am. Their willingness to tell their story and to share their grief with my colleagues is transformative. It was the Sandy Hook parents reaching out to Joe Manchin in 2013 that convinced him to take a huge political risk and write the background checks bill compromise. And it has also been the relationships that these parents have developed with other members of the Senate that have gotten us to the point where we have more serious conversations than ever before. And obviously I have used the floor of the Senate to express my real, organic outrage at our inaction in the wake of these shootings. Because I worry that my colleagues, but also the rest of the country, could develop a sense of numbness. I’ve tried to use my voice to shake and rattle my colleagues into remembering that none of this is normal and we should not accept any of this.
How often do you feel like that gets through?
We certainly have had this rhythm in which the country pays attention to this broad issue after a mass shooting, but it only lasts for a couple of days or maybe a couple of weeks. This moment is slightly different in that the twin cataclysms of Buffalo and Uvalde have had a very different effect on the public. But we are also at a moment where the cumulative work of the movement, both inside Congress and outside Congress, is having an impact. Over the last 10 years I’ve had a lot of partners in the Senate that’ll be willing to talk to me for a little while, but then without consummation.
This is a moment where all of those individual partners are now coming to a bigger table, and so I feel as if the work that we’ve done to grow the number of Republicans willing to talk is paying off, because we’ve convened a big table and almost everybody at that table has been part of one of these prior conversations, and I don’t think they’d be at this table if we hadn’t done the sort of hard, long work over the last 10 years to grow the number of people on the Republican side who are willing to engage.
How do you explain to the families, to yourself, why more hasn’t been done, how it’s taken so long and still: little to nothing?
Yeah. I certainly believed after Sandy Hook that everything had changed and that the country had woken up. And I’ve come to the conclusion over time that’s not how politics works. There’s very few moments of epiphany and 180-degree change in Washington. Most things here require political power to shift, and that process can take decades. The anti-gun-violence movement for all intents and purposes did not exist in 2012; it is a creation of the last 10 years. And it’s been the slow, methodical development of that movement and the public’s participation in it that has allowed us to gradually see change as more possible. But listen, I’m sick and tired of explaining to parents whose kids are dead why Congress doesn’t do anything. I mean, it’s heartbreaking. But I do believe that we are part of a social change movement, and if you study social change movements, they unfortunately take decades, not years.
Can you talk about a dark moment, when you just wanted to give up?
Listen, I don’t think it gets any worse than the failure of the background checks vote in 2013 and having to walk out of the Senate chamber and confront these [Sandy Hook] parents who, frankly, expected we were going to do much more than background checks, and we couldn’t even do that. The Bardens and the Sotos and Dawn Hochsprung’s daughter. I just — that was such a frustrating time for me, because I was so new to the Senate and I wasn’t in a position where I could cobble together the compromise, because I was literally introducing myself to my colleagues at the moment where this legislation was moving through the system. It was a very, very, very, very difficult moment. But I remember talking to one of the parents who said, “Chris, I’m not giving up. I’m going to be an advocate for the next 40 years.” That was all I needed to hear to convince me to keep going.
How do you respond when people say that you’re politicizing a tragedy?
I tell people that the police don’t wait two days to try to solve the murder. To me, the way we stop these shootings is to pass legislation that makes an impact, so why would I wait to try to prevent the next shooting? We should all be working faster than we are today to try to prevent these. I think this idea of not talking about policy in the wake of a mass shooting is largely an invention of the status quo that wants nobody to talk about policy change at the very moment when the public is most interested in talking about policy change. But I think that idea that you can’t talk about policy after a mass shooting has largely disappeared, in part because the shootings now happen so frequently. Uvalde happened on a Tuesday, and we were having meetings with lots of Republicans on Thursday.
Having spent years trying to convince and cajole colleagues into making change, have you questioned whether this profession is the best way to do that, given the frustrations, and whether you would consider activism or some other way to influence the issue and push it forward?
I don’t think anybody here worth their salt doesn’t occasionally question whether this is the best use of their time, but I’ve had enough breakthroughs here to know the difference you can make.
I remember being at our community pool in Cheshire, Connecticut, right after the Affordable Care Act, and this dad coming up to me and saying, “Listen, now you don’t know me, and I don’t want to bother you, I know you’re here with your kids. But I just want to tell you, my kid has a congenital heart defect, and I woke up every single night worried that the rest of his life was going to be defined by this ailment that was no fault of his own, and every decision he made for the rest of his life would be dictated by whether he could get care or not get care. With one piece of legislation, you changed his life and you changed my life. Thank you.” And so I just know that this place still has the ability to do things. So I think I’ve become comfortable with just keeping at it knowing that those moments are possible.
If you could go back to when you were just starting out and give yourself advice, is there anything you would change about the way that you’ve approached your work here?
I have learned over my time here how important relationships and friendships are and how, especially on an issue like this, trust is so important. And I’ve tried to build that trust with Republicans. When I got here I was probably so angry at our failure that I probably too often retreated to making my argument rather than building the relationships necessary to solve the problem. And over time I’ve gotten better at that. Maybe that would be the one piece of advice I’d give myself 10 years later.
Anger, anguish among Parkland and Newtown families after Texas shooting
You said a deal in the Senate it would be a “triumph” and a “miracle.” In your heart of hearts or in your gut, do you think that this could be the moment for that miracle?
I don’t know. I won’t accept a change in our gun laws that just checks a box. I’m only going to agree to something that is meaningful and saves lots of lives, but I also accept that we are not going to pass an assault weapons ban right now, and it would be foolish to do nothing until we can do everything. There is a reason why it’s taken 30 years; this is the most politically complicated, emotionally fraught issue we deal with, and there’s lots of incentives for people to just stay in their political corners.
This moment does feel different. We’re closer than ever before, but I’m realizing how hard that last step is. At this point I know I can count on my Democratic colleagues. On the Republican side, I know them all pretty well, and I generally know the folks that are going to be the real hard targets to persuade. But I will occasionally be surprised by them.
When you speak to your Republican colleagues or folks who say one thing behind closed doors and then won’t take a position publicly, how do you feel about that?
Kind of like you can’t change your family, I can’t change the people I have to work with, at least inside a two-year period of time. So if somebody says “no,” or somebody tells me something privately and then says a different thing publicly, I cannot afford to give up on them because, ultimately, when you’re trying to search for 60 or 70 votes, you will take the support from wherever and however it comes. So I’m pretty coldblooded about the business I’m in. You have to be always looking for the way to get somebody from “no” to “yes.”
KK Ottesen is a regular contributor to the Magazine. This interview has been edited and condensed. | 2022-07-05T13:03:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sen. Chris Murphy on gun-control laws: ‘We’re closer than ever before’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/07/05/chris-murphy-uvalde-gun-laws/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/07/05/chris-murphy-uvalde-gun-laws/ |
By Emily Laber-Warren
(Matt Rota/Illustration for The Washington Post)
In middle school, Bryan James Robles joined the track team mostly to keep up with his three closest friends. Running turned out to be transformative for him, instilling not only discipline but also academic excellence, because he needed good grades to stay on the team. But in 10th grade, Robles blew a key race and did not qualify for the state championships for which he’d been training all year, mile after mile in the hot sun. “I told my parents I was going to quit. I’m done,” he recalls. But his buddies said: “You got this. Pick yourself up.” He did, and he made it to the championships the following year.
It’s a long way — and not only in miles — from Rio Rancho, N.M., where Robles grew up, the child of Mexican immigrants who speak little English, to New York University, where he recently completed his freshman year. Naturally timid, Robles, 19, says he never would have had the grades or the guts to go to college so far from home if it hadn’t been for his best friends and the ways they supported and challenged him.
Adolescence can be a tumultuous time, and to make sure teens stay focused, the adults in their lives often push them toward things that seem to augur success: doing well in school, helping around the house, participating in sports or community service. But what adults tend to underappreciate, experts say, is the value of close teen friendships.
Teens need summer jobs, especially this year
“The main thing I have learned from listening to teenagers since the late ’80s is that they are starving for deep, intimate connections with other people,” says Niobe Way, a professor of developmental psychology at NYU and an expert on teenage boys’ friendships. “And they keep on running up against a culture of adults that basically say: ‘That’s not important. What’s important is for you to study for that test and to get good grades and SAT scores.’ ”
Parents may be wary of peers who could steer their children toward risky behaviors, and research does suggest that hanging out with underage drinkers, rule-breakers or petty criminals can lead to trouble. But positive peer influences can be equally powerful. Studies have shown that children who develop supportive, trusting friendships with others their age are more likely to become healthy, happy and professionally successful adults.
This insight may be particularly timely, because so many teens are struggling. Psychiatric emergency room visits have been rising among adolescents, and top health authorities are warning that the United States is in the midst of a teen mental health crisis that the pandemic has only intensified. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that about 44 percent of high school students surveyed had experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the previous year, and almost 20 percent had seriously considered suicide. But the CDC researchers also discovered a potential antidote: Teens who felt close to people at school fared better on all mental health measures.
Psychologist Joseph Allen and his team at the University of Virginia have been following nearly 200 adolescents since 1998. One of his lab’s most robust findings is that having one or more strong friendships during the teen years predicts a range of benefits later on: academic success, better mental health, rewarding romantic relationships in young adulthood. A study they published in 2015 found that teens with close friendships were even physically healthier as adults.
Allen’s lab has also found that the “cool” kids at ages 13 to 15 — those who valued and attained popularity — became young adults who struggled to form meaningful relationships and were more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs. When it comes to predicting who is most likely to succeed, Allen says, “what we’re learning is that it’s not who is popular. It’s not who is the life of the party. It’s more likely the two ninth-graders that [are] spending Friday night sitting around their basement watching YouTube videos and eating cookies but forming a friendship that is durable, and that teaches the skills that you need to then make it as an adult.”
Unlike the interactions teens have with adults, which come with established expectations, peer bonds have more fluidity, offering opportunities to experiment, says clinical psychologist Erlanger Turner, a professor at Pepperdine University and the founder of Therapy for Black Kids. These relationships can also involve positive peer pressure. “They push each other in good ways,” Allen says. That was Robles’s experience. “Cody over here ran eight miles. I’m going to try to go 8.5 miles today,” he says. “It was friendly competition, but still competition.”
How does a parent support good sleep habits for tweens and teens?
Adolescents also give each other feedback with a stark honesty that parents might not get away with, whether it’s, “You need to use deodorant,” or, “Let’s compromise.” Says Allen: “The young person who has a little temper tantrum and says, ‘I don’t want to see that movie, I want to see this movie,’ they get a lot of strong feedback that socializes them that that’s not what you do.”
How adults can help foster teen friendships
Avoid applying pressure or probing. Pressuring children about their friendships or asking probing questions will probably be perceived as intrusive and cause them to shut down. “Parents want the best for their kids, and sometimes they can get a bit pushy,” Turner says. “And that can backfire, resulting in the child distancing themselves from their parent.”
Discuss how to be a good friend and resolve conflicts. Use a celebrity feud or your own minor disagreement with a relative to initiate conversations that get teens thinking about how they want to behave and be treated in their friendships. What should you do when a friend hurts your feelings — or you hurt theirs? Should you tell a friend whether you think they’re making a bad decision? When a friend is feeling down, what’s the best way to show support? You might even ask a teen’s advice, within limits, about your own friendship dilemmas, NYU’s Way suggests. “Kids are starving to be talked to like an adult, meaning taking them seriously and taking their opinions seriously.”
Bring children together. Welcome your teen’s friends into your home and, if possible, bring them along on family vacations. Help young people see their friends independently by dropping them at the mall or a skate park.
Don’t criticize friends you don’t like. If your child has a friend you don’t approve of, keep it to yourself unless the peer poses an actual danger, says Jillian Rose, director of the Teen Connection Project at Wyman, a St. Louis-based youth development organization. If you remain nonjudgmental, your teen is more likely to consult with you if things go awry.
Focus on quality, not quantity. The experience of closeness is what matters, so having even one good friend is enough. But some teens might not want a close buddy, and that’s okay, too. In that case, Turner suggests supporting more low-key social interactions. “Ask your kid, ‘Is there someone that you had a good time with today?’ ” he says. “If we can get kids to identify one person or peer that they feel connected to in some type of way, that’s important and helpful for their development.”
Be open to all varieties of friendship. Although social media can be harmful to children when there is bullying or negative comparisons, gaming and other forms of online socializing can also build solid bonds, especially for kids who are anxious or have trouble making friends at school. “Many teens grew up with social media and technology, so it’s a significant aspect of their lives,” Turner wrote in an email. If you wonder whether an adolescent’s online relationships are healthy, he added, “you can ask them, ‘Why do you spend so much time connecting with friends online instead of in person?’ That may help you get an idea about how significant those relationships are” and whether they are beneficial.
Adolescence is when people begin figuring out who they are and how to become independent from their families, so friendships formed during these years have special resonance. “There’s just so much energy and passion that comes with adolescents in general, and that transfers into the relationships that they have,” Rose says. “They can share so deeply and be so supportive and so vulnerable with one another.”
Emily Laber-Warren directs the health and science reporting program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. | 2022-07-05T13:03:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Adults undervalue teen friendships. Here’s why you should support them. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/07/05/teen-friendships-important/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/07/05/teen-friendships-important/ |
‘The Crane Wife’ essay hit a nerve. A new book reminds us why.
C. J. Hauser’s memoir-in-essays is a frank exploration of intimacy and romance that doesn’t always lead to a happily ever after
Review by Susan Coll
(Alla Dreyvitser/The Washington Post)
The grief essay is, or perhaps ought to be, a genre unto itself. Getting it right appears to involve an alchemy that braids personal loss with metaphorical, and often quotidian, parallels, all in gorgeous prose. Bonus points for leavening the pain with a bit humor. Hauser’s story of calling off her marriage to her cheating, gaslighting fiance, then finding grace while studying the whooping crane off the Gulf Coast of Texas, hit all of these notes. It brought my mind favorites in this genre, such as Leslie Jamison’s “The Empathy Exams” and Kathryn Schulz’s “When Things Go Missing.”
The one book about marriage I wish I’d read before my wedding
Hauser is a playful, energetic and always likable writer, and to ask whether the rest of the collection rises to the level of title essay is possibly the wrong question. Subjects include a visit to a robotics conference, her love for the musical “The Fantasticks” and various relationships. While the cumulative effect of reading these essays in succession is ultimately affecting, along the way it sometimes feels disjointed. It is hard to fully appreciate her deconstruction of the television show “The X Files,” for example, or her analysis of the classic film, “The Philadelphia Story,” without first revisiting the source material.
This is less a criticism than an existential question about the nature of essay collections: Are they meant to be read sequentially, or are they more like a restaurant menu, where one chooses according to appetite, mood and the waiter’s recommendation?
Hauser leans into this problem: “I will not bring these threads together for you,” she declares, referring to how the story about accompanying a friend to a fertility clinic ties into one about a man who drove her through the park in lilac season, or another about contemplating breast reduction surgery. “I will not bring them together for myself. It took so much work for me to separate them. And I won’t put them back together for the sake of being narratively satisfying …”
Life these days is a symphony of grief and celebration. Kathryn Schulz puts it into words.
Point taken. Hauser, who teaches creative writing at Colgate University, and is the author of two novels, sets her own rules, both in the personal and narrative sense. In the essay, “The Two-Thousand-Pound-Bee,” for example, she weaves disparate threads that include her grandparents’ idyllic-seeming life on Martha’s Vineyard, the Saturday Night Live Killer Bees skits featuring John Belushi and poetic reflections on her biological clock, in discordant, lovely, and sometimes mournful tones. “Will I ever be young and beautiful and pregnant by the sea? I will not, I will not, I will not.”
In this collection, Hauser follows that man’s lead, embarking on a journey of exploration that is very different from the one she had envisioned before leaving for that pivotal trip to the Gulf Coast. With its frank explorations of sexuality, grief, and other intimate subjects, this book might not be for everyone (it includes a detailed trigger warning). Yet I kept thinking about all of people in my life into whose hands I can’t wait to put “The Crane Wife.”
Susan Coll’s sixth novel, “Bookish People,” will be published in August.
A Memoir in Essays
By C.J. Hauser
Doubleday. 320 pp. $27.95 | 2022-07-05T13:29:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Crane Wife by C.J. Hauser book review - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/07/05/crane-wife-hauser/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/07/05/crane-wife-hauser/ |
In 71 games with the Rochester Red Wings, Andrew Stevenson has a .308 batting average and an .842 on-base-plus-slugging percentage. (Stephen Lasnick/Rochester Red Wings)
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — It has been three months since Andrew Stevenson found a crowd of teammates by his locker at the Washington Nationals’ spring training facility. He was tossing gear into a duffel bag. Juan Soto asked what was going on. A few others shook their heads, looking at the carpet to avoid Stevenson’s eyes.
Every March and April, it seems at least one player is cut against the wishes of just about everyone around him. This year was Stevenson’s turn. But after he was designated for assignment, he declined to become a free agent, sticking with the organization that drafted him in the second round in 2015. Stevenson retained his $850,000 salary, earning above the major league minimum. He felt the Nationals might have more use for him down the line.
After all, Stevenson pinch-ran in the 2019 National League wild-card game, scoring on Soto’s memorable single off Josh Hader. From 2018 to 2020, across 170 plate appearances, the outfielder had a .308 batting average, a .385 on-base percentage and a .466 slugging percentage. As a left-handed pinch hitter, his career slash line is .304/.362/.429. He is, in theory, the sort of guy who helps a team win baseball games, even if he’s 28 and has never clicked as an everyday player. Now he’s trying to prove that again with the Class AAA Rochester Red Wings.
“Getting DFA’d, getting taken off the 40-man roster, was maybe the toughest moment I’ve had,” Stevenson said at Frontier Field last week. “Of course, I’d be happy to be a fourth outfielder in the majors. I would love that. But I also still feel like I can be an everyday player somewhere, whether it’s [with] the Nationals or someone else. I think teams are seeing that.”
In 71 games with the Red Wings, Stevenson has a .308 batting average and an .842 on-base-plus-slugging percentage. He has good speed and a solid glove, so his opportunities have hinged — and will hinge — on whether he can hit enough. His lack of minor league options is a factor, too. In past seasons, Stevenson often swung between the majors and minors. Now, the Nationals can’t move him between the levels without putting him on waivers.
Back in April, the club chose to carry Yadiel Hernandez, Lane Thomas, Victor Robles and utility man Dee Strange-Gordon, who moonlit in left and center field before getting DFA’d in June. One could argue Stevenson offers more upside than Hernandez, who is 34, a streaky batter and rough in the field. But if the Nationals deal Nelson Cruz before the trade deadline in early August, Hernandez could become the everyday designated hitter, opening a spot for an extra outfielder.
Donovan Casey and Josh Palacios, both 26, are ahead of Stevenson because they are on the 40-man roster. But with his production in Class AAA, Stevenson could have an outside shot to rejoin the team he played for over parts of the past five seasons.
“I’ve had Andrew a lot in recent years, and what I notice now is that he’s identifying and hitting breaking balls way better,” said Matthew LeCroy, the Red Wings’ manager. “He’s always hit velocity well, which I think is why he was a good pinch hitter up there, hunting those fastballs from the big relievers out of the ’pen. But he got chewed up a bit when they started throwing him slider, curve, slider. He’s done well to address that weakness.”
Stevenson’s slugging percentage against four-seam fastballs in 2021? .508. Against sliders? .098. Against curves? .050. Against change-ups, a pitch he has hit well in small samples? .556, showing not all off-speed pitches are the problem. But if Stevenson can’t see sliders better, major league pitchers can too easily identify and exploit a hole in his swing.
Asked about his success as a pinch hitter, Stevenson described an aggressive approach, looking for something hard to drive at any point of a count. Then asked if he could apply that to all at-bats, Stevenson laughed a bit. Of course, it’s not that easy. Hitting is a constant puzzle. It’s mental gymnastics. It’s making split-second decisions that, in the aggregate, could dictate if you play in Washington or Rochester, where you’re constantly reminded that you’re not in Washington, where you used to live your dream every day.
“Here’s how I look at it: When I was pinch-hitting, I got to the point where I never felt any pressure because no one expects you to do anything, right?” Stevenson said. “I would just think: ‘I’m not supposed to get a hit. The numbers aren’t in my favor. This guy’s throwing 98 or 99 with a plus breaking ball. So I’m just going to relax and try to do something cool, something to help my team.’
“It’s sometimes been a challenge for me to have that approach while starting games. I’m not totally sure why. But an at-bat is an at-bat, no matter the situation or inning. I’ll do my best.” | 2022-07-05T13:35:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Andrew Stevenson hopes for return to Washington Nationals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/andrew-stevenson-nationals-red-wings/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/andrew-stevenson-nationals-red-wings/ |
Australia’s Nick Kyrgios puts on his white tennis shoes before his fourth round men’s singles match against Brandon Nakashima of the United States on day eight of the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Monday, July 4, 2022. After winning his match, Kyrgios traded in his all-white grass-court shoes for a red-and-white pair of sneakers, and replaced his white hat with a red one, before being interviewed on Centre Court. Big deal? Not to Kyrgios. To a reporter who peppered him with questions about it, though, sure seemed to be. That’s because the All England Club has a rather strict policy about all-white attire while on match courts during the tournament -- something that some players think was better suited to the 1880s than the 2020s, while others appreciate as part of the charm of the oldest Grand Slam event in tennis. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali) | 2022-07-05T13:35:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wimbledon's all-white clothing bothers some, delights others - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/tennis/wimbledons-all-white-clothing-bothers-some-delights-others/2022/07/05/3bce967a-fc63-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/tennis/wimbledons-all-white-clothing-bothers-some-delights-others/2022/07/05/3bce967a-fc63-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
The American soccer star, now in his 50s, is dealing with dementia and suspected chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Bruce Murray is among the former athletes likely to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. (Eric Lee for The Washington Post)
He recounts learning the game on the fields of Bretton Woods Recreation Center in Germantown, where his father, Gordon, was the golf pro.
CTE cannot be diagnosed until death, when brain tissue is analyzed. Robert Stern, a doctor who has evaluated Murray’s test results, said the former forward and midfielder has “mild dementia,” which is unusual in someone his age.
From the archives: Doctors provide consensus symptoms of CTE among living, a major step for researchers
Stern, the director of clinical research for Boston University’s CTE Center, also said Murray’s “cognitive impairment and behavioral difficulties” were in line with what is seen in patients who are diagnosed with CTE after death.
“We don’t know what the timetable is,” Murray said, “and how fast this is going to speed up.”
Medication and information have improved quality of life, but there’s still the great unknown.
“We’ve come a long way,” Lynn Murray said, fighting back tears. “Things are much better now, but we just don’t know.”
They’ve decided to tell their story to raise awareness of brain injuries. They also want to warn about the possible dangers of heading the ball, something Murray believes contributed to his condition.
During his pro career — which spanned from 1988 to 1995 and included 85 appearances with the national team — Murray said he was diagnosed with at least four concussions. In those days, though, head injuries of all kinds were not taken as seriously as they are now. Had those lesser blows — with the ball and with opponents — occurred today, he believes he would’ve been sidelined many more times.
“As a parent, if I knew somebody like me who had done a ton of heading and is now going through this, maybe there’s a cause and effect here,” he said, emphasizing the impact heading could have on young players.
“Developing brains,” he added, “have no business heading the ball.”
Last week, the Concussion Legacy Foundation and the family of Scott Vermillion — a former University of Virginia defender who ended a four-year pro career in 2001 with D.C. United — announced he had CTE when he died in December 2020 of acute alcohol and prescription drug poisoning. He was 44.
From the archives: More football leads to worse CTE, scientists say. Consider NFL great Willie Wood.
“As more information and more tools to study this came out, we knew soccer around the world was going to have a part in this conversation,” said former MLS star Taylor Twellman, whose career was ended by concussions and who started a foundation focused on head injuries.
“It’s only going to become bigger,” the ESPN analyst said, “because we have more information than we did 20 years ago.”
‘I just wandered around’
Murray was one of the greatest players to come from the soccer-rich Washington area. In the early 1980s, he starred at Churchill High in Potomac and won two national club championships.
At Clemson, he won NCAA titles as a freshman and a senior, and in that last year, he received the college game’s most prestigious award, the Hermann Trophy.
In the gap between the NASL’s extinction in 1985 and MLS’s launch in 1996, Murray played for the Washington Stars and Maryland Bays in the low-budget American Soccer League. His overseas career featured stints with Luzern in Switzerland, Millwall and Stockport County in England, and Ayr United in Scotland.
Head injuries, however, began to mount. The worst episode came in 1993 during a friendly in Saudi Arabia when, in the first minute, a defender’s knee crashed into his head.
The next thing he remembered, he was in Los Angeles being examined by the team doctor. “Everything in between was gone,” Murray said. A month later, he was back on the field.
That summer, he joined Millwall in England’s rough-and-tumble second flight. Another concussion left him in a fog.
“I remember going to the store and didn’t know why I was there,” he said. “I just wandered around.”
He said he was reminded of that episode six years ago when he read about D.C. United’s Chris Rolfe experiencing the same thing while dealing with a brain injury.
Despite getting “dinged” again at Millwall, Murray said he accepted a starting assignment the next match.
“I thought, ‘I don’t even know who I am right now,’ but I couldn’t give up my place,” Murray said. At halftime, he was replaced because he “wasn’t right.” He didn’t play again for months.
The combination of injuries and roster changes ended his national team career before the 1994 World Cup in the United States. At the time, he was the program’s all-time leading scorer with 21 goals.
‘Everything becomes overwhelming’
Since retiring in 1995, Murray has remained involved in soccer as a coach and, for a spell, United’s TV color commentator. He launched a soccer academy, which operates at Bretton Woods, and coaches a semipro team, Rockville SC.
“Interestingly, with soccer, he does fine” managing his condition, Lynn said.
But Murray conceded: “I can talk a good game, but everything becomes overwhelming. I can do everything in my head, but now I have to really attack something slowly.”
Physically, he added, “I don’t have that muscle memory of where I need to be going with the next step.”
Lynn, who has been married to Bruce for 10 years, always knew her husband had some memory issues. She became alarmed when he began drinking heavily, which was “out of character for him,” she said. “He could go a year without a sip.”
“A situation where he is facing a problem, maybe an emotional issue,” she added, “then he feels like he can’t process it.”
Anger issues also surfaced — common among people with dementia and suspected CTE.
“It was like he was a different person,” Lynn said. “Those were dark times.”
Bruce interjected: “It’s like the Incredible Hulk. I have to throttle it.”
It took the couple years to find people who understood what they were going through. Lynn connected with Brandi Winans and Lisa McHale, whose husbands, former NFL players, died after suffering from neurological problems. Lisa McHale is CLF’s director of legacy family relations.
“That’s when I realized someone knew what I was talking about — finally,” Lynn said.
“If I didn’t have an advocate to fight for me,” Bruce said, “I could have never found the right people.”
Consultations and MRI exams followed. The result was “the worst-case scenario,” Lynn said. “It’s like we knew, but it was the answer we were looking for.”
Said Bruce, “But now there are more questions.”
As they manage their lives with Bruce’s brain injuries, the Murrays are passionate about educating parents about the dangers of heading the ball.
A 2016 British study suggested routine heading of the ball can cause damage to brain structure and function. That same year, the U.S. Soccer Federation banned heading by children 10 and under in organized competition and limited the amount of heading by 11-, 12- and 13-year-olds in practice.
Britain implemented similar guidelines in 2020 following a study that showed former pro players were at greater risk of dying from brain disease.
Murray hopes sharing his experience will help others.
“Because of the steps we are taking, we have come out of this okay,” he said. “But we don’t know where it’s going to go down the road.” | 2022-07-05T14:08:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bruce Murray deals with mild dementia, suspected CTE - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/bruce-murray-dementia-cte/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/bruce-murray-dementia-cte/ |
Japan’s Latest Unicorn Is a Thailand Mobile Payments Firm
By Min Jeong Lee and Takahiko Hyuga | Bloomberg
A vendor uses a mobile phone while waiting for customers at a clothes stall at the Chatuchak Weekend Market in Bangkok, Thailand, on Saturday, May 30, 2015. Photographer: Dario Pignatelli/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)
Mobile payment gateway provider Opn Co. was valued at roughly $1 billion in a $120 million funding round last month, making it one of a handful of unicorns in Japan.
The Tokyo-based company, previously known as Omise, owes much of its success to its early entry into another Asian nation: Thailand. Entering the market in 2013, when it was heavily reliant on cash transactions, Opn seized a sizable share of mobile payments by helping small businesses make the digital transition and getting the major network operators to adopt its technology, the company said.
The Series C+ funding marks a rare success for a Japanese startup at a time when venture capital is bracing for a sharp industry downturn. JIC Venture Growth Investments and Mars Growth Capital Pte participated in the round, while Japan’s largest bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. agreed to provide about $38 million as part of a loan guarantee program organized by the country’s trade ministry.
“Our priority now is on developing our product line and expanding our presence in both existing and new markets,” Jun Hasegawa, co-founder and chief executive officer of Opn said in an interview. “While we are always considering ways to grow our business, our options could later include a global IPO to expand our global reach.”
Opn designs software that helps merchants set up payments on their mobile or desktop websites. Its biggest market is Thailand, home to 41-year-old Hasegawa’s co-founder Ezra Don Harinsut. The firm’s clients include True, one of Thailand’s largest telecommunications conglomerates, and Total Access Communication Public Co., or DTAC.
The startup plans to use proceeds from the funding to expand its services to new markets including Vietnam and the Philippines. Apart from Japan and Thailand, Opn currently operates in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Over the long term, Hasegawa aims to make Opn services available in at least 36 major countries including the U.S. and European economies.
“We want to have a footprint in every major country,” Hasegawa said.
Despite increasing competition in mobile payments, Hasegawa says Opn’s years-long experience in Southeast Asian markets and ability to adapt to complex local regulations give it an edge against rivals. The company in April appointed Chris Misner, who had been general manager of Apple Inc.’s Asia-Pacific online store, to its board.
Revenue has doubled every year since 2019 as more consumers opted for digital payments in the wake of the global pandemic, helping Opn reach 100 million transactions per year. The company didn’t disclose detailed earnings figures.
But Hasegawa hasn’t always been successful with his ventures. In 2017, he brought in $25 million through an initial coin offering, an unregulated sale process that had exploded in popularity that year. His company was at the time working on facilitating payments with cryptocurrency, and its OmiseGo tokens were worth more than $2 billion at one point. They tumbled as the market crashed and the firm divested of OmiseGo in December 2020.
“I’ve learned a lot from my past failures, and they’ve made me think about what is the one service that you always need, all the time,” Hasegawa said. Now, “we have a strong yearning toward creating global financial infrastructure, that’s what we’re after.”
(Updates with board member information; an earlier version corrected the spelling of DTAC in fifth paragraph) | 2022-07-05T15:05:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Japan’s Latest Unicorn Is a Thailand Mobile Payments Firm - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/japans-latest-unicorn-is-a-thailand-mobile-payments-firm/2022/07/05/337db2e0-fc71-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/japans-latest-unicorn-is-a-thailand-mobile-payments-firm/2022/07/05/337db2e0-fc71-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
The global cybersecurity community was set alight this week by news that data on more than 1 billion people were leaked from a Shanghai police database. The implications could be wide-ranging, yet the most astounding aspect of this case may be the fact that it likely wasn’t a hack that caused it, but basic errors in digital hygiene.
The asking price for the database, which includes several billion case records, is just 10 bitcoin ($202,000). This indicates the seller is someone who happened across the data and is being opportunistic rather than a professional hacker motivated by money. A sample of the data posted in an online forum, and viewed by Bloomberg Opinion, shows records of people across China with names, identification and mobile phone numbers, the original source of the data, and a reference to the first time the details were entered into the record. Chillingly, the database includes fields referring to express delivery and food-order details. This could imply that this data were compiled by police from multiple sources across the country, beyond what law enforcement typically gathers firsthand. Of course, there may be other explanations for such data, too.
Bloomberg Opinion was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the data, yet numerous posts in that same forum indicate that users have checked it and found it to be real. Shanghai authorities haven’t publicly responded to the alleged data breach. Representatives for the city’s police and Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s internet overseer, did not respond to requests for comment by Bloomberg News.
Whereas hackers seek to penetrate a computer system, possibly using malware and phishing attacks, this breach seems to be far more straightforward. It appears a software developer may have left an access key visible in an online code repository or in a blog post, according to data posted in public forums and social media, and discussions among people familiar with the case but not directly involved. This key is similar to, but functions differently from, a password.
With that key, and a basic understanding of how the database was set up — which wouldn’t require inside knowledge — it’s likely the information was extracted by accessing a poorly configured server. The consensus in the cybersecurity community leans toward this not being a hack, but an example of sloppiness and poor security practices, though the exact method for obtaining the data hasn’t been confirmed.
Information posted online indicates that the database was run by the Shanghai police, but may have been hosted on a server operated by Alibaba Holding Group Ltd.’s Alicloud. There’s no suggestion that Alicloud is responsible for any security vulnerabilities. Alibaba didn’t respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment. It’s not clear that the person, or people, who downloaded data is the same as those selling it.
While there’s no evidence that financial details such as credit card numbers are included, investigators are likely to pore over the data to build a picture of modern Chinese society and how the government functions. A previous leak of a Chinese police database formed the foundation for research into how authorities monitor and control the country’s Uyghur population. This work was subsequently published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the Intercept. Beijing has repeatedly denied accusations that it represses Uyghurs.
As a greater understanding of this breach comes to light, including what all the fields mean and how they connect to various organizations across China, we’re likely to garner an even more-detailed understanding of China’s data-collection framework and how it uses information to keep tabs on its people. Yet we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that 1 billion people are now potential victims of yet another digital breach caused by bad security practices.
• North Korean Hackers See Crypto In Their Crosshairs: Parmy Olson
• Australia Sends a $7.5 Billion Cyber Signal to China: Tim Culpan
• They May Be Kids, But Lapsus$ Hackers are Giants: Tim Culpan | 2022-07-05T15:05:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | One Billion Chinese Files Were Likely Leaked by Sloppiness, Not Hacking - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/one-billion-chinese-files-were-likelyleaked-by-sloppiness-not-hacking/2022/07/05/5de44d1c-fc6e-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/one-billion-chinese-files-were-likelyleaked-by-sloppiness-not-hacking/2022/07/05/5de44d1c-fc6e-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks is pictured at a community event in Suitland, Maryland, on Aug. 3. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D), who leads a locality of nearly 1 million people, was the focus last year of speculation that she would seek Maryland’s Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Though she was expected to be a formidable candidate, she instead decided to run for a second term in her current job. It’s a race in which she is regarded as unbeatable, and for good reason: Ms. Alsobrooks has been an excellent steward of a complex jurisdiction. She has earned reelection, and we endorse her in the July 19 Democratic primary, whose winner is a shoo-in to win the general election.
Barely a year into her term, Ms. Alsobrooks was confronted with the pandemic, which hit Prince George’s with particular fury. With a Black population of more than 60 percent and a woefully underfunded health department, the county’s infection and hospitalization rates soared, at times leading the state. Now, more than three-quarters of residents are fully vaccinated, including 95 percent of senior citizens, a stellar record considering the covid-19 crater from which the county had to climb. Ms. Alsobrooks — competent, unflappable, determined — deserves much of the credit.
As the county’s top elected official, she has mainly focused on what she can control. Faced with political infighting on a fractious county council, she has been generally successful in staying away from the mudslinging. Confronted with a daunting spike in crime, including more than 110 homicides last year, she beefed up the county’s spending on mental health and pushed to complete a new mental health and addiction facility.
She has notched concrete achievements that will touch the lives of residents. Those include a $400 million infusion of state borrowing, enacted by the legislature in Annapolis, to revitalize Metrorail’s Blue Line Corridor, a five-mile stretch from Capitol Heights to Largo. The upgrade, still in the planning stage, would represent a critical improvement for a part of the county that badly needs it. Ms. Alsobrooks envisions remaking the corridor as a sports and entertainment magnet — regardless of whether the National Football League’s Washington Commanders elect to replace their antiquated stadium there or relocate. It’s a smart move and a testament to her no-nonsense approach, having struck the deal with Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, with whom some other Democratic local leaders prefer to squabble.
Ms. Alsobrooks was also instrumental in breaking ground for a record number of new schools around the county, which suffers from dilapidated older buildings and overcrowded classrooms. And she has provided a critical push for a new cancer center, now under construction, in a county that has lacked one for too long.
Nearly as important, she has been a good ambassador for Prince George’s, which, just over a decade ago, was reeling from a pay-to-play scandal that landed a previous county executive and his wife in prison on federal corruption charges. These days, thanks largely to Ms. Alsobrooks, the county’s former top prosecutor, and her predecessor, Rushern Baker, Prince George’s reputation is restored, even if many residents still yearn for better retail, dining and high-end local employers.
Granted, she has made some missteps, notably by naming a divisive, ineffectual figure, Juanita Miller, as the county’s school board chair. She has acknowledged that mistake and tried to rectify it, so far without success. Nonetheless, Ms. Alsobrooks has compiled an impressive record in her first term. She deserves a second. | 2022-07-05T15:57:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Washington Post primary endorsement for Prince George's County Executive: Angela Alsobrooks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/angela-alsobrooks-pg-county-executive-primary-endorsement-2022/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/angela-alsobrooks-pg-county-executive-primary-endorsement-2022/ |
How Black female support groups are dealing with the end of Roe
Black women laughed.
They laughed and danced and shook out their limbs, stiff from crouching over their computers all day, staring at the news, reading headline after headline: Roe v. Wade had been overturned, and Black women stood to be disproportionately impacted.
Black joy was palpable at this movement session held by the group Black Women for Wellness last week — despite the fact that many members were reeling from the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
“It felt good if for nothing more than to turn off the news, dance to some Afro beats and allow our bodies to begin allowing the energy to flow in and out,” said Charity Faye, program manager for Sisters in Motion, a subset of Black Women for Wellness. “And for at least 35 to 45 minutes, Black women smiled, laughed and danced.”
Established in 1997, the California-based reproductive-rights nonprofit group operated under the protection of Roe v. Wade for 25 years. Although the recent Supreme Court decision won’t affect the organization’s state’s policies, the implications of it for millions of women across the country have broken the hearts of Faye’s colleagues, she said. But that’s why these types of organizations are created, she added — to lift Black women up in times of crisis, to become a space for Black women to lean on one another. To try to laugh again.
Organizations like Black Women for Wellness have been around for decades to try to fill a void in Black health care, and mental health care specifically: Black women are more likely to experience mental illnesses, and are less likely to be treated for them. These support groups provide a space for community, members say, for Black women to come together and feel heard without judgment. Some national organizations boast membership in the thousands, but other state-level groups, like Black Women for Wellness, exist, as do smaller local community groups. And informally, Black female support groups have existed in America for as long as Black women have.
In recent years, new and older groups have had to adapt to support their members through moments of national trauma that tend to unevenly affect Black women and their communities. The Dobbs decision is the latest example: Experts say that restricted access to abortion will disproportionately impact Black women, who have a higher rate of abortion than their White counterparts. Reproductive-rights organizations say the reasons for these higher rates are systemic, driven by a lack of access to and effective use of contraceptives.
The Loveland Foundation expects to see greater need in the wake of the Dobbs decision. Founded in 2018, the organization’s goal is to provide resources for Black women and girls to access therapy. Several other organizations, like Therapy for Black Girls and Free Black Therapy, provide similar services and have experienced an influx in media attention and donations after 2020, when George Floyd’s murder touched off racial justice protests.
“We don’t want to make them feel like they’re jumping through hurdles to access care, because society already provides enough hurdles for Black women,” said Sharlene Kemler, chief executive of the Loveland Foundation. “It’s really about making sure that we are de-stigmatizing mental wellness, creating generational change and allowing the community to heal.”
People who apply for the Loveland Foundation’s services can get access to one-on-one therapy, Kemler said, and they try to get people help within three months. In 2020, she added, the group had to increase the rate at which they accepted clients to manage the increased interest — and luckily, donations increased, too.
Kemler said that women trying to understand the impact of Dobbs will only need more support.
Support groups have different methods of serving their Black women members. Some have weekly drop-in group therapy sessions, while others, like Black Women for Wellness, host year-round services and events. For many, working for these organizations is their full-time job, but there are opportunities for volunteer work — and women usually do not have to commit to a financial membership, although some services may cost money.
Thérèse Cator, founder of Embodied Black Girl, an organization that creates trauma-informed spaces for Black women, centers her meetings on somatic breathing exercises. These practices, which help to increase bodily awareness, originated in practices created by Black people and other people of color, Cator said.
But, she said, her work isn’t the end-all-be-all for healing.
“In order to truly heal, the system has to be dismantled,” said Cator, who founded her organization in February 2020, one month before much of the country shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic. “But [Black women] are still deserving of feeling joy. We’re still deserving of having the best life that we can in this lifetime.”
A few days before the Dobbs decision was handed down, Cator held a joy circle to help remind Black women “of who they are, not just the grief.”
“This joy circle helped me process the ruling,” Cator said.
Cator’s group has shifted since it first took shape — after all, the world changed drastically in just weeks after its debut. Originally titled Black Girls Breathe, the organization hosted its first Global Healing Day event in February 2020, which featured meditation, journaling and sharing personal reflections. Then, with pandemic stay-at-home orders and racial justice protests, more Black women expressed interest in the group. Suddenly Cator was leading hundreds of people through weekly somatic breathing exercises, holding joy circles over Zoom and trying to figure out how to prioritize her own self-care among it all, she said.
Other Black women support groups, like Our Resilience, take a more traditionally therapeutic approach. The 48-year-old nonprofit works with survivors of sexual violence to provide advocacy, trauma therapy and individual and group counseling. Its group for Black sexual assault survivors dissipated years ago due to a lack of funding but was brought back in the beginning of 2022. And their first meeting was scheduled for two weeks after the Dobbs decision.
“This overturn [of Roe] has added a whole new functionality for this group,” said Gaby Molden, a trauma therapist who spearheaded the reinstatement of the Black survivors group. “[The U.S. government] taking away our right to do what we need to do for our bodies is generational, and it can be very triggering for survivors of all sorts.”
Molden compared the impact of the ruling to reproductive labor forced upon enslaved Black people in the past. In the days after the recent court decision, the waiting list for her group doubled, she said. She’s now anticipating her group will shift from sharing past traumas to grappling with the ruling.
Black Women for Wellness predicts it will have to adapt in a post-Roe era by providing more support for its members with family in states with abortion restrictions. They are also planning on expanding their advocacy and education work, Faye said. But after contending with the uncertainty of the past two years, in particular, adaptation isn’t anything new for the organization.
“We look at something like the pandemic as an opportunity for us to show up and dive deeper into who we are: Here’s our mission, here’s what we do, no matter what the season or the state of the world,” Faye said. “This time isn’t different. We’ll figure it out.”
As motivated as these organizations’ leaders may be, having to consistently transition for their members takes a toll — especially as they grieve what’s going on in the news themselves, they said. When the Supreme Court news broke last Friday, Faye was between Zoom meetings with her colleagues. Suddenly their Slack channel was flooded with messages. Impromptu group chats popped up. Meetings shifted focus. Luckily, the pandemic taught them how to “slow down a bit and live in our humanity,” she said.
“We’re not a bunch of robots,” Faye added. “We do this work, but we’re people. And so on Friday, and we all just took a collective exhale. ... After we sat in it, we took a breath and we began talking and letting people know the impact this decision has on Black women.”
Striking the balance between supporting others and taking care of oneself is tricky — but leaders of these organizations have a few tools they recommend. For Faye, that means allowing yourself to take some time off work and process with other Black women.
Another important tip is remembering to breathe, said Cator: She recommends somatic exercises, which involve consciously taking in breath and noticing the space it takes up in your body. If someone finds themselves in a high-stress state, she recommends breathing in and then lengthening the exhale until it’s twice as long as the inhale.
“It’s important to recognize that our bodies are actually the portals to healing,” Cator said. “Systems of oppression disconnect us from our bodies. People understand that cognitively, but to actually go into the body and recognize how that is impacting your body, how that’s showing up in your nervous system, is completely different work.”
Molden also suggests setting boundaries. Especially in the wake of the Dobbs decision, it’s important to prioritize yourself, regardless of the demands of the outside world, she said.
“The biggest thing we can do is trust ourselves and lean on your support group in this very devastating time,” Molden said. “Remember to take care of yourself to the best of your abilities, because all of your strength is going to be needed to get through this one.” | 2022-07-05T16:28:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Black female support groups are dealing with the end of Roe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/05/black-women-support-groups-dobbs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/05/black-women-support-groups-dobbs/ |
By Kelyn Soong
Susanna Sullivan, left, finished first in the 2022 Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run. (Dani Seiss/The Washington Post)
Just hours after winning the 2022 Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run in D.C. on April 3, Susanna Sullivan returned to her home in the suburbs, opened Zoom and prepared for an afternoon of virtual tutoring sessions. The unsponsored elite runner had just won the biggest race of her career and earned $14,500, but her life and routine as an elementary school teacher and high school math tutor in Northern Virginia continued.
“I had a foot in both worlds that day,” Sullivan, 32, said of running and teaching.
Most nationally ranked runners are full-time professionals, meaning they are sponsored and paid to run. But there are several successful elite runners who have elected to have full-time jobs outside of running, and they may have something to teach runners of all levels about how sports-life balance can improve performance.
The second-place finisher in the women’s division at the Cherry Blossom race this year, 28-year-old Carrie Verdon, is also an elementary school teacher. Sarah Sellers, 30, finished second at the 2018 Boston Marathon while working as a nurse anesthetist. Reebok-sponsored marathoner Martin Hehir, 29, is running career bests while juggling his duties as an anesthesiology resident. And earlier this year at the Houston Marathon, 37-year-old Keira D’Amato broke the American women’s record in the marathon there. D’Amato, a Nike-sponsored runner and mother of two, works as an associate broker and Realtor in Virginia.
For these elite runners, running often becomes an escape rather than an all-consuming career. And that, they believe, can lead to greater success. “I think, because everything outside of running is just kind of nonstop, running actually ends up being … an outlet,” Sullivan said. “I think just having so many things going on at once has gotten me very, very good at compartmentalizing. And I think you have to do that to race effectively.”
Sports psychologists and researchers in the field have emphasized the importance of athletes prioritizing their mental health and finding an identity beyond sports. “A happy, healthy human is going to be a happier, healthier athlete,” said Kristin Keim, a clinical sports psychologist. “So you’re going to perform better, whatever that better is.”
Keim is a former ballet dancer and competitive cyclist who has worked with a range of athletes, including collegiate and professional runners. She prefers the term “energy management” instead of “time management” or “balanced life.”
“Energy management can be another way of being present and practicing mindfulness,” she said. “This is important for athletes and really anyone, no matter what you’re doing each day. There is enough time each day when you set daily intentions.”
Keim believes that athletes can experience a performance enhancement if they allow themselves to be more well-rounded. “If running is your self care, that’s awesome,” she said. “If running is your pro job, they really shouldn’t look that different, because you should enjoy it. It’s just a different context.”
Anna-Maria Broomes, a PhD student in organizational behavior at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management who has researched sports-life balance, believes it facilitates performance. “And it’s not only performance in sports, but sports-life balance gives rise to a person’s value that exists beyond sports. So we find that, in terms of emotional well-being and strong social ties, work-life balance is important.”
Broomes also emphasized the importance of support networks that allow athletes to “make the best out of both worlds.” It’s important for athletes and coaches to remember that athletes are more than athletes, she said. “They’re holistic beings who desire to excel and to thrive, but in order to do that, they’re going to need support from loved ones and professionals who are in their corner.”
The 60 or so sub-elite runners of the Georgetown Running Club based out of D.C. are all full-time students or have jobs outside of their competitive running careers. Head coach Jerry Alexander schedules the team’s workouts on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings with that in mind, and he maintains that having a career outside of running benefits the athletes.
“When running is your job, when anything goes wrong — you get a little niggle in your Achilles or something — it’s like the world ended,” said Alexander, who has trained several U.S. Olympic marathon trials qualifiers. “And having balance in your life, I think, makes people run better.”
Sullivan believes that not having one all-consuming focus empowers her to become better in all of her pursuits. “I’m a teacher and I’m a runner,” she said. “It kind of helps me find satisfaction at the end of the day, when I feel like I’ve lived a day that has maximized my potential as a teacher and as a runner.”
A typical day during the school year looks like this: Sullivan gets up around 6 a.m. and goes on a seven- or eight-mile run. She will often include strength training before or after, then will go to work at Haycock Elementary School as a fifth-grade teacher from 8:30 a.m. to about 5 p.m. She then tutors for about two hours before running three or four miles and spending 45 minutes swimming at a local pool. Sullivan gets home around 9 p.m.
Fitting it all in requires a lot of planning and prep work. “If it didn’t happen on the weekend, it’s probably not happening during the week,” Sullivan said of meal planning.
But juggling running and teaching also means that she can’t always adhere to her schedule, something Sullivan is learning isn’t always a bad thing. “I’m gaining the perspective that it doesn’t have to be perfect to be nudging the needle in the right direction,” she said.
For D’Amato, working full time in real estate has allowed her to have a lucrative career outside of running and has kept it as her fun activity. “I was able to take risks that did not involve financial gains and running,” she said. “I wasn’t chasing paychecks. I was chasing my best times, and I was doing everything that I felt would make me the fastest runner.”
Hehir, who works for the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and whose wife is expecting their third child in August, spent a year after college focused solely on running professionally. Looking back, he believes being a full-time runner was more difficult than balancing running and a full-time job outside of the sport. “There was a lot of downtime, a lot of thinking, and I think there’s a lot of opportunity to just overthink and be too into your running,” he said.
He now sees running as a “perfect way to just distract yourself from work [and] de-stress.” It keeps him balanced. Working full time has made him a happier — and better — runner. “I can kind of say that I do it because I love it and because it’s fun, not because I have to and it’s my job,” Hehir said.
Kelyn Soong is a freelance writer based in Maryland. Find him on Twitter: @KelynSoong. | 2022-07-05T16:28:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How a full-time job can help elite runners - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/07/05/elite-runners-job-balance-performance/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/07/05/elite-runners-job-balance-performance/ |
Strong storms possible in D.C. area this afternoon
Some early afternoon showers and storms are probable with another possible round toward evening
12:20 p.m. — Early blooming showers and storms already arriving
Some showers and storms have developed ahead of schedule and are quickly moving into the Route 15 corridor (from Leesburg to Warrenton). These are generally not severe so mainly expect some brief downpours and perhaps a bit of lightning with this activity as it sweeps eastward over the next 60 to 90 minutes. However, the activity could intensify a bit — especially after crossing Interstate 95 around 1 p.m.
This activity may use up some of the atmosphere’s available energy reducing the odds of additional storms later.
We’ll reassess the late afternoon storm threat after these come through.
Original article from late morning
Muggy air is spreading over the Washington region, displacing the low humidity we enjoyed on the Fourth of July. The arrival of this warm, moist air sets the stage for possibly intense thunderstorms Tuesday afternoon into the early evening.
The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center has placed our region in a level 2 out of 5 risk zone for severe storms, noting the potential for “damaging gusts” and “isolated large hail.”
Any storms that affect the area should move through quickly, reducing the risk of flooding. However, some of the areas that were deluged Saturday night (i.e., saturated ground in the northern part of the District and southern Montgomery and northern Prince George’s counties) might again contend with high water if heavy storms pass through.
How flooding rain deluged District and northern suburbs Saturday night
Short-range computer models suggest the best chance for storms is between about 3 and 6 p.m., with precipitation sweeping from west to east.
As of late morning, showers and storms were present from the Ohio Valley into West Virginia and were generally pushing east-southeast in the general direction of the Washington region.
Storm timing: While subject to change, storms should arrive and exit the following areas in the following windows:
Route 15 (Frederick to Leesburg to Warrenton): 2:45 to 4:45 p.m.
Route 301 (Bowie to La Plata): 4:15 to 6:15 p.m.
Storms should be moving quickly, lasting in any one area about 30 to 45 minutes. Note that some widely scattered showers and storms are possible after the initial round but should decrease in coverage and intensity after dark.
Storm coverage: Scattered — any individual area has about a 60 percent chance of measurable rain.
Likely: Torrential rain, lightning, gusty winds (up to 30-40 mph)
Possible: Damaging winds (up to 60-70 mph), small hail
Very small chance: Large hail, flooding, tornado
Rain potential: In areas hit by storms, 0.25 to 0.5 inches is most likely, with isolated totals up to 1 to 2 inches.
Today’s potential severe weather setup features a warm front moving through the region (as shown in the map below), ushering in a more humid air mass on southerly winds. Additionally, an upper level disturbance in the jet stream flow will move into the Mid-Atlantic from the Ohio Valley.
That disturbance has been organizing scattered showers and thunderstorms across West Virginia, and those may keep solid to broken cloud cover around the D.C. region throughout the early and midafternoon.
The degree of storm severity will depend on how much the atmosphere becomes destabilized over the next several hours. Any persistent breaks in the clouds will enable sunshine to drive up surface temperatures, which is key to destabilization.
There is sufficient wind shear (increase in wind speed with altitude) to help storm cells become more intense, should they blossom, and organize the cells into clusters and bowing lines.
The suite of high-resolution models all suggest rather early (1 to 2 p.m.) triggering of storms in the Blue Ridge, with those storms then sweeping through the metros as early as mid- to late afternoon.
As the simulated radar fields below show, the line marches through the D.C. region. The warm frontal boundary may help organize and intensify this complex.
With these types of fast-moving complexes, there is potential for a swath of damaging wind gusts — and that is likely to be the biggest severe-weather risk this afternoon and early evening. | 2022-07-05T16:32:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Strong storms possible in D.C. area this afternoon - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/07/05/dc-severe-storm-threat/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/07/05/dc-severe-storm-threat/ |
NBC Sports focuses NIL pilot program on ‘the other 99 percent’
In the year since the NCAA allowed college athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness (NIL), a handful of stars — including Alabama quarterback Bryce Young and U-Conn. point guard Paige Bueckers — signed deals reportedly worth around seven figures. At the other end of the NIL spectrum are athletes such as Riley McGowan, an attacker on the Temple women’s lacrosse team, who recently earned $100 for using her Instagram account to promote a Phillies-Nationals broadcast on Peacock.
McGowan’s opportunity was arranged through Athlete Direct, an NIL marketplace launched in April as a pilot program by NBC Sports at Temple, as well as Notre Dame and Vanderbilt. The platform, which connects NBC Sports’ advertisers with athletes, was developed out of conversations between the network’s representatives and school presidents, athletic directors, compliance officers, head coaches and parents after the NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved new NIL regulations.
“Inclusivity is a big part of what we want to do,” Damon Phillips, NBC Sports’ senior vice president of strategic initiatives, said in a phone interview. “A lot of the deals you’re seeing are for that top 1 percent. What we’re focusing on is the other 99 percent. We think there’s an opportunity to bring deals to those student-athletes.”
NIL hasn't made a difference for most in enjoyment of college sports, poll finds
The schools in the pilot program weren’t chosen at random. NBC Sports has a long-standing relationship with Notre Dame, having broadcast Fighting Irish football games for 31 years. Temple made sense because NBC has a local affiliate, regional sports network and Telemundo station in Philadelphia. Officials at Vanderbilt, Phillips said, shared what he called NBC Sports’ vision of approaching NIL “in a responsible way.” In addition to being notified of offers, athletes who register with the Athlete Direct platform are granted access to personal finance resources from CNBC.
The first Athlete Direct offer arrived last month — a tune-in campaign for the weekly Sunday morning MLB broadcast on NBC-owned Peacock. To fulfill the promotion, athletes who opted in were required to share a post and story on Instagram ahead of the June 19 game between the Phillies and Nationals, with specific information included for tracking purposes. Given the matchup, athletes from the Philadelphia and D.C. areas were targeted first, but the offer, which was capped at 75 participants, was open to anyone.
“I was born and raised here, so the Phillies are a team that I’ve always rooted for,” McGowan said. “I think if it was two random teams or I wasn’t into watching sports, it would be a weird thing for me to post, so I wouldn’t have.”
NBC Sports provided a couple of recommended captions and a graphic for athletes to post. McGowan was one of the few participants who used a personal photo — of herself as a kid at a Reading Phillies game — so “it didn’t seem so robotic.” She said she received $70 for her Instagram post, $20 for her story and another $10 for providing a screenshot of the analytics of her posts.
A post shared by Riley McGowan, CPT (@rixxfit)
“It was like walking on eggshells with what I was allowed to post before,” she said. “I couldn’t post any pictures of me in Temple gear, because it could have made me ineligible. It was tough to promote myself and grow what I was trying to do when I wasn’t allowed to do a lot of things. … I know $100 doesn’t sound like a ton, but it’s definitely something.”
“One of the goals here is to reach a younger audience, and to build a Gen Z network of student-athletes,” Phillips said. “We’re learning from the pilot and our goal is to pour rocket fuel on this in the fall, and be able to expand to student-athletes from all schools.”
A post shared by @brayden_bapst | 2022-07-05T17:33:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NBC Sports running NIL pilot program focused on lower profile athletes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/nbc-sports-nil-pilot-program/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/nbc-sports-nil-pilot-program/ |
Bill Young in Alexandria's Monticello Park. The small suburban park is a stop for warblers on their annual migration, drawing birders such as Young. The park was recently celebrated as a Community Forest by the Old-Growth Forest Network. (John Kelly/The Washington Post)
“There are houses there, there and there,” Bill Young said, pointing all around us as sunlight filtered through numerous trees and dappled the ground beneath our feet. “It’s a very small park.”
It is indeed. Monticello Park in Alexandria is barely seven acres. But if ever a park punched above its weight, it’s this one. The park — west of Russell Road, with an entrance on Beverley Drive — attracts a variety of birds, who in turn attract a variety of birders. Dog-walkers and their dogs also enjoy the park, as do dogless, bird-indifferent people who live nearby and just want a quiet oasis.
And last month, thanks to the efforts of a 15-year-old named Tate Commission, Monticello Park was designated a Community Forest by the Old-Growth Forest Network.
Tate lives within a mile of the park and reckons he first visited it when he was in the first grade. It’s set in a neighborhood of single-family homes on curving streets that follow the topography — except in Monticello Park, which is nestled on a ridge that falls steeply to a ravine and stream. That geologic diversity appeals to Tate.
“Even though it’s so small compared to other parks, it contains hills, it contains a stream, it contains so many different types of plants,” Tate told me over the phone from Michigan, where he’s at Interlochen Arts Camp. “It’s crazy how diverse it is.”
A teacher at Tate’s school, St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes, put him in touch with Brian Kane at the Old-Growth Forest Network. Among the nonprofit’s aims is designating a protected forest in every county in the country.
Monticello Park isn’t a true old-growth forest, untouched by human axes. “There is no virgin forest left in Alexandria and Arlington,” said Brian. “It’s all been cleared at least twice for agriculture.”
But it displays some characteristics of those important natural areas, as both a habitat and a place where harmful carbon is stored in the roots of aged trees. Red oaks, white oaks, chestnuts and tulip trees thrive there.
“There are trees over 200 years old there, believe it or not,” Brian said.
Other regional Old-Growth Forest Network areas include Glencarlyn Park in Arlington County and the Gold Mine Tract in C&O Canal National Historic Park in Montgomery County.
Tate said nominating the park for designation required compiling a lot of paperwork. He also made a little documentary about the park and its history.
The park has many boosters, including Rod Simmons, natural resource manager at the City of Alexandria. Bill Young, the birder who led me around on a recent morning, works with Ashley Bradford on a website devoted to the park: MPNature.com. During spring migration from 2012 to 2017, Bill posted daily bird-watch observations.
It’s in spring — when songbirds make their long voyages from south to north — that Monticello Park really comes alive. Look at a map and you’ll see it’s the only sizable patch of green for miles around. Birds are attracted to it, especially the stream at the park’s lowest point.
More than 30 species of warblers have been spotted in Monticello Park, along with orioles, finches, wrens, flycatchers, owls and raptors. Birders call one side of the park Thrush Ridge for the birds — wood thrush, hermit thrush, gray-cheeked thrush and more — that seem to like it there.
The park’s postage-stamp size can be a benefit to birders.
“From one end of the park to the other is an eighth-of-a-mile,” Bill said. “If you do a loop around the stream, it’s a quarter-of-a-mile. It’s a tiny park. That’s one thing it has going for it. You can go to Rock Creek Park and find a lot more birds, but they’re so spread out they’re more difficult to find. Here, they’re all concentrated in one small area.”
The main benefit of becoming part of the Old-Growth Forest Network is protection from development.
“All [protected] forests must be permanently restricted from any commercial logging, no matter who owns it,” said Brian of the Old-Growth Forest Network. “And there must be public access. The public can go and see this forest. It’s not a private forest.”
Tate knows what he wants Monticello Park to be and why its new designation is important: “One of the things it shows is that it can serve as a place for everyone.” | 2022-07-05T17:42:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Monticello Park in Alexandria designated a Community Forest - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/05/monticello-park-alexandria-virginia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/05/monticello-park-alexandria-virginia/ |
Lena Ferguson holds a picture of her great grandfather John Curtis Gau in Washington 1985. (Scott Stewart/AP)
When the Daughters of the American Revolution convened their annual Continental Congress in D.C. last week, 4,000 delegates representing 198,000 members showed up. It was one of the largest national meetings in DAR history.
Denise VanBuren, the DAR’s outgoing president general, said she noticed something else about the assembly: An apparent increase in women of color in their membership.
“We don’t ask about race on our membership applications, so nobody knows how many people of color have joined our society,” VanBuren said. “I can only tell you, anecdotally, when I first came to our Continental Congress in 1990, there were only a handful, at best, of women of color, and today there are scores of women of color in our building.”
To VanBuren, the increasingly diverse membership, along with initiatives to identify and honor more Black patriots, helps fulfill the terms of an agreement struck 40 years ago to right an egregious racial wrong.
Not the well-known wrong done to Marian Anderson, the famous Black opera singer who was barred from performing at the DAR’s Constitution Hall in D.C. That was in 1939. Not the wrong done to Hazel Scott, the famous Black pianist, who was barred from the Hall in 1945.
The wrong that really rocked the DAR out of its antebellum slumber occurred in 1983, when a little-known D.C. resident, a retired Black school secretary named Lena S. Ferguson, was denied membership in the DAR because of her race. In a city then led by two civil rights activists — David Clarke as chairman of the D.C. Council and Marion Barry as mayor — the ensuing outrage was fierce. Under threat of having its tax- exempt status revoked, the DAR reversed the decision and, in 1984, granted Ferguson full membership.
DAR admits Lena S. Ferguson to the organization
As a newly minted member, Ferguson opted not to file a racial discrimination lawsuit. Instead, she preferred a more diplomatic path — an agreement that the DAR would identify and honor more Black patriots, tell stories about the Revolutionary War that were more inclusive, and make the organization more welcoming to women of color.
“I think you’ll be impressed with the work we’ve done in large part because of the Lena Ferguson agreement,” VanBuren said. “We fully recognize the fact that she directed us on a path that has made us a more inclusive society.”
Enter Maurice Barboza, Ferguson’s nephew. A lawyer living in Alexandria, Barboza had encouraged his aunt to join the DAR after tracing the family ancestry back to the Revolutionary War. Forty years later, he’s still disgusted with how the DAR humiliated his aunt and continues to prod them to honor the agreement.
“This notion that the DAR is changing is just lip service,” Barboza said. “They don’t track the race of DAR members, so how do they know if progress is really being made? They never really embraced the agreement. There was stalling and resistance from the beginning.”
He wants the DAR to try harder to find all the Black patriots and track down their descendants, too.
VanBuren says that the DAR has already identified more than 6,000 patriots of color and that the search continues. The organization has created an African American lineage research task force and employs a professional researcher. There also are multiple databases on the DAR website that prospective members can use to trace family heritage.
“We do it because it’s the right thing to do,” VanBuren said. “And because we want their descendants to join the DAR.”
The new faces around the DAR are not figments of her imagination. There is progress to be claimed.
In 2018, Reisha Raney, a distant relative of Thomas Jefferson’s aunt, became the first Black officer in the DAR’s Maryland branch and one of only four Black people to ever be named a state officer.
A complicated family history places black Md. woman in DAR’s ranks
A graduate of Spelman College and research fellow at Harvard, Raney is looking into the DAR’s racial history with an emphasis on finding the stories of Black women.
“I think it’s important for me to collect these narratives to educate the public and society in general about how different the Daughters of the American Revolution is today compared to what they have been known for in the past,” Raney told USA Today. “It seems like they can’t shake that reputation no matter how many changes that they make and how many amends they make.”
Karen Bachelor, who became the first Black woman member of the DAR in 1977, said of Raney’s ascent to the DAR leadership, “It’s a great thing and shows the progress of this organization over the years.”
In 2019, Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly became the head of the DAR’s New York operation and the first African American woman to sit on its national governing board.
Even Ferguson acknowledged the change.
Having become chairman and founder of the D.C. DAR Scholarship Committee, with two scholarships awarded in her name, Ferguson told The Washington Post in 1996: “I think they [the DAR] are more sincere now. I think they are trying to put a new face on the organization. They do a lot of good work.”
Ferguson died in 2004, the same year Wilhelmena Kelly joined the New York DAR.
Barboza certainly deserves credit for tenacity, for all the years spent trying to bring an elite White-women-only organization, founded in 1890, into the 21st century.
Largely because of him and Ferguson, the DAR membership now includes Black women capable of carrying on her legacy.
Besides, there’s another important task that requires an end to this 40-year war. In 1986, Ferguson and Barboza won congressional authorization to honor African Americans who fought in the Revolutionary War with a monument on the National Mall. They raised enough money to fund a design but not enough to build the memorial.
What better ally to have in that endeavor than the 198,000 members of the DAR?
In 2026, just four years from now, the nation will mark its 250th anniversary. A memorial to those forgotten Black patriots sure would be a nice touch.
Stop underwriting oppression: Boycott stores supporting racist propaganda
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In a play about abortion, you don’t have to talk. Just listen. | 2022-07-05T17:50:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Daughters of the American Revolution try to right a racist wrong - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/05/daughters-of-the-american-revolution-lena-ferguson-marian-anderson-hazel-scott/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/05/daughters-of-the-american-revolution-lena-ferguson-marian-anderson-hazel-scott/ |
Viewing any illegal vote as a crisis but mass shootings as inevitable
Lauren Boebert, a GOP candidate in Colorado's 3rd Congressional District, wears a firearm during a Sept. 4, 2020, freedom cruise in Pueblo West, Colo. Boebert was elected that November. (David Zalubowski/AP)
The timing wasn’t great but, then, it never is in a country where mass shootings are seemingly incessant.
On Sunday, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) used an incident in Denmark to shrug at gun violence in the United States.
The incident at a shopping mall in Copenhagen left three people dead. It was the worst such incident in Denmark since 2015, the Associated Press reported, when a man fatally shot two people before being killed by police.
Less than 24 hours later, Americans would be reminded why the incident in Denmark was not really comparable to gun violence in this country. A shooter opened fire at a Fourth of July parade in a suburb of Chicago, killing six people and wounding more than two dozen. It was the 15th incident this year in which at least four people have been shot and killed in a single incident, according to the Gun Violence Archive’s data.
Nearly 100 people have died in those incidents — more gun deaths from one cause than Denmark has seen in total in nearly two decades. Americans are about 11 times as likely as Danes to be killed by a gun.
Boebert’s tweet should be read in the appropriate political context. It is, of course, less a tweet about preventive measures than about how America should approach gun legislation. She is starting from a position of posturing in defense of gun ownership, a motivating issue for many Republicans, and working backward to rationalize it.
She’s not entirely wrong, of course. A nation awash with hundreds of millions of firearms, including perhaps 20 million AR-15-style rifles, is not suddenly going to see gun violence evaporate. But that’s different from approaching the question fatalistically, as a fifth of Americans and more than a quarter of Republicans do, according to recent polling: treating mass shootings as simply something that happen regardless of legislation.
The important context to Boebert’s near-triumphant tweet (and those of other conservative American politicians) is how the political right approaches another criminal act: voter fraud.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Boebert gave her first speech as a newly elected member of Congress. It came as legislators were considering the electoral votes submitted by states in the 2020 presidential election; it came, in fact, as rioters supporting Donald Trump had already pushed past police outside the Capitol and were about to enter the building itself.
In her speech, Boebert sided with the cause motivating those rioters.
“It is my duty under the U.S. Constitution to object to the counting of the electoral votes of the state of Arizona,” she said. “The members who stand here today and accept the results of this concentrated, coordinated, partisan effort by Democrats, where every fraudulent vote cancels out the vote of an honest American, has sided with the extremist left.”
The election in Arizona, of course, was not demonstrably affected by fraudulent voting to any significant degree. The 18 months since Boebert’s speech have included numerous efforts to undercut the results there and in other states by those loyal to Trump, without success. Boebert was again posturing about Trump in an effort to appeal to his base, and working backward to object to the results in Arizona as a way to do so.
She’s tweeted about voter fraud any number of times — in fact, repeatedly insisting both that fraud is a dire threat and that the 2020 election suffered from it. But that articulation offered on Jan. 6 was revealing. It isn’t novel to suggest that fraudulent votes “cancel” those of legal voters; it often comes up in these debates. What it suggests, though, is that any illegal vote must be stamped out.
It is, in other words, an absolutist position — one that Boebert explicitly rejects when the issue is mass murder.
It is obvious to the point of dullness that we should try to stop any illegal voting and any murders. It should similarly be obvious that one of those things is worse than the other.
What may be less obvious is the scale at which either occurs. An analysis of in-person voter fraud completed in 2014 found 241 possibly fraudulent ballots cast in a pool of more than 1 billion votes over the previous 14 years. In the 2020 election, more than 160 million votes were cast, including 25.6 million in six swing states won by President Biden. By the end of last year, the Associated Press had tallied fewer than 500 possibly suspect votes in those states. Possibly! But that’s a rate of 1.8 suspect votes per 100,000 cast in those states.
So far in 2022, more than 10,000 gun homicides have been tallied in the United States. That’s a rate of three killings per 100,000 Americans. A higher incidence rate — and one that has a dire, tangible effect incomparable to suspect votes that would not have been determinative in any of the six states’ elections.
It’s also a rate that’s 128 times the rate of fraud seen in that 2014 study. In that study, the rate of fraud was slightly lower than the number of Americans killed just in mass shooting events so far this year — the focus of Boebert’s tweet, though she has at times been more expansive.
BREAKING: Criminals will still break gun laws.
Biden’s new “rules” will only disarm law-abiding citizens.
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) April 11, 2022
Again, could one wave a magic wand to eliminate any violations of voter-fraud and homicide statutes, no rational person would refuse to wave the wand. But what if you could wave the wand only once, to eliminate one set of violations? If you were going to be an absolutist demanding robust efforts to eliminate one of these crimes entirely, which would you pick? | 2022-07-05T17:55:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lauren Boebert and other Republicans view any illegal vote as a crisis but mass shootings as unavoidable - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/viewing-any-illegal-vote-crisis-mass-shootings-inevitable/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/viewing-any-illegal-vote-crisis-mass-shootings-inevitable/ |
A man uses a smartphone in Mumbai in 2020. (Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg News)
NEW DELHI — Twitter took the Indian government to court Tuesday over content-removal orders, the first time the company has mounted a legal challenge against authorities here amid a widening internet crackdown.
The most recent orders to take down content and block accounts, which Twitter complied with Monday, were described as “arbitrary” and “disproportionate,” according to sources familiar with the filing, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. The company did not specify which removal orders it was challenging.
With more than 38 million users, India is Twitter’s fourth-largest market, according to 2021 estimates by Insider Intelligence, a market research firm. The case is likely to escalate tensions with the government, which has increasingly sought to regulate social media platforms by tightening legislation and policing user activity.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India’s junior minister for information technology, told The Washington Post that he had not yet seen the legal filing. “Everybody in India, including Twitter, has the right to court and judicial review,” he said. “But, equally, every intermediary operating in India has unambiguous obligation to comply with our laws.”
Digital rights advocates have slammed recent moves by India to regulate internet companies and monitor content. Authorities have tried to censor tweets critical of the government’s handling of the pandemic and recently arrested a journalist over a four-year-old tweet about a Hindu god.
New rules issued last year mandate that social media companies appoint India-based grievance officers to comply with government takedown requests or risk criminal liability. Twitter was already reprimanded by a local court over its failure to appoint such officials within the stipulated time. Police in the state of Uttar Pradesh also summoned the company’s top executive in India for failing to take down a viral video of alleged communal violence.
The government moved recently to require Indian companies to store user data and keep track of usage history, prompting leading virtual private network services such as ExpressVPN to pull out of the country. The company described the order as an attempt to “limit internet freedom.”
VPN provider pulls out of India over push to ‘limit internet freedom’
In the current suit filed in Bangalore, Twitter is asking for judicial review on multiple grounds, including procedural deficiencies, citing the government’s failure to notify users whose accounts are targeted. Several takedown orders relate to content posted by verified handles of political parties, Twitter said, arguing that censoring such information would violate freedom of speech.
According to a transparency report filed by Twitter covering the period from January to June 2021, India was among the top five countries demanding content removal, joining Japan, Russia, Turkey and South Korea. The company received nearly 5,000 legal demands to remove content in India and complied with about 12 percent of them, the report disclosed.
Elon Musk’s free-speech agenda poses safety risks on global stage
The legal challenge by Twitter is a “significant development that will impact free expression” of social media users in India, said Apar Gupta, executive director at the Internet Freedom Foundation.
Takedown orders are issued in secret, Gupta said, making it hard for users to contest them. Many are directed at tweets and handles expressing “criticism or dissent, rather than any illegality,” he added, citing disclosures by Twitter to the Lumen database, an American site that analyzes legal complaints and removal requests.
The report to Lumen revealed that the Indian government had asked Twitter last year to block accounts and tweets from journalists, politicians and civil society.
Multiple Twitter accounts supporting protests over a controversial farm law are currently blocked in India, a farmers union said in late June. Also hidden from view are tweets about the global decline in internet freedom by Freedom House, a U.S.-based nonprofit that tracks democracy and human rights.
In a tweet June 30, the group expressed concern about the government’s restrictions on online speech, noting that human rights defenders and journalists in the country “often face this kind of censorship.” | 2022-07-05T18:03:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Twitter takes Indian government to court over blocking orders - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/05/india-twitter-content-takedown-censorship/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/05/india-twitter-content-takedown-censorship/ |
All four men had previously received lower-level decorations for their battlefield gallantry. After a review, senior military officials moved to upgrade each of their awards, and the president approved.
President Joe Biden presents a Medal of Honor to Maj. John J. Duffy, a U.S. Army veteran who fought in the Vietnam War, in the East Room of the White House on Tuesday July 5, 2022. (Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post)
President Biden awarded the nation’s highest recognition for valor in combat, the Medal of Honor, to four Vietnam War veterans on Tuesday, saying it was “finally” possible to “set the record straight” after decades in which their actions were not properly recognized.
Biden said that the awards were possible in part because of a congressionally mandated review of actions in Vietnam by Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders during the Korean and Vietnam wars. A similar review of underrecognized valor cases during World War II resulted in 22 Medals of Honor, including one for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye (D.-Hawaii), Biden said. | 2022-07-05T18:08:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden awards Medal of Honor to four Vietnam War veterans - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/05/biden-medal-of-honor-vietnam/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/05/biden-medal-of-honor-vietnam/ |
A new symbol for the Fourth of July: The active shooter
Children's bicycles and scooters are left behind after the shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill. (Max Herman/Reuters)
Just a few hours later in Highland Park, Ill., a gunman perched sniper-style on a rooftop fired dozens of rounds from a high-powered rifle into a crowd of July Fourth parade-goers, killing at least six people and sending nearly three dozen to the hospital with injuries.
“Because citizens were armed,” no one ended up celebrating at all.
Videos of the parade captured members of a marching band fleeing for their lives as gunshots were heard nearby. Parents swept up their children and left their flags, coolers and lawn chairs behind. Across the Chicago area, Independence Day gatherings were canceled and families hid indoors while the shooter remained at large.
This wasn’t the only episode of gun violence at a public July Fourth event. In Philadelphia — America’s “cradle of liberty” — panicked crowds fled as the national anthem played after two police officers were wounded by gunfire at a fireworks display on Monday night.
These events should shock us, but more and more they appear inevitable. In 2022, this is how we mark America’s greatest civic holiday: flags and fireworks as background, firearms to the fore. How desperately sad that on a day we are meant to commemorate our exceptional brand of freedom, gun violence has made our lives manifestly less free.
It’s difficult to believe this is the vision our Founders had in mind when they set down “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as inalienable rights. Yet the Supreme Court, in a ruling this past month that makes it easier for gun-toting Americans to carry their weapons in public, argued that a New York law restricting the concealed carrying of guns was not “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” building on years of Second Amendment fetishization.
Thus a selective reading of a few of the Constitution’s frozen-in-amber lines is used to override the needs of the present day, in a country where guns outnumber people.
Of course, the court shares only part of the blame. For a shocking number of Americans, this misguided, selfish definition of freedom has overrun any recognition of duty to care for one’s fellow citizens. The most reasonable restrictions on gun ownership for the safety of others — training requirements, age limits, background checks — are described as unbearable offenses against a twisted definition of personal liberty.
But the liberty to attend a public event without fearing gun violence? Immaterial.
“It is devastating that a celebration of America was ripped apart by our uniquely American plague,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) said in a news conference after the Highland Park shooting on Monday afternoon. “A day dedicated to freedom has put into stark relief the one freedom we as a nation refuse to uphold: the freedom of our fellow citizens to live without the daily fear of gun violence.”
The Fourth of July is meant to be a salute to our exceptional culture, a tribute to everything quintessentially American: the local parade with its pride and pageantry, the fireworks and family cookouts. The red, white and blue. But the shootings over the weekend drive home the obscene truth that mass shootings and gun scares are now a quintessentially “American” image as well — what the United States has become known for around the globe.
In an exasperated statement to the press on Monday night, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said as much. “This is a gun country. It’s crazy,” he said. “We’re the most armed country in world history, and we’re one of the least safest.” He continued: “I’m concerned every single day. There’s not an event or a day where I don’t lay on my back at night, look at the ceiling and worry about stuff. … I don’t enjoy Fourth of July. I don’t enjoy the Democratic National Convention. I didn’t enjoy the NFL draft. I’m waiting for something bad to happen all the time.”
Thanks to our gun regime, that ever-present fear is now as American as apple pie. And in contrast to what the NRA might have us believe, it’s hard to imagine anyone is celebrating that. | 2022-07-05T18:09:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Our sick new July Fourth symbol: The active shooter - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/highland-park-july-fourth-active-shooter/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/highland-park-july-fourth-active-shooter/ |
Inflation is even worse than the official numbers suggest
A shopper reaches for cottage cheese inside a grocery store in San Francisco on May 2. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)
If you’re having trouble grasping why inflation is so politically potent, consider that Americans who enjoyed a Fourth of July cookout on Monday paid 17 percent more for their food than last year, according to a survey from the American Farm Bureau Federation.
That’s a perfect illustration of a poorly understood aspect of inflation: For most Americans, the inflation they actually experience is often much worse than the 8.6 percent headline rate.
The official government inflation rate comes from the consumer price index, which measures the prices of a basket of goods that reflect the overall annual consumption of items and services that an average urban household pays for.
As a national average, it can never exactly reflect what a particular household faces in any particular city. It assumes that the average family purchases all these goods and services in the same quantities. But that simply isn’t true, and it unintentionally hides how high inflation is for millions of people.
Prices for the goods that people regularly purchase are rising much faster than those for things they don’t. Food used at home, for example, rose by almost 12 percent over the past year, while gasoline prices jumped by nearly 50 percent. Prices for eggs skyrocketed by more than 32 percent in the last year.
These categories comprise less than 20 percent of the overall CPI, yet they are products that people buy every week. As a result, the political impact of these double-digit increases is likely to be worse than that of infrequently purchased goods, such as visits to the doctor.
But even some of those goods people don’t often purchase likely produce extreme inflation anxiety for some households. Most people don’t move, for example, and the majority of those who have stayed put in the past year likely have mortgages whose repayment amounts don’t fluctuate. But those who did buy a new home almost surely experienced sticker shock. The price of a home has risen by a whopping 40 percent since March 2020, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller National Home Price Index. The nearly 7 million households that purchased a new or existing home in 2021 won’t soon forget the sky-high prices they encountered.
The same is true for people who bought a new or used car in the past year, who paid between 12 and 16 percent more on average than if they bought the same car the year before. Again, this isn’t something most people experienced, since Americans typically hold on to their cars for years. But nearly 58 million used and new vehicles were sold in 2019, the last year with complete data. While businesses likely bought many of these, that means tens of millions of individuals likely ventured out in the past year to purchase a car or truck, and saw those high prices on top of all the other accumulating price increases.
Together, these facts explain why Americans are furious about inflation. Both big-ticket items they purchase infrequently and the everyday items they buy every week are skyrocketing in price. The fact that prices of some goods are only rising slowly or, in the case of televisions and smartphones, are declining doesn’t offset the political impact of the rapid price hikes in more important categories.
The administration’s efforts to combat these hikes are laughably inept or tone-deaf. Blaming price hikes for meat on the lack of competition in the meat packing industry is economically illiterate; the industry did not suddenly become less competitive in the last year, and it’s nonsensical to suppose that all powerful packers would exercise their market power now but not in previous years. Meanwhile, President Biden has issued silly tweets insisting that oil companies reduce prices at the pump, but he continues to pander to the left by refusing to issue new permits for oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
His tone-deafness on gas prices is especially troubling. He has plaintively asked despots in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to hike their output rather than encourage U.S. producers to drill more wells. He even recently suggested high gas prices as an opportunity for an “incredible transition” away from fossil fuels. Expect to see that clip in GOP attack ads this fall.
America’s decades-long low inflation adds to the political impact of double-digit price hikes. The official inflation rate hasn’t been this high since December 1981. Only those who are 60 or older have experienced something like this before. For most Americans, it’s the shock of a lifetime. No wonder they are furious. And they are not likely to see any relief before November.
A generation of homeowners encounters a strange new market
If Powell’s Fed tenure is a success, what would failure look like? | 2022-07-05T18:09:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Inflation is even worse than the official numbers suggest - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/inflation-is-even-worse-than-official-numbers-suggest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/inflation-is-even-worse-than-official-numbers-suggest/ |
The Roberts Court has now created what is in effect a one-way ratchet favoring deregulation
Perspective by David Super
David Super is a professor of law at Georgetown University.
Taillights trace the path of a motor vehicle at the Naughton Power Plant, Jan. 13, 2022, in Kemmerer, Wyo. (Natalie Behring/AP)
The implications of the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA go far beyond dramatically limiting the federal government’s ability to address climate change — significant as that is.
With this decision, the court has done nothing less than transform the law’s basic assumptions about the role of the federal government. From now on, this opinion declares, the courts will enforce a strong presumption against the federal government addressing major social and economic problems. This will have profound implications across, as the court puts it, “all corners of the administrative state” — including environmental protection and worker safety, battling consumer fraud, blocking dangerous pharmaceuticals and taming tech giants’ abuses.
West Virginia v. EPA involved several states’ challenge to the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which sought to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in electricity generation in a “systemic” way. The plan prodded utilities not just to make individual plants more efficient but more broadly to shift from coal to natural gas (or to purchase emission credits if they couldn’t do so).
The rule was never implemented, because it was enjoined by the Supreme Court, canceled by the Trump administration and not revived by the Biden administration. Ordinarily, this would cause the Supreme Court to dismiss the case as moot. This particular court, however, was evidently eager to continue the mission to narrow federal regulatory power that it had begun in earlier rulings striking down responses to the pandemic (nullifying an eviction moratorium, as well as a requirement that many businesses require their employees either get vaccinated or be tested for the coronavirus regularly).
The court acknowledged that, read on its own, the Clean Air Act’s language could be interpreted to authorize the plan the Obama administration developed. It held, however, that because the plan involved a “major” intervention into the power-plant sector, it had to be explicitly authorized by Congress. The court ruled the plan was too significant a regulatory effort for the Environmental Protection Agency to devise on its own under general congressional authorization.
The problem here, as Justice Elena Kagan pointed out in dissent, is that Congress had clearly sanctioned “major” action by the EPA. Indeed, it authorized the agency to select “the best system of emission reduction” for power plants [italics added].
There’s a reason Congress asked the EPA to come up with the best system possible: It lacks the expertise — and the resources — to develop such a solution itself. Its members are unfamiliar with the relevant technologies and ignorant, as well, of the approaches to emissions control that scientists and environmental engineers think are most promising.
To be sure, judicial presumptions against reading acts of Congress in ways that permit particular kinds of policies are nothing new. In 1804, for example, the Supreme Court declared “that an act of Congress ought never to be construed to violate the law of nations” — today, we would say “international law” — “if any other possible construction remains”; “such extraordinary intent ought to have been plainly expressed” in a statute if the courts are to honor it.
In 1979, the court held that because the National Labor Relations Board’s certification of a union of parochial school employees “would give rise to serious constitutional questions” under the First Amendment, only “the affirmative intention of the Congress clearly expressed” would suffice to persuade the courts that that was what Congress intended.
And the court held in 1994 that respect for federalism dictated that, to apply the Age Discrimination in Employment Act to state judges, it “must be absolutely certain that Congress intended such” a result.
It is a huge leap, however, from judicial presumptions that Congress does not intend to undermine international law, constitutional rights or the sovereignty of states to treating all major social and economic regulation as suspect. The Constitution plainly requires Congress to honor international law, to respect the free exercise of religion, and to guarantee states a republican form of government. The Constitution does not, however, support the court’s new presumption against major regulations in the absence of detailed congressional specifications. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in his famous dissent in Lochner v. New York — which struck down a New York state maximum-hours law for bakers — “This case is decided upon an economic theory which a large part of the country does not entertain. … But a constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the State or of laissez faire.”
The Roberts Court has now created what is in effect a one-way ratchet favoring deregulation. Deregulatory actions need be enacted only once and become immediately effective, but if Congress seeks to intervene to address a social problem such as a public health emergency or climate change, it may have to legislate several times before its action sticks, because nobody can predict what the court will consider “major” or what the court will consider a sufficiently clear statement. Each of these questions will take at least two or three years to litigate; if a deregulatory administration takes power in the interim, it will stop defending the litigation and the regulatory effort will fail (or will have to be restarted afresh).
This bold move is a marked departure from conservatives’ arguments over the past half-century for the courts not to favor or oppose any particular set of policies but, rather, to leave policymaking to the political branches.
This is also a major departure from conservatives' long-standing argument that the private sector benefits when the regulatory environment is predictable: Which regulations are or are not sufficiently significant to be subject to the court’s new “major questions” doctrine is inherently subjective. It also will intensify political strife over judicial appointments — as if they were not already polarized enough — as the interpretation of what counts as a “major question” will inevitably reflect the ideology of the judge in question.
Having more exacting requirements for major regulations is not unreasonable. Congress has imposed, by way of statute, some protections against ill-conceived, overly sweeping rules. For example, the Congressional Review Act prohibits major rules from taking effect until Congress and the public have had at least 60 days to pursue its invalidation. Executive orders issued by several presidents have imposed further checks. Both contain explicit definitions of what rules are major and assign the Office of Management and Budget to make those judgments. Congress and various presidents, however, have rejected proposals for still more requirements for major rules along the lines of what the court is now imposing. For example, legislation that passed the House in 2017 would have prevented highly significant rules from taking effect without affirmative votes by both chambers of Congress. The Senate rejected this proposal. Now the Supreme Court has effectively revived it.
When criticizing decisions protecting civil rights, defrauded consumers or the environment, conservatives called for “principled restraint.” In launching this sweeping effort to obstruct initiatives by the elected Congress and president, the court is showing little restraint and abandoning long-standing conservative principles. | 2022-07-05T18:09:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Supreme Court's big environmental-regulations decision reads free-market economics into the Constitution - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/07/05/epa-supreme-court-environmental-regulations/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/07/05/epa-supreme-court-environmental-regulations/ |
Britain's Health Secretary Sajid Javid (left) and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak (right) resigned from the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday. (Jessica Taylor/AFP/Getty Images)
LONDON — Two of Boris Johnson’s most senior cabinet ministers resigned on Tuesday, raising serious questions about Johnson’s leadership and how long the British leader might cling to power.
Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sajid Javid, the health secretary, announced their departures within minutes of each other, making it clear they had lost confidence in Johnson’s leadership.
Sunak tweeted, “The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously. I recognise this may be my last ministerial job, but I believe these standards are worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning.”
Javid wrote in his resignation letter that although Johnson survived a vote of no-confidence last month, the ruling Conservative Party was no longer demonstrating competence nor acting in the national interest. “It is clear to me that this situation will not change under your leadership,” he wrote to Johnson, "and you have therefore lost my confidence too.”
Johnson’s demise has been predicted many times before, as he has faced one political scandal after another. But while he has lost the support of some of his top aides along the way, until recently he has maintained the public backing of his cabinet.
The resignations on Tuesday came after Johnson apologized for appointing to the central and sensitive role of deputy chief whip a Conservative lawmaker, Chris Pincher, who had been accused of groping two men. Johnson had been informed of the allegations in 2019.
“There is no place for anyone in this government who abuses power,” Johnson said Tuesday. “I bitterly regret the decision not to … intervene.”
Last month’s no-confidence vote was triggered by a different scandal, Partygate, with Conservatives members of Parliament echoing the public’s deep disgust over lockdown-breaking parties at Downing Street during the pandemic. | 2022-07-05T19:09:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid resign from Boris Johnson's government - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/05/boris-johnson-sunak-javid/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/05/boris-johnson-sunak-javid/ |
Demaryius Thomas, who died last December, was diagnosed with Stage 2 CTE. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Former NFL star Demaryius Thomas was diagnosed with Stage 2 chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), his family said in a statement on Tuesday, after doctors at the Boston University CTE Center studied the former wide receiver’s brain.
Thomas was found dead in December at his Roswell, Ga. home at the age of 33, and while the cause of death has not yet been ruled by the coroner’s office in Fulton County, Ga., his family has attributed his death to seizures, which he suffered following a 2019 car crash.
Thomas’s diagnosis is associated with “progressive behavior, cognitive and mood abnormalities.” The former NFL star developed depression, anxiety, panic attacks and memory issues in the years before he died. Stage 4 CTE, the most severe stage, is typically associated with dementia.
“Once I became aware of CTE and began to familiarize myself with the symptoms, I noticed that Demaryius was isolating himself and I saw other changes in him,” Thomas’s mother, Katina Smith, said in the family’s statement. “He was just so young, and it was horrible to see him struggle. His father and I hope all families learn the risks of playing football. We don’t want other parents to have to lose their children like we did.”
Smith and Bobby Thomas, the four-time pro bowler’s father, donated their son’s brain to study after the Concussion Legacy Foundation proposed the idea to the family. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist and director of Boston University’s CTE Center, was a part of the research team that studied Thomas’s brain. Per the New York Times, McKee emphasized that Thomas had “two different conditions in parallel,” referring to his seizures and the CTE diagnosis. McKee, whose team has diagnosed more than 300 former NFL players with CTE, said seizures are not generally associated with early-stage CTE.
Thomas played for three teams during his 10 seasons in the NFL, but he’s best known for his nine years with the Denver Broncos, who selected Thomas out of Georgia Tech with the 22nd pick in the first round of the 2010 draft. He won a Super Bowl with the Broncos, and was later traded to the Houston Texans midway through the 2018 season. After a brief stint with the New England Patriots in the following preseason, Thomas finished his career with the New York Jets and retired in 2021, six months before his death.
Athletes in a variety of sports including soccer and ice hockey are at risk of brain damage, but Thomas is the latest NFL player to have been diagnosed with the degenerative brain disease. It’s been found in the brains of Hall of Famers Willie Wood and Junior Seau, as well as Phillip Adams, the former NFL player who last year killed six people in Rock Hill, S.C., and was later diagnosed with Stage 2 CTE.
“Like so many that have gone before, we found Stage 2 CTE in the brain of Demaryius Thomas,” McKee said. “The question I keep asking myself is ‘When will enough be enough?’ When will athletes, parents and the public at large stop ignoring the risks of American football and insist that the game be changed to reduce subconcussive hits and that the athletes be comprehensively evaluated at the beginning and end of every season?” | 2022-07-05T19:22:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Demaryius Thomas diagnosed with Stage 2 CTE in posthumous brain study - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/demaryius-thomas-diagnosed-with-stage-2-cte-posthumous-brain-study/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/demaryius-thomas-diagnosed-with-stage-2-cte-posthumous-brain-study/ |
A placard asking people to wear a mask is seen at a covid-19 mobile testing site run by Philadelphia's Department of Public Health on Dec. 14, 2021. (Matt Rourke/AP)
Since the early months of the covid-19 pandemic, it’s been clear that the U.S. public health system needs major improvements. Now, a blue-ribbon commission assembled by the Commonwealth Fund has issued a report with a rather provocative conclusion: The United States needs a national public health system.
To better understand the rationale, I spoke with three commission members. Former New York state health commissioner Nirav R. Shah explained to me that there is a fundamental problem with public health in America that long predated the pandemic: “It’s disorganized, under-resourced, poorly coordinated and disconnected from the health-care delivery system.”
He’s right. There are nearly 3,000 local health departments with vastly different capabilities. Depending on where someone lives, they could be served by a well-funded city or county health agency that provides many safety-net services, or one with a handful of staff and a shoestring budget. The result is evident in the disparities seen during the pandemic: Some areas were quick to set up big vaccine clinics and free testing sites; others struggled with the basics of contact tracing.
The Commonwealth Fund commission wants to set a national standard for health department capabilities and help them achieve it through new funding. The latter part, to me, is the most important part of their proposal: a federal government commitment to sustained and reliable funding for local public health.
When I served as Baltimore’s health commissioner, my biggest challenge was lack of staff. The same people who worked on the opioid epidemic and maternal and child health were called on to respond to weather emergencies and disease outbreaks. Every crisis was like robbing Peter to pay Paul, with each new problem diverting attention away from existing priorities.
Over the past decade, state and local health departments have lost 15 percent of their essential staff due primarily to budget cuts. A one-time grant, such as Congress’s American Rescue Plan, is not a long-term solution. “Millions of dollars of pandemic funds are unspent because they come with a fiscal cliff,” Shah explained. “If you hire people this year, what happens to them next year?”
That’s why the commission is seeking approximately $8 billion from Congress every year, with the bulk of it addressing local workforce shortages. The rest will pay for a revamped data system that connects public health agencies and hospitals. Julie Gerberding, another commission member, told me that this could have made a big difference during the early days of covid-19.
“If we had real-time information exchange, we might have detected hotspots much earlier,” she said. “We might have noticed outbreaks at meatpacking plants, and that the average age of intensive care admissions was going up; we might have focused efforts sooner at workplaces and nursing homes.”
Commission members are quick to point out what a national public health system is not. Gerberding, who served as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the George W. Bush administration,, is clear that the proposal isn’t to federalize public health, but to set standards. “Our goal is to make sure that there are basic public health protections for everyone regardless of where they live.” She is careful to say even as there needs to be better national coordination, local and state control is paramount.
I think this distinction is really important. Local health departments should be better funded so that they can respond to emerging crises without having to pull their staff from other day-to-day duties. Federal agencies can also be better coordinated among themselves (another issue that the report addresses).
But public health in United States won’t work with top-down control. City and county health officials know their communities best and must be empowered to make local decisions. There is also a real danger to giving the federal government too much power. Just think about what could happen if a president who, for example, promotes anti-vaccine conspiracy theories has greater control over public health policies.
Is the Commonwealth Fund proposal realistic? If Congress can’t get its act together to allocate $10 billion for boosters and antiviral pills, what are the chances that it will agree to a new annual line item? The chair of the commission, Margaret Hamburg, who served as the health commissioner of New York City and then head of the Food and Drug Administration, is undeterred. “Trillions of dollars have been lost because of the pandemic,” she told me. “The amount we’re asking for is such a small amount compared to what the absence of a coordinated public health response has cost us.”
Put another way, the United States can’t afford not to reform its underfunded and outdated public health system. I hope policymakers will read this report and use it as a blueprint for taking concrete, practical actions to safeguard our nation’s health. | 2022-07-05T19:26:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Is it time for a national public health system? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/is-it-time-national-public-health-system/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/is-it-time-national-public-health-system/ |
An American flag blanket is seen abandoned along the parade route after a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill., on July 4. (Reuters/Cheney Orr)
If you feel like everything is out of control and nothing is working, you’re not alone. It’s also exactly how the Republican Party would like you to feel — whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat or an independent.
Gallup has released new data showing that people’s faith in almost every institution in American life — the government, the media, the medical system, the police, organized religion and many others — has not only declined over the past year but in some cases is now lower than at any time since they began asking questions about such confidence over four decades ago:
This year’s poll marks new lows in confidence for all three branches of the federal government — the Supreme Court (25%), the presidency (23%) and Congress. Five other institutions are at their lowest points in at least three decades of measurement, including the church or organized religion (31%), newspapers (16%), the criminal justice system (14%), big business (14%) and the police.
The reasons for these long-term declines — often very good reasons — are different for different institutions. Confidence in banks plunged after the 2008 financial crisis, for example, while confidence in the church has been eroded by multiple sexual misconduct scandals. And we should note that this latest poll was conducted before the court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Smart Republicans know this is great for them and their electoral prospects. It’s about two different views of government — but that’s only part of the story.
On the simplest level, anything that convinces people that government is incapable of solving their problems is good for the party that dislikes government, especially with a Democrat in the White House. Dysfunction, gridlock, a string of crises the federal government seems powerless to solve — all of this makes it more likely that voters will go to the polls in the midterms to throw the bums out, regardless of whether the sitting bums caused the problems, or whether the other party’s bums have any better ideas.
But it goes deeper than this president and this next election. Republicans benefit from a general sense that things don’t work. Their worldview is built around the idea that each of us is on our own and out for ourselves. Lost your job? Too bad, it was probably your fault, and don’t go asking the government for help. You got sick? Bad luck, but don’t expect the medical system to help. You can’t trust the police and it’s a chaotic world out there? You’d better buy some guns.
In the darker versions of this vision, we’re all atomized and disconnected, with no obligations outside our tightest circles and no one to rely on. And if you think there’s an institution out there that will help you, you’re a fool.
But that doesn’t mean conservatives won’t vote. In recent years, Republicans have convinced their supporters that voting should primarily be an act of rage. Voting has always had an emotional component. But more than ever Republicans believe that the main reason to go to the polls is not to achieve practical policy ends. It’s to lash out at the people you hate.
In this formulation it doesn’t matter whether Donald Trump kept his promises or whether a Republican Congress will either. Sure, his supporters thought, it would have been great if he had erected an impenetrable wall around our borders, brought all those lost manufacturing jobs back from China, repealed Obamacare and deported every undocumented immigrant. But what really mattered was that his election was a giant middle finger thrust in the face of liberals.
As for Democrats, it’s not that they don’t want their supporters to get mad. But for them, the anger isn’t its own reward.
Just look at what has happened since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. The Democratic base has been frustrated with party leaders, not because those leaders aren’t mad enough but because they’ve offered little in the way of a pragmatic plan to restore abortion rights, beyond encouraging the base to vote and donate more money.
The implicit message is: The only way to address this problem is through the government institutions that seem to be failing you. While Democrats need their base to retain faith that the system can be made to work for them, Republicans want their base to have as little faith in the system as possible.
And if Democratic voters lose their faith, they demobilize, seeing no point in voting or participating. Which is exactly what Republicans want them to do.
Perhaps Democrats can convince their base that voting out of pure anger (especially at the Supreme Court) is worthwhile. But right now the party’s leaders don’t really seem to be trying. Meanwhile, the pandemic lingers on, the effects of climate change grow ever more miserable, inflation hasn’t turned around, mass shootings are an almost daily occurrence, and there don’t seem to be any trustworthy institutions to turn to.
Republicans had a hand in exacerbating many of these problems. But the pervasive sense of disorder you’re feeling? The GOP is poised to benefit from it. If voters let them. | 2022-07-05T19:26:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Feel like everything is out of control? That's what Republicans want. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/republicans-want-everything-out-of-control/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/republicans-want-everything-out-of-control/ |
The News Corp. building on 6th Avenue, home to Fox News, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, in New York City. (Kevin Hagen/Getty Images)
At its heart, the story of Jan. 6, 2021, is a story of how millions of people became separated from reality.
President Donald Trump lost the election two months prior, with five states he’d won in 2016 going for Joe Biden instead. The results in those states were often narrow, though the national margin was hefty. For months, though, Trump had been insisting that rampant fraud was inevitable and the only feasible explanation for any loss — never mind his broad unpopularity and polarizing approach to the job. Then he claimed that fraud had occurred, without evidence. Thousands of people included in that group then decided to try to take matters into their own hands.
How does this happen? In part because a bubble of right-wing media and voices that had for years ignored or bolstered Trump’s dishonesties went along with the play. Because Trump made very clear that going along with his claims was easier than combating them. There’d been a media bubble on the political right for a while, one driven by market forces that Trump exploited and turned to more overtly political ones.
That surreal information world is why people ended up smashing windows at the Capitol. As the hearings conducted by the House select committee investigating the riot have unfolded, we’ve gotten an interesting look at how that world is sustained.
The first prime-time hearing held by the committee last month pulled in around 20 million viewers. That’s about as many people as tuned into the final three games of the NBA Finals, combined. Of those 20 million people, though, only about 1 percent watched on Fox’s platforms. The company’s flagship network, Fox News, aired counterprogramming — Tucker Carlson and his guests spreading conspiracy theories about the riot — instead of carrying the hearing.
Fox News has, however, covered most of the daytime hearings, when they didn’t conflict with its more popular programming. Much of last week’s sensational testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, aired on Fox News live. Eventually, though, it cut away to show “The Five.”
During the two hours of Hutchinson’s testimony that did air on the channel, its ratings sank — bolstering the argument from host Laura Ingraham that its initial decision not to cover the hearing was the network “catering to its audience.” Of course, telling an audience what it wants to hear is not the role of an ostensible news organization. It is, instead, to actually inform the audience regardless of reception.
Airing a hearing is only one way in which a cable-news network might inform its audience of what is happening, of course. It’s possible that Fox News might have downplayed the live hearings but then informed its audience of what occurred. Except that it didn’t.
Analysis of closed-captioning data for the three largest cable-news networks shows that since June 26, two days before Hutchinson’s testimony, Fox News mentioned her name only one-sixth as often as MSNBC and one-seventh as often as CNN.
(The graphs in this article show the percentage of 15-second clips in a day during which the specified term was mentioned.)
When it came to one story from Hutchinson’s testimony — that she was told that Trump had tried to grab the steering wheel of the car taking him away from his speech at the Ellipse — Fox News’s mentions were in line with the other two networks. That’s almost certainly because that story sparked controversy over its accuracy, with those on the right using questions about what happened as a tool for undercutting Hutchinson’s testimony broadly.
“Looks like it never happened,” Ingraham told her audience. That second bump on the CNN graph of mentions, incidentally, came when the network spoke with two Secret Service sources who bolstered what Hutchinson said.
Contrast that with the more important revelation from the day’s testimony, which was Hutchinson indicating that Trump knew that some of those in the crowd at his speech were armed with firearms or other weapons. He dismissed the threat, Hutchinson said, since the crowd wasn’t going to use the weapons to attack him.
That got a lot of play on CNN and MSNBC — and very little on Fox News. (To measure this, I looked at times when “weapon” or “armed” were mentioned in blocks including or adjacent to mentions of Trump.)
Instead Fox News was more likely to air segments using the word “woke,” a pejorative shorthand for a vague array of left-wing views.
This is how the bubble persists. Instead of presenting the most alarming aspects of what is alleged about Trump, the most popular cable-news network on the right decides to try to downplay it. It focuses on questions about the testimony, not about Trump’s actions and decisions.
On Saturday, The Washington Post explored whether the House committee’s decision to focus on Hutchinson’s testimony had paid off for the committee. Answering that depends on what payoff was sought. If it was media attention: Yes, it paid off. If it was convincing those inclined to dismiss Trump’s actions: It probably didn’t. Not because the testimony was considered and rejected but because many of those who for years have been isolated in the bubble of which Fox News is part continue to avoid the unhappy demands of reality. | 2022-07-05T19:31:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fox News aired Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony, but that’s about it - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/fox-news-aired-cassidy-hutchinsons-testimony-thats-about-it/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/fox-news-aired-cassidy-hutchinsons-testimony-thats-about-it/ |
The subpoenas, which arise from an investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, relate to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), left, and Rudy Giuliani. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News)
ATLANTA — The Fulton County grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s potential criminal interference in the 2020 presidential election subpoenaed several close advisers to the former president Tuesday, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The subpoenas, which were approved July 5 by the judge presiding over the grand jury, summon senior members of Trump’s legal team, including Giuliani and legal advisers Kenneth Chesebro, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Cleta Mitchell, all of whom have knowledge of Trump’s attempts to tamper with the election process in battleground states such as Georgia, according to the documents.
Graham (R-S.C.) and the conservative pundit Jacki Pick Deason were also subpoenaed by the grand jury.
The grand jury’s subpoena of Giuliani cites his December 2020 testimony before the Georgia legislature, during which he claimed to have evidence of widespread voter fraud. Giuliani presented lawmakers with a video claiming election workers had produced “suitcases” full of unlawful ballots during counting at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta. Investigators dismissed the claims shortly thereafter.
“Despite this, the Witness made additional statements, both to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings, claiming widespread voter fraud in Georgia during the November 2020 election and using the now-debunked State Farm video in support of those statements,” the subpoena says.
The jury believes Giuliani “possesses unique knowledge concerning communications between himself, former President Trump, the Trump Campaign, and other known and unknown individuals involved in the multi-state, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere,” according to the subpoena.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis launched an investigation into Trump’s potential election interference in Georgia in February 2021, not long after The Washington Post reported the former president had pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” in an hour-long call.
This spring, Willis requested a grand jury to be seated to aid the investigation, arguing that it would be able to issue subpoenas to individuals of interest who had otherwise refused to cooperate. The subpoenas of Giuliani and others Tuesday required the approval of Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney because they were directed at people who do not live in Georgia. | 2022-07-05T19:31:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Georgia grand jury subpoenas Sen. Graham, Giuliani and Trump legal team - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/05/georgia-grand-jury-subpoenas-sen-graham-giuliani-trump-legal-team/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/05/georgia-grand-jury-subpoenas-sen-graham-giuliani-trump-legal-team/ |
A man removes two children's scooters from a sidewalk in downtown Highland Park, Ill., on July 5, a day after a shooting at a Fourth of July parade left seven people dead. (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)
Once again, an angry young man with a high-powered rifle wreaks bloody havoc on an American community. Once again, heartbroken families must plan funerals for loved ones. Once again, something so simple — like going to church or attending school and now watching a parade — is added to the pleasures of life that can no longer be taken for granted. And once again, we must ask why we allow this madness to continue. How many more families and communities have to be needlessly ripped apart before something is finally done about the weapons that make it obscenely easy to kill the most people in the shortest period of time?
Six people were slaughtered in a terrifying matter of minutes on Monday by a gunman perched on a rooftop who took aim and fired more than 70 rounds at the traditional Fourth of July parade in the Highland Park suburb of Chicago. A seventh victim died on Tuesday. Dozens of others were injured. Victims ranged in age from 8 to 85. “It was just this sea of panic, and people just falling and falling,” one witness told CNN, recounting how one minute people were cheering on the floats and marching bands — and then, realizing the noise from a nearby rooftop was gunfire and not part of the show, they frantically ran for cover. Nicolas Toledo, 76, was sitting in a wheelchair when he was struck by bullets and killed. His family had recently moved him to Highland Park from Mexico, his granddaughter said, “so he could have a better life.”
A doctor who was at the parade and ended up treating some of the victims described the horrific injuries he witnessed. “I’ve seen things in ERs, you know, you do see lots of blood,” said Dr. David Baum. “But the bodies were literally — some of the bodies — it was an evisceration injury from the power of this gun and the bullets.” He added: “I’ve never served, those are wartime injuries. Those are what are seen in victims of war, not victims at a parade.”
The high-powered rifle used in the attack, according to authorities, was legally purchased by the suspected 21-year-old gunman, who was taken into custody on Monday but has yet to be formally charged. . The ease of acquiring these weapons of war — and make no mistake, war is what the designers of these weapons envisioned — is by now, after Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Las Vegas and countless other mass shootings, a sadly familiar story. That the back-to-back shootings in May at a grocery store in Buffalo and at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex., were allegedly committed by 18-year-olds who had no problem strolling into gun stores and leaving with weapons that would be used to kill 31 people should have been a call to action for Congress.
Instead, the regulation of assault weapons was not even allowed on the table as a package of moderate gun and school safety measures was negotiated by a bipartisan group of senators and signed into law. As we said at the time, it was good that Congress was able to take some action, breaking more than a 25-year stalemate on gun control. But as the horrific events of Highland Park demonstrated, more rigorous reforms are needed. Banning assault weapons is a good place to restart the conversation.
GOP support for a gun bill offers hope for bigger reforms | 2022-07-05T19:48:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | After the Highland Park shooting, reconsider an assault weapons ban - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/highland-park-shooting-assault-weapon-ban/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/highland-park-shooting-assault-weapon-ban/ |
Prince George’s school board candidates pitch covid recovery plans
Candidates running for four district seats answer questions about school safety, board makeup and retaining teachers
Students arrive for the first day of school in Prince George’s County at Deerfield Run Elementary School in Laurel, Md., on Sept. 5. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
As Prince George’s County Public Schools recovers from another pandemic year, school board candidates in the upcoming primary race pitched how they’d tackle learning loss gaps faced by students.
The school system is the state’s second largest, with roughly 131,000 students. It has traditionally been the most stringent with coronavirus protocols, as it kept a mask requirement in place while other school systems dropped it. Prince George’s was also the last school system in the state to return to in-person learning.
Meanwhile, its school board has been plagued by polarization that observers say stems from its hybrid appointee and elected member makeup. As state officials revise the board’s format, voters head to the polls beginning this week to pick new members.
There are four seats up for election, but only one has a primary: District 6. Only two candidates each are on the ballot in the remaining districts, meaning they will automatically advance to the general election.
While the election is on July 19, early voting begins July 7.
Below are questions posed to the candidates by The Washington Post. There are five candidates competing for the District 6 seat; three responded to questions by deadline. Responses were edited for brevity and clarity.
Jenni Pompi, 44, is a senior editor in the periodicals department of a nonprofit. She has been a Greenbelt, Md., resident for about 25 years and hast two children enrolled in Prince George’s County Public Schools. She said her previous experience as a journalist covering District 2 gives her a strong understanding of local politics and deep understanding of municipal budgeting.
Top issues: Creating a safe, healthy environment for educators, children and parents; clear and consistent communication; restorative practices in classrooms; strengthening community schools.
I am a strong supporter of the role that community schools will play as part of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. Engaging students and families through wraparound services such as additional counselors and enhanced learning opportunities through field trips during school and after-school hours and through partnerships with organizations; and focusing on improving student attendance and parent engagement (including educational opportunities for parents and other family members), are proven to increase student success.
I will also work to ensure each school has a fully funded mental health services coordinator position and support teacher and staff professional development around recognizing symptoms of mental health problems.
What is your position on the school board returning to a fully elected board by 2024?
I support the Board of Education’s return to a fully elected board by 2024, and the Board’s ability to select its own leadership by 2023.
I will commit to fully implementing the Blueprint, and with that, it’s promised set starting salary of $60,000 for all teachers by 2026. I also support salary increases in the union contract for competitive pay with surrounding counties. I support a real career development system with professional development opportunities and protected professional development days to retain both new and veteran certified teachers.
How would you improve school safety?
I support enhancing external safety features already in place and being constructed in new PGCPS buildings, such as security vestibules and secure entrances. Just as important is building a strong sense of community through restorative practices and wraparound services that enhance the safety and security of our students.
Incumbent Board member Joshua M. Thomas did not respond to questions.
Incumbent Board member Pamela Boozer-Strother, 53, is an associate sector consultant for sponsorship programs. She lives in Brentwood, Md., and has a daughter in the school system. She helped lead the system through the crisis of the coronavirus pandemic she said, and is deeply knowledgeable of the programming and budgeting of the $2.6 billion system.
Top issues: Family and community engagement respected as critical to academic achievement; school construction; Blueprint for Maryland’s Future programs and funding, including the Community Schools wraparound supports model and additional supports for English Language Learners and special education; and, climate change action planning in operations and the curriculum.
I support the academic recovery plans developed by CEO Dr. Monica Goldson. PGCPS has been a leader in pandemic response, building tutoring and summer programs to provide year-round supports for learning-loss gaps as well as implementing the Blueprint for Maryland’s community schools model with wraparound services that include mental health practitioners in school buildings.
I am proud to be an elected Board Member who is well regarded by my constituents as accessible and responsive, and who works collaboratively with the Board chair, colleagues and administration. I can provide stability and continuity when the Board returns to fully elected.
With the support of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future legislation, PGCPS continues to increase pay steps and annual cost of living adjustments in addition to a competitive benefits package. I voted to expand the budget for tuition reimbursement, incentive pay and to raise the hourly pay rate for substitutes to $30/hour to make it possible for teachers to take time off for professional development and rest.
I will continue to advocate for funding for new clean energy school buildings that are built with the features of secure front entrances and modern doors and locks; improve safe walking paths to schools and advocate for a fully staffed crossing guard program; promote mitigating covid-19 spread through a high vaccine rate; and, support budgets with increased services for bullying prevention and restorative approaches to conflict resolution.
Varinia V. Sandino did not respond to questions.
Pat Fletcher, 72, is a retiree, and former member of the school board from 2006 to 2010. Several family members, including her two daughters who became teachers in the system, have been or are students in PGCPS. She has two decades of experience in the field of mental health and resides in Landover, Md.
Top issues: Student achievement, accessibility to mental health services, healthy and effective learning environment.
Presently, PGCPS is offering credit recovery over the summer at no cost. I would like to see this program continue after school when it begins in August for the entire school year. I would like to see PGCPS partner with the county health department and have mental health counselors/workers in every school.
I participated in the open public forums of the committee that the county executive initiated to do research and provide recommendations about this topic and am in agreement that the school board be fully elected.
Competitive salaries equal more certified teachers equal smaller classrooms, which result in an effective learning environment for our students. When businesses come into the county instead of [the] tax breaks that we give them, have them make a commitment to give a percentage of their annual income to the schools or a portion of their taxes that they pay to the county come to PGCPS earmarked for staff pay.
I would like to see training of all staff (not just the teachers) to be able to recognize when a student is in trouble and able to direct the student to the proper resources. Mental health counselors/psychologist in all schools and in-school suspension with counseling. I would also recommend safety officers in the schools.
Brandon D. Jackson did not respond to questions.
Dannine Johnson did not respond to questions.
Ashley Kearney, 32, is a whole child and anti-racist systems integration manager for D.C. Public Schools. She lives in Seat Pleasant, Md. She is an accomplished policy adviser with demonstrated success in educator effectiveness training, driving student achievement and managing a congressional education portfolio.
Top issues: Creating a safe, empowering, joyous and 21st-century learning environment, having highly qualified and supported educators.
Students’ readiness to learn starts with the relational structures in the climate and culture of schools, and the strength of the school’s relationship with families, caregivers and community partners. In addition to the Blueprint’s response, I’d advocate for using the real-time site and population data analytics from the new data management system rolled out in March to ensure services rendered, and workshops and training provided to families and staff directly [to] meet the needs of the student reported [as] common concerns outlined in the PGCPS Mental Health Services updates.
I support the return to a fully elected board by 2024, as well as the recommendation of the task force to not allow candidates to appear on slates. I’d also advocate for opportunities for community-based board training workshops to provide access to those qualified persons seeking office, and support the necessary pipeline given the task force’s additional term limit recommendation.
I’d increase the opportunities for paid teacher leadership, ensure opportunities for comprehensive professional development, increased recognition, grow pipelines for substitute teachers and teaching aids with reciprocal university and district partnerships that provide opportunities to allow educators time to commit to further studies and [give] teacher candidates additional clinical practice or access to teacher apprenticeship. I’d also work with county leadership to explore additional property tax credits for educators who own a home in the county and serve for a determined amount of years.
I would establish a school safety work group to include teachers, students, concerned community members and leaders who would consider the findings of the Optimal School Safety Task Force to address problems of practice in ensuring Optimally Safe School status. I’d also work with the school-to-prison pipeline work group to consider collaborating with the Maryland Association of School Resource Officers to increase the number of district school administrators, counselors, parents and teachers to co-create best practices and establishment of school safety metrics as an effective stopgap to the long-term of efforts of Optimal School Task Force for restructuring and/or phase out of SRO and security personnel.
Sean Michael Wilson, 28, is a municipal liaison and special assistant to the chief of staff for the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney’s Office. He is a Prince George’s County native, who graduated from the school system and resides in Seat Pleasant, Md. Wilson said his experience as a public servant having worked at every level of government makes him qualified for the board seat.
Top issues: Competitive teacher pay, attracting and retaining highly qualified teachers, school safety, expanding vocational/career technical programs.
I would create remedial programs and for English language learners to learn their core studies in their native language. I would increase mental health workshops for parents and students, and add to the number of in-school clinicians supporting the county Mental Health Coordinator.
I fully support an all-elected school board as I believe it returns democracy to the residents of District 6 and Prince George’s County.
We recruit not to fill a vacancy but to educate a child, thus we need the best and the brightest highly EFFECTIVE teachers. I would support the school board ensuring that we foster a supportive and nurturing work culture that values teachers and offers a compensation/reward system that incentivizes teachers to excel in supporting teaching and learning. I support raising salaries to be regionally competitive, ensuring updated trainings are offered in their subject area as well as professional development.
With the recent uptick of violence and gun incidents in our schools, we must do everything in our power to keep them safe such as ensure that our school-based security have all the necessary resources and training to make sure they can effectively do their job. We must look at ways to monitor social media for school and fight activities and engage our parents to understand student culture. Also engage more community members to serve as student mentors.
Kent Roberson, 38, works in government relations. He is a graduate of Prince George’s County Public Schools. He has two children in the school system, and previously was the vice president of the PTSA. He lives in Clinton, Md.
Top issues: Infrastructure, support systems.
How would you help students recover from historic learning-loss gaps and mental health challenges seen during the pandemic?
I believe reinforcing the opportunities for continued online programs that are currently offered through the school system would be one way to help with learning loss. This includes working with the school CEO to identify ways we can work together to find mental health partners in the community that can speak to the needs of our scholars.
I support the school board returning to a fully elected board by 2024.
I believe we should work with the Maryland State Board of Education to allow the educators that have been substituting for long periods of time to receive credit toward their certifications and be hired as full-time educators. I also believe there should be alternatives to educators having to take the PRAXIS exam, when they have been evaluated as effective educators. Lastly, I believe we should work more closely with our state colleges and universities to provide tuition assistance and tax incentives for those individuals that commit to work in the school system or live within their school district.
Lolita Walker, 44, is a certified life, leadership and executive coach, keynote speaker, and small business owner of a personal and professional consultancy. She is a graduate of the school system and resides in Accokeek, Md. Her education, coupled with work, home and life experiences enable her to bring a multitude of skills to the table, she said.
Top issues: Mental health, school safety, parental engagement.
Learning-Loss Gaps: Building upon our Summer Learning Spark Program, I would aim to create linkages between our high school and elementary school scholars, whereby high-schoolers in 11th and 12th grade are afforded the opportunity to mentor and tutor our younger scholars. This, alongside partnerships with existing community tutoring resources, will ensure that we begin to bridge the learning-loss gaps.
Mental Health Challenges: Though there are programming and resources available through mindfulness curriculum currently offered to teachers, it is imperative that professional and personal development is also offered to students and staff by way of cultural diversity training and credentialed resources that are both inside and outside of the school system.
It is my belief that a mix of elected and appointed positions are value-added for any board. Elected officials represent the chosen leaders who qualified voters have trusted to represent them, which often drives a deep sense of accountability. An appointed position offers the opportunity to construct a harmonious bridge that leads to stability and forward progression, minus what could be a political stalemate, at times.
High school teaching internships, incoming credit for teaching in the district to which you were educated, and involvement in early mentorship of our scholars from education majors in local universities can begin to build a lane to recruitment of successful teachers. To retain teachers, some considerations are the continuation and/or implementation of bonuses (sign on, loyalty, performance, to include student and peer feedback, etc.), funding for educational advancement via coursework and certifications, and both local and national media to highlight wins.
Partnerships with local police departments to increase security presence and influence in and surrounding the schools; cellphone and internet providers to sponsor workshops on cyber safety and its impact on mental and physical health; community centers to attract retirees, providing additional classroom coverage for small-group learning and hallway monitoring; therapists and counseling services to provide safe spaces for our scholars to uncover what they may be holding internally; recreational centers to provide before and after school activities and programming; and with art institutions to partner with our art staff and students to create murals, positive affirmations and creative ways to celebrate the wins of our scholars, encouraging them to persevere through the toughest of times. | 2022-07-05T20:58:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Prince George's elections: School board candidates pitch covid recovery plans - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/05/prince-georges-school-board-election-candidates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/05/prince-georges-school-board-election-candidates/ |
By Dave Sheinin
WNBA star Brittney Griner is escorted to a courtroom for a hearing in Khimki, just outside Moscow, on Friday. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)
Nearly 1,200 prominent Black women signed a letter to President Biden and Vice President Harris urging the administration to secure Brittney Griner’s release from a Russian prison, an escalation of a pressure campaign by the WNBA star’s supporters that comes as her trial proceeds in a court outside of Moscow.
The letter arrived one day after a letter to Biden from the Phoenix Mercury center herself, handwritten from her cell, was delivered to the White House on Independence Day. In Griner’s letter, excerpts of which were released by her agents, she wrote, “I’m terrified I might be here forever,” and asked Biden to do “whatever you can do at this moment to get me home.”
Asked for comment on Griner’s letter to Biden, Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the National Security Council, told The Washington Post: “[Biden’s] team is in regular contact with Brittney’s family and we will continue to work to support her family. … The U.S. government continues to work aggressively — using every available means — to bring her home.”
Griner, 31, was arrested in February at an airport outside Moscow when customs officials allegedly discovered vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. At the time, she was returning to the country to join UMMC Ekaterinburg, the Russian team for which she plays during the WNBA offseason. In early May, the State Department declared Griner’s case a “wrongful detainment,” an official classification that elevated it to the office of the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs.
Following Friday’s hearing, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Elizabeth Rood, who was in attendance, said in a statement that U.S. officials were working “at the highest levels” to bring Griner home. After being able to speak with Griner in the courtroom, Rood said, “She is doing as well as expected under these difficult circumstances.”
Among the women who signed the letter delivered Tuesday were Bernice King, CEO of the King Center and the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.; actress Anika Noni Rose; singer Ledisi; television hosts Shaun Robinson and Sunny Hostin; former acting chair of the Democratic National Committee Donna Brazile; former CEO of Black Entertainment Television Debra L. Lee; activist and former NAACP president Hazel Dukes; University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach and three-time Olympic gold medalist Dawn Staley; and numerous players, coaches and executives from the WNBA.
“The letter is support — support from a group of Black women who are trying to save another Black woman. It’s as simple as that,” Staley said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “… I think about Brittney throughout the entire day, every day. I try to put myself in her shoes, and I’d want somebody fighting for me — people who won’t shut up.”
With little hope for an acquittal, Griner’s supporters in recent weeks have sought to ramp up public pressure on the Biden administration to secure her release through diplomatic channels, an effort complicated by heightened tensions between the United States and Russia since the latter’s invasion of Ukraine.
But in Tuesday’s letter, Griner’s supporters demanded more urgency: “More than prioritizing her immediate return in word,” it said, “you must do so in deed and make a deal to bring Brittney home.”
“Enough is enough. I don’t want to count days anymore,” said Terri Jackson, executive director of the WNBA players union and one of the organizers of the letter, referring to the fact that Tuesday represented Griner’s 138th day of imprisonment. Biden and Harris, she added, were “elected by constituents who look very much like my membership. This letter will be powerful. This letter is going to make them pay attention.”
The letter, organized by the collective network #WinWithBlackWomen, also urged Biden and/or Harris to meet with Griner’s wife, Cherelle, and pointed out that an arranged telephone call between the Griners last month failed because there was no one staffing the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to patch through the call — a failing the State Department called “a logistical error.”
“I will not be quiet anymore,” Cherelle Griner said Tuesday on “CBS Mornings.” “I will find that balance of harm versus help in pushing our government to do everything that’s possible. [Administration officials] are not moving. They are not doing anything. My wife is struggling, and we have to help her.”
Speculation in Russian state media has suggested a prisoner swap involving Griner and Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year sentence for conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and providing aid to a terrorist organization. But U.S. officials have not commented on the likelihood of such a swap. In April, U.S. officials secured the release of former Marine Trevor Reed from Russia through a prisoner swap.
“We need to do whatever is necessary to get Brittney back on American soil,” Staley said. “Whatever that is.”
Also Tuesday, Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of National Action Network, called on Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to arrange a visit from him and other faith leaders to Griner in Russia.
“After speaking with her wife last week, I am deeply concerned for Brittney Griner’s physical, mental and spiritual well-being,” Sharpton said in a statement. “Today I’m urging [the administration] to bring myself and fellow faith leaders to Russia immediately so we can pray over Brittney in prison. She deserves to see the United States is doing something for her, so she can find the strength as this show trial goes on. … Four months is too long for this to have gone on, and I hope the president acts on her pleas to come home.”
Brittney Griner's detainment | 2022-07-05T21:06:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Black women sign letter urging U.S. to bring Brittney Griner home - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/black-women-letter-brittney-griner-white-house/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/05/black-women-letter-brittney-griner-white-house/ |
The ceremony in Brussels took place as Russian forces continued to make “substantive progress” in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, according to Britain’s Defense Ministry
Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto and Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde flank NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, after signing their countries' accession protocols at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels on July 5, 2022. (Yves Herman/Reuters)
“This is truly a historic moment for Finland, for Sweden, for NATO — and for our shared security,” said Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, noting that NATO’s door “remains open” to other democracies.
“That is why the recovery of Ukraine is not only about what needs to be done later, after our victory, but also about what needs to be done at this time,” he said. “The reconstruction of our state is not just the restoration of the walls that we had. … Ukraine must become the freest, most modern and safest country in Europe.”
“This does not mean that any enterprise — small, medium-size businesses, any other — will be forcibly involved in the implementation of state defense order measures,” he said, noting that they would not affect companies not producing goods for the military. “There is no need for this.”
One of the two bills said the state could impose “special economic measures” during military operations, requiring firms to supply goods and services to the military. The second bill would give the government authority to alter the working hours of businesses supplying the goods — employees may be asked to work at night, on weekends and on holidays — with the possibility of no annual leave.
Suliman reported from London, Tsui from Washington and Dixon from Riga, Latvia. | 2022-07-05T21:06:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NATO signs accession protocols for Finland and Sweden - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/05/sweden-finland-nato-accession-protocols/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/05/sweden-finland-nato-accession-protocols/ |
Miguel Etchecolatz, enforcer of Argentina’s ‘Dirty War,’ dies at 93
The former police deputy remained defiant over the atrocities committed during the 1976-1983 military rule
Miguel Etchecolatz during trial for crimes against humanity in 2016. (Carlos Carmele/AFP/Getty Images)
Miguel Etchecolatz, a notorious police henchman in Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship who was convicted of prominent roles in baby snatching as well as the abduction of 10 high school students — a crime that became known as the “Night of the Pencils” — died July 2 at a clinic in Buenos Aires. He was 93.
His death, of undisclosed causes while receiving treatment under police guard, was announced by a court in La Plata, the capital of Buenos Aires province. That was the region where many of the teenage students were seized in 1976 as part of the junta’s sweeping repression against leftist opponents and other perceived enemies. Only four left custody alive.
The arc of Mr. Etchecolatz’s infamy, as a junta enforcer and later for his unrepentant defiance after Argentina’s return to democracy, was a study in the country’s struggle for a full reckoning over the atrocities committed during the dictatorship. Human rights groups estimate as many as 30,000 people were killed or “disappeared,” and many more were tortured in clandestine detention camps, some under the direction of Mr. Etchecolatz as police deputy for the Buenos Aires region.
But Mr. Etchecolatz surrendered few secrets during a series of trials over the decades as crowds jeered him as a “killer” and “repressor,” once throwing red paint at him in 2006. A life-sentence judgment in that trial described him as complicit in “genocide,” a landmark ruling that, for the first time in Argentine jurisprudence, framed the “Dirty War” as fitting the United Nations definition for a genocidal campaign.
Mr. Etchecolatz, the conviction read, “was an essential part of an apparatus of destruction, death and terror.”
He refused to acknowledge the civilian courts’ authority, calling himself a prisoner of war or sometimes clutching a rosary and saying “only God” can judge him. Despite many opportunities, he also never offered any significant details to help account for the thousands still missing or give historians insights to piece together the junta’s complex web.
“I never had, or thought to have, or was haunted by, any sense of blame. For having killed? I was the executor of a law made by man,” he wrote in a 1988 autobiography, “La Otra Campaña del Nunca Más” (“The Other Never Again Campaign”). “I was the keeper of divine precepts. And I would do it again.” (The book title referred to Nunca Más, or Never Again, a report a national commission on state-directed human rights abuses during the junta.)
Mr. Etchecolatz, a chain smoker whose “investigative unit” ranged from street thugs to a Catholic priest who heard police confessions, became one of the most feared figures of the security apparatus. The junta took power at a time of near-total chaos: uncontrolled inflation and labor strikes as well as threats from leftist guerrillas and right-wing militias.
Mr. Etchecolatz appeared to have free rein to press the junta’s ruthless purges known as the National Reorganization Process, or simply “El Proceso.” More people were arrested or disappeared in Mr. Etchecolatz’s territory — the capital Buenos Aires and surrounding areas, including La Plata — than anywhere else in Argentina during the dictatorship’s early years, according to prosecutors.
Who was 'Tex' Harris, U.S. diplomat who exposed rights abuses in Argentina?
An early shock was the Night of the Pencils. Over two days in September 1976, masked agents rounded up eight high school students — four boys and four girls — suspected of leftist sympathies. Two other male students were taken in other raids that month. They all were held in Mr. Etchecolatz’s gulag, prosecutors say, and six were never seen again by their families.
One of the surviving students, Pablo Diaz, said he received electric shocks to his mouth and genitals at a detention center known as Arana. He was 18 at the time. “They tore out a toenail,” he told investigators, according to the BBC. “It was very usual to spend several days without food.”
Democracy returned in 1983, after the military regime proved unable to steady a faltering economy and made a disastrous attempt to take the Falkland Islands, which Argentina claimed as part of its territory, from the British.
Mr. Etchecolatz was first convicted in 1986 during a wave of prosecutions against junta officials. But laws passed later that year gave amnesty for many security officers in attempts to avoid post-junta upheavals in the military and police. Mr. Etchecolatz and others convicted of Dirty War abuses were released.
Mr. Etchecolatz wrote his memoir, appeared on TV shows to confront accusers and mingled openly with past functionaries of the dictatorship, including his former boss, Gen. Ramón Camps, whose 25-year sentence also was put aside.
The amnesty was ordered repealed in 2003 by the government of President Néstor Kirchner, a leftist who had been briefly jailed during the junta years for his student activism. Mr. Etchecolatz was back in court the next year, under a civil trial not covered by the immunity.
This time, he and a police physician, Jorge Bergés, were convicted of roles in taking hundreds of infants of the families of “disappeared” or imprisoned parents and putting them up for adoption by junta supporters. Camps, who died in 1994, openly acknowledged the theft of babies “because subversive parents will raise subversive children.” Mr. Etchecolatz and Berges were each sentenced to seven years.
Declassified U.S. documents reveal internal tensions over Argentina's Dirty War
In a separate trial in 2006, Mr. Etchecolatz became the first senior junta official tried for human rights abuses after Argentina’s high court approved lifting the amnesty. More than 100 witnesses were called, some describing in gruesome detail the conditions in the torture camps. Sitting in the front row were members of the group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, women who held weekly vigils outside the presidential palace for their children and grandchildren who were lost during the dictatorship.
Judge Carlos Rozanski read the accusations of torture and disappearances. He then turned to Mr. Etchecolatz. Your profession? the judge asked.
“Retired policeman,” Mr. Etchecolatz calmly replied. He held a rosary and said he would not recognize the court’s jurisdiction, claiming he should face a military trial.
Months later, just before the judge read the life sentence, Mr. Etchecolatz rose with a hand-lettered sign around his neck. “Lord Jesus, if they condemn me, it is for following your cause,” it read.
The crowd in court cheered the sentence.
Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz was born in Azul, Argentina, on May 1, 1929. He rose through the police ranks and after the coup in 1976, moved into the inner circle of junta loyalists.
A complete list of survivors was not immediately available. At least one daughter, Mariana Dopazo, has been outspoken in her rejection of her father, changing her last name and condemning Mr. Etchecolatz and other junta leaders.
Almost two generations removed from the junta era, Mr. Echecolatz remained a powerful symbol of the iron grip once held by the military and police. He was back in court multiple times to face Dirty War charges, most recently in 2020 with another life sentence for crimes that included torture in detention camps including one, Brigada Lanús, widely known as El Infierno, or hell.
Mr. Etchecolatz continued to stonewall prosecutors and others seeking any clues over the missing. Just once he appeared to open a door.
In a 2014 trial, reporters noticed Mr. Etchecolatz holding a slip of paper with a name, Jorge Julio López, a survivor of junta-era torture who vanished in 2006 before he was scheduled to testify against Mr. Etchecolatz. One the other side of the paper was written: Kidnap. López remains missing.
Rights groups and others alleged that sympathizers of Mr. Etchecolatz kidnapped López to intimidate other potential witnesses at future trials. The enigmatic note by Mr. Etchecolatz was widely interpreted as reinforcing the warning.
“The perpetrators of genocide continue to die without revealing their secrets, without telling us where [the disappeared] are or what they did with our relatives and disappeared comrades,” wrote Argentina’s environment minister, Juan Cabandié, in a tweet after Mr. Etchecolatz’s death. “Neither forget nor forgive.” | 2022-07-05T21:07:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miguel Etchecolatz, enforcer of Argentina's 'Dirty War,' dies at 93 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/05/etchecolatz-argentina-dirty-war-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/05/etchecolatz-argentina-dirty-war-dies/ |
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) in Annapolis. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Tuesday ordered his administration to ease the state’s licensing rules for carrying a concealed handgun, saying a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision makes it unconstitutional to require applicants to show “a good and substantial reason” for seeking such a permit.
Responding to the high court’s June 23 ruling that makes it harder for governments to restrict the carrying of handguns outside the home, Hogan ordered Maryland State Police to immediately suspend the “substantial reason” provision in the rules for obtaining a concealed carry permit. Absent that rule, applicants would be able to obtain concealed carry licenses without citing personal circumstances that create a heightened need for armed self-defense.
In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Supreme Court’s 6-to-3 conservative majority held that New York’s concealed carry law — which required applicants to show “proper cause” for needing a handgun for self-defense — prevented people from exercising their rights under the Second Amendment.
“It would be unconstitutional to continue enforcing this provision in state law,” Hogan said of Maryland’s “substantial reason” requirement. He said the rule is “virtually indistinguishable” from New York’s “proper cause” provision, which the Supreme Court found defective. Suspending the Maryland provision “is in line with actions taken in other states in response to the recent ruling,” he said in a statement.
Maryland lawmakers could change gun law after Supreme Court’s ruling
About 39,000 concealed carry licenses have been issued in Maryland.
The Supreme Court ruling prompted New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) to convene a special legislative session at which lawmakers passed tough new restrictions on where concealed handguns can be carried. In Maryland, Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) indicated Tuesday that lawmakers in his state will consider similar legislation.
“It makes me angry that we’re having conversations that people can walk around with guns on their hips and that that’s how we should act in Maryland to try to reduce violence,” Ferguson said at a news briefing on a different matter. “It’s crazy. It’s crazy. We have to follow the law — and we will — but we are going to do whatever it takes to make sure Marylanders are safe.”
He later vowed in a statement that Maryland lawmakers “will pass legislation that adheres to the new precedent set by this Supreme Court while ensuring reasonable restrictions to keep our families and communities safe.”
Mark W. Pennak, president of the gun rights group Maryland Shall Issue, applauded Hogan’s “decision to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen,” saying in a statement, “For the first time in decades, ordinary, responsible, law-abiding citizens in Maryland will have their Second Amendment right for self-defense outside the home respected.”
Gun owners sue D.C., demanding to carry firearms on Metro
Maryland House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore) said in a tweet, “Between now and January, the Maryland House of Delegates will look at every option to curb the proliferation of guns on the street. … More guns do not make us safer.”
Hogan spokesman Michael Ricci said that on June 27, four days after the Supreme Court ruling, Maryland State Police sought guidance from the state’s attorney general, Brian A. Frosh (D), regarding the legal implications of the decision.
On June 30, Ricci said, Frosh’s office advised the state police that the “substantial reason” provision was unconstitutional. Under that rule, an applicant had to show, for instance, that they had been threatened and were in physical danger or that they operated a business that might be robbed.
Frosh’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
The term-limited governor, who is considering a run for president in 2024, has taken a cautious approach to gun policies during two terms in Maryland, a state with some of the toughest gun safety laws in the country.
This year, Hogan let a ban on ghost guns become law without his signature. He has previously signed a ban on the sale of bump stocks and a “red flag” law that allows judges to seize firearms from people deemed a threat to themselves or others. He has also vetoed an effort to restrict who can get a concealed carry permit, rejecting a plan to let administrative judges decide who should receive such licenses. | 2022-07-05T21:11:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hogan relaxes concealed handgun rules in Maryland - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/05/maryland-handgun-rules-relaxed-hogan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/05/maryland-handgun-rules-relaxed-hogan/ |
Israel warns of Iranian warships in Red Sea
Israel’s defense minister said on Tuesday that Iran has been entrenching itself militarily in the Red Sea, calling it a threat to regional stability and trade.
“Today, we can confirm that Iran is methodically basing itself in the Red Sea, with warships patrolling the southern region,” Defense Minister Benny Gantz said at an event in Athens.
“In the last months, we have identified the most significant Iranian military presence in the area, in the past decade,” he said. Gantz’s office said he presented satellite images of four Iranian warships patrolling the Red Sea.
Iran has been building up its naval presence in the Red Sea over more than a decade in a move that it says is needed to protect Iranian oil tankers against the threat of piracy.
Israel and a number of Arab countries share concerns about Iran’s influence in the region as well as Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.
Ahead of a visit to the Middle East by President Biden next week, Gantz has called for stronger security ties with Gulf Arab states that drew closer to Israel under a 2020 U.S.-sponsored diplomatic drive.
51 women, children repatriated from Syria
French authorities on Tuesday repatriated 51 women and children from the former Islamic State-controlled areas in Syria, according to a statement from the national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office.
It’s the single largest return of women and children to France from camps in northeastern Syria since the territorial defeat of the Islamic State group in March 2019.
France saw more of its citizens leave to join the organization than any other country in Europe.
Tuesday’s group comprises 16 women, ages 22 to 39, and 35 minors, seven of whom are coming to France unaccompanied by adults. All but two of the women in the group are French citizens. Twelve women returned with their children and four of the women had previously agreed to the return of their children, according to the prosecutor’s statement.
Eight women were taken into custody for questioning, and the other eight were detained on arrest warrants. The children were placed in the care of the child protective services attached to the Versailles judicial court.
Many European countries were slow to allow the return of women and children for fear they would violently turn on their homelands. France, which saw more of its citizens join the Islamic State in Syria than any other European country and suffered multiple deadly attacks beginning in 2015, has been especially reluctant.
French authorities have insisted that adults who fought with the group should be prosecuted in the country where they had committed crimes.
Ethiopia, Sudan agree to settle dispute: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the military leader of neighboring Sudan said on Tuesday that they had reached an agreement to peacefully settle all issues, following the most recent flare-up connected to a border dispute late last month. However, the long-running dispute over a contested fertile border region, al-Fashqa, was not mentioned, nor were any other specific issues cited. Abiy met Sudan's military leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on the sidelines of a regional meeting.
22 Mali migrants die off Libya: Twenty-two migrants from Mali, including three children, have died off the coast of Libya, Mali's government said on Tuesday. The dead were part of a group of 83 migrants stuck on a distressed vessel since June 22, the Ministry of Malians abroad said in a statement. Of those, 61 were rescued, including some Malian nationals, with the help of the United Nations International Organization for Migration.
Activists protest Pamplona bull run: Dozens of animal rights activists dressed as dinosaurs were chased by fellow activists through the streets of the Spanish city of Pamplona on Tuesday to protest alleged animal cruelty in the world famous San Fermin Running of the Bulls festival. They said the point was to show runs could be lighthearted and held without any cruelty to animals. | 2022-07-05T21:11:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Digest: July 5, 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-july-5-2022/2022/07/05/32982340-fc50-11ec-a07f-799ab6d06557_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-july-5-2022/2022/07/05/32982340-fc50-11ec-a07f-799ab6d06557_story.html |
Are we about to become the Aggregate States of America?
Regarding Eugene Robinson’s July 1 op-ed, “What does reality mean to this court anyway?”:
The Supreme Court’s Environmental Protection Agency decision appears to indicate that the conservative justices know nothing about how federal agencies operate relative to Congress. On the other hand, it’s possible that this is just the first step in the court majority’s plan to dismantle the federal bureaucracy.
It is not unreasonable to wonder whether we are destined not to remain the United States of America but to become the “Aggregate States of America,” a loose agglomeration of 50 country-states, each with its own unique laws, regulations and penalties.
Someday, we may need a passport to go from Virginia to Maryland.
Barbara Osgood, Fairfax
The Supreme Court might not have done the business community any favors by invoking the “major questions” doctrine in overturning the Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas rules for power plants. As legal scholars have noted, the consequences of the decision “potentially reach far beyond EPA and the Clean Air Act.” The argument will become routine whenever any federal regulation is challenged, thereby delaying, if not jeopardizing, important health, safety and consumer protection initiatives.
Beyond that, the decision might haunt nationwide business operations. One need look no further than California’s low- and zero-emission rules for cars. That state’s regulators filled a void in federal action by enacting more aggressive greenhouse gas emission standards. The California standards have now been adopted in 18 states and D.C., representing more than a third of the cars sold in the United States. Automakers either produce different products for different states — a manufacturing, logistical and sales nightmare — or sell more expensive California-compliant cars nationwide. The last thing manufacturers want is to have to produce different products for different states.
Supporters of the court’s decision may come to regret their win.
Edward B. Cohen, Washington
In defending the Supreme Court’s decision curbing the Environmental Protection Agency’s power on climate, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote, “But it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme.” But if Congress intended to make every “decision of such magnitude and consequence” itself, and was concerned about EPA overreach, how does Chief Justice Roberts explain Congress’s failure to pass legislation prohibiting the EPA from adopting the regulatory scheme at issue?
Is it any more plausible that Congress is unable to act when a regulatory agency overreaches than that Congress will address even an existential problem when a regulatory agency fails to do so? If not, why is the court better able to determine when overreach has occurred than Congress itself?
Kathy J. Schwartz, Arlington
Yes, the Supreme Court’s ruling that disarms the Environmental Protection Agency is a big deal. But contrary to George F. Will’s July 1 op-ed, “The EPA ruling is bigger than Dobbs,” the Supreme Court got it wrong. A toothless EPA cannot do what needs to be done to help prevent a climate change catastrophe in the next decade or two.
In effect, the Supreme Court is saying that Congress must pass specific laws against specific types of pollution. However, the court has also ruled that money is speech and a corporation is a person. These rulings make it virtually impossible for Congress to pass such environmental laws. It’s a Catch-22.
Anthony J. DiStefano, Milton, Del. | 2022-07-05T21:12:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Are we about to become the Aggregate States of America? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/aggregate-states-america/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/aggregate-states-america/ |
School buses at the Montgomery County Public Schools Midcounty Maintenance and Operations Service Center Bethesda Transportation Depot in Bethesda. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
The July 1 Metro article “U.S. history to be taught earlier in Montgomery” could have been a Retropolis column. In 1969, I was a new teacher in Montgomery County, and I taught fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at Rosemary Hills Elementary. At that time, the social studies curriculum included content about Native Americans, slavery, and activities on bias, prejudice and discrimination. The Constitution was taught. Resources included comic books for classrooms about Black history; filmstrips comparing colonial issues to similar contemporary issues such as the search warrant dispute; contributions by Jews such as Haym Solomon, to whom George Washington went for monetary support for the Continental Army; and simulations to understand westward expansion. Activities about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the impact of prejudice on U.S. history were provided each year to elementary-school teachers.
By the time I left the classroom 30 years later, the curriculum had changed drastically — away from this focus. I am old enough to watch the pendulum swing. If only that curriculum had existed over the past three decades, where would we be?
Sue Jeweler, Rockville | 2022-07-05T21:12:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Going back in time in Montgomery County schools - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/going-back-time-montgomery-county-schools/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/05/going-back-time-montgomery-county-schools/ |
Utah remains the beating heart of GOP Trump skepticism
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) near the Senate chamber after attending votes in the Capitol on June 21 in Washington. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is still a Republican, however much Donald Trump and his allies would like to suggest that he isn’t. He released a statement in support of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. He’s critical of President Biden’s decision-making and Democratic policy positions.
But unlike most Republicans, Romney is and has long been deeply critical of Trump himself. This is why Trump labels him a “RINO,” a “Republican in name only”: For Trump, being Republican means being pro-Trump above all else.
In an essay for the Atlantic published July 4, Romney renewed his criticism of the former president as he fretted over the country’s future.
The piece is framed broadly as a criticism of both the political left and right. “The left thinks the right is at fault for ignoring climate change and the attacks on our political system,” Romney writes. “The right thinks the left is the problem for ignoring illegal immigration and the national debt.” He adds that “wishful thinking happens across the political spectrum.”
But he later makes clear that one set of concerns is more dire than the other. In what is probably the essay’s most quoted sentence, Romney writes that “a return of Donald Trump would feed the sickness, probably rendering it incurable.”
What struck me about that framing — that reelecting Trump risks the health of the country entirely — is how it overlaps with what happened in the primaries held last month in the state Romney represents. Trump has been vicious in lashing out at those he perceives to have wronged him, including legislators who voted to create the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol. Yet two Republican Utah legislators who did so, Reps. John Curtis and Blake D. Moore, easily won reelection.
In 2000 and 2004, Utah had the widest margin for Republican presidential candidates of any state. That fell in 2008 — not coincidentally when Romney’s bid for the Republican nomination came up short — but rebounded in 2012 when he led the ticket. Utah voted more than 50 points more Republican than the national margin that year.
Then the Trump era arrived. In 2016, Utah voted only about 20 points more Republican than the national margin, below the average of Republican-voting states. In 2020, it voted only slightly above the Republican average.
What happened? It’s complicated, certainly, but some significant part of the skepticism seen in the state derives from religion.
Utah has a high percentage of residents who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the name the church prefers to “Mormon”). Of the 10 counties with the highest density of adherents to the religion, according to PRRI’s 2020 census of religion, nine are in Utah. (The 10th is in Idaho.)
From 2000 to 2012, those 10 counties voted Republican by a wider margin than the 10 counties with the highest percentages of White evangelical Protestants. But in 2016, that changed. Those 10 counties still vote more heavily Republican than Republican counties overall, including that rebound in 2020. But as the most evangelical counties shifted dramatically right in 2016, the most-LDS counties shifted back to the left.
In 2016, BuzzFeed’s McKay Coppins explored why Mormons were skeptical of Trump. There were the expected reasons: his affinity for swearing, his, uh, complicated romantic history. But there’s also the history of the church itself.
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is neutral in regard to party politics and election campaigns. However, it is not neutral in relation to religious freedom,” a statement from the church stated in response to Trump’s call to ban Muslim immigration to the United States. The LDS church, after all, was a target of violent discrimination for decades, a history that lingers.
During his presidency, Trump and his allies worked to build a better relationship with LDS voters, including dispatching Donald Trump Jr. to Utah so often that some prominent Republicans got “the impression that he may want to convert,” as Coppins reported in 2020. Perhaps he made inroads. But it’s also the case that after a 21 percent of the vote was eaten up by McMullin in 2016, Biden outperformed Hillary Clinton by about 10 points in 2020 and Trump only did 12 points better than he had four years earlier.
After he spoke against Trump’s possible return to power in his new Atlantic essay, Romney criticized congressional leaders for failing to show “backbone” when considering difficult political moments. He is also dismayed at the way in which D.C. often “demonstrates the maxim that for evil to thrive only requires good men to do nothing.”
It’s a reminder that one of those who has decided to look the other way at Trump is the chairwoman of the Republican Party, Ronna McDaniel. Speaking to Politico in 2020, she expressed confidence that “Mormons especially start looking at [Trump] as a different type of candidate than they did in 2016 because now he has a record.” In the wake of Trump’s loss, she did little to thwart his effort to retain his position.
McDaniel could speak to how LDS voters viewed Trump, though: She is a member of the church. And she might feel a bit more sting from Mitt Romney’s criticism of weak-kneed leaders than others: She is his niece. | 2022-07-05T21:12:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Utah remains the beating heart of GOP Trump skepticism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/utah-remains-beating-heart-gop-trump-skepticism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/utah-remains-beating-heart-gop-trump-skepticism/ |
“The secretary intends to engage fully in the G-20. I’m not going to speak to any plans on the part of Foreign Minister Lavrov ... but I can tell you the secretary will be a full and active participant in the G-20, which we see as a valuable forum,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters. | 2022-07-05T21:12:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Blinken sets G-20 meeting with Chinese FM; silent on Russia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/blinken-sets-g-20-meeting-with-chinese-fm-silent-on-russia/2022/07/05/e040909c-fca3-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/blinken-sets-g-20-meeting-with-chinese-fm-silent-on-russia/2022/07/05/e040909c-fca3-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
The city is experiencing its wettest year on record after 8 inches of rain in recent days
A resident drives through floodwaters along the overflowing Nepean River in western Sydney on July 5, 2022. (Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images)
A potent weather system near Australia’s east coast has unloaded tremendous rainfall in the state of New South Wales for days, putting Sydney on track for its wettest year on record.
The torrents have spurred widespread flooding in eastern parts of New South Wales, for the fourth time in less than 18 months. The flooding has triggered more than 100 evacuation orders.
Since Friday, Sydney has observed 8.6 inches (220 mm) of rain, while surrounding areas have seen far more — some approaching 28 inches (700 mm) — which is around the amount London sees in an entire year.
Sydney amassed the same amount of rain over four days that it typically sees in a month and a half, according to WeatherZone, an Australian weather information company.
The city has registered about 70 inches (1,769 mm) of rain this year, leaping 7.5 inches past 1890, its next-wettest year through July 4. And, with nearly five months of the year still to go, it has already clinched at least its 11th-wettest year on record.
Many areas of Sydney recorded about 8 inches (200 mm) of rain over the past week.
Another 73 mm over the last 24 hours brings #Sydney's running annual total up to 1769 mm. Not only is this Sydney's wettest year-to-date on record by whopping 191 mm (above 1578.3 mm from 1890), this is also ALREADY the city's 11th wettest year in records dating back to 1859. pic.twitter.com/JvZjIgTrew
Scientists attributed the excessive rainfall to a combination of factors:
The presence of several natural climate drivers: La Niña conditions, a periodic cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, are linked to increased precipitation in eastern Australia. A periodic cooling of the western Indian Ocean, connected to La Niña, is associated with increased precipitation in southern Australia. A positive Southern Annular Mode causes easterly winds to bring moist air from the Tasman Sea toward eastern Australia, which falls as rain.
Human-caused climate change, which is warming the atmosphere and oceans and intensifying precipitation events globally.
The Australia Bureau of Meteorology also noted that warm ocean waters helped intensify rainfall.
“During this recent rainfall event, very warm waters off the Australian coast (21-23°C) provided extra energy and moisture contributing to the deep trough and east coast low, leading to the relative concentration of the heavy rainfall to one 24-hour period,” it wrote.
The heaviest rain in New South Wales through Tuesday morning had fallen in Brogers Creek, about 65 miles south of Sydney, which registered 36.7 inches (933 mm). WeatherZone wrote that such rainfall has just a 1 to 2 percent likelihood of occurrence in any given year. Brogers Creek experienced more than Melbourne, Canberra, Hobart, Adelaide or Perth experience in a month.
The 933mm of rain that fell at Brogers Creek, NSW during the last four days has an Annual Exceedance Probability (AEP) of 1 to 2%. This is statistically a 1 in 50-to-100 year rain rate for this location.
More details > https://t.co/Vc0PihtYuO pic.twitter.com/2j5Yo2owDU
Darkes Forest, about 40 miles south of Sydney, posted 27.4 inches (697 mm) of rain.
Researchers say climate change is worsening the situation. Australia has warmed by around 2.6 degrees (1.5 Celsius) since 1910. A warming atmosphere holds more moisture and can increase the intensity of extreme rainfall events.
“Australia has long been a continent of droughts and flooding rains; having said that, projections indicate that climate change will supercharge this variability,” Chiara Holgate, a researcher with the Australian National University and ARC Center of Excellence for Climate Extremes, said in an email. “Observations show there’s been an increase in the intensity of heavy rainfall events in Australia, including the short-duration events, which can be associated with flash flooding.”
Holgate said Australia needs to prepare for more intense flooding events, as floods are one of the most expensive disasters the country faces. Flooding in southeast Queensland and New South Wales in February and March cost about $3.35 billion in insured losses, according to the Insurance Council of Australia — making it the costliest flood in the country’s history.
“Large floods are a threat to water supply and safe drinking water, straining water treatment plant operation by increased sediment load and potential contaminants,” environmental scientist Klaus Joehnk said in a news release.
Researchers have found that climate change has exacerbated several recent flooding events around the world. The World Weather Attribution group found that record flooding Brazil in May, which displaced at least 25,000 people and killed more than 130, was exacerbated by climate change. The group also found that global warming made torrential rains in South Africa in April, which killed more than 400 people, twice as likely to occur and 4 to 8 percent more intense.
On Tuesday, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology tweeted that major flooding was continuing across portions of New South Wales, even as it eased in Sydney. More than 20 warnings were active.
Through Wednesday, the heaviest additional rainfall is projected mainly north of Sydney, where the European forecast model simulates up to 1 to 3 inches (30 to 80mm) of additional rainfall. | 2022-07-05T22:38:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Australia flood, boosted by climate change, making history in Sydney - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/05/australia-flooding-sydney-record-rainfall/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/05/australia-flooding-sydney-record-rainfall/ |
Teens die amid spate of shootings over holiday weekend in District
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) details public safety preparations for the holiday weekend. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)
The Fourth of July weekend in the District left 19 people struck by gunfire, five of them fatally, raising questions about escalating violence and efforts to quell tensions while trying to keep disputes from turning deadly.
Two teenagers were among the dead — Levoire Simmons, 16, shot early Tuesday in the Parkside-Kenilworth area near the Anacostia Freeway, and Dennis Simms, 17, killed Friday afternoon near a relative’s house in Washington Highlands, at the city’s southern tip.
D.C. police said the violence began Friday afternoon and continued into the wee hours of Tuesday morning, and much of it was concentrated east of the Anacostia River. The fatalities brought the number of homicides to 109 this year, a 14 percent increase over this time in 2021. Killings are rising in the District for the fifth consecutive year; no arrests have been made in this month’s killings.
With gun violence continuing and city leaders struggling to keep the streets safe, juveniles have been hit particularly hard. There have been 11 people younger than 18 killed this year, surpassing the total number of nine juveniles slain in each of the past two years.
In addition to the teens, Timothy Brady, 28, of Laurel, Md., was fatally shot shortly before 10 p.m. on Sunday in the 1600 block of K Street NE. Daquan Hodge, 20, was killed early Monday in the 100 block of Ivanhoe Street SW. And Devin Denny, 32, of no fixed address, was killed early Tuesday inside a residence in the 100 block of Yuma Street SE.
Last week, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) deployed “Safety Go Teams” of civilian mediators including violence interrupters to 19 vulnerable neighborhoods to try to curb shootings over the Fourth of July weekend.
The District’s executive assistant police chief, Ashan M. Benedict, said some of the weekend’s shootings occurred in areas covered by those teams. He said the teams focused on large gatherings, cookouts and block parties, which can become targets, or where arguments can escalate. Benedict said many of the recent shootings were more isolated, such as people individually targeted, or were the result of spontaneous disputes.
Mayor’s crime-fighting initiative, Building Blocks DC, is shifting its structure
None of the fatal shootings appear related, Benedict said, and all five were in different police patrol areas. Many, he said, “were arguments that escalated into gunfire.” He said one fatal shooting was an attempted robbery “in which the decedent was the aggressor.”
While no violence was reported during the fireworks display on the National Mall, where thousands gathered to celebrate, neighborhoods from Carver-Langston to Shaw, Fairlawn to Congress Heights, and Bellevue to Randle-Highlands were rocked by gunfire over the extended weekend.
The shooting Tuesday that killed Simmons occurred shortly after 1 a.m. in the 700 block of Kenilworth Terrace NE, near where he lived. Efforts to reach relatives on Tuesday were not successful.
Wendell Felder, the advisory neighborhood commissioner for the area, said residents there heard so many fireworks and gunshots overnight Monday that “you couldn’t really tell the difference.”
He said he woke up to news that another teenager had been killed.
“It’s extremely unfortunate,” Felder said. “Residents want safer communities. But there’s been an uptick in crime not just in the District, but all across the country.”
Felder noted the deadly mass shooting at the Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb and gunfire that wounded police officers in Philadelphia. Combating crime in the District, he said, “takes an all-hands-on-deck approach from the community, from the government agencies, from the police, to confront these challenges.”
Simms, the teenager killed Friday was shot shortly after 2:30 p.m. in the 800 block of Yuma Street SE, a block from the Ferebee-Hope playground and park.
Relatives gathered in the hours after the shooting outside a relative’s home near where the teenager lay dead under a tent put up by police on a neighbor’s front lawn. Sobs and anger echoed down the block as police investigated and D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) met with relatives and friends to ease tensions. Efforts to reach those relatives were not successful.
City leaders are under intense pressure to reduce violence, and Bowser has announced several initiatives that include a mix of law enforcement and other agencies focusing on crime as a health crisis. But a short-term fix has thus far eluded authorities.
Benedict said that while homicides are up, assaults are down and the pace of robberies and vehicle thefts has slowed. Violent crime is up 9 percent; overall crime is up 1 percent.
Thousands of bullets have been fired in this D.C. neighborhood. Fear is part of everyday life.
Unlike previous years, District authorities are not launching an annual summer crime initiative, a longtime staple of hot summer months aimed at reducing crime in certain neighborhoods.
Benedict said officials instead will stick with an initiative announced in February called the homicide reduction partnership, concentrating resources in two districts east of the Anacostia that accounted for 62 percent of the city’s homicides in 2021.
The initiative brings together local and federal law enforcement, and according to Benedict has led to a 14 percent decrease in killings in those areas, and an even bigger drop in violent crime. Authorities have also begun a program to concentrate resources in nightlife hubs, such as the H Street corridor and U Street, where 15-year-old Chase Poole was fatally shot during a June 19 cultural festival.
The Bowser administration has faced criticism on her initiatives to fight crime, and a Washington Post poll conducted in February found that more than 7 in 10 residents have given the mayor negative marks on reducing crime.
Benedict said the residual effects of pandemic closures resulting in the “lack of distractions in terms of sports and academics” coupled with easy access to firearms has been a deadly combination.
“I think we’ve got to get back to structured settings,” Benedict said. “There’s no one way to tackle this.” He noted a fatal shooting last month that was the result of road rage.
“Normal arguments are being elevated to violence,” Benedict said. “A traffic dispute escalated into a homicide. We can’t police behavior, but we’re trying to be as visible and proactive as possible.”
Emily Davies and Perry Stein contributed to this report. | 2022-07-05T22:38:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Teen killed amid spate of shootings over holiday weekend in District - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/05/shootings-homicides-washington/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/05/shootings-homicides-washington/ |
BERLIN — The International Energy Agency says high prices for natural gas and supply fears due to the war in Ukraine will slow the growth in demand for the fossil fuel in the coming years. In a report published Tuesday, the Paris-based agency forecast global demand for natural gas will rise by 140 billion cubic meters between 2021 and 2025. That’s less than half the increase of 370 bcm seen in the previous five-year period, which included the pandemic downturn. The revised forecast is mostly due to expectations of slower economic growth rather than buyers switching from gas to other fossil fuels, such as coal or oil. The IEA said gas-saving measures and the switch to renewable energy sources also had a lesser impact.
WASHINGTON — A new poll shows that many Americans don’t expect to rely on the digital services that became commonplace during the pandemic after COVID-19 subsides. That’s even as many think it’s a good thing if those options remain available in the future. The poll comes from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The poll shows that close to half or more of U.S. adults say they are not likely to attend virtual activities, receive virtual health care, have groceries delivered or use curbside pickup after the coronavirus pandemic ends. Still, close to half of adults also say it would be a good thing if virtual options continue.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is taking a message of shoring up workers’ pensions to Ohio, hoping to reinvigorate his political standing with blue-collar voters. The state has been trending strongly Republican in recent years, with Donald Trump easily carrying it twice. But the Democrats have hopes of winning a Senate seat that is coming open. Biden on Wednesday is announcing a new rule that will allow major new financial support for troubled pensions that cover some 2 million to 3 million workers.
LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is clinging to power after two of his most senior Cabinet ministers quit, saying they had lost confidence in Johnson’s leadership amid shifting explanations about his handling of a sexual misconduct scandal. Treasury chief Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid resigned within minutes of each other Tuesday, costing Johnson the support of the men responsible for tackling two of the biggest issues facing Britain — the cost-of-living crisis and surging COVID-19 infections. Both men cited Johnson’s credibility after a day in which the prime minister was forced to backtrack on earlier statements about a misconduct scandal that has rattled his government for the past six days.
LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government is facing a fresh crisis after two of his most senior Cabinet ministers resigned within minutes of each other. Treasury chief Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid quit saying the government under Johnson’s leadership was no longer competent or “acting in the national interest.” Both Javid and Sunak are key members of the Cabinet and both are seen as potential successors to Johnson, leaving his position perilous. Sunak was, until recently, widely regarded as the party’s brightest rising star. Javid, 52, has been health secretary since June 2021, leading Britain’s COVID-19 response. Before that, he served as treasury chief, but resigned in early 2020 after clashing with Johnson | 2022-07-05T22:42:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Markets edge higher, oil prices slump - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-markets-edge-higher-oil-prices-slump/2022/07/05/260c60c2-fca6-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-markets-edge-higher-oil-prices-slump/2022/07/05/260c60c2-fca6-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
A Groove X Inc. Lovot Edamame home robot stands at the company’s office in Tokyo, Japan, on Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. The Lovot is meant to live at home, where its only job is to roam around the house, beg you for hugs and generally act as an adorable pet that helps you unwind after a long day. Its the brain child of Kaname Hayashi, a former Formula One race-car designer and developer who worked on Pepper, Masayoshi Sons attempt at creating humanoid assistants. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
Japan’s small-but-growing startup scene has seen some deep-pocketed new entrants in recent years, from Sequoia Capital to Softbank Group Corp. Now, here comes the entrant with the deepest pockets of them all: GPIF, the world’s biggest pension pool.
The Government Pension Investment Fund is reported by the Nikkei to be one of the key investors in a vehicle set up by Globis Capital Partners that aims to uncover unicorns and decacorns among the ventures. The move seems to be at the behest of the administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who earlier this year called for GPIF and other pensions pools to invest in startups as part of his “New Capitalism” economic plans.
The GPIF declined to confirm the report, saying its private equity investments were at the discretion of the fund-of-funds manager Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corporation. In any case, for a fund with nearly $1.5 trillion in assets under management, the investment amount is inconsequential.
But the hope is that it will lead other pension funds, and a wider swathe of investors, to back nascent ventures. The GPIF is, by law, forbidden from making individual stock picks. This might be a blessing in disguise — other investments by government-adjacent funds have hardly been a success. Consider the Cool Japan Fund, a well-meaning effort set up by the administration of Shinzo Abe in 2013 to promote Japan’s soft power. Recent reports suggest it may soon be shut down if results don’t improve.
Kishida needs to make sure his support for startups doesn’t go down the same path. Even GPIF won’t make a dent unless bigger structural problems in the sector are addressed.
Many of Japan’s best companies, like the population itself, are old. While in recent years the likes of Mercari Inc., Japan’s first unicorn, have blossomed, these $1 billion startups are now passé — now the talk is of decacorns, startups worth more than $10 billion. The focus must be on creating young companies that can really compete on the world stage, just as postwar ventures such as Sony Group Corp. and Honda Motor Co. once did. There’s no modern Japanese equivalent of Spotify Technology SA or Airbnb Inc., much less a Bytedance Ltd.
For years, one of the biggest ironies in Japan’s startup scene was that the world’s biggest venture capitalist, Japan’s own Masayoshi Son, declined to put his money into a sector he’s long dismissed.
“Japan has way too few unicorns in the AI space,” Son said just last month at Softbank’s annual shareholder meeting, pointing out the country had fewer AI unicorns that India, the UK or Indonesia. “The Japanese government, the education sector, society and media all need to recognize this — if Japan continues to lag behind, it’s going to be in trouble 30 years from now.”
Kishida talks a lot about encouraging the type of private-public partnerships that helped build some of the biggest firms in the past. The GPIF is a good start, but why not get the likes of Son on board, and encourage him to open his checkbook further to grow precisely the types of investments he wants to make?
Support at every stage is needed: more seed-funding, yes, but crucially also attracting more late-stage funding to end the current trend of firms listing too soon. That puts pressure on entrepreneurs to start making profits rather than focusing on growth, and leads to the phenomenon of “hidden unicorns” — young companies that, because they are listed, aren’t counted in startup rankings.
A potential global recession might be a bad time to be pitching profit-free startups. But Japan has some advantages: Money still costs less than nothing, and the weak yen further increases its attractiveness to investors paying in dollars. Crucially, the China of Covid zero and tech crackdowns no longer looks like the slam-dunk investing destination it once did.
While SoftBank now has four Japanese investments in its Vision Fund 2, the nation still makes up less than 1% of its investment portfolio of 475 firms. For Kishida’s plan to succeed, he needs to change this narrative — and turn Japan into an investment destination Son can’t shy away from.
• Japan’s Blurred Vision for Where Capitalism Goes: Gearoid Reidy | 2022-07-05T22:42:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pension Riches Are No Panacea for Japan’s Startups - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/pension-riches-are-no-panacea-for-japans-startups/2022/07/05/a0c210ca-fcae-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/pension-riches-are-no-panacea-for-japans-startups/2022/07/05/a0c210ca-fcae-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
A body is transported from the scene of a mass shooting during a July Fourth parade in Highland Park, Ill. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/AP)
In Highland Park, Ill., a holiday parade became a scene of horror as a gunman opened fire on the crowd.
At other celebrations in cities nationwide, the booming sounds of fireworks were apparently mistaken for gunshots, sending scores of revelers fleeing for cover.
“I think a big piece of what we saw on Monday is this loss of trust over the last several years,” reporter Marc Fisher said.
The rise of mass shootings in America has brought up so many complicated and sad questions: How are we supposed to live in a society where we have to be so fearful? What will it take to prevent these shootings from happening? And how do we punish the people who perpetrate unthinkable acts of violence?
Today, we are diving into that last question, in an interview with our colleague David Nakamura.
In the aftermath of the mass shooting in Buffalo, the Biden administration must decide whether to pursue the death penalty for the 18-year-old suspect. When he visited Buffalo last month, Attorney General Merrick Garland assured survivors and victims’ families that a full investigation was taking place. It’s a “death penalty eligible crime,” Garland said in a news conference. But this Justice Department is conflicted — civil rights advocates have long opposed capital punishment, saying that it is inhumane and disproportionately used against racial minorities. | 2022-07-05T22:43:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How do you punish a mass shooter? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/how-do-you-punish-a-mass-shooter/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/how-do-you-punish-a-mass-shooter/ |
More Democrats are frustrated at Biden’s caution in what they consider a moment of crisis, and figures like Newsom and Pritzker are showcasing a sharper approach
Matt Viser
President Biden attends a Fourth of July celebration for military families on the South Lawn of the White House. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
President Biden took the stage at an Independence Day barbecue just a few hours after the latest horrific shooting to upend an American city — but at his first opportunity to address the nation in person about the Highland Park killings, he did so only obliquely.
It was not until about two hours later, after singer Andy Grammer finished an acoustic version of “Give Love,” that the president returned to the stage and attempted to respond to the tragedy more fulsomely, calling for a moment of silence and decrying the spate of mass shootings. “We’ve got a lot more work to do,” Biden said. “We’ve got to get this under control.”
In contrast, J.B. Pritzker, Illinois’ Democratic governor, delivered a fiery response that took direct aim at those blocking gun control legislation. “If you are angry today, I’m here to tell you to be angry,” he said, seething while Biden was consoling. “I’m furious. I’m furious that yet more innocent lives were taken by gun violence.”
In the view of many distraught Democrats, the country is facing a full-blown crisis on a range of fronts, and Biden seems unable or unwilling to respond with appropriate force. Democracy is under direct attack, they say, as Republicans change election rules and the Supreme Court rapidly rewrites American law. Shooting sprees are routine, abortion rights have ended and Democrats could suffer big losses in the next election.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden decided on his own that he wanted to return to the stage on Independence Day to deliver fuller remarks, and that his later comments were not a recognition that his first ones had fallen short of the moment. “There have been many times the president has spoken forcefully, urgently, about a moment that currently exists in our country, which is a gun violence epidemic,” Jean-Pierre said. “To say that this president has not shown urgency, it’s just false.”
But as the Democratic rank-and-file’s thirst for a more combative attitude becomes increasingly evident, other party leaders are beginning to showcase an alternative tone, one that goes far more sharply at Republican attitudes and tactics. Pritzker mocked the notion that “you have a constitutional right to an assault weapon with a high-capacity magazine,” and California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been displaying a notably pugnacious spirit.
On July Fourth, Newsom took the unusual step of airing an ad in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is widely seen as a potential 2024 presidential candidate and has been implementing deeply conservative policies. DeSantis has rapidly become a detested figure among liberals, and Newsom sought to take him on in conservative terms, casting him as an enemy of liberty.
“Freedom? It’s under attack in your state,” Newsom said in the ad, addressing Florida residents and citing book bans, voting restrictions and laws on classroom instruction. “I urge all of you living in Florida to join the fight. Or join us in California — where we still believe in freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom to choose, freedom from hate and the freedom to love. Don’t let them take your freedom.”
In case anyone missed the point, Ian Calderon, the Democratic former majority leader of the California State Assembly, tweeted, “Governor @GavinNewsom is the only Dem that seems to understand that democrats everywhere want their leaders to push back with a strong message and to stop letting the GOP control the narrative. Republicans are loud and it’s time for Democrats to get louder.”
Biden has never been his party’s most vociferous or combative voice, and throughout the 2020 presidential campaign, he often faced criticism from within his party that he was too amenable to Republicans — too conciliatory a politician and too genial a person — to capture the fighting mood of a party ready to take on then-President Donald Trump.
White House officials argue that the fact that Biden won both the primary and the general election underscores the benefits of trusting the president’s political instincts. They have long taken pride in not getting swayed by the conversations that dominate on Twitter, particularly from the left.
Biden’s supporters say he is just as outraged as Pritzker and others after the recent shootings in Highland Park, Ill., Buffalo and Uvalde, Tex., noting that he helped enact the first significant, if modest, gun-control measure in decades. They also say he has lobbed the exact same criticisms at DeSantis as those cited by Newsom in his ad.
Biden has, if anything, been criticized at times for going too far in his tone, his aides note, as when he compared modern-day Republicans to 1960s-era segregationists, incurring the wrath of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and others, including some in his own party.
On Thursday, Biden called for overturning the filibuster to help codify Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, into law. But despite knowing for weeks that the court decision probably was coming, the move followed a familiar pattern, with Biden taking nearly a week to suggest changing the filibuster rule when Democrats wanted more urgency.
Biden’s supporters say his decency and calm do not equate to haplessness.
“What I will tell Democrats and Republicans is don’t confuse kindness for weakness, or him having manners for weakness,” said Cedric L. Richmond, a former senior White House aide who is now a top official at the Democratic National Committee. “People made that mistake during the primary. We stayed the course, we stayed focused and we won.
“If they’re just looking for a president who is going to name-call, that’s not him,” Richmond added. “He will show and draw sharp comparisons, and I think you’ll see it more as we get closer for people to make a choice.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who was national co-chairman of Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign and has not been afraid to criticize some of Biden’s policy decisions, said he worried that the critiques of the president from within the party are getting too pointed and could be counterproductive.
“He didn’t get there by accident. He’s the president of the United States, he’s the leader of our party. He defeated Donald Trump,” Khanna said. “He’s owed a degree of respect, and I say that as someone to his left. There’s a tone in which to challenge the administration and offer new ideas, and that tone ought to be one of good faith to help the president, not throwing darts to weaken him when he’s the leader of our party.”
But some in the party are upset that the White House did not have a more forceful, proactive plan in place when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has called on Biden to expand the Supreme Court, a move he has reaffirmed he will not consider. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has been among those calling on him to open federal lands to abortion clinics, a decision the White House has rejected, saying it could jeopardize the safety of women who travel to the clinics.
Biden has dismissed other ideas by saying they would be struck down in court or would never pass Congress. His critics say he should be pushing on all fronts, not second-guessing actions before attempting them.
“What the president and the Democratic Party needs to come to terms with is that this is not just a crisis of Roe, this is a crisis of our democracy,” Ocasio-Cortez said recently NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “This is a crisis of legitimacy, and President Biden must address that.”
The congresswoman, a leader of the party’s liberal wing, has also said she is not ready to endorse Biden in a 2024 presidential primary. Pritzker, too, has raised the possibility that Biden might face a primary challenge.
“That’s not something I’m encouraging, but it’s certainly possible,” he told NBC News last week. “We’ve seen it in the past.”
The Illinois governor also raised eyebrows recently with a trip to New Hampshire, a vital state for any presidential aspirant, where he was the keynote speaker at the annual convention for the New Hampshire Democratic Party.
Richmond said that some of the liberals’ calls for action are flashy but unrealistic, and that Biden faces hard long-term choices while others are chasing short-term relevance.
“Here’s the bottom line: My family, certainly Pritzker’s family, Newsom’s family and the president’s family — they’re going to be okay,” Richmond said. “But there are millions of people, if the election doesn’t go in the right direction, that are not going to be okay. We don’t have the luxury of following impulse. This is life-or-death for so many communities.”
The latest: Prominent Black women urge Biden to ‘make a deal’ for Griner
10:02 PMYour questions, answered: What are the legal options to reinstate Roe? | 2022-07-05T23:39:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As Democrats' impatience with Biden grows, some alternatives step up - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/biden-democrats-newsom-pritzker/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/05/biden-democrats-newsom-pritzker/ |
Peter Brook, towering theater director, dies at 97
Often described as the most influential living director, he brought an idiosyncratic approach to Shakespearean dramas and staged a nine-hour adaptation of the ‘Mahabharata’
Theater director Peter Brook in 1975. He founded the International Center for Theater Research, which became the vehicle for his explorations of classic works as well as experimental new plays. (Pierre Guillaud/AFP via Getty Images)
Peter Brook, a visionary English theater director who staged groundbreaking productions on both sides of the Atlantic, helping to demonstrate his belief that the trappings of conventional theater — the red curtain, the music, the costumes, the spotlight — were inessential to the art form, died July 2 in Paris. He was 97.
His son, Simon, said he had been in declining health but did not give a specific cause.
Mr. Brook was a towering figure in international theater, widely described as the most influential director of his generation, if not of the late 20th century. His work ranged from the minimalist to the grandiose, from a stripped-down staging of Bizet’s opera “Carmen” to a nine-hour adaptation of the Sanskrit epic the “Mahabharata,” which he originally staged at a limestone quarry complete with an artificial lake.
Theater critics noted that he had aspects of a shaman as well as a showman, searching for spiritual truth through his art and his travels across Asia and Africa, even as he kept an eye on his box-office earnings. Slender and balding, he had a craggy face that seemed to suggest the look of an oracle, and he cited the Russian Armenian mystic George Gurdjieff as a key influence, noting the spiritual teacher’s insistence on questioning everything.
“Taste, test, question and never reach a conclusion,” Mr. Brook told the New York Times.
In his directorial career, that meant bouncing between artistic forms and genres, looking for new ways to delight, provoke and unsettle audiences. “I have really spent all of my working life in looking for opposites,” he once said.
Mr. Brook bridged the worlds of commercial and experimental theater, directing canonical works by Shakespeare and Chekhov, modernist plays by Samuel Beckett and Jean Cocteau, and romantic comedies and musicals such as “Irma La Douce,” which played for three years on London’s West End and became a Broadway hit in 1960.
He won Tony Awards in 1966 and 1971, respectively, for directing Peter Weiss’s brutal drama “Marat/Sade” and a pared-down, white-box production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The latter featured actors spinning plates and swinging on trapeze and ended with the cast leaving the stage to shake hands with the audience.
Mr. Brook also directed operas and films, including a popular 1963 screen adaptation of William Golding’s novel “Lord of the Flies,” about schoolboys marooned on an island, and a bleak 1971 adaptation of “King Lear,” starring Paul Scofield.
A pioneer of gender- and colorblind casting (he preferred the term “color-rich”), Mr. Brook worked with many of the leading actors of his era, including John Gielgud, Alec Guinness, Glenda Jackson, Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles. For one of his first productions, a staging of “Hamlet” that he performed for his parents on a toy stage at age 10, he simply used cutout figures, reading the lines himself.
By his mid-20s, he was directing plays in Birmingham, Stratford and London, where he acquired a reputation as a prodigy — “a superconfident, baby-faced wonder boy who likes to shock,” as Time magazine put it in 1949. His early productions included elaborate stagings of costume dramas such as “Ring Round the Moon” and comedies like “The Little Hut,” although by the mid-1950s, he had begun working to trim, simplify and purify his work.
At times he called himself a “distiller” rather than a “director.” “Simple, pure, simple,” he would say.
As Mr. Brook continued to experiment, he set down his theories in lectures and books such as “The Empty Space” (1968). “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage,” he began. “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.”
Proving his point, he mounted international touring productions that could be performed outdoors, often with rugs serving as a stage.
The vehicle for his theatrical explorations became the International Center for Theater Research (also known by its French acronym, CIRT), which he founded after moving to Paris in 1970. For decades, he worked there with his chief lieutenant, Marie-Hélène Estienne, staging classics like Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” while also working on new productions such as his adaptation of the “Mahabharata,” a key Hindu text and foundation work of South Asian literature.
Developed over a decade with his collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière, the play premiered at the Avignon Festival in France in 1985. “Mr. Brook, synthesizing all his previous theatrical inventions, did nothing less than attempt to transform Hindu myth into universalized art, accessible to any culture,” theater critic and journalist Margaret Croyden wrote in the Times.
The play featured a cast of 21 actors from 16 countries and toured the world for four years. But it also prompted a backlash from scholars and critics who accused Mr. Brook of appropriating Indian culture. “He has taken one of our most significant texts,” wrote Indian author and theater director Rustom Bharucha, “and decontextualised it from its history in order to sell it to audiences in the west.”
Mr. Brook acknowledged that the play “would never have existed without India” but defended his interpretation of the text, returning to the source material in 2016 with “Battlefield,” a four-character play that he directed and wrote with Estienne. As he told it, his “Mahabharata” was an effort to present art that appealed to audiences around the world, regardless of their background.
“When we did it, Indians said, ‘Here you are, colonialists, stealing our heritage,’ ” he told the Times in 2019. “I said, ‘No, it belongs to the world.’ And I know that you have little companies all over India who do Shakespeare. Has anyone ever said, ‘This belongs to England?’”
Peter Stephen Paul Brook was born in London on March 21, 1925. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who worked as chemists, running a company that developed a popular chocolate-flavored laxative called Brooklax.
As a boy, Mr. Brook dreamed of becoming a foreign correspondent, viewing journalism as an escape from what he considered the dreary world of middle-class London. Decades later, he explained his wanderlust — and his decision to move from England to France — by quoting one of his favorite Shakespeare lines: “There is a world elsewhere,” from “Coriolanus.”
While studying at Magdalen College at the University of Oxford, he staged plays including Christopher Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus,” recruiting the aging occultist Aleister Crowley to advise the cast on the practice of magic.
After graduating in 1944 at age 20, he filmed advertising shorts and worked on a production of George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” that was intended for troops overseas. Liverpool theater director William Armstrong saw him running a dress rehearsal and helped kick-start Mr. Brook’s career by recommending him to the Birmingham Repertory, where Mr. Brook made his debut in 1945 directing Shaw’s “Man and Superman.”
He was soon directing operas at Covent Garden in London, including a 1949 staging of Richard Strauss’s “Salome” that featured sets and costumes by Salvador Dalí.
By 1953, he had arrived in New York City, where he directed a production of Gounod’s “Faust” for the Metropolitan Opera, moving the action from the 16th to the 19th century. That same year, he directed his first film, “The Beggar’s Opera,” the rare musical to star Olivier. It flopped at the box office, and Mr. Brook later struggled to find a wide audience for movies such as “Seven Days...Seven Nights” (1960).
Working on movies, he was at the mercy of studio executives and budget constraints, he said, while “in the theater you can evoke a universe in an empty space.”
Mr. Brook was named commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1965 and Companion of Honor in 1998. He received Norway’s inaugural International Ibsen Award in 2008 and India’s Padma Shri in 2021.
In 1951, he married actress Natasha Parry, who went on to appear in many of his productions. She died in 2015. In addition to his son, a filmmaker, survivors include a daughter, Irina Brook, a theater and opera director; and two grandchildren.
Appreciation: Peter Brook was a dazzling explorer of humankind’s complexity
Mr. Brook stepped down as artistic director of the CIRT in 2011 but was still working in recent years, even as macular degeneration made it difficult for him to see. In 2019 he premiered a new play, “Why?,” about experimental Russian director Vsevolod Meyerhold, which Mr. Brook wrote and staged with Estienne.
“The one truth is that theater is a living experience,” he told the London Evening Standard that year. “As long as it’s alive, it’s alive. It fluctuates and changes. If we work in that form or write about it, we have a responsibility to not let the flame go out.” | 2022-07-05T23:43:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Peter Brook, towering theater director, dies at 97 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/05/theater-director-peter-brook-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/05/theater-director-peter-brook-dead/ |
By John Bartlett
Delegates to Chile's constitutional convention hold copies of the final draft on Monday. (Javier Torres/AFP/Getty Images)
SANTIAGO, Chile — In 2019, when hundreds of thousands of Chileans took to the streets in protest, a young, tattooed politician helped broker a deal to end the unrest. The pact called for a new constitution to appease the protesters clamoring for a fresh start — and a voice for those who had long been mostly left out of this South American nation’s politics: Women, the Indigenous, the LGBT community.
Now that young politician, a 36-year-old shaggy-haired former student activist named Gabriel Boric, is Chile’s president. And this week, he received a document that could become Chile’s new constitution, a 388-article charter that envisions a progressive, feminist future for the South American nation.
“Today we begin a new phase,” Boric said Monday at Chile’s former congress building in Santiago, the 19th-century palace that has hosted the constitutional convention over the past year. “Once more, it will be the people who have the final say on their destiny.”
It’s a woke constitution propelled by left-leaning millennials and built for a modern nation led by one. The question is whether Chileans are ready for it.
“What Chile decided … was to become part of the new demands raised by a specific generation,” said Sergio Toro, a political scientist at Chile’s University Mayor. Their success, he said, depends on whether they can achieve this new social pact. “If they succeed, it will mean the beginning of a different country.”
The experiment could serve as a case study in writing a progressive constitution in the 21st century — and the challenges in getting a divided nation to agree to it.
After the protests of 2019, nearly 80 percent of Chileans voted in 2020 to draft a new constitution to replace the country’s Augusto Pinochet-era, Milton Friedman-influenced charter. But it now seems increasingly unlikely Chileans will approve it — polls show the vote to reject it holds a clear lead.
At one point, the first democratically drafted constitution in Chilean history included 499 articles, which would have made it one of the longest such documents in the world. It was whittled down to 388, plus 57 more to aid in the country’s transition to the new charter.
It’s a marked departure from the current charter, which did not mention Chile’s Indigenous peoples.
The document would enshrine Chile as plurinational — containing many distinct peoples — and raise the possibility of autonomy for Indigenous territories. One section would guarantee restitution for historically Indigenous lands at a “fair price.” Another would make the government responsible for preventing, adapting to, and mitigating the effects of climate change. Elsewhere, the document would guarantee protections for biodiversity, enshrine a right to nature, and clear the way for the country’s deeply unpopular private water rights system to be replaced.
“This has been an unprecedented process, because we were able to consider all of the evidence around climate change when crafting the new constitution,” said Cristina Dorador, 42, a microbiologist from Antofagasta. “I hope that all of this can serve as an example to other countries.”
The charter would make the government responsible for providing free higher education, health care and many other services. It would guarantee a right to housing, and to leisure time. It would require that at least half of all members of government and congress, and employees of public and public-private companies, be women. It would also recognize the government’s responsibility to eradicate gender violence.
In Cuba, a frantic search for milk
The first article defines Chile as inclusive and gender-equal.
“Feminism features in the constitution as one of the central pillars of the redistribution of power,” explained Constanza Schönhaut, 33, a delegate from Santiago.
It would shake up Chile’s political system, abolishing the Senate in favor of a “chamber of regions” — an upper house composed of elected delegates from each of Chile’s regions — and lower the barriers for independent candidates to run for elected positions.
“This proposal is completely different in form and content to the 1980 constitution,” said Kenneth Bunker, the director of Tresquintos, a political analysis website. “If that was drafted in one room by four generals, then this new proposal was written with full plurality.”
The 155-member constitutional assembly was made up of mostly independent and left-leaning members. Seventeen seats were reserved for the country’s 10 Indigenous communities.
The makeup of the assembly has been the subject of criticism.
“The proposal is radical because it represents only one sector of the left, which is obviously not what our country wants,” said Arturo Zúñiga, a conservative convention delegate who brandished the red, white and blue national flag at Monday’s ceremony. “In my opinion, the way forward is to find a new method for writing a constitution which unites our country.”
The turbulent negotiations were punctuated by controversies that helped fuel a campaign to discredit the convention.
Delegate Rodrigo Rojas Vade, a popular figure during the 2019 marches, was elected to the convention on promises of free, high-quality health care — and because of his experiences suffering from a rare form of leukemia. It turned out that his diagnosis was fake, and he resigned.
The spread of misinformation and selective readings of the text have sparked battles. One conservative senator, Felipe Kast, the nephew of José Antonio Kast, whom Boric defeated in December, tweeted falsely that the proposal would allow abortions at any point during a pregnancy.
The text would guarantee the right to make free, autonomous and informed decisions over one’s body, reproduction and contraception; as well as the right to voluntarily end a pregnancy. But it specifies that abortion would be regulated by a separate law.
If voters reject the document, the 1980 constitution would remain in force, and the country would probably have to assemble an entirely new constitutional convention to restart a drafting process, said Tania Busch Venthur, a law professor who teaches constitutional rights at Chile’s Andrés Bello university.
“Chile is a country where people are not good at talking about things directly,” she said. “Perhaps this is a process where for the first time, we sat down to talk honestly, and we saw that our differences were deeper than we thought.” | 2022-07-05T23:43:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chile gives Gabriel Boric a draft constitution. Now it faces a vote. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/05/chile-constitution-draft-boric/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/05/chile-constitution-draft-boric/ |
‘Nothing feels safe:’ Americans are divided, anxious and quick to panic
In Philadelphia, Orlando and Highland Park, Ill., panicked people ran for cover as gunshots and firecrackers interrupted July 4 celebrations. (Video: ChaiMike26/Patrick Nurse/@leonarcos11/Storyful)
Pop-pop-pop! Along Washington’s National Mall, families enjoying the Fourth of July hear explosions that should be fireworks but could be a mass shooting. They instantly scatter, a mini-panic that police quickly assure them is just the annual crackle of patriotic celebration.
Bang-bang! In downtown Orlando, sudden noises startle a crowd and people bolt from their holiday gathering, leaving police to tweet that “there is NO evidence of a shooting in the area.”
But on the same evening in Philadelphia’s Center City neighborhood, similar sounds send people running — and the pops turn out to be real gunshots, which graze two police officers guarding the fireworks show in front of the Philadelphia Art Museum. Just hours earlier, a rooftop shooter in Highland Park, Ill., terrorizes a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb where movie classics “Risky Business” and “Home Alone” were filmed decades ago. Seven people are killed, dozens injured and thousands left shaken, the town’s main street reduced from revels to requiem in a matter of seconds.
In deadly assaults and harmless bursts of celebratory explosives, a divided nation demonstrated this holiday weekend just how anxious and jittery it has become, as the perennial flare of fireworks saluting American freedom reminded all too many people instead of the anger, violence and social isolation of the past few years.
“There is a fundamental national insecurity now, after a perfect storm of social chaos where covid forced us to stay apart and the killing of George Floyd unleashed a movement that broke trust in the people who protect us,” said Thane Rosenbaum, a lawyer and novelist who runs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society at Touro University in New York. “We’re in a moral panic: ‘Will anyone pick up the phone if I call for help?’ Women feel more vulnerable because of the Supreme Court decision on abortion. Everyone feels more vulnerable because of soaring gas prices. People don’t see a way out.”
The good news about Monday’s celebration of the country’s 246th birthday was that large numbers of people felt safe enough to attend traditional parades, concerts and fireworks shows, many of which had been suspended or scaled back during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly all went off without a hitch.
On the Mall, Rachael Perrotta and Andrew Hu, both 20-year-old students at Vanderbilt University, saw no reason to leave the big crowd even after they heard about the shootings in Highland Park, and even after their parents contacted them to express concern about their safety at a large event in the middle of a big city.
Perrotta, celebrating July Fourth in Washington for the first time, said her generation has been “desensitized” to reports of violence, whether they are shootings or civil disturbances. “It’s very much what we grew up with,” she said. “I don’t think it instills the same fear as it does for older generations, which is really sad.”
But the edginess in the crowds was palpable in one city after another.
Brenda Herrera and Laleh Omaraie, 26-year-old teachers originally from Chicago, joined in the celebration on the Mall. They said gun violence is on their radar in the wake of so many mass shootings, but the problem is broader than that. Everyone seems to be on edge these days: When a bag of chips popped open on their Metro train that morning, they recalled, passengers jumped.
Dozens of people scattered in fear after a man stormed on stage in Washington. In New York, firecrackers were mistaken for gunshots during a Pride march. (Video: Reuters/AP)
Viral videos of masses of people fleeing from one perceived threat or another on American streets have become a staple of social media. In many cases, as in Washington, Philadelphia and Highland Park on the Fourth, cameras capture people first looking to each other — to their friends and relatives, as well as the strangers around them — for cues before deciding whether to flee, almost as if they trust the reaction of the crowd at least as much as, if not more than, their own instincts.
In Philadelphia on Monday, the sound of gunshots prompted a rush to safety in which people slammed into others, pushing some who were fleeing to the ground and pressing others up against security fences that were meant to control the crowd. Police said they had not yet figured out who fired the shots or whether they were aimed at anyone in particular, or rather as part of a misguided holiday celebration.
Panicked people ran for cover and two police officers were injured as shots were fired during a July Fourth celebration in Philadelphia. (Video: The Washington Post)
The two officers who were struck were treated at a hospital and released, but the incident rattled Mayor Jim Kenney so much that he told reporters Monday night that he is looking forward to not being mayor: “It’s crazy. We are the most armed country in world history and we are one of the least safe. I’m waiting for something bad to happen all the time.”
In Minneapolis, an informal Fourth of July fireworks display in a public park ended at 11:30 p.m., when someone shot and wounded eight people as others fled. One man said he ducked into a hiding place at Boom Island Park’s lake to escape the gunfire.
Although the country has suffered through far higher crime rates and similar periods of deep political division, “we’re in uncharted territory in terms of anxiety,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum and a former Boston police official. “With the George Floyd murder, war in Ukraine, the questioning of elections, people don’t know who to trust. Who would think that in an iconic place like Highland Park, you would need to post snipers on rooftops on the Fourth of July? But that’s what we’ve come to.”
“Nothing feels safe anymore,” he continued.
After years of violence and the social isolation brought by the pandemic, rhetoric on both shores of the national cultural and political gulf focuses on a yearning for security. On one side, it’s expressed as a craving for “safe spaces” and calls for acceptance of others. On the opposite side, it’s a nostalgia for a perceived golden age of social consensus.
In both cases, the political rhetoric reflects underlying jitters that lead to the kinds of street panics seen in May, when people emerging from the Barclays Center sports arena in Brooklyn stampeded toward safety after some heard pops that sounded like gunshots. In the panic, at least 10 people were injured, trampled to the pavement by others running, they thought, for their lives. In the end, there was no evidence of any gunfire.
Reports of an active shooter sparked panic after a boxing match at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, on May 28. At least ten people were injured. (Video: Ryan Songalia/@ryansongalia via Storyful)
Americans’ jitters have been exacerbated in recent weeks by threats against Pride parades in Idaho, North Carolina and other states, and by last week’s police shooting of a Black man in Akron, Ohio.
“We are disoriented, unable to speak the same language or recognize the same truth,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt wrote in the Atlantic in April. “We are cut off from one another and from the past.”
Increasingly separated by geography, media diets and social connections, Americans have lost trust in each other and in the institutions and authorities that have traditionally brought people together, including government, police, schools, scientists and other experts, and faith and business leaders.
So when something potentially scary happens, especially in a public place that attracts a wide variety of people, the trust that once provided some assurance that all would be okay is now missing, Rosenbaum said.
“There is a longing for an America where government could be trusted to protect us,” he said.
This collapse of public trust and consensus is not unique to this time: In the late 1960s and early 1970s, for example, there was similar division and racial discord, and with soaring crime rates, many people felt so insecure that they avoided certain neighborhoods or entire cities.
“But we had the will to fix things then,” Rosenbaum said. “Now there’s an unspoken fear that people don’t feel free to talk about for fear of getting attacked on social media. If you believe now that we need more police, you can’t say that publicly or you’ll get destroyed on social media.”
If panicky reactions on America’s streets reflect a diminished trust that the police can or will keep people safe, that creates an opportunity for police to rebuild that trust, Wexler said. “Violent crime is up over the last two years, and a lot of that has to do with people being on edge and a lot of guns being out there,” he said. “Small arguments become major confrontations. And when people have to figure out whether a noise is gunfire or fireworks, you see that anxiety coming out.”
But when police react quickly and effectively, either by capturing the alleged shooter as they did in Highland Park on Monday night, or by immediately putting out good information about frightening moments, as Boston police did in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, “those are opportunities for good cops to start to regain public trust,” Wexler said.
In an ever-accelerating culture characterized by the instant spread of raw and often wrong information on social media, speedy responses are the key to easing or averting panics, according to researchers who’ve studied trust in police and other authorities.
“As we saw in Uvalde, it’s delay and lack of information that leads to mistrust and fear,” Wexler said, referring to police officers’ delayed response during the Texas school shooting in May.
In Washington on the Fourth, small protests popped up here and there — against the Supreme Court’s overturning of the Roe v. Wade protections of abortion rights and against coronavirus vaccines — yet the larger crowds took the demonstrations in stride. Some in the crowd said they were worried about another attack like the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection in Washington, or about random mass shootings, but others said they felt safe because of the large police presence a short distance from the protesters.
“I see a lot of officers around,” said Kelly Silva, 38, as she sat amid a grove of trees near the Washington Monument, watching over a picnic blanket and a box of chicken wings. Silva, a District resident, was happy to be back at the fireworks “because everything’s coming back to normal. … Everyone was scared two years ago, but now everybody’s back. We can laugh and celebrate like before.”
On this night, the fireworks were merely bombs bursting in air, the flag still there.
Gaya Gupta, Caroline Pineda and Daniel Wu contributed to this report. | 2022-07-06T00:14:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Panic at July Fourth celebrations shows Americans are divided, anxious - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/05/americans-shootings-panic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/05/americans-shootings-panic/ |
Players and fans pause for a moment of silence for the victims of the Highland Park shooting before a game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago Cubs, on July 4 in Milwaukee. (Morry Gash/AP)
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — After the gunman wreaked his carnage, the screaming stopped and the people fled, little Aiden McCarthy remained among the bodies, confused and crying.
Neighbors in the close-knit Highland Park community found the 2-year-old in the chaos after the mass shooting Monday at the town’s annual Fourth of July parade, when a gunman atop the roof of a local business struck down more than three dozen people, killing seven adults and injuring dozens more.
On Tuesday, Highland Park Police confirmed the worst — his parents, Kevin and Irina McCarthy, ages 37 and 35, had been killed in the attack.
Police on Tuesday said that along with the McCarthys, five other adults died, including Katherine Goldstein, 64, of Highland Park, Nicolás Toledo-Zaragoza, 78, of Morelos, Mexico, Jacki Sundheim, 63, of Highland Park and Stephen Straus, 88, of Highland Park. A seventh victim, whose name was not released, died at a hospital in Cook County.
One of the women who helped rescue Aiden, Irina Colon, said in a GoFundMe appeal Tuesday that she and others had sheltered the little boy and worked to locate his grandparents, who will now be caring for him.
“At two years old, Aiden is left in the unthinkable position; to grow up without his parents. Aiden will be cared for by his loving family and he will have a long road ahead to heal, find stability, and ultimately navigate life as an orphan,” Colon wrote.
Adrienne Rosenblatt, 71, had just escaped the gunfire at the parade when she noticed a familiar face on a neighborhood watch website.
“I said to my neighbors here, I said, ‘This is Aiden!’” she recalled in an interview. “And they go, ‘Yeah, it is.’”
Rosenblatt is a longtime resident of the neighborhood where Kevin and Irina McCarthy had lived for the last couple of years. When she saw Aiden’s picture, she went to the family’s house, where his grandparents were anxiously awaiting news.
“I said, ‘He’s at the police station,’” Rosenblatt said. “When I showed them the picture of Aiden, they were so grateful.”
She first met the McCarthys shortly after they moved in, when she brought them mint chocolate chip brownies to welcome them to the neighborhood. Aiden was the couple’s only child, she said.
Sometimes, his grandma would walk him to a nearby park to play on the swings. Rosenblatt saw mother and son go on walks together. He would pet Rosenblatt’s dog, Lovie, with his mom’s encouragement. It was not until Tuesday afternoon that Rosenblatt found out both of his parents had been killed in the shooting.
“How do they tell him?” she asked, shaking her head.
For many residents in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, the annual Fourth of July parade is the highlight of the year. The large, extended Toledo family began setting up their chairs in their favorite spot in front of Uncle Dan’s Outdoor Store long before the parade was scheduled to begin, family members said Tuesday. Dozens of others also showed up early to secure their spots along the route in the community’s quaint downtown, where tiny flags fluttered around the trees.
When the gunman began shooting, parade-goers fled, hiding under benches and behind dumpsters and the bathroom of the local Starbucks. Toledo’s granddaughter, Xochil Toledo, told the Chicago Sun-Times her father tried to shield her grandfather and was shot in the arm. Her boyfriend was shot in the back and hospitalized.
Nicolás Toledo, a grandfather and father of eight, died in his wheelchair.
Xochil Toledo recalled looking over at her grandfather a bit earlier, as a band passed them.
Nicolás Toledo was a loving father of eight from Morelos, Mexico, who spent most of the past three decades in Highland Park after immigrating to the United States, another grandchild, David Toledo, said in an interview with The Washington Post. Losing him was “just horrific,” he said.
“He was a funny guy,” David Toledo said. “Always playful, always cracking jokes and playing with his grandkids. He would always make us laugh.”
The older Toledo loved being outdoors, especially fishing in Fox Lake.
David Toledo, who lives in Chicago, said the last time he saw his grandfather was at a gathering at his aunt’s house in Highland Park. The family watched over him together, sharing the responsibilities of taking care of him — but that didn’t stop the jokes and playfulness, David Toledo said.
“I would ask if he needed help. He’s like, ‘No, I’m okay. I’m good,’” he said. “And I was like ‘Are you sure? I mean, you’re getting old now.’ ”
In the coming days, David Toledo said he and his family will focus on mourning together, checking in on each other and planning his grandfather’s funeral. They might also go down to Fox Lake to catch fish to fry for a family meal — something his grandfather would have liked, he said.
On the day he died, 88-year-old Steve Straus asked his younger brother: Do you want to go to the parade?
His brother wasn’t interested, but off went Straus, who exhibited the energy of someone decades younger, according to his niece, Cynthia Straus.
Straus was a financial adviser who rode the train from his home in Highland Park to his office in downtown Chicago.
He adored his wife, Linda, their two sons and their four grandchildren, Cynthia said, and talked to his 86-year-old brother — Cynthia’s father — “every day.”
“They were so close,” she said. “He was devoted to his family. And he never should have died this way.”
Highland Park, a lakeshore suburb about 27 miles north of Chicago, has about 30,000 residents, mostly White and affluent. An estimated one-third of them are Jewish, and the area is home to kosher butchers, supermarkets and synagogues.
Jacki Sundheim, 63, was a well-connected member of the local Jewish community and a lifelong member of the North Shore Congregation Israel, where she had worked for decades, first as a preschool teacher and then as the special events coordinator, the synagogue said Tuesday in a statement.
Sundheim was survived by her husband, Bruce, daughter Leah, sister Tracy and niece Becca, the synagogue’s senior rabbi, Wendi Geffen, said in a letter to congregants.
“Jacki’s work, kindness and warmth touched us all, from her early days teaching at the Gates of Learning Preschool to guiding innumerable among us through life’s moments of joy and sorrow,” the statement said.
In addition to the seven adults who died, more than 30 victims were treated at four local hospitals, police said.
A friend of one of the injured victims, Zoe Kolpack — a teacher at Dever Elementary School, according to the Chicago Teachers Union — had raised nearly $200,000 on a GoFundMe page as of Tuesday.
Kolpack’s children saw her and three family members shot, according to Samantha Whitehead, the friend and fundraising organizer. The children were unharmed.
“They are all in the hospital undergoing various surgeries, which will seriously impact these families financially,” Whitehead said.
Alice Crites, Patrick Marley, Andrew Jeong, Annabelle Timsit, Jennifer Hassan, Danielle Paquette, Holly Bailey and Lateshia Beachum contributed to this report. | 2022-07-06T00:14:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Victims in the Highland Park shooting: Seven killed, dozens wounded - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/05/highland-park-shooting-victims/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/05/highland-park-shooting-victims/ |
A flag hangs at half-staff as investigators gather in downtown Highland Park, Ill., on July 5. (Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times/AP)
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — The 21-year-old gunman accused of opening fire on a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb planned the attack for weeks and used a legally purchased military-style weapon to kill seven and injure more than 30 people, police said, in the latest mass shooting to shake a traumatized nation.
Authorities charged Robert E. Crimo III with seven counts of first-degree murder Tuesday but said there was no definitive motive for the rampage, which left this tranquil city of 30,000 reeling as it mourned the dead.
Crimo had acquired five firearms in 2020 and 2021, said Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force, including the semiautomatic rifle he allegedly used to fire more than 70 shots into the crowds gathered to celebrate American independence. He attempted to conceal his identity by wearing women’s clothing, police said, and initially eluded capture by blending in with those fleeing the gunfire.
At a news conference near the parade route, Eric Rinehart, the Lake County State’s Attorney, pledged to pursue justice for the victims and called for a ban on assault-style weapons.
“All of the people who died steps from here lost their freedom — all of it,” Rinehart said. “We must do more as we think and reflect upon their freedom.”
Highland Park is home to a sizable Jewish community — and several of those killed were Jewish — but Covelli said there was no information yet to suggest the violence was racially or religiously motivated.
The victims identified by authorities ranged in age from 35 to 88. They included Jacquelyn Sundheim, a staff member and preschool teacher at a nearby synagogue; Nicolás Toledo-Zaragoza, a doting grandfather who had recently returned to Highland Park to be closer to family; and Kevin and Irina McCarthy, the parents of a 2-year old boy.
President Biden ordered flags to be flown at half-staff at public buildings and military posts in the wake of the shooting as “a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of gun violence perpetrated on our Independence Day.”
Monday’s carnage marked the 15th time this year that four or more people were killed in a shooting in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that maintains a database of incidents of gun violence. It was the 309th time this year that four or more people were shot.
The attack will reignite a polarized national debate over how to prevent mass shootings, with Democrats demanding stronger gun regulations and Republicans adamant that access to weapons is not the issue.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said that Monday’s shooting should spur federal authorities to action on gun control. “We have to get rid of assault weapons, high-capacity magazines” and enact many other “common-sense reforms that wide majorities of Americans are crying out for,” she said.
Duckworth watched video recordings of the shooting, which show terrified people fleeing amid the deafening crack of rifle fire. “The last time I heard a weapon with that capacity firing that rapidly on a Fourth of July was Iraq,” said Duckworth, who lost both legs in the Iraq War when her helicopter was shot down. “It was not the United States of America.”
By contrast, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) demurred when asked Tuesday if further steps were needed. He pointed to the bipartisan measure passed by Congress last month that allowed for enhanced background checks for gun buyers under 21, a modest change that marked the first tightening of gun regulations at the federal level in decades. The bill also provided funding for mental health services and school security.
The shooting in Highland Park is “another example of what the problem is,” McConnell said. “The problem is mental health and these young men who seem to be inspired to commit these crimes. So I think the bill that we passed targeted the problem.”
Crimo had two prior run-ins with law enforcement, police said, both times in 2019. In April, a person called the Highland Park police to report that Crimo had attempted suicide. Police officers spoke with Crimo and his parents but there was “no action to be taken at that time,” Covelli said.
Five months later, a relative reported that Crimo had threatened to “kill everyone” in his family. While the police removed 16 knives, a dagger and a sword from his home, there was no probable cause to make an arrest and no complaints were signed by any victims, Covelli said.
The Highland Park police notified the Illinois State Police about the incident, but at the time Crimo did not have a state gun permit that could be reviewed or revoked, a state police spokeswoman said.
Crimo was apparently known online as “Awake the Rapper” and attracted a modest following for his amateur music videos posted on YouTube and tracks posted on Spotify.
Some of the videos included ominous imagery. One shows a computer-drawn image of a figure wearing what looks like tactical gear and shooting a rifle, while one person kneels and another lies on the ground. Another clip shows a person appearing to be Crimo wearing a helmet and vest inside a classroom next to an American flag.
Crimo’s parents released a statement through a lawyer who said he had been retained to represent them. “This is a terrible tragedy,” it said. “Our hearts, our thoughts, our prayers go out to everybody.”
Police said that Crimo planned the attack and brought two rifles to the parade but left one in his vehicle. He climbed to the roof of a local business via a fire-escape ladder before taking aim at the people enjoying the parade below.
For many residents of Highland Park, the annual Fourth of July parade is a highlight of the year. Families arrive early to secure their favorite spots, setting up beach chairs along streets in the community’s quaint downtown.
Among those in the crowd was 88-year-old Steve Straus. Earlier in the day, he’d asked his younger brother: Do you want to go to the parade?
His brother wasn’t interested, but off went Straus, a financial adviser who exhibited the energy of someone decades younger, according to his niece, Cynthia Straus.
His family later learned he was one of those killed.
“He was devoted to his family,” Cynthia said. “And he never should have died this way.”
Randy Winters, 56, was watching the parade a block away from where the suspect opened fire. His wife had declined to join him for the festivities. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Winters said, she wasn’t in the mood to celebrate America.
Winters went anyway. In the moments before the shooting, he and a friend watched as students from the Highland Park High School marching band played a patriotic tune. “This is what it’s all about,” he told his friend, feeling content and proud. “America isn’t so bad after all.”
“I literally said that,” Winters recalled. “And then I heard boom-boom-boom-boom-boom. People were just screaming ‘Shooter!’ and running,” he said. “It sounded like he was right next to us.”
Karen Abrams found a hiding place in Country Kitchen, four blocks from the shooting. When she emerged more than an hour later, she saw a man walking away from the scene covered in blood.
“I asked him if he was okay,” Abrams said. “And he said, ‘It’s not my blood, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay.’ ”
Annie Gowen, Danielle Paquette, Amy B Wang, Mariana Alfaro, Praveena Somasundaram, Andrew Jeong, Bryan Pietsch, Gerrit De Vynck and Mark Berman contributed to this report. | 2022-07-06T00:14:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Highland Park shooting suspect Robert E. Crimo III charged with murder - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/05/highland-park-shooting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/05/highland-park-shooting/ |
The war in Ukraine may still dominate international headlines. But it’s a country far from the battlefield that has turned into a kind of crucible of the global moment. For months, Sri Lanka has been in an economic death spiral: A public debt crisis, exacerbated first by the toll of the pandemic and then the disruptions provoked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has led to shortages in food, fuel, cooking gas, medicines, cash and other essential commodities.
In a United Nations survey, some 70 percent of Sri Lankan households reported cutting back on food consumption, with food price inflation running at around 57 percent (contrast that to roughly 10 percent in the United States from the previous year). The country of 22 million people is more or less out of fuel and fresh shipments are still days away.
Mounting public anger and protests brought down the government of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in May, but crisis conditions endure and fears grow over the potential of new clashes between security forces and ordinary, irate civilians. Rolling power cuts are now standard parts of daily life, as are days-long lines for fuel. Schools and offices have been closed at least through the week in a bid to keep Sri Lankans off the roads.
Last week, doctors, medical staff, teachers and bankers in the capital Colombo marched in protest of their inability to get the necessary petrol or diesel to carry out essential work. “Things have become unbearable for the common man,” said a teachers union official to Reuters.
How one powerful family wrecked a country
Sri Lanka in May defaulted on its debt for the first time in its history as an independent nation. A caretaker government led by savvy veteran politician Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is attempting to steer the country out of its troubles, including by soliciting aid from regional powers India and China.
Lines at passport offices are now lengthy, too, and the country’s online application system has been backlogged for months. The most desperate are attempting to flee via boat to nearby countries such as India. Analysts have likened the wipeout of the Sri Lankan economy to the financial chaos of the late 1990s in Southeast Asia’s major economies. Others warn of Sri Lanka turning into “South Asia’s Lebanon,” debt-ridden and dysfunctional.
Ten days of negotiations that began June 20 between the country’s interim government and officials from the International Monetary Fund over a potential bailout package concluded last week with no resolution. “In the past, we have held discussions as a developing country,” Wickremesinghe said Tuesday. “But now the situation is different. We are now participating in the negotiations as a bankrupt country. Therefore, we have to face a more difficult and complicated situation.”
Sri Lanka is running out of fuel as it faces its worst crisis since independence in 1948.
Here's why people blame the Rajapaksa family for the political mess. Watch this from the #AJStartHere archive ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/ISbMzLYF4u
“Sri Lanka would be in crisis even if you didn’t have a war in Ukraine, but it’s compounding everything,” Alan Keenan, an analyst at the International Crisis Group consultancy, said to my colleague Gerry Shih earlier this year. “This is the Ukraine effect: a credit line for fuel you thought could last two months now lasts one. Even if you get a bailout, you’re buying less food, less fuel, less medicine.”
Similar pressures exist elsewhere. A joint report from international humanitarian groups Oxfam and Save the Children in May found that one person is dying of hunger every 48 seconds in drought-ravaged Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. The conflict in Ukraine had led to prices spiking to record levels and made food “unattainable for millions” of people in East Africa.
“The number of people experiencing extreme hunger in the three countries has more than doubled since last year — from over 10 million to more than 23 million today,” the organizations noted in a statement. “This is against a backdrop of crippling debt that more than tripled in under a decade — from $20.7 billion in 2012 to $65.3 billion by 2020 — sucking these countries’ resources from public services and social protection.”
The organizations also cajoled major Western powers for not doing more: “[Group of Seven nations] and other rich nations have turned inwards in response to various global crises, such as COVID-19 and more recently the Ukraine conflict, including by backtracking on their promised aid to poor countries and driving them to edge of bankruptcy with debt.”
Indeed, for the United States and many of its European partners rallying around Ukraine, Sri Lanka is far from their focus. But leaders elsewhere are more concerned. Indonesian President Joko Widodo is said to have carried out his trip last week to both Kyiv and Moscow with the situation in Sri Lanka front of mind. He urged an end to hostilities and pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin to ease conditions that have placed a chokehold on crucial exports of grain and fertilizer.
“Indonesia’s top goal is … for the war to end in Ukraine,” Andrew Mantong, international relations researcher at the Jakarta-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Nikkei Asia. “If that can’t be achieved, the second goal — and the most achievable — is to find a way for Russian and Ukrainian food and fertilizer supplies to be reintegrated into the global supply chain.”
In an interview with the Associated Press last month, a beleaguered Wickremesinghe said his government would consider sourcing Russian oil, no matter Western sanctions. He bemoaned how the war in Ukraine had accelerated Sri Lanka’s “economic contraction” and warned his nation would not be alone.
“I think by the end of the year, you could see the impact in other countries,” he said. “There is a global shortage of food. Countries are not exporting food.” | 2022-07-06T04:18:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Far from Ukraine, Sri Lanka is the epicenter of a global crisis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/06/sri-lanka-global-crisis-economic-ukraine-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/06/sri-lanka-global-crisis-economic-ukraine-russia/ |
Dear Amy: My daughter (22 years old) came out as a nonbinary last year, and I fully supported them (we use them/their pronouns now). They’ve been a lot happier since coming out.
Whenever she does that, I will reply in ways such as: “Oh yes, Max is very glad that …”
I don’t want her visit to be a disaster, nor do I want to listen to her quote from the Bible, etc. Since my sister doesn’t live in this country, Max hasn’t seen her for a long time. I haven’t told Max about their aunt’s refusal to call them “Max.”
Anxious: Nonbinary does not refer to sexuality, but to gender. I’m not aware that the Bible addresses this aspect of being human (but I assume that readers will correct me).
If you accept that gender occurs along a continuum marked by two genders on either end of the spectrum, female/male, then it makes sense that a percentage of humans would identify as neither completely male nor completely female — but as “nonbinary.”
I recently watched an informative and compassionate TED Talk primer on the topic of growing up nonbinary. I highly recommend that you send a link to your sister: “Walking through the world nonbinary,” by Jesse Lueck, which is available on YouTube.
He is so funny and caring and we talk via Facebook Messenger a lot. I think about having sex with him all the time, and he says the same thing.
Awaiting: I’m sorry you are experiencing this challenge in your marriage. Is your constant communication with this other person and the sharing of thoughts and fantasies wrong?
Childless: This is a very understanding response. | 2022-07-06T04:48:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: My sister refuses to use my nonbinary child's correct name - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/06/ask-amy-daughter-nonbinary-sister/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/06/ask-amy-daughter-nonbinary-sister/ |
Hi, Carolyn: I married for the second time a little over a year ago. My second wife was born in China and has been in the United States for about six years. Before we were married, everything seemed great. Now a number of issues are starting to reveal themselves.
Her primary language is Chinese, but she also speaks English very well. When we are alone, she speaks to me in English, but any time her 22-year-old daughter, who speaks English very well, or friends are around, she speaks almost solely in Chinese. The friends also speak both languages. She does not make an effort to include me in the conversations, and when I bring up the topic, she tells me it is a personal discussion and I don’t need to know.
My mother visited recently. My mom felt as if this behavior was rude, and I agree. Mom even politely said something, but she was essentially ignored. What do I do?
— A Stranger in My Own Home
A Stranger in My Own Home: You take it or leave it.
If you want sympathy, then I have that. (Two bilingual husbands!)
If you want validation, I have that, too, mostly: I think you’re asking a lot for her to switch exclusively to a second language with a daughter — too deep a bond — and if there’s a friend gathering in your kitchen you’re not actively part of, and you trust your wife not to belittle you, then be glad they talk comfortably. Those exceptions aside, though, I agree that routinely holding conversations that exclude others in the home/marriage is standoffish and rude. (If you don’t trust her, yikes.)
However, you’ve discussed this. You made your case to be included. She is unmoved.
So that rules out some options. A wife who agrees with you, apologizes and invites you into her conversations? No. A wife who disagrees but for the sake of harmony makes an extra effort to speak English around you? No. A marriage that won’t suffer damage from a standoff? Haven’t seen that unicorn yet.
By my count, here’s what you have left: 1. Embrace the marriage you have, where you accept a fair amount of separation between your together times. You’d have to want that, of course, but plenty of couples thrive on those terms, remarriages especially. 2. Pull the plug. Sometimes you date a facade, marry the truth and divorce your mistake.
That’s what you have in the take-or-leave aisle. But consider this option, too, in the get-over-yourself aisle:
3. Learn to speak her language.
If you think it’s on her to do all the extra work to communicate with you and make you feel welcome, then I might just take my sympathy and go home.
Dear Carolyn: How can you “politely” tell people who make snarky comments about changing jobs that you don’t appreciate their opinions? I have had a rocky few years with my career, and I find that some people are very judgmental about my situation without knowing the reasons for the changes. I also don’t think I owe anyone explanations for my situation.
— Changing Jobs
Changing Jobs: “New joke, please. I’m tired.” A calm line drawn straight to the point is a gift, even when it’s a variant of, “Shut your pie-hole.” That’s because anyone of good faith will want to know it’s a sore spot, so they can leave it alone. | 2022-07-06T04:48:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Bilingual wife won't agree to speak English among friends - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/06/carolyn-hax-bilingual-wife-english-friends/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/06/carolyn-hax-bilingual-wife-english-friends/ |
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) waits to bat during the third inning of the Congressional Baseball Game at National’s Park in Washington in 2019. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
The Congressional Baseball Game has long been trumpeted as an annual ritual of bipartisan comity. Since 1909, House Democrats and Republicans have faced off on the diamond to show that despite their differences, they can all enjoy a night under the lights in D.C. competing in America’s pastime.
Climate activists say the time for such games is over.
The action, dubbed “Now or Never,” will be announced Wednesday morning and is being organized by groups who feel disillusioned by their canvassing and outreach work in the 2020 elections, which gave Democrats control of the presidency and both chambers of Congress. Organizers are keeping details under wraps for now but say there will be a component of direct action for activists who are willing to risk arrest.
Analysis: Balk! Congressional Baseball Game comes across as tone deaf as Congress comes close to whiffing on its big deadlines
“What we want to make sure is if somebody fails, they’re held accountable,” Demarco said Tuesday, noting that two of the sponsors of this year’s game include oil companies BP and Chevron. “Either you deliver on your promise on climate or voters will hold you accountable.”
DeMarco and activist Michael Greenberg say that unless a bill is passed, this is just the first step in a series of planned actions that will take place, including in midterm-election battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“This is not just a D.C. action,” DeMarco said. “This is a D.C. action showing Congress the energy that we’re going to show up with in their districts. When people see their neighbors taking dramatic risks of their own well-being, they may think, ‘Wow, this really matters,’ and that Democrats haven’t delivered on their promises.” | 2022-07-06T04:48:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Congressional Baseball Game to be disrupted by climate activists - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/06/congressional-baseball-game-climate-protest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/06/congressional-baseball-game-climate-protest/ |
A student rests on his desk at a middle school in California City, Calif., in March 2022. Since the pandemic started, experts have warned of a mental health crisis facing American children that is now visibly playing out at schools across the country. (Damian Dovarganes/AP)
More than 80 percent of public schools reported that the pandemic has taken a toll on student behavior and social-emotional development, while nearly as many schools say they need more mental health support, according to federal data released Wednesday.
The data, collected as the 2021-2022 school year was winding down, also showed that more than 70 percent of schools saw increases in chronic student absenteeism since the onset of the pandemic and about half of schools reported increased acts of disrespect toward teachers and staff.
“The survey paints a remarkably coherent picture,” said Kevin Welner, a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and director of the National Education Policy Center. “The general trend is still showing pandemic-related harm to students and their teachers.”
The findings by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), based on responses from of leaders at 846 public schools, underline problems that have become increasingly well known during more than two years of pandemic-altered education.
But the magnitude of problems related to behavior and well-being is troubling, said Constance A. Lindsay, an assistant professor of educational leadership at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Schools could be scrambling in the fall, she said, expecting that “our most disadvantaged students have been hit the hardest.”
Compared with a typical year before the pandemic, 56 percent of schools reported a rise in classroom disruptions because of student misconduct in 2021-2022. Nearly half of schools pointed to increases in out-of-classroom rowdiness, with 46 percent of schools reporting more fighting and threats of physical attacks between students, according to the NCES data.
Those numbers follow a federal report issued last week showing that schools reported an increase in verbal abuse and teacher disrespect during the decade that ended in spring 2020. That report also examined the surge in school shootings.
School shootings rose to highest level in 20 years, report says
Teachers union leaders have said findings about student behavior reflect a rise both in reporting and in problems. Schools continue to lack sufficient staffing, training and student supports, Cheryl Bost, president of the Maryland State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said in a recent interview.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, predicted increases for the pandemic period, which she linked to the country’s culture wars and angry politics, intensified by social media. The toxic discourse filters into the classroom, she said, emphasizing the need for more guidance counselors, social workers and wraparound services.
Schools were clear about the need: Nearly 80 percent would like more mental health support for students or staff, while 70 percent of schools said more training is required to support students’ social-emotional development.
“What that tells you is the sort of depth and breadth of the need,” said Scott Gest, an education professor at the University of Virginia. “Part of what was striking to me in looking at the results is that these basic concerns and covid impacts are largely seen across all levels of schooling, across all regions, across different kinds of school demographics.”
Chronic absenteeism was explored in detail, with nearly 40 percent of schools saying it had increased even since the 2020-2021 pandemic-altered school year. Schools in cities — or with higher levels of students in poverty or students of color — reported greater percentages of chronic absenteeism in 2021-2022.
Teacher absences stood out, too. Nearly half of schools said teacher absences climbed from a year earlier. Adding to the strain is a shortage of substitute teachers. More than three-quarters of schools said it was harder to get a substitute in 2021-2022 than it was before the pandemic hit.
When substitutes can’t be found, most schools said classes are covered by administrators, nonteaching staff or other teachers using their planning periods. Only 1 percent of schools reported always being able to find substitute teachers.
The data was released by the NCES, the statistical arm of the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. The data set was described by NCES as “experimental,” in that it uses new sources or methodologies, but reliable. | 2022-07-06T04:49:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chronic school absenteeism has increased, federal data shows - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/05/absenteeism-behavioral-issues-pandemic-data/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/05/absenteeism-behavioral-issues-pandemic-data/ |
Like Sri Lanka, Pakistan has been in urgent talks with the IMF, hoping to revive a $6 billion bailout package that was put on hold after Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government was ousted in April. Soaring crude oil prices pushed up fuel prices which in turn raised other costs, pushing inflation to over 21%. A government minister’s appeal to cut back on tea drinking to reduce the $600 million bill for imported tea angered many Pakistanis. Pakistan’s currency, the rupee, has fallen about 30% against the U.S. dollar in the past year. To gain the IMF’s support, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif has raised fuel prices, abolished fuel subsidies and imposed a new, 10% “super tax" on major industries to help repair the country’s tattered finances. As of late March, Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves had fallen to $13.5 billion, equivalent to just two months of imports. “Macroeconomic risks are strongly tilted to the downside,” the World Bank warned in its latest assessment. | 2022-07-06T04:49:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sri Lanka's crisis rings alarm for other troubled economies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sri-lankas-crisis-rings-alarm-for-other-troubled-economies/2022/07/06/4b5a412c-fce3-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sri-lankas-crisis-rings-alarm-for-other-troubled-economies/2022/07/06/4b5a412c-fce3-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
What to watch on Wednesday: ‘Maggie’ premieres on Hulu
Wednesday, July 6, 2022 I “Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between” airs on Netflix
Homicide Hunter: Hot on the Trail (ID at 8) A woman who was stabbed and set aflame is found by teens who try to extinguish the fire; the housemates of a strangled student seem unable to see the truth of the situation.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (Bravo at 8) Garcelle is unhappy with Erika over her language; Kyle tries to make amends for her own words; Lisa finds some joy in Diana’s new look; Crystal attempts to help Dorit soothe her anxiety.
The Zoo: San Diego (Animal Planet at 8) The vets work together to design a custom show for a three-toed Baird’s tapir; African penguins welcome chicks; the youngest elephant discovers her trunk; an Andean bear readies itself for mating season.
Wellington Paranormal (CW at 9) Officers Minogue and O’Leary set out to find a missing group of ghostly rugby fans dressed as “Where’s Wally”; Sgt. Maaka tries to find a new roommate.
Neighborhood Wars (A&E at 10:01) A man backs his car into his neighbor’s kitchen; a neighbor steals a family’s Nativity set; a man serenades his neighbor on the banjo.
The Green Planet (PBS at 8) Sir David Attenborough travels around the world to explore and document the ways that plants have adapted to survive and thrive in different environments; the first episode focuses on tropical forests.
The Challenge: USA (CBS at 9:30) Contestants from CBS reality shows such as “Big Brother,” “Survivor,” “Love Island” and “The Amazing Race” must excel in games and missions to win a cash prize.
Maggie (Hulu) Maggie has a gift that allows her to see into the future of friends and strangers, but her life is changed when she begins to see snippets of her own romantic future after running into a stranger and now deals with the difficulty of trying to fall in love while believing she knows how it ends.
Girl in the Picture (Netflix) The documentary from Skye Borgman covers the struggle to solve the mystery of the life and death of Sharon Marshall.
Hello, Goodbye, and Everything In Between (Netflix) Claire (Talia Ryder) and Aidan (Jordan Fisher) agree to break up before college to save themselves heartbreak and regret, but one last date may offer them another chance at love; based on a book by Jennifer E. Smith.
Big Brother (CBS at 8) Season 24.
Married at First Sight (Lifetime at 8) Season 15.
Mysteries Decoded (CW at 8) Season 2. | 2022-07-06T05:10:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What to watch on Wednesday: ‘Maggie’ premieres on Hulu - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/tv/2022/07/06/what-watch-wednesday-maggie-premieres-hulu/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/tv/2022/07/06/what-watch-wednesday-maggie-premieres-hulu/ |
Boris Johnson’s in Trouble. But the UK Economy’s OK for Now.
Boris Johnson, UK’s prime minister, prepares to greet Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, ahead their bilateral meeting at 10 Downing Street in London, UK, on Friday, July 1, 2022. Johnson’s deputy chief whip has resigned from his position as a government enforcer due to an incident involving excessive drinking, adding to the premier’s woes as he returns to the UK. (Bloomberg)
The economy is another thing altogether, despite the dispiriting news about inflation and energy. The UK isn’t actually in that horrible a shape, what with £400 billion ($480 billion) of pandemic stimulus in circulation. If the world tips into an energy shock recession, then this rainy, small crowded island nation ought to hold up better than most. With full employment, a strong banking sector and robust household and corporate balance sheets — and the ability, despite what the last chancellor said, to add more government fiscal stimulus — any downturn can be mitigated. The UK’s debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio remains just below 100%, better than many other major economies, so there’s room to borrow. (Deeply indebted Italy is at more than 150%)
Rishi Sunak’s Helicopter Drop Makes the Bank of England’s Life Easier: Marcus Ashworth
Have Britain’s Tories Been in Power Too Long?: Martin Ivens | 2022-07-06T06:20:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Boris Johnson’s in Trouble. But the UK Economy’s OK for Now. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/boris-johnsons-in-trouble-but-the-uk-economys-ok-for-now/2022/07/06/19358a86-fcec-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/boris-johnsons-in-trouble-but-the-uk-economys-ok-for-now/2022/07/06/19358a86-fcec-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
A Classic ‘Reverse Ferret’ Gets Up Markets’ Trousers
Reverse Ferret!
To capture what’s happening in global markets, think of a ferret in a newsroom. Back in the heyday of Fleet Street, Kelvin MacKenzie, one of Rupert Murdoch’s favorite tabloid editors, would yell, “Ferret up trousers!” when a big story broke and everyone had to drop what they were doing to work on it. If that story then turned out not to be true, even closer to deadline and requiring desperate work, he’d shout, “Reverse ferret!”
Markets are executing a classic reverse ferret.
The key, as I’ve often said recently, is a change in the belief on whether the economy can withstand the higher rates that the Federal Reserve says that it’s going to impose in a bid to quell inflation. Three weeks ago, there was confidence the Fed would have to hike until the pips squeaked. Now, there’s a belief that it can’t hike too far without forcing a recession, and thereby will be forced to cut rates again.
To illustrate this, look at the implicit predictions for the fed funds rates after each of the Fed’s monetary policy meetings from now until January 2024. When the contract was introduced, on June 24, the expectation was that rates would be at either 3.0 or 3.25% as 2024 started. That is now down to about 2.6%. In less than two weeks, the market has dropped its prediction for a peak rate brought forward the moment of the first cut, and forecasts a far more aggressive cutting program that will start next spring. The ferret has made a screeching U-turn:
Something similar is afoot in Europe. The following chart shows the overnight index swap market’s implicit prediction for the European Central Bank’s target rate by the end of this year. Three months into 2022, the prediction was that rates would not even get to be positive. Two weeks ago, sharply more hawkish language from the European Central Bank and some dreadful inflation numbers from across the region had pushed the prediction almost to 1.25%. Now, the market has decided that there will be two fewer hikes this year, rising to about 0.75%:
Financial markets that offer some of the clearest projections of inflation have also executed a reverse, although for them the ferret turned earlier in the spring. Inflation breakevens in the US, derived from the bond market, are now no higher than they were a year ago, despite all the horrible news on inflationary pressure that has hit since then. The big turn came about three months ago, and remains intact despite some inflation data since that has been genuinely shocking. Meanwhile, the Commodity Research Bureau Raw Industrials index, known as the RIND, which follows traded commodities that aren’t available on the futures market and is regarded as a good pure measure of inflationary pressure in industry, has shown almost exactly the same picture. After surging consistently to hit an all-time high in the two years after the March 2020 shutdown, the RIND turned sharply southward:
Confidence in this new narrative means that ferrets reverse out the actions of central banks. Tuesday began with the Reserve Bank of Australia’s decision to hike by a full 50 basis points. A 25-basis-points hike had been regarded as a possibility beforehand, so this would logically lead to higher bond yields. Quite the backtrack:
Central banks should partly blame themselves for their lack of credibility, of course. And the speed of the cycle sparked by the Covid shutdown sends many calculations awry — that’s how central banks find themselves hiking as investors are already sitting in a crouch for the next recession. But the problem is that the ferret doesn’t get to reverse in a vacuum. As investors start to express that view in their buying and selling decisions, there are self-reinforcing outcomes. That means the RBA’s monetary policy shift may be less impactful than intended.
It’s a sensible enough position to assume that inflation has already been adequately priced and to start worrying about a recession. But that change of position has consequences.
Oil and the Dollar
For the ferret’s biggest impact, look to oil and the dollar. The price of the world’s most important commodity dropped below $100 per barrel as traders started to incorporate the notion of weaker demand ahead. Meanwhile, the dollar index, measuring the strength of the global reserve currency against a basket of the other most important major currencies, rose to its highest in 20 years, topping 106 index points.
For most of the last few decades, the dollar and oil have been inversely correlated. This is largely because oil is denominated in dollars, and so any weakening in oil will make a dollar worth more, and vice versa. For example, the dollar surged in late 2014 as a breakdown in OPEC discipline allowed the oil price to tank. But that relationship has broken down in spectacular fashion over the last 12 months, with the dollar and oil surging together. That was obviously bad news for those who don’t want a strong dollar (who also tend not to want expensive oil, either). On Monday, sadly for them, the traditional relationship resumed with the dollar gaining as oil fell:
It’s natural for the dollar to strengthen as commodity prices come down. It’s also natural for oil to decline. As Harry Colvin of London’s Longview Economics points out, the increase in the oil price accompanied a decline in inventories. Now that could reverse (ferret):
There are evidently some very big political risks overhanging the oil price. But Colvin’s summary of the bearish case makes a lot of sense:
Surplus global oil production over the next 12-18 months is likely to reflect a mix of factors, including: (i) a gradual recovery in Russian supply (with an ongoing increase in exports to non-Western countries); (ii) a continued uptrend in OPEC output, led by core OPEC members (i.e. Saudi, the UAE, Kuwait, and Iraq, which have about 2.8 million bpd of spare capacity between them); (iii) ongoing production growth in other non-OPEC members (including the US, Canada, Norway, & Brazil); and (iv) a likely slowdown in global demand growth, probably to around 0-1% Y-o-Y growth (i.e. similar to that witnessed in prior global economic slowdowns, e.g. 2011/12 and 2015/16).
But how long can this carry on? It’s fair enough to see oil as an overcrowded trade that is ready to fall — but the same is true of the dollar. This is how the respondents to the Bank of America Corp. monthly fund manager survey rated the most-crowded trades last month:
Since that survey was taken, oil has fizzled, as might be expected. Those who were short U.S. Treasuries, in a bet that their price would fall and yield rise, have also been punished. But the consequence of getting out of commodities, and also of buying Treasuries, is to juice up still further the overcrowded trade in the US dollar.
The problem is that the strong dollar creates problems elsewhere. As central banks fight inflation, they’re already trying to mop up liquidity. Making less money available will help to rein in inflation and also slow the economy. As many around the world, particularly but not only in emerging markets, rely on dollar-denominated liquidity, this means that the reverse ferret on inflation converts into even tighter conditions outside the US — even though worries about growth should mean the opposite.
The effect of the strong dollar on global liquidity is clear from this chart from London’s CrossBorder Capital Ltd., which was compiled at the end of last week before the latest dramatic market moves:
As ever, what matters is the change at the margin. In local currency terms, growth in the monetary base has dwindled and turned negative over the last three months; in dollar terms, the rate of contraction is twice as great, and liquidity growth has gone more sharply negative than at any time since the 2008 crisis. This is CrossBorder’s summary:
Latest weekly balance sheet data from major Central Banks show liquidity in local currency terms shrinking by around 10% (3m ann.). Liquidity expressed in US dollar terms is contracting at a much faster 23% rate (as evidenced by the stark divergence in the orange and grey lines in the chart alongside). The latter reflects rapid tightening by the US Federal Reserve starting from last December and the inexorable rise of the US dollar since early March. Year-to-date, the US unit has appreciated by 5% versus the yuan, 8% against euro, 10% versus the pound sterling and by a whopping 18% versus the yen.
Outside the US, the reverse on inflation is therefore driving a shift in policy that would only make sense if people were still convinced that inflation could only go higher.
The ferrets have inflicted the greatest collateral damage, predictably, on emerging markets. Dollar-denominated emerging market debt has now rubbed out all its gains from the last five years, and is back to the lows during the horrors of the first Covid shutdown. US aggregate debt, which had been falling just as fast as EM debt during the months of the growing inflation scare, has parted company and is now rallying:
That has been driven in large part by the currency market. The JPMorgan Emerging Market Currency index, a popular benchmark, has now dropped below 50 for the first time since it was initiated in 2010, when it was worth 100. Moves like this can have damaging and self-perpetuating effects:
The pressure is accentuated by the way that currencies change investors’ incentives. If you are based in a currency that weakens, international investment automatically grows more attractive. If you’re denominated in a strong currency, there’s little to be gained from going overseas. That tends to mean that money flows from currencies that are weakening into those that are already strengthening. This tends to deepen the effect. For an illustration, this is how non-US investments in dollars have performed since the beginning of 2020, compared to non-UK investments denominated in pounds.
The pound tanked below $1.20 Tuesday, a level it has only momentarily breached on a couple of occasions since 1985, when a very different world featured Margaret Thatcher in her pomp in Downing Street, and Paul Volcker still reigning supreme at the Fed. A good contrarian might surmise that this would be a good time to bet on a weaker dollar and stronger pound, but investment flows tend to be driven by performance-chasing. The odds are that those based in weak currencies will continue to use them to buy dollar-denominated assets. And so the ratchet continues to tighten for the emerging world, and even for Europe and the UK. Bulls and bears alike should look out for ferrets.
Nobody on Earth seems to have a better idea how to survive than Boris Johnson. He has just withstood the resignations of his Chancellor of the Exchequer and health minister, along with a flotilla of more junior ministers. To use an analogy that the classically-minded Johnson might appreciate, this is the contemporary political equivalent of what Brutus, Cassius and their friends did to Julius Caesar on the Ides of March. You cannot carry on as prime minister if nobody will serve in your cabinet.
But at the time of writing, Johnson has not fallen on his sword and instead found people willing to replace the resigners, Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid. Moreover, he’s done so after some spectacularly cynical negotiations. Nadhim Zahawi is now widely reported to have given the prime minister an ultimatum: Either he was promoted from education secretary to chancellor, in which he case he would accept, or he would quit the cabinet and follow Sunak and Javid in protesting Johnson’s leadership. Apparently this was a gambit after Johnson’s own heart.
All of this happened after Johnson was caught — yet again — in a lie, and the civil servant who formerly headed the Foreign Office wrote a public letter to denounce him. The resignations are not about ideological principle, but about revulsion at the notion that someone can behave this badly and continue to hold the most powerful office in the country. It’s a revulsion I share. But I do envy anyone with the raw nerve, thick skin, and sense of entitlement that are needed to press on in a position like Johnson’s. Life must be very different for people who can lie with a straight face, bear the embarrassment when they are found out, and then carry on as though nothing had happened.
I’ve linked to a musical piece, premiered before he took office as prime minister, that homed in on this aspect of Johnson’s character. It’s not a new discovery. For more reading and background, I’d like to recommend this piece by my old mentee Simon Kuper, who was a few years behind Johnson at Oxford. A lot about the current behavior we’re witnessing at the top of the UK can be attributed to the way people were able to behave in 1980s Oxford (where I was two years behind Johnson and three years ahead of Kuper). Simon’s book on this, Chums, is fascinating. And for my own take, written in late 2018 as the Brexit process was breaking down into disorder, try this.More From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion: | 2022-07-06T07:51:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A Classic ‘Reverse Ferret’ Gets Up Markets’ Trousers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/a-classic-reverse-ferret-gets-upmarkets-trousers/2022/07/06/93e78b10-fcfd-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/a-classic-reverse-ferret-gets-upmarkets-trousers/2022/07/06/93e78b10-fcfd-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
WIMBLEDON, England — Novak Djokovic spotted 10th-seeded Jannik Sinner of Italy a huge lead, then worked his way back to win 5-7, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 at Centre Court, earning an 11th semifinal berth at Wimbledon with his 26th consecutive victory at the grass-court Grand Slam tournament.
WIMBLEDON, England — Wimbledon quarterfinalist Nick Kyrgios is due in court back home in Australia next month, and a lawyer representing him said the “precise nature of” the allegations “is neither certain at this moment nor confirmed by either the prosecution or” the 27-year-old professional tennis player.
CINCINNATI — The New York Mets wasted a stellar performance by Max Scherzer in his return from an oblique injury, losing 1-0 to the Cincinnati Reds on Mike Moustakas’ game-ending sacrifice fly.
PITTSBURGH — Rookie outfielder Jack Suwinski hit his 14th home run, Daniel Vogelbach added his 11th and the Pittsburgh Pirates spoiled Jameson Taillon’s return to PNC Park with a 5-2 win over the New York Yankees.
MONTREAL — The war in Ukraine has added an increasing level of uncertainty for NHL teams interested in drafting Russia-born prospects because of questions regarding their availability to play in North America. | 2022-07-06T07:52:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tuesday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/tuesdays-sports-in-brief/2022/07/06/6950ce54-fcf6-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/tuesdays-sports-in-brief/2022/07/06/6950ce54-fcf6-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
A coffin is prepared to be taken to a symbolic funeral in Scenery Park, East London South Africa, Wednesday, July 6, 2022. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is to attend the funeral in East London Wednesday for 21 teenagers who died in a mysterious tragedy at a tavern almost two weeks ago. A large tent has been erected for the service expected to be attended by hundreds of grieving family members and residents of East London’s Scenery Park township. (AP Photo) (Uncredited/AP)
EAST LONDON, South Africa — More than a thousand grieving family and community members are attending the funeral in South Africa’s East London for 21 teenagers who died in a mysterious tragedy at a nightclub nearly two weeks ago. | 2022-07-06T09:23:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | South Africa holds funeral for 21 teens who died in tavern - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-africa-holds-funeral-for-21-teens-who-died-in-tavern/2022/07/06/dce0df92-fd07-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/south-africa-holds-funeral-for-21-teens-who-died-in-tavern/2022/07/06/dce0df92-fd07-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
‘A lot of people always thought my story was crazy, but I know it happened,’ William Kellerman said
William “Willie” Kellerman in Normandy, France, in 2018. (Jean Kellerman-Powers)
As a soldier in World War II, William “Willie” Kellerman was captured three weeks after he took part in the Utah Beach invasion in Normandy. He managed to escape his German captors, hid out with members of the French Resistance and, in a grand stroke of survival, pulled through after being shot in his hand and leg.
For nearly eight decades, that didn’t happen.
“It bothered me a little, yes, but what can you do? I went on with my life,” said Kellerman, 97, who grew up in a Jewish family in the Bronx. He now alternates between homes in Manhattan and on Long Island.
“A lot of people always thought my story was crazy, but I know it happened,” he said. “I’m glad now that other people are realizing it’s true, too.”
Kellerman’s superior officer probably never filled out the required paperwork for his medals, said his daughter, Jean Kellerman-Powers, noting that a 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis destroyed her father’s military records.
“For years, I tried to get his record acknowledged and get him his medals,” she said. “After all he went through, I knew it was long overdue.”
On June 28, Gen. James C. McConville, the Army chief of staff, traveled to New York to pin a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star and a Prisoner of War Medal on Kellerman’s jacket at a ceremony in Brooklyn.
“It was overwhelming after 80 years, but it was worth the wait,” Kellerman said. “I’m feeling very grateful.”
McConville said it was an honor to recognize Kellerman’s service, albeit eight decades on.
“I think it’s very, very important that we never forget the heroism of veterans like William Kellerman because they remind us of what this country is all about,” McConville said in a statement to The Washington Post.
“They remind us of how ordinary people — young ordinary people — go out and do extraordinary things,” he added.
“It was five days after D-Day when I was on Utah Beach,” said Kellerman, a private first class. “A lot of guys died. I was really lucky.”
That was only the beginning of his quest to beat the odds — the estimated number of Americans wounded or killed in the Battle of Normandy is about 135,000.
“Our company’s radio got blown out by the Germans, and our captain decided to send me to notify headquarters,” he recalled. “I went out late at night to cross the fields so I wouldn’t be spotted.”
Nazi soldiers forced him and others to march to a prisoner of war camp at night so they wouldn’t be spotted by enemy planes, he said.
If his Nazi captors learned that he was Jewish, “I knew I’d be in serious trouble,” he added.
“I decided this was it — this was my chance,” he said, recalling how he sneaked into the bushes in the dark and waited.
“When they’d marched on and the coast was clear, I climbed out and ran in the opposite direction,” he said.
“He burned my uniform and dressed me up like a French farmer,” Kellerman said, noting the man also gave him a beret.
“I found a little bike shop where I could get it fixed, and all of a sudden these three guys came out and pointed their guns at me,” Kellerman recalled. “They were with the French Resistance. I had knocked on the door of their headquarters.”
“They asked me who had won the World Series in 1943,” he said. “I’m a New Yorker from the Bronx! So I correctly told them the Yankees won.”
Then he was hit by sniper fire in April 1945. Seriously wounded in his hand and leg, he went to an Army hospital, and that’s where he remained until the war ended in September of that year.
Kellerman and his late wife, Sandra Kellerman, raised three daughters. One of them, Kellerman-Powers, 61, accompanied her dad to Normandy in 2018 to receive one of France’s highest honors, a Legion of Honor medal, for his service during World War II.
“I’d heard stories my whole life about how he was captured by the Nazis and escaped,” she said. “The older he got, he started to talk about it more and I knew that it was time to push this through.”
Kellerman-Powers enlisted the help of film director Henry Roosevelt, who had interviewed her dad for a documentary about the Battle of Normandy, “Sixth of June.”
She found handwritten letters from her enslaved ancestor: ‘I’m just blown away’
“He had some connections in Washington, D.C., and he started the chain of calls that finally got my dad his medals,” she said.
At the ceremony last month, she said, she was overwhelmed with emotion as she watched McConville pin the medals to her father’s chest.
“When I was growing up, my dad always wore a beret, and I thought it was because he was just a Bohemian guy,” Kellerman-Powers said. “It wasn’t until we went to Normandy that he told me he wore the beret as a way of giving thanks to the French farmer who gave him those clothes and saved his life.”
“It was like I’d been living in the dark all my life, and then all the lights went on,” he said. | 2022-07-06T10:19:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | William Kellerman finally got his medals 80 years after WWII - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/06/william-kellerman-wwii-medal-nazi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/06/william-kellerman-wwii-medal-nazi/ |
Amid energy crisis, E.U. lawmakers decide if gas, nuclear can be ‘green’
Anti-nuclear protesters take part in demonstrations ahead of a vote at the European Parliament on a motion to block the European Commission's plans to grant a green label to gas and nuclear investments, in Strasbourg, eastern France, on July 6, 2022. (Patrick Hertzog/AFP/Getty Images)
BRUSSELS — European lawmakers will vote Wednesday on whether nuclear power or natural gas can ever be labeled “green” energy sources, a closely watched decision that could shape Europe’s climate policy for years to come.
In February, weeks before Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the E.U.’s executive arm presented a plan to classify some natural gas and nuclear power as “transitional” green investments in some circumstances, spurring a furious backlash.
Five months later, as Russia wields gas as a weapon and the global energy crisis intensifies, the question is even more controversial — and central.
At the heart of the debate is whether gas-fired generators and nuclear power plants can ever, under any circumstances, be considered sustainable or green.
Before the war, the inclusion of gas was backed by member states that said it was needed as a “bridge” as countries weaned themselves off fossil fuels and increased their renewable capacity. France and others pushed for the inclusion of nuclear power, despite strong opposition from Germany.
The plan was opposed not just by environmentalists but by some E.U. advisers and even the CEO of a group representing large investors. Critics said the European Commission’s effort to “protect private investors from greenwashing” risked turning into greenwashing on an even larger scale.
Russia’s war in Ukraine added new wrinkles to the debate. The war in many ways has made Europe rethink its reliance on Russia, particularly when it comes to Russian fossil fuels, and has amplified calls for an accelerated energy transition.
The E.U. has agreed to phase out imports of coal and oil from Russia to hit the Kremlin’s war chest. But the bloc remains dependent on gas from Russia — a fact not lost on President Vladimir Putin, who has used this leverage to threaten and punish.
Frans Timmermans, a top E.U. official who worked on the draft taxonomy, conceded Monday that the war has “changed something” when it comes to gas.
But defenders of the plan argue that the war has heightened the need for rapid investment in the infrastructure required to import gas from places other than Russia. They hope the new rules will spur a surge of investment in infrastructure such as new gas pipelines or facilities for the import of liquefied natural gas.
With the price of gas soaring, the war in Ukraine has also intensified interest across Europe in building new nuclear energy plants or extending the lives of old ones.
Officials and analysts expect a tight vote. A total of 353 lawmakers — just over half of the 705 in the European Parliament — would be needed to reject proposal. Since voting must be done in person, there is a chance that absences due to covid-19 could shape the vote. | 2022-07-06T10:23:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amid energy crisis, E.U. lawmakers decide if gas, nuclear can be ‘green’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/06/eu-parliament-nuclear-gas-green/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/06/eu-parliament-nuclear-gas-green/ |
A nurse feeds 2-year-old Suldano Idow, who is severely malnourished, with the help of his father, Idow Abdirahman, in the pediatric stabilization center at Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia, on June 13. Banadir Hospital is dealing with a growing number of severe malnutrition cases being referred from different regions of Somalia. (Luis Tato/for The Washington Post)
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Inside Banadir Hospital, Boshey Maalim cradled her 3-year-old girl, Iqra. Her ribs protruded and she sucked in air through an oxygen tube taped to her gaunt face. She was 14 pounds, less than half of what she should weigh.
There were children like Iqra in every bed in the severe malnutrition ward, sickly and skeletal. Doctors and nurses struggled to help them.
For me, it was a heartbreakingly familiar scene.
I had covered hunger in Somalia before, most recently during the 2011 famine, when some 250,000 people died, half of them under 5 years old. Only this time, I saw the catastrophe through a different prism.
Three weeks earlier, I had been reporting on the war in Ukraine, and I was stuck by the contrast in how the world has reacted to these two immense tragedies. The international community has funded only 18 percent of the United Nations’ $1.5 billion appeal to help Somalia and its neighbors in East Africa. By comparison, the U.S. Congress approved $7.5 billion in economic aid for Ukraine last month.
Ukrainians fleeing war have been welcomed in scores of European nations, as well as in the United States. Displaced Somalis have languished for years in decrepit camps, and hundreds more families are joining them each day, fleeing starvation and burying their children along the way.
As I looked around the malnutrition ward, I felt little hope for the babies wasting away from hunger. Some were crying feebly, a chorus of pain floating from bed to bed. The cries of 3-year-old Salim rose above the rest; his legs were thin as sticks, his skin was peeling. His mother solemnly poured water on a cloth, then gently caressed his small head.
On my last visit to Somalia a decade ago, I flew in on an aging plane with torn, rickety seats that swung past the coast of the Indian Ocean and swooped down for a swift landing. This was partly to avoid being targeted by al-Shabab, the Islamic militant group that was seeking to overthrow the fragile government.
This time, I flew in on a comfortable Turkish Airlines flight that swerved quickly up as it was about to land, then circled again around the desolate terrain before aligning itself with the coast and descending. I was told that this was a training exercise in the event al-Shabab attacked the airport.
The militants are still powerful. The government is still weak. But the landscape has changed dramatically.
There were only a few buildings around the airport last time, most notably a pink single-story compound that housed the CIA. There were no Western embassies, no U.N. offices. The militants controlled large parts of Mogadishu, including Bakara market where 19 American troops were killed in 1993 during a failed peacekeeping mission depicted in the book and movie “Black Hawk Down.”
A pickup truck filled with armed men waited to take me into the city, where I would spend my nights sleeping on the floor of an office inside the nation’s Information Ministry, among the most heavily guarded places at the time. The militia members were from the same clan, procured by a trusted friend. They cost $1,000 a day.
I had four days to work. By the last day, I was told, al-Shabab spies inside the capital would know that a Western journalist was there — and I would become a target.
Today the airport is part of a sprawling, highly secured enclave that is walled off from the rest of Mogadishu. Locals call it the Green Zone — after the U.S. compound in Baghdad — and it is where the United States and other Western nations house their embassies, where U.N. agencies and aid groups are based, where most visitors stay in expensive hotels and camps run by private security companies.
Al-Shabab has been driven out of Mogadishu, but its operatives still lurk here. There have been assassinations and bombings.
Getting to Banadir Hospital, outside the Green Zone, still required a militia. Only now, there were so many security companies that the price had been slashed to $230 a day. And the men with guns go by a more polite name now — “armed security escorts.”
Maalim and Iqra fled an area controlled by al-Shabab because there was no food, aid agencies or medical clinics.
The militants, who typically tax farmers, didn’t demand a portion of their harvest because of the failed rains. But they still took some livestock, said Maalim, depriving them of income to buy food.
Two of her children, ages 1 and 2, died of hunger before she fled her village in April. Last month, three more children died in an overcrowded displacement camp near Mogadishu after they caught measles and lost their appetite. When Iqra, her last child, started to deteriorate, she rushed her to the hospital, having to beg relatives for the taxi fare.
“I didn’t want her to suffer the same fates as the others,” said Maalim, 29, staring at her daughter, who cried softly.
In other beds, other children teetered between life and death. The hospital is running short of therapeutic food and milk and some medicines are out of stock, Amaan Aden, the physician who heads the malnutrition unit, told me.
Aside from the shortfalls in international assistance, global food prices are skyrocketing, fueled by the war in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine are among the world’s largest exporters of grains, cooking oil and fertilizers, and they provided nearly all of Somalia’s wheat before the conflict began in February.
Children are increasingly arriving with symptoms of cholera, triggered by malnutrition, said Layla Mire Mohamed, the head nurse in the hospital’s treatment center. “The camps are overcrowded and there’s no running water there,” she said. “The cases are growing day by day.”
I asked Somalia’s special presidential envoy for drought response why the world was looking the other way. One reason, he said, was donor fatigue — the suffering of people in a nation long perceived as a failed state was almost taken for granted. Even in the best of times, Somalia needs assistance. And then there is Ukraine, he added, which is taking so much of the attention and resources of the international community.
“We are urging the United States to increase its humanitarian assistance,” said Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, the envoy. “But the rest of the world and the European Union, they are focused on Ukraine.”
Inside the ward, Maalim had no idea about the war in Ukraine or its long reach. She doesn’t know that if the conflict continues, if food prices keep rising, if aid pledges aren’t met, the hospital could face even more dramatic shortages of food and medicines.
All she can think about is Iqra.
“I don’t want to be without children,” said Maalim, bringing her child closer. “But only God knows if she will survive.” | 2022-07-06T10:23:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Reporting on hunger in Somalia, where millions of lives are at risk - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/06/somalia-hunger-famine-ukraine-war/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/06/somalia-hunger-famine-ukraine-war/ |
U.S. Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) and former judge Katie Curran O'Malley are vying to be the Maryland attorney general in the 2022 Democratic primary. (Photos courtesy of the Brown and O'Malley campaigns) (Brown Campaign/O'Malley campaign)
Congressman Anthony G. Brown and former judge Katie Curran O’Malley both remember when they first met. It was the night before O’Malley’s husband, Martin O’Malley, then mayor of Baltimore and a gubernatorial candidate, announced that Brown would join his ticket as lieutenant governor.
The O’Malleys invited the Browns over for a casual pre-announcement dinner.
“She was a very gracious host, and it was a very pleasant evening,” Brown said.
“He’s lovely, and his family’s lovely,” O’Malley recalled.
But that was in 2005, and they are now on opposing teams, heading into the final stretch of a tight primary battle seeking the Democratic nomination to be Maryland’s next attorney general. While Brown and O’Malley still express admiration for one another, they’re also making clear their approach is best suited for the job of Maryland’s chief law enforcement official.
The race couldn’t be closer. A Goucher College poll released last week showed a statistical dead heat with 35 percent of voters undecided about who should replace Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D), who announced he wouldn’t seek reelection last year after two terms in office. The winner will square off in November against either Jim Shalleck or Michael Peroutka, the candidates running in the Republican primary.
There is little that differentiates Brown’s and O’Malley’s positions on most major issues, including abortion rights and gun violence. The question is who is most ready to step into the role, and that’s where the niceties end.
“The congressman is a legislator, he’s a politician,” O’Malley, 59, said of Brown. “But for this job, attorney general, the constitution requires that you have real legal experience in courtrooms. And I’m the only one that really brings that to the table. … I think it’s important, especially in light of rising crime, that your attorney general can strategize with the deputies and assistant attorney generals when we’re talking about going after drug traffickers, human traffickers and gun trafficking cases. And also can strategize on ways to go after gun manufacturers and gun shop owners.”
A graduate of Towson University and the University of Baltimore School of Law, O’Malley says her 30 years of experience working as an assistant state’s attorney, heading the white-collar crime unit and serving as a Baltimore District Judge gives her the tools the job demands.
O’Malley emphasizes Brown’s lack of trial experience in her campaign. In an ad released late last month, she looks into the camera and says, “My opponent, Anthony Brown, is a fine congressman, but he’s never tried a criminal case in Maryland and he doesn’t have the right experience for this job. I’ll be ready to fight for you on Day 1.”
Brown, 60, received his undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard and served as a military lawyer in the Army and Army Reserve for 30 years before retiring as a colonel. He dismisses O’Malley’s assertion about the importance of courtroom experience to the job.
The idea that “having extensive trial experience is a key feature for being the attorney general, I would submit you don’t understand the responsibilities of the office or the organization of the office,” said Brown, whose résumé includes two terms in Maryland House of Delegates, two terms as the state’s lieutenant governor and three terms as a congressman representing Maryland’s 4th District.
“The work that has to be done in Maryland solving big problems requires a partnership between the executive branch including the office of the attorney general and the General Assembly,” he said. “In my practice, unlike Judge O’Malley, I’ve been involved in complex litigation, multi-partner litigation, class action litigation. … And those are more like the kinds of cases that the attorney general deals with. It’s big litigation. ... The attorney general’s office is not in small claims court, they’re not in traffic court, they’re not doing minor misdemeanors.”
Baker paused his bid, rivals sought his endorsement. Why hasn’t it come?
In interviews last week, both candidates said the biggest issue for Marylanders in 2022 is the rise in crime and how to respond to it. They also said the attorney general should assume a key role in tackling gun violence, protecting abortion rights and civil rights, strengthening environmental regulations and prosecuting polluters. Both have said that when it comes to abortion rights, they want to enshrine the protections of Roe v. Wade in Maryland’s constitution.
While many of their positions on the issues are similar, the different styles of the candidates do present a choice to voters, said D. Bruce Poole, former chairman of Maryland’s Democratic Party and former member of the Maryland House of Delegates.
“They’re both really well qualified, and they’re well liked,” said Poole, who has known Brown and O’Malley for many years and sees unique strengths in each of them. For voters, he says, “it depends on what you want.”
“Anthony is going to be very good at going down to the State House and working the levers of power. And if he has to go to Capitol Hill, I would imagine he would be very well-received. In terms of actual trial work, I would imagine he would have to go to a team and assemble a team for that,” he said. “Katie, on the other hand, understands what it’s like to be in the pit and fight it out. She is a friendly person, but she’s steely. And so if it’s fixed bayonets, she’s going to do fine with that. On the other hand, working in the legislature, I’m guessing she’s going to have to take the counseling of some others.”
No matter which candidate wins, the victor will likely be on a historic path. Brown would be the first African American to be Maryland’s attorney general. O’Malley would be the first woman. The winner of the Democratic primary has not lost the attorney general race in the general election since 1952.
Republicans Shalleck, the former elections chief in Montgomery County, and Peroutka, a former member of the Anne Arundel County Council, are on their party’s primary ballot but significantly trail the Democrats in funds raised. As of mid-June, Brown had $1.2 million available to spend, while O’Malley had nearly $839,000.
The last time Brown was in a statewide race in Maryland was when he ran for governor in 2014 and lost to Larry Hogan. But running for attorney general and winning a statewide office is not about seeking redemption for that failed bid, Brown said.
“I just view this as a continuum in life,” he said. “You take your skills, your experience, your talent. You couple that with your passion and commitment, and you apply it where the opportunities present themselves.”
This is O’Malley’s first run for elected office, although she has been immersed in politics since she was young. Her husband served two terms as mayor of Baltimore and two terms as governor. And her father, J. Joseph Curran Jr., served a term as lieutenant governor and 20 years as Maryland’s attorney general.
“I’ve known politicians all my life,” she said. “I’m married to one, and I was raised by one. So I think I have the skills to communicate effectively as an attorney general when talking about laws that need to be pursued.”
Both candidates enjoy strong name recognition and have “deep roots with establishment Democratic politics,” said Mileah Kromer, a political scientist at Goucher College. “So it’s not as if there’s an insider-outsider dynamic.”
She thinks how the candidates message their positions on abortion and gun control, two key issues in the state, could affect who wins. But with the July 19 Election Day fast approaching, she believes the race will probably come down to which campaign is best prepared.
“At this point, it’s how well each of the campaigns can do in contacting voters,” Kromer said. “It’s going to be super important, and it’s going to be not just a test of the candidates but a test of the campaign organization they have put together. … One thing that makes this race so interesting is that they’re both really capable candidates.”
Brown and O’Malley both acknowledge they’re in a hotly contested race, and observers say it would be foolish at this stage to predict a winner.
“It’s going to come down to the last 72 hours,” Poole said. Laughing, he added, “Anybody who says they know with certainty what’s going to happen has just demonstrated their incompetence in the matter.” | 2022-07-06T10:49:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brown vs. O'Malley showdown in Maryland AG primary has a long history - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/06/brown-omalley-maryland-ag-attorney-general/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/06/brown-omalley-maryland-ag-attorney-general/ |
A voter fills out her ballot at Wheaton Library and Recreation Center on Nov. 3, 2020. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
Early voting begins in Maryland’s primary elections on Thursday. Residents across the state will have a chance to weigh in on several races, including a candidate to replace term-limited Gov. Larry Hogan (R).
Maryland’s eight congressional districts are on the primary ballot this year, as well as the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who is running for reelection. There are also statewide and local elections, which vary by jurisdiction.
Anyone eager to vote early may do so in-person between 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. through July 14. A full list of early-voting centers is available at elections.maryland.gov. The standard primary election is Tuesday, July 19, and polls will be open until 8 p.m. (Any mail-in ballots for the primaries must be postmarked or placed in the appropriate box by 8 p.m. on July 19 as well.)
Here’s a rundown of what to expect:
Which races are on the ballot?
Who’s running for statewide office?
Who’s running in Montgomery County? | 2022-07-06T10:49:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland primary elections 2022: How to vote, governor's race, more - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/06/maryland-primary-elections-2022-voting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/06/maryland-primary-elections-2022-voting/ |
Scientists are trying to get a better handle on the number of northern snakeheads in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries
Caz Kenny, of Maryland, shows off a northern snakehead from a recent catch in Woolford, Md. The invasive species has become widespread in waters in the D.C. region. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
“Fish for cash” is the slogan of a program Maryland wildlife experts are launching as a way to encourage anglers to catch, record and eat northern snakeheads, an invasive fish species whose numbers have swelled in the rivers and Chesapeake Bay in the D.C. region over the last few years.
The $18,800 program, which is being run by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), is designed to help experts get a more accurate count on the number of snakeheads being caught and eaten and to figure out if policies to lower their population are working, according to experts.
“This is the first time we’ve given out cash for recording tags of snakeheads,” said Joseph W. Love, program manager for the freshwater fisheries division at Maryland’s DNR. “We’re doing this because we want to know how many snakeheads are getting harvested. This type of project and incentivizing people will help us get that information.”
Before the new program, Love said staffers would go out to docks and ask anglers how many snakeheads they’d harvested, but that didn’t prove to be as effective since many snakehead anglers go out at night to catch the fish, and the state agency didn’t have enough staff to consistently do the surveying at night.
These fish can live on land and breathe air. Authorities suggest you kill them on sight.
The state is also trying to identify and count snakeheads in the Potomac River, but there’s no incentive. “We rely on people’s good graces to report,” Love said, adding that he hopes the reward program for the Chesapeake Bay will increase reporting rates.
“We rely on their own desire to report the tag usually, but money is the best way to incentivize,” Love said.
The program, which is underway and will run until 2024, is being offered to anglers who catch northern snakeheads along the upper Chesapeake Bay, which runs roughly from the Gunpowder River in the Baltimore County area to the Susquehanna River in the Havre de Grace area, and to the Sassafras River in Cecil and Kent counties.
Northern snakeheads — one of nearly 30 species of fish — are native to Asia. They were introduced in the United States through the aquarium business, and then people started selling them in the seafood market.
They were illegally introduced more than 20 years ago into the Potomac River of the D.C. area.
It is illegal to transport a live northern snakehead in Maryland and surrounding states. Anglers who catch one are encouraged to harvest it.
Snakeheads are unique. They’re a long, thin fish that can breathe air through an air bladder like a lung and can live up to four days out of water if they’re kept moist, experts said. They can grow up to three feet long and can weigh 18 pounds or more.
They’re often called ugly, but anglers said they’re tasty and nutritious. However, they can be trouble for other animals, according to wildlife experts and the U.S. Geological Survey.
“Snakeheads consume a lot of different prey,” Love said. “It’s like a human going to a Chinese buffet. There’s a lot of options on the menu, and we’re fully capable of consuming all of them. It’s similar for snakeheads,” which eat minnows, sunfish, perch and crayfish.
“If you eat all the egg rolls on the buffet but then there are no more egg rolls in the back, that’s a problem for the whole buffet,” Love said. “It’s similar in an ecosystem.
“Snakeheads eat similar prey resources as largemouth bass and other top predators in the ecosystem, but that could become a problem if there’s limited prey.”
Like it or not, invasive ‘Frankenfish’ are still among us
Scientists said they want to figure out how many snakeheads are in the upper Chesapeake Bay area and how many are being harvested to see if their numbers are expanding and if they’re possibly outnumbering prey populations.
The Maryland DNR tagged about 250 snakeheads this spring and plans to do another 250 this fall in the upper Chesapeake Bay. DNR officials said crews apply electricity to the water that briefly stuns the fish, which are then taken out of the water, tagged and released. The tags, which are blue or yellow, include on them a reward amount.
An angler who catches a tagged fish should write down the tag number, then harvest it and take a picture. Then, they should call the USFWS at 800-448-8322 and give wildlife officials the information. Once scientists review the information, they’ll mail out a check to the angler.
Officials said “only harvested northern snakeheads with reported tags will qualify for gift cards,” according to a news release.
Officials have been trying to encourage anglers to harvest snakeheads, but they need to know, “are people actually harvesting enough snakeheads that it makes a difference?” Love asked. “It’s possible the population is so big, and the fishery is so small that it’s not making a dent.”
‘At first it was shocking’: Angler nabs an 18-pound snakehead fish in the Potomac
Caz Kenny, a lifelong waterman who runs a seafood business in Parkton, Md., said he hopes the tagging program will help reduce the northern snakehead population in the region.
“Tagging them and then getting anglers to help report where they’ve caught a tagged one will help figure out their movement,” Kenny said. “If we don’t get them under control, that’s all we’re going to have. There will be no other fish to catch.”
More coverage on animals
Eagles in D.C. area, nationwide have chronic lead poisoning, study finds
Bird flu infects millions of chickens in Md., Del. amid broader surge
25 National Zoo flamingos killed by wild fox | 2022-07-06T10:50:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland pays anglers to catch snakehead fish in the Chesapeake Bay - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/06/snakehead-fish-cash-chesapeake-bay/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/06/snakehead-fish-cash-chesapeake-bay/ |
Buyers failed the good faith test, and sellers contemplate next steps
In a white-hot housing market, particularly during the pandemic, sellers routinely fielded multiple-bid situations. (Elaine Thompson/AP)
Q: I had a contract with a buyer to sell my home. A week before the closing, the buyer canceled the deal. The buyer said they couldn’t get the interest rate for their loan as listed in the contract, even though they were approved by the lender and the rate was well below current market rates, according to our agent.
About two weeks after the proposed closing date, we discovered that they had signed a contract for our home and for a different home at the same time. In addition, our agent discovered that the buyers really didn’t want our home. It appears they only wanted our home as a backup deal if their other one fell through.
Do we have any recourse, and secondly how do we protect ourselves so that this doesn't occur in the future?
A: Your question poses some interesting issues. First, sellers like to assume that a buyer is coming to a purchase in good faith. That means, they’re making an offer because they actually want to buy the house. In your case, the buyers appear to have failed the good faith test.
More Matters: Retiree considers selling townhouse, buying larger single-level home
We get how this could have happened. In a white-hot housing market, which the United States has been in for the past few years, particularly during the pandemic, sellers routinely fielded multiple-bid situations — sometimes with as many as 30 to 40 bids from desperate buyers scarred by losing many other multiple-bid situations. Still, putting two offers on two different homes simultaneously is a recipe for disaster, unless they were ready, willing and able to buy both homes.
So what can or should you do? For starters, make sure every buyer signs a contract for the purchase and sale of the home. Second, make sure the buyer puts down sufficient funds as a good faith deposit so that it would hurt the buyer to walk away from the deal.
In some parts of the country, the down payment or earnest money deposit can be a token amount of, say, $500 or $1,000. We’d rather see a number that’s significantly higher. How high? A number that would cause the buyer pain if they walked from the deal. For a home priced at $300,000, we’d expect to see the buyer put down at least $10,000 (and preferably more) as earnest money.
Then, if the buyer walks from the deal, the buyer could lose that $10,000. Any large sum of money will make the buyer think twice about putting down multiple offers on multiple properties just to see which one comes through. And if both houses asked for at least a $10,000 good faith deposit, the buyer might think twice before committing in writing to buy two homes.
Many purchase agreements contain a financing clause that allows the buyer to terminate the deal and get their money back if they are unable to secure financing for the purchase of the home. However, the buyer must show that they applied for financing and were denied that financing.
Given your question, it appears your buyer was able to get financing but was setting up a pretext to get out of the deal. You’ll need to hire a real estate attorney to assist you in contesting the buyer’s ability to get their deposit back. The attorney can look into the circumstances of the claim for the return of the earnest money and can direct the holder of the earnest money to keep that money until the issue is resolved.
More Matters: Father trying to help children cope with financial stress of managing estate
That’s one of the best ways to make sure you get a buyer to honor the terms of a contract. You asked what you can do in the future, and the answer is to look at the purchase and sale agreement you signed. You might have everything you need there. You will need counsel to assist and represent you in enforcing the terms of the contract and cutting through the buyer’s “clever” maneuver.
If you suspect foul play in a real estate transaction, you need to make sure you have proper representation and the person representing you has your interests coming first. In many parts of the country, real estate attorneys do not represent the buyers or sellers in a residential transaction. The attorney may act as a settlement agent but does not owe a duty of loyalty to either the buyer or the seller. In those states, you need to be more vigilant to guard against this sort of thing, and you may need to hire your own attorney if the deal goes south.
You’ll have to move quickly. If the buyer canceled the deal and claimed that they couldn’t get financing, the settlement agent may have released the earnest money. In that case, it’ll be harder to claw back the deposit.
By the time you realized what had happened, it might have been too late for you to object to the return of the money. Given all of this, you probably didn’t do anything wrong. You just didn’t have enough knowledge to know that you should have objected to the return of the deposit to the buyer and insisted the buyers prove their inability to get financing was in accordance with the terms of the contract.
At this point in time, you can only move on and find another buyer that loves your home and then closes on the purchase. | 2022-07-06T10:54:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Buyers failed the good faith test, sellers contemplate next steps - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/06/buyers-failed-good-faith-test-sellers-contemplate-next-steps/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/06/buyers-failed-good-faith-test-sellers-contemplate-next-steps/ |
Alito touted adoption as a silver lining for women denied abortions
But adoption served the interests of couples who want children, not necessarily the women who give birth.
Perspective by Gretchen Sisson
Gretchen Sisson is a research sociologist at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at the University of California, San Francisco, where she studies abortion and adoption in the United States.
Writing for the majority in Dobb v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. offered a reassurance to those who will now be denied access to abortion: “A woman who puts her newborn up for adoption today has little reason to fear that the baby will not find a suitable home.” But Alito’s words are unlikely to be comforting or relevant to Americans who want abortions. Research shows that more than 90 percent of people denied access to abortion choose to parent their babies and have no interest in adoption.
Alito cites a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on why so many “suitable homes” are available: “the domestic supply of infants … relinquished at birth or within the first month of life available to be adopted [has] become virtually nonexistent.” In other words: Demand for infants is high and supply is low.
Just as the court ignores the needs of people seeking abortions, through this language of supply and demand, it ignores the power inequities upon which adoption is premised. The demand for infants comes from those with more power, the supply comes from those with less. The adoption market in the United States historically has adapted to accommodate the needs of those with more power, while failing to address the needs of vulnerable women forced to birth and relinquish infants.
The United States has a long and sweeping history of separating children from families — from the days of slavery and Native American boarding schools to the current immigration and family policing system — but none of these removals were focused on infants, and they were rarely about making children available for adoption (though they sometimes did accomplish that).
While slavery, for example, hinged on control over enslaved women’s reproductive rights and forced family separation, the focus was on White enslavers buying older children whose labor could be stolen or sold. In the 1850s, slavery states outlawed separating enslaved mothers from their infants, hoping this meager reform would make the institution of slavery less abhorrent and, thus, more durable. Such changes cost them little, as there was no demand for infants.
At the same time, the New York Children’s Aid Society was shipping poor White children (who nearly always had living parents) out West on “orphan trains,” marketing them as a source of free labor: “Boys. handy and active … could be employed on farms, in trades, in manufacturing … Girls could be used for the common kinds of housework.”
This earlier demand for older children contrasts with the lack of demand for babies. Parents who could not care for their infants paid baby farms modest fees to assume the burden of care. If they could not afford those fees, they were forced to abandon infants at foundling asylums.
The pattern began to shift around the turn-of-the-20th-century, when, because of restrictions on child labor, declining birthrates and changing cultural ideas about childhood, children increasingly became economically useless but sentimentally priceless. Adoption practices shifted rapidly and dramatically. Adopters were no longer fostering laborers; they were buying parenthood, a family, a priceless child. What cost could be too high?
Legal adoption — which involved the full, permanent transfer of parental rights, in contrast to informal fostering or kinship arrangements — became popular. In contrast to the days when desperate parents paid baby farmers to care for their infants, by the 1950s, a healthy baby cost adoptive parents up to $10,000. The value of a child was no longer tied to their ability to work or produce, but to their ability to allow heterosexual married couples a path toward middle class stability in a conformist Cold War society built around the image of the traditional nuclear family. Infants were in high demand.
The “baby scoop” era, a period of coercive and secretive adoptions from the end of World War II through the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, had arrived. More than 1.5 million American infants were relinquished for non-familial, private adoption, often by young, unmarried, White women who were sent away to maternity homes. There, they gave birth in secret and were told by those facilitating the adoptions that they would never see their child again.
A full 20 percent of infants born to unmarried White women were relinquished, but just 1.5 percent of infants born to unmarried Black women. Why? In addition to traditions of kinship support for single mothers in Black communities, almost no agencies or maternity homes would work with Black women.
Divergent meanings of nonmarital pregnancy emerged, which served to create vastly different levels of supply and demand. White women occupied a “state of shame,” from which adoption offered redemption for mother and child, while Black women occupied a “state of blame,” for which they were subjected to stigma and punishment that extended to their “unadoptable” children.
After Roe v. Wade allowed greater access to abortion, the domestic adoption rate dropped precipitously and never meaningfully increased. By the 1990s, the private relinquishment rate for infants born to unmarried White women had dropped to 1.7 percent; for Black women, it was virtually zero.
To ensure a supply of infants, Americans reconsidered the stigmas that made children of color “unadoptable” and pursued adoption through foster care. Correspondingly, the 1990s saw a surge in the policing of Black families via the child welfare system. Congress passed “welfare reform” in 1996, which made the social safety net more fragile — and made more poor families vulnerable to losing children to foster care. This legislation was followed by the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, which intended to double the number of foster-care children who were available for adoption by fast-tracking the termination of parental rights over family reunification.
At the same time, international adoptions peaked. These adoptions almost exclusively involved the transfer of children from poorer or politically unstable countries to wealthier ones, such as the United States. But as countries began to restrict the exports of their children, the supply of adoptable children became, once again, low.
Yet demand remains high. Today, while the numbers of prospective parents are not tracked, the numbers cited in the Dobbs decision suggest there are 45 potential adoptive parents for every infant relinquished for domestic adoption. The number of potential parents is so high, and the number of infants available so low, that one of the largest adoption agencies in the country has stopped accepting applications from people interested in adopting, to prioritize those they already have. Alito cites this demand as a reason that restricting abortion is acceptable, because so many “suitable homes” are available.
What Alito overlooks, however, is that most women who relinquish infants want that suitable home to be their own. My research shows that the most defining characteristic of relinquishing mothers today is their lack of resources. A majority are unemployed, report income of less than $5,000 per year and rely on public insurance, such as Medicaid, for their health coverage. Most of them want to parent but often feel they lack the money and social support to make raising a child feasible. Without a meaningful social safety net for families, many of these mothers make decisions from a place of constraint and deprivation, leading to struggles with grief, regret and trauma.
The blithe language of supply and demand deployed by the Supreme Court brings to crude light what has always been true: The market forces that shape adoption do not prioritize reproductive autonomy, support for families or an investment in the best outcomes for vulnerable pregnant women and other pregnant people and their children. Though the Court isn’t responsible for the lack of an adequate safety net, ignoring these realities is yet another way that the Dobbs decision will inflict harm on American women, their families and generations of adopted people. | 2022-07-06T10:54:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Alito touted adoption as a silver lining for women denied abortions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/06/alito-touted-adoption-an-option-women-denied-abortions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/06/alito-touted-adoption-an-option-women-denied-abortions/ |
White conservatives use anti-pornography crusades to secure power
The tactics of J.D. Vance are nothing new. They are relics.
Perspective by Kelsy Burke
Kelsy Burke is an award-winning sociologist, associate professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and author of "The Pornography Wars: The Past, Present, and Future of America’s Obscene Obsession."
J.D. Vance, a Republican candidate in Ohio, appears in Cincinnati after winning the May 3 primary. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Republican U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance of Ohio is making news with a recently discovered interview from 2021 where he called for an all-out ban on pornography and also blamed contraception, abortion and same-sex marriage for ruining society. Rather than apologize, he has used these positions as central themes in the campaign, building on GOP efforts to make the culture wars central to the party’s platform.
This year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed into law HB 1557, which critics call the “don’t say gay” bill, claiming that “clearly inappropriate pornographic materials” are readily available in elementary schools across the state. Texas schools started pulling books deemed “overtly sexual” by Gov. Greg Abbott (R). According to one report, banned-book lists have been circulated in school districts across 26 states.
Less prominent in the headlines but no less consequential is the EARN IT Act, reappearing in Congress this term after initially being proposed in 2020. On the surface, the act is intended to prevent “online child sexual exploitation” but in practice it would mean that the government would have unprecedented access to an individual’s online data and the ability to regulate private websites of all kinds, not just the pornographic ones.
But pornography isn’t really what’s at stake here, nor is raising the marriage rate or improving the lives of children (there are many more direct routes for that). Instead, it’s what sociologist Joseph Gusfield has called a symbolic crusade. White conservative Christians like Vance, DeSantis and Abbott are leveraging the issue of pornography to secure their power within American culture and law, a tactic that has been used for well over a century.
The person responsible for implementing America’s earliest obscenity laws in 1873 was Anthony Comstock, a devout Protestant and Civil War veteran who opposed nudity in all forms, including in art and theater. He was also a staunch opponent of women’s voting rights, contraception, alcohol and gambling. And so he made it his personal mission to align the law with his religious beliefs. He successfully lobbied Congress to expand the federal punishment for transporting obscene materials using the U.S. mail and got himself appointed as a special agent of the U.S. Postal Service.
A self-proclaimed “weeder in God’s garden,” Comstock took responsibility for the arrests of more than 3,500 people on obscenity charges and for destroying 160 tons of obscene literature.
But public opinion was changing at the turn of the 20th century. Near the end of his life in 1915, pundits mocked Comstock as a religious zealot who was out of touch with modern and liberal changes sweeping the nation. One cartoonist depicted him dragging a young woman to court and saying to the judge, “Your honor, this woman gave birth to a naked child!”
Just as significantly, Comstock’s obscenity charges had an unintended consequence once they hit the courts, ultimately undermining the very laws he passed.
For example, one of the targets of Comstock’s obscenity laws was Mary Ware Dennett, an 81-year-old grandmother. In 1929, she was charged for distributing a pamphlet the prosecuting attorney called “pure and simple smut.” The pamphlet in question explained the risks of sexual activity outside of marriage and included four hand-drawn anatomical images. Dennett had written the pamphlet years earlier for her two sons (then ages 11 and 14) but later permitted it to be printed in a medical journal whose subscribers were doctors and educators.
After 40 minutes of deliberation, the jury returned with a guilty verdict, agreeing with the prosecutor that Dennett’s pamphlet was obscene. But less than a year after Dennett’s guilty verdict, a circuit court unanimously overturned it, declaring her pamphlet not obscene. The case set a precedent that intent and context matter when it comes to determinations of obscenity. Dozens of court cases like Dennett’s followed, and through them, the courts narrowed the legal definition of obscenity over the course of the 20th century.
Most notably, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision Miller v. California defined obscenity through varying “community standards” and said it was that which “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value,” providing a subjective benchmark that made obscenity cases notoriously difficult to prosecute.
Obscenity laws are still on the books and pornographers are keenly aware of them (the popular camming website, OnlyFans, for example, has a long list of forbidden terms), but most commercial pornography involving consenting adults is now a legally protected form of speech.
Other laws, passed before and after the Miller decision, have criminalized pornography involving children, both as consumers and as victims of sexual abuse. Cases involving children therefore are tried under distinct charges, making obscenity laws further obsolete.
Though they may have broad appeal, since the majority of Americans support tough laws against perpetrators of sexual crimes involving children, conservatives’ recent proposals for new laws to crack down on images of child sexual abuse or children’s access to pornography are largely legal redundancies.
When the Supreme Court heard arguments in Miller v. California in 1973, more than 40 percent of Americans thought that all pornography should be illegal. In 2018, only about 1 in 3 (or 32 percent) held this view. For conservative Protestants, though, the direction of the change from the 20th to the 21st century has been the opposite: a greater percentage support outlawing pornography today than in decades past. Religiosity proves to be the greatest influencer on whether Americans think pornography should be legal.
Today’s conservative Christian politicians pushing laws that regulate sexuality and crack down on what they call “pornographic material” are tapping into a broader interest among their constituents. But they are grasping at straws.
They evoke Comstock’s legacy, but also his failures, because American law and public opinion are clear. Most sexually explicit media involving consenting adults is legally protected under the First Amendment, and books dealing with themes such as sexuality or racism can help children navigate complex and important conversations. In short, the tactics and beliefs of Vance and his GOP peers are relics from a world in which we no longer live. | 2022-07-06T10:54:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | White conservatives use anti-pornography crusades to secure power - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/06/white-conservatives-are-using-anti-pornography-crusades-secure-power/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/06/white-conservatives-are-using-anti-pornography-crusades-secure-power/ |
Airmen and civilians from the 436th Aerial Port Squadron at Dover Air Force Base, Del., prepare ammunition, weapons and other equipment for shipment to Ukraine on Jan. 21. (Mauricio Campino/U.S. Air Force/AP)
Last week, the United States and its NATO partners convened in Madrid to celebrate their unity in support of Ukraine as it fights Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal aggression. This week, the grim reality on the ground is reemerging. Ukrainian forces don’t have the weapons they need to resist the Russian onslaught in the east, much less push Russian troops off their land.
The Biden administration deserves credit for giving Ukraine massive amounts of help and rallying European allies to the cause. At the same time, concerns are rising that President Biden’s risk-averse strategy amounts to giving Kyiv just enough weapons to maintain a violent stalemate but not to win the war. Winter is coming, and if Russia controls large chunks of Ukrainian territory when the Donbas region freezes over, Putin’s gains will become harder, if not impossible, to roll back in the spring.
While U.S. and European leaders were huddling in Spain, Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking Republican James E. Risch (Idaho) was in Ukraine, touring the country. He was escorted by Ukrainian forces because the State Department refused to provide him security once he crossed the Ukrainian border. He met with Volodymyr Zelensky at the Ukrainian president’s office in Kyiv, and came away with the conclusion that the current U.S. strategy has not properly adjusted to the latest phase of the fighting.
Russian forces are pummeling Ukrainian civilian and military targets in the Donbas with their superior artillery. Ukrainian forces are fighting back valiantly, but they are still not receiving enough of the weapons that might give them the advantage — including long-range air defenses, longer-range artillery, heavy armor and fighter planes. The White House process of trying to parse which weapons would be “escalatory” is a recipe for a stalemate, Risch told me in an interview.
“If you are just giving weapons to fight to a stalemate, that’s not a good situation and that has consequences,” he said. “We need to be in or out. And if we are in, we need to give them what they need to win.”
Risch’s concerns about the slow pace of the Biden administration’s Ukraine weapons program are shared by some of his leading colleagues on the other side of the aisle, including House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.).
In Madrid, Biden promised that the United States and Europe will support Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression “as long as it takes.” But he didn’t say that he would give Ukraine the means to shorten that timeline. Even though the United States has pledged billions to support Ukraine’s military, only a fraction of those resources have arrived, leaving the Ukrainian military badly outgunned in the Donbas.
Privately, several administration officials told me that the delays are not a result of any problem with the actual delivery of weapons. The core problem is the protracted hand-wringing inside the Biden policy team over each weapons decision. Risch said this is caused by a misguided concern that if Putin starts to lose badly, he might escalate further.
“As a result of that [the White House is] taking the middle path. And the middle path is the wrong path here,” he said. “They can win this, but they can’t do it themselves. They will provide the fight if we provide the weapons.”
Last month, the United States provided four High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, which are reportedly making a difference on the battlefield. But Ukrainians on the ground said they need 50, not four — and they needed them months ago. In Madrid, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States is finalizing the purchase of one Norwegian-made NASAMS medium-long range antiaircraft missile system for Ukraine. But the contracts aren’t yet signed.
The Biden team insists that Zelensky is in the lead, and that the U.S. strategy is to give Ukraine the means to have the upper hand whenever a peace negotiation takes place.
“President Zelensky, he gets to determine how victory is decided and when and on what terms,” the National Security Council’s coordinator for communications, John Kirby, told Fox News Sunday. “And [what] we’re going to do is continue to make sure that can succeed on the battlefield so that he can succeed at the table.”
But at the current pace of support, the stalemate is only likely to persist — a recipe for endless war, destruction and human suffering. Zelensky reportedly told the NATO leaders Ukraine needs to push back Russian forces within months, not years. This week, he unveiled a recovery plan that calls for $750 billion in international investment and support. What will that tab be if the war goes on another year, or another five years?
All wars end with a negotiation, when one or both sides are exhausted enough to seek an end to the fighting. What’s clear is that neither Ukraine nor Russia is at this point of exhaustion yet. But the longer the war goes on, the more pressure mounts on Western economies and the greater the devastation and suffering of Ukrainians.
“Urgency is very important,” Risch said. “This has got to be done before the world looks the other way.”
By dragging its feet on giving Zelensky the weapons he is asking for, the United States risks ensuring that the stalemate persists, which ultimately redounds to Putin’s benefit. The Biden administration underestimated Ukrainian forces in the first stage of the war. It must not repeat the same mistake now. | 2022-07-06T10:55:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Biden’s Ukraine strategy risks prolonging a violent stalemate - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/06/biden-ukraine-strategy-slow-weapons-stalemate-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/06/biden-ukraine-strategy-slow-weapons-stalemate-russia/ |
DeSantis is smarter than Trump. That makes him more of a threat.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando on Feb. 24. (Octavio Jones/Reuters/File Photo)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is having a moment. Pundits are suggesting that the Jan. 6 hearings, by exposing former president Donald Trump’s complicity in a coup attempt, will redound to DeSantis’s benefit in 2024. Already, a poll in New Hampshire shows DeSantis topping Trump. The question, from the standpoint of those of us who have a sentimental attachment to American democracy, is which man is a bigger threat to the republic? I found myself grappling with that issue as I read a long and enlightening profile of DeSantis by Dexter Filkins in the New Yorker.
Filkins notes that, “while Trump, with his lazy, Barnumesque persona, projects a fundamental lack of seriousness, DeSantis has an intense work ethic, a formidable intelligence, and a granular understanding of policy. Articulate and fast on his feet, he has been described as Trump with a brain.” But do we really want a president who will work harder and more intelligently to implement a Trumpian agenda? Is it really better to have a president who is relentlessly focused on right-wing bugaboos such as critical race theory, transgender athletes, undocumented immigrants and “woke corporations” rather than one who is easily distracted into braggadocio about his golf game or his flooring?
Actually, the more I read about DeSantis, the more he reminds me not of Trump but of another disgraced Republican president. One of DeSantis’s Yale baseball teammates told Filkins he is really “smart” but deficient in interpersonal skills: “He has always loved embarrassing and humiliating people. I’m speaking for others — he was the biggest d---k we knew.” A former House colleague said of DeSantis: “He’s a little reclusive, a bit of an odd duck … but he’s just incredibly disciplined.”
Smart and disciplined but reclusive and unpleasant: Who does that remind you of? That’s right: Richard M. Nixon. And I don’t mean the Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency, implemented affirmative action, went to China and took other surprisingly liberal steps. DeSantis has never shown any similar willingness to challenge his base. I’m thinking of the Nixon who smeared his opponents (he accused Adlai Stevenson of having a “Ph.D. from Dean Acheson’s cowardly college of Communist containment”) and warred with the press (“You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore,” he said in 1962, “because gentlemen, this is my last press conference”). I’m thinking of the Nixon who employed the government against his “enemies list,” catered to White bigotry (the Southern strategy) and exacerbated social divisions in an attempt to mobilize the Silent Majority against liberal elites.
DeSantis seems hellbent on carrying on the disreputable legacy of Tricky Dick, and with even less respect for democratic norms than Nixon displayed. Indeed, he wages culture war with a ruthlessness that recalls Nixon during the bombing of Cambodia.
DeSantis signed legislation severely curtailing mask and vaccine mandates for businesses and local governments, thereby running roughshod over private property rights even while denouncing Democrats as socialists. The University of Florida — controlled by DeSantis appointees — has forbidden professors from testifying against DeSantis plans to restrict mask-wearing and voting rights. A pediatrician was removed from a state board overseeing children’s health insurance after criticizing DeSantis’s outrageous reluctance to provide covid vaccines for children under five.
DeSantis refuses to say whether President Biden was legitimately elected and criticizes the Jan. 6 committee hearings. He created a special task force to police voter fraud even though there is no evidence of widespread fraud. In the name of election security, he also pushed through a bill restricting voting rights that was largely struck down by a federal judge as unconstitutional. A DeSantis-backed “anti-riot” bill, passed in response to Black Lives Matter rallies, was blocked by another federal judge for infringing on the First Amendment.
DeSantis signed a “don’t say gay” law restricting discussion of gender and sexuality issues in public schools — and then took away tax breaks from Disney for criticizing the legislation. In a similarly vindictive vein, he vetoed state funding for a Tampa Bay Rays training facility after the baseball team had the temerity to call for gun-safety legislation to stop mass shootings.
DeSantis signed legislation to limit what schools, colleges and workplaces can teach about race and identity, while promulgating teacher training wrongly claiming that the Founders didn’t really want separation of church and state. He also signed legislation that would give the state greater control over what is taught in universities under the guise of promoting viewpoint “diversity.” He is even threatening to investigate parents who take their kids to drag shows.
In short, DeSantis is engaged in one of the most alarming assaults on free speech and academic freedom since the dark days of McCarthyism in the 1950s, when Nixon rose to power. His actions may not be as blatant as inciting a mob to attack Congress, but his record reveals a troubling pattern of authoritarianism and vindictiveness that would be extremely dangerous in the Oval Office.
Just because DeSantis is smarter than Trump doesn’t mean that he is any less dangerous. In fact, he might be an even bigger threat for that very reason. | 2022-07-06T10:55:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | DeSantis is smarter than Trump. That makes him more of a threat. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/06/desantis-starter-disciplined-trump-nixon-danger-democracy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/06/desantis-starter-disciplined-trump-nixon-danger-democracy/ |
A member of the Chilean Antarctic Institute’s logistics team guides a helicopter as it lands at Chile’s Carvajal Villaroel research base on the Antarctic Peninsula. (James Whitlow Delano)
Perspective by James Whitlow Delano
Kenneth Dickerman
Earlier this year, photojournalist James Whitlow Delano joined several groups of scientists, from various universities in Chile as part of the Chilean Antarctic Institute’s (INACH) 58th Antarctic Scientific Expedition. He spent time with the scientists as they gathered data, often tramping out into the field alongside them.
What follows is a collection of personal musings as Delano worked alongside these scientists:
“I thought I was going to die,” muttered a diver after being pulled back into a motorboat from the frigid waters of Bourgeois Fjord off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
I remember wondering if it was a good idea to leave the M.V. Betanzos, or the “mothership,” with a team of divers on the motorboat as intensifying gale-force winds funneled down through glaciated valleys, which were already peeling spray from the water’s icy surface and throwing it into our faces.
The plan was to gather samples of marine invertebrates, as well as brown and red algae from shallow waters, as part of the Genomic Antarctic Biodiversity Project (GAB) along the shoreline of one of the rare ice-free islands — where the perpetual scouring Antarctic winds made it impossible for ice to accumulate — to complement samples obtained from the front of glaciers.
The goal of the study was to understand the effect of deglaciation and recession of the ice cap on marine biodiversity and find out which species might suffer or benefit and why.
The divers — there were three — plunged backward off the boat under the watchful eye of two logistics experts from the M.V. Betanzos, disappearing below the surface. Unbeknown to one of the divers, both her primary and backup scuba regulators were about to freeze at a depth of about 26 feet.
She surfaced, buddy breathing with another diver, gasping for air, as he stabilized her upper body above the water while the wind washed spray over them. “It felt like I was breathing through a straw,” she recalled later.
The logistics crew and I struggled to get her out of the water. It took three of us to get her into the boat because of the weight of her scuba gear. For what seemed like minutes, she sat with her head in her hands, drawing in deep breaths as wind gusts continued to intensify.
The logistics crew radioed for the mothership to draw closer, instead of risking navigating through a crosswind back to the ship several hundred yards away.
Logistics had chosen to use a hardened-plastic motorboat on this outing because in almost the same location days before, teams of scientists went in zodiac inflatable boats to Lagotellerie Island to gather plant and water samples, and they did not fare so well in gusty conditions.
That’s how the divers came to be sheltering from the fury of nature, powerless to do anything but wait for the mothership to come and get us.
That is the nature of scientific research in these parts, where Antarctica sets the rules and humans must work around them.
More often than not, generously funded projects steal the media spotlight. Antarctic firsts make good press — so do boreholes reaching ice hundreds of thousands of years old or studies on charismatic animals like whales or penguins.
Antarctica jealously hides its secrets, and often those secrets are written on a microbial level or in the migrations of marine invertebrates.
Chile sits closer to Antarctica than any other country — just 404 miles separate Chile’s Cape Horn from Antarctica.
I joined several teams of scientists, from various universities in Chile, as part of the Chilean Antarctic Institute’s (INACH) 58th Antarctic Scientific Expedition.
While the U.S. Antarctic Program works on an annual budget (2021) of $292 million, and the British Antarctic Survey benefits from about $68 million in annual funding, Chile has carved out a significant presence in the Antarctic on an annual budget in 2020 of $1.8 million. INACH-funded scientists are quietly fleshing out, using DNA analysis, how indigenous organisms are adapting to the climate crisis.
While INACH punches well above its weight in Antarctic science, making outsize contributions on a diminutive budget, it often means that scientists must thread the proverbial needle on a continent where fair-weather windows can close in minutes and remain shut for days or even weeks.
Where scientists, with huge budgets, can wait out bad weather for weeks on end, these scientists often wait years for the opportunity to spend days or even hours in the field to gather specimens.
One plant geneticist on the M.V. Betanzos spent two weeks on the ship for the single opportunity to collect Antarctic pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis), one of just two angiosperms (seed-producing plants) that can survive in Antarctica, from one location.
In the twilight of midnight, a helicopter lifted off from the M.V. Betanzos on the third and final attempt to ferry a team of glaciologists to the Müller Ice Shelf on the Arrowhead Peninsula.
The team of glaciologists, led by Francisco Fernandoy of the University Andrés Bello and Edgardo Casanova Pino of the University of Magallanes, was planning to retrieve its data on ice-shelf retreat in March 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic intervened.
Like me, the team had been aboard the Chilean naval supply ship, the Aquiles, when the Chilean government declared a state of emergency at the beginning of the pandemic. One day after boarding, all civilians were ordered off the ship, putting an end to their plans.
Now, two years later, the team was on the verge of completing its mission. The easiest access to the ice shelf would have been from the north, but the Lallemand Fjord and Grandidier Channel were both ice bound, and the M.V. Betanzos is not an icebreaker.
That meant the only access had to be from the south. The helicopter flew up to where the Bigourdan Fjord met the Helm Glacier, ascended it over a divide and then descended the north side along the Antevs Glacier and touched down on the Müller Ice Shelf, which is long enough for two team members to disembark, before the helicopter flew back to the ship for the other half of the team and its gear.
On two previous attempts, wind-driven snow mixed with low clouds created an impenetrable barrier above the glaciers through which the helicopter could not pass. With each delay, the planned five-day expedition was eventually whittled down to an overnight stay, just long enough to retrieve the data and instruments laid out in 2019.
Around midnight, calm settled over the ship, and the skies over the glaciers opened enough for one last try. The sun set, but it never got dark.
The helicopter turned a corner behind a ridge and up the Helm Glacier, into radio silence. For a half-hour, until the helicopter could deposit the glaciologist and return around that corner, they had essentially passed over to the dark side of the moon. There was nothing to do but wait.
When the helicopter emerged again, pilot Jose Luis Pincheira Gutierrez reported that the two glaciologists and their gear had been successfully deposited on the ice.
Hopes were running high when the helicopter lifted off for the second round trip of three, even though clouds seemed to be building again over the Helm Glacier. By the time they arrived at the ice shelf the second time, an overcast sky made landing too dangerous because spatial disorientation made it impossible for the pilot to judge distance. Many lives have been lost in aviation accidents in polar regions in just such conditions. The weather window had, once again, closed.
Now there were two glaciologists on the ice without adequate survival gear, but none of this was known on the bridge of the M.V. Betanzos. All they knew was that the helicopter, due back, was nowhere to be seen and out of radio contact.
If the aircraft had gone down, the only viable rescue would have to come from the nearest airstrip at Britain’s Rothera Research Station, which was further away from the Müller Ice shelf than the M.V. Betanzos.
After 45 tense minutes, the helicopter emerged from radio silence, glaciologists and gear still on board.
After being denied by the pandemic in 2020, and waiting two more years for another chance to return, this time weather would deny the glaciologists from completing their project. But first, there were two glaciologists, without adequate survival gear, to be rescued.
“This is an environment where people shouldn’t be,” marine mammal researcher Ari Friedlaender once said of the Antarctic.
Working in the Antarctic builds deep bonds between travelers. It is not hyperbole to say that researchers depend upon each other for their very survival. There is a heightened sense of being alive while immersed in a world that humans are simply not adapted to survive. The only other place I’ve felt this immediate, enduring bond has been in conflict zones.
Sitting in a little plastic boat, buffeted by icy gusts, inches from seawater that would surely bring on hypothermia in minutes, one senses their own insignificance and mortality.
Researchers risk everything for science and often come back empty-handed. And yet they willingly, eagerly, come back again because Antarctica grabs you, lodges its hook deep. | 2022-07-06T10:55:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Photos of Antarctica - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/07/06/this-photographer-accompanied-researchers-examining-climate-change-antarctica/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/07/06/this-photographer-accompanied-researchers-examining-climate-change-antarctica/ |
Wednesday briefing: Highland Park shooting suspect charged; Trump legal team subpoenaed; heat wave; Medal of Honor; and more
The July Fourth parade shooting suspect was charged with murder.
The details: The 21-year-old man is accused of opening fire in Highland Park, a Chicago suburb, killing seven people. He planned the attack for weeks, police said, but the motive is unclear.
The victims: Kevin and Irina McCarthy, ages 37 and 35, were parents to a 2-year-old. Four other victims were between 68 and 88 years old.
Over 300 mass shootings have taken place in the U.S. this year. We’re tracking them here.
Donald Trump’s allies have been asked to testify about Georgia’s 2020 election.
Who? Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and members of his legal team. A grand jury sent out the orders yesterday.
Why it matters: It’s the most significant step so far to target an inner circle that allegedly worked to overturn presidential election results in Georgia and beyond.
What else to know: The next Jan. 6 committee hearing is Tuesday. One of the panel’s members has been getting violent threats.
Russia has moved on to its next target in Ukraine.
What is it? The Donetsk region in the east. It’s right next to the Luhansk region, which is already under Russian occupation. The governor has urged 350,000 residents to evacuate.
In other news: NATO yesterday took a major step toward welcoming Sweden and Finland into the military alliance, a move that would further isolate Russia.
Evidence of the toll the pandemic took on education keeps piling up.
The latest: About half of public schools reported more disrespect toward teachers and staff this past year, and 70% had more students missing school, according to new data.
Why it matters: These problems aren’t going away, and schools don’t have the staffing, training and support needed to address them, experts said.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is fighting for his job, again.
What happened this time? Two of his top ministers resigned yesterday, angered by his decision to promote a lawmaker who was previously accused of sexual misconduct.
Is this the end? Some critics say so. But Johnson’s demise has been predicted many times before as he has faced one political scandal after another.
Another heat wave is moving across the U.S.
The forecast: Above-normal temperatures in the central states for the rest of the workweek, with triple-digit highs expected in northern Texas, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri.
After that: The heat wave will shift west, and the Southwest could have scorching temperatures for more than a week.
Four Vietnam War veterans received Medals of Honor yesterday.
Who are they? Dwight Birdwell, John Duffy, Dennis Fujii and Edward Kaneshiro. They served in the Army and fought their way through violent battles more than 50 years ago.
President Biden awarded the nation’s highest recognition for combat valor at a White House ceremony, saying each man “went far above and beyond the call of duty.”
And now … is the summer heat giving you sleepless nights? Here’s how to keep your bedroom cool when temperatures soar. | 2022-07-06T10:55:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Wednesday, July 6 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/07/06/what-to-know-for-july-6/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/07/06/what-to-know-for-july-6/ |
Amtrak has money to expand, but it doesn’t own the railroad tracks. A stalled effort along the Gulf Coast is a test of its ability to grow.
CSX tracks near Biloxi, Miss., looking West as a moveable bridge opens for a boat in 2021. (CSX)
Months after Washington approved billions to significantly expand Amtrak’s footprint across the country, an early attempt at growth has reached an impasse in a test case that could define the American rail network for a generation.
The escalating clash is playing out on the Gulf Coast, where Amtrak wants to restore service 17 years after Hurricane Katrina flooded the region’s rail infrastructure. Amid fanfare over federal money as a president nicknamed “Amtrak Joe” watches from the White House, the passenger rail and the freight railroads that control the tracks are in mediation to resolve disputes over Amtrak’s proposed service levels.
“This is the bellwether case for the expansion of any passenger rail in this country,” said John Robert Smith, chairman of the policy organization Transportation for America. “If the freights manage to kill this proposed service, it will send a chill through the rest of the nation aspiring for passenger rail.”
Amtrak is a top travel choice in the Northeast. With an ally in the White House, it wants trains in the rest of America.
Amtrak’s plan for the 140-mile from New Orleans to Mobile, Ala., is one of 39 new routes the railroad is pursuing as part of its plan announced last year to reach dozens more cities and towns. The aspirations coincide with Washington’s priorities for more rail and alternate modes of transportation, supported by the bipartisan infrastructure law President Biden signed last year. The measure includes $66 billion for the nation’s ailing rail network.
Amtrak service and vision for the future
Existing Amtrak
service network
Gulf Coast route
Existing Amtrak service network
Expanded service
Fran.
But any expansion in Amtrak’s territory, which has remained nearly unchanged during its five decades, would boost pressure on freight companies and add trains to shared tracks at a time when the industry is under scrutiny over supply chain disruptions.
“We figured out the money piece,” said Amtrak chief executive Stephen J. Gardner. “We’ve solved one-half of the problem, and now that puts sort of the spotlight on this relationship with the [host railroads] and how do we find a productive path forward.”
Amtrak’s federal aid lessens the financial barriers to launching new train service, abating Amtrak’s biggest impediment to growth. Negotiating track access is the next hurdle.
Public money vs. private tracks
Outside its busy Northeast Corridor, Amtrak mostly operates on tracks owned by private railroads. Under federal law, it pays the companies to use the tracks — a sum that, according to Amtrak, totaled $135 million last fiscal year. The arrangement dates to 1970, when Congress created Amtrak, relieving private railroads from their obligation at the time to provide intercity passenger rail service.
But along the Gulf Coast, six years of talks have led nowhere. The Southern Rail Commission — a panel of state-appointed members from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama — has pushed for a decade to bring trains back, helping to secure $66 million for improvements. The federal government in 2015 convened a group to evaluate the restoration of service, bringing together railroads and the three states that would be served by the line.
Negotiations stalled as Amtrak introduced a service plan that was different than before Katrina, with more trains using the corridor during peak hours. The two sides couldn’t agree on the capital investment needed to restore service: The Federal Railroad Administration estimated the price tag at $118 million, while CSX said it would take $440 million.
CSX, which owns most of the track between New Orleans and Mobile, said it wouldn’t oppose Amtrak resuming pre-Katrina service, when long-distance trains arrived overnight, three times a week. But the company says more study is needed before Amtrak brings two daily round trips between the port cities, including stops in the Mississippi cities of Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula.
CSX said eight to 10 freight trains traverse the full route daily, while other local trains and mechanical equipment use stretches of the line. Officials with the Port of Mobile, the city of Mobile and Alabama have raised objections to Amtrak’s proposal, citing possible effects to the port, which city leaders say moves more than 58 million tons of cargo annually.
But Amtrak calls the rail “a lightly used mainline” that is far less complicated than Amtrak’s Washington-to-Boston tracks, which handle about 2,200 trains daily.
“Most of the route [in the Gulf Coast] is single track, but so is the vast majority of Amtrak’s route network,” Gardner said to the Surface Transportation Board (STB) in February. “Yes, it has drawbridges, but not as many per mile as Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor in Connecticut. Yet somehow, we still accommodate 68 trains a day over that route.”
Amtrak’s faster, higher-tech Acela trains are delayed again
Because the railroads have not agreed to give Amtrak access, federal statute tasks the STB, an independent federal agency that regulates freight rail, with determining whether more passenger trains would “impair unreasonably freight transportation.”
The Biden administration has taken a prominent seat at pushing Amtrak’s petition, saying a resolution along the Gulf Coast is key to the future development of intercity passenger rail across the nation. At stake, it says, is Americans’ access to adequate transportation.
“Service delayed is service denied,” Amit Bose, head of the Federal Railroad Administration, said in February while urging the panel to ensure the “railroads fulfill their fundamental statutory obligations to allow the expansion and improvement of intercity passenger rail services.”
In a May letter to the STB, John E. Putnam, acting general counsel at the Transportation Department, said efforts such as restoring Gulf Coast rail passenger service are critical to the administration’s transportation goals of “combating climate change, ensuring equity in personal mobility and driving economic growth and vitality.”
“Unfortunately, despite an extended period of examination and the investment of significant funds, Amtrak has been unable to obtain the agreement of the host freight railroads, and there is no clear or imminent path to the restoration of this service, absent the Board’s intercession,” Putnam wrote.
‘I can’t make you play nice’
Support for Amtrak is widespread in Louisiana — home to a terminus stop in New Orleans — and across Mississippi, where four of the six stations would be located. Local officials tout the return of Amtrak as an economic asset to boost tourism and an alternative to traffic-clogged highways.
Alabama leaders, however, say their port, shippers and freight customers would suffer from disruptions to a tightly managed schedule of freight trains. Alabama House leader Mac McCutcheon (R) told the STB he is also concerned the state might have to foot the cost of Amtrak’s passenger operations.
In testimony to the STB, Stimpson said it would be premature to grant Amtrak’s petition without more study and infrastructure improvements, warning that “any action that stands in the way of the continued efficient and productive operation of the Port of Mobile must be treated with microscopic scrutiny.”
The dispute has sent shock waves among rail advocates, where supporters of intercity train service and local leaders who want Amtrak in their communities fear the Gulf Coast dispute could translate into freight companies rejecting passenger rail proposals. Several mayors have made pleas before the board on Amtrak’s behalf.
$8 million federal grant to boost Amtrak workforce amid worker shortage
“People literally stop me on the street and tell me how excited they are that we might get passenger rail here in Madison,” Satya Rhodes-Conway, mayor of the Wisconsin city, said in testimony to the board. “However, our ability to implement Amtrak service here would be imperiled by the precedent set in this decision.”
In the meantime, Amtrak is still easing into other markets. Trains will return to Burlington, Vt., in July for the first time since 1953. Plans are advancing for more trains between Washington and Virginia’s Norfolk and Roanoke areas using tracks owned by CSX and Norfolk Southern. Amtrak is also negotiating with Canadian Pacific to add service between Chicago, Milwaukee and the Minneapolis area.
“Part of me wants to say both sides should lose, but that’s really not possible,” Board Chairman Martin J. Oberman said in May. “I can’t make you play nice, but I think it would be much more productive if you did.”
Post-Katrina recovery without trains
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina brought down homes and buildings, piers and the marina. As the city recovered, a new harbor and a $19 million sea wall were built a decade ago. Antique shops, art galleries and restaurants popped up in downtown. The train depot is now the visitor’s welcome center and a space for city festivals and events.
“We built back better,” said Nikki Moon, a longtime resident of Bay St. Louis, whose home and business were destroyed during Katrina. She said the city’s comeback is missing an important piece: trains.
“Having this train would show that there is a lot for people to come and see, a lot for them to enjoy in the bay,” said Moon, a retired innkeeper and regional tourism leader. “Amtrak coming in would be a game changer for our town and, I believe, for the entire coast.”
City officials say tourists arriving in cruise ships in New Orleans or Mobile could hop on a train to visit the Mississippi coast’s beaches and casinos. Nondriving visitors, including the international tourists who come to New Orleans, would be able to plan a day trip or an overnight stay.
Union Station operator blasts Amtrak bid to take over by eminent domain
Amtrak’s pre-Katrina service did not offer that choice during daylight hours. The route was so long — from Florida to California — that the train arrived in Mississippi during the overnight hours. Proponents say the shorter route during daylight would give roughly 2 million nearby residents an option to commute by train while offering more reliable and frequent service.
“When a train comes through in the middle of the night, three days a week, people don’t really buy into it,” said Kay Kell, a member of the Southern Rail Commission. “This is an area that has been unserved for quite a while, and we know a large population would use the train.”
Amtrak, freight collaboration ‘went astray’
“Reasonable people should be able to come to an agreement,” said Robert VanderClute, a private consultant who spent 26 years working at Amtrak. “Collaboration is critical, and we had it at one point. I don’t know where it went astray.”
Amtrak set up cameras along the route as hearings were carried out this spring, live-streaming empty tracks and birds singing in the background under the title “CSX’s Very Busy Gulf Coast Corridor.”
“It’s about a new national agenda and Amtrak’s desire to change the law and create a new road map, proposing new passenger service without working with most carriers or local communities to first add necessary capacity,” he said.
Amtrak’s Gardner said the case represents a turning point for American passenger rail. Amtrak’s network today, he said, is smaller than in 1971, even as the nation added 120 million people.
“We need to serve more places, serve more people with more trains,” he said. “We can’t let — as in the case of the Gulf Coast — years and years go by where the public’s will and where the federal government’s investment is stymied.” | 2022-07-06T10:55:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amtrak expansion: Battle will determine future of U.S. passenger rail - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/07/06/amtrak-expansion-freight-rails/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/07/06/amtrak-expansion-freight-rails/ |
An image from U.K. Parliament TV shows British Prime Minister Boris Johnson during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons, London, July 6. (Parliamentlive Tv/Handout/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday was fighting for his political life as more ministers and aides continued to quit his government, saying that they no longer have faith in Johnson’s leadership.
Johnson was trying to move on from the dramatic events on Tuesday, which saw the bombshell resignations of two of his most senior cabinet ministers — Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid — both of whom have their own power bases in the party and are thought to be future leadership contenders.
Johnson’s moves to quickly fill the top roles did not stem the tide of further — albeit more junior — resignations. By late Wednesday morning, at least 15 Conservative politicians had resigned from their posts in protest over Johnson’s leadership.
The resignations of top U.K. ministers and the plight of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government dominated British newspaper headlines on July 6. (Video: Reuters)
The resignations, which have followed a string of scandals, have prompted numerous questions: How long can Johnson survive? Is this the endgame for Johnson? Is there any way to oust him?
The majority of the British public think that he should throw in the towel now. A YouGov poll published on Tuesday found that a majority of Britons (69 percent) think Johnson should resign — including a majority of Conservative voters (54 percent).
Only 18 percent of the British public think that Johnson should stay.
Johnson has made it clear that — if it’s up to him — he’s going to stay where he is. And under the current Conservative Party rules, there’s no formal way for Johnson’s critics to quickly get rid of him.
Rob Ford, a politics expert at the University of Manchester, drew parallels to 2016 when, following the Brexit vote, the then leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, suffered mass resignations from his shadow cabinet in an attempt to oust the Labour leader. While some leaders may have read the room and decided to call it quits, Ford said, Corbyn did not and remained leader until the spring of 2020.
“Likewise, with Johnson, there is widespread opposition to his leadership. You got a leader who won’t bow to informal pressure to go, and the only formal mechanism you have isn’t available. So you’re in a limbo state,” said Ford.
A group in the Conservative Party attempted to dislodge Johnson from his post last month by calling a no-confidence vote in his leadership but because he survived that vote — narrowly — he is insulated from additional party challenges for a year.
There has been much talk in recent days about how those rules can be changed. And in the upcoming days, Conservative lawmakers will elect new members of the powerful 1922 Committee, which makes the rules. Some of those campaigning for roles have suggested that they would support allowing another vote of no confidence.
In the meantime, the number of resignations, including from former loyalists, continues to climb. Analysts say that Johnson is lucky insomuch as their reasons for losing faith in Johnson seem to be varied — his critics aren’t coalescing around a single issue, the way that those who helped to get rid of Theresa May, Johnson’s predecessor, did when they ditched her.
One of the lawmakers to resign his post on Wednesday was Will Quince, children and families minister. He said that he could not accept the way in which he was asked to defend Downing Street over the most recent scandal, which involved Conservative lawmaker Chris Pincher.
Quince did a number of broadcast interviews defending the prime minister over Pincher, who had recently quit as deputy chief whip following accusations that he assaulted two men while drunk. Downing Street initially said that Johnson was not aware of historic allegations of misconduct, but then later backtracked to say that he was. Quince said that he had been sent out on the air waves with “inaccurate” information about Johnson’s knowledge of events and had “accepted and repeated those assurances in good faith.”
Ford, the analyst, said that while Johnson could limp on until such time as another confidence vote is held, the chances of him leading the Conservative Party into the next general election, scheduled for 2025, seemed slim.
“At the very least, another confidence vote becomes possible 11 months from now. What exactly will change between now and then to recover confidence in Johnson?” Ford asked. “At this point, I think it would take something close to a biblical miracle. Nothing can be ruled out with the luckiest politician in British politics but it would take something extraordinary.” | 2022-07-06T11:33:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Boris Johnson defends actions as more Conservative allies resign - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/06/uk-boris-johnson-resignation-parliament/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/06/uk-boris-johnson-resignation-parliament/ |
Tips for getting rid of mosquitoes without harming pollinators
If other mosquito deterrents haven’t worked, it may be time to call a pest-control company. But first weigh the benefits and risks. (iStock)
Hanging out in the backyard with family and friends can be bliss. Having to shoo and swat mosquitoes at the same time? Not so much. But think twice before you call in a professional pest-control company, even one that claims to be eco-friendly or all-natural. Although this seems like a convenient option, the sprays they disperse to kill mosquitoes will probably also kill friendly pollinators — animals and insects that benefit plants.
More than 80 percent of plant communities need some pollinators — bees, butterflies, beetles, hummingbirds — to reproduce, says Jean Burns, an associate professor of biology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. “If you lose all the pollinators in your yard, you may get a lower yield in your vegetable garden, or your flowering bushes may not make seed and bloom the following year,” she says.
Even worse, the loss of pollinators could set off a domino effect beyond your yard. If plants don’t survive, they can’t pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to build leaves and stems for animals to eat, and they can’t release oxygen through photosynthesis. That makes a big difference in keeping the air clean.
Mosquitoes may seem like nothing more than an obnoxious pest, but they play an important part in the ecosystem. Their eggs, found in water, serve as a food source for fish and macroinvertebrates, says Emma Grace Crumbley, an entomologist with national pest-control company Mosquito Squad. And after they emerge from the eggs, they are food for birds, frogs, bats and other species. On the flip side, some mosquitoes carry West Nile virus, so it’s important to protect yourself against their bites as much as possible.
That sets up a conundrum: How do we keep mosquitoes at bay without causing collateral damage to pollinators? Here are some options, many of which use nature as the solution.
Your house is a gigantic bug habitat, and there's nothing you can do about it
Dump standing water. Female mosquitoes lay eggs in standing water, and they can’t reproduce if the larvae have no place to live. At least once a week, empty anything that can collect or pool water, such as buckets, birdbaths, dog bowls, kiddie pools, tarps, playground equipment, plant saucers and gutters. “You’d be surprised by how little water [mosquitoes] need. Even a discarded water bottle or an empty bag of chips with some rainwater can be a breeding ground,” says Matthew Aardema, a medical entomologist and assistant professor at New Jersey’s Montclair State University whose research focuses on mosquitoes.
Give them a Bti cocktail. For bodies of standing water that can’t be drained, try using a Bti product. Bti is a bacterium that specifically targets mosquito larvae without affecting other organisms. When the larvae ingest the Bti, it kills them within minutes. “Targeting larvae populations is more environmentally responsible versus wholesale spraying,” Aardema says. You can find Bti products in garden stores. They come in many forms, including tablets, granules, pellets and liquids. Follow the directions on the product regarding frequency of application.
Plant natural deterrents. Placing whiskey barrel planters with plants that repel mosquitoes in strategic locations was just one method that environmental science professor Noah Perlut and his students at the University of New England used to reduce the number of mosquitoes on the Biddeford, Maine, campus. “Our goal was not to eradicate the mosquitoes — that would be impossible and ecologically irresponsible — but to make people more comfortable where they spend their time,” he says.
Perlut’s team planted bee balm, marigolds, spotted geraniums, lavender, sweet fern and citronella around the edge of the barrels, with cherry tomatoes and basil in the middle. “It’s not enough to plant mosquito-repellent species, but you have to activate them,” he says. When people pick the tomatoes or herbs, they brush the other plants, which then give off chemicals that interfere with the mosquitoes’ ability to navigate and find prey. Research which plants are native to your region, Burns says. Suitable options may include rosemary, peppermint, catnip, garlic and sage.
Attract natural predators. Investigate which birds in your region eat mosquitoes and are willing to nest in bird boxes, then learn how to attract them. Perlut and his students created an inviting habitat for two species — tree swallows and Eastern bluebirds — to nest around where people tend to congregate. “Because these species forage for insects, including mosquitoes, and adults feed their chicks many mosquitoes, this has been a huge success. And the best news is once you build the infrastructure, it needs little maintenance,” he says. The university also installed bat houses to increase the number of those mosquito-hungry predators — but it’s understandable if you don’t want to actively attract bats to your home, either because you don’t want to deal with guano (bat excrement) or because they creep you out.
The nuclear option. If your yard is so mosquito-infested that no other deterrent seems to work, it may be time to call in a pest-control company. But you’ll need to determine whether the benefits outweigh the risks. Although most scientists support some sort of control effort, few are fans of pesticides. “When we spray for mosquitoes using chemicals, that not only influences the mosquito, but kills all flies and species like the mosquito, including any pollinators,” Perlut says.
Some companies offer the option of a natural treatment with essential oils, but be wary. They say these solutions are more environmentally friendly, using words such as “nontoxic” or “DEET-free,” while claiming they have the same ability to knock down mosquitoes on contact. Any effective treatment is indiscriminate, so it’s important to hire a company that can analyze your backyard and personalize a plan to create a barrier while minimizing the risk to pollinators.
No mosquito-control company can (or should) offer a 100 percent guarantee that pollinators won’t be harmed. Crumbley says to look for professionals who try to mitigate the collateral damage by focusing on “resting areas,” meaning places that mosquitoes go to escape the heat but that aren’t as appealing to pollinators, such as tall grasses, woodpiles and overgrown bushes. Such professionals will also be careful to avoid spraying anything that attracts pollinators, such as flowering plants, a home garden or an aviary.
Don’t waste time on gimmicks. Experts agree that most hyped-up “solutions,” such as citronella candles or torches, mosquito coils, zappers and mosquito lamps, are largely ineffective, because they only emit an odor or electrocute mosquitoes in a small area. “Evaluate your lawn space, understand what attracts mosquitoes to your yard and control what you can,” Crumbley says. | 2022-07-06T11:42:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tips for getting rid of mosquitoes without harming pollinators - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/07/06/mosquito-sprays-harm-pollinators/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/07/06/mosquito-sprays-harm-pollinators/ |
Breezy Supreme will perform July 8 at Songbyrd. (@sweet.mlk)
Breezy Supreme
Is pop-punk back, or did it never really go away? Whatever the case, the oft-maligned soundtrack of youths in revolt is enjoying another moment in the sun, largely driven by artists and audiences that are more diverse than the last mostly White, mostly male go-round. Breezy Supreme is a Black alternative artist from the D.C.-Maryland area who has dabbled in noisy, nihilistic trap-rap but seems more comfortable with the scream-till-you-cry sounds of emo, punk and post-hardcore. His latest album, “Bad Decisions” (which features production by Good Charlotte’s Billy Martin), is a half-hour of raucous rockers perfect for — as he sings on “Palm Pilot” — “sitting in the background, chilling in the back seat.” And watch out live, where he’s been known to add metalcore and go-go to the pop-punk mix.
July 8 at 7 p.m. at Songbyrd, 540 Penn St. NE. songbyrddc.com. $18-$22. Proof of vaccination required.
The Chicks have always spoken their truth on their terms, whether singing a domestic-violence revenge fantasy (“Goodbye Earl”), kissing off small-minded small towns (“Lubbock or Leave It”) or — perhaps most famously — calling out George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq, a move that derailed the trio’s careers. So it should have come as no surprise when the band dropped “Dixie” from their moniker, as protests against racist violence erupted in the summer of 2020, and returned soon after for their first album of new music in 14 years. “Gaslighter” is informed by the betrayal, heartbreak and eventual freedom of singer Natalie Maines’s divorce, and the poppy, decidedly contemporary country album finds the band unraveled and more traveled but still ready for a fight. That’s especially true on “March March,” a slow-boiling protest song that feels particularly potent during this moment in American history.
July 9 at 7:30 p.m. at Jiffy Lube Live, 7800 Cellar Door Dr., Bristow. livenation.com. $35-$211.
Unable to tour in support of 2020’s “Italian Ice,” Nicole Atkins did what many performers tried to stave off boredom and stagnation: live-streaming her performances on the internet, first from her attic and then from the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park, N.J. The shows inspired her to strip down the album’s songs, which she reworked and recorded as “Memphis Ice.” No matter the version, the New Jersey-bred, Nashville-based talent’s songwriting evokes both the warm nostalgia of the Brill Building era and the youthful adventures on Jersey Shore boardwalks that continue to inspire her. As she pondered about the new album’s creation, “Why can’t there be new songs that feel like the old standards?”
July 10 at 7:30 p.m. at the Hamilton Live, 600 14th St. NW. live.thehamiltondc.com. $20-$40.
Dusty Locane is an up-and-coming proponent of Brooklyn drill, a shifty, sparse style of rap that was born in Chicago and evolved in the United Kingdom before returning stateside. Like his peers, Locane details gangland tales over unforgiving bass wallop and rat-a-tat percussion that are punctuated by mournful melodies and cinematic samples. His style and raspy growl are reminiscent of Pop Smoke, the ascendant drill star who was killed in 2020 just as his star was rising. Locane grew up in Brooklyn’s Canarsie alongside Pop Smoke and is now carrying the neighborhood’s banner. “I always say, God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers,” he says in press materials. “I just try to stay humble and not get ahead of myself. What I’m doing now, I’m meant to do.”
July 14 at 8:30 p.m. at Union Stage, 740 Water St. SW. unionstage.com. $20-$40. | 2022-07-06T11:50:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 4 concerts to catch in the D.C. area: July 8-14 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/07/06/concerts-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/07/06/concerts-dc/ |
Residents describe the Rockville, Md., neighborhood as 'friendly, warm, incredibly convenient '
By Jillian Atelsek
Though it’s just off Interstate 270 and minutes from downtown Rockville, Md., Potomac Woods’ streets are quiet and lined with mature growth. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Bill Burwell doesn’t hesitate when you ask him what drew him to Rockville’s Potomac Woods neighborhood 15 years ago. It was the trees, he says.
Though it’s just off Interstate 270 and minutes from downtown Rockville, Md., Potomac Woods’ streets are quiet and lined with mature growth. Its sidewalks are shaded in the summertime by a tunnel of green, and residents treasure their easy access to two big, leafy parks.
“You can just walk out your front door and go for a walk in this really undisturbed woods and really not see anybody,” Burwell said. “And then you can drive five minutes and be on Rockville Pike and have all the humanity you want.”
Potomac Woods is a suburban community of 405 single-family homes just southwest of downtown Rockville. Robert Wilson, president of the neighborhood’s citizens association, said it’s mostly populated with younger families.
But there are also some “hangover” folks, Wilson said — people who, like himself, have remained in the neighborhood even though the children they raised there are long gone. Wilson doesn’t plan on leaving any time soon.
“They’ll carry me out of here in a box,” he said. “I love it here.”
Like Burwell, Wilson was enamored with Potomac Woods’ abundant green space when he first toured the neighborhood more than two decades ago. He had a young daughter then, and he wanted her to have plenty of room to run.
Potomac Woods Park, a 42-acre space owned by the city of Rockville that includes basketball and tennis courts, grills, a playground and a gazebo, sits on the eastern edge of the community. On the west side, there’s the 20-acre Falls Road Local Park, operated by Montgomery County.
Residents gather for an annual Labor Day picnic at Potomac Woods Park and enjoy hamburgers, hotdogs and a potluck selection of side dishes and desserts. There’s also pumpkin decorating and a Halloween parade in October, a holiday light contest in December, and a pizza and bingo party each April.
The events give Potomac Woods a welcoming feel, said Laura Bach, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1997 and serves as the treasurer of its citizens association.
When Bach and her husband were shopping for their first home, they wanted an affordable option with easy access to their jobs in downtown Rockville and Washington.
“Potomac Woods ended up checking all the boxes,” she said. The neighborhood offers commuters easy access to the Capital Beltway and the Intercounty Connector.
It was December when Bach finalized her home purchase, she recalled, so she didn’t get a glimpse of the neighborhood in the springtime until months later.
“We couldn’t believe how beautiful it was,” recalled Bach, who also sells homes in the neighborhood as a real estate agent with the Carmen Fontecilla Group at Compass. “All the streets were lined with cherry blossoms, and it was just so vibrant.”
Many working families first start considering the neighborhood for the same reason Bach did, she said: location. But they’re often drawn in by its tree-lined streets or the solid reputation of the nearby public schools.
Despite the community’s proximity to the highway, the layout of its streets makes it a low-traffic place, Wilson said. In fact, visitors sometimes have trouble finding their way into the neighborhood, he added.
“If half a dozen cars a day from outside of the neighborhood travel past my house, that's probably a busy day,” Wilson said.
There are two swim clubs within easy walking distance and several shopping centers within a few minutes’ drive.
“It's just a very friendly, warm, incredibly convenient neighborhood,” Bach said.
Living there: Potomac Woods is bounded by Wootton Parkway to the northeast and Falls Road and Stratton Drive to the west. Lancashire Drive, Stratton Drive and Dunster Lane border the neighborhood to the east, and Derbyshire and Kimblewick roads border it to the south.
Landover Hills is ‘a welcoming community’
Thirty-five homes sold in Potomac Woods in 2021 for an average price of $820,467, Bach said. The most expensive was a four-bedroom, four-bathroom home that listed at $875,000 but sold for just under $1.1 million. The least expensive home was a four-bedroom, three-bathroom home that sold for $690,000.
Seven homes have sold so far in the neighborhood in 2022, ranging from a four-bedroom, three-bathroom home that sold for $830,000 to a five-bedroom, four-bathroom home that sold for $1 million.
A six-bedroom, three-bathroom home is on the market for $830,000, down from $865,000, Bach said. A four-bedroom, four-bathroom home is under contract for $880,000.
Schools: Ritchie Park Elementary, Julius West Middle and Richard Montgomery High.
Transit: The T2 Metro bus stops along Falls Road. The Montgomery County Ride On bus stops along Wootton Parkway. The Rockville Metro station (Red Line) is a seven-minute drive away. | 2022-07-06T12:21:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Neighborhood profile: Potomac Woods - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/06/where-we-live-potomac-woods/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/06/where-we-live-potomac-woods/ |
In this 2021 photo illustration a man types on an illuminated computer keyboard typically favored by computer coders. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Hackers say they’ve breached the data of 1 billion Chinese citizens from a Shanghai police database and offered it for sale, a leak that, if confirmed, would be one of the largest exposures of personal information in history.
In a post last week on an underground hacker forum, an anonymous poster or a group, advertised the availability of the data and released a sample, which purportedly contained 750,000 records. The asking price for the complete, 23-terabyte database was 10 bitcoin, or around $200,000. The post has since been locked by the site.
The data included names, national identification and phone numbers, medical records, details from police reports and other information. While the authenticity of the full database had not been confirmed, a review of some ID numbers appeared to track with information found on a government website.
The apparent hackers said that there were several billion case reports — from thefts to fights to domestic violence, dated between late 1990s to 2019 — and 1 billion records of Chinese citizens’ personal information. If true, the database would cover more than 70 percent of China’s 1.4 billion residents. The personal information and reported incidents were contained in separate files.
Analysis: Here are four big questions about the massive Shanghai police leak
The breach came after China’s Personal Information Protection Law took effect last year, which imposed stringent security safeguards on corporate and government entities that handle personal information. The law was passed after Chinese regulators ordered more than 40 companies to change their operations for violating data transfer rules, Reuters reported.
Kendra Schaefer, the head of tech policy research at China-focused research team Trivium China, said in a Twitter post Monday that the incident was the first major public breach by a government body under the new law. “So it’s unclear who holds who accountable,” she said. The Ministry of Public Security (MSP) would typically oversee cybercrime investigations.
“The records also allegedly contain details on case files of minors,” Schaefer said. “So that would be a violation of the Minor Protection Law.” She raised the possibility that the data contained information of celebrities or officials.
In the released sample data set, certain information was associated with individuals listed under the “seven categories of key people,” a reference to individuals monitored by MSP for suspected criminal activity.
However, it’s also possible the files had been online before the law became effective — it only received public attention after the alleged hacker released it online. Cybersecurity researcher Vinny Troia told CNN that he was made aware of the database in January on a public site, which was opened in April 2021, meaning anyone could have accessed the database since then.
There’s also speculation government staff accidentally included the credentials necessary to access the database in a blog post on the Chinese Software Developer Network, a forum for developers to share code. Changpeng Zhao, the chief executive of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, referenced the theory in a tweet on Monday. He said that the company had “already stepped up verifications” for users who were potentially affected.
Web security consultant Troy Hunt told the Wall Street Journal that the anonymity of the person who offered the sale, as well as the size of the database, raised questions over its accuracy. The solicitation of a large payout also raises the possibility the claim has been exaggerated or falsified, he added.
It was not the first time Chinese police records have been leaked. Earlier this year, a researcher obtained a cache of documents from Xinjiang Police, which detailed draconian surveillance and reeducation practices in the region and shed lights on Beijing’s crackdown on the Uyghur population. | 2022-07-06T12:25:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hackers claim they breached data on 1 billion Chinese residents from police - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/06/china-hack-police/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/06/china-hack-police/ |
Shares of home-goods retailer Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. tumbled to less than $5 last week, marking a 90% slide from the peak in early 2021, as the company ousted its chief executive officer following a failed turnaround effort. To the uninformed, this may seem like just another troubled retailer unable to cope with rapidly changing consumer tastes. The reality is that the plunge represents so much more, perhaps bringing a welcome end to one of the wildest periods in the history of Wall Street.
Bed Bath & Beyond was one of a handful of companies along with GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. that inexplicably captured the fancy of legions of novice traders sitting at home and bored during the pandemic in late 2020 and early 2021 in what became know as the meme stock frenzy. It didn’t matter that a troubled business model caused Bed Bath & Beyond’s revenue and earnings to suffer in the second half of the last decade, leading it’s shares to drop from around $80 in 2014 to less than $4 at the start of the pandemic. For those plying the Reddit message boards and exchanging uninformed opinions and analysis, Wall Street had it all wrong. These companies were diamonds in the rough, with their true potential overlooked. Bed Bath & Beyond shares shot up five-fold over the course of a few months to as high as $53.90 in January 2021.
But Wall Street wasn’t wrong. In what has become one of the worst years on record for the stock market, with the S&P 500 Index down 20%, the Solactive Roundhill Meme Index is down much more, tumbling in excess of 50%.
As the pros suspected would happen, fundamentals did eventually take over and the meme stocks have mostly returned to something akin to fair value. The only thing that the Redditors proved was that an army of novices acting concert can exploit short-term liquidity constraints to push prices around, but in the long run the stock market does an efficient job of separating winners and losers. Some people have framed the era as a war between Main Street and Wall Street, but the only way retail investors can win that war is by conservatively investing for the long term.
And yet, it seems they’re still trying. The self-described “apes” are currently attacking AQR Capital Management founder Cliff Asness for saying he was shorting the shares of movie theater chain AMC. It didn’t matter that Asness went on to say that he’s long and short thousands of stocks and any one position was insignificant, all it took was the mere mention that AMC was one of the many stocks he expected to decline. The AMC believers are indistinguishable from a cult in that they only seem to become more strident in their bullish stance the lower AMC’s share price goes.
My advice to the apes would be to pick almost another stock. Take away the pandemic, and the business prospects for AMC and movie theaters are poor. Sure, there will be occasional hits such as Top Gun: Maverick, but attendance has been declining for a long time. If the apes had instead picked an energy stock, they’d probably be a lot happier.
Frenzies come and go on Wall Street. There was the Nifty Fifty in the 1960s, the speculative craze surrounding a flood of buyouts in the 1980s, the dot-com bubble at the end of the last century and the homebuilders in the 2000s, but none of them - with the possible exception of the dot-com era - ever approached anything like a cult.
The reality is that although the meme stock frenzy created a host of risks for professional investors, it also presented opportunities. Yes, the sudden and tremendous rise in GameStop shares due to overwhelming demand by the Redditors led to the implosion of Melvin Capital Management, but the hedge fund was simply short too much GameStop shares for its own good. Not having all your eggs in one basket is a lesson even the pros should remember.
The opportunity came in the derivatives market, where retail investors were buying so many call options tied to the meme stocks that it induced a “gamma squeeze,” a term that didn’t exist before the meme stocks. The volatility surface—the relationships of options prices across strike prices and maturities—was contorted in ways never seen before. Market makers were able to recognize and profit from the dislocations, facilitating an enormous transfer of wealth from the unsophisticated to the sophisticated.
One could make the argument that without social media, the meme stock frenzy would never have happened. Investors can’t pile into one stock and push the price around in a coordinated fashion without the means to communicate with each other. Could we get another meme stock frenzy in the future? It is entirely possible, even probable. But not in the current environment. It’s only at the top of a bull market when such things are possible.
Meme stock mania is clearly over at this point, and yet the Redditors are still clinging to hope. I wouldn’t feel too bad for them. There is no shortage of information available about how to invest responsibly for the long-term, such as to buy and hold index funds, and dollar-cost average along the way. Nevertheless, the lure of easy riches in the stock market can be too great to resist, but the reality is that it’s never easy and never lasts. Too often, the stock market turns out to be one giant bug zapper and the novice investors are the mosquitoes.
• Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: Meme Week Was Too Good to Robinhood
• Generation Z Gets a Harsh Lesson in Stock Risk: Allison Schrager
• Turn Off the Memes, This Party’s Over Like in 2000: John Authers | 2022-07-06T12:26:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Redditors Should Know When They Are Conquered - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-redditors-should-know-when-they-are-conquered/2022/07/06/9a2b5dbc-fd1b-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-redditors-should-know-when-they-are-conquered/2022/07/06/9a2b5dbc-fd1b-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Death penalty’s 50-year rise and fall since Supreme Court struck it down
California Gov. Ronald Reagan, who opposes the abolition of the death penalty, is interviewed by radio reporter Dick Leonard after looking at a newspaper account of the state supreme court ruling on Feb. 17, 1972, that the death penalty is unconstitutional. (Bettmann/Bettmann Archive)
Anthony Amsterdam was in California and wide awake in the predawn hours on June 29, 1972, glued to the news as he awaited word from the U.S. Supreme Court. Earlier in the court’s term, Amsterdam, then a 36-year-old defense lawyer, had argued Furman v. George, a case that asked the court to decide whether the death penalty was constitutional.
Amsterdam had led oral arguments on a six-person legal team representing multiple clients on death row. Among them was William Henry Furman, a Black Georgia man who had been sentenced to death for murder four years earlier after a botched burglary during which Furman said he tripped and accidentally fired his gun.
“Because the decision was slated to come down that morning, I had the radio on,” Amsterdam told The Washington Post last Wednesday, the 50th anniversary of the Furman ruling. “I was listening in the dark.”
As the opinions were announced, Amsterdam remembers reporters screaming over the radio about the court’s decision.
“These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual,” Justice William O. Douglas wrote for the majority.
The court ruled 5 to 4 in Furman’s favor, determining that the death penalty was arbitrarily and “freakishly” imposed, in violation of the Eighth and 14th amendments.
The ruling led to an immediate de facto moratorium on capital punishment across the United States and invalidated the death sentences of nearly 700 people. The justices arrived at their final votes by vastly different paths, writing nine separate opinions for a total of more than 50,000 words — among the court’s lengthiest rulings at the time.
Three justices backed the death penalty — then changed their minds
Fifty years later, the legacy of Furman is as significant as it is complicated.
“What’s important about Furman is that it demonstrated the possibility that the battle for abolition could be won despite the apparent odds, and it encouraged a community of purpose to wage that battle,” Amsterdam said.
But it would take decades for that battle to bear fruit.
The justices didn’t actually declare the death penalty unconstitutional in Furman; rather, they found that states were applying it arbitrarily and in a discriminatory manner. Dozens of states scrambled to rewrite their death penalty laws, and in 1976 in Gregg v. Georgia, the court upheld most of these news laws and the constitutionality of capital punishment.
In the aftermath of Gregg, most states codified the death penalty, and death sentences and executions began an ascent to their highest levels of the modern era.
When the Supreme Court ruled in Furman, annual executions had actually been on the wane for decades, after peaking at 199 in 1935. Death sentences were still handed down, but executions were dwindling and public support was sagging; by 1968, the year Furman was sentenced, fewer than half of Americans favored capital punishment for murder.
The ruling came on the heels of landmark decisions expanding civil rights and criminal justice reform, including Brown v. Board of Education and Miranda v. Arizona. Frank R. Baumgartner, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina and a death penalty historian, said the Furman decision buoyed hopes that the death penalty could be ended permanently and the United States might become a worldwide leader in abolition.
Instead, the rulings in cases including Furman and Miranda sparked a backlash, primarily driven by conservative politicians in the South, which spurred “tough of crime” policies that led to an explosion of executions.
The four dissenting justices in Furman had effectively laid out a road map for states on how to change their laws to make the death penalty less arbitrary and thus pass constitutional muster. States including Louisiana and North Carolina began mandating capital punishment for all homicides.
Those laws were overturned by the 1976 Gregg ruling, but they showed “just how far the governors were willing to go,” Baumgartner said.
Between 1972 and 1977, more than 30 states legalized capital punishment. Executions climbed steadily, hitting a peak in 1999, when there were 279 death sentences and 98 executions, according to data tracked by the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
Baumgartner divides the 50 years of the post-Furman era into two distinct segments. First, there was nearly 25 years of growth and support for the death penalty. Then, after the new millennium, attitudes began to shift, and so did the legal framework.
Supreme Court rulings in 2002 and 2005 found the death penalty unconstitutional for the “mentally retarded” and defendants who committed their crimes as juveniles.
“If Furman instigated the ‘tough on crime’ period, we’re now in the ‘you can’t trust the government to get it right’ period,” Baumgartner said.
Meanwhile, states have steadily abolished the death penalty, and public support for executions, which climbed to as high as 80 percent in the 1990s, has plummeted back down to mid-century levels, dipping to 54 percent in a Gallup poll last year.
Robert Dunham, the executive director of the DPIC, attributes the shift to a range of factors, including the rise of death row exonerations and greater awareness of flaws in the criminal justice system.
“In the 1990s, you didn’t have the stories about the drug-addicted lawyers or lawyers asleep in court or who missed the filing deadline by one day that led to their client’s execution,” he said. “You didn’t have stories about prosecutors hiding exculpatory evidence, presenting junk science, coercing confessions or using snitch testimony that falsely implicated innocent people.”
Many of those issues have been raised in recent high-profile innocence claims of death-row prisoners including Richard Glossip and Julius Jones in Oklahoma, and Melissa Lucio and Rodney Reed in Texas.
Melissa Lucio gets stay of execution so court can consider new evidence
Since 1973, a year after Furman, the DPIC and other groups have identified 189 cases of death-row inmates being exonerated.
“That is one person — wrongly convicted, wrongly sentenced to death and exonerated — for every 8.2 people who have been executed,” Dunham said.
Last year, just 11 people were executed, the lowest number since 1988.
The death penalty has also grown geographic isolated, which just three states — Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas — accounting for a majority of both death sentences and executions in 2021. Five counties, including Harris County, Tex. and Oklahoma County, Okla., account for 20 percent of all executions in the past 50 years.
The majority of executions carried out in the present day are from ’90s-era cases that wouldn’t be capitally prosecuted in 2022, Dunham said.
But he said the states and counties that remain dedicated to the death penalty are engaging in “increasingly extreme conduct.”
Botched executions and an inability to obtain lethal injection drugs are forcing some states to return to methods such as the firing squad and electric chair that were previously deemed too barbaric.
Fifty years after Furman, few of the death penalty’s flaws have been corrected; its opponents argue even more have come to light. It’s a system that observers including Amsterdam see failing under its own weight.
“It will be ended in a few generations at most, not through any decision of the ... Supreme Court,” he said, “but by the actions of prosecutors who increasingly cease to seek death verdicts, juries which increasingly refuse to return death verdicts, state legislatures and state-court judges who are increasingly in closer tune with a wave of public opinion that is increasingly repudiating capital punishment as penologically ineffectual, morally indecent and just plain dumb.” | 2022-07-06T12:26:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Death penalty in 50 years since Supreme Court's Furman v. Georgia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/06/furman-georgia-supreme-court-death/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/06/furman-georgia-supreme-court-death/ |
By Sadie Dingfelder
Stumpy the wood turtle comes home. (Sadie Dingfelder for The Washington Post)
A wild turtle, Stumpy has been meeting up with Tom in these West Virginia woods every spring for more than 30 years. Like his fellow wood turtles, Stumpy spends his winters brumating (the reptile equivalent of hibernating) in a clear, fast-moving stream. As days warm, he emerges from his aquatic home and roams the nearby woods in search of food — first tender leaves, then flowers and, finally, berries. Early on Stumpy’s circuit is Tom’s former house, where the human tosses him huge, juicy strawberries — months before the wild berries are ready to eat.
It took a while for Tom to figure out Stumpy’s species, because Stumpy’s shell is worn and scuffed. Usually, wood turtles have gorgeous shells that appear to have been hand-carved from mahogany. “He was already old when I first saw him, so he must be really old now,” says Tom. “Of course, he could say the same thing about me.”
Curious, personable and uncommonly pretty, wood turtles are highly sought-after as pets, says Andrew Walde, chief operating officer of the Turtle Survival Alliance, whom I called after my first visit to Stumpy Acres. This combination of characteristics makes them vulnerable to poachers, who sell them as pets. “Whenever anything gets published about a particular population, that population is done for,” Walde says. (To protect Stumpy and the other wood turtles from poachers, we aren’t publishing his exact location or his human friends’ last names.)
The eastern panhandle of West Virginia is among wood turtles’ last strongholds, Walde says. Across most of their range, they are in steep decline. Indeed, half of the world’s 357 turtle species are threatened with extinction due to habitat loss, poaching and other human pastimes. This is an animal that survived not one, but two mass-extinction events: the massive volcanic eruptions that paved the way for the dinosaurs and the meteor strike that ended their reign. But surviving the Anthropocene might be too much for even these sturdiest of creatures.
Tom makes a visor out of his hand and peers into the woods, but there’s nary a turtle to be seen. Could Stumpy have succumbed to habitat loss or poachers, or maybe just old age? (The wood turtle longevity record is 58.) It’s a shocking thought that a creature who seems all-but-eternal would just suddenly be gone. “I hope he hasn’t gone to the big turtle pond in the sky,” Tom says, before giving up for the day.
Tom no longer lives in Stumpy’s territory. Last spring, he sold his house and moved to a more remote spot, high on a nearby mountain. He loved being by the river, but the pandemic brought an influx of tourists and new homeowners. The noise and traffic were bad enough, but worst of all was their aggressive landscaping. “One family clear-cut all the way down to the river,” Tom says. “They didn’t want any brush or shrubbery — they are afraid of snakes or this or that — and they kinda destroyed the habitat.”
He was determined to find a buyer who would be a good steward of the land — not just for vague environmental reasons, but for Stumpy’s sake, too. Luckily, the first person who came to look at the house fit the bill. Tommy, a 28-year-old computer programmer from D.C., told Tom about the sea turtle conservation project he had worked on one summer in Costa Rica, and he promised not to clear-cut the property to get a river view or better internet access. “We talked about Stumpy, and he said, ‘Oh sure, I’d love to take care of the turtle,’ ” the elder Tom recalls. “He also said I could visit Stumpy anytime I wanted.”
Pretty soon, Stumpy’s face is covered in pink pulp, and he’s got half a strawberry hanging from his chin. His species may be threatened, his habitat may be imperiled, but in this moment Stumpy seems delighted. “He’s such a messy eater,” says Tom. “Do you see that? What a pig.” Stumpy usually hangs out for a few weeks, making intermittent appearances, Tom says. As to where he goes afterward, no one knows — but Tom has a theory. “Maybe he visits lots of people, up and down the river, and we all think he’s ours.”
Sadie Dingfelder is writer in the Washington area. | 2022-07-06T12:26:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wood turtles are being poached. But Stumpy keeps surviving. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/07/06/west-virginia-box-turtle-nature/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/07/06/west-virginia-box-turtle-nature/ |
Live updates Highland Park shooting suspect to face more charges as community grieves
‘I knew she was dead’: Victim’s daughter recounts last moment with mom
Upcoming charges in parade shooting will center on ‘dozens’ of victims
State police: Suspect’s father sponsored gun permit application; ‘insufficient basis’ to deny
Vice President Harris visits Highland Park, calls out gun access
A candlelight vigil Tuesday, near the scene of the mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill. (Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — Dozens more charges are expected to be filed against the man accused of opening fire on a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, authorities said after charging Robert E. Crimo III with seven counts of first-degree murder.
The 21-year-old is set to appear in court Wednesday, as the Chicago suburb grieves. If convicted, he would face life in prison without parole after a rampage that killed seven people and injured dozens, the latest mass shooting to rattle a traumatized nation. Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said Tuesday the new charges would center on victims, including people who were “psychologically scarred” by an attack that authorities say was weeks in the making.
Investigators said they were still searching for a motive, but reports of the suspect’s past encounters with police raised questions about how he purchased five firearms and whether the massacre could have been averted. In one of two visits in 2019, officers had confiscated knives and a sword from Crimo’s residence after a family member reported that he threatened to “kill everyone.”
Parade spectators who were killed include the parents of a 2-year-old boy, Aiden McCarthy, and a beloved grandfather, Nicolás Toledo-Zaragoza, who recently returned to the city to be with family.
The attack fuels a polarized debate over how to stop mass shootings. There have been over 300 in the United States this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines them as incidents in which four or more people — not including the shooter — are injured or killed.
Vice President Harris visited Highland Park late Tuesday, meeting with police officers and offering condolences to the community.
The daughter of one of the victims in Monday’s shooting in Highland Park, Ill., said she knew her mother was dead when she was shot in the chest as the two were trying to escape from the gunfire.
“And then I looked up, and I saw the shooter shooting down at the kids,” the 22-year-old told NBC News anchor Lester Holt. “And I told her that it was a shooter and that she had to run.”
Shortly after they started running, Katherine Goldstein was shot in the chest and hit the pavement, her daughter said.
When Holt asked about a memory the world should know about her mother, Goldstein said she wanted people to know how she was before she died. She recalled how her mom waved to every float that came by before the shooting began.
“She was just a good mom,” she said. “I got 22 years with her. And I got to have 22 years with the best mom in the world.”
The additional charges that will be filed against the Highland Park shooting suspect will center on each victim, including those who were not physically harmed, a state official said Tuesday.
Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said he anticipates “dozens” of more charges to be filed against Robert E. Crimo III, centering on victims — including “psychological victims.”
“Separate from those seven lives that were ripped away, over two dozen other mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and neighbors were injured,” Rinehart said. “Hundreds, if not thousands, will be psychologically scarred by yesterday’s events.”
The forthcoming charges could include attempted murder, aggravated battery and aggravated discharge of a firearm, Rinehart said.
Crimo was charged with seven counts of first-degree murder on Tuesday. If convicted, Crimo could spend life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The revelation that the suspect in the Highland Park parade shooting had at least two previous encounters with law enforcement has raised new questions about how he was able to legally purchase his guns and whether more could have been done to prevent the massacre.
In September 2019, a family member told Highland Park police that the man, Robert E. Crimo III, had threatened to “kill everyone,” said Christopher Covelli, a spokesman for the Lake County Major Crime Task Force. Officers visited Crimo’s home and confiscated 16 knives, a dagger and a sword, but made no arrest, Covelli said on Tuesday, because they lacked probable cause. However, they notified Illinois State Police, he said.
Months later, in December, Crimo applied for a firearm owner’s identification card, the document required to possess a gun in Illinois. Because Crimo was under 21 at the time, state law required him to have the consent of a parent or guardian before he could own a firearm or ammunition. According to state police, which issues the cards, Crimo’s father sponsored his permit application.
By Kendra Nichols7:03 a.m.
Vice President Harris visited Highland Park, Ill., a day after the mass shooting on July 4 and urged community members to "hold each other tight." (Video: Reuters)
Vice President Harris visited the city of Highland Park, Ill., on Tuesday evening, meeting with police officers and offering condolences to the community from herself and President Biden.
“There’s a lot of healing that’s going to have to happen that is both physical and emotional,” Harris said, urging community members to “hold each other tight” and seek support for the trauma they have faced.
She promised that federal assistance would continue to be provided and that the shooter would be brought to justice, “but it’s not going to undo what happened.”
She also emphasized her comments from earlier in the day, when she spoke before a National Education Association summit in Chicago, calling on Congress to “have the courage to act and renew the assault weapons ban” in light of the shooting.
“We’ve got to be smarter as a country in terms of who has access to what, in particular assault weapons,” she said in Highland Park. “And we’ve got to take this stuff seriously.” | 2022-07-06T12:26:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Highland Park parade shooting live updates: Robert E. Crimo III to face more charges - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/06/highland-park-parade-shooting-live-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/06/highland-park-parade-shooting-live-updates/ |
Why the Buffalo supermarket slaughter should be a death penalty case
Attorney General Merrick Garland visits the Tops Friendly Market grocery store in Buffalo on June 15, the site of a May mass shooting during which 10 Black people were killed. (Carolyn Thompson/AP)
Of the many thorny policy questions facing Attorney General Merrick Garland, this one would seem relatively straightforward: Should the Justice Department seek the death penalty for 18-year-0ld Payton Gendron, accused of murdering 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket on May 14?
Gendron has pleaded not guilty, but the case seems open and shut. Police said he was arrested at the scene with the murder weapon. Gendron expressed hateful white supremacist motivation in a 180-page screed posted online. His alleged crimes clearly fall within federal criminal laws that provide for the death penalty.
Yet Garland, who led the federal prosecution that resulted in Timothy McVeigh’s execution for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168, is being tugged in different directions, The Post’s David Nakamura reports. Some family members of the Black victims want Gendron to face the death penalty, but civil rights groups contend that racism so badly taints U.S. capital punishment, it should not even be sought against a white supremacist mass murderer.
“The reality for us is that the system is too often infused with racial bias,” Maya Wiley, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, told Nakamura. “That doesn’t change because someone who is White, and who perpetrated violence against Black people, is put to death.”
Such are the ironies of capital punishment in the United States, one of the last two industrialized democracies — along with Japan — that retains it.
There is only one perfectly consistent position on the death penalty: abolition. One need not share the perspective of civil rights leaders and other death penalty opponents, who say no to it even in a case such as the Buffalo massacre, to respect it.
Everyone else must deal with trade-offs, dilemmas and judgment calls. “Everyone else” includes Garland, who, despite President Biden’s support for a moratorium on federal executions — and his own expressed second thoughts about the death penalty — has fought legal efforts by Dylann Roof and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to overturn their federal death sentences, for the 2015 massacre of nine Black people in Charleston, S.C., and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, respectively. The Justice Department is also seeking death for another alleged hate criminal, antisemite Robert Bowers, accused of killing 11 and wounding six at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.
To seek death for Gendron would help establish a new norm, in which authors of mass shootings must expect to face capital punishment, especially when they kill with racist intent. To exempt Gendron, meanwhile, would be inconsistent with Justice’s handling of the Roof case.
“Everyone else” also includes 60 percent of U.S. adults who favor the death penalty for murder, as per a 2021 Pew Research Center survey. That’s a five-point drop since 2019, but within the historical range — and well above the all-time low of 47 percent, recorded by Gallup in 1966.
Majority support for capital punishment — at least in principle — persists because of ancient moral intuitions about retribution and the need to incapacitate, definitively, especially evil offenders. It persists alongside public awareness of the U.S. death penalty’s defects. In the same 2021 Pew survey that found 60 percent support for the death penalty, 78 percent said there is a risk of executing an innocent person.
Opposition to the death penalty is strongest among three demographic groups, according to Pew: atheists (65 percent opposed); liberal Democrats (64 percent) and advanced degree holders (55 percent). By contrast, 68 percent of non-college adults support the death penalty. So do 58 percent of Catholics, despite the Vatican’s contrary position.
Among racial groups, Black people express the least support for capital punishment, in part because of racial bias in its imposition over history. Still, Black opinion is divided evenly, 49-49 percent, between pro and con, according to Pew. Fifty-three percent of non-college Black people support the death penalty; Black protestants favor it 50-47 percent.
It is true, as death penalty opponents often emphasize, that only 27 states still permit the death penalty, down from 38 in 2000, and that death sentences, executions and the death row population have all declined substantially in recent years.
The prospect of a federal death penalty for Gendron for acts committed in New York, a non-death penalty state, reminds us capital punishment remains the law nationwide, however; Oklahoma’s newly announced plan to execute 25 death-row inmates over the next 29 months shows that red states remain committed to it.
History teaches that public opinion on capital punishment ebbs and flows with the violent crime rate. Support hit an all-time low in 1966 after a decades-long crime decline and peaked — at 80 percent — in 1996 after a prolonged crime wave.
The death penalty’s decline in the past 25 years probably reflects lessening crime since the mid-1990s. Fewer murders meant fewer death-eligible crimes; greater security opened minds to less punitive policy. It follows that reducing crime is a good way to reduce both imposition of the death penalty, and public support for it. Lately, however, violent crime has been rising. | 2022-07-06T12:26:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why the Buffalo supermarket slaughter should be a death penalty case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/06/buffalo-supermarket-shooting-death-penalty/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/06/buffalo-supermarket-shooting-death-penalty/ |
Democrats can’t rely on Biden if he doesn’t rhetorically meet the moment
People’s belongings are strewn about, abandoned on July 5 after the shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill. (Cheney Orr/Reuters)
President Biden and his team came into office with the benighted belief that they could “lower the temperature” in Washington and reduce the profile of the presidency. The result, Biden hoped, would be more functional and productive politics.
It did not work. Instead, he has too frequently ceded rhetorical energy to Republicans and has demoralized his own side by coming across as blasé in the face of outrageous developments.
Biden’s tough rhetoric often lasts no more than one speech (e.g., his speech in Atlantic rebuking Georgia’s voting restrictions, his White House speech decrying the mass shooting in Uvalde, Tex.) before he returns to speaking in pale pastels. His thirst for bipartisanship, whetted by limited success on guns and noncontroversial deals on infrastructure, appears to have sapped him of the righteous anger our times demand.
Biden’s first reaction to the shooting in Highland Park, Ill., on July 4 was illustrative. Granted, he was speaking to military families on a holiday, but his words Monday afternoon struck the wrong note. “You all heard what happened today,” he said, not even using the word “shooting” or mentioning the location. He continued, “I know many Americans look around today and see a divided country and are deeply worried about that fact. I understand. But I believe we’re more united than we are divided.”
Actually, we’re more divided than ever — and increasingly so thanks to the Supreme Court. And the worry is not that we are divided, but that our democracy is imperiled.
Biden’s written remarks were somber and more heartfelt, but devoid of anger. “Jill and I are shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day,” the statement read. “As always, we are grateful for the first responders and law enforcement on the scene.” He noted the gun reforms he recently signed into law and meekly offered that “there is much more work to do, and I’m not going to give up fighting the epidemic of gun violence.” It sounded depressed, not defiant.
The murmurs of dissatisfaction rolling through the Democratic Party in part stem from a sense that his serene, platitudinous language and disinclination to fully denounce the GOP only minimize the dangers we face and disguises the extremism of democracy’s opponents. Whether it is his reflexive opposition to court reform or his characterization of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as being “rational” on guns, Biden’s responses do not match the level of fear, frustration and anger that millions of Americans feel.
Democrats cheered when Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) said in the wake of the July 4 massacre, “If you’re angry today, I’m here to tell you: Be angry. I’m furious. I’m furious that yet more innocent lives were taken by gun violence.” He continued, “While we celebrate the Fourth of July just once a year, mass shootings have become our weekly — yes, weekly — American tradition.” He added, “There are going to be people who say that today is not the day, that now is not the time, to talk about guns. I’m telling you there is no better day and no better time than right here and right now.” That is how a leader talks.
Certainly, the country does not need an alarmist president. But for those on the front lines battling for democracy, racial justice, women’s autonomy and an end to gun violence, anodyne statements and grating paeans to bipartisanship reinforce the sense that Biden is out of touch and unprepared to “battle for the soul of our nation.”
Instead, the White House appears to suffer from the mentality that defending Democrats amounts to Trumpism on the left. Cedric L. Richmond, a former Democratic representative from Louisiana who left his seat to work in the Biden White House, recently told CNN: “The country didn’t elect Joe Biden because they wanted a Democratic Donald Trump to go out there every day and divide the country more.” In Richmond’s mind, demanding Biden speak up more aggressively is the “the same foolishness that got us Donald Trump.”
That’s just daft. It shows an utter lack of appreciation for the nature of the GOP and the critical need to mobilize the rest of the country in defense of democratic values. Surely, Democrats are hoping the rest of the administration doesn’t buy into this.
Ironically, Democrats for the moment have the upper hand on some of the most powerful issues, including gun safety and abortion. It’s obvious that McConnell desperately wants to change the topic. (Remember when “cultural issues” were losers for Democrats?) That is because these issues animate millions of voters, especially suburbanites and women.
Unlike Biden, Democrats up and down the ballot appear to recognize we are at an inflection point. Rather than wait for direction from the president or some unified message from advocacy groups, they should continue doing precisely what they have begun: Highlight the cruelty, extremism and unfitness of their opponents. Run on women’s autonomy and ending senseless gun violence. Put initiatives on the ballot to draw voters to the polls. Condemn a radical, out-of-control Supreme Court and vow to reform it — by filibuster reform if necessary.
If the president, the leader of his party, cannot channel that and capture the zeitgeist, the party will need to do it without him. If that happens, the sense that Biden is not the man for the moment will only intensify. | 2022-07-06T12:26:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Biden's reaction to the Highland Park shooting was missing passion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/06/highland-park-shooting-biden-reaction-rhetoric/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/06/highland-park-shooting-biden-reaction-rhetoric/ |
Q: My 14-year-old grandson is an only child. He’s kind, loyal and easygoing, and children gravitate toward him. He’s on his own after school. (I live/parents work nearby.) It’s not uncommon for him to have four or five kids in his room, four to five days a week. On school days, they arrive on the after-school bus and stay until 8:30 to 9 p.m., when his parents get home from work. They often stay later on the weekends. They are respectful, well-behaved kids.
A: I have been revisiting the book “Hunt, Gather, Parent” by Michaeleen Doucleff. In it, there is a section where she lives with a Tanzanian tribe called the Hadzabe. This tribe is known for its use of “alloparenting,” with the Greek root “allo” meaning “other.” The mothers and fathers, as well as the adults in the tribe, share the responsibilities of parenting. One of the details I found special was that, when a Hadzabe child wanders off, one of the adults follows the child at a safe distance to ensure the child is safe. The child never knows! I thought of this tribe when I read your letter, because, whether you know it, you are alloparenting these teens. You are providing them with a safe place to be and a meal, and this is deeply nourishing on many levels.
First, if you can, I would switch your perspective from it being a burden to house and feed these kids to it being a chance to keep them safe and fed. There are many shenanigans that teens can get into if left to their own devices, and we don’t know what is happening at the homes of these children. For all we know, being with your grandson could be a refuge from emotional, sexual and physical abuse. I don’t want to guilt you into spending your life savings on food; it is just a subtle shift in understanding what you are providing.
Second, address the practical issues of the food. I would find affordable recipes (spaghetti and meatballs, chili, soup), and I would put those teens to work by chopping, mixing, boiling, you name it. Fourteen-year-olds can be excellent chefs, and it can be quick work if they do it together. Task them with finding the highest-value dinners that are still delicious and nutritious, then get them involved, thus relieving yourself of the burden. They should also be helping with the dishes. Ten hands can get a lot of work done — quickly.
Third, take a hard look at your expenses. Money needs are real, so if we remove the takeout, do the numbers start to look a little better? If not, send a text to the other parents, saying: “I love the kids being here and am happy to continue to feed them every night! But they have teen appetites, and I am needing about $20 per kid for the month. Here’s my Venmo.” I will speak for myself here: If I received that text, I would profusely thank the parents for feeding my child and immediately send the money (plus some). | 2022-07-06T12:26:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why do I have to feed all of my grandson's friends? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/07/06/grandma-dinner-teen-friends/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/07/06/grandma-dinner-teen-friends/ |
After West Virginia v. EPA, legislators can draw on this research as they craft responses
Analysis by Leigh Raymond
Traffic slows to a crawl on Highway 101 in San Francisco in March. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) proposal to give $400 to every car owner to offset gasoline prices has prompted criticism that it undercuts the state’s aggressive climate goals. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News)
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA last week seriously limits executive power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Reversing decades of judicial deference to the expertise of agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the court promoted an alternative “Major Questions” doctrine — concluding that federal government agencies have limited discretion to act on matters of “vast economic and political significance.”
In this case, the court curtailed the EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change. The reason? The court ruled that previous EPA regulations exceeded the authority provided to the agency under the 1970 Clean Air Act.
Last week’s decision puts more responsibility on federal and state legislatures to enact new climate policies. If Congress or state legislatures seek to fill this gap, they can draw on an active body of research from political scientists and policy scholars about the most effective policy designs and messages to make climate policies more politically viable. Despite disagreement over some details, one point is clear from this work: Proposed climate policy measures succeed better when they provide clear and tangible benefits for the public.
Carbon pricing isn’t the issue
The use of a “price on pollution” approach has become a leading conflict in the debate over climate politics. Some experts argue that these “price-based” policies, like a carbon tax or emissions trading, are more likely to spark economic objections about higher energy prices, making them less politically viable than traditional regulatory approaches. Numerous studies confirm that arguments about economic effects are especially prominent in climate change politics.
New research, however, suggests that economic arguments can appear just as frequently for traditional regulatory policies as they do for price-based strategies, calling this critique of pricing into question. For example, our new study shows that economic arguments were equally dominant in two recent climate policy debates: Virginia and Ontario, Canada. During the 2020 passage of Virginia’s Clean Economy Act, which took a regulatory approach, nearly 75 percent of the opposing arguments were economic, focused on higher energy prices and taxpayer impacts.
That’s nearly identical to the frequency of economic arguments attacking Ontario’s 2016 price-based policy. The prevalence of economic criticisms of regulatory policies is consistent with the long history of attacks on older U.S. environmental policies for allegedly being too costly. These attacks have targeted, for instance, the Clean Air Act (as advanced by the plaintiffs in the West Virginia case) and the Clean Water Act.
Economic benefits are vital
The research suggests that legislative solutions for any type of climate policy that deliver clear and immediate benefits to the public may prove more effective. That’s especially true when legislation addresses concerns related to energy prices as well as public health.
This strategy was critical to the political success of long-running price-based climate policies like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the northeastern United States that is now adding new states to its original group of adopters. By dedicating the majority of revenue from the price of carbon pollution to helping homeowners reduce their energy consumption and costs, this initiative built a great deal of political support. Other price-based policies have had similar political experiences. Conversely, Ontario’s effort failed, after pushback that legislators had ignored public concerns about energy costs.
At the same time, research indicates that tangible economic benefits for the public also increase the popularity of non-price-based approaches like the Green New Deal. Support for mandates and public investment policies to increase renewable energy production increases when combined with tangible economic benefits like new jobs, higher wages or better housing opportunities.
Local air quality is important
Surprisingly, another critical consideration for any climate policy appears to be improvements in local air quality. Climate change experts tend to describe emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other “air toxics” as “co-pollutants” associated with greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. But these co-pollutants are often key the politics of environmental policy.
States like California have only been able to extend their ambitious climate policy goals through a growing emphasis on reducing air toxics, especially for disadvantaged communities often subject to higher levels of local air pollution. The research shows this trend toward greater consideration of local air quality improvements in climate policy has spread to other jurisdictions and is another important tangible benefit that politically successful climate legislation is likely to require.
Could the U.S. soon be on track to cut carbon emissions in half?
Public benefits may be the key to successful climate legislation
Thus, there’s surprising agreement on what drives greater political support for climate legislation. Voters appear more likely to support legislation that delivers tangible and immediate benefits to the public.
Legislators who want to act on climate change after the recent Supreme Court decision may wish to keep this principle of public benefits in mind — rather than being distracted by arguments over whether to use a price-based policy in seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Leigh Raymond, a professor of political science at Purdue University, is the author of “Reclaiming the Atmospheric Commons: The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and a New Model of Emissions Trading” (MIT Press, 2016). | 2022-07-06T12:27:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What can state legislatures do to slow down climate change? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/06/epa-climate-change-states-congress/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/06/epa-climate-change-states-congress/ |
El Salvador, which made bitcoin legal currency last year, is trying to use cryptocurrency to attract tourists and reduce poverty
By Isabella Rolz
On the coastline of El Salvador near Shalpa Beach, Lagarza is a small, bohemian hostel ideal for surfers and backpackers who want to experience a budget vacation surrounded by nature.
There are the black-sand beach, clear sunsets with eye-popping colors and the sound of relaxing music coming from the poolside bar. At the reception, there is a sign that says, “We accept bitcoin.”
Daniel García, 31, Lagarza’s owner, checks his phone to see how many transactions he has received in bitcoin since El Salvador adopted it as legal currency alongside the U.S. dollar in 2021; he could only count 15.
“The vast majority of guests still prefer to use a credit card or pay with cash,” García says. He recalls that the only few foreigners who have paid like this, do it to “say ‘I paid my beer in bitcoin,’ and they get pretty excited to see that the transaction was approved.”
Like other countries in the Central American region, El Salvador is trying to become a bitcoin hub to attract tourism and reduce its poverty rate.
Last year, the country became the first to adopt bitcoin as a legal tender, despite pushback from residents. While cryptocurrency supporters say it will boost the economy, skeptics fear it will cause instability, inflation and money laundering in a nation with a poverty rate that reached 36.4 percent in 2020, one of the highest in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
This crypto investing was supposed to be “stable.” It’s a wild ride.
According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, tourism made up about 6 percent of El Salvador’s gross domestic product in 2021.
Recent bitcoin losses have added to fears that El Salvador will default on its debt after President Nayib Bukele invested hundreds of millions into the cryptocurrency.
Approximately 20 minutes from Shalpa, there is El Zonte, a popular surfer beach. The route to the waterfront is rural, with unfinished stone roads, small businesses and street vendors. Bitcoin is accepted everywhere; There’s a sign at the entrance that reads “Welcome to Bitcoin Beach,” and there’s even a bitcoin ATM in the area.
In 2019, two years before bitcoin was adopted as a legal tender, Mike Peterson, a former investment adviser from the United States, moved to El Salvador with the objective of introducing crypto in El Zonte and renaming the area.
Central America struggles to bring back tourism
El Salvador’s government and Peterson are hoping that this tourist beach will attract investment by finding a way to build a sustainable cryptocurrency community. However, it faces the same challenges as Shalpa.
People “really don’t use bitcoin because they don’t understand it and the minority who do are tourists,” said Ismael López, 32, one of El Zonte’s security guards.
“Bitcoin is still in what is called its discovery phase, and its value depends fundamentally on its level of adoption. Cryptocurrencies are the money of the future, but for them to be also the money of the present … their value has to be sufficiently stable,” said Enrique Dans, professor of information systems at IE Business School in Spain.
Locals who live below the poverty line and run cash-based businesses aren’t familiar with this type of technology and the risks of bitcoin. “These countries should take into consideration that the use of bitcoin requires the population to have access to digital media, and this can’t be taken for granted in the region,” Dans says.
Like the case of “Bitcoin Beach” in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras are replicating the same idea by creating a cryptocurrency hub in tourist areas. Patrick Melder, 54, from Houston, recently launched the “Bitcoin Lake” project near Atitlán, a volcanic lake located in southwest Guatemala. Surrounded by small towns, it also attracts tourists who want to enjoy nature and outdoor adventures.
As the implementation of cryptocurrencies continues in these areas, experts say a potential solution to educate locals is to work on financial literacy, which means teaching people how to manage e-wallets, showing them how to make mobile payments and, most importantly, creating public awareness of the risks of cryptocurrency. “Making a country’s population literate in the use of cryptocurrencies is something that can have very positive effects on its competitiveness in the future,” Dans says.
In Honduras, Juan Mayén is the bitcoin pioneer. The 28-year-old recently started “La Bitconeira,” a business that is installing bitcoin ATMs around the country, including in La Ceiba, another tourist zone that offers similar amenities to the beaches in El Salvador and Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. “We’ve taught over 100 Hondurans how to create a wallet, receive bitcoin and insert cash in the ATM,” Mayén says. “We have people come from rural areas, and we try to explain to them to the best of our ability that whoever has a smartphone can download an e-wallet.”
But even if locals become more crypto literate, will visitors actually use it?
Back in El Zonte, Oscar Nevermann, 29, from Sweden and Lauren Shekla, 26, from Germany waited for their check at vegan restaurant Colocha Café. Enthusiastically, Shekla pulled out her phone and tried to send the transaction “the way I pictured it in my mind,” she says.
“Honestly, we just want to pay with bitcoin because it is the first country in Central America that accepted it, so we just want to see out of curiosity, if it is as simple to use as everyone claims,” Nevermann says.
Moments later, they had to pay with cash instead because despite the business saying it accepted bitcoin, the waitress didn’t understand how to use it. | 2022-07-06T12:27:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Central America hoped bitcoin would attract tourists. It hasn’t worked. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/07/06/el-salvador-bitcoin-beach/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/07/06/el-salvador-bitcoin-beach/ |
3 SEA OF TRANQUILITY (Knopf, $25). By Emily St. John Mandel. The author of “Station Eleven” and “The Glass Hotel” explores the psychological implications of time travel for characters from different centuries.
5 THIS TIME TOMORROW (Riverhead, $28). By Emma Straub. A woman falls asleep on the eve of her 40th birthday and wakes to find herself 16 again.
8 THE PARIS APARTMENT (Morrow, $28.99). By Lucy Foley. A woman investigating her brother’s disappearance suspects that his neighbors might have been involved.
9 SPARRING PARTNERS (Doubleday, $28.95). By John Grisham. A collection of three novellas includes the story of a death row inmate awaiting his imminent execution.
10 NIGHTCRAWLING (Knopf, $28). By Leila Mottley. A young woman trying to find a way out of poverty gets entangled in a police scandal.
4 ROGUES (Doubleday, $30). By Patrick Radden Keefe. A collection of the award-wining journalist’s articles about criminals and con artists.
9 THE 1619 PROJECT (One World, $38). By Nikole Hannah-Jones and the New York Times Magazine. Essays contextualize the history of slavery as part of the founding of the United States.
10 EMBRACE FEARLESSLY THE BURNING WORLD (Random House, $28). By Barry Lopez. A posthumous collection of essays by the National Book Award–winning nature writer.
Rankings reflect sales for the week ended July 3. The charts may not be reproduced without permission from the American Booksellers Association, the trade association for independent bookstores in the United States, and indiebound.org. Copyright 2022 American Booksellers Association. (The bestseller lists alternate between hardcover and paperback each week.) | 2022-07-06T12:34:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Washington Post hardcover bestsellers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/washington-post-hardcover-bestsellers/2022/07/05/57925838-fc90-11ec-a7eb-d66bb98bbf0f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/washington-post-hardcover-bestsellers/2022/07/05/57925838-fc90-11ec-a7eb-d66bb98bbf0f_story.html |
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