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The Supreme Court’s gun decision will lead to more violent crime
Perspective by John J. Donohue
John J. Donohue is the C. Wendell and Edith M. Carlsmith professor of law at Stanford University, and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The Supreme Court’s gun decision will lead to more violent crime (For The Washington Post)
In one of its major decisions this term, the Supreme Court struck down a 109-year-old New York law that said that only people who could demonstrate a compelling need to carry a gun could do so. Simply living in a dangerous neighborhood and wanting to protect oneself from crime wasn’t good enough, New York said — a judgment the court deemed unconstitutional, as it announced “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”
Whatever one’s view of the best way to interpret the Second Amendment, we unfortunately know what effects this ruling will have in the relatively few states that still restrict the carrying of weapons (such as New York, California, New Jersey and Massachusetts). It will cause a spike in violent crime, lead to more guns being stolen, and result in the police solving fewer violent-crime cases. We know that’s true because research has established that that’s what has happened in other states that have liberalized their gun-carry laws. No doubt, as gun-rights advocates never tire of arguing, people carrying guns are able to thwart some small number of crimes. But the data shows that those positive effects are swamped by a more general rise in violent gun crime and related negative outcomes.
In the last five years, more than a dozen empirical studies have concluded that right-to-carry laws increase violent crime. The latest found that, of the 47 largest cities in the United States, those in the states adopting right-to-carry laws experienced a roughly 30 percent increase in firearm-related violent crime (that is, homicide, aggravated assault and robbery). This city-based research — conducted by me, Stanford researchers Matthew Bondy and Samuel Cai, and Philip J. Cook of Duke — buttresses earlier findings, rooted in state-level data, of increased violent crime.
Researchers can identify the effects of right-to-carry laws because they have been slowly adopted over several decades. As of 1987, 16 states and the District of Columbia banned concealed carry, and 26 states heavily restricted such carrying of weapons. (Even Texas largely banned the carrying of firearms outside the home from 1870 to 1995.) But the gun lobby has campaigned to expand the “right to carry” to every state in the union, and the resulting staggered adoption by many states of these laws aids researchers in the effort to ascertain their impact.
Our study drew on data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports and Supplementary Homicide Reports, from 1979 to 2019. As a first step in the study, we determined that the passage of right to carry (RTC) laws wasn’t a reaction to a rise in crimes in the cities we examined. If that had been true, it would complicate teasing out the cause and effect of the passage of these statutes. Passing a law in response to a temporary spike in crime — such as one induced by a pandemic — might appear to be effective when crime returns to normal as the pandemic recedes; conversely, if a law were enacted in response to an upward trend in crime, one might conclude that the policy was ineffective if crime continued to rise — even if the law in fact restrained the subsequent crime increase.
In some cases, we were surprised by what we did not find. Astonishingly, as more states embraced the right to carry, the rate at which Americans used a gun in response to a criminal threat didn’t budge. People confronted by criminals used guns 0.9 percent of the time, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey for 1992-2001 as well as for 2007-2011. Let that sink in: As the proportion of the U.S. population covered by RTC laws expanded to 67 percent across the nation and as the number of permits rose across almost all states, there was no increase in the likelihood that a “good guy with a gun” would defend themselves against an assailant.
Naturally, our paper looked closely at the impact of RTC laws on levels of overall violent crime, as well as, separately, firearm and non-firearm crime. Whether one looked at all violent crime or specifically at homicide, robbery and aggravated assault, there was one consistent finding (although not every result was statistically significant): Overall crime always rose, and firearm-related crime rose even more significantly. Our methods don’t allow us to determine the precise mechanism by which crime is increasing, but clearly routine conflicts — road rage incidents, for example — are far more likely to end badly when so many citizens are armed. Furthermore, the widespread carrying of guns further incentivizes criminals to make sure they are packing. The latter fact likely explains why firearm robbery showed the single highest rate of growth of any crime — a highly statistically significant increase of roughly a third.
Our paper highlighted two important costs of gun carrying that have largely been overlooked. First, RTC laws lead to a dramatic 35 percent increase in gun thefts. Police reports from around the country attribute the bulk of this theft to guns left in often unlocked cars. Our research found that the level of gun carrying in RTC states during the period we studied transferred, via theft, about 100,000 guns from “good guys” to criminals each year. With the new Supreme Court decision, that figure will grow. This free path to gun ownership is a great bonanza for criminals.
The second novel contribution of our paper is the discovery that police clearance rates for violent crimes drop as RTC policies take effect. Remarkably, we found that in the wake of RTC adoption, the ability of police to close the books on cases fell by a statistically significant 13 percent. This is not simply a product of more crime overwhelming the police, we know, because even when we control for the higher levels of crime caused by RTC laws, we still see statistically significant decreases in crime clearance rates. Right-to-carry laws lead to more criminals being out on the streets because they have not been identified and apprehended.
Police effectiveness in solving crime is impaired, we propose, because officers have to deal with an abundant set of challenges with a more armed public. Simply processing the enormous jump in gun thefts expends police resources that could be devoted to fighting crime. Additionally, every inadvertent discharge of a weapon outside the home, even those that do not lead to injuries, generates a police response that diverts law enforcement from their crime-fighting duties. And in ways both subtle and less subtle, police may decline to intervene in situations in which they fear getting shot — they are trained to internalize that shootings are the biggest risk they face — which leads more criminals to get away with their misdeeds.
Of course, rising crime is not the only consequence of creating a situation in which many people on the street are armed. The likelihood of police shootings — both justified and unjustified — rises. When police show up at an active crime scene and find guns drawn, it is not often clear who are the miscreants, leading to tragic errors. The police shoot more quickly when they think weapons are present — just think of the Philando Castile case in Minneapolis, where an officer shot Castile during a traffic stop, after Castile told him he was (legally) carrying a weapon, although he was reaching for his wallet. Both the changes in police behavior and the community anger that the police shootings generate undermine law enforcement efforts at fighting crime.
The myth that letting more law-abiding citizens carry firearms increases safety and decreases crime has proved stubbornly hard to dislodge, although it is refuted by many studies. Because of that myth, gun sales and gun carrying are sure to increase in previously restrictive states, But their citizens will largely be wasting money buying guns (and lugging them around), as violent crime around them increases. (There are signs the Supreme Court may be cognizant that the empirical evidence demonstrates that greater gun carrying harms rather than promotes public safety. In the majority opinion in Bruen, Justice Clarence Thomas declared that henceforth courts should entirely disregard the purported benefits of gun safety regulations in evaluating their constitutionality — ostensibly because the only issue is whether they run afoul of the Constitution. But it seems unlikely he would have ruled out the use of empirical studies if they showed that more guns led to less crime.)
Of course, there are other measures besides gun safety regulations that reduce crime. If states want to pay for these measures, they could presumably offset the greater firearm violence that Bruen will unleash. Gun license fees, for instance, could be imposed to help police departments hire more detectives, which could help elevate sagging clearance rates. Research also shows that hiring more police (and training them better) reduces crime. If government wants to take a longer-term (and more humane) approach, it can enact policies to improve the early life experience of children, which can cost-effectively bring major crime reduction benefits.
It’s unarguable, however, that with Bruen the Supreme Court has taken an important crime-fighting tool away from the few remaining states that still had restrictive gun-carry laws. It’s unarguable that the court has made the already-difficult job of fighting crime that much harder. | 2022-07-08T19:19:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Supreme Court's gun decision, Bruen, will lead to more violence - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/07/08/guns-crime-bruen-supreme-court/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/07/08/guns-crime-bruen-supreme-court/ |
The victim went to Indiana for the procedure when an Ohio ban outlawing abortion after six weeks took effect after the Supreme Court erased Roe v. Wade
President Biden delivers remarks before signing an executive order on protecting access to reproductive-health-care services in Washington. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Delivering impassioned remarks on the future of abortion access in the United States, President Biden on Friday expressed outrage over the case of a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio who was forced to travel across the state line to undergo an abortion.
“She was forced to have to travel out of the state to Indiana to seek to terminate the pregnancy and maybe save her life,” Biden said in remarks at the White House. “Ten years old — 10 years old! — raped, six weeks pregnant, already traumatized, was forced to travel to another state.”
The Indianapolis Star reported last week that, three days after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, a doctor in Ohio who treats children who have been abused called an Indianapolis-based obstetrician-gynecologist to tell her about the case of a 10-year-old patient, a rape victim, who needed an abortion.
Ohio passed a law in 2019 that made abortion illegal around six weeks, when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Hours after the Supreme Court erased Roe, the Ohio law took effect. The girl was, at that point, six weeks and three days pregnant.
The Ohio doctor asked the Indiana doctor if there were anything they could do for the girl. She later was able to cross state lines to receive an abortion under the Indiana doctor’s care.
While performing an abortion before six weeks is still legal in Indiana, lawmakers in the state will be meeting later this month to consider further abortion restrictions. According to the Indianapolis Star, abortion providers in the state have been receiving more calls from patients out-of-state requesting abortion services.
Abortions performed on patients younger than age 15 in the country are rare — in 2019, only 0.2 percent of reported abortions were performed on patients that young, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As he retold the girl’s story Friday, Biden grew visibly upset. A 10-year-old girl, he said, should not “be forced to give birth to a rapist’s child.”
Biden’s focus on the child came shortly before he signed an executive order to protect abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court decision. The administration has faced pressure from other Democrats to do more, but Biden acknowledged that his executive power has limits.
The Supreme Court’s ruling, he said, was “terrible, extreme, and I think so totally wrongheaded decision.”
He added that, in his view, the court’s majority is “playing fast and loose with the facts” in its opinion by misrepresenting the history of abortion rights in America.
“I can’t think of anything as much more extreme as [the] court’s decision,” an emotional Biden said.
Biden’s remarks on the 10-year-old’s case were far different from Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), who focused on the criminal act, calling the sexual assault of the child a “tragedy,” according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, saying that what the state has out there, “obviously, [is] a rapist.”
“We have someone who is dangerous and we have someone who should be picked up and locked up forever,” DeWine said.
He did not, however, comment on the Ohio law he signed that barred her from receiving an abortion in the state.
“This is a horrible, horrible tragedy for a 10-year-old to be assaulted, for a 10-year-old to be raped,” DeWine said Wednesday, according to the Enquirer. “As a father and as a grandfather, it’s just gut-wrenching to even think about it.”
The Ohio law was one of so-called trigger bans that went into effect in several states immediately after the court struck down Roe.
At the daily briefing after Biden’s remarks, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president discussed the girl’s case “just to show how extreme the decision on the Dobbs decision was and just how extreme it is now for the American public.”
“When you have such a young girl who has to carry out the child of a rapist, that is unacceptable,” Jean-Pierre said. “This is why he is calling for action. This is why he’s trying to do everything that he can from his legal authority that he has.”
Biden, Jean-Pierre said, is “going to do everything that he can to protect young people who are like this young girl.”
“But at the same time, he’s going to call it out and use his bully pulpit to make it clear of what is happening out there is unacceptable,” she added.
The president, during his remarks Friday, also warned of a future in which Republicans in Congress would feel emboldened to pass a national ban on abortion. Such a measure, he said, would not become law under his watch because he would veto it.
“We cannot allow an out-of-control Supreme Court, working in conjunction with extremist elements of the Republican Party, to take away freedoms and our personal autonomy,” he said. | 2022-07-08T19:19:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden decries case of 10-year-old rape victim forced to travel from Ohio to Indiana for abortion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/08/biden-abortion-10-year-old-rape-victim/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/08/biden-abortion-10-year-old-rape-victim/ |
Domestic terror cases increasingly cross borders, FBI director says
British intelligence chief says that young neo-Nazi suspects obsessed with weapons present a “cocktail of risk" around the globe.
Attorney General Merrick Garland visits the Tops Friendly Market grocery store in Buffalo on June 15. A May 14 mass shooting there left 10 Black people dead. (Carolyn Thompson/AP)
LONDON — Many domestic terrorism cases now have an international component, as would-be killers are “egging each other on” and drawing inspiration from racist or neo-Nazi attacks overseas, the head of the FBI and his British counterpart said Friday.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, speaking to reporters alongside Ken McCallum, director general of the British domestic security agency MI5, said their agencies have spent decades developing tip-sharing systems to handle international terrorism cases, but that “muscle memory” is now being applied to domestic terrorism investigations.
“Travel and technology,” Wray said, “have really blurred the lines between foreign and domestic threats.”
The FBI director said the frequently-cited expression of “connecting the dots” to stop a terrorist attack has taken on a new kind of urgency for many investigators because attackers can mobilize so quickly and often are not part of a large, well-established network.
In many terrorism cases, Wray said, “you’re talking about largely lone actors, maybe one or two other people who don’t have to do a lot of plotting, who don’t need to have a lot of money … don’t need to do a lot of training, and whose targets are pretty much everywhere.”
As a result, Wray continued, “there are very few dots out there, as compared to, say, the 9/11 model of an al-Qaeda sleeper cell. … With fewer dots and much less time in which to connect those dots, it may well be that Ken’s folks have one dot and we have the other dot, and if we’re not super latched up, we’re going to miss the only picture that’s out there and it’s got to happen fast.”
FBI Director Wray talks Chinese espionage, Taiwan, and Ukraine
McCallum said in Britain, investigations involving individuals motivated by racism, neo-Nazism, or related hateful ideologies represent about 20 percent of the terrorism caseload. Many of the individuals of concern are young.
“The neo-Nazi racist groups, there is, if anything, a greater emphasis on juveniles within the caseload, a more obsessive interest in weaponry — in many cases even before there is some kind of attack planned,” said McCallum. “There’s kind of an interest in weaponry for its own sake, so it creates a very difficult cocktail of risk we have to manage with great care.”
Wray noted that while racist violence has generally been categorized as a domestic terror threat, increasingly the perpetrators appear to draw inspiration, often through social media, from people in foreign countries who conducted their own terrorist attacks.
In the recent Buffalo supermarket shooting in which a young White man allegedly targeted Black shoppers at a supermarket, the suspect’s writing showed admiration for a 2019 gunman who killed 51 people at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Another frequent source of inspiration for such attacks is a 2011 shooting in Oslo by a far-right extremist who killed 77 people.
Lawyers for Buffalo shooting suspect say he may seek psychiatric defense
“You have people who may not be conspiring or colluding with each other, but who are in effect inspiring or egging each other on,” said Wray. “You can see that for example with the attack in New Zealand, the attack in Norway, in some sense you see an attack in the U.S. that inspires somebody else to attack somewhere else.”
Those inspirational, international connections mean that the FBI and MI5 have to be constantly “comparing notes on what they are seeing,” the FBI director said.
The two security chiefs spoke to reporters as Wray wrapped up several days of meetings in London with various U.K. law enforcement and intelligence officials.
On Wednesday, Wray and McCallum made rare joint speeches to sound an alarm to the British business community about the danger that Chinese hacking and covert influence operations pose to Western companies’ long term interests.
McCallum said the problem of Chinese espionage is at the top of the agenda for the intelligence-sharing alliance known as the Five Eyes, which includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. | 2022-07-08T19:52:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | FBI's Wray, MI5's McCallum say terror suspects encourage each other online - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/08/wray-fbi-terror-extremists-global-threat/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/08/wray-fbi-terror-extremists-global-threat/ |
New Arizona law criminalizes filming police from less than 8 feet away
A woman records the Seattle police bike patrol on a cellphone Aug. 9, 2016. (iStock)
Republican state Rep. John Kavanagh, who sponsored the bill, wrote in an op-ed in the Arizona Republic that the purpose is to protect against distractions and potential harm, particularly when police are involved in violent encounters. He wrote that police told him groups “hostile” to officers follow them around, filming 1 to 2 feet behind them, which Kavanagh called “a dangerous practice that can end in tragedy.”
“I can think of no reason why any responsible person would need to come closer than 8 feet to a police officer engaged in a hostile or potentially hostile encounter. Such an approach is unreasonable, unnecessary and unsafe, and should be made illegal,” Kavanagh wrote in the op-ed.
Are the police trying to stop you from taking that cellphone video? Check your First Amendment rights.
In an era where cellphone cameras have proven to be instrumental in capturing police encounters and holding law enforcement officers accountable, critics say the law limits people’s right to record in public places.
“A blanket restriction is a violation of the First Amendment,” Stephen D. Solomon, director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University who teaches First Amendment law, told The Washington Post.
More than 60 percent of the U.S. population lives in states — including Arizona — in which federal appeals courts have recognized the First Amendment right to record police officers performing their duties in public, according to a citizen’s guide to recording police from NYU’s First Amendment Watch.
Solomon, editor of the online news site, said it is not an absolute right. There are some limitations, such as reasonable time, place and manner restrictions, that courts can impose to keep people from interfering with police. But there is no set distance recognized by the federal courts because it depends on the situation, he said.
“Who’s to say that 8 feet is the appropriate distance? It might be under some circumstances, but in other circumstances, not,” he said, questioning how such a law would be enforced amid a street demonstration where crowds of people with cellphones are surrounded by law enforcement officers.
Solomon said the new law is going to have a “chilling effect.”
“If you know the limit is 8 feet, you might stay 15 or 20 feet away, or you may not record at all, because you’re concerned police are going to take you into custody,” he said.
You have the right to film police. Here’s how to do it effectively — and safely.
The law will allow for some exceptions to the 8-foot rule, with caveats. For instance, the bill states that when a police encounter is occurring in an enclosed area on private property, a person who is authorized to be there may record closer than 8 feet — “unless a law enforcement officer determines that the person is interfering in the law enforcement activity” or it is unsafe. In the bill, “law enforcement activity” is defined as an officer questioning a suspicious person, an officer conducting an arrest or an officer handling a situation involving “an emotionally disturbed or disorderly person.”
The law will go into effect in September. | 2022-07-08T20:27:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Recordings within eight feet of police will be illegal in Arizona under new law - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/08/arizona-police-recordings-8-feet/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/08/arizona-police-recordings-8-feet/ |
A 911 dispatcher didn’t send help. He’s now charged with manslaughter.
Kelly Titchenell sits on her porch in Mather, Pa., holding a photo of her mother, Diania Kronk, and an urn containing her mother's ashes. A Greene County, Pa., detective last week filed charges against 911 operator Leon “Lee” Price, 50, of Waynesburg, in the July 2020 death of Kronk, 54, based on Price's reluctance to dispatch help without getting more assurance that Kronk would actually go to the hospital. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)
Kelly Tichenell called 911 when her mother was suffering after days of heavy drinking. She made a desperate plea for medical assistance to a Pennsylvania dispatcher: “She’s going to die” without immediate help.
But instead of immediately sending an ambulance for Diania Kronk in the summer of 2020, the dispatcher asked for more reassurance that Tichenell’s mother would actually go to a hospital a half-hour away.
“She will be, ’cause I’m on my way there, so she’s going, or she’s going to die,” Titchenell told the dispatcher with Greene County, Pa., as she drove to her mother’s boyfriend’s home, according to a recording of the 911 call obtained by The Washington Post.
Yet, Leon “Lee” Price waited and asked Titchenell to call 911 back once she arrived at the house to make sure Kronk was willing to go in an ambulance. “We really need to make sure she’s willing to go,” he said on the call.
Emergency medical services arrived long after the call was over, Tichenell told The Post. Tichenell found her mother nude on the front porch, speaking incoherently and bleeding. Kronk, 54, died of internal bleeding the next day.
Now, the 911 dispatcher has been charged with involuntary manslaughter about two years after Kronk’s death, according to Greene County officials. Price, 50, of Waynesburg, Pa., also faces charges of reckless endangerment, official oppression and obstruction, according to the Associated Press.
The charges represent a rare case in which a 911 dispatcher is charged for someone’s death after failing to send help. Price, who was arraigned on June 29 and released on bail, faces the charges after Tichenell filed a federal lawsuit last month in the Western District of Pennsylvania against the dispatcher, Greene County and two 911 supervisors for “callous refusal of public emergency medical services.” Lawrence E. Bolind Jr., the attorney who represents Titchenell in the federal lawsuit, told The Post that Price’s hesitance during the nearly four-minute 911 call was “an intentional act.”
“I believe in my heart that my mother would still be alive if he would have sent an ambulance,” said Tichenell, 38, of Mather, Pa. “It shouldn’t have been his decision. He should have sent an ambulance and let the professionals decide if she should go to the hospital or not.”
A message left at a phone number listed for Price’s home address was not immediately returned on Friday. It’s unclear whether Price has an attorney.
While Price’s employment status with the county remains unclear, Marie Milie Jones, an attorney for the county and 911 supervisors named in the federal case, told The Post that “Mr. Price is a member of a collective bargaining unit, and the county is following the necessary procedures under the CBA.” It’s unclear whether Price faced any discipline for the 2020 incident. Jones told the AP that her clients do not believe they are liable for Kronk’s death.
Greene County District Attorney Dave Russo said in a news release that the county detectives’ investigation of the case found that “911 services violated protocol and their own procedures by refusing to dispatch an ambulance to Ms. Kronk’s aid.”
“According to the investigation, she was denied medical services when all three ambulances were available for dispatch,” Russo said.
A conviction of involuntary manslaughter carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years, according to Pennsylvania attorneys.
The charges in rural Pennsylvania comes weeks after a 911 dispatcher in Buffalo was fired after a Tops supermarket employee trapped during the deadly mass shooting in May was hung up on. Erie County dispatcher Sheila E. Ayers was initially placed on administrative leave after Latisha Rogers, an assistant office manager at the supermarket, told the Buffalo News and WGRZ that she called 911 and whispered to the dispatcher in hope of making authorities aware of the mass shooting unfolding at the grocery store. But instead of assistance in a moment when she was “scared for my life,” Rogers said the 911 dispatcher dismissed her in “a very nasty tone.” Ayers was terminated last month after eight years with Erie County’s Central Police Services Department.
While criminal charges against 911 dispatchers are rare, they are not impossible. In 2008, a 911 dispatcher in Detroit was sentenced to a year of probation and lost her job for not taking a boy’s call seriously when he told the operator that his mother had collapsed. Sherrill Turner, 46, was found dead hours after Sharon Nichols allegedly hung up on Turner’s young son in 2006 and accused him of playing games. The dispatcher had testified in the case that she could not hear the child.
Kronk worked in home health care and loved taking care of others, her daughter said. Kronk, who had five grandchildren, loved cooking for family and friends, especially her famous baked rigatoni with pepperoni.
“She wanted to make sure everyone else was okay,” Titchenell said.
When the coronavirus pandemic disrupted everyday life around the world in 2020, Titchenell was vulnerable because of her autoimmune disorders, she said, and suffered from fibromyalgia, a chronic neuromuscular disorder with no known cure. Though she and her mother had lived together in Mather — a small town more than 50 miles south of Pittsburgh — Kronk was spending more time at her boyfriend’s place in an effort to not bring the virus into Titchenell’s home.
“I panicked and didn’t want to have her coming and going. That’s why she stayed there for a long period of time,” she said. “I didn’t want her bringing the germs back here.”
Titchenell knew her mother’s drinking had increased during the early part of the pandemic, which led to weight loss and her “turning yellow,” she said. But a text message from her brother that their mother was “in a bad way” caused the daughter to drive to where Kronk was staying in nearby Sycamore, Pa., according to court records.
On July 1, 2020, Titchenell called 911 and was connected to Price. Cellphone service where her mother was staying was not good, so she called 911 before she arrived, Tichenell told The Post. At the start of the call, she explained her mother was suffering after days of heavy drinking and urged for an ambulance to come get her.
“I can’t get her in my car … she can’t even move,” Titchenell said, according to the 911 call.
During the call, Price repeatedly told Titchenell that Greene County could not force Kronk to go in an ambulance if she didn’t want to do so. At this point, Titchenell told The Post, she was confused as to what was going on.
“I didn’t understand because usually if you call 911 they send help,” she said. “It really didn’t make any sense to me.”
After Titchenell told the dispatcher that her mother “isn’t in her right state of mind right now” to make that decision, Price bluntly told Titchenell that “no emergency services would be provided without confirmation that from the mother that she will go to the hospital,” according to court records.
“Can we at least try?” Price asked of Titchenell.
When Titchenell said she was 10 minutes away from her mother’s boyfriend’s residence, Price suggested she hang up and call 911 back to “make sure she wants to go before we sends resources out there.”
“I’m sorry,” Titchenell said.
“No, don’t be sorry, ma’am,” Price replied. “Just call me when you get out there, okay?”
Bolind told The Post that Price “never notified the police, never notified anyone to follow up” about Kronk’s condition.
“At some point, Mrs. Titchenell believes there was a decision made that for whatever reason, in her opinion, they did not want to waste resources to go out to where her mother was staying,” he said.
An autopsy later concluded that Kronk died of internal bleeding.
Russo, the district attorney, told The Post that the next month of the investigation should determine whether additional charges will be brought against Price or the county.
“No one should be denied emergency services in Greene County or anywhere else,” he said. “Everyone should have equal protections and access to medical treatment.”
Titchenell described the past two years as being hell for her and her family. While she hopes for accountability, she thinks about one of the questions she’d ask the dispatcher if they were to speak again: “What would you do if this happened to your mother?”
“I don’t ever want this to happen to anybody else,” she said. | 2022-07-08T20:27:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 911 dispatcher Leon Price charged with not sending ambulance in death of Diania Kronk in Pa. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/08/pennsylvania-911-dispatcher-manslaughter-ambulance-kronk-price/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/08/pennsylvania-911-dispatcher-manslaughter-ambulance-kronk-price/ |
Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh at the March 2022 State of the Union address. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the fundamental right to abortion, comedian Samantha Bee floated a plan for targeting the conservatives on the court who made up the majority opinion: “We have to raise hell — in our cities, in Washington, in every restaurant Justice Alito eats at for the rest of his life,” she implored viewers of her late-night show, “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.” “Because if Republicans have made our lives hell, it’s time to return the favor.”
It seems some abortion rights activists are taking a page out of that playbook — although the first justice to have his dinner publicly disrupted wasn’t Alito, but Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who left Morton’s the Steakhouse in Washington on Thursday night through a back entrance to avoid the crowd gathered out front, according to Politico.
In a city that draws sign-wielding activists from across the country on a regular basis, Washington restaurants — and even those far outside the Beltway — have long contended with protests, some even centered on individual diners. But many are bracing for more such incidents, as protesters angered by the Roe decision — and enabled by rapid-fire social media organizing — look to confront conservative justices at their homes and at the restaurants where they dine.
“The idea that business — any business — is somehow immune to what’s happening politically in the country has always struck me as ridiculous,” emailed Stephanie Wilkinson, the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, Va., a Democratic stronghold in the middle of Trump country. Four years ago, Wilkinson had her own run in with a polarizing public figure when Sarah Sanders, then press secretary to President Donald Trump, was dining with her husband and others at Red Hen. Wilkinson politely asked Sanders to leave, an ejection that made the owner a hero among liberals and a villain among conservatives.
“When it comes to dire events that will affect millions, nobody should expect that a restaurant exists in some magic bubble,” Wilkinson wrote Friday from England where her husband is leading a study-aboard program.
“Everyone who works in or runs a restaurant knows that a lot of Americans are scared and angry about recent events and are feeling compelled to stand up and shout about it in the streets,” Wilkinson continued. “If that street happens to be the sidewalk in front of your restaurant where one of the architects of the looming wave of rollback of rights is dining, well, what can I tell you? It’s still America, and the right to assemble and the right to speak still exist.”
A scenario similar to the one at Morton’s played out in 2018 (coincidentally, during Kavanaugh’s nomination hearings) when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and his wife, Heidi, took a side exit at the elegant downtown restaurant Fiola to escape protesters chanting “We believe survivors,” a reference to Christine Blasey Ford, who testified that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her.
Then-Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen was heckled in 2018 at upscale Mexican restaurant MXDC Cocina Mexicana over family separations at the border. Days earlier, a fellow diner at Shaw’s Espita Mezcaleria reportedly shouted at White House aide Stephen Miller, calling him a fascist.
The fallout from such public displays can be hard on restaurants. After the Cruz story made news, Fiola’s social media accounts were attacked, its phone lines tied up and people posted one-star reviews to its Yelp page. Owners Fabio and Maria Trabocchi said they and their employees were threatened, both for not protecting the Cruzes and for allegedly tipping off protesters to the couple’s reservation. MXDC’s Yelp page, too was flooded after Nielson’s visit with people leaving politically motivated reviews, which the online service deleted.
The fallout for the Red Hen, a 26-seat restaurant, was perhaps worst: Its phone line was hacked, its Yelp page flooded with negative reviews, its owner and staff were doxed and threatened, its booking system overloaded with reservations that diners had no intention of honoring.
“The fallout can last for years,” Wilkinson acknowledged in an email. “We are still feeling it, just over four years later. But here’s the thing: Fallout falls on both sides. Yes, we still have to put up with people mailing us nasty letters and leaving bad Yelp reviews. At the same time, we are still greeting guests who tell us they’ve been waiting for years for the opportunity to come to our restaurant and eat with us. … And in many ways, the support we received in the wake of the event four years ago is what has seen us through the most recent challenges of covid, inflation, etc.”
Morton’s was already being mocked online Friday for its response to the Kavanaugh protesters. The steakhouse released a statement to Politico condemning the protesters. “Honorable Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh and all of our other patrons at the restaurant were unduly harassed by unruly protesters while eating dinner at our Morton’s restaurant,” it read. “Politics, regardless of your side or views, should not trample the freedom at play of the right to congregate and eat dinner.”
Many commenters seized on the restaurant’s claims about diner’s “rights,” with some jokingly pointing out that the constitution doesn’t mention anything about dinners or Morton’s, apparently mocking conservative originalists. Some noted that the Supreme Court has upheld the right to sidewalk protests, including those by people harassing women on their way into abortion clinics. The company’s Twitter account appeared to have turned off comments on Friday morning and its Yelp page displayed a “Unusual Activity Alert.”
“This business recently received increased public attention, which often means people come to this page to post their views on the news,” the Yelp notice read. “While we don’t take a stand one way or the other when it comes to this incident, we’ve temporarily disabled the posting of content to this page as we work to investigate whether the content you see here reflects actual consumer experiences rather than the recent events.”
Representatives of the chain, whose parent company is Landry’s, did not respond to a request for comment. Landry’s chief executive is billionaire Tilman Fertitta, who stars on CNC’s “Billion Dollar Buyer” and who Trump has called a “friend.” The Supreme Court’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In D.C., political affiliation is one of 21 protected traits for those who live, visit or work in the city. As such, a business, such as restaurant, cannot refuse service to someone based on party affiliation. Supreme Court justices have long insisted they are nonpartisan, even if they are appointed and confirmed under Democratic or Republican presidents. But the public and pundits alike increasingly view the Supreme Court as a political branch of government.
Even though Red Hen isn’t bound by D.C. law, Wilkinson said her decision to boot Sanders was not based on party affiliation. She booted Sanders because of a Trump administration decision that the spokeswoman defended: to separate families that try to cross the U.S. border with Mexico.
“The Red Hen issue is often misconstrued as an act against a person because she was a Republican. It was not. It was a refusal of a specific person for a specific action or set of actions on her part. It’s quite a different rationale,” Wilkinson wrote. | 2022-07-08T20:27:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brett Kavanaugh is the latest target of protests at D.C. restaurants - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/07/08/brett-kavanaugh-protesters-mortons-steakhouse/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/07/08/brett-kavanaugh-protesters-mortons-steakhouse/ |
Area cleared in the first six months this year is five times the size of New York City
By Gabriela Sá Pessoa
An aerial view shows a deforested section of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. (Mauro Pimentel/Agence France Presse/Getty Images)
Deforestation of the Amazon hit a six-year high during the first half of 2022, the Brazilian Space Agency reported Friday, deepening concerns that the vast rainforest’s critical role in protecting the planet’s health will be irreparably damaged.
Satellite data showed more than 3,980 square kilometers, an area five times the size of New York City, were deforested in the first six months of this year, the highest figure going back to at least 2016. Data from the agency also indicated fire activity last month was the highest for June in 15 years from farmers burning forest vegetation to clear land for crops and livestock.
The world’s largest rainforest is one of the planet’s most important “carbon sinks,” absorbing enormous amounts of carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in its vegetation. By removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the Amazon serves as a powerful counterbalance to all the carbon being released and slows the pace of global warming.
The Amazon also plays a key role in regulating regional weather patterns. Its trees discharge water into the atmosphere through their stems, leaves and flowers through a process called transpiration. The released water can form vast rivers in the sky and rain clouds, which can affect precipitation locally and perhaps as far as Mexico and the United States.
But the forest has come under threat in recent decades as land is cleared and converted largely for cattle ranching and farming. Over the last five decades, the Amazon has lost around 17 percent of its forest.
Some scientists say the Amazon could lose between 20 percent to 25 percent of its forest within a decade, which could irreversibly change the ecosystem. The rainforest would be converted into degraded open savanna, endangering biodiversity, shifting regional weather patterns and accelerating climate change.
“We are entering the tipping point range predicted by scientists,” said Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the advocacy network Climate Observatory. “Now each additional number of deforestation in the Amazon pushes us deeper into this irreversible scenario.”
Romulo Batista, a spokesperson for Greenpeace Brazil, said the spike so far in 2022 is worrisome because deforestation is encroaching from new areas. Deforestation has expanded and cleared more than 1,230 square kilometers in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, a six-year high for region. The states of Pará and Mato Grosso experienced 1,105 square kilometers and 845 square kilometers, respectively.
“Especially concerning is how the increase in deforestation is concentrated in a new front in the Southern Amazon,” Batista said in a news release.
Deforestation rates have fluctuated over the last three decades, including at higher rates in the 1990s and early 2000s. In response, the Brazilian government aggressively sought to protect the Amazon, bolstering environmental enforcement agencies and discouraging the export of goods illegally produced from deforested land. The efforts paid off. From 2004 to 2012, the pace of deforestation plummeted by 80 percent.
But deforestation has been on an upward trend in the last three and a half years under the leadership of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has enacted policies to support mining and ranching and unraveled environmental protections.
“The deforestation rates under Bolsonaro are double the average of the decade before. That is why they are so alarming,” Astrini said. He said before Bolsonaro, deforestation rose an average of 6,500 square kilometers per year from 2012 to 2018. After Bolsonaro took office, rates were as high as 13,000 square kilometers per year.
“Clearly, fighting deforestation is not a priority of the federal government,” said Ane Alencar, director of science at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute. “The priority seems to be the elections.”
The Brazilian Ministry of the Environment and the office of the president did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the deforestation spike.
Voters in Brazil will convene in October to elect a new president and national congress. Alencar said deforestation can be worse during election years as people are not as afraid of being punished. Candidates may be less inclined to levy fines and loosen inspections during campaigns.
The continued deforestation of the Amazon comes despite a pledge by Bolsonaro to end illegal deforestation by 2030 and make Brazil carbon-neutral by 2050. Astrini said ending deforestation within the next decade is feasible. For instance, agricultural productivity can be doubled on already cleared land, and some research shows many existing pasture lands can sustain more cattle grazing than supported.
“We know where these areas are, what needs to be done, where deforestation is and how we can implement the policies to avoid deforestation,” said Astrini. But he, Alencar and many others are skeptical such action would happen under the current leadership.
“If we have four more years of the Bolsonaro administration, it will be a government leading us to the collapse of the forest,” said Astrini. “I say it openly, in the October election, the Brazilians will have to make a choice, either Bolsonaro or the forest. Both, for the next four years, will not exist. Only one will survive.”
Until the election, however, Carlos Nobre from the University of Sao Paulo Institute for Advanced Studies said deforestation rates could continue to rise, depending on how people think the election may turn out.
If they think Bolsonaro “will not be reelected, they might really try a maximum of land grabbing, just taking for granted that the next president” will be “very rigorous about law enforcement starting in January,” Nobre said.
Get the latest news about climate change delivered every Thursday
Sá Pessoa reported from São Paulo. Patel reported from Washington. Chris Mooney in Washington contributed to this report. | 2022-07-08T20:40:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amazon deforestation hits record for first half of 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/08/amazon-rainforest-deforestation-record-climate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/08/amazon-rainforest-deforestation-record-climate/ |
Assassinations that stunned the world
By Karina Tsui and Ellen Francis | Jul 8, 2022
The violent deaths of heads of state and government often reverberate globally. With Friday’s fatal shooting of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, we look back at other assassinations around the world during the past six decades.
President John F. Kennedy in a motorcade just before he was shot in Dallas in 1963.
AP Photo/Jim Altgens
John F. Kennedy, president of the United States
Ahead of a likely run for reelection, the president and his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, traveled to Texas on Nov. 22, 1963, for a two-day visit to help bring a feuding Democratic Party together.
As they rode in the back seat of a convertible through downtown Dallas, gunshots erupted — with two bullets hitting the president in the throat and head. Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine, was charged in the assassination, only to be murdered two days later by Jack Ruby, a local nightclub operator.
Despite a months-long investigation led by the chief justice of the United States that concluded Oswald killed Kennedy on his own, debate raged for years over whether a second shooter was involved and if the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy theory.
The limousine carrying the mortally wounded president races toward a Dallas hospital.
Justin Newman/AP
Dallas police Lt. J.C. Day examines the rifle allegedly used in the assassination of Kennedy.
Park Chung-hee, president of South Korea
As Park’s popularity waned through his tenure, he became the target of several assassination attempts. On Oct. 26, 1979, the country’s third president was killed by the chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency at a restaurant near the presidential residence.
The assailant, Kim Jae Kyu, was a lifelong friend of Park and opened fire during a heated argument at dinner, killing the president’s bodyguard, driver and four others.
To this day, the motive of the assassination remains unclear. According to some speculation, Kim hoped the president’s death would help restore democratic freedoms that Park had gradually suppressed during his 18 years in office.
South Korea President Park Chung-hee with U.S. President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter during a ceremony in Seoul in 1979.
The bodies of presidential bodyguard Kim Young-seop and driver Kim Young-tae on the day Park was assassinated.
MBC TV/AP
Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt
Sadat was attending a military parade on Oct. 6, 1981 — to celebrate the anniversary of Egypt’s successful crossing of the Suez Canal — when a truck skidded to a halt and four men jumped out and began firing, throwing grenades toward a crowd of Egyptian government officials. The president was hit repeatedly and died two hours later. Ten other people also died; Vice President Hosni Mubarak survived.
The group responsible opposed Sadat’s decision to make peace with Israel two years earlier.
Egypt President Anwar Sadat at the start of the military parade in Cairo where he would be assassinated.
Bill Foley/AP
Egyptian soldiers tend to the wounded after the attack in Cairo that killed Sadat.
Indira Gandhi, prime minister of India
Following the footsteps of her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister, Gandhi tried to unify the many cultural differences that divided India under British rule. Eventually, though, she began suspending civil liberties and clamped down on political opponents.
She launched Operation Blue Star, an Army initiative to flush out Sikh extremists from a prominent temple in Punjab. On Oct. 31, 1984, Gandhi was assassinated in her office by two Sikh bodyguards she had thought she could trust.
India Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with astronauts Rakesh Sharma and Ravish Malhotra in New Delhi in 1983.
Sondeep Shankar/Getty Images
Gandhi's body is cremated in New Delhi in 1984.
Jean-Claude Francolon/Getty Images
Olof Palme, prime minister of Sweden
On the evening of Feb. 28, 1986, Palme and his wife, Lisbeth, were walking home from a movie theater in central Stockholm when they were attacked by a lone gunman who fatally shot the prime minister in the back and wounded his wife.
Only recently did prosecutors confirm that the assailant was a man named Stig Engstrom, who had weapons training and was critical of Palme’s policies.
Engstrom killed himself in 2000 while still under investigation.
Olof Palme, who would be assassinated while prime minister of Sweden, is seen in Moscow in 1981.
The pool of blood on a Stockholm pavement where Palme was assassinated in 1986.
Borje Thuresson/AP
Yitzhak Rabin, prime minister of Israel
A right-wing Israeli extremist shot and killed Rabin on Nov. 4, 1995, as he left a Tel Aviv rally attended by tens of thousands of people in support of the Oslo accords between his country and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Rabin, a former Israeli general, was a key engineer of the peace pact. The gunman, a student named Yigal Amir, was angry about the talks with Palestinians. Amir was among the founders of an illegal Jewish settlement, The Washington Post reported at the time.
Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres wave to the crowd at a “Yes to Peace” rally in Tel Aviv in 1995 shortly before an attack would leave Rabin dead.
Sven Nackstrand/AFP
Israeli security agents push Rabin into a car after he was fatally wounded.
Rafiq Hariri, former prime minister of Lebanon
Hariri was killed when a truck bomb ripped through his car on Feb. 14, 2005, on a seaside avenue in Beirut. Nearly two dozen other people also died in the attack, which triggered years of political upheaval.
A U.N.-backed special tribunal ultimately convicted three members of the militant group and political party Hezbollah.
Rafiq Hariri listens during a parliament session in Beirut in 2005.
Hassan Ibrahim/AFP/Getty Images
The site of the bombing that killed Hariri in 2005.
Joseph Barrak
Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan
Bhutto, the country’s first female prime minister, was killed when a bomb exploded as she left a rally in the city of Rawalpindi on Dec. 27, 2007. More than 20 other people also were killed.
Pakistani authorities blamed the attack on the Pakistani Taliban chief.
In 2010, a U.N. investigation raised suspicions about the role of the Pakistani government and military in Bhutto’s death. It accused officials of “inexcusable” failures to provide her with sufficient security and documented what it described as attempts by intelligence services to impede probes into the assassination.
Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, addresses thousands of supporters at a campaign rally minutes before she was assassinated in 2007.
Bhutto waves from her car just seconds before being assassinated.
A bomb explodes next to the vehicle carrying Bhutto from the political rally.
Jovenel Moïse, president of Haiti
Men with assault weapons stormed the president’s home late on July 7, 2021. They riddled his body with bullets and wounded his wife.
The brazen attack followed months of political instability and gang violence in the Caribbean nation and took on international dimensions. U.S. prosecutors alleged that the crime was partly planned in the United States.
Dozens of people were detained or named as suspects. But Haiti’s investigation has since stalled, and the motive remains unclear.
Haiti President Jovenel Moïse arrives with his wife to mark the 10th anniversary of the country's devastating 2010 earthquake.
Chadan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images
A bystander points to a vehicle with bullets holes outside the Moïses' residence in Port-au-Prince on July 7, 2021.
Police exchange fire with possible suspects in the assassination of Moïse next to a police station in Port-au-Prince on July 8, 2021.
Valeria Baeriswyl/AFP/Getty Images
Editing by Susan Levine, Olivier Laurent and Reem Akkad. | 2022-07-08T20:40:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Assassinations that stunned the world - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/political-assassinations-world-leaders/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/political-assassinations-world-leaders/ |
Protesters wave signs and demonstrate in support of abortion access in front of a New Orleans courthouse on July 8, 2022. (Rebecca Santana/AP)
Louisiana can now enforce a near-total ban on abortion after a temporary restraining order expired on Friday, clearing the way for the state’s strict trigger law to take effect now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade.
State District Judge Ethel Julien granted the state’s request to move the case to a court in Baton Rouge — in effect allowing a temporary restraining order that had blocked the abortion ban to expire. Another judge will now decide whether to grant a preliminary injunction to again block the trigger law.
“The fight is far from over and we’re looking forward to litigating the trigger bans before the court of Baton Rouge,” said Joanna Wright, an attorney for the plaintiffs challenging the ban.
Louisiana’s trigger law, enacted in 2006, forbids abortion except when a pregnant person’s life is in danger; abortion providers risk being charged with a felony crime punishable with up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to a $100,000. The state has passed multiple abortion restrictions in recent years.
“I am personally devastated for patients in Louisiana who are now panicking trying to figure out how to get care,” said Jenny Ma, a senior staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights who represents the plaintiffs. “But to be clear, this case is by no means over.”
Louisiana joins 13 other states in enforcing trigger laws after the fall of Roe v. Wade. Abortion rights advocates and those fighting to prohibit the procedure are now dueling in courts and legislatures around the country.
Aside from Louisiana, the states with trigger laws in effect include: Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Ohio. Utah and Kentucky also have trigger bans, but the courts have temporarily blocked them from taking effect immediately. Idaho, Wyoming and North Dakota have trigger bans that will take effect about a month after the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Abortion providers in Louisiana filed for a temporary restraining order to block the state’s trigger law from going into effect on June 27, shortly after the Supreme Court released its opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. They argued that the trigger law was “constitutionally vague.”
The state’s abortion ban now takes effect on the same day that President Biden signed an executive order aimed at supporting abortion access, though he acknowledged that his executive power is limited.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) reacted to the news of Biden’s plans on Friday afternoon as the state was gaining the power to enforce its strict abortion laws: “Reports that Biden is planning #abortion executive order,” Landry tweeted. “If he does, we will meet it with legal action and defeat him in court again!” | 2022-07-08T20:49:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Louisiana’s abortion ban goes into effect as court battle continues - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/08/louisiana-abortion-ban/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/08/louisiana-abortion-ban/ |
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Caster Semenya is listed to compete at next week’s world championships in Eugene, Oregon, potentially setting up a surprise return to the big stage for the two-time Olympic champion who is still banned from her favorite race, and still at the heart of one of sport’s most contentious issues. | 2022-07-08T20:50:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In big surprise, Semenya listed to run at worlds in Eugene - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/in-big-surprise-semenya-listed-to-run-at-worlds-in-oregon/2022/07/08/b5a679ae-fef2-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/in-big-surprise-semenya-listed-to-run-at-worlds-in-oregon/2022/07/08/b5a679ae-fef2-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Workers are striking as airlines continue to deal with staffing shortages
Workers at European airports are on strike, and the timing isn’t ideal. With lifted pandemic restrictions in Europe, the continent’s busiest travel season is back in full swing, and travelers are dealing with long lines at airports and canceled flights.
If you’re planning a European vacation, here’s what’s happening and how it might affect your trip.
Amid labor shortages and inflation, airline employees in Europe, including pilots, are striking to demand better wages and more hiring. In addition to asking for higher salaries, union activists in Paris urged airports to implement an emergency recruitment plan to build back pre-pandemic staffing numbers.
Verdi, the German trade union, called on technical staff at the Hamburg airport last week to strike. The German government is attempting to smooth things over by fast-tracking visas and work permits for thousands of airport workers from other countries, mainly Turkey.
Travelers in Italy have run into issues, too, when air traffic controllers went on strike in June. Hundreds of flights were canceled as a result of the strike.
The travel-related strikes aren’t just hitting airports. In June, the London Underground — commonly referred to as “the Tube” — was mostly closed because of a strike.
“European labor unions are fond of striking at times when they can cause the most pain,” said Diana Hechler, president of travel planning company D Tours Travel. “However, their strikes differ from those in the U.S. because they are usually timed for one day or even scheduled on a running basis but for short periods of time.”
Which airlines are affected?
Workers across Europe are speaking up, and it is creating a domino effect. A long list of airlines are being affected by strikes and staffing shortages, and it’s growing weekly.
Some airlines have suffered direct hits because their pilots or crew have gone on strike; some have made cuts to routes to avoid walkouts. SAS, the national airline for Denmark, Sweden and Finland, filed for bankruptcy after warning that the pilot strike could cancel half of its flights.
Brussels Airlines, part of German airline Lufthansa, cut 6 percent of flights for July and August, which the airline said should “bring a better balance in the work/life of our crews.”
British Airways workers at London’s Heathrow airport suspended a strike after reaching a deal on better pay this week, but not before the airline canceled 10,300 flights through October.
Employees of low-cost carriers easyJet and Ryanair also have called for strikes this month.
How might my travel be impacted?
In addition to your flight being potentially delayed or canceled, your experience at the airport itself may be chaotic. Travelers are enduring long lines at check-in counters, security and immigration.
At Amsterdam’s airport, the security line extended outside, forcing the airport to cap passenger arrivals to no more than four hours before their flights. Luggage has piled up at airports across Europe and delayed getting to passengers as a shortage of baggage handlers continues.
The number of flight cancellations and delays across Europe this summer is three to five times higher than in the United States, a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation said.
The advice for travelers to show up early and only bring a carry-on bag holds doubly true for those flying out of a European airport.
Under Department of Transportation rules, airlines are obligated to refund you if your flight (to and from the United States) is significantly changed or canceled, and if you don’t accept the alternative offered.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, DOT has opened more than 20 investigations into airlines for failing to provide prompt refunds.
How to get a refund for your canceled flight
For flights within Europe, regulation EU 261 lays out compensation rules and assistance for passengers if their flight is canceled or delayed, or if they’re not able to board.
If your flight is arriving or departing from a European Union airport, you are entitled to up to 600 euros for long delays or cancellations, according to the Department of Transportation. The airline often hands out paper forms for passengers to fill out, or it will have an electronic form available on its website. | 2022-07-08T20:51:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Europe airline strikes: What to know for your summer trip - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/europe-airline-pilot-strike/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/europe-airline-pilot-strike/ |
State Department pursues ‘people-people’ diplomacy through video games
The United States government’s most high-level foray into video game diplomacy concluded its first school year last month.
A total of 450 students from across the United States, Israel, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain participated in the 10-week program, Game Exchange, completing a total of 170 new video games based on the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. Participants engaged in up to three shared video conference calls with their international peers at a sister school in addition to either seven or eight sessions, totaling between 20-25 hours, among themselves. Teachers were given paid training to help students navigate the game development process.
Game Exchange aims to bring together students from those four nations to foster long-term relationships while teaching them how to create video games. To do so, Game Exchange received a grant from the Stevens Initiative, which is funded by the U.S. State Department and Bezos Family Foundation alongside other governments and institutions and is implemented by the Aspen Institute. (Jackie Bezos, president and co-founder of the Bezos Family Foundation, is the mother of Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post.)
The program plans to double the number of students next school year.
Though a quantitative analysis of the program is still being planned, the U.S. State Department remains bullish on gaming as a way to facilitate “people-people diplomacy” on issues such as climate change, gender equity and food security, especially among young people.
“This virtual exchange is just the beginning of what we hope to be a lasting relationship that moves beyond gaming,” said Chris Miner, acting deputy assistant secretary for professional and cultural exchanges at the U.S. Department of State.
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Students who spoke to The Post following two of the sessions overwhelmingly reported positive experiences with the game creation aspect of the program. Some wished for more opportunities to interact with their fellow students abroad during the program — even as many still felt they had meaningful interactions.
“I had never met someone outside the country [except] maybe Canada,” said Edyn Henton, 16, a student at Martin Luther King Jr. High School in Detroit. Henton was drawn to the program after getting into “Fortnite” during the pandemic. She was interested in the prospect of making her own video game, but came in skeptical about the cross-cultural aspect.
“Personally I didn’t think it would work out. I couldn’t imagine us meeting someone from Israel,” she said.
That changed for her and her classmates after a candid moment in which an Israeli student said “s---” during one of the video conferences.
“Hey Mr. Williams they talk like us!” Silas Williams, a teacher at Martin Luther King Jr. High School and program facilitator, recalled one of his students saying. Many questioned whether their Israeli counterparts watched the same movies and played the same video games as they did.
“They’re teenagers just like you are,” he responded.
Williams, who completed his 24th year as an educator in the Detroit public school system and learned the Scratch programming language during his master’s program in 2008, said he opted into Game Exchange after seeing how his son met up with his friends through online video game platforms during the pandemic.
It also helped support one of his major initiatives, which is to encourage his students to create.
“For African American kids, it’s not to just consume technology, but to be creators of technology,” he said, adding that he challenges them to think like creators and not just consumers of technology. Almost all of the students at Martin Luther King Jr. High School are Black.
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“Being able to game and game design and work with others was nice to do,” said Timothy Parker, 15, one of Williams’s students. Parker said he designed his first game in eighth grade and was hoping to build on his skills. He wanted to make his characters move in specific ways, like to strut.
Milana Keliza, 17, participated in the program with her class at Tottenville High School on Staten Island, which was partnered with Mekif Yud Alef High School in Ashdod, Israel. She said was always curious about the code behind video games.
“For me, I just love problem solving and figuring out how things work. I feel like creating games and finding bugs is just something I like to,” she said.
On the Israeli side, students were similarly interested in creating games and meeting people from another country.
“I play a lot of video games, and I wanted to know the background of the games,” said Tomer Malka, a student at the sister school in Ashdod who knows three programming languages. Like Americans Henton, Parker and Keliza, he was drawn to game development and the Game Exchange program out of curiosity about how games were made.
Malka connected with his American counterparts through gaming as well as sports and music.
“I’m a big fan of basketball. I know the Detroit Pistons. I also know the Kiss song ‘Detroit Rock City’ … I didn’t have a lot of expectations about the [Detroit] students. I wanted them to work together and have fun, just like me,” he said.
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While students felt connected, they did face some cultural gaps. Williams said some of his students were put off by the personal nature of some of the Israeli students’ questions — about students’ families and what their parents do for work — something the Israeli students said they did as a sign of interest in developing meaningful friendships.
“If someone they don’t know reaches out to them like that, they think it’s a scam,” said Williams about his students.
Interactions were also impeded by technological difficulties. The sessions The Post observed had the expected beeps and boops and frozen screens of teleconferencing. The Post-observed sessions saw only about 10 minutes dedicated to icebreaker-type exercises while the remainder of the time was mostly given to students to quickly explain their games.
Susanna Pollack, president of Games for Change (G4C), said the next rounds of the program will place more focus on the number of interactions students will have across countries. She added that interactions will also be smoothed by learning from G4C’s technical experiences this past year.
“We had some assumptions about some platforms being universal, and it wasn’t until we were in the program that we identified the problems,” Pollack said, noting that, for instance, the gaming-focused chat platform Discord is banned in the UAE. Some school districts, she continued, also have weak broadband connections. Williams said some students could not install certain communication platforms on their laptops; he questioned whether the joint sessions were of much value, overall.
Pollack said G4C and teachers are going into next year “with a lot more clarity with what we can achieve.” She expects the current crop of teachers will be primed to understand what does and does not work.
With coronavirus closing schools, here’s how video games are helping teachers
G4C plans to work with a cross-cultural dialogue expert next year who will help prepare students for the experience of working with peers in a different country, Pollack said. She believes, though, that the key connective elements are the games and U.N. sustainability goals.
“We believe these are two threads that can start conversations. It’s not just a blank slate about what to talk about,” she said.
The games are a mix of styles, but all can be considered casual games. Williams described them as “like Donkey Kong in the ’80s, but having him try to save barrels of water.” The winning games in the year-end competition revolved around a penguin navigating a melting ice field, collecting rainwater and bottles to recycle, and harvesting crops to donate.
Though proud of the games they created, students said they enjoyed the social aspect as much if not more.
“The program let us know how to create games, but I think, more important than that, is to create friendships with people all around the world,” said Malka from Ashdod, Israel.
“At first it felt unreal to work with students from other countries across the world, but there’s something spectacular about getting to know new people,” said Henton from Detroit. | 2022-07-08T20:51:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | State Department pursues ‘people-people’ diplomacy through video games - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/07/08/game-exchange-program-games-for-change/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/07/08/game-exchange-program-games-for-change/ |
Ford recalls 100,000 vehicles, expands earlier recall over fire risks
Ford recalls 100,000 vehicles over fire risk
Ford Motor said Friday it is issuing a new recall for 100,000 U.S. vehicles over fire risks and expanding an earlier recall after reported fires.
The new recall covers certain 2020 through 2022 model year Ford Escape, Maverick and Lincoln Corsair vehicles with 2.5-liter hybrid/plug-in hybrid engines. Ford said that in the event of an engine failure, significant quantities of engine oil and fuel vapor might be released and could accumulate near ignition sources, resulting in a potential under-hood fire.
Dealers will modify the under-engine shield and active grille shutter to address safety concerns. There are no accidents or injuries associated with this issue, and customers do not need to park the vehicles outside.
Ford is separately expanding its recall of 2021 Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUVs for under-hood fire risks by another 27,000 U.S. vehicles after five additional fires were reported after its recall of 39,000 vehicles announced in May, following 16 fire reports. One injury has been reported.
The U.S. automaker is still advising customers to park those vehicles outside and away from structures until repairs are completed.
USDOT warns airlines on children's seating
The U.S. Transportation Department on Friday warned airlines it might issue regulations prohibiting them from charging extra fees to allow young children to sit next to accompanying family members.
The agency cited a 2016 law that required it to review U.S. airline family-seating policies.
The agency issued a notice urging airlines to ensure children ages 13 or younger are seated next to an accompanying adult with no additional charge to the maximum extent practicable and said it could take regulatory action later this year after it reviews airline policies.
The Transportation Department said that it has received few complaints about the issue but that “even one incident is one too many.”
It added that airlines should implement policies enabling workers “to make immediate adjustments as needed to ensure young children are able to be seated adjacent to accompanying adults” but are not required to provide seats that would result in an upgrade.
Airlines for America, a group representing major carriers, did not immediately comment Friday.
Five executives from the poultry processing industry have been found not guilty of conspiring to fix prices. A jury in a Denver federal court acquitted former Pilgrim's Pride CEOs Jayson Penn and William Lovette; Roger Austin, a former Pilgrim's vice president; Mikell Fries, president of Claxton Poultry; and Scott Brady, a Claxton vice president. In October 2020, Pilgrim's Pride reached a plea agreement with the U.S. government over charges of price-fixing in the chicken industry.
The U.S. Treasury on Friday said it was moving to terminate a 1979 tax treaty with Hungary in the wake of Budapest's decision to block the European Union's implementation of a new, 15 percent global minimum tax. A Treasury Department spokesperson said that since Hungary lowered its corporate tax rate to 9 percent — less than half the U.S. rate of 21 percent — the benefits of the tax treaty unilaterally benefit Hungary.
The share of the U.S. workforce that's self-employed has climbed to the highest level since the Great Recession, as the pandemic jobs shake-up spurred many Americans to try working for themselves. About 16.8 million people were classified as self-employed in June, according to Bloomberg calculations based on the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's an increase of 1.4 million workers over the past two years, representing more than one-third of the expansion in the labor force during that period. | 2022-07-08T21:37:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ford recalls 100,000 vehicles, expands earlier recall over fire risks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ford-recalls-100000-vehicles-expands-earlier-recall-over-fire-risks/2022/07/08/1a52c172-fe31-11ec-a7eb-d66bb98bbf0f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/ford-recalls-100000-vehicles-expands-earlier-recall-over-fire-risks/2022/07/08/1a52c172-fe31-11ec-a7eb-d66bb98bbf0f_story.html |
It’s unclear what happens next, but Twitter could go to court to force him to finish the deal.
Elon Musk appears at a news conference at SpaceX's Starbase facility in Texas in February, 2022. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
Elon Musk is terminating his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, according to a filing the billionaire made with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday.
Musk argues he has a right to drop out of the deal because Twitter hasn’t given him enough information about the company’s business.
But legal experts say Musk can’t just walk away from the deal. His April agreement to buy the company included a commitment to go through with the acquisition unless there’s a major change to the business, and legal experts say nothing has happened to meet that threshold. Musk has previously threatened to scuttle the deal if Twitter doesn’t give him more data to run his own analysis on how many spam bots it has, while Twitter has said it can’t give up personal info on its users like their names, emails and IP addresses, which it uses to come up with its own bot numbers.
Elon Musk tells Twitter staff harassment will drive people from service
Musk shook up the social media world in April by agreeing to buy Twitter for $44 billion. He’s assembled a large group of co-investors, and leveraged his personal wealth to get the debt needed to finish the deal. But soon after his takeover announcement, a global sell-off in tech stocks eroded Musk’s own net worth, while making his $54 a share purchase price look like a serious overvaluation of Twitter.
Musk skeptics have said he made up the argument about bots simply to find a reason to get out of what he now saw as a bad deal. Musk himself knew about Twitter’s spam problem, and mentioned it as one of the reasons he wanted to buy the company in the first place.
Wall Street has been skeptical Musk will complete the deal for months. Twitter’s stock price is around $37 today, down nearly 30 percent from the $52 it traded at the day he made his acquisition announcement.
The filing came after The Washington Post reported Thursday that the deal was in serious jeopardy, with one of the co-investors not hearing from Musk’s team for weeks, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. | 2022-07-08T21:41:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Elon Musk is pulling out his deal to buy Twitter - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/08/musk-deal-sec/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/08/musk-deal-sec/ |
A letter from Trump, which could be signed as soon as tonight or tomorrow morning, may clear the way for Bannon to testify before the House select committee probing the Jan. 6 attack
Robert J. Costello, Stephen K. Bannon and David Schoen in Washington, D.C., on June 15, 2022. (Win McNamee/Getty) (Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty)
Former President Donald Trump is considering sending a letter to Stephen K. Bannon saying that he is waiving his claim of executive privilege, potentially clearing the way for his former chief strategist to testify before the House select committee investigating the pro-Trump riot at the Capitol.
The letter would reiterate that Trump invoked executive privilege in September 2021, when Bannon was first subpoenaed by the House committee. But it would say that the former president is now willing to give up that claim — which has been disputed — if Bannon can reach an agreement on the terms of an appearance before the panel. The letter was described by three people familiar with it, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
“Even if your client had been a senior aide to the President during the time period covered by the contemplated testimony, which he was most assuredly not, he is not permitted by law to the type of immunity you suggest that Mr. Trump has requested he assert,” Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) wrote to Bannon’s attorney in October.
Isaac Arnsdorf and Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report. | 2022-07-08T21:58:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump considers waiving claim of executive privilege for Steve Bannon - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/08/bannon-executive-privilege-trump-january-6/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/08/bannon-executive-privilege-trump-january-6/ |
Hearings set on proposed rate hikes for Dulles Toll Road users
The proposal under consideration could push tolls to $6 starting in January
Commuters make their way through the tolls at the Spring Hill Road toll plaza in Fairfax County. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Two hearings have been set for the public to weigh in on a plan that could raise tolls to $6 next year on the Dulles Toll Road.
The additional revenue would be used to pay for construction of the $5.8 billion Silver Line rail project. Though Fairfax and Loudoun counties and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority are contributing to the project, toll road users are paying nearly half the cost of the rail extension.
Most drivers who use the toll road now pay $4.75 — $3.25 at the main toll plaza and $1.50 at a ramp. Under the plan MWAA announced in May, rates would increase by $1.25, rising 75 cents at the main toll plaza and 50 cents at off-ramps. It would be the first rate increase since 2019.
Dulles Toll Road users could see a rate increase to help pay for the Silver Line
MWAA, which manages the toll road, also has scheduled two public hearings on the proposed rate increases: A virtual hearing will be held Monday from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The passcode is 174277. Those who wish to join the Zoom meeting by telephone can dial 301-715-8592. The ID for the webinar is 865 5116 1067, and the passcode is 174277.
An in-person hearing is scheduled for July 18 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Washington Dulles Airport Marriott, 45020 Aviation Drive, Dulles, Va., 20166.
There will be no formal presentation at this hearing. Instead, attendees will be able to visit information stations outlining the proposed plan. Those who come to the hearing also can submit written comments or provide comment to an official meeting stenographer.
MWAA also will accept public comments via email at dtrcomments2022@hntb.com from Monday through Aug. 10.
In addition to seeking feedback the toll increase, MWAA also is seeking comment on environmental and sustainability initiatives related to the toll road’s operations and incentives it could provide to encourage users to travel during off-peak hours or to carpool. Additional details of the proposals are available here.
MWAA took responsibility for overseeing construction of the Silver Line extension from the state in 2006. As part of the deal, which officials said would save money and speed construction, MWAA also assumed control of the Dulles Toll Road and was given authority to raise tolls on the 14-mile stretch. The Metro line is the first not built by the transit agency, and instead was constructed by a private contractor hired by MWAA. | 2022-07-08T21:58:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Public hearings set on Dulles toll increases - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/07/08/public-hearings-toll-increases-dulles/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/07/08/public-hearings-toll-increases-dulles/ |
Serbia's Novak Djokovic blows a kiss to somebody in the crowd as he plays against Britain's Cameron Norrie during their semifinal match. (Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images)
A first Grand Slam final for the 27-year-old Kyrgios, long the background derecho of the sport, will present Djokovic with, first off, Kyrgios’s traumatizing serve on grass.
“On grass I would assume it’s even tougher to read his serve,” Djokovic said, “and to return because he has so many free points.” It “puts additional pressure on your serve.” And: “He’s got great hands.” It will present one of the goofier little stats in sports: Kyrgios’s 2-0 record against Djokovic, both matches occurring within 13 days: March 3, 2017, in Acapulco, and March 15, 2017, in Indian Wells, Calif.
Djokovic won none of the four sets. He found the serve untraceable in the thin desert air of eastern California. He saw some aces go by — 25 the first time, 14 the second — and then he never saw Kyrgios again in any practice or match thereafter.
“I guess it’s going to be a game of small margins,” Djokovic said. “I hope I can be at the desired level, then really it’s a mental game in the end, who stays tougher and calmer in the decisive moments.”
As he tries to solve enough to hoard a 21st Grand Slam title, his opponent will arrive to a juncture he figured he’d never arrive even with the talent everyone spotted from his teen days, talent often paired with the word “dangerous.” Kyrgios will arrive as a player known to play better against the better players. He will arrive after plotting on how to play Nadal — they were 1-1 here — as, he said Friday, “I really did want to see how that third chapter was going to go,” and, “I’m sure at the end of the day everyone did want to see us go to war out there.” That’s everyone except, presumably, the tennis balls.
He arrives after spending the fortnight more in his rental house and less in pubs or on his phone than in previous years, all of which he sees as relevant.
“I felt like earlier in my career, I didn’t realize that these days off and the practice is so crucial,” he said. Or, as Djokovic put it, “Honestly, as a tennis fan, I’m glad that he’s in the finals because he’s got so much talent.”
He arrives having gained some type of wisdom from the 2022 Australian Open men’s doubles, which he won with fellow Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis over fellow Australians Matthew Ebden and Max Purcell. He arrives in his 30th Grand Slam tournament with some upgraded understanding of the tempo of Grand Slam tournaments, long after he, ranked No. 40, got into a first-round scrap here with Briton Paul Jubb, ranked No. 219, in which Kyrgios squeaked it out by 7-5 in the fifth set and also spat in the direction of a trolling witness.
“You could be four points away from losing (in the first round),” Kyrgios said, “then 11 days later you’re in the final, so …”
“Ride the waves,” said a man accustomed to creating them and to having them throw him.
And then he arrives after a “shocking sleep” Thursday night — meaning a bad one — and “so much anxiety” and “already feeling so nervous,” even as he can go all the way back to childhood in Canberra and marvel. “Yeah I think it’s just hilarious,” he said, “because, like, I don’t think I’m supposed to be someone like me. Like, I look at (a photo he posted online of himself as a child), I grew up in Canberra, the courts I trained on were horrible, and now I’m in the chance to play the Wimbledon final.”
Now, he finds somebody who solves commotion as well as anyone ever solved commotion.
“For me,” Djokovic said, “(it’s) arguably it’s on a different level because I have to deal with different things that are also off the court, the crowd being maybe on the side of my opponents most of the times. This is something that throughout my career I’ve been used to. The more you experience these kind of situations, not the better you feel, but just more prepared you feel. You know what to expect.
“It’s always really about handling your own nerves better than maybe your opponent is his own. The internal battle is always the greatest. In the practice sessions where you don’t have the crowds or expectations, you play great. Then you come to the match and you realize it’s amazing how the whole game can fall apart” — as in the first set on Friday — “really just because you feel you’re tense, then no shots are really working properly. Your feet are static and slow.
“Something happens in a match, then all of a sudden it’s completely different and you’re flying. Everything flows. All the time there are these, let’s say, challenges that you’re facing internally but also externally. It’s really a constant battle. All these obstacles that you have to face. Really, I think it’s an amazing exercise to stay in the moment because being present is, I feel like, something that is the best state that an athlete is looking for, because then you’re able to, I guess, exclude or switch off certain things and distractions, and really focus only on the next point. That’s the zone that everybody talks about, that is really difficult to reach, but very easy to lose.”
Yet he does so often dwell there. | 2022-07-08T22:07:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Novak Djokovic tries to solve Nick Krygios in Wimbledon final - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/08/novak-djokovic-nick-krygios-wimbledon-final/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/08/novak-djokovic-nick-krygios-wimbledon-final/ |
Bradley Beal signed the largest contract in Wizards' history. (Craig Hudson/For the Washington Post)
LAS VEGAS — In the middle of an NBA summer that will be remembered for Kevin Durant’s stunning trade request from the Brooklyn Nets and the Utah Jazz’s decision to deal Rudy Gobert to Minnesota, Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis appeared at a news conference Friday and made the case for loyalty.
The occasion was the official feting of Bradley Beal signing a five-year, $251 million max contract that cements him as the Wizards’ cornerstone through at least age 32.
The reason Leonsis spoke so effusively of loyalty and commitment was because of the terms of the contract and the staggering control it gives Beal: The deal comes with a fifth-year player option, a no-trade clause and a 15-percent trade kicker, according to multiple people with knowledge of the contract.
Beal, a three-time all-star, is now singularly powerful among active NBA players. The clause means if one day Wizards President and General Manager Tommy Sheppard decides either to initiate a rebuild or to transfer franchise cornerstone duties to another player, he needs Beal’s permission to make a trade and Beal has say over where he goes. It’s a detail that decimates a team’s leverage, which is why no other player has one — not even Stephen Curry, who asked the Warriors in 2017. Beal is just the 10th player to receive one in league history, joining LeBron James (in Cleveland), Kevin Garnett, Carmelo Anthony, Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Tim Duncan, David Robinson and John Stockton according to ESPN, which first reported details of the contract.
To Leonsis and Sheppard, giving Beal a no-trade clause is part of a long game. They rewarded Beal’s loyalty for sticking with a franchise that hasn’t advanced past the second round of the playoffs in his lifetime. That reputation for rewarding commitment, Leonsis argued, will make Washington a sought-after destination for the league’s best free agents.
Aside from the fact that Washington has demonstrated its willingness to fork over cash as a sign of commitment (see: John Wall, Otto Porter Jr., David Bertans) and has nary a major free-agent signing to show for it, Leonsis’s defense rests on the assumption that “loyal” organizations have a high value on the free agent market.
All-star guard Zach LaVine’s re-signing with the Chicago Bulls could be considered an act of rewarding loyalty; the Bulls were also able to offer LaVine a bigger contract than any other player, just as the Wizards were with Beal. Jalen Brunson signed a four-year, $110 million contract after the New York Knicks cleared cap space and hired Brunson’s father as an assistant coach in a different sign of loyalty.
“To me, [Beal’s signing] really cements what we are trying to build,” Leonsis said. “We want to have great, great players that we draft and develop and sign who basically put their own heart, soul and passion into helping us build a winner.”
To Beal, the Wizards’ commitment mattered. The guard is mindful of his legacy in the NBA and has perspective on the meaning of his deal, the largest in franchise history.
With his wife and parents in attendance, he spoke thoughtfully Friday on the significance of generational wealth among Black families when asked about what the contract means for his growing brood — two young boys with another due this month. He opened the news conference with remarks about Brittney Griner and the country’s gun violence crisis.
“It’s real tough for me to be super excited, right? We have Brittney Griner in Russia still. Highland Park just lost six or seven lives. My hometown, St. Louis, from July 1-5, there were 22 shootings,” Beal said. “That’s tough. That’s three or four days. But this is a celebratory moment for my family. But it’s tough when I look at my two sons right here. I have to figure out how do they come up in this world that is unpredictable at this point. Just careless.”
Beal went on to thank Washington fans for loving him since he was drafted a decade ago and reiterated his goal of turning the Wizards into a winning franchise. When asked what the blueprint for that is now, Beal gave a familiar answer.
“We win; we attract those free agents. We attract those guys that win; we attract all-stars like” Kristaps Porzingis, Beal said. “At the same time, we trust Tommy to make those type of moves and not sit stagnant and improve our team as we go. All I can do is trust continually what he’s done.”
How Team USA and football prepared Wizards’ Johnny Davis for the NBA | 2022-07-08T22:07:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wizards owner Ted Leonsis defends Bradley Beal's no-trade contract - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/08/ted-leonsis-bradley-beal-contract/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/08/ted-leonsis-bradley-beal-contract/ |
This is a case of corporate ethics, not cancel culture
A gun display stand with pistols for sale in the store. (iStock)
In her July 2 op-ed, “A firm’s split with its star gun-case lawyer shows what ails the left,” Megan McArdle took the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis to task for declining to accept any further Second Amendment cases, having won in the recent gun-control case before the Supreme Court. In her view this is just another example of left-wing cancel culture. I can’t speak for the firm’s motives, and I’ll leave aside the point that some things really should be canceled, but might this instead be an example of good corporate ethics?
The firm might perhaps be taking the position that it would prefer not to win any more such cases given the societal damage inflicted by unrestricted access to firearms of any type. If true, this would seem to be a more honorable stance than a willingness to accept any client, regardless of the issue, as long as said client writes a big enough check. No doubt there are many other firms with no such scruples to which a Second Amendment client can turn for representation.
Unless there is some overarching principle at stake, no lawyers should be compelled to aid a client in an activity they think is morally wrong, even if that activity is technically legal.
Vic Bermudez, Springfield
Megan McArdle claimed that a law firm that stops advancing gun interests is an example of cancel culture. Of course, getting shot by a concealed weapon is a lot worse than being canceled.
Ms. McArdle claimed that progressive judicial overreach led to the ascendancy of a conservative states’ rights agenda. But it was conservatives who just removed state rights to protect citizens from concealed weapons. Conservative causes have thrived with uncompromising and full-throated positions. Progressives would do well to heed that lesson, not the modest one Ms. McArdle suggested.
Howard Crystal, Washington | 2022-07-08T22:21:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | This is a case of corporate ethics, not cancel culture - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/case-corporate-ethics-not-cancel-culture/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/case-corporate-ethics-not-cancel-culture/ |
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and other abortion rights activists demonstrate June 30 near the Supreme Court. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Regarding the June 30 news article “Groups eye cross-state travel limits for abortions”:
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Grapes of Wrath,” John Steinbeck describes the fictional Joad family escaping the Oklahoma Dust Bowl of the 1930s to relocate in California. But California was not exactly welcoming at the time. Under California law, any person who “brings or assists in bringing into the State any indigent person who is not a resident of the State, knowing him to be an indigent person, is guilty of a misdemeanor.”
In a real-life case that reached the Supreme Court, a California man brought his indigent brother-in-law from Texas to California. He was convicted under the statute quoted above. In the 1941 decision Edwards v. California, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction, holding that the Constitution’s interstate commerce clause prohibits a state from “restraining the transportation of persons and property across its borders.”
In a more recent case, Jones v. Helms, the court was even more explicit. It pointed out the “well settled” right of a U.S. citizen to travel from one state to another, citing the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Thus, according to the court, a state may not “penalize a citizen for exercising his right to leave one State and enter another.”
So, in a state where abortion is prohibited or restricted, may that state criminalize a pregnant woman’s travel to another state for the purpose of obtaining an abortion? And may it criminalize a person’s assisting that woman’s travel? Supreme Court precedent clearly says no.
Charles Fleischer, Potomac | 2022-07-08T22:21:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The court has already decided - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/court-has-already-decided/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/court-has-already-decided/ |
The handwringing over indicting presidents is a bit late
Former president Donald Trump. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Having been involved in one of the serial criminal investigations of a sitting president and his wife by politically motivated prosecutor Ken Starr, I write to remind the handwringing media that a decision to investigate former president Donald Trump for crimes far more serious and fundamental to the presidency than those investigated by Mr. Starr is neither difficult nor unprecedented.
Despite that he had not previously been designated as an unindicted co-conspirator nor impeached, and despite that Mr. Starr’s investigation — unlike special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s — could have resulted in an indictment because it preceded the Justice Department’s 2000 Office of Legal Counsel’s opinion cited by Mr. Mueller as precluding Mr. Trump’s indictment, these investigations during Mr. Clinton’s presidency did not receive the current media critique nor its concomitant political benefit.
Though I applaud the July 3 editorial “Investigate Mr. Trump,” necessary in light of this collective amnesia, it is astounding that it had to be written.
Nancy Luque, Washington
The writer, a lawyer, represented Julie Hiatt Steele, the only person indicted in the Ken Starr’s investigation of the Lewinsky matter.
I am very concerned that, in the problematic attempt to criminally indict former president Donald Trump, the existential danger he posed in his final days as president will be forgotten.
The Jan. 6 committee asked for “all documents and communications related to the mental stability of Donald Trump or his fitness for office” and those related “to the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” As the Jan. 6 committee testimony from White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson should have made clear, that section could and should have been invoked to bring Mr. Trump’s reeling presidency to an early and safer end.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley on Jan. 8, 2021, to state her urgent concern over the mental stability of the commander of the strategic nuclear arsenal. Gen. Milley assured her that he would be involved in executing a decision to launch such a strike. The general met with senior commanders to review long-standing procedures for launching nuclear weapons and affirmed that “the president alone could give the order — but, crucially, that he, Milley, also had to be involved.”
In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Sept. 28, Gen. Milley elaborated: “I explained to her that the president is the sole nuclear launch authority, and he doesn’t launch them alone, and that I am not qualified to determine the mental health of the president of the United States.”
William E. Jackson Jr., Davidson, N.C.
The writer was executive director of the U.S. General Advisory Committee on Arms Control from 1978 to 1980. | 2022-07-08T22:21:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The handwringing over indicting presidents is a bit late - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/handwringing-over-indicting-presidents-is-bit-late/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/handwringing-over-indicting-presidents-is-bit-late/ |
Local action on climate is more important than ever
A severe storm downed trees and power lines July 5 after a tornado warning was issued, according to authorities in Bowie. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
The July 3 news article “With globe on low boil, summer is not the same” warned that climate change is making summers in the United States hotter, longer and more dangerous, causing not just deadly heat waves but also devastating wildfires, extreme precipitation events and catastrophic flooding. As though on cue, torrents of rain had deluged the D.C. area the night before, downing trees, stranding motorists, displacing residents and leaving thousands without power.
The Supreme Court just made it harder to take action against climate change at the federal level. This means action on the state and local level matters more than ever.
The Prince George’s County Council is about to vote on a resolution to adopt a Climate Action Plan. Troublingly, there are signs that some council members are dragging their feet. One attempted to introduce language to weaken the force of the resolution. Another introduced a sunset clause with an expiration date of Dec. 31, 2023.
As each worsening storm reminds us, this is no time to waffle. And as the Supreme Court’s June 30 ruling made clear, now more than ever we need leaders on the local level to be the adults in the room. Let’s hope the Prince George’s County Council remembers that.
Elisabeth Herschbach, University Park | 2022-07-08T22:22:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Local action on climate is more important than ever - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/local-action-climate-is-more-important-than-ever/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/local-action-climate-is-more-important-than-ever/ |
Ranked-choice voting is a more democratic way to choose candidates
Yesli Vega at a Prince William County Board of Supervisors meeting in September 2020. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Virginia 7th Congressional District Republicans nominated Yesli Vega when she got more votes than five other candidates. But she received only 29 percent of the vote. This means 71 percent of the voters were at least a little disappointed and demonstrates a flaw in how we usually count votes. When there are numerous candidates, receiving the most votes does not necessarily equate to a broad base of support.
In contrast, the 10th Congressional District Republican Committee used a “firehouse primary” and ranked-choice voting (RCV).
RCV allows voters to rank the candidates in order of preference. The first ballot count only considers first-choice votes. If no candidate receives a majority, the candidate with the least first-choice votes is eliminated and votes are recounted using second-choice votes in place of the eliminated candidate. Repeat elimination and recounting until one candidate achieves a majority.
For 10th Congressional District Republicans, ballot counting went nine rounds before Hung Cao won with 52 percent of the vote. Isn’t this how a democracy is supposed to function?
The General Assembly has authorized localities to use RCV in certain local elections. I urge the Prince William County Board of Supervisors to embrace this pilot program. It is a straightforward way to improve how ballots are cast, and it truly reflects the will of the voters.
Grace White, Woodbridge | 2022-07-08T22:22:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Ranked-choice voting is a more democratic way to choose candidates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/ranked-choice-voting-is-more-democratic-way-choose-candidates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/ranked-choice-voting-is-more-democratic-way-choose-candidates/ |
How Republican leaders broke Americans’ confidence
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) during a news conference on Capitol Hill on June 22. (Oliver Contreras for The Washington Post)
On Tuesday, the venerable Gallup organization reported that just 27 percent of Americans expressed confidence in their institutions — the lowest level of trust since the questions were first asked half a century ago.
On Wednesday, Mitch McConnell showed us why Americans feel this way.
Republican senators announced that, under orders from the Senate Republican leader, they were pulling out of House-Senate talks finalizing details on bipartisan legislation to help the United States compete with China on semiconductor chips.
It wasn’t because McConnell objected to the China bill; he was one of 19 Republican senators who voted for the Senate’s version. It’s because he objects to a second, unrelated bill Democrats are working on to lower prescription drug prices.
McConnell wants to stop Democrats, including Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), from using a process known as “reconciliation” to pass that prescription-drug bill by a simple majority vote, immune from any GOP filibuster. And to stop Americans from getting cheaper prescriptions, he is willing to sabotage American manufacturers (and therefore assist China) by denying them $52 billion in support under the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act.
In both cases, Americans lose — because McConnell thinks it’s to Republicans’ advantage in the midterm elections. He is willing to hurt the country, and help the Chinese, in order to harm Democrats’ political standing.
“Let me be perfectly clear: there will be no bipartisan USICA as long as Democrats are pursuing a partisan reconciliation bill,” he tweeted.
And let me be perfectly clear: This cynicism has destroyed Americans’ faith in their government.
You can see it in this year’s edition of the annual Gallup poll on 14 U.S. institutions: Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, the military, business, police, media, churches, schools and more. The average confidence level, 27 percent, has declined from 46 percent in 1989.
Though opinions of individual institutions vary widely among groups, the overall distrust of institutions is universal — with little variation by gender, age, race, education or even party.
Though the economic and political cycles play some role, Gallup’s Jeffrey M. Jones, who led the study, tells me that the declining confidence is more because of a “general idea of government not being able to address the problems facing the country.”
That’s backed up by other data. Two decades ago, just 5 percent cited the government as the most important problem facing the country. That reached 32 percent for 2019, and has remained at or above 20 percent for the years since then.
This is no accident. For three decades, as the Republicans transitioned from a limited-government party to an anti-government party, GOP leaders have seen political advantage in undermining Americans’ confidence in their institutions, and in sabotaging the functions of government. That’s a major theme of my book, out next month, “The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five-Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party.”
It began with Newt Gingrich’s instructions to Republicans on how to refer to Democrats (and the government) in 1990: “Traitors.” “Corrupt.” “Cheat.” “Decay.” “Failure.” “Incompetent.” “Abuse of power.” As the era of government shutdowns, default brinkmanship, hostage-taking, name-calling and mindless obstruction was just beginning, Vice President Al Gore presciently remarked: “The Republicans are determined to wreck Congress in order to control it — and then to wreck a presidency in order to recapture it.”
McConnell played a major part in the sabotage, and not just with his extravagant intransigence toward legislation and nominees, highlighted by the theft of a Supreme Court seat in 2016.
In 2009, he urged the Obama administration to support legislation creating a debt-reduction committee — and then opposed the legislation after the Obama administration supported it. In 2012, he threw his support behind a majority vote on a debt-ceiling proposal — and then, when it appeared the bill would pass, he said he would block it with a filibuster.
Now, we see the fruits of such labors.
After Republicans’ years of throwing sand in the gears of government, just 7 percent have confidence in the legislature and 23 percent in the presidency. After Republicans’ use of underhanded tactics to secure a highly partisan supermajority on the Supreme Court, just 25 percent have confidence in the high court. After years of Republicans’ attacks on the media (culminating in Trump’s “enemy of the people” formulation) and after the GOP’s fostering of propaganda outlets such as Fox News, just 11 percent of Americans have confidence in television news (16 percent in newspapers).
Now, against all odds, Washington is on the cusp of lowering drug prices and boosting U.S. technology over China’s. And so, McConnell, top Senate Republican, steps in to sabotage both. | 2022-07-08T22:22:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How Republican leaders broke Americans’ confidence in institutions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/republicans-broke-americans-confidence-institutions-poll/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/republicans-broke-americans-confidence-institutions-poll/ |
Worse than indicting Trump would be not indicting him
A recorded message to the Capitol rioters from then-President Donald Trump's on a television screen Jan. 6 in the briefing room at the White House on Jan. 6, 2021. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
In his July 3 op-ed, “Indicting Trump could do more harm than good,” Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, wrote that prosecuting the former president “would polarize the country and set a dangerous precedent.”
Let’s set the record straight: It’s former president Donald Trump who has polarized the country and set a dangerous precedent. Not prosecuting him would allow for the precedent to stand that it’s okay for political leaders to ignore the Constitution, the law and all established norms to stay in power.
I understand Mr. McCarthy’s concern that prosecuting Mr. Trump could lead us down a path of back-and-forth investigations of presidents for their conduct, but that is already the norm, thanks to former presidents Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton. What is not the norm is a president willing to lie, abuse power and attempt a coup to stay in power. Mr. McCarthy, and those who are supposed to uphold the laws that protect our democracy, need to get off the fence. Such a trial might be difficult, but worse would be allowing a man who allegedly broke the law to destroy our democracy to continue to get away with it.
Eric Wolf Welch, Arlington
Yes, maybe an indictment of former president Donald Trump would tear the country apart. But is that worse than giving up on the values that make the United States the envy of the world? Or allowing the most powerful to be above the law? Or simply giving up on democracy itself? That’s the message that not prosecuting Mr. Trump would send.
The best deterrent to preventing another coup attempt would be to indict and convict the perpetrators of the Jan. 6 atrocity — each one of them — but especially those within the government, at any level. Such unfit behavior cannot be tolerated.
They must be shown — and we all must be assured — that our democratic government is bigger, fairer and more powerful than their corrupt shenanigans. Not being held accountable would clearly green light their bad behavior and intent. This would be morally outrageous and something our democracy might not be able to recover from.
Attorney General Merrick Garland promised that he would follow the evidence wherever it led, and hold all Jan. 6 "perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law.” My only hope depends on him keeping that promise to us.
Nancy Bennett O’Hagan, Portland, Maine
Andrew C. McCarthy’s argument against prosecuting former president Donald Trump for the multiple significant crimes he likely has committed against the republic boils down to there should be a broad consensus in favor of prosecution and Republicans will likely gin up a prosecution of Democratic administrations as payback. Neither concern should prevent action.
Regardless of the facts, a large portion of Republican voters continues to believe the former president’s lies about a stolen election. That does not appear likely to change substantially.
Serious crimes against our government and the Constitution should be prosecuted if sound legal and evidentiary bases exist for doing so. No politician, including a president, should be permitted to evade legal consequences, or be permitted to be in control of government resources after flaunting the law and their constitutional oath.
Republican leaders have allowed their lust for power to warp their allegiance to a system in which power is traded back and forth over time because both sides agree to adhere to the rules of the game. They investigated Benghazi purely for political purposes, and created new “rules” about Supreme Court appointments that denied President Barack Obama an appointment but granted Mr. Trump an appointment in each of their waning days in office. It is unlikely that the next Republican majority in the House or Senate would investigate a Democratic administration only when legitimate concerns arise.
We must demonstrate to ourselves and the world that no one, not even a president, is above the law in the United States. We cannot forgo doing the right thing simply for fear that others will do the wrong thing.
Bradford Ward, Fairfax Station | 2022-07-08T22:22:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Worse than indicting Trump would be not indicting him - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/worse-than-indicting-trump-would-be-not-indicting-him/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/worse-than-indicting-trump-would-be-not-indicting-him/ |
People rally in support of abortion rights in in Kansas City, Mo. (Charlie Riedel/AP)
Two weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending constitutional protection to abortion in the United States, President Biden signed an executive order aimed at safeguarding abortion rights. This includes measures to ensure access to abortion medication and emergency contraception, protecting patient privacy, and bolstering legal options for those seeking access to such care.
These measures will potentially help people who already face obstacles to getting an abortion. But they’re also a defense against new laws that could be coming in antiabortion states. Some antiabortion lawmakers are looking to prevent people from traveling to other states to obtain abortions. Caroline Kitchener brings us behind the scenes with some of the key players in the interstate legal fight. | 2022-07-08T22:22:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The next abortion fight is over state lines - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-next-abortion-fight-is-over-state-lines/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-next-abortion-fight-is-over-state-lines/ |
Transcript: The State of the Supreme Court: Thomas Griffith, Former Federal Judge
MS. CASEY: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Libby Casey, senior news anchor with the Washington Post Live Moments team. My guest today is former Judge Thomas Griffith. He was appointed by President George W. Bush and served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Court from 2005 to 2020. Last year, President Biden appointed Judge Griffith to the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, and that bipartisan commission was charged with analyzing arguments for and against reforming the Supreme Court. It looked at the merits and legality of those potential reforms.
Judge Griffith, welcome. Thank you for being here.
MR. GRIFFITH: Thank you very much.
MS. CASEY: It’s such appropriate timing to have you here as the Supreme Court has just wrapped up this very dramatic and consequential term. I want to share a reminder to our guests that they can ask questions of Judge Griffith. Join the conversation by tweeting us using the handle @PostLive, and we will try to get those into the conversation.
So let’s start with some breaking news. President Biden signed an executive order today to try to ensure access to abortion, medication, and contraception. So given President Biden’s attempts to find pathways around what the Supreme Court decided just last month, does the Supreme Court have the final say?
MR. GRIFFITH: Well, this is--I just learned of this news a few moments ago, so I haven’t read the order, so just heard about it. It strikes me that this illustrates something I think quite interesting about the Dobbs decision. If the majority is right and abortion is not a right that's guaranteed in the Constitution, then it's up for grabs in the political sphere, right? I mean, it's the political branches, the elected branches that debate the nature of the interest and determine the rights involved.
And so if the majority is right, if one agrees with the majority's approach, this action by the president, as well as the other debates that we're seeing around the country in state legislatures, and even in Congress, are what one would expect. That would be the--that would be the place to fight this out. Of course, if the majority is wrong, if the dissent is right, we typically don't put constitutional rights up for debate in legislatures and the political branches. We shield them from those sorts of debates. So, I think what we're seeing in the president's action today, and the ongoing debate in Congress and state legislatures, dramatizes the significance of the decision and it gives us two very competing views of what one does with a constitutional right or not.
MS. CASEY: I want to talk with you more about the abortion cases and sort of the debate that--the case, rather, and then the decisions not only to decide Dobbs but also to overturn Roe v. Wade in just a moment. But I want to share with you something that President Biden said at the signing ceremony just a few moments ago of this executive order, the signing of it. He called the court's decision, "terrible, extreme and totally wrongheaded." What does that say to you about where the nation is at in how it feels about the court's decisions and through the hands-off nature that the court had had the luxury of having for so many years in terms of the political debate?
MR. GRIFFITH: Yeah, well, I--again, it illustrates, at least to me, two things that are--that are critical. One, it's hard to imagine an issue in public life that is more contentious, where the stakes are higher, than trying to balance the interests between a woman's autonomy and prenatal life. These are big issues about which people feel strongly, understandably so. And so therefore, the debate--the debate is vigorous, is going to be vigorous.
The second thing it illustrates is the approach that the court took here to the claim that abortion is a constitutional right. It illustrates another big issue. How do we--how do the court determine what is protected by the Constitution and what's not when the Constitution doesn't speak to it directly when it's--and we know the Constitution anticipates that they're unenumerated rights. The Bill of Rights is not the full list of constitutional rights. It's a real tough issue. It's a contentious issue. How do you figure out, if it's not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, that it’s nevertheless protected by the Constitution? And that's a debate that we've had for many, many years. And the Dobbs decision just illustrates how vexing an issue it is, how difficult an issue it is, and what the consequences are for when the court renders a decision in that area. Obviously, in this case, the court said it's not--the view that it's not a constitutional right and that it's something that's to be debated in legislatures and Congress. So, I think we're seeing that--those two issues play out--a very significant moral and political issue intersecting with a very difficult question of how do you identify rights that are protected by the Constitution that aren't spelled out specifically in the Constitution.
MS. CASEY: But how do you identify that, Judge? I mean, is the Constitution a living document?
MR. GRIFFITH: Well, there's the--there's the debate, right? That's the debate we've been having since the--at least for the last 50 or 60 years or so. We have a court right now that makes it pretty clear, at least six justices of the court are not comfortable with the idea that the open-ended clauses of the Constitution are invitations to the court to identify evolving standards of decency. That's a view that this Court has rejected. It's a considerable view held by thoughtful people that the open-ended provisions of the Constitution invite that sort of change and evolution over time. But it's a debate that's been with us. We know where this court stands on it. My guess is--and I'm not very good at predictions--my guess is that this will be a debate that will--that will continue.
MS. CASEY: You know, I understand that you won't comment on the merits of the case of Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization. But as a citizen, and as someone who knows the consequences of legal decisions, what was your initial reaction?
MR. GRIFFITH: Well, I wasn't surprised, right? Because of the leak, the anticipation was that this is where the court was likely to be. And certainly, this Court and the justices on this court, knowing what we do about their approach to the Constitution, their view, the role of a judge, in that sense, it's not--was not a surprising decision. In fact, it may be that a predictable decision. What I worry about most is that we now have an issue that's being put back in the political sphere to debate. I worry about whether we're up to the type of debate that should accompany such a contentious issue. We--many have observed this is a time of great polarization, of strong language that looks at opponents as its enemies, that assumes bad faith on the part of those who disagree with one another.
We're entering into a debate on as difficult of an issue as I can think of. I worry whether we are equipped to have the type of debate that the issue deserves, and I worry instead that it will be a debate that will be less a debate and more just expressions of acrimony and outrage and assuming bad faith by those who disagree with one another. And that's not healthy for what the republic--but that's the state that we're in right now. So, we better get ready for it. Hopefully the people who are listening to this interview, hopefully all of us in our own sphere of influence, will listen carefully to others, listen empathetically to others, understand as best we can where they're coming from, and then--and then engage responsibly without accusations of bad faith and without the acrimony that too often characterizes our political discussion in the last several years.
MS. CASEY: Well, interest in the court and in a thoughtful conversation about the court is very high right now. We have a lot of interest in this interview with you. And we received over a hundred questions and comments from our audience. So, I want to share one with you. This is from Michelle Durocher from Massachusetts, and she asks are there any differences now between past episodes where citizens have been displeased with the court and the current day? Do accusations of illegitimacy have any greater credence than earlier courts?
MR. GRIFFITH: Well, Michelle, that's a very--that's a great question. And as was mentioned, last year I had the honor of serving on President Biden's commission on the Supreme Court. And one of the things that we were asked to do was to describe the history of the debate over the Supreme Court since the founding days of the republic. And I'm not a historian. We had historians on the commission who did, you know, great service. I would suggest reading the report. It's a good read. It's an interesting read. And there's a--there's a section in there about the history of the debate of the Supreme Court.
And what we learn is, from the beginning of the republic there has been a debate over the role of the Supreme Court, because in our system, under our Constitution, it's clear that the laws are supposed to be made by elected representatives of we, the people. And so what role does a court play in that system? The fundamental concept of the Constitution is that laws are made by elected representatives, not made by judges who have a lifetime appointment and wear robes. Judges occupy a very unusual position in our constitutional scheme. And so there's always been a debate about what role are they supposed to play. And there have been those who have claimed that the court on occasion has stepped outside its lane and has stepped into the lane of Congress and the president in making laws. There have been--and that's been--that's been a debate that's been recurring throughout the republic, history of the republic.
I have to say, not as a historian, but just as an observer, I can't remember a time at least in my lifetime when the debate has been quite so intense as it is right now. And so although this is a debate that's been with us since the founding of the republic, it does seem as if right now that the--certainly the volume and the acrimony is higher than ever. And you know--and I'll leave it to the political scientists to come up with why that's the case. My armchair observation is, as the courts take on a greater and greater role in our republic, as Congress passes more laws that need to be adjudicated, as the Court takes on a greater role in resolving those debates, its role, people care about a great deal. They care about the decisions of the court. And so therefore, they debate them, and they argue about them, which again, I think is--I think is healthy. It's the nature of the debate that worries me.
And so, Michelle used the word “legitimacy” in there. And I have to--I have to say that I--that I--that I worry about attacks on the court that call into question its legitimacy. I don't think those are accurate, and I certainly don't think they're helpful. Let's have a debate about the decisions of the court. Let's read what the--what the court has said. Let's read the various opinions and let's talk about them. Let's critique them. Let's applaud them where we agree. Let's criticize them where we think they fall short. But I think we don't--I think we're inaccurate--I think it's inaccurate, and I don't think it does any service to the country to claim that the court is somehow illegitimate because it reaches conclusions different than, perhaps, I would reach from my--from my approach and my reading of the cases. So I don’t think--
MS. CASEY: Well, Judge, I want to ask about one of the--I want to ask you about one of the reforms that the commission explored, which was term limits, which you are not in favor of. But the idea behind that is that, you know, justices would still have a very long tenure on the Supreme Court. But then with a newly elected president, they could appoint two new justices. So, it might reflect more the current political nature of the day, not someone who had been given the robes to wear decades and decades earlier. It would keep the court fresh, and it would keep them reflecting the political sentiments and the way that people interpret the Constitution perhaps of the day.
MR. GRIFFITH: Yeah, no, so you're right. On the commission, I spoke out against term limits. I actually--when I started on the commission, I thought I would be in favor of term limits. But as we heard testimony, and as I thought about it, I was less enthused with it. But I'm not--I'm not arguably opposed as if it were some real threat to the nature of the court the way I think court expansion would be.
But here's what--here's why I'm less enthused and enamored of term limits. And it's in the question that you asked, which is a good question. Do we want the court to reflect the political sentiments of the time? I don't think we do. In my view, the proper role of the court is to understand the law that's been created by we, the people in the Constitution through acts of Congress, through the president's use of delegated authority, what does the law require, and then to apply that, and not to be trying to keep up with the political times. I just don't think that's--I don't think we want a court that will do that, because that court, that type of court looks too much like the legislature. And I'm very wary about giving people with a lifetime appointment who are--don't--are not accountable politically the way elected leaders are, I'm worried about giving them that type of--that type of power. I’m more--I'm more trustful in the power of we, the people through Congress and legislatures and the president to make those decisions. So--[unclear]
MS. CASEY: [Unclear] yes.
MR. GRIFFITH: I respect the premise of your--of your point, but no, but this--
MS. CASEY: Yeah, but if I can say, Judge, part of the debate right now has been, is the court’s current decision, for example, in a number of cases, whether it's on guns or abortion or environmental protection, are the decisions inherently political because of the way they read the Constitution? Through their interpretation, is it political? So, you know, there's a question of how much--
MR. GRIFFITH: Yeah, no, of course part of the question is what do you mean by political, right?
MS. CASEY: Right.
MR. GRIFFITH: I mean, in one sense, yeah, they are political. But I will draw the line that I don't think they're partisan, and I think that's a big difference. I don't believe that this--so I reject the view of some of my fellow commissioners for whom I have great respect, Judge Gertner and Professor Tribe, who were wonderful colleagues on the commission. But they've been very outspoken in the last couple of weeks calling into the question the legitimacy of the court because they see--what they see afoot is a partisan effort to support the Republican Party. And I don't see that. What I see is thoughtful justices on both sides of an issue grappling with big issues. How do you identify a constitutional right that isn't spelled out in the--in the Constitution? What is the role of the administrative state? When Congress creates an agency, how much authority is it giving to that agency, and how can you measure that? Those are--those are big issues. Do they have political consequences? Of course, they do. But I reject the idea that this court is somehow animated by a partisan spirit, that they're trying to achieve partisan ends.
I can tell you in the 15 years that I was on the D.C. Circuit, I never once saw any of my colleagues make a decision that I thought was influenced in any way by their prior partisan allegiances. Now, did we disagree? Yes, we disagreed vigorously about how one reads a statute, what is the nature of the relationship between an agency that's created by Congress and Congress? These are--these are big issues, but these are legal issues. Do they have political consequences? They do. But the decisions are not being driven by some partisan agenda to advance the Republican Party over the--over the Democratic Party. I just didn't see anything like that on the D.C. Circuit. And I don't believe that explains the debates that are going on at the Supreme Court.
MS. CASEY: I mean--
MR. GRIFFITH: You know, a couple of months ago, Justice Barrett spoke to this issue, and she had some very good advice for us. Her defense against the charge that the courts--that the justices are partisans in robes was she said simply, read our opinions. Read them. Now, here's the problem with that advice. They're long opinions, right? I mean, they’re--Dobbs is over 200 pages. That's hard work. We're busy people. But I think the work of a citizen is to do that, to read the opinions. And I think when you do, by and large we'll see thoughtful people trying to write clearly for us to understand, grappling with big legal issues, but they're not advancing, you know, a partisan agenda. We’re fortunate--
MS. CASEY: I just have to point out--I just have to point out--Judge, I have to just point out that Justice Barrett made those comments at an event at the Mitch McConnell Center at the University of Louisville. So there is some question about, you know, could she have picked a better location, because it seemed inherently political given all that Mitch McConnell has done to block President Obama’s appointees, and you know, he’s been instrumental in changing the face of the court. So, I--yeah.
MR. GRIFFITH: Can I push back? Can I push back?
MS. CASEY: But I want to--I just--I want to--I want to dig into more of this question of how you can increase trust in the court, because you've hit on something very important about--go ahead, Judge.
MR. GRIFFITH: I have to--I have to push back on that. I'm taking Justice Barrett's words. She said the best way to determine whether we're partisan hacks or not is to read our opinions. And so that's good advice. And I think too much of the discussion that's going on about the Supreme Court in general, and this term in particular, I doubt that it's coming from people who've actually read the opinions. They've read them--they've read what pundits have said about them. They've read what critics have said about them. And I think we do ourselves a disservice when we--when we look at the work of the Supreme Court filtered through others’ eyes. I think her advice is good advice. Read the opinions and then form your opinion as to the work of the court. I think with--if people do that, they'll be deeply impressed by the--by the work of the court. They'll see strong opinions that disagree about fundamental things. But I don't think they'll come away with the view that these are partisan hacks. I mean, Justice Breyer, in the last couple of years of his service on the Supreme Court, this was something he was outspoken about, that judges are not partisans in robes and--
MS. CASEY: So how can you encourage that--how can you--so, Judge, sorry to interrupt, but how can you encourage that--some sort of transparency or increase the public's faith in the court that you so clearly have? You know, according to a new Gallup poll, 25 percent of Americans have confidence in the Supreme Court. That is a historic low. We see concerns about Justice Clarence Thomas and ties to his wife and her political engagements. We see questions about investments and what sort of investment portfolio justices should have. I know this is something that you thought about on the commission. So, what reforms do you see that could help the American public have that confidence?
MR. GRIFFITH: Well, I think--now again, I'm not a political scientist. You know, I--you know, but my sense is that a large reason for the public having that view of the court comes because they're hearing that drumbeat from critics of the court. They're hearing from people who say, you know, it's a right-wing cabal on an agenda to advance the aims of the Republican Party. Well, if you hear that constantly, that's going to affect--that's going to affect one's decisions--one's views. And that's why I'm saying the antidote for that is to read the opinions. You know, read what Chief Justice Roberts had to say about the EPA case. Read the powerful dissent by Justice Kagan. You notice that in the debate they have, neither of them is calling into question the good faith of the other, because they know that that's not the issue. They know that these are legal issues, significant legal issues that require our best thinking. They require time and energy, which is tough to come by, I know. But I'm afraid that that's the cost of being a citizen. So I attribute some of the comparatively low approval ratings of the Supreme Court is now experiencing to people who are attacking the court. And I think the antidote to that is I wish people would take the time to read what the court is saying itself.
MS. CASEY: You know, how much should the court consider the real-life implications of the decisions and not just sort of going back in time and looking what the framers of the Constitution intended or how the law has been interpreted in the past? But, you know, there are real concerns about the health of women and girls, children who become pregnant over the coming weeks, months and years. I also want to point out that Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor, called the court's decision on Dobbs "institutional suicide," which may get at this question of the politics from the outside that you're talking about. But how much do they need to consider both how their decisions are perceived and how their decisions affect the lives of people?
MR. GRIFFITH: Yeah, that's a--that's a difficult issue. It's a tough issue, because this isn't an academic exercise. You know, we're not--we're not taking a law school exam when the Supreme Court issues a decision. And as I said at the outset, the Dobbs decision in particular, I would say, the Second Amendment decisions, these are decisions that have profound impact on fundamental values that the people hold dear. So I think--I think the court does need to take into account the impact that its decision will have on the Republic, on democracy.
But the fundamental decision that they're involved in is trying to figure out what is the law, what is the law. And that's where the debate takes place on the court. No question they need to take into account the consequences of their decisions. Look, the chief justice, as we all know, is an institutionalist. He cares a great deal about how the public perceives the work of the court. And I think once again that the best thing that the justices can do to persuade us that they are not partisans in robes, that they don't have some agenda to advance the cause of one political party or another, is to explain their decisions clearly, to explain what goes into their decision, what are the issues that they're grappling with. And I'm here to tell you that when--that when you do that, you come out with a very different image of this court and what it's doing than I think we're getting through a lot of the pundits and a lot of commentators.
MS. CASEY: You know, there's the question of the nomination process and how much we really learn through a Supreme Court nomination. We do have another audience question who is asking about sort of the influence in that--in that process of even deciding who gets to go before the Senate and be considered. Philippa Maister from Georgia asks what is the influence of the Federalist Society and judicial nominations compared to that of the ABA and traditional practices?
MR. GRIFFITH: Boy, that's beyond--that's beyond my paygrade. But it gives me a chance to say something that I--that I hope will be partly responsive to that. I mean, I've been very public about my view of the confirmation process. I was honored that Justice Jackson asked me to introduce her to the Senate Judiciary Committee in her confirmation hearings, and there was a fair amount of commentary on the novelty of a political conservative who had been appointed by a Republican president to the D.C. Circuit speaking out in support of a nominee, a judge that have been nominated by a Democratic president. I tried to make the point then, that there shouldn't be anything novel about that.
There was a time--and it wasn't that long ago--when presidents got their Supreme Court nominees, provided they were competent and honorable people. Is--we probably all remember Justice Scalia was confirmed, I think it was 98 to nothing. Justice Ginsburg, 96 to three. That doesn't happen now. And the question I think we have to ask is, are we in a better place because of that change? And I don't think we are. I think--I think it's telling, and not in a good way, that Justice Jackson wasn't confirmed 100 to nothing. I think it's telling, and not in a good way, that Justice Barrett wasn't confirmed 100 to nothing. These are highly qualified people of the highest character, deep patriots, who should be on the Supreme Court because the president nominated them. And the role of the Senate I think is a very limited one in those--in those circumstances.
But that's obviously not where we are now. I wish we were. I would like to return to, as the Senate says, to regular order on judicial nominations and to depoliticize them. And right now, unfortunately, too much of the Senate confirmation hearing process is grandstanding for senators who have their own agendas. And I think it's unfortunate, and I think it has cost the Supreme Court a great deal.
MS. CASEY: Judge Griffith, I want to squeeze in one more question for you, because we're looking ahead to the next term of the court. The court’s agreed to hear a case that could fundamentally change American democracy, not to put it--not to put it to--in too big of terms. But we're looking at this North Carolina Supreme Court case holding that the state's constitution precludes severe partisan gerrymanders. And you know, there's the argument that the petitioners make in that the state courts shouldn't have any role in overturning federal election rules put into place by state legislatures. So I'd like to know what you make of this so-called independent state legislature theory.
MR. GRIFFITH: Yeah, so, look, I have to beg off. I’m not an expert in this. I've tried to learn as much as I can about it right now. I’d say my radar and my instincts, I worry--I worry about this. But it's not something that I know a great deal about right now. I actually have over my shoulder a briefing binder, right back there, of materials that I plan on studying very carefully over the next couple of weeks so I can--so I can be up to speed on this. But my instincts, I'll start, are with you in your question. This is something that worries me a great deal. And but I need to study more about it.
MS. CASEY: Well, we look forward to having you on again in the future and talking with you about that. Judge Griffith, thank you so much for talking with us. We really appreciate it.
MR. GRIFFITH: Appreciate it. Thank you.
MS. CASEY: And thank you for watching with Washington Post Live. I’m Libby Casey. If you’d like to see what we have coming up, please head to WashingtonPostLive.com to register and find out information about all of our upcoming events. Thank you. | 2022-07-08T22:23:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: The State of the Supreme Court: Thomas Griffith, Former Federal Judge - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/07/08/transcript-state-supreme-court-thomas-griffith-former-federal-judge/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/07/08/transcript-state-supreme-court-thomas-griffith-former-federal-judge/ |
The ruling narrowing House Democrats’ demand for records from Mazars USA is likely to be appealed.
Former president Donald Trump speaks during the final day of the Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 28, 2021 in Orlando. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The fight is not over — both sides can still appeal the three-judge panel’s ruling to the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit or to the Supreme Court. But the decision marked a partial victory for each side over a subpoena issued in 2019 by the House Oversight Committee to Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA.
“We uphold the Committee’s authority to subpoena certain of President Trump’s financial records in furtherance of the Committee’s enumerated legislative purposes,” Chief Circuit Judge Sri Srinivasan wrote. “But we cannot sustain the breadth of the Committee’s subpoena.”
The panel was revisiting a matter that the U.S. Supreme Court returned to the lower courts for further proceedings in July 2020.
In a complex, nuanced 67-page opinion, Srinivasan interpreted how to apply the Supreme Court’s directive to “insist on a subpoena no broader than reasonably necessary to support Congress’s legislative objective.” The case deals with a largely unprecedented fight over how far Congress can go in investigating alleged corruption by the nation’s chief executive, and what protections former presidents retain from lawmakers’ probing after leaving office under the Constitution’s separation-of-powers.
In another case still pending appeal, Trump also opposed a House Ways and Means Committee demand to see six years of his federal tax records. After Trump left office, President Biden’s Treasury Department agreed that the records should be disclosed, and a federal judge appointed by Trump agreed last December. Trump has continued to fight the release as a private citizen.
The judges in Friday’s decision — Srinivasan and U.S. Appeals Court judge Judith W. Rogers — questioned during oral arguments late last year whether forcing a former president to share his financial information upon leaving office could have a “chilling effect” on all future commanders in chief, as Trump attorney Cameron Norris argued.
At the same time, Ketanji Brown Jackson — the third judge who heard arguments but who since has been elevated to the Supreme Court and did not participate in the opinion — voiced concerns about carving out long-lasting protections for presidents after they return to private life, undermining Congress’s authority.
In the end, Srinivasan navigated a middle ground, parsing the committee’s demand for three types of information — documents relating to Trump’s business and personal financial records with Mazars; records regarding the federal lease for Trump’s recently sold Trump International Hotel at the Old Post Office building in downtown Washington; and records related to legislation regarding the “foreign emoluments” clause of the Constitution, which bars presidents from accepting gifts from foreign nations.
The court said lawmakers could obtain Mazars records, source documents and engagement letters from 2014 through 2018, but only those that “reference, indicate, or discuss any undisclosed, false, or otherwise inaccurate information” about Trump’s reported assets, liabilities, or income, as well as any related communications that information was incomplete, inaccurate, or “otherwise unsatisfactory.”
The court also upheld the subpoena for documents related to his federal hotel lease spanning from Trump’s election in November 2016 through 2018, but only from the business that held the lease, Trump Old Post Office LLC. Finally, the appeals court agreed that the House could obtain all documents from 2017 and 2018 related to financial ties or transactions between Trump or a Trump entity and “any foreign state or foreign state agency, the United States, any federal agency, any state or any state agency, or an individual government official.”
The committee has “amassed detailed evidence of suspected misrepresentations and omissions” in Trump’s required disclosure forms, according to the court, and provided “detailed and substantial” explanations of how his financial disclosures, government contracts, and acceptance of foreign gifts as president could inform changes to federal law meant to protect taxpayers and police conflicts of interest among political officeholders.
“If the level of evidence presented by the Committee here does not suffice to obtain a narrowed subset of the former president’s information, we doubt that any Congress could obtain a President’s papers,” the judges wrote, adding that “requiring disclosures aimed at preventing Presidents from engaging in self-dealing and other conflicts of interest is assuredly a legitimate legislative purpose.”
“Former President Donald Trump displayed an unprecedented disregard for federal ethics and financial transparency,” House oversight committee Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a written statement. She said while it was “disappointing that the Court narrowed the subpoena in some respects,” she was pleased it “upheld key parts of the Committee’s subpoena, affirmed our authority to obtain documents from Mazars, and rejected former President Trump’s spurious arguments that Congress cannot investigate his financial misconduct.”
Friday’s ruling whittled down a similar August 2021 decision by the trial judge in the case. U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta limited documents lawmakers could obtain to a wider set of Trump’s personal financial records from 2017 and 2018, when he was president, and records related to his Washington hotel lease and legislation regarding the emoluments clause.
The courts acted after Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in July 2020 upheld Congress’s authority generally to issue subpoenas for a president’s personal financial records, but ruled in a 7-to-2 opinion that congressional subpoenas seeking a president’s information must be “no broader than reasonably necessary” and returned the question to lower courts to work out the standard.
The case was not resolved before Congress’s term expired in January 2020, but the newly elected House, still under Democratic control, renewed its request in February 2021.
Rachel Weiner contributed to this report. | 2022-07-08T22:29:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump taxes: U.S. appeals court upholds release of financial records to House - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/08/trump-taxes-house-subpoena/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/08/trump-taxes-house-subpoena/ |
First funerals held for Highland Park victims: ‘We should not have to be here’
A police officer hugs a guest outside of the funeral of Jacquelyn “Jacki” Sundheim at North Shore Congregation Israel in Glencoe, Ill., on July 8. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
GLENCOE, Ill. — Rabbi Wendi Geffen was clear. Jacquelyn “Jacki” Sundheim — a longtime preschool teacher and member of North Shore Congregation Israel — had been murdered. And there was no comfort in that.
“Our hearts are broken,” she said, her voice trembling. “We should not have to be here.”
The first funerals for the seven people killed when a gunman fired at a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park got underway Friday, as community members tried to reconcile remembering happier times with feelings of anger and sadness over how they died.
North Shore Congregation Israel in Glencoe, overlooking Lake Michigan, was filled with close to 1,000 people for Sundheim’s funeral — one of three held Friday. Services also took place for Stephen Straus, 88, and Nicolás Toledo-Zaragoza, 78.
Authorities have charged Robert E. Crimo III, 21, with seven counts of first-degree murder and say he confessed to the massacre. Investigators believe he spent weeks planning the attack, which came as the nation is reeling from a spate of mass shootings and traumatized communities like Highland Park are figuring out how to regain a sense of safety.
At Sundheim’s funeral, a bevy of officers stood guard around the room.
Geffen told family and friends that the woman who was a constant presence inside the synagogue must not be defined by her death. She recalled how Sundheim worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure every detail was just right for all North Shore Congregation Israel life events — happy and sad.
The crowd laughed between tears as Geffen described how “no caterer would mess with her” and how “she had no sense of direction unless in a shopping mall.” Congregants grew accustomed to seeing her run up and down the aisles, preparing services and events, always with a smile, Geffen said. And though she gave great hugs, she was also nobody’s pushover.
In this community of 30,0000, residents are only beginning to process what happened July 4 — and many just starting to recover. Dozens were injured, including an 8-year-old boy who was shot and remains hospitalized in critical condition, his spinal cord severed.
Elsewhere in the Chicago area, family members held a service for Toledo, described as 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. His grandson, David Toledo, previously told The Washington Post that losing him was “just horrific.”
Family members also gathered to remember Straus, whose niece, Cynthia Straus, told The Post after the shooting that he had a “seize the day” outlook on life, working out, going to the symphony and cherishing his wife, two sons and their four grandchildren.
“He was devoted to his family,” she said. “And he never should have died this way.”
At Sundheim’s funeral, speakers recalled her close relationship with her sister and how they acted as second moms to each other’s children. They also recalled her strong ties to Judaism, even celebrating an adult bat mitzvah in 2010. And they spoke of her happy marriage to her husband, Bruce, who always said he knew their relationship would last.
Then Sundheim’s daughter, Leah, addressed those gathered. She stepped onto the bimah, the raised platform in synagogues from which services are led, and recalled that the last time she stood there, she was with her mom getting ready for services.
“I should not be standing here,” Leah said.
Instead, her mom should be nearby, “here in the corner, making sure the mics are working.”
She described the sadness that overwhelms her when she thinks about how her mother will not be present for her own big life events. But she urged the congregation to take their fear, sadness, rage and emptiness and “turn it into a drive to heal our community.”
“I want to laugh … to heal what is broken,” she said. “The world is darker without my mom in it.” | 2022-07-08T23:25:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | First funerals held for Highland Park July 4 parade shooting victims - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/08/highland-park-shooting-funerals/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/08/highland-park-shooting-funerals/ |
Whittle suspends operations at D.C. school after financial problems
The Whittle School & Studios opened its campus in Northwest Washington nearly three years ago. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
The Whittle School & Studios is shutting down its full-time campus in Washington this fall, suspending operations at the U.S. branch of what had been envisioned as a global private school on multiple continents.
The announcement to Whittle families Friday evening came after many months of financial turmoil at the ambitious for-profit enterprise launched by veteran education entrepreneur Chris Whittle.
He said they made the decision late Thursday after learning that a critical financing deal had been delayed.
The decision leaves students, teachers and staff in Washington scrambling just weeks before the next school year.
This pricey school promised a global education. It’s barely solvent.
“It is devastating to me to report to you this news …” Whittle wrote in a letter to families. “I know the commitment all of you have made to the school in the past four and a half years since we announced our opening here; the immense inconvenience this entails for your families; and how patient everyone has been as we have all suffered through this terrible time together. Similarly, the Whittle team has invested 7.5 years since the day we began planning the Washington campus and this comes as a severe disappointment to them too.”
He said by phone Friday that they would work to find other schools for students in Washington, and jobs for staff members either overseas or domestically. They also hope to have some Washington-based summer, evening, weekend and other programs separate from the full-time school.
The Whittle School launched with a September 2019 opening in the Chinese coastal city of Shenzhen, followed days later by the debut of a Northwest Washington campus in a neighborhood full of embassies and private schools. The school on Connecticut Avenue hoped to one day serve 2,000 day and boarding students, ranging in age from prekindergarten through high school, with tuition of more than $40,000 a year.
It ended this school year with fewer than 130 students and 14 graduating seniors.
Whittle said the endeavor was upended by the coronavirus pandemic, as travel, in-person learning and cultural exchanges were suspended and financing faltered.
The school also faced what Whittle called regulatory drama in China, with changes to the way private schools are organized and funded.
Whittle has said the coronavirus pandemic derailed or delayed other expansion efforts, resulting in the school losing $100 million in investments — more than a third of what he had been counting on.
Days before Christmas 2021, with the school late in sending paychecks to employees, Whittle asked for emergency financial help from investors, friends and families. Parents helped to cover the payroll.
Others pulled their children out of the school, tired of the uncertainty.
Whittle told The Post earlier this spring that $30 million in loans and investments had kept the D.C. campus running.
Still, the financial problems continued. In the letter to families, Whittle said the decline in the stock market and rising interest rates, “delayed transactions to replenish our capital position,” in Washington. "Any single one of the above challenges could have pulled the DC campus under but the combination of them has simply proved too much for us to navigate here in DC,” he wrote.
In the past month, legal troubles further complicated its financial outlook. Washington Business Journal reported that owners of the Van Ness building sued in June to evict the company for allegedly failing to pay millions of dollars in real-estate taxes and rent.
Private school with global ambition to open in D.C. and China in 2019
When the Whittle School launched, officials envisioned a common faculty serving students in multiple cities worldwide with a curriculum focused on experiential learning and foreign languages. Whittle talked of opening 36 campuses in 15 countries in the years to come.
Whittle’s campus in Shenzen will remain open and they plan to launch another campus in China in the fall, he said, as well as work toward a future campus in Europe.
He said officials hoped to generate revenue to repay parents at the D.C. school.
“Parents have been very helpful in the last several months as these financing efforts were delayed," he said in a phone interview. "Parents helped us a great deal.”
He wrote that “all of us are sad beyond words about this result.” | 2022-07-08T23:43:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Whittle suspends operations at D.C. school after financial problems - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/08/whittle-school-dc-closure/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/08/whittle-school-dc-closure/ |
Leakin Park hidden gem once housed eccentric Winans
The summer estate owned by Thomas Winans, along with its four-story mansion, Gothic chapel and winding wooded trails, is located within Leakin Park in Baltimore. The property was acquired by the city during the 1930s and 1940s at the urging of one of the nation’s foremost landscape architects. Today, it is one of the hidden gems of Baltimore.
From inside the stone mansion, called Orianda House, trees obscure any evidence of a city, and a breeze whispers through the doors from the balcony into the ballroom. Upstairs live staffers for Chesapeake Bay Outward Bound, which leases the building from the city and operates in the surrounding park.
While the mansion itself is off limits to the public, Rick Smith Sr. ran a small museum inside it until a 2019 renovation. Smith, who grew up playing in the park in the 1960s and 1970s, recalls hearing stories about the property from friends and neighbors who had once worked in the mills of nearby Dickeyville. The area “was just this magic place for kids,” he said. Today, Smith is well-versed in the history of the land and its onetime owner, Winans.
Winans was something like the Elon Musk of his day. He made his fortune in Russia, where he helped build the railway between Moscow and St. Petersburg. With his Russian wife, he returned to Baltimore, building an opulent urban estate on Hollins Street he called Alexandroffsky. Twelve-foot-high walls obscured the view of statues that had scandalized his neighbors.
In the summer, it was off to The Crimea and the breezes of Orianda House. Iron eagle statues at the park entrance date back to the era of Winans.
Winans also built a fortification on the property, complete with canons. It is unclear exactly what purpose the fort served. Some accounts call it a “mock fort” designed to throw off Union troops during the Civil War.
Others say it was meant to commemorate the Battle of Balaklava of the Crimean War, immortalized in the poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Cannon in front of them,
Volleyed and thundered.
Today, remnants of the fortress can still be found during a hike through the park, along with ropes courses owned by Outward Bound.
It was not a given that The Crimea would become part of Leakin Park.
When he died in 1922, attorney Wilson Leakin left four downtown properties to the city with the intention that the proceeds be used to build a park.
But city officials could not agree where that park should be located. Some argued for The Crimea, a choice bolstered by famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., who wanted Baltimore to preserve its stream valleys from development.
Others said West Baltimore already had enough parks. In fact, Leakin Park adjoins Gwynns Falls, which opened in the early 1900s. Others suggested sites in Cherry Hill or the Jones Falls Valley.
Championed by Mayor Howard Wilkinson Jackson, the crowd supporting The Crmea won out, and the city purchased the estate for around $130,000, according to the Baltimore Sun archives.
Wandering through the wooded park today, it is easy to see how the place must have cast a spell on Olmstead and the city officials who argued for its purchase.
With the thick growth of trees overlooking a stream, a visitor feels as though they might be in the Shenandoah Mountains, aside from a few heaps of trash that had been unceremoniously dumped in the picnic area.
Sadly, many Baltimoreans know Leakin Park for a more gruesome dumping ground, as a place where killers once discarded the bodies of their victims.
Park advocates like Smith bristle at the mention of its gory reputation, which came up in the podcast “Serial.” The series revisits the death of Hae Min Lee, whose body was found in Leakin Park in 1999.
In the same article, Jonathan Foley, president of Friends of Gwynns Falls and Leakin Park said, “It is something we live with, and it is something that holds us back in a lot of ways.”
Park advocates have also encountered another foe: development. In the 1970s, residents in the area gathered to protest the expansion of Interstate 70, which would have cut through Leakin Park. Instead, the highway ends abruptly in a park-and-ride lot just inside the Baltimore Beltway. | 2022-07-08T23:43:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Leakin Park hidden gem once housed eccentric Winans - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/leakin-park-hidden-gem-once-housed-eccentric-winans/2022/07/08/0850fcb4-fe68-11ec-a7eb-d66bb98bbf0f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/leakin-park-hidden-gem-once-housed-eccentric-winans/2022/07/08/0850fcb4-fe68-11ec-a7eb-d66bb98bbf0f_story.html |
WASHINGTON — A strong hiring report for June has assuaged fears that the U.S. economy might be on the cusp of a recession — and highlighted the resilience of the nation’s job market. Yet the figures the government released Friday also spotlighted the sharp divide between the healthy labor market and the rest of the economy: Inflation has soared to 40-year highs, consumers are increasingly gloomy, home sales and manufacturing are weakening and the economy might actually have shrunk for the past six months. The contrasting picture suggests an economy at a crossroads. Strong hiring and wage growth could help stave off recession.
WASHINGTON — Inflation is raging. The stock market is tumbling and interest rates rising. American consumers are depressed and angry. Economists warn of potentially dark times ahead. But employers? They just keep hiring. The Labor Department reported Friday that America’s dinged and dented economy managed to add a vigorous 372,000 jobs in June, well above the 275,000 that economists had expected. And the unemployment rate remained at 3.6%, just a tick above the 50-year low that was recorded just before the coronavirus pandemic flattened the economy in early 2020.
NARA, Japan — Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated on a street in western Japan by a gunman who opened fire on him from behind as he delivered a campaign speech. The attack stunned the nation that has some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere. The 67-year-old Abe, who was Japan’s longest-serving leader when he resigned in 2020, collapsed bleeding and was airlifted to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead from major damage to his heart and two neck wounds. Police arrested the suspected gunman at the scene and identified him as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, a former member of Japan’s navy.
WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to Asia this month, her first trip to the Indo-Pacific since becoming head of the agency. Yellen will represent the U.S. at the Group of 20 finance minister meetings on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali. At the G-20 meetings and on her broader trip, Yellen will make the case for a price cap on Russian oil, to reduce revenue to the Kremlin as it continues its attack on Ukraine. Yellen will address the economic and humanitarian challenges wrought by Russia’s invasion. Unlike the Group of Seven finance leader meetings in April, the G-20 will involve participant countries that are not united in opposition to Russia’s invasion.
WASHINGTON — A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows an upheaval in priorities just months before critical midterm elections. Concerns about inflation and personal finances have surged while COVID has evaporated as a top issue for Americans. Many U.S. adults also prioritize other issues, including abortion, women’s rights and gun policy. In a troubling sign for both parties, the poll finds many Americans say they think neither side of the aisle is better at focusing on the issues important to them or getting things done. | 2022-07-08T23:52:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Hiring report strong, markets mixed - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-hiring-report-strong-markets-mixed/2022/07/08/b9079be0-ff16-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-hiring-report-strong-markets-mixed/2022/07/08/b9079be0-ff16-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
U.N. deadlocked on mandate for last humanitarian corridor into Syria
A woman hangs laundry in a flooded refugee camp in northwestern Syria. (Ghaith Alysayed/Associated Press)
Russia and Western powers failed to agree Friday on a United Nations resolution allowing continued passage of humanitarian aid through a single corridor from Turkey into northwest Syria, where it provides survival food and medicine to more than 4 million people in the rebel-held region.
The deadlock, officially over how long to extend the one-year U.N. mandate for cross-border assistance, was also a reflection of the shredded relationship between Russia and the United States and its allies over Ukraine. A nearly identical debate on the same issue last year was resolved with diplomacy among the parties, including a June 2021 summit between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
There has been virtually no diplomatic contact between the administration and the Kremlin since Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine. Although Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart are both currently attending a G-20 summit in Indonesia, they have no plans to meet.
The cross-border program, one of the largest humanitarian operations in the world, expires Sunday. Most of the recipients are Syrians who have been displaced — many of them multiple times — during more than a decade of war between opposition forces and the Russian- and Iranian-backed government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“In today’s vote we saw politics trump critical aid for vulnerable Syrians,” Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, the head of Mercy Corps, said in a statement. “As a result, we are sure to see a worsening humanitarian situation and deteriorating food insecurity for millions.”
Russia vetoed a resolution, sponsored by Norway and Ireland, that would have extended the program for another year. China abstained, while the remaining 13 members of the Council voted in favor.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield called the resolution a compromise, since those who favored it had given up efforts to persuade Russia to allow more than one border crossing.
Russia was “the only outlier” opposed to the measure, she told reporters after the meeting. “Even China abstained … If that’s not isolation, I don’t know what is.”
After the initial vote, Russia tabled its own resolution to renew the program for six months. Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy ambassador, described it as “the only alternative” to complete closure of the supply line. Only Russia and China voted in favor. The United States, Britain and France vetoed the measure, and 10 countries abstained.
Thomas-Greenfield said later that the six-month limit would “leave Syrians without blankets in the dead of winter, without the supplies that they need. It would deny the U.N. and humanitarian organizations the time to organize the reliable supply. … And, frankly, Russia’s approach to these negotiations was unprofessional, it was greedy.”
Russia has maintained, both this year and last, that the cross-border aid is a violation of Syrian sovereignty, and that any assistance should flow through Assad’s government in Damascus. The United States and others have opposed any aid flows through the government, which they have accused of both corruption and war crimes. Last year’s resolution compromised on that issue by pledging to examine the possibility of sending more aid via the government.
Polyanskiy, who accused Thomas-Greenfield of being “sly and hypocritical,” said the West had not complied with the pledge and continues to ignore “the interests of Damascus.” If it did better during the next six months, he said, Russia would be ready to negotiate and vote on a new six-month mandate.
Former al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria seeks to soften its brand
The northwestern Syrian pocket, consisting of Idlib province and surrounding areas, is one of the last redoubts of opposition controlled by militant groups. The most powerful of them was once affiliated with al-Qaeda, although it has recently gone through a rebranding in an effort to convince Syrians and the outside world that it has changed.
The area is rife with poverty and malnutrition. Displaced Syrians, with little way to earn an income, live in sprawling tent encampments on hard terrain, facing subzero temperatures in the winter and baking in the hot, arid summers.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said this week that 800 trucks of U.N.-organized assistance had passed through the crossing at Bab al-Hawa each month last year, with 4,648 during the first six months of this year. “We have made it very clear the need for renewal on this,” he said.
Shipments are now scheduled to stop as of Monday, as Russia “seems to be signaling that this could be the end, that it’s [Russia’s] resolution or nothing,” Irish Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason told reporters after the votes. But consultations would continue over the weekend, she said. “We don’t believe in ‘my way or the highway’.”
Sarah Dadouch in Beirut contributed to this report. | 2022-07-08T23:52:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.N. deadlocked on mandate for last humanitarian corridor into Syria - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/08/syria-humanitarian-corridor-un/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/08/syria-humanitarian-corridor-un/ |
Abe’s legacy is a world better prepared to confront China
Then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reviews members of Japan Self-Defense Forces at Asaka Base north of Tokyo on Oct. 27, 2013. (Shizuo Kambayashi/AP)
“He knew two things: that the United States’ continued presence is vital for the region and beyond, and that for the United States to stay engaged in the region, Japan is vital,” Taniguchi told me. “His tactful relationship-building [efforts] both with Obama and Trump were all based on that realist consideration.” | 2022-07-08T23:52:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Abe’s legacy is a world better prepared to confront China - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/shinzo-abe-japan-china-long-game-quad-asia-pacific-trump-taiwan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/08/shinzo-abe-japan-china-long-game-quad-asia-pacific-trump-taiwan/ |
FILE - A forest along NM518 in Mora County, N.M, is scorched by the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire, May 23, 2022. The supervisor who was in charge of the Santa Fe National Forest when the federal government sparked what became the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history has been temporarily assigned to a post in Washington, D.C. Her replacement was named Friday, July 8, but some have questioned the timing given an ongoing suppression effort that now totals about $275 million. (Eddie Moore/The Albuquerque Journal via AP, File)
The latest: Louisiana’s near-total abortion ban goes into effect as court battle continues
11:01 PMThe latest: Biden talked to sister of American hostage in Russia | 2022-07-08T23:53:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Top official during massive New Mexico blaze gets new post - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-official-during-massive-new-mexico-blaze-gets-new-post/2022/07/08/274bd318-ff18-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-official-during-massive-new-mexico-blaze-gets-new-post/2022/07/08/274bd318-ff18-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
FILE - A general view of the Open Championship trophy, The Claret Jug, pictured on the 18th hole during The Open Media Day at St Andrews, Scotland, April 26, 2022. The Open Championship returns to the home of golf on July 14-17 to celebrate the 150th edition of the sport’s oldest championship, which dates to 1860 and was first played at St. Andrews in 1873. This will be the 30th time it’s on the Old Course, the most of any links on the rotation. (Jane Barlow/PA via AP, file)
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Facts and figures for the British Open golf championship: | 2022-07-08T23:53:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | BRITISH OPEN '22: A glance at golf's oldest championship - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/golf/british-open-22-a-glance-at-golfs-oldest-championship/2022/07/08/dd9faa52-ff0b-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/golf/british-open-22-a-glance-at-golfs-oldest-championship/2022/07/08/dd9faa52-ff0b-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 04: (U.S. TABS AND HOLLYWOOD REPORTER OUT) Actor Tony Sirico attends the HBO FILMS Premiere of "Angels In America" at The Ziegfeld Theater November 04, 2003 in New York City. (Evan Agostini/Getty Images)
Actor Tony Sirico, known for his role as Paulie Walnuts in the popular American television show ‘The Sopranos," died Friday at 79, his family and manager announced.
His manager of 25 years, Bob McGowan, said Sirico died Friday morning at an assisted living facility in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. McGowan said he did not know the cause of death.
A Facebook post the actor’s brother, Robert Sirico, said, “The family is deeply grateful for the many expressions of love, prayer and condolences and requests that the public respect its privacy in this time of bereavement."
Michael Imperioli, Sirico’s co-star who played Christopher Moltisanti on “The Sopranos," posted a photo of the duo on Instagram Friday evening, writing that he was “heartbroken today.”
“We found a groove as Christopher and Paulie and I am proud to say I did a lot of my best and most fun work with my dear pal Tony,” Imperioli’s post said. “I will miss him forever." | 2022-07-09T00:09:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Actor Tony Sirico, known for Paulie Walnuts role on 'The Sopranos,' dies at age 79 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/08/sopranos-actor-tony-sirico-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/08/sopranos-actor-tony-sirico-dies/ |
After Highland Park shooting, a new priest tries to comfort his flock
Father Hernan Cuevas at the St. James Catholic Church in Highwood, Ill. (Photos by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — Every pew was filled, and chairs had been pulled out to accommodate the overflow crowd, when the priest took to the lectern and cleared his throat.
Father Hernan Cuevas told the 1,500 people — Catholics and non-Catholics alike, all gathered Tuesday for what Immaculate Conception Church had billed as a Mass of Peace and Healing — a story he had repeated again and again over the past 24 hours. He told of the excitement over his congregation’s homespun float, the frantic run from the parade grounds as gunfire erupted, the anxious hours of praying the rosary while sheltered inside the church.
Cuevas paused briefly. He said two parishioners had been killed in the Monday mass shooting. Others were injured. Then he looked around.
“Now, the good work of peace and healing begins for all of us, our community,” Cuevas said. “And I would say I’m blessed that I’m here for you as your new parish pastor. And thank you. Thank you so much for your support.”
The church filled with thunderous applause.
It had been only four days since Cuevas, a 40-year-old raised in a large family in small-town Mexico, had arrived in Highland Park. In one of the two churches he now led, “Bienvenidos Padre Hernan Cuevas” banners hung in the hallways. He hadn’t yet unpacked, processed his own feelings or even talked to his mom about the horror that unfolded at the parade.
Yet the priest had been thrust into leading his community through the worst act of violence it had ever seen. Cuevas, who is trim, with dark hair and a beard, had tried to calm his congregants and others who sought solace inside the church while the gunman was still on the loose. He had gotten prayer requests for wounded church members he had not yet met. And now, on this night, he was at the first of a week’s worth of events meant to help them cope with the trauma of it all.
Watching from the crowd, Carmelo “Mel” Delos Santos, who volunteers at the church and had himself studied to become a priest before falling in love and getting married, thought he heard a tremble in Cuevas’s voice.
“I told him, ‘I think you felt the pain,’” Delos Santos, 74, recalled. “I told him, ‘I think you felt the pain of the people.’ ”
Cuevas was the eighth of nine children born to a devout Catholic couple in Jalisco and the second to pursue the priesthood. He was in high school when he first felt a calling motivated by the idea of “bringing that spiritual power to people,” he said. He thought he could help them, he said, through talking about God.
A seminary program brought Cuevas to Chicago, where he spent a year mastering English before his ordainment in 2011. After 11 years as the priest of a congregation in nearby Evanston, Ill., he was assigned this year to lead the United Parish of Immaculate Conception and St. James, created when two long-standing churches merged. His first day was July 1.
“I just came with this excitement to be with my new community, ready to get to know each other,” Cuevas said.
One of the first activities he participated in was the creation of a DIY float for the annual parade. Parishioners put together their offering after the Monday mass. They draped red, white and blue tablecloths over the railings of a trailer and stood a wooden cross up in the back. There were bunches of flowers in patriotic colors tacked in place and banners on each side: “We wish everyone a Happy 4th of July!!! Please welcome our new Pastor!”
Cuevas had a basket of granola bars to hand out on the route.
The church was No. 38 in the procession. As they waited their turn, Cuevas surveyed the float with pride. He pulled out his iPhone and began filming, narrating in Spanish. Then there was a strange sound, difficult to make out over the high school marching band. Cuevas abruptly stopped recording.
“This couldn’t be,” thought Angie Nutter, 71. Nine years earlier, her 20-year-old son, Colin, had been shot to death in one of the very few killings reported in quiet, Mayberry-esque Highland Park. She had turned to faith to make sense of her loss, sometimes attending church twice a day. This, she thought as she heard the gunfire, “is what happened to him.”
A wave of people crashed toward the priest and his people, among them two children with bloodied shirts. Catechists gathered them, and they all started to run until they reached the church. About two dozen people poured inside Immaculate Conception as sirens blared and a frantic manhunt for the shooter began.
Looking out at the group in front of him, most of them scanning their phones for updates, Cuevas saw fear, anxiety and panic. He centered his thoughts on God.
“I took the mic, turned on the light and said, ‘Let’s pray,’ ” he recalled.
Comforted, Nutter texted her husband and daughter, who were worried and unable to get to her: “I am safe at church.” Cuevas and church staff handed out water, along with the granola bars he’d planned to give to spectators.
Later, when it was safe, the priest walked some of the parishioners home.
In a message to his family in Mexico, he said he was okay and would talk to them soon. He watched his cellphone video from the parade twice and debated deleting it. He said he had “vivid memories, still in my mind, of everything that I saw.”
Delos Santos had planned to be at the parade with his church but stayed home because of sciatic nerve pain that makes walking difficult. He cried when he heard what happened, knowing that “I wouldn’t [have been] able to run.” He stopped to collect himself while talking about it: “It’s just that, if I recall it, I become emotional.”
He kept thinking about the 21-year-old who killed seven people and wounded dozens of others. He couldn’t understand it. Was the devil working in the “kid,” who was a classmate of his nephews and someone he had seen around town? Does he have a conscience? A heart? He talked to the priest about it.
“I asked him, ‘What do you think is in the mind of that guy? That kid?’ And he just smiled at me. He says, ‘I cannot judge him,’ ” Delos Santos said. “And that’s all. And then he changed the topic.” That, he said, showed a strength of faith that would get Cuevas through a first week like no other.
That, he said, showed a strength of faith that would get Cuevas through a first week like no other.
There was still so much for him to do. He led daily mass, joined a rabbi in speaking at a candlelit vigil and held special services for the victims. He prayed for a parishioner who was grievously injured in the shooting and later died in the hospital.
He was at work planning a Saturday morning procession from the church to the memorial that had sprung up near the scene of the shooting.
Through it, he said he was relying on faith to get through a week of pain, confusion and fear. It was at the center of the readings he chose, and at the center of his message.
“You cannot rely on our own peace, because we can easily break that peace,” he said. “You need something stronger.” | 2022-07-09T00:44:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After Highland Park shooting, a new priest tries to comfort his flock - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/08/highland-park-shooting-priest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/08/highland-park-shooting-priest/ |
Harvey Dinnerstein, realist artist who sketched a boycott, dies at 94
At 27, he helped document the Montgomery bus boycott through his pencil and pastel illustrations. He was later known for his expressive large-scale paintings of New York subway scenes.
“At the Window,” a 2016 self-portrait by artist Harvey Dinnerstein. (Gerald Peters Gallery)
Harvey Dinnerstein, a realist artist who documented the Montgomery bus boycott in drawings that captured civil rights activists’ dignity and resolve, and who later channeled the rhythms of his native New York in grand-scale paintings of street parties, subway scenes and ordinary people at work, died June 21 at a hospital in Brooklyn. He was 94.
The cause was complications from a fall, said his niece, concert pianist Simone Dinnerstein.
Mr. Dinnerstein launched his art career in the early 1950s, making realist paintings inspired in part by the work of Rembrandt, Degas and German artist Käthe Kollwitz. While most of his peers turned toward abstraction, he remained defiantly committed to realism, seeking to apply the centuries-old tradition of figurative painting to his vivid, socially conscious depictions of contemporary life.
Looking at one of his portraits — of a New York subway worker, perhaps, or a dancer from Brazil — “you would think you were looking at a major Velázquez or Sorolla,” at a painting by “one of the grandmasters,” said Alice Levi Duncan, senior director at the Gerald Peters Gallery in New York that represents Mr. Dinnerstein. His work had “reverence for the past,” she said in a phone interview, “but translated it into the 21st century.”
Mr. Dinnerstein worked with oils, pastels and engravings but was probably best known for drawings he made in early 1956, when he traveled to Alabama with fellow artist Burton Silverman, a high school classmate, to chronicle the bus boycott in Montgomery.
The duo had been moved by newspaper accounts of the boycott, a year-long campaign that ultimately succeeded in desegregating the bus system, and sought to make illustrations that would complement the work of journalists like Murray Kempton, whose columns in the New York Post had first captured their attention.
With their thick New York accents and sketchpads in hand, the 27-year-old artists were obviously outsiders. But they soon gained the trust of activists in Montgomery, attending private church meetings and visiting organizers’ homes as they drew people carpooling to work or walking alone to the office or grocery store.
The artists also documented the trials of the boycott’s leaders, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and drew organizers such as Rosa Parks, who launched the boycott with her refusal to give up her bus seat to a White man. Mr. Dinnerstein’s pencil and pastel drawing of Parks showed her holding a Bible in a moment of contemplation, with her head bowed and a cross on her chest.
“You look at that image of Rosa Parks and you get a sense of her calm,” said Heather Campbell Coyle, curator of American art at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington. In a phone interview, she praised Mr. Dinnerstein’s “absolute mastery” of figurative drawing, adding that the way he captured Parks “gives you such a sense of her quiet dignity and strength.”
Mr. Dinnerstein and Silverman made about 90 pictures, half of which were acquired by the Delaware Art Museum. Some of the illustrations ran in newspapers and magazines, and many were exhibited at a gallery in New York. Covering the boycott reaffirmed Mr. Dinnerstein’s commitment to realism, although he also sought to move away from journalism.
“At some point I started to realize that it wasn’t enough just to record incidents,” he told the Epoch Times in 2017. “One had to reach beyond the narrative, beyond the moment, for something deeper, more transcendent … to some other level of perception.”
Still, he continued to find inspiration from ordinary events, while walking through Central Park or taking the subway from his home in Brooklyn to art classes in Manhattan, where he taught for 40 years at the Art Students League of New York.
Many of his works seemed to celebrate diversity and resilience, showing a mix of young and old, White and Black, partying outside a Brooklyn brownstone or gathered together on a train. One of his most evocative paintings, “Underground Together” (1996), stretches nearly nine feet and shows a dozen figures aboard a subway car, glimpsed from the platform before the door slams shut.
The crowd includes a businessman, a construction worker, a mother and child, a beggar crouched with a cup and a young man passing him change. At the door stands Mr. Dinnerstein himself, easily recognizable with his glasses and white beard, recording the scene in his sketchbook.
The older of two brothers, Harvey Dinnerstein was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn on April 3, 1928. His mother was a homemaker from Belarus, and his father was a pharmacist and labor union activist who joined the Communist Party USA and marched for civil rights. Both of them supported his desire to become an artist.
“They had no special interest in art, or conception of what it meant to be an artist,” Mr. Dinnerstein told Linea, an Art Students League publication, in 2021. “But they had convictions that placed human values above monetary concerns, and encouraged me to pursue my studies in a field that was totally alien to them and must have seemed, at the time, completely impractical.”
Mr. Dinnerstein was admitted to the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan and took weekend classes from Russian-born figurative painter Moses Soyer, a prominent figurative artist. He later studied at the Art Students League, and he graduated in 1950 from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Drafted into the Army during the Korean War, he made greeting cards for G.I.s while stationed at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey. (According to family lore, it was his drawing ability that kept him from being sent to Korea.) In 1955, he had made his solo debut in New York with an exhibition at the Davis Galleries in Manhattan. A New York Times reviewer likened his “deft and subtle figure drawings” to works by French artist Édouard Vuillard.
Over the next decade, Mr. Dinnerstein began to support his art career by illustrating books (including a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories for Macmillan) and taking commissions. Esquire sent him to Washington in 1968 to draw the Poor People’s Campaign, an anti-poverty effort originated by King.
Mr. Dinnerstein later illustrated the Grammy-winning album cover for “The Siegel-Schwall Band,” a 1971 record by the blues-rock group of the same name. He taught at the School of Visual Arts and the National Academy of Design, both in New York, before moving to the Art Students League in 1980.
Survivors include his wife of 71 years, art historian Lois Behrke Dinnerstein of Brooklyn; two children, Michael of Denver and Rachel of Endicott, N.Y.; and his brother, Simon, a fellow artist.
In an essay for Linea last year, Mr. Dinnerstein wrote that he and his wife had spent the past 17 months of the coronavirus pandemic self-quarantined at home, with virtually no contact with the outside word. “After a period of uncertainty, I found great solace when I picked up a drawing tool or brush and somehow the creative spark returned,” he wrote. “An affirmation of life, beyond the shadows of the deadly virus.”
Mr. Dinnerstein still working up until the day before he died, drawing “on the backs of envelopes, anything he could get his hands on,” his niece said.
Last year, he completed a pastel called “From Darkness Into Light” showing an old woman with a mask over her face, leading a child through a dark tunnel and toward a brightly lit garden. | 2022-07-09T00:57:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Harvey Dinnerstein, realist artist who sketched a boycott, dies at 94 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/08/artist-harvey-dinnerstein-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/08/artist-harvey-dinnerstein-dead/ |
Businessman spent covid relief funds on swanky McLean mansion
Foad Darakhshan was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison for the fraud.
A McLean businessman who bilked nearly $1.6 million from federal coronavirus relief programs and spent much of the money on a mansion with its own movie theater and cigar room was sentenced Friday to two years and nine months in prison.
Foad Darakhshan, 47, admitted as part of a plea that he arranged with his girlfriend and four brothers to submit fraudulent tax documents and loan applications to the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
Darakhshan personally obtained nearly $1.6 million in coronavirus relief funds, according to court documents, and used more than $621,000 to buy half of an ownership stake in a gated, 9,816-square-foot mansion in McLean now listed for sale at $4.425 million. The six-bedroom, six-and-a-half bath property is said to feature a spa, movie theater, and wine cellar and cigar room, among other amenities. Prosecutors said he also spent some disaster-relief funds at Costco and gas stations.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell L. Carlberg said in a court filing that fraud cases involving coronavirus relief funds are “rampant,” and called Darakhshan’s actions a crime of “opportunistic greed” because he did not need the money.
After being denied a raft of loan applications, all submitted the same day in May 2020 to Atlantic Union Bank, the group tried again with more meticulous fake documents submitted to PNC Bank and was successful, according to documents filed with the guilty plea. The scheme involved fake companies and nonexistent employees in some cases, and wildly inflated revenue figures in others, prosecutors said.
“They did this at a time when many legitimate businesses desperately needed that money, businesses that actually paid real employees, that actually filed tax returns and paid employee withholding taxes and benefits,” Carlberg wrote in a sentencing brief. “Such business included restaurants, movie theaters, dry cleaners, barber shops, beauty salons, fitness centers, live music venues, among many others.”
Darakhshan pleaded guilty in February to a conspiracy charge of wire fraud and bank fraud.
“What I did was wrong, and there’s no excuse,” Darakhshan said at his sentencing Friday. “I was raised better.”
His attorney, Jeffrey Zimmerman, argued in court filings that Darakhshan’s girlfriend, Haleh Farshi, “coordinated the scheme.”
“Ms. Farshi did the research and the legwork,” Zimmerman wrote in a sentencing brief. “She prepared the forms, coached others on how to discuss them, and interacted with the [Small Business Administration] and bank personnel. Contrary to the government’s assertions, there is no evidence that Foad exercised any control over her or that she exercised any control over anyone else. The text messages show, rather, that she coordinated the scheme and consulted with Foad and his brothers regarding its execution.”
Farshi’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment. She also pleaded guilty in February and has not been sentenced. Darakhshan’s four brothers also have yet to be sentenced for participating in the scheme.
Farshi admitted she used separate coronavirus relief funds she obtained fraudulently “to pay over $59,000 of previously existing personal credit card debt, to write a check to herself for $5,000, to lease an Infiniti sport utility vehicle for more than $4,000, and to fund other personal expenses,” according to documents filed with her plea.
U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady found that Darakhshan did not exercise control over the other defendants, as prosecutors had argued in seeking a longer sentence. But the judge said Darakhshan and Farshi were “the most culpable” of the group and called their efforts a “feeding frenzy.”
“I was struck by the text messages between you and Ms. Farshi, where she makes the comment about ‘free money,’ and you haven’t explained why you did this,” O’Grady said to Darakhshan from the bench.
Darakhshan, who said his family came to the United States from Iran, had requested a sentence of home confinement. Zimmerman noted he had volunteered for decades at the Air Force Civil Air Patrol.
Authorities have seized approximately $975,000 from Darakhshan, prosecutors said.
But the $621,585 he poured into the house-flipping project in McLean — which is described in its listing as a “magnificent sanctuary” with fountains, a swimming pool and a private elevator — has not been seized because Darakhshan is suing his business partner in state court over the property.
His attorney said Darakhshan intends to repay the government as soon as it sells, and asked the judge whether Darakhshan could get approval for another loan to repay the government more quickly. The judge said it was up to his probation officer to decide. | 2022-07-09T01:23:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Businessman bought swanky McLean mansion with covid relief funds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/08/mclean-mansion-covid-relief-fraud/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/08/mclean-mansion-covid-relief-fraud/ |
George Mason baseball coach Bill Brown retires after 41 seasons
Bill Brown spent 45 years at George Mason as a player, assistant and head coach on its baseball team. (Art Pittman/George Mason athletics)
Bill Brown still remembers the advice his father gave him in 1981, when George Mason baseball coach Walt Masterson stepped down and turned to Brown, then his assistant, to succeed him.
Brown had only graduated from George Mason the previous year, but Masterson, a two-time major league all-star, felt the 24-year-old was ready. Brown did too, but his father’s advice sealed his decision.
“He said: ‘Hey, look, go for it. The last thing you want to do is move on and get later in life and wish you had taken that opportunity,’ ” Brown said. “So I took it, and somehow or another it ended up being 41 years worth.”
Brown stepped down after 41 seasons leading George Mason’s program, the university announced Friday. He finishes as the school’s winningest baseball coach, posting 1,083 victories across five decades.
“Billy is an iconic figure in collegiate baseball,” George Mason Athletic Director Brad Edwards said in a statement. “He has mentored and empowered countless student-athletes who have benefited from his leadership and his knowledge of the game. We recognize and honor the impactful legacy he will leave as an outstanding ambassador for Mason baseball and our university community.”
From the archives: New GMU Baseball Coach: A Youngster in Years Only
A native of Vienna, Va., Brown grew up in a baseball family, the older brother of former Boston Red Sox pitcher Mike Brown and the son of a former Gettysburg College standout. He played baseball at Allegany Community College and the University of Georgia before arriving at George Mason, where he became an National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics all-district catcher during his junior season. He earned a government and political science degree from the school in 1980 and replaced Masterson the following year, becoming the third coach in program history.
Brown, 65, earned conference coach of the year honors six times and captured a pair of Colonial Athletic Association titles. He led George Mason to the NCAA tournament seven times, with the last trip coming in 2014.
“It’s just nothing but great memories,” Brown said of his time at Mason, a period that spanned 45 years through his time as a student, assistant and head coach. “The things that I remember the most, it’s always the assistant coaches and relationships I had with them and the players. That’s what I’ll remember the most, just the guys who’ve come through the program and the different characters and how much fun it was to be around those guys.”
During Brown’s tenure, 47 of those players were drafted and another 21 signed professional contracts as free agents. His 2009 team won 42 games and saw six players taken in the MLB draft. Brown also saw six players break into the majors, including former pitcher Shawn Camp, who will serve as the Patriots’ interim coach. Brown will remain with the university in a yet-to-be-determined role.
“Baseball was a family thing. It was a big part of our lives, so I thought about this as an unbelievable opportunity,” Brown said, reflecting on the moment he accepted the head coaching job. “I wasn’t worried about getting rich, I wasn’t worried about anything except, ‘Hey, I’m going to take my shot at this.’ Forty-one years later, there it was.” | 2022-07-09T01:24:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | George Mason baseball coach Bill Brown retires after 41 seasons - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/08/george-mason-baseball-bill-brown-retires/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/08/george-mason-baseball-bill-brown-retires/ |
Prosecutors recapped accusations against leader Stewart Rhodes and alleged co-conspirators charged with seditious conspiracy ahead of House Jan. 6 hearing on Trump ties to extremist groups
Trump supporters scaled the walls on the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol and gained access inside the building on Jan. 6, 2021. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
In a 28-page filing, prosecutors said a law enforcement search on Jan. 19, 2021, of the home of charged co-defendant Thomas Caldwell, a retired Navy intelligence officer from Berryville, Va., recovered a document that included the words “DEATH LIST” handwritten across the top with the name of a Georgia election official and a purported family member of the official. Both were targets of baseless accusations that they were involved in voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, prosecutors said.
The prosecutor claimed that another Rhodes co-defendant, purported Florida “state lead” Kelly Meggs, had told a cooperating defendant who has pleaded guilty in a cooperation deal with the government that another Florida member of the group, Jeremy Brown, came to Washington with explosives in his recreational vehicle, which he left parked in College Park, Md. Brown, who has pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor Jan. 6 counts, is not charged in the seditious conspiracy indictment but was described by prosecutors as an “unindicted co-conspirator.”
How Trump’s flirtation with an anti-insurrection law inspired Jan. 6 insurrection
Prosecutors asserted that the defendants face charges including conspiracy to corruptly obstruct Congress’s certification of the 2020 election results and to oppose President Biden’s swearing-in by force. Charging papers allege that the group coordinated travel, equipment and firearms and stashed weapons outside Washington, ready “to answer Rhodes’ call to take up arms at Rhodes’ direction.”
Rhodes, Caldwell and the remaining co-defendants have pleaded not guilty. Rhodes in an interview with The Washington Post in March 2021 said there was no plan to breach the Capitol. He has said the group staged firearms in Northern Virginia in case it was needed as a “quick reaction force” if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act and mobilized armed groups to keep himself in office. Rhodes’s attorney declined to comment Friday night about the government’s latest allegations. | 2022-07-09T02:50:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oath Keeper accused of bringing explosives to D.C. for Jan. 6 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/08/oathkeepers-explosives-death-list-jan6/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/08/oathkeepers-explosives-death-list-jan6/ |
Man slain by Fairfax County police is named
Man had run at officers while swinging bottle, police say
Fairfax County police identified the man killed by an officer in McLean on Thursday night and said he had run toward police while swinging a bottle.
Jasper Aaron Lynch, 26, was killed in a house in the 6900 block of Arbor Lane during an episode that began about an hour and a half earlier when a family friend first called with concerns for his safety, the police said Friday night.
On the first police visit to the house, Lynch was not found, police said. But when police were called again, around 8:30 p.m., officers found Lynch inside holding a bottle and an object, thought to be a large decorative wooden tribal mask, the police said.
While in the foyer of the house, the officers tried to de-escalate the situation with verbal commands.
But, police said, “Lynch threw the mask at an officer and began to swing the bottle in striking motion.”
Two officers tried to use their electronic control weapons. (These have been described as stun guns.)
But, police said, Lynch ran toward officers while swinging the bottle, and one officer fired his gun.
Lynch was hit four times. Officers tried to administer aid, but he died at the scene, police said.
In the statement released Friday night, police said that in the original call, made about 7:10 p.m., the family friend said Lynch had been throwing objects and pacing.
The friend had expressed concern for his safety.
A special unit responded, police said. The unit included an officer on the crisis intervention team and a clinician.
But Lynch left the house before they arrived, police said.
The team checked the home and remained in the area, trying unsuccessfully to find him.
The special unit then went to a police station to reach Lynch’s relatives by phone.
The second call for police came at 8:34 p.m. and was placed by a family friend, police said. It was not clear if this was the same friend who had called earlier.
This time, police said, three officers trained in crisis intervention went to the house, where they spoke on the scene to a family member.
According to the police account, the officers this time found Lynch inside. The fatal confrontation ensued.
The officer who fired his gun is a 10-year member of the department, assigned to the McLean station, police said.
As a matter of policy, all officers involved have been placed on restricted duty pending the outcome of an administrative investigation by the police.
An independent review will also be conducted by the police auditor and the officer’s name will be released within 10 days, unless there is a credible threat to the officer’s safety. | 2022-07-09T02:50:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fairfax officer shoots man in house in McLean - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/08/fairfax-police-kill-man-mclean/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/08/fairfax-police-kill-man-mclean/ |
The procedural step looked at environmental impact of shrinking the project but kept it on the path for approval
Oil pipelines stretch across the landscape on May 29, 2019, outside Nuiqsut, Alaska, where ConocoPhillips operates the Alpine Field. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
The Biden administration on Friday released a new environmental assessment of a controversial oil project on Alaska’s North Slope but declined to reveal whether it was leaning toward approving a project that has faced stiff opposition from environmentalists and has some Native Alaskans worried it will disrupt their subsistence lifestyle.
Climate activists had hoped the administration would either sharply curtail or end a multibillion-dollar effort by the energy giant ConocoPhillips to expand oil infrastructure in the Alaskan Arctic, a project known as Willow. Environmentalists argue that burning all that new fossil fuel would undercut much of President Biden’s climate agenda, which proposes cutting emissions by more than 50 percent by 2030 compared with 2005 levels.
But the draft environmental impact statement from the Bureau of Land Management evaluated different alternatives and did not express a preference. The alternatives included reducing the number of drilling sites — and building nothing at all — but environmentalists greeted the new assessment as another worrying step on the road to approval. A public comment period now ensues, followed by a final decision.
Willow, which was approved in the final year of the Trump administration, would bring hundreds of miles of roads and pipelines, and between three to five drilling sites, airstrips, a gravel mine and a large new processing facility, to the pristine tundra and wetlands of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the largest block of public land in the country. There are only two drilling sites producing oil in the 23 million-acre reserve, both run by ConocoPhillips.
A ConocoPhillips spokesperson on Friday said it was committed to Willow because “it will supply much needed energy for the United States, while serving as a strong example of environmentally and socially responsible development that offers extensive public benefits.”
Alaska’s political leaders have long supported the project as a way to bolster oil production on the North Slope that has been declining since the 1980s. With soaring gas prices and supply disruptions due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration has also faced growing political pressure to boost production.
Facing catastrophic climate change, this Alaskan village can't quit Big Oil
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) described the project as her “top priority” for the administration and said she wants to see construction begin this winter.
“Responsibly-developed Alaskan energy benefits both our national security and American families who are facing near-record energy prices,” Murkowski said in a statement.
Following its approval at the end of 2020, the project was quickly challenged in court. Last year, a federal judge found that the government did not fully consider different project alternatives or assess how burning the oil pulled from the ground would warm the planet. As part of that litigation, the judge required the Interior Department to conduct an updated environmental review.
The new review added more discussion on why climate change is a problem and its costs to society. It mentioned that interior and northern areas of Alaska are projected to warm by 10 to 16 degrees Fahrenheit by the late 21st century, under a high-emissions scenario.
The review estimated the project would generate between 278 and 284 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, depending on which alternative is chosen. Environmental groups equated the earlier project estimate of 260 million metric tons to the emissions produced by 66 coal plants.
“This is an enormous project that they’re now disclosing is even bigger,” Lieb said in an interview. “Approving it is incompatible with what science says needs to happen and what this administration has committed to doing to respond to climate change.”
In the nearest town of Nuiqsut, the oil industry is already a divisive topic. Some residents say the economic rewards have lifted the standard of living far above other Native Alaskan villages, while others consider the industry a source of health problems and poor air quality. Many residents still depend on hunting and whaling for subsistence, and fear more drilling pads and pipelines will push migrating caribou further from the village.
In March, natural gas began leaking from the ground at Alpine, a neighboring ConocoPhillips facility. The leak caused ConocoPhillips to evacuate some 300 of its employees from the site and sparked panic in Nuiqsut, prompting several families to flee the area. It has also caused some residents to feel increasingly concerned about a major expansion of the oil industry. | 2022-07-09T02:54:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Climate activists worried after Biden releases review of Alaska oil project - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/08/willow-oil-alaska-conoco-phillips/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/08/willow-oil-alaska-conoco-phillips/ |
Larry Storch, comic actor in TV sitcom ‘F Troop,’ dies at 99
Larry Storch, left, played Cpl. Randolph Agarn in the 1960s TV sitcom “F Troop” alongside Forrest Tucker, right, as Sgt. Morgan O'Rourke. (ABC Photo Archives/Disney/Getty Images)
Larry Storch, a comic actor best known for his role as a bumbling corporal in the 1960s sitcom “F Troop,” set at the fictional Fort Courage in the Old West, died July 8 at his home in Manhattan. He was 99.
The cause was complications from Alzheimer’s disease, said his stepdaughter, June Cross.
Mr. Storch’s career stretched back to the 1930s, when he began working as a comedian and impressionist in burlesque houses, and included stand-up comedy, hundreds of television appearances, film and theater roles, and voice-over parts in animated films.
Yet it was a goofy sitcom that gave him his widest recognition, portraying the likable yet hapless Cpl. Randolph Agarn on “F Troop,” which ran from 1965 to 1967 on ABC and featured the shenanigans of an Army unit at a frontier outpost.
“How do you get to Fort Courage?” Mr. Storch’s character asked in one episode. “That’s easy. You take a right at the rock that looks like a bear, then a left at the bear that looks like a rock.”
Mr. Storch was the sidekick of the wily Sgt. Morgan O’Rourke, played by Forrest Tucker, who was continually hatches harebrained moneymaking schemes, often in cahoots with leaders of a local Indian tribe called the Hekawi. The commanding officer of the fort is an inept dilettante played by Ken Berry.
The show’s humor was often broad, farcical and built on crude cultural stereotypes, but Mr. Storch emerged as the comic star of “F Troop.” With his expressive face and gift for mimicry, he played Agarn as something between a rogue and buffoon, entangled in one misfiring plan after another.
He was constantly encountering cousins from all over the world — played by Mr. Storch, of course, in various accents — who somehow managed to make their way to Fort Courage from Russia, Canada or Mexico. His hat, with its upturned brim, seemed to fall in the dust in every episode, or else he used it to batter other F Troop soldiers who were even more incompetent than he.
Agarn frequently mentioned his hometown of Passaic, N.J., and in one episode, both candidates for mayor converge on Fort Courage to seek the corporal’s absentee vote to break an electoral tie. Tucker’s character tries to make money off the electioneering, as the corporal laments, “I only regret that I have but one vote to give to my city.”
In the end, his vote is thrown out because he cast his ballot in a saloon, where whiskey was served in violation of election laws.
Something of a 1960s mash-up of “Gilligan’s Island,” “Hogan’s Heroes” and “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.,” “F Troop” was canceled after two seasons, but it has lived on in syndicated reruns for more than 50 years.
Lawrence Samuel Storch was born Jan. 8, 1923, in the Bronx and grew up in Brooklyn and Manhattan. His father was, at different times, a cabdriver and real estate agent, and his mother was, among other jobs, a telephone operator and jewelry store owner.
Mr. Storch attended DeWitt Clinton High in the Bronx, where one of his classmates was the comic actor Don Adams. He began to perform as a teenage impressionist and dropped out of school to pursue a career in show business.
“My mother ran a rooming house on West 77th Street in the 1920s,” Mr. Storch told the Wall Street Journal in 2012. “Many of the tenants were immigrants and the communal telephone was right outside our apartment. I listened to those accents for hours through our door.”
He found moderate success in nightclubs from Boston to Miami. Inspired by the jazz musicians he frequently worked with, he taught himself to play the saxophone.
During World War II, he served more than three years in the Navy. One of his shipmates was a fellow New Yorker named Bernie Schwartz, who told Mr. Storch of his ambitions to be an actor.
“I told him that if he ever needed help he could find me and I would put in a word for him,” Mr. Storch later said. “But I advised him to get out of the business, because I knew firsthand how hard it was to make a living in show business. It’s a good thing he didn’t listen to me.”
Bernie Schwartz later became one of Hollywood’s biggest stars under a different name: Tony Curtis.
Tony Curtis dies at 85; starred in 'Some Like It Hot' and 'Sweet Smell of Success'
In the early 1950s, Mr. Storch replaced Jackie Gleason as host of the variety show “Cavalcade of Stars” and briefly hosted his own TV show in 1953. He voiced several characters in the “Koko the Clown” animated short film features in the 1960s and was a frequent guest star on such programs as “The Phil Silvers Show” and “Car 54, Where Are You?” Curtis also found roles for Mr. Storch in several of his films, including “40 Pounds of Trouble,” “Captain Newman, M.D.,” “Sex and the Single Girl” and “The Great Race.”
After “F Troop,” Mr. Storch had a recurring part in “The Doris Day Show,” acted in the 1975 airline disaster film “Airport 1975” and was reunited with Tucker for the short-lived TV show “The Ghost Busters” (1975), which had no connection to the 1984 blockbuster film “Ghostbusters.”
He also appeared in regional theatrical productions of “Arsenic and Old Lace” and “Annie Get Your Gun” and in a national tour of “Porgy and Bess,” playing a devious, racist detective, the opera’s only White character.
In 1961, Mr. Storch married Norma Greve. They previously had a relationship in the late 1940s and gave up a daughter for adoption.
Greve later had another daughter, June, from a relationship with Jimmy Cross, a dancer in the once-popular nightclub duo of Stump and Stumpy. Because her daughter was biracial, Greve faced ostracism and was forced out of her apartment in New York. Worried about the difficult life she and her daughter would face, she asked a Black couple she knew in Atlantic City to raise June.
“I think the truth of it is that she loved me enough to give me away,” June Cross told The Washington Post in 1996.
June often visited her mother and stepfather in New York and Los Angeles, but she was never publicly identified as her mother’s daughter out of fear of damaging Mr. Storch’s career. All three sets of grandparents — Norma Storch’s, Jimmy Cross’s and Mr. Storch’s — refused to have anything to do with their granddaughter or her mother.
In 1996, June Cross, a TV news producer who is now a professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, produced a documentary, “Secret Daughter,” about her relationship with her mother.
After “Secret Daughter” aired on the PBS program “Frontline,” the Storches were reunited with Candace Herman, their daughter who had been adopted by another family in the 1940s.
Norma Storch died in 2003. In addition to Cross, of Manhattan, and Herman, a teacher, of Los Angeles, survivors include a stepson from an earlier marriage of Norma Storch’s, retired history professor Lary May, of Minneapolis; five grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Mr. Storch settled permanently in New York in the 1990s and often played his saxophone in Central Park. He made sporadic appearances on television and in comedy clubs into his 90s and often signed autographs at show business nostalgia festivals. He was never embarrassed about the slapstick TV comedy that made him famous.
When discussing how to approach the role in “F Troop,” Mr. Storch recalled that Tucker asked him, “What do you know about horses?”
“They give milk and bite at both ends,” Mr. Storch replied.
“You’ll do very well,” Tucker said. | 2022-07-09T02:55:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Larry Storch, comedian and actor in TV's 'F Troop,' dies at 99 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/08/comic-actor-larry-storch-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/08/comic-actor-larry-storch-dies/ |
It is endlessly confusing to Miss Manners that people who talk to themselves feel they are justified in being offended when another person responds. It seems to her that that is how communication works, and fair warning should be given if it is going to go otherwise.
Dear Miss Manners: My MIL is always telling me about things that I already know. I don’t want to sound like a know-it-all, but unfortunately, she has lived a straight-laced life and the things that shock her are nothing new to me.
Ask for more details: “I did hear about Brexit. But tell me, what’s the latest?”
“I cannot promise that, but I do swear that I will not act as a go-between or divulge any private details from either one of you.” | 2022-07-09T04:13:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: My co-worker is constantly distracting me - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/09/miss-manners-loud-rude-co-worker/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/09/miss-manners-loud-rude-co-worker/ |
Erick Fedde allowed eight runs in three-plus innings Friday night in a 12-2 loss in Atlanta. (Brett Davis/Getty Images)
ATLANTA — Erick Fedde threw his right hand up, knowing he made a mistake as soon Ronald Acuña Jr.’s bat made contact with his second-inning offering. Fedde didn’t even turn to see where the ball landed.
The baseball sailed 446 feet into the left field seats at Truist Park, a three-run homer that was part of a five-run inning in the Washington Nationals’ 12-2 loss Friday.
Fedde entered the game with a 9.97 ERA in nine career outings against the Braves, and it got worse by the time he left after giving up three hits to start the fourth — he allowed eight runs on eight hits as Washington (30-56) dropped to 1-7 in July.
“Didn’t execute some pitches,” Fedde said. “I mean, they’re a powerful offense and made me pay for them, especially hitting them out of the park.”
Fedde’s outings this season have followed a familiar script — he has been efficient but often doomed by one big inning. An inability to put hitters away once he gets ahead in counts has also been a familiar theme, spiking his pitch count and preventing him from going deep in games. Although he had limited the damage in recent outings, he wasn’t so lucky against the Braves (50-35), who are making a hard push to chase down the Mets in the National League East.
The second inning proved to be his downfall; he was already in a 1-0 hole after allowing a solo shot to Matt Olson in the first inning that bounced off the top of the brick wall in right field. He threw first-pitch strikes to the first four hitters he faced in the second — he even jumped ahead 0-2 against three batters — but walked three to load the bases.
He was ahead 0-2 against Michael Harris II, the Braves’ No. 9 hitter, before Harris roped a two-run double to the opposite field to make it 3-0. He then got ahead of Acuña 0-2 before two noncompetitive pitches set up the offering that Acuña launched to make it 6-0.
Fedde threw 46 pitches in the second inning alone. He only threw three pitches before Manager Dave Martinez came out to get him in the fourth — but each was hit for a single (by Harris, Acuña and Dansby Swanson). By then, it was 8-2.
“Sometimes I think he’s trying to overthrow pitches, trying to get some swings and misses,” Martinez said. “You’re 0-2, you got the hitters on defense, attack like you did when you went 0-0 to 0-1 to 0-2. But the free passes are going to get you; I say that all the time, and he gave a lot of free passes.”
Jordan Weems and Erasmo Ramirez covered next 4⅓ innings; Ramirez allowed a two-run home run to Harris in the eighth inning. After a 1 hour 15 minute rain delay, Alcides Escobar recorded the final two outs, allowing two more runs.
Fedde faced 20 batters and threw 15 first-pitch strikes but couldn’t find a go-to pitch to get the third strike. Atlanta picked up three hits via his sinker, three off his curveball and another pair against his cutter. He has allowed three earned runs or fewer in 13 of 17 starts but has pitched more than six innings just once all season.
“I wish I had the answer for it,” Fedde said. “I was really trying to put them all away. I feel like, rethinking everything over my head, just kind of their plan was, I think, looking a little more on the off speed. … So maybe when I got to better counts, should’ve stuck with my heater a little more.”
How has Juan Soto fared in July at the plate? Soto is hitting 8-for-17 (.471) with six singles, a double and a two-run, third-inning homer Friday against Charlie Morton. He raised his batting average to .239, going 2 for 3 with a walk. Soto hit a fastball from Morton 418 feet over the center field fence to cut the Nationals’ deficit to 6-2 in the third and singled in the eight inning. After hitting .195 in June, Soto has started to look more like himself. But as a team, Washington only had five hits Friday.
What was Aníbal Sánchez’s final stat line in his rehab start in Rochester? Pretty strong — 5⅓ innings, four hits, one earned run, three walks, three strikeouts. He threw 88 pitches. Martinez said before Friday’s game that the team hadn’t decided where Sánchez would make his next start.
There’s a possibility it could come in the majors because the Nationals have a gap in their starting rotation Wednesday, which would line up with Sánchez’s next start on normal rest. Joan Adon could also fill that spot again, but Martinez wouldn’t commit to that after his outing Thursday. Still, Adon traveled with the team in Atlanta.
What’s the latest on former Nationals reliever Sam Clay? Clay was designated for assignment by the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday. The Nationals designated him for assignment July 1 and the Phillies claimed him off waivers Tuesday, but Clay’s tenure was brief. Clay bounced between Class AAA Rochester and Washington this year but compiled a 10.38 in six appearances in the majors. | 2022-07-09T04:26:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Braves pound Erick Fedde and the Nationals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/08/braves-nationals-erick-fedde-struggles/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/08/braves-nationals-erick-fedde-struggles/ |
D.C. United’s Michael Estrada, center, chests the ball as Philadelphia Union’s Jack Elliott, right, pulls him back during the second half of an MLS soccer match Friday, July 8, 2022, in Chester, Pa. The Union won 7-0. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)
CHESTER, Pa. — The Philadelphia Union tied the Major League Soccer record for victory margin with a 7-0 rout of D.C. United on Friday night behind Julián Carranzas’s first MLS hat trick. | 2022-07-09T04:27:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Union ties MLS record for victory margin with 7-0 rout of DC - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/blake-carranzas-hat-trick-help-union-beat-dc-united-7-0/2022/07/08/2bfc5d82-ff37-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/blake-carranzas-hat-trick-help-union-beat-dc-united-7-0/2022/07/08/2bfc5d82-ff37-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Mourners lay flowers, sake for assassinated Japanese leader Shinzo Abe
People pray next to flowers laid near the site where former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was killed on July 8. (Issei Kato/Reuters)
TOKYO — The assassination of former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe at a political rally on Friday rocked a country where strict firearms laws mean gun violence is almost unheard of, as a procession of mourners laid flowers, tea and sake near the site of the shooting to honor the country’s longest-serving prime minister.
Investigation began into the gunman’s motives and security measures that were in place for Abe, who was attacked while stumping for a fellow member of the center-right Liberal Democratic Party in Nara, near Osaka. The suspect, a 41-year-old unemployed man from Nara named Tetsuya Yamagami, told investigators he believed Abe was linked to a group he hated, police said.
The campaign for Japan’s upper house resumed Saturday, with candidates and surrogates — including incumbent Prime Minister Fumio Kishida — returning to the trail ahead of Sunday’s election. Abe’s ruling LDP, which has dominated Japanese politics since its founding in 1955, is expected to be victorious. If the LDP maintains or expands its control of the upper house, it would clear the path for Kishida, elected in October, to enact some of his most ambitious policy proposals.
Akie Abe, the slain leader’s wife, headed back to Tokyo from Nara on Saturday morning, and Abe’s body was transported back in a hearse. No details have been released about funeral arrangements. Security around his home in Tokyo had tightened overnight, with more police officers on-site.
There is little known about the shooter and his motivations. Yamagami was a Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force member for three years in his early 20s. Police found multiple homemade guns in his home Friday.
Yamagami was arrested on-site and admitted to shooting Abe with a homemade gun, officials said. He told investigators that his mother had become bankrupt after spending her money to support a religious group, according to Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, citing police sources. Yamagami said he found out about Abe’s visit online and headed to the site by subway on Friday, Mainichi reported.
Police have declined to identify the group, citing the ongoing investigation.
Japan’s National Police Agency has launched a probe into the security protocols that were in place for Abe, one of the country’s most recognizable political figures.
Abe was guarded by a team from Nara’s police department and officers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, according to Japanese news outlet Jiji Press. Nara police said Friday night that they had scrambled to get security in place because they were only notified of Abe’s presence the night before the event.
Kishida spoke on the phone with President Biden Saturday morning. After the shooting, Biden visited the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Washington and sign the condolence book.
“On behalf of the Biden family and all of America we extend our heartfelt sympathy to the Abe family and the people of Japan,” Biden wrote. “It is not only a loss to his wife and family — and the people of Japan, but a loss to the world. A man of peace and judgment — he will be missed.”
Abe, 67, remained a power broker in his party even after leaving office. He was a towering figure at home and abroad who hailed from a prominent political family. He served a brief first stint as premier in 2006, making him the youngest person to become prime minister of postwar Japan.
He died Friday of blood loss less than five hours after being shot in the neck and chest. The assassin fired twice, and the second shot caused both wounds, police said — raising questions of what type of gun and ammunition the gunman had used.
The shooting reverberated throughout the country, which has low crime rates and some of the world’s most restrictive gun laws. Firearms are scarce, as are fatal shootings, of which there was exactly one in all of 2021. | 2022-07-09T04:28:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Japan mourns Shinzo Abe after assassination of former prime minister - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/09/shinzo-abe-assassination-japan-tetsuya-yamagami/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/09/shinzo-abe-assassination-japan-tetsuya-yamagami/ |
President Biden delivers remarks on protecting access to abortion health care services on July 8, in Washington, D.C. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
“This isn’t some imagined horror. It is already happening. Just last week, it was reported that a 10-year-old girl was a rape victim — 10 years old — and she was forced to have to travel out of state to Indiana to seek to terminate the pregnancy and maybe save her life.”
— President Biden, remarks during signing of executive order on abortion access, July 8
This is the account of a one-source story that quickly went viral around the world — and into the talking points of the president.
The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a right to abortion, has led a number of states to quickly impose new laws to restrict or limit abortions. Ohio was one of the first, imposing a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape and incest.
On July 1, the Indianapolis Star, also known as the IndyStar, published an article, written by the newspaper’s medical writer, about how women seeking abortions had begun traveling from Ohio to Indiana, where less restrictive abortion laws were still in place. “Patients head to Indiana for abortion services as other states restrict care,” the article was headlined.
That was a benign headline. But it was the anecdotal beginning that caught the attention of other news organizations. The article said that three days after the June 24 court ruling, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist, Caitlan Bernard, who performs abortions, received a call from “a child abuse doctor” in Ohio who had a 10-year-old patient who was six weeks and three days pregnant. Unable to obtain an abortion in Ohio, “the girl soon was on her way to Indiana to Bernard’s care,” the Star reported.
The Daily Mail, July 1: “Child abuse victim, 10, who was six weeks pregnant is forced to travel from Ohio to Indiana for an abortion after home state outlaws it under Roe v Wade ruling.”
The Guardian, July 3: “10-year-old rape victim forced to travel from Ohio to Indiana for abortion.”
The Jerusalem Post, July 3: “10-year-old rape victim denied abortion in Ohio”
Bangladesh Weekly, July 3: “US: 10-year-old Ohio girl denied abortion after abortion ruling”
On CNN’s Sunday interview show on July 3, South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem was pressed about the story. Noem, a Republican who opposes abortion rights, said the story was “tragic” and the focus should be on the rapist. “As much as we can talk about what we can do for that little girl, I think we also need to be addressing those sick individuals that do this to our children,” she said. | 2022-07-09T07:29:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A one-source story about a 10-year-old and an abortion goes viral - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/09/one-source-story-about-10-year-old-an-abortion-goes-viral/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/09/one-source-story-about-10-year-old-an-abortion-goes-viral/ |
WIMBLEDON, England — Novak Djokovic fashioned a second consecutive comeback victory at Wimbledon, this one with a deficit far less daunting, the drama far less palpable.
CINCINNATI — Mark Kolozsvary scored on a game-ending balk by Matt Wisler in the 10th inning, lifting the Cincinnati Reds to a 2-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.
BOSTON — Josh Donaldson hit a three-run homer in a four-run first inning, Matt Carpenter homered among three hits in his first start in left field in a decade and the New York Yankees beat Boston 12-5 for their 10th win in their last 11 games against the Red Sox.
NEW YORK — Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels were elected to start in the July 19 All-Star Game along with Mookie Betts and Trea Turner of the host Dodgers.
LAS VEGAS — Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers have agreed on a $122 million, two-year extension that puts the Olympic gold medalist under contract through the 2026-27 season.
NORTH BERWICK, Scotland — Cameron Tringale finally saw The Renaissance Club in windy weather and held his own to stay three shots ahead in the Scottish Open as he tries to win for the first time in his 13th year on the PGA Tour.
NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. — Adam Svensson shot a 5-under 67 and had a three-stroke lead in the Barbasol Championship when second-round play at water-logged Keene Trace was suspended because of darkness. | 2022-07-09T07:29:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Friday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/fridays-sports-in-brief/2022/07/09/c1e01cde-ff56-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/fridays-sports-in-brief/2022/07/09/c1e01cde-ff56-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, center, with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, left, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, right, in 2018. (Eugene Hoshiko/AP)
SEOUL — For three decades, a crowd has gathered every Wednesday outside the Japanese Embassy in South Korea. In the sweltering heat and the biting cold, they call on Tokyo to acknowledge that imperial Japan’s military coerced Korean women into sexual enslavement during the Second World War. The protesters, who sometimes include now-elderly survivors of repeated sexual assault by Japanese troops, give emotional accounts of serving as “comfort women.”
The demonstrations offer a glimpse into the historical feud between Tokyo and its closest neighbors. Sympathy from foreign leaders rushed in shortly after former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was shot on Friday, and some of Japan’s closest international partners have announced plans to fly national flags at half-staff in the assassinated statesman’s honor. But in China and South Korea, which bore the brunt of militarist Japan’s brutality in the first half of the 20th century, the reaction was more complicated.
When serving as premier in 2015, the right-wing Abe signed off on a compact with South Korea, in which Japan acknowledged the “dignity and honor” of women “severely injured during wars.” But during his tenure, Tokyo occasionally denied that it forcibly recruited the women, and has long disputed they were sex slaves. The controversy over Japan’s wartime atrocities, along with Abe’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, where some World War II war criminals are honored, has long strained Japan’s relationship with South Korea and China.
Beijing faces the delicate balancing act of maintaining diplomatic etiquette without alienating Chinese nationalists, whose support President Xi Jinping has long cultivated. In the hours after Abe was shot by a gunman at a campaign rally near Osaka, Chinese social media users reacted with a flood of glee and taunts. That prompted prominent nationalist figures to urge respect; one hawkish commentator shut down an online group and urged his followers to be “rationally patriotic.”
Reeling from Shinzo Abe’s assassination, Japan probes gunman’s motives
On Saturday — hours after many of his international counterparts had done so — Xi sent China’s condolences to incumbent Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, as well as his personal sympathy to Abe’s family. Abe “contributed positively” to improving bilateral relations, he said, in a sober statement that stood in stark contrast to the mockery that has since been muffled on Chinese social media. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment on the online scorn.
President Biden on July 8 called the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe “horrific” and “shocking.” (Video: The Washington Post)
Abe left a “mixed basket” of a legacy, said Victor Gao, a Beijing-based political commentator who served as an interpreter for former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. He praised Abe for having made his first official foreign trip as prime minister to Beijing, and for trying to devise a foreign policy that was more independent of Washington. Despite the historical friction, the two economies are closely linked and Japan is China’s third-largest source of foreign investment.
But Abe’s efforts to give Japan’s military a more active role and amend its pacifist constitution — which is widely seen as an attempt to stand up to an increasingly assertive Beijing — marred his image in China, Gao said. The former premier was also an architect of the Quad, a group of like-minded regional powers, including the United States, that is a counterweight to China.
“In his later years, especially after he retired from the prime ministership, he took positions which were generally considered very warmongering,” Gao said.
After leaving office in 2020, Abe became a particularly vocal critic of Beijing’s growing aggression in the Indo-Pacific region. He urged Washington to abandon its policy of strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan and commit to defending the self-governing island, which Beijing claims as part of China, in event of an attack. Abe also reportedly helped orchestrate a transfer of coronavirus vaccine doses from Tokyo to Taipei, at a time when Taiwan was facing a spike in infections.
These efforts drew Abe close with Taiwanese political leaders, including President Tsai Ing-wen, who said Saturday that the island was deeply grateful for his “lifetime of contribution.” On Friday night, the Taipei 101 skyscraper lit up in tribute to Abe, with messages of thanks projected on the landmark.
South Korea’s relationship with Abe is even more complex. The late leader downplayed the extent to which Japan used Koreans as enslaved labor during the war, and had suggested that decades of Japanese colonial rule helped modernize the Korean Peninsula, drawing bitter denunciations from both Seoul and Pyongyang. But Japan and South Korea are bonded over the security threat of Kim Jong Un’s nuclear-armed regime. Seoul also shares some of Tokyo’s wariness toward Beijing.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has vowed to improve relations with Japan. On Friday, he offered condolences and sent flowers to Abe’s family, though hours after many other Asian leaders. Seoul was also particularly concerned about Abe’s death motivating potential hate crimes against Korean nationals.
“We didn’t always agree with him on political and diplomatic issues,” said former South Korean prime minister Lee Nak-yon, whose time in office overlapped with Abe’s, in a late Friday statement. “But we have cultivated a bond of personal trust.”
Ethan Shin, a legal analyst for the Transitional Justice Working Group, a Seoul-based nonprofit that has criticized Japan’s reluctance to properly acknowledge its imperial-era atrocities, called Abe’s assassination a “brazen act of political terror.”
But Abe also distorted the extent of Japanese crimes in World War II, he said in a phone interview.
In March, Shin and other activists helped survivors petition the United Nations for a review of their claims at the International Court of Justice.
More than any other Japanese politician, Abe amplified fringe revisionist views and made them mainstream, Shin said. “The surviving victims in the Asia-Pacific region will have mixed feelings about his sudden demise and the legacy he leaves behind.”
Vic Chiang and Pei Lin Wu in Taipei and Michelle Ye Hee Lee in Tokyo contributed to this report. | 2022-07-09T10:23:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Abe assassination resurfaces a complex legacy in China, South Korea - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/09/shinzo-abe-assassination-china-korea-japan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/09/shinzo-abe-assassination-china-korea-japan/ |
Sri Lankan protestors storm president’s home amid economic crisis
Visuals from local media showed people roaming through the president’s house taking selfies and taking a dip in the swimming pool.
Demonstrators protest inside the president's house, after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled, amid the country's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in this screenshot obtained from social media video on July 9, 2022. (News Cutter/Via Reuters)
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Protesters in Sri Lanka stormed the president’s official residence and office Saturday demanding his resignation, marking the latest turn in the deepening economic and political crisis in the island nation. Dozens of people were injured in clashes with the police, hospital officials said.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whose family many hold responsible for the worst economic crisis in decades, was moved to safety Friday ahead of the planned protests, according to a defense services official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Thousands of people carrying the yellow and red Sri Lankan flag marched toward the President’s home chanting “Gota, go home.” The police fired tear gas to deter the surging crowds. The crowd swept past the policemen and breached the barricades to break into the president’s office and residence. Visuals from local media showed people roaming through the president’s house taking selfies and taking a dip in the swimming pool.
By the afternoon, people began to pour into Colombo from other regions traveling by trains. Sanath Jayasuriya, a former captain of the Sri Lankan cricket team joined protesters at a major protest site. Asking the president to step down he said, “The siege is over. Your bastion has fallen.”
Sri Lanka has been in the grip of an unprecedented economic crisis as fuel has nearly run out and food inflation has shot up to 80 percent. It’s defaulted on its foreign debt repayment and is in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout package.
For ordinary citizens it has become almost impossible to survive. More than 6 million people or about a fourth of the country’s population is unsure of where the next meal will come from, the World Food Program said last week.
Protestors break through barriers leading to President's House in Colombo#lka #SriLanka #SLnews #News1st #ProtestLK #CrisisLK #EconomyLK #GotaGoGama #Aragalaya #Eng. pic.twitter.com/CNptUjJoXz
In May, the president’s brother, Mahinda was forced to resign as the prime minister after his supporters clashed with anti-government protesters. A new prime minister and cabinet were sworn in but as the economic situation worsens, anger is beginning to spill over again. | 2022-07-09T10:23:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sri Lanka protests storm president's home amid economic crisis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/09/sri-lanka-protest-gotabaya-rajapaksa/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/09/sri-lanka-protest-gotabaya-rajapaksa/ |
Electric buses to tap solar power using new method for D.C. region
The microgrid system will launch in September in Silver Spring, powering a growing fleet of electric buses on Montgomery County’s Ride On system
Solar panels make up the roof over parked buses in Silver Spring as Montgomery County is about to complete construction on its microgrid-enabled electric bus terminal. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
The first microgrid to power electric buses will soon make its debut in the Washington region as transit agencies nationwide increasingly look to the sun — rather than diesel — to fuel their fleets.
The system will launch in September, powering a growing number of electric buses on Montgomery County’s Ride On transit system. The Silver Spring facility will be the first in the D.C. area to use the microgrid technology and one of the earliest of its kind nationwide.
The microgrid will use energy that originates from solar panels at a bus depot rather than the traditional electricity grid — the process used by most transit agencies with electric buses. The transition comes as jurisdictions across the country are looking to electrify their bus fleets to battle climate change and amid financial windfalls from last year’s infrastructure law, which includes $109 billion for transit.
The push for the Maryland project stems from the county’s climate goals, which include converting its publicly owned vehicles to zero-emission by 2035. The county is expecting to add 10 electric buses to its existing fleet of more than 370 gas-powered buses by the end of the summer and expects to buy 100 more by the end of 2023.
The Brookville Bus Depot eventually will charge up to 70 buses. The county is looking to install microgrid facilities in more of its bus depots to house the growing fleet.
“This is the kind of thing we have to do to meet our climate goals,” Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D) said during a recent tour of the Brookville depot. “The grid is clean, so the cleaner energy we use as a source, the more likely we are to be successful in reducing our total greenhouse gas emissions. That’s the goal.”
The county funded the project through a public-private partnership with Alpha Struxure, a joint venture between the Carlyle Group, an asset management company, and energy provider Schneider Electric. Alpha Struxure provided the county with money upfront to purchase the microgrid infrastructure, then the county will pay the company back over 25 years in monthly installments, using income generated by selling electricity from the grid.
The county purchased the buses using Federal Transit Administration grants, said Calvin Jones, division chief for Montgomery County Fleet Management Services.
The Brookville Bus Depot will be the first microgrid in the county to be used for transportation purposes, although the technology is used elsewhere in Montgomery. The county’s public safety headquarters is powered by microgrids, while the county is also planning to use microgrids at its Gaithersburg bus depot and its Animal Services headquarters.
Canopies of solar panels stretching across the bus depot will capture energy to charge bus batteries. The microgrid can store energy from solar panels, natural gas power generation and the electric utility, Jones said.
The microgrid also was designed to withstand natural disasters and disruptions to the electric grid.
The process of electrifying bus fleets across the country is “slow moving,” said Sebastian Castellanos, a senior research associate at the World Resource Institute’s Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. The technology has been available for years, but he said transit agencies must move beyond testing and pilot programs into deployments.
“Diesel engines and gasoline engines are very inefficient machines,” Castellanos said. “Even if the grid is not 100 percent clean, gains in efficiency are mostly sufficient to offset any additional emissions from the grid.”
The greatest barrier for transit agencies to electrify their fleets is upfront costs, he said, adding that the infrastructure law — which allocates $5.6 billion to help agencies transition to low- or zero-emission buses and purchase maintenance infrastructure — will help.
The Metrobus system has committed to transitioning its fleet of 1,500 buses to zero-emission by 2045. The agency said in April it is planning to buy 12 electric buses this year. Metro has one fully electric bus.
A public-private partnership might not make sense for all jurisdictions, Castellanos said. Larger jurisdictions willing to take on technical projects might prefer to lead those projects themselves, he said, while others might benefit from paying a private company to handle the logistics.
Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, which contributes to rising temperatures, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. But as a sector, much of the world’s emissions come from personal vehicles, making it difficult to apply broad policies. Castellanos said environmentally friendly policies that boost transit “have the biggest bang for the buck.”
“Transit buses, in particular, drive many more miles than a regular car,” he said. “Not only that, but they’re transporting many more passengers.”
Other transit agencies are eyeing similar partnerships to electrify fleets. Metrobus is considering public-private partnerships to support a transition to zero emissions. In the San Francisco Bay area, the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) is one of the most recent agencies to announce plans for a microgrid.
Transit agencies are struggling to make ends meet. They’re also preparing for record federal investment.
“I think we’re in a very similar position as Montgomery County,” said Adam Burger, a senior transportation planner at VTA. “The difference we have is that the state of California is requiring all transit agencies to go to a zero-emission fleet by 2040, so that’s the fire under us.”
VTA is contracting with private companies and will pay for the microgrid infrastructure by the end of the project’s completion. It plans to fund the project using a $4.7 million grant from the California Energy Commission.
“A lot of our peers are doing similar projects to what we’re doing, and fortunately, private industry is stepping up to be our partner in these things and provide the expertise that we don’t have,” Burger said.
Externally, there are few differences between Montgomery County’s new electric buses and its existing diesel fleet, aside from their rounded edges and slightly smaller frame. But riding in an electric bus is a different experience altogether, drivers and passengers say.
Andre Morrison, 53, a driver with Montgomery County’s Ride On system for 29 years, was the first to be assigned an electric bus route in 2019.
“The bus itself is a totally different ride,” he said. “It’s extremely quiet, so you know, it really throws you off initially. The first day you really didn’t know what to expect because you didn’t know whether the bus is on or off.”
He said drivers agree that electric buses are more enjoyable to drive. The suspension system on an electric bus minimizes jerks and bumps, alleviating discomfort.
“Your body’s just not comfortable” on a diesel bus, he said. “It really feels as if you’ve been in a boxing ring … when you get out that seat, man, your body is just aching.”
Riders have offered Morrison generally positive feedback, he said. Most say they appreciate how quiet and smooth the ride is.
“The regular ones make noise — these don’t,” David Johnson, 62, said while on one of the county’s four electric buses on a recent morning. “This is better. Smooth ride, and much nicer.”
Morrison said he is especially excited for the county’s latest order of electric buses, which is a slightly bigger model that will include updated safety and design features. He said the appeal of the buses goes beyond their new features and comfort: It’s a path toward a greener future.
“This is the future here, as far as saving the planet,” he said. “This is where we should be heading.” | 2022-07-09T10:27:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Electric buses to tap solar power using microgrid - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/07/09/electric-buses-transit-maryland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/07/09/electric-buses-transit-maryland/ |
Many sellers are reluctant to lower prices, but houses are sitting on the market longer and buyers have more options
Contractors stand on the roof of a house under construction in Louisville on July 1. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg News)
After a stunning rise in home prices enriched sellers and keyed up buyers into frantic bidding wars, there are signs that the U.S. housing market is starting to cool amid a surge of new inventory and higher interest rates.
“For sale” signs are multiplying in previously red-hot markets like San Jose, Chicago and Phoenix. The volume of U.S. monthly home sales have registered double-digit declines in the past year, according to estimates from Zillow and the National Association of Realtors. In May alone, the number of houses sold is down 19 percent from the year-ago period, according to Zillow, and preliminary data suggests the falloff was more pronounced in June.
“This year’s buyers are just much more savvy, and they deserve to be because they’re going to be paying more to purchase the home,” said Daniel Valdez, an agent with eXp realty in Sacramento.
The slowdown has, so far, provided little relief to buyers. Instead, analysts say, a growing affordability crisis ― driven by the collision of inflation and rising interest rates ― is forcing many would-be buyers to walk away.
That’s because some sellers, mindful of the stratospheric gains of 2020 and 2021, which brought the average home price up more than 40 percent, are reluctant to lower their expectations. And home values are still gaining, up 19 percent on average in the year ending in June, according to the mortgage data firm Black Knight.
“The market’s cooling off, but that cooling has happened on the backs of buyers getting discouraged, on buyers being forced out of the market,” said Jeff Tucker, a senior economist at Zillow. “People who thought they would join the party are being greeted by absolute carnage as far as affordability right now.”
The cooling housing market reflects broader changes in the economy as policymakers work to get decades-high inflation under control.
Rock-bottom interest rates in 2020 and 2021 helped fuel the surge in housing prices since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. But the Federal Reserve reversed course this year after inflation spiked, making the price of food, fuel, housing and other essentials a dominant economic concern. The central bank has bumped up its benchmark interest rate three times in 2022 and signaled that four more increases are pending. The most recent hike in June was three-quarters of a percentage point, the Fed’s largest since 1994.
Higher rates means higher borrowing costs: The average rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage stood at 5.3 percent on Thursday, according to Freddie Mac, up from 2.9 percent a year ago. It also coincides with a battered stock market and higher costs for just about everything, making it harder to save for a down payment.
The resulting “affordability squeeze” is keeping many would-be buyers out and leading to fewer deals, analysts say.
“It’s a truly terrible time to be a first-time home buyer,” said Nicholas Gerli, founder and chief executive of Reventure Consulting.
Ali Wolf, chief economist at Zonda Home, says signs of the cool-down are everywhere: There’s significantly more inventory in some places, residences are sitting on the market for longer, and many sellers are cutting their asking price to drum up interest, she said.
“What we are seeing today is that buyers do, in fact, have a limit,” Wolf said. “Prospective home buyers have gotten to the place that they are either intentionally stepping out of the housing market as they wait and see what happens next, or are forced out of the housing market given the higher costs of homeownership.”
Housing inventory, which refers to the number of active listings, has swelled in some the country’s most expensive metro areas, according Redfin data. It’s up 47 percent in Denver, 42 percent in Oakland, Calif., and 40 percent in San Jose.
Some markets that were transformed during the pandemic have also pumped the brakes, says Eric Finnigan, director at John Burns Real Estate Consulting.
Boise, which became a pandemic haven for its cheap real estate and proximity to the Rocky Mountains, appears to have found its ceiling, Finnigansaid. Home values there exploded 57 percent in 2020 and 2021 as people flooded into Idaho’s largest city. But prices have grown just 3 percent in the year that ended in May, marking a turnaround that Finnigan called “stunning.”
Many of the first-time buyers who landed homes since 2020 wound up paying more than they thought it was worth or asked family members for help.
After renting for just shy of a decade, Myles Hughes, 32, wanted a place of his own. Late last year, he got married and moved from Florida to Albuquerque for a change of scenery.
Hughes, a site manager at a space rental company and an actor and independent filmmaker, said he was outmaneuvered by other house hunters at every turn.
He visited dozens of properties over the course of four to five months, he said, but many of his serious contenders were swept off the market within days. He lost out on six properties, he said, even though he submitted bids quickly and increasingly above asking price. As the search dragged into months, interest rates kept climbing, as did asking prices, highlighting how it often takes time for sellers to adjust to new economic conditions and the squeezed budgets of buyers brought on by the Fed.
It was bid No. 7 that won Hughes his new home. But it took help from his dad, who put up the money for an all cash offer. “We could only afford to fight in the bidding wars so much,” he said.
The lack of affordable options has frustrated buyers and sellers alike, analysts say.
The age-old “30 percent rule,” a financial planning maxim that holds that a person should pay no more than 30 percent of their income into real estate, is being upended as a result. Black Knight reports that the typical payment-to-income ratio, based on today’s higher interest rates and still-high prices, has spiked from 24 percent to 36 percent since January. By this measure, housing is at its least affordable point since the early 1980s.
Brian Brackeen, who runs the Cincinnati-based venture capital firm Lightship Capital, has seen the changing dynamics of the housing market firsthand. He bought a home of his own at the end of last year, then bought his daughter a starter home in Tulsa in April.
For his daughter’s house, the rate was much higher and the down payment considerations were more difficult, he said. He also noticed a shift in the attitudes of sellers, where many are stubbornly holding onto high asking prices even as the market is shifting out of their favor.
Brackeen sees the pool of prospective buyers changing, too.
“The world that current sellers are dealing with is more like their normal local market, not the prior covid-fueled supermarket, where people from all over the country are coming into each other’s markets and inflating the number of buyers in any given place.”
In the end, Brackeen’s daughter’s home appraised below the purchase price, so both parties had to give up several thousand dollars, he said. “The frothiness of the market isn’t what it used to be.” | 2022-07-09T10:32:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Housing market softens as inventory, interest rates change dynamic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/09/housing-market-slowdown-mortgage-rates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/09/housing-market-slowdown-mortgage-rates/ |
Why Banks Face Billions in ‘Hung Debt’ as Deals Cool
Analysis by Lisa Lee | Bloomberg
One of the most lucrative transactions in investment banking has suddenly become a very expensive headache for US and European banks. They’re facing big potential losses from about $80 billion in acquisition debt that they promised to raise to facilitate mergers and leveraged buyouts when financial conditions were better. The likes of Bank of America Corp., Credit Suisse Group AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. could each face a $100 million hit on the so-called hung debt from just one such financing deal alone. It’s not the first time banks have been burned when what’s known as committed financing turns sour quickly. Banks are better able to withstand such losses now than they were in the financial crisis of 2008. But as happened before, the experience appears to be contributing to a chill in deal-making.
1. What kinds of deals are turning bad?
These are financings for mergers and leveraged buyouts (acquisitions loaded with high levels of debt) that involve what’s known as leveraged finance, a term that refers to the debt of companies that are rated below investment grade -- so-called junk. Banks once used to make such loans directly but now they operate as a middleman helping such companies raise capital from investors. This approach has become increasingly important for banks and “arranging” such debt accounted for about a third of investment banking revenue in recent years. But a crucial part of the process involves banks acting in effect as a backstop lender, offering committed financing -- and in doing so, putting themselves on the hook for the money needed to make a deal go through, ideally briefly.
2. How does committed financing work?
Take a close look at a merger announcement, of the kind issued when corporation A touts that they are purchasing corporation B or private equity firm C is taking over corporation D. Below the headline purchase price, there’s often a section detailing the debt used for the acquisition. That section is where Wall Street banks are listed as providing “committed” financing. Much hinges on that one word “committed,” as it is a legal obligation that the banks make to a potential buyer in a leveraged buyout. This commitment is a critical part of the M&A world since it reassures target companies that the deal won’t fall through because of a buyer’s inability to raise the debt needed to make the purchase.
3. What’s at stake for the banks?
Banks are taking a risk when they provide committed financing because they are making an obligation now to sell the debt in the future. It’s called a fully underwritten financing, meaning they can’t nix their promise in the event that market condition changes. While the promise of future financing is supposed to keep a deal moving forward, banks can get stuck with the debt if interest in such bonds and loans dries up while the transaction is in process. If a bank opts to fund and keep the debt rather than sell at a loss, that’s called a hung deal. For the risk, these deals command fees ranging from 2 to 2.5% of the total size of the debt package.
4. Are hung deals a big deal?
On Wall Street, many veterans still recall the episode that became known by the phrase “the burning bed.” In the late 80s, a hung financing felled First Boston, once ranked as one of the premier investment banks in the US. First Boston had provided $457 million in the form of a bridge loan for the buyout of the mattress firm Sealy, an amount that represented 40% of the bank’s equity capital. When the buyout debt market collapsed shortly afterward it was stuck with the loan. The bank required a bailout from part owner Credit Suisse, which already had a 44.5% in First Boston and which completely took it over in 1990. Hung deals happen individually in good times and bad when a bank makes a call on a company that investors turn out to disagree with. But they happen en masse periodically when market sentiments change swiftly. After the financial crisis of 2008, banks had more than $200 billion of hung debt on their balance sheets, mostly for leveraged buyouts. When subprime mortgages collapsed, the massive losses that banks experienced on committed deals contributed to the balance sheet weakness that eventually led to government-led bailouts for many of them.
5. What caused the trouble this time?
In this case, high inflation has persisted longer than banks had predicted at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. That means the financings were underwritten before it became clear that most central banks, including the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England, would lay plans for aggressive interest rate hikes. As a result, investors are now demanding significantly more to lend to companies. Yields in the investment grade bond market, high-yield bond market and leveraged loan markets have all more than doubled since the beginning of the year. Since underwritten deals oblige banks to provide financing at agreed upon terms, they are responsible for making up the difference. While banks can agree to borrowers’ demands to change pricing and terms -- to provide what’s called flex or cap in Wall Street parlance -- they don’t have enough wiggle room to match what lenders can get elsewhere.
6. How big a problem is this for markets?
US and European banks are on a sounder footing than they were during the Great Financial Crisis. The rules that forced them to increase their capital levels also make it hard for them to hang onto junk debt, making it more likely that they’ll sell it at a loss. While that will be painful, they should be able to absorb the hit to their capital. But if the past is any predictor, they will be chastened and likely less willing to underwrite similar deals, at least for a while. Deals are likely to dry up, both because buyers and sellers are less interested in M&A deals and because banks are more wary about funding them. Walgreen’s attempt to sell its UK drugstore chain Boots was partly foiled by challenges that potential buyers had in getting banks to underwrite the financing. Of course, in some ways, reducing the market’s appetite for debt-fueled deals is in keeping with the Fed and other central banks had in mind when they raised interest rates and began to tighten financial conditions.
• A Bloomberg article on the potential for big losses on hung debt.
• An article on how the risks for banks are crimping the credit needed for acquisitions.
• A 2008 article on how banks worked off a $200 billion pile of hung loans from deals that soured in 2007. | 2022-07-09T10:32:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Banks Face Billions in ‘Hung Debt’ as Deals Cool - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-banks-face-billions-in-hung-debt-as-deals-cool/2022/07/09/14631d46-ff69-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-banks-face-billions-in-hung-debt-as-deals-cool/2022/07/09/14631d46-ff69-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
A visitor cries during a visit to the memorial on July 6 near the crime scene of the Highland Park, Ill., shooting. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — From this leafy suburb along Chicago’s North Shore, residents had watched as mass shootings cast a deadly scourge from coast to coast, leaving a relentless pall of havoc and heartache in their wake.
Just weeks ago, more than 100 people had taken to the streets of downtown Highland Park to call for stronger gun control laws in the aftermath of the elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Tex. They called out the names of other cities that had suffered horrific bloodshed: Newtown, Conn., Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Parkland, Fla., Buffalo.
They did not imagine it would be Highland Park up next on the seemingly unending carousel of American carnage.
In a close-knit community that locals refer to as a “modern Mayberry,” where generations have felt safe enough to leave their front doors unlocked and where police haven’t investigated a single homicide since 1994, a simple message has been shared again and again among anguished residents since Monday’s mass killing: “How could this happen to our sweet little town?”
“When Texas happened, I had a quick thought of, ‘Could that happen here?’ … But then I thought, ‘Not us, not this place,’ ” said Michael Belsky, Highland Park’s former mayor. “When people say it can happen anywhere, I don’t know that anyone really believed that included here.”
On Tuesday evening, Belsky walked along Central Avenue, joining stunned neighbors who stood staring past billowing yellow caution tape into the heart of downtown where a gunman with a semiautomatic rifle scaled a roof and took aim at one of the community’s most cherished traditions — the annual Fourth of July parade — killing seven people and injuring more than 40 others.
Satellite trucks hummed nearby as reporters from across the country talked over each other in live shots. Lights from police cars flashed on the buildings, illuminating the empty lawn chairs and strollers left abandoned along the sidewalk where Belsky had often stood to watch the parade with his own kids when they were young.
To Belsky, it looked like the aftermath of tragedy from other towns he’d seen on television, not Highland Park. “I couldn’t believe this was my hometown, this crime scene,” Belsky said. “No one can believe it. … We’ve always thought our kids are safe, our schools are safe, our town is safe. But now, we know that’s not true.”
A town of 30,000 that somehow seemed smaller than that, Highland Park has long felt like a refuge — far away from the spiking homicide rate of Chicago, 30 miles to the south, and the daily gun violence that has plagued other American cities. Its quaint streets and picturesque homes were the backdrop for touchstone 1980s films like “Sixteen Candles” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” cinema that shaped the perception of the American high school experience for a generation.
About a third of the population is Jewish, according to estimates from local faith leaders, their presence dating back more than a century to when Jewish families made Highland Park their home after being rejected by other Chicago suburbs.
“It’s the kind of town where you go into a restaurant, and you’re going to know half the people there,” said Rabbi Evan Moffic, who leads Makom Solel Lakeside, one of several large synagogues in town. “There are many families where multiple generations live in the town, and children who grow up here come back and live here. So it’s very special in that way.”
His congregation and others had already been shaken by acts of violence against the Jewish community — most recently a January incident in which a gunman stormed a synagogue in Colleyville, Tex., in an hours-long hostage crisis.
Moffic estimated that about 100 families — about half of his synagogue — were at Monday’s parade when gunfire erupted. A bullet hit one of his congregants, an older woman, embedding in her cheek. She survived.
After the shooting, word quickly circulated around town that security officers at the Central Avenue Synagogue had encountered a man resembling the suspect, Robert E. Crimo III, at their most recent Passover services. The synagogue, located near the site of Monday’s shooting, said in a statement that the unidentified man appeared “out of place” but ultimately left without incident.
Though law enforcement officials have said they have found no evidence that the accused gunman’s motivations stemmed from race or religion, the incident has unsettled a Jewish community that already felt “deeply vulnerable,” Moffic said.
On Wednesday, his synagogue held a vigil for the victims that was organized in part to encourage a shattered community to come together in person and mourn. But like a handful of other religious institutions that held memorial events in recent days, his synagogue also chose to live-stream its event, in part because of the awareness that some traumatized community members have felt reluctant to leave the house or be around large crowds since Monday.
“Even people who weren’t there, the feeling of safety has been punctured,” Moffic said. “Human beings are very resilient … but right now, I think there’s little bit of an air of fear.”
The trauma has played out not only for people who were in the line of fire but friends and families of those who came very close to losing their lives.
Gerry Keen and her husband, Steven, were at their usual parade spot — in front of the Gearhead Outfitters store at Central Avenue and Second Street — when gunfire erupted. After four gunshots, the couple fell to the ground and pretended to be dead, hopeful the gunman would aim elsewhere.
After a few minutes, Gerry Keen glanced up and saw a man later identified as Nicolás Toledo-Zaragoza, a grandfather in a wheelchair who had been sitting near her. She saw his head. And lots of blood.
“We knew he was dead,” Keen said. The couple joined others who ran into the sporting goods store to escape the gunfire. Through the window, Keen finally saw the complete scene for the first time: a ground littered with remnants of the parade, including tiny U.S. flags, empty chairs and water bottles, alongside bodies and pools of blood.
“It was a ghost town of horror,” Keen said.
Days later, Keen said, she cannot stop hearing the gunshots — a sound she’d never heard before. The 76-year-old grandmother, who has spent most of her life in Highland Park and enjoyed the safety and comfort of the city, said she has been unable to go out in public because of fear.
“I am not okay,” she said.
Members of her family — including her children and grandchildren — are equally traumatized, even though none of them were there. They keep reminding Keen and her husband that they could have been killed. “They keep calling multiple times a day,” Keen said. “They want to know that we are still here.”
Allison Kamen, 50, was sitting across the street from the Keens with her family when she heard what she thought were fireworks. Then they realized the sounds were bullets and dove for cover. Her father was hit by a bullet fragment — though not seriously injured.
While grateful that none of her family were killed in the attack, Kamen felt anguish about the damage it had done to the community and to an event that she had attended for nearly her entire life. Born on July 4, Kamen recounted a cherished family story of how her father had left the hospital the day of her birth to run up and down the parade route announcing the birth of his daughter.
“Highland Park is my safety net,” she said. “It is the safest place … But the sweetness of the town has been damaged.”
Still in shock, Kamen wondered if she could ever return to the parade.
On Monday, hours after the attack, the city was quiet and still, as scores of law enforcement officers descended on the bedroom community as they have in other places scarred by mass killings. A warm summer night, one usually marked by the pops of fireworks or music or the smells of family cookouts, was instead a specter of empty streets and the sounds of a police helicopter zooming low over the city into the night.
As the days progressed, some have slowly started to emerge — walking from their homes to take in the vision frozen on Monday morning. A makeshift memorial began to take shape at the eastern end of Central Avenue, one that looked like others that have risen in places like Uvalde and Buffalo. There, as in those other places, rose wooden crosses with the names and photos of the victims, alongside piles of flowers.
At a candlelight vigil the day after shooting, someone handed out freshly printed white T-shirts with the phrase “Highland Park Strong.” People wiped away tears and shared long lingering hugs as some recounted the stories of where they were, what they heard and who they knew among the injured and killed.
Some noticeably kept their distance from the crowd — including a woman who stood alone staring down Central Avenue, toward the intersection where the attack took place, which was brightly lit by large flood lights as law enforcement continued to search for evidence.
Caroline, who declined to give her last name, said she had been running late to meet her family and was walking toward the parade route when she heard bangs that she now knows were gunshots, followed by terrified screams. “I wanted to be here,” she said of the memorial gathering. “But when I walked up and saw these all these people, I got nervous. I guess I don’t feel safe anymore.”
It’s a sentiment that leaders across the city say they’ve heard in recent days, as residents try to work through their emotions about the horror.
“I often used to tell my students, ‘We live in a bubble. We live in this wonderful area,’ ” said Moffic, the rabbi. “And now I don’t think I am going to say that anymore. We are now experiencing what so much of the country has experienced … including our neighbors in Chicago. And it’s all very painful.” | 2022-07-09T10:32:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Highland Park shooting destroyed lives and a sense of safety - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/highland-park-town/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/highland-park-town/ |
Retractions aren’t a panacea for bad research
Retractions — when an academic journal withdraws an already published study — are a big deal for researchers. Such withdrawals correct the record and remove faulty information from circulation, and they happen more often than you might realize. According to the Retraction Watch Database, over 3,100 scientific articles and studies have been retracted since 2020 in what researchers say is a reflection of tightened editorial oversight.
But retractions don’t just hurt careers and tarnish the trustworthiness of the scientific community: A study finds that they fail to reduce misinformation’s reach.
Researchers retract study that found big risks in using hydroxychloroquine to treat covid-19
In the paper, published in PNAS last month, researchers say most retractions do not happen soon enough to prevent the spread of faulty science.
The team studied nearly 3,000 retracted papers from the past decade, looking at their reach in news publications, social media and elsewhere online. When they compared the discredited papers’ reach with that of 13,500 studies that were not retracted, they found the problematic papers received more attention and were mentioned more often on news platforms than their counterparts, probably because of their compelling results.
Despite early hype, however, attention waned over time. The number of social media and news mentions upon publication were higher than papers that weren’t discredited, and the distribution of mentions suggests that most people who had been aware of the studies’ reported findings did not know about the retractions.
Some doctors spreading coronavirus misinformation are being punished
“One of the main takeaways is that retractions come too late,” Daniel Romero, a professor at the University of Michigan who co-authored the paper, said in a news release. “They remain important, but they’re not serving the purpose of reducing the amount of attention that we pay to these problematic papers because, by the time they come, the public is no longer paying much attention to the original paper.”
It’s unclear whether the increased attention that flashy research garners contributes to eventual retractions. And despite paying more attention to research that would eventually be pulled, the spotlight wasn’t always adoring. Social media users on Twitter were twice as likely to be critical of studies that were eventually removed from journals than those that stayed put.
Nonetheless, the researchers conclude, “Journals, the scientific community, and the lay public should not think of retraction as an effective tool in decreasing online attention to problematic papers.” | 2022-07-09T10:32:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Retractions aren’t a panacea for bad research - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/07/09/bad-research-misinformation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/07/09/bad-research-misinformation/ |
Guards stand next to the door to the members-only entrance to Centre Court at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. (Chuck Culpepper/The Washington Post)
Until 2007, it hung on smack upon these grounds, the croquet lawns persevering over in one corner, until the medium-sized stadium of Court No. 2 got up (with human help) and trudged over to cover that area. That’s when the lawns moved off-site just across the street, there for croquet from April to September except for mid-June to mid-July when converted to tennis practice courts.
Now croquet persists in sprightly glory because it’s a routine pursuit of about five to 10 percent of club members, and an occasional pursuit for many others, but also because of respect for origins or, as club manager Ross Matheson puts it, “connecting with our past, the journey that we’ve been on, what we’ve learned.”
So now as tennis players have dispersed, it’s time again for the path from the six extra tennis practice courts to the three main croquet lawns — for the scarifying, for the baseline renovations, for the oversewing, the fertilizing, the regrowing, the germination sheets, the remeasuring, the return of the croquet hoops. It’s time to “Hoover it,” as Stubley said, to get out the “Billy Goat, which is like a big petrol Hoover,” and to suck up detritus.
It’s time to take the millimeters of grass from eight to six.
“So a traditional croquet lawn should be the same as a traditional USGA golf green,” he said. “It’s a sandy profile. It’s normally a bent-fescue sword. Because on croquet, like golf, the greens, it’s about the trueness and the smoothness. On a tennis court, it’s about rebound and ball height.”
By Monday, July 18, croquet will reappear.
There seems no equivalent of, say, Wimbledon, in the croquet season. There’s no most-coveted trophy or uppermost bauble. The club’s croquet players vie with other clubs like Hurlingham or Roehampton. They fly on croquet trips to places such as Corfu or Montenegro. One legend who balked at that noun for himself, Bernard Neal from Cheltenham, a professor of structural engineering at Imperial College London, won the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club’s own club championship 38 times, proving that in some cases, the will to win doesn’t dissipate at, say, 30 titles.
“It’s not a very great achievement,” he told the BBC when he was 89 in 2011, five years before his death. “These were the club championships for members only, and not many members of the All England Club play croquet at all.”
Sometimes, the croquet life can follow upon a tennis life in the same life.
“It is a game that grabs you,” Jonathan Smith said.
Smith played world-class tennis in the Grand Slams of the 1970s. He reached the Australian Open semifinals in doubles. He reached the Wimbledon third round in singles in 1977, losing to Vitas Gerulaitis. He never anticipated he would hold any position such as “member in charge of croquet.” Then about 15 years ago, a friend took him out to the lawns in the corner of the grounds, and so it went, and so it goes.
He calls croquet “a great game for anyone who’s a bit knackered” after the strains on the joints and whatnot from a pursuit like tennis or rugby. He says he’s at a level akin to a scratch golfer, while he’d be “chuffed” if he were a scratch golfer also. He knows his elegant new pastime has bounteous levels of excellence, and he says, “If I were to try to hit a croquet ball from the boundary and hit the peg in the center of the lawn, that is 14 yards. And if I did that three times out of 10, I would be a very happy bunny.”
Then he mentioned Reg Bamford, a croquet wonder who got honored at Wimbledon earlier this fortnight.
“He actually hit the peg 65 times consecutively,” Smith said, “and then he stopped for lunch.”
Even after walking through the A.E.L.T.C. gates “hundreds and hundreds of times” in life, and even if he enters just for lunch, Smith still thinks about the club “a reverential, sacred place to me,” and “still a hallowed place,” and “the place of my dreams as a child.” And as a venturer into its realms both tennis and croquet, he says, “If you go to a croquet club, people are passionate about croquet, and if you go to a tennis club, people are passionate about tennis. We happen to have both. We’re keen on croquet but we’re passionate about tennis.”
He also has a membership at a more croquet-intensive club, Surbiton, but sees the All England croquet subdivision as uniformly “thrilled” to be part of the tennis kingdom.
He spots zero tennis envy.
“So every year in September,” Matheson said, “we sit down and we look at the croquet plan for the next year, and they ratify it and fund it. And also remember, it’s a considerable investment. Our grounds and horticulture team, the time that they have to spend on the lawns themselves, to keep prepping them — and then those lawns again are, like every (tennis) court here, destroyed completely at the end of the season, and renovated, and reseeded, leveled, and built from scratch again for the following year. But all the maintenance and the preparation and the ongoing day-to-day care of those croquet lawns,” a grounds team of six to 10 is “constantly looking after those lawns, which we don’t necessarily have to do if we didn’t prioritize croquet as part of what we do.”
Croquet will breathe on, maybe even for another 154 years, with somewhat easier horticulture ahead. Once Wimbledon expands as planned, ample practice courts will appear, and the croquet lawns will stay put year-round.
In that vein, Matheson pointed to “incredibly established croquet clubs” like Hurlingham and Roehampton and said, “You take a croquet ball there and move it half a turn, it’s gone. I mean, it’s lightning fast. Ours aren’t as quick as that, but they’re still very good lawns … So in a perfect world for croquet players, we want to redo the lawns at some point and do them absolutely with the right grass. Because croquet is cut much lower down to three mil (millimeters), grass for tennis is about eight mil. You can’t cut rye to three mil because it dies.”
He spoke as a man who, like Smith, played in Wimbledon tennis main draws — in the 1990s, in his case, won two doubles matches — yet a man who can speak of his fescue and his rye and his croquet. | 2022-07-09T11:11:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Before tennis, Wimbledon used to be all about croquet - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/09/wimbledon-croquet-all-england-club/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/09/wimbledon-croquet-all-england-club/ |
Additional service to Norfolk and Roanoke starts July 11 as part of Virginia’s multibillion-dollar rail expansion
An Amtrak train on Long Bridge crosses over the trail that runs parallel to George Washington Memorial Parkway in Virginia. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
Virginia is adding more Amtrak service between the nation’s capital and eastern and western parts of the state, the latest milestone in Virginia’s multibillion-dollar expansion of its passenger rail network.
New round trips start Monday: one to Norfolk and another to Roanoke in Southwest Virginia, bringing to eight the number of state-funded round trips from Washington. The expansion, state and railroad officials said, addresses growing demand for more intercity train service in the state.
Virginians are returning to trains after more than two years of pandemic-related disruptions, McLaughlin said, citing data that indicates ridership in recent months on the Norfolk and Roanoke routes has surpassed numbers from 2019. In April, for example, more than 26,000 passengers took the Norfolk route, up from fewer than 23,000 in April 2019, state records show.
“People are clamoring for more trains,” McLaughlin said. “They’re also clamoring for different train times.”
The added frequencies are an extension of the Northeast Regional route, providing a new way for Virginia residents to get to Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York.
Virginia, among 17 states that have state-sponsored Amtrak service, expects to more than double its passenger operations within the decade, with plans to boost frequencies between Washington and Richmond, as well as other enhancements.
The extra train to Norfolk will be the third round trip to the area. It will depart Norfolk at 1 p.m. and arrive in Washington in 4 hours and 38 minutes, competitive with car travel. The new southbound train will depart Union Station at 12:05 p.m.
The Norfolk addition is part of a $3.7 billion agreement the state signed last year with CSX and Amtrak, which has pledged to double passenger service along the Interstate 95 corridor. Virginia had planned to launch the new Norfolk trip this spring, but staffing challenges at Amtrak delayed the debut.
As part of that deal, Virginia is expanding the track and will be able to separate freight and passenger traffic in portions of the I-95 corridor. More trains will be added in 2026, with additional trains in 2030 after the scheduled construction of a $1.9 billion rail bridge over the Potomac River that will expand capacity for passenger trains.
The additional round trip to Roanoke comes five years after Virginia extended service to the area and is the first of multiple enhancements planned in Southwest Virginia as part of an agreement between the state and Norfolk Southern. Virginia recently acquired 28.5 miles of track from the private railroad, from the Salem Crossovers west of Roanoke to Christiansburg. Officials plan to restore the track and extend service from Roanoke to Christiansburg as early as 2025.
Amtrak already runs a morning trip from Roanoke to D.C. and an evening trip from D.C. to Roanoke. Starting July 11, a train will leave Washington at 8:05 a.m. and arrive in Roanoke at 1 p.m.; a Washington-bound train will leave at 4:30 p.m., arriving shortly before 9:30 p.m.
How Virginia’s $3.7 billion rail plan fits Amtrak’s long-term vision
Amtrak said the additions will give travelers more options to travel in Virginia and connect to the rest of the Northeast. In a statement, Amtrak chief executive Stephen Gardner called Virginia “a national leader” in passenger rail, while praising the expansion efforts.
“Together, we are providing more Virginians with a sustainable, comfortable, and productive alternative to driving and flying and we’re jointly investing to do even more together in the future,” he said.
Amtrak expanded service in downtown Richmond last fall.
Danny Plaugher, executive director of Virginians for High Speed Rail, a nonprofit that advocates for rail service in the state, said the additional rail connections are vital and show the progress Virginia has made in just over a decade since it launched the rail program.
“This is a very exciting time for passenger rail in Virginia,” Plaugher said. “The best part is that this is really only the beginning. There are another five more round-trip trains planned to begin by 2030 and another five after those in our long-range plans. The future where any two communities in Virginia are connected by passenger rail is close.”
Amtrak this month is also restarting the Newport News train from Washington that was suspended earlier this year because of staffing issues. | 2022-07-09T11:28:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Virginia adds Amtrak service to Norfolk, Roanoke - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/07/09/virginia-amtrak-norfolk-roanoke/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/07/09/virginia-amtrak-norfolk-roanoke/ |
When doctors failed to look further, a 24-year-old dug into his medical records and hit pay dirt
By Sandra G. Boodman
(Cameron Cottrill for The Washington Post)
Medical mystery: Back pain plagued her for 30 years. A recurring clue sparked a delayed diagnosis.
In his midteens, Blocker developed recurring problems with his right shoulder. The first time, he dislocated it while throwing a ball. Another dislocation occurred while he was sleeping, although no one could explain how or why this had happened.
Avascular necrosis occurs when the blood supply to a bone is cut off, causing the tissue to collapse and die and threatening the integrity of the structure. Causes include long-term steroid use particularly at high doses, excessive alcohol consumption, fractures and a variety of medical conditions. People with inflammatory bowel disease may have a reduced ability to absorb calcium and vitamin D, which can affect bone density and lead to osteoporosis, a condition in which bones become weak and brittle.
Between 2012 and 2016, Blocker said, he again broke his nose and wrist, along with several toes. One night in February 2016 Blocker was sitting on his bed when he turned to grab something off a bedside table. He instantly felt a shooting pain in his hip so intense he was unable to move. His wife, Emily, summoned a friend who carefully scooped Blocker off the bed, carried him to the car and drove him to a nearby emergency room.
Nearly 100 doctors have tried to diagnose this man’s devastating illness — without success
Going back years, he noticed that his level of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), a component of a routine blood chemistry panel, was always extremely low. ALP is an enzyme found primarily in the liver, bones and digestive system. High levels of ALP can signal cancer, a problem with the liver or mononucleosis. Low levels may indicate a zinc deficiency, malnutrition or a rare genetic disease called hypophosphatasia (HPP), which affects roughly 1 in 100,000 people and causes bone and dental problems.
The disease is particularly prevalent among Mennonites in Manitoba, a province in Canada, where about 1 in 2,500 babies are born with severe HPP, which is inherited in an autosomal recessive manner: Two copies of the mutated gene, usually one from each parent, are required to cause disease. In such cases the parents may be carriers who do not show signs of illness. Less severe autosomal dominant forms of HPP result from the inheritance of a defective gene from one parent who also may have the disease.
Some doctors don’t like some patients
After reviewing Blocker’s medical history, including his bowed legs at birth, numerous fractures, osteoporosis and history of hip replacements, the specialist ordered genetic testing for HPP.
After jousting with his health insurance company, Blocker was approved to take Strensiq, the only drug approved to treat HPP. Blocker said the medication, which he injects six times per week, costs his insurance company about $1.6 million per year. The drug is designed to replace alkaline phosphatase and to improve bone health.
“He was very impaired with no other treatment available,” said Dahir, who sees Blocker two or three times a year. “He’s doing okay, but he continues to have additional surgeries.”
He remains incredulous that doctors did not suggest probing the causes of his numerous fractures, dental problems and low ALP levels and that it was he — not one of them — who came up with the diagnosis.
Submit your solved medical mystery to sandra.boodman@washpost.com. No unsolved cases, please. Read previous mysteries at wapo.st/medicalmysteries.
More Medical Mysteries
A family suffered weeks of dizziness and nausea. A doctor’s hunch uncovered the cause.
She was headed to a locked psych ward. Then an ER doctor made a startling discovery.
Hours after a massage, a professor was wildly dizzy and deaf in one ear
Back pain plagued her for 30 years. A recurring clue sparked a delayed diagnosis. | 2022-07-09T12:03:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A tenacious student uncovered the root of an onslaught of broken bones - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/09/medical-mystery-broken-bones/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/09/medical-mystery-broken-bones/ |
By James D. Robenalt
At a White House news conference in March 1973, President Richard M. Nixon says he will not allow his legal counsel, John W. Dean III, to testify on Capitol Hill in the Watergate investigation and challenges the Senate to test him in the Supreme Court. (Charles Tasnasi/AP)
Someone tried to get to Cassidy Hutchinson. According to Politico, Hutchinson told the congressional Jan. 6 committee that an intermediary for former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows contacted her before her March 7 deposition to let her know her loyalty was valued.
“[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow,” the intermediary told Hutchinson, according to a slide displayed at Hutchinson’s hearing and based on her deposition testimony. “He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.” Politico reported that the “person” whose name was redacted in the slide was Meadows.
Another slide, presented by committee Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), suggested other contacts. “What they said to me is as long as I continue to be a team player, they know I’m on the right team,” the slide read, quoting Hutchinson’s testimony. “I’m doing the right thing. I’m protecting who I need to protect, you know, I’ll continue to stay in good graces in Trump World. And they have reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts, and just to keep that in mind.”
President Richard M. Nixon couldn’t have written a better script. He used these exact same tactics to try to control Watergate witnesses.
Nixon offered clemency to Howard Hunt, one of the leaders of the Watergate operation, just as the Watergate burglars’ trial was about to commence in January 1973.
Nixon also spoke on the phone with his campaign deputy chairman, Jeb Magruder, just before Magruder testified before a grand jury in August 1972. John W. Dean III, Nixon’s White House counsel who was implicated in the Watergate coverup, wrote in his book “The Nixon Defense” that the call to Magruder was highly unusual, “for the president never telephoned him” otherwise.
But one recording among the White House tapes captures what may come closest to the tactics reportedly employed on Hutchinson. Nixon was trying to keep Dean from breaking and telling prosecutors everything he knew about the coverup. (Disclosure: For 11 years, I have taught a legal ethics seminar together with Dean, based on the Watergate scandal.)
At the time, the Watergate conspiracy was falling apart. Dean had started talking to prosecutors and hired his own lawyer, both facts that he reported to his superiors in the White House.
April 14, 1973, was the night of the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, held in the Washington Hilton Hotel. In a bizarre scene, Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were honored for their reporting on Watergate and Nixon gave a speech with attempts at humor.
“It is a privilege to be here at the White House correspondents’ dinner,” Nixon began. “I suppose I should say it is an executive privilege.”
Can Trump Secret Service agent be forced to testify? Clinton’s was.
When he returned to the White House, Nixon changed out of his formal attire, settled into the Lincoln Sitting Room and called his top aide, John Ehrlichman, around midnight.
A transcript of the call shows Nixon wanted Ehrlichman to intimate to Dean, without saying so directly, that Nixon would protect him with a presidential pardon or clemency if he remained steadfast:
PRESIDENT: I have a view of drawing up the line. At one point you’re going to talk to Dean.
EHRLICHMAN: I am. I, I…
PRESIDENT: What are you going to say to him?
EHRLICHMAN: Well, I'm gonna try and get him, I'm gonna try and get him around a bit, but it's going to be delicate.
PRESIDENT: Get him around in what way?
EHRLICHMAN: Well to ah, to ah, get off this ah, passing the buck business. It's—
PRESIDENT: --John, that's—
EHRLICHMAN: --It's a little touchy and I don't—
PRESIDENT: John, that's—
EHRLICHMAN: --and I don't know how far I can go.
PRESIDENT: --not going to, ah, that's not going to help you. Look, he's gotta look down the road to, to one point. But, ah, there's only one man that could restore him to the ability to practice law in the case things still go wrong.
EHRLICHMAN: Um hum. Um hum.
PRESIDENT: Now that ah, ah, he's got to have that in the back of his mind.
EHRLICHMAN: Um hum.
PRESIDENT: And he’s got to know that’ll happen.
By the time Nixon proposed this communication to Dean, matters had already progressed to the point of no return. The next day, Dean refused to meet with Ehrlichman. He would only talk to the president directly.
So on Sunday evening, April 15, Nixon asked Dean to meet with him in the president’s Executive Office Building suite. Nixon had been out on the presidential yacht Sequoia, drinking and eating dinner with his friend Bebe Rebozo. This meeting with Dean was recorded, but the tape is missing.
Jan. 6 committee announces surprise hearing. Just like in Watergate.
Dean later testified before the Senate that Nixon said he had been kidding the previous month when he told Dean he could get $1 million in cash to pay the Watergate defendants to keep them from talking. Dean grew suspicious when Nixon got up from his easy chair to walk to the other side of the room and whispered something about offering clemency to Hunt. It clicked with Dean that the president might be taping this meeting and that he was moving away from a microphone.
Those tapes would ultimately lead to Nixon’s resignation by revealing the depth of his campaign to obstruct justice. | 2022-07-09T12:03:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nixon tried to control Watergate witnesses—like Cassidy Hutchinson - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/09/nixon-watergate-witnesses-cassidy-hutchinson/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/09/nixon-watergate-witnesses-cassidy-hutchinson/ |
There are too many mass shootings for the U.S. media to handle
News organizations must make agonizing decisions about which shootings deserve on-the-ground reporting, and for how long.
NBC News anchor Lester Holt reports from Highland Park, Ill., the scene of a mass shooting on Monday. (NBC News)
News companies are facing an agonizing challenge in a year that has already seen, by one count, more than 320 mass shootings across the United States: deciding which atrocities warrant on-the-ground coverage and which don’t.
“There have been too many nights like this. Too many nights when I’ve stood at crime scenes like this,” NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt told viewers on Tuesday from Highland Park, Ill. He had caught a train there a day after an attack at a Fourth of July parade killed seven and wounded dozens.
But Holt was providing on-the-ground coverage of only the deadliest of 14 mass shootings that took place over the holiday weekend, according to a tally by the Gun Violence Archive. At least 62 people were shot and 10 killed in Chicago alone, not counting the parade massacre about 30 miles outside the city.
“There is no checklist, per se, as to whether we go or don’t go,” Holt told The Post. When news alerts about the Highland Park shooting interrupted his holiday, he recounted, “the circumstances alone — a suburban July Fourth parade — immediately signaled this would be a major story. As the news unfolded, it became clear we needed to be on the ground.”
Many journalists have a similar triage process: prioritizing shootings based partly on death tolls, partly on a subjective sense of horror and shock. Inevitably, that means most do not end up receiving significant national coverage.
Reporters went en masse to Buffalo when 10 were killed at a grocery store in May that targeted Black people; and then to Uvalde, Tex., when 21 were killed at an elementary school less than two weeks later. But a June 4 shooting that killed three and injured around a dozen in Philadelphia’s entertainment district received significantly less attention from the national press, as did an attack that left three dead and many injured at a Chattanooga nightclub the next day.
“I think there are moments when it’s kind of like a collective earthquake,” said Wendy Fisher, an executive who oversees newsgathering for ABC News, which sent reporters to Buffalo, Uvalde and Highland Park. “You feel these events. They are very shocking. They have particular characteristics. It’s not so much a numbers thing — it’s kind of like, 'Where did they happen? When did they happen? The randomness of them. … It’s really the kind of collective shock factor.”
There is no universal definition of a mass shooting. The Gun Violence Archive counts any incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the attacker. The benchmark to deploy Washington Post reporters to an incident is usually four deaths or more, according to Amanda Erickson, a deputy America editor on the National desk. She said editors monitor social media and local news for early reports, then decide on a coverage plan based on the size and nature of the incident. The Post can normally get a reporter to the scene within 90 minutes.
“Unfortunately, there are just so many shootings around the country that we have to be smart about using our resources,” Erickson said. “We can’t tell every story. All shootings affect a community, but we look for the impact on a community and beyond it.”
The reality is, some mass shootings are considered more newsworthy than others. A school shooting is different from a fight that leads to gunfire, as is a hate crime targeting a specific group or an act of terrorism.
NPR’s acting managing editor Vickie Walton-James said shooting stories that rise to the level of national attention are usually attacks “targeting people in places where people expect to be safe,” such as a school or a church, or targeting people of a specific race or religion. And editors have to figure out which can be featured, given limited airtime on regular radio broadcasts. “There are so many things going on,” she said. “There’s a war in Ukraine. There’s the Jan. 6 hearings. There are these horrific acts of violence. And we are trying to balance them all and give them all the coverage they deserve, as well as remembering that we need to provide some joy for audiences."
There’s also an issue of logistics, with smaller news operations more limited in journalistic resources. “PBS NewsHour,” for example, sent journalists to Uvalde and to Buffalo in May but not to Highland Park this week, partly because many employees were off for the long holiday weekend. “With mass shootings, it does come down to size and horror and scope, but it’s also the timing and who is available and when we can get there and the resources we are taking away from other shows,” said Sara Just, the show’s senior executive producer.
The mass-shooting epidemic is not new, though the frequency of shootings has accelerated in the past two years. Last year was the worst on record, according to the Gun Violence Archive, and 2022 is on the same pace. “I don’t remember there was a time there was this many back to back,” Just said.
With little hope that political leaders are on the verge of ending the crisis, news organizations are looking for coverage approaches more sophisticated than simply running from one massacre to the next.
ABC News announced last month that a team of correspondents and producers will remain in Uvalde for the next year to “provide ongoing coverage as the investigation continues and the community tries to heal.” CNN is also establishing a “Guns in America” beat at the network following the Uvalde shooting.
Inevitably, they are criticized anyway.
Leland Vittert, a former Fox News anchor who works for the upstart cable news channel NewsNation, used his show on Tuesday to claim that CNN and MSNBC are prioritizing coverage of the Highland Park shooting while ignoring routine gun violence in Chicago for socioeconomic and political reasons.
“Highland Park is a wealthy suburb. White, upper-class professionals are the primary viewers of CNN and MSNBC. That is a fact,” Vittert said in an interview. “[I] can’t speak to the motivations of somebody else,” he added, but “it’s important to point out what gets covered and why it gets covered and what that says about the priorities of the people who are covering it.”
Assigning priorities isn’t always so easy inside a newsroom. “We make a call in the moment,” New York Times managing editor Marc Lacey said. “We’re not perfect, but we make a call on how big a story we think it is, and that call is not based on where it happened, it’s not based on who is involved — it’s based on how big a human tragedy it was.”
Then there’s the issue of which stories get prominent placement in print. “If you covered every shooting on the front page, unfortunately America’s newspapers would be just chronicling shootings every day,” he added. “They’re so commonplace, so we have to raise the bar and feature only the most heinous of shootings, the most deadly, the most awful of these awful events.”
But the Times doesn’t only deploy reporters after a big, mass shooting has taken place, Lacey said. He was especially proud of a story that resulted from sending dozens of Times journalists to document gun violence in Chicago during Memorial Day weekend in 2016, when 64 people were shot and six died over three days. “It was covering a type of shooting event that we sometimes can ignore, and I think we have to focus on shootings that may to some feel routine," he said.
Paul Farhi contributed to this report. | 2022-07-09T12:03:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | There are too many mass shootings for the U.S. media to handle - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/07/09/us-media-mass-shootings/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/07/09/us-media-mass-shootings/ |
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg on June 25. (Maxim Blinov, Sputnik, Kremlin)
Danuta Perednya was an honors student in February at the Mogilev State University in Belarus when Russia began a military onslaught against Ukraine. On Feb. 27, just days after the invasion, she reposted a text in an online chatroom that harshly criticized Presidents Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and Vladimir Putin of Russia for unleashing the war. She called for protests and spoke out against Belarus troops entering the conflict directly.
The next day, Ms. Perednya got off a bus in Mogilev from her hometown of Kirovsk, and was arrested. She was expelled from the university, and accused of actions aimed at causing harm to the national interests of the Republic of Belarus and of insulting Mr. Lukashenko. On June 10, she was labeled a person involved with terrorist activities by the Belarus security services. On July 1, Ms. Perednya was sentenced to 6½ years in a penal colony — for simply expressing her views.
In a photograph widely circulated online, Ms. Perednya, 20, is smiling broadly. This is not the face of a terrorist or a criminal. Rather, it is the face of a dictatorship using terror and coercion against its own people to smother free speech and association. It is the face of a tyrant, Mr. Lukashenko, who was defeated in the 2020 presidential election but stole it from the true victor, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, after she was greeted by huge crowds with hopes for change. Mr. Lukashenko declared himself the winner, incarcerated hundreds of protesters and forced Ms. Tikhanovskaya into exile. How is it possible to insult such crude despotism?
Ms. Perednya is not alone. The prisons of Belarus are full of those detained on sham accusations. Viasna, a Belarus human rights center, reports there are 1,236 political prisoners in the country. Among the prisoners are Ms. Tikhanovskaya’s husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, who dared declare a candidacy against Mr. Lukashenko; Viktor Babaryko, a businessman who ran in the election; and Maria Kolesnikova, who campaigned shoulder to shoulder with Ms. Tikhanovskaya. The prisons hold bloggers, business executives, artists, performers and journalists, many arrested in the aftermath of the 2020 vote, a testament to Mr. Lukashenko’s thuggery.
Mr. Lukashenko has increasingly sought protection from Russia and turned Belarus into a Russian air base. While Belarus troops have not entered combat in Ukraine, Belarus runways are aiding Russian forces in staging bombing and missile raids on civilian targets in Ukraine. On June 26, these raids hit an apartment complex in Kyiv and targets across northern and western Ukraine. On July 5, Britain adopted new trade, financial and transport sanctions against Belarus, which “has actively facilitated Putin’s invasion, letting Russia use its territory to pincer Ukraine — launching troops and missiles from their border and flying Russian jets through their airspace.” The United States and the European Union should follow suit with new sanctions. Mr. Lukashenko menaces his own people, and serves as accomplice to Mr. Putin’s terrible war on Ukraine. | 2022-07-09T12:03:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Belarus punishes social media posts criticizing Ukraine war - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/09/belarus-social-media-punishments-ukraine-war/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/09/belarus-social-media-punishments-ukraine-war/ |
A "Highland Park strong" sign is displayed during a vigil on July 7. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)
Before climbing a fire escape to a rooftop where he fired more than 70 rounds — killing seven people — the alleged gunman in the Fourth of July shooting in Highland Park, Ill., exhibited some troubling behavior. In September 2019, police were summoned after the then-teenager had threatened to “kill everyone” and authorities ended up confiscating 16 knives, a dagger and a sword. He posted disturbing videos depicting mass shootings on social media.
Those warning signs went unheeded, and Robert E. Crimo III, charged with murder in Monday’s mass shooting, had no problem legally purchasing guns, including the high-powered, assault-style rifle he allegedly used to gun down people enjoying a parade. How did this angry young man slip through the cracks of laws aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of the wrong people? Was it human error, a failure of the system, or do the laws themselves need tightening? The answer is probably all of the above.
Illinois has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, which makes the events leading up to Monday’s massacre all the more confounding. To legally possess guns, residents must have a firearm owners card, which is issued by the Illinois State Police. Applicants must meet at least 15 requirements listed on the agency’s website, including never having been convicted of a felony, not being subject to an existing order of protection and not being addicted to any controlled substance. In addition to the licensing requirement, the state has a red-flag law that allows family members or law enforcement to petition a judge for a firearms restraining order to keep weapons away from people judged to be a threat to themselves or others.
Mr. Crimo, then 19 and with the sponsorship of his father, obtained a firearm owners card just months after Highland Police had responded to his threats to “kill everyone.” Police did not charge him, but they sent the Illinois State Police a “clear and present danger” report saying he admitted having a history of drug use and to being depressed when the statements were made. State police maintain that that report was not enough to disqualify him, explaining that without an arrest, there was “insufficient basis” to deny his request. Authorities would do well to revisit its licensing requirements to include additional protections, such as input from law enforcement.
Local police probably could have used the state’s red-flag authority to ensure that Mr. Crimo was not able to obtain weapons. The law was about a year old when Mr. Crimo filed his application, and it is likely a lack of awareness played a role. That Illinois has made scant use of this useful tool is distressing: The Post’s Mike DeBonis reported that 53 firearm restraining orders were sought in 2019 and 2020, with only 22 granted, compared to 9,000 orders obtained in Florida since its law went into effect in 2018. Having a law on the books but not implementing it protects no one. Fortunately, the new federal gun law passed by Congress includes millions of dollars to incentivize states to enact red-flag laws and to give states that have already passed these laws more resources to educate judges, police and families about their options in keeping guns out of the wrong hands. | 2022-07-09T12:04:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How the Highland Park gunman bought guns despite Illinois laws - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/09/how-highland-park-shooter-bought-guns/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/09/how-highland-park-shooter-bought-guns/ |
A Ukrainian commander shows the rockets on a HIMARS vehicle on July 1. (Anastasia Vlasova for The Washington Post)
Fresh from completing the conquest of Luhansk province in eastern Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin of Russia ordered his troops to rest and issued a kind of challenge to Ukraine’s NATO backers. “Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield,” he said Thursday. “What can you say? Let them try.” President Biden responded to Mr. Putin a day later in exactly the right way: by announcing an additional military aid package for Kyiv worth $400 million, which included four new HIMARS long-range rocket launchers. This will bring the total number of U.S. HIMARS transferred to Ukraine to 12; the German and British governments have pledged similar systems.
Mr. Biden’s announcement, which was not unexpected, makes sense both tactically and strategically. Tactically, the war in Ukraine has evolved into a bloody artillery duel, with Russia holding the advantage because of its superior quantities of weapons systems and ammunition. Pushed back from its failed attempts at swallowing up the whole country — including Kyiv, the capital — via a combined air, sea and land attack four months ago, Russia has met with greater success by shelling swathes of southeastern Ukraine into submission, albeit at great cost to its own men and materiel. The HIMARS system, capable of firing precisely targeted missiles at a range of more than 40 miles, can help Ukraine counter Moscow’s primitive attacks, primarily by blowing up the depots where it stores ammunition. To be sure, it takes a few weeks to train Ukrainian troops to operate the HIMARS, but they have reportedly used them to destroy numerous Russian weapons warehouses in recent days, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky noting that they are “working very powerfully.” | 2022-07-09T12:04:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | U.S.-supplied artillery is helping Ukraine’s defense. Send more now. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/09/us-artillery-aiding-ukraine-defense/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/09/us-artillery-aiding-ukraine-defense/ |
Abe stepped down as prime minister in 2020, but never stepped away
Analysis by Daniel M. Smith
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe waves as he leaves for Indonesia at the Tokyo International Airport in 2015. (AFP/Getty Images) (-/AFP/Getty Images)
The shocking assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe has rocked Japan and the world. While the motives of the suspect in this shooting are (as of yet) unclear, it’s hard to overstate the potential significance for Japan’s domestic politics and foreign policy. Abe’s sudden death is likely to generate both short-term and long-term consequences for Japanese politics.
Abe played an outsized role in Japanese politics
Abe was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister. His domestic policy achievements included a set of economic policies — Abenomics — that produced a long period of economic growth. In international affairs, he pursued an assertive role in diplomatic negotiations over historical and contemporary issues with Russia, South Korea and China, while strengthening the U.S.-Japan security relationship. Abe deserves credit, in part, for reestablishing the dominance of Japan’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which was out of power from 2009 to 2012. The LDP subsequently won six consecutive national elections under Abe’s leadership.
Japan’s prime minister is resigning. This is how Abe transformed Japanese politics.
His main policy setback was the failure to realize his longtime goal of revising Japan’s pacifist constitution to legitimate the role of Japan’s military, the Self-Defense Forces. Abe’s devotion to this goal made him a polarizing figure in Japan, and his hawkish attitude on security and equivocation on Japan’s wartime history also made him a frequent target of criticism by Japan’s neighbors.
His influence continued after leaving office
Abe stepped down as prime minister in 2020 for health reasons. But he remained the leader of the largest faction within the LDP, and a de facto kingmaker in intraparty politics. This caused friction with current prime minister Fumio Kishida, whose policy and personnel decisions have attempted to break away from Abe’s legacy. But while Kishida’s “new capitalism” economic program aimed to shift policy away from Abenomics, there’s some debate over how much his policies truly diverge from the Abe years.
Abe’s influence in foreign affairs similarly continued after he left office. For example, public comments last year on Japan’s interest in preventing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan sparked international attention — and criticism from Chinese leaders.
What to watch for in the short term
The most immediate political uncertainty is how the national shock over Abe’s death will affect Sunday’s election for the House of Councillors, the upper house of parliament.
Japan’s new prime minister is a third-generation politician. That’s more common than you might think.
It is the second election (after last year’s House of Representatives election) to be held under Kishida's premiership — and Kishida hopes the results will solidify his position as LDP leader, and boost his political capital for policy priorities. For the largest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party, Sunday’s election will be the first test for the leadership of Kenta Izumi, who was selected as party leader after his party’s unexpectedly poor performance in the 2021 lower house poll.
The conservative Nippon Ishin no Kai (Ishin), the fourth-largest party in the upper house (behind the LDP’s coalition partner Komeito), also hopes to further improve its standing in parliament. During the 2021 lower house election, Ishin gained 30 seats to become the third-largest party in that chamber.
While the LDP is expected to win a majority of seats on Sunday, the scale of the victory could have deep implications for domestic and foreign policy — including the realization of Abe’s longtime goal of revising the constitution. If the combined victories of the LDP, Ishin and other pro-revision parties exceed 166 seats, these parties will have the two-thirds majority necessary to pass a constitutional amendment in both houses. Such a measure would then need approval by a majority of voters in a national referendum.
Could Abe’s assassination have an effect on the Japanese public’s support for such a move? A similar tragedy in 1980, when Prime Minister Ohira Masayoshi died unexpectedly during a lower house election campaign, might give some clues. The resulting sympathy votes led to a huge LDP victory. While public attitudes toward constitutional revision in recent years have fallen just short of the 50 percent support needed for a referendum to pass, even a small shift — whether due to sympathy for Abe’s legacy, or suppressed turnout among the opposition — could lead to constitutional revision becoming a reality.
But it’s not obvious how public opinion over constitutional revision might change in response to the assassination. The suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, has been identified as a former member of the Self-Defense Forces, which may complicate how voters react to any proposed changes to the constitutional status of Japan’s military.
What about the long-term political consequences?
In the longer run, Abe’s assassination raises questions about the future distribution of power within the LDP. His faction — with over 90 members in the party’s parliamentary caucus — is the largest within the LDP. Kishida’s own faction, with just over 40 members, comes in fourth.
Abe’s faction, if it remains intact under a new leader, will continue to wield considerable power within the LDP. But if there is a dispute over who will lead the faction after Abe’s death, or if a reshuffling in factional affiliations occurs, expect instability in intraparty power dynamics. And that could put Kishida’s leadership at risk.
The consequences for Japanese democracy overall are much harder to divine. Japan has — until now — largely managed to avoid the kind of political unrest and violence that has emerged in recent years in democracies around the world, including the United States. But political violence is not new to Japan, and the benefits of stability in the Abe years have arguably come at the cost of weak competition between parties and low voter satisfaction with democracy. The LDP easily dominates elections against a fragmented opposition in Japan’s predominantly winner-take-all, plurality-rule elections, and turnout has declined throughout the past decade.
For observers of Japanese politics, a frightening concern is whether Abe’s assassination is a singular act of senseless violence — or a harbinger of more political turmoil to come.
Daniel M. Smith is the Gerald L. Curtis Visiting Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy in the Department of Political Science and School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He is the author of Dynasties and Democracy: The Inherited Incumbency Advantage in Japan (Stanford University Press, 2018), and co-editor, with Robert J. Pekkanen and Steven R. Reed, of Japan Decides 2021: The Japanese General Election (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). | 2022-07-09T12:04:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Who will lead Abe's faction within the Liberal Democratic Party? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/09/japan-abe-shooting-political-fallout/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/09/japan-abe-shooting-political-fallout/ |
Without abortion, advocates worry that abuse victims will be trapped
Domestic violence advocates are worried that abortion bans will make it harder for victims to escape dangerous situations. (iStock)
When Katherine found out that she was pregnant, the man who was allegedly abusing her — micromanaging her relationships, snooping through her phone and physically barring her from leaving his apartment during a visit — was by her side.
He celebrated. She burst into tears.
Katherine, 29, didn’t see how she could have a baby while earning $12 an hour and living at her childhood home, and she couldn’t imagine being forever tied to a man who she feared could hurt their child. She decided immediately to have an abortion.
“I felt like I had no control over the situation and this monumental thing had happened to me,” said Katherine, who lives in Indiana and wished to be identified only by her first name. “I was not prepared for it, and I did not want any of these things with him.”
In Republican-led states that ban abortion, anti-domestic violence groups say they expect more abused women to carry pregnancies to term — possessing little recourse if they’re coerced into pregnancy and keeping them tethered to dangerous partners. Already burdened by an increase in need during the pandemic, those advocates are preparing to respond with limited resources and navigate a patchwork of laws that call into question whether they can help people end their pregnancies.
Estimates vary of how many women seek abortions in part because of abuse. One study put the number at about 3 percent, while another found that between 6 and 22 percent of women having abortions reported recent violence from a partner.
For Katherine, abortion provided a clean break from a man she said she probably would have stayed with longer if she had given birth. After her appointment, she said, she told him that she had a miscarriage.
“Had I been with the love of my life and I was happy and not being emotionally abused, I think it would have been a different story,” said Katherine, who The Washington Post is identifying by only her first name to protect her privacy. “But at that point, in my mind I had already seen some issues with our relationship, and I didn’t see it being a forever thing.”
Women who give birth are more likely to stay in contact with abusive partners and continue to face physical harm than if they have an abortion, research shows. The time before birth also carries risks: Homicide is a leading cause of death among pregnant people.
New abortion bans are likely to correspond with a rise in abuse during pregnancy, said Sarah Roberts, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California San Francisco. Many people who previously would have had abortions without telling their partners may not be able to covertly travel for access, she said.
“They will continue their pregnancy in places that don’t already provide adequate support for people who are pregnant and experiencing domestic violence or need mental health support or are financially insecure,” said Roberts, who has researched abortion and intimate-partner violence.
Facing this rising need, many domestic violence organizations will be stretched thin and are barred from using public funds to help women access abortions.
Ruth Glenn, president of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said some anti-abuse organizations don’t have the money to help an influx of people struggling to access abortions and a rise in victims bringing children into dangerous family dynamics.
“We know that for those that don’t, it’s always been a challenge,” she said. “So when you add this on, how are they going to meet that challenge, how are they going to meet that need?”
Iowa is among the states that are likely to implement restrictive abortion laws and where there is limited funding to support victims. Advocates already saw more need during the coronavirus pandemic as reported abuse rose, said Lindsay Pingel, director of community engagement at the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence. An increase in post-Roe births could make it harder for anti-abuse organizations to provide housing, legal aid, workforce development programs and other resources to those who ask for it.
“The amount of investment that we get for these services is very low,” Pingel said. “And so we continue to work to do more with less and less funding to be able to take on everyone.”
Antiabortion groups, who have long campaigned to keep people from ending pregnancies, said they are willing to help domestic violence victims access services.
Bo Linam, the founder of an antiabortion group in Tennessee, said his organization will continue to do for abuse victims who give birth what it already does: throw them baby showers, offer them shelter in volunteers’ homes, provide money for financial needs like groceries and help them report their abusers to police.
“It is putting a lot on a woman who is trying to flee for her life, to then try to figure out the legal side of her fight for safety,” Linam, who runs Hope Beyond Abortion, wrote in an email. “We should be willing (and we are), to guide and help her through that.”
Kentucky Right to Life plans to refer pregnant people facing abuse to crisis pregnancy centers — which are set up to dissuade women from having abortions — or domestic violence organizations that do not help women access abortions, said Addia Wuchner, the organization’s executive director.
“Abortion is not a solution for a domestic violence situation,” she said. “Abortion only perpetuates another violence, and that’s the violence on the life of the child.”
Without widespread abortion access, Pingel said, her Iowa organization is increasingly concerned about reproductive coercion — a practice in which abusers manipulate victims, sexually assault them or sabotage their birth control to try to cause a pregnancy as a way of maintaining control.
“If someone who is in an unsafe relationship feels that they’ve been coerced into having a baby, if they’ve been violated, sexually assaulted or their situation is one where they don’t want to move forward bringing a child into this world, all of those factors could play into making them more vulnerable to abuse moving forward,” Pingel said.
Lindsay, then 16, didn’t intend to get pregnant. She said her boyfriend told her that they didn’t need to use condoms, and she trusted him.
He isolated her from her friends, accused her of cheating and threatened to break up with her if she didn’t have sex with him, she said — but she thought she loved him, and she wanted to have the baby. Her mom talked her out of it, and she had an abortion.
Almost a decade later, Lindsay said she’s grateful that she isn’t in touch with her abuser. She imagines that if she had given birth, he would have persuaded her to move in with him, and they would have brought a child into a toxic environment. She doubts that she would have gone to college.
“If I was still tied to him in that way, I don’t know what my life would look like right now,” said Lindsay, now 25, who asked to be identified by only her first name to protect her privacy.
People who ask domestic violence organizations for help accessing abortions post-Roe may have mixed luck. Some advocates are unsure whether the laws in their states will allow them to help people end pregnancies, and they fear criminal charges if their legal interpretations are wrong.
Mackenzie Masilon, legislative liaison at the Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault, said her organization was trying to determine whether the state’s service providers could legally refer women to clinics that perform abortions. Abortion is banned in Oklahoma.
“We have questions around, is simply providing resources of the nearest clinic that is offering services that they need — would that be considered something that’s illegal under this law?” Masilon said. “It’s uncharted territory for our agencies.” | 2022-07-09T12:25:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Without abortion, advocates worry that abuse victims will be trapped - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/abortion-domestic-violence-abuse/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/abortion-domestic-violence-abuse/ |
What do you appreciate most about the ocean?
Tell KidsPost in 50 words or less and we may publish your thoughts and send you a prize.
If your summer plans include traveling to the ocean, you can appreciate the cool water and the opportunity to ride the waves on your body board. But as you know, the ocean offers much more that. The vast waters are home to an estimated 700,000 species, many still to be discovered. The ocean helps the environment. It allows for transportation of people and things around the planet. It provides food, recreation, jobs and even medicine.
KidsPost would like to know what you appreciate most about the ocean. It could be something big or small. Something from the past, present or something you hope or expect for the future. Tell us in a few sentences, and we may publish it in an issue of KidsPost later this summer. If we do, we’ll send you an ocean-related prize. But all readers who take the time to participate will deserve a much bigger thank you. Because the more you appreciate the oceans, the more time, talents and treasure you will invest in helping to save them.
The words must yours, not copied from someone or something else. | 2022-07-09T12:42:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kids: What do you appreciate most about the ocean? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/09/what-do-you-appreciate-most-about-ocean/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/09/what-do-you-appreciate-most-about-ocean/ |
Elena Delle Donne will be the second active WNBA player to have a signature shoe this season. At the start of the 2021-22 season, there were 22 NBA players with signature shoes. (Getty Images)
ATLANTA — Elena Delle Donne stretched on one end of the court inside the Gateway Center, music blaring overhead, rainbow colored Nikes on her feet, knowing she’s part of an exclusive group of women. On the opposite end of the floor, No. 1 overall pick Rhyne Howard went through her own warm-up — wearing an NBA player’s shoe — and thought about what could be.
Delle Donne will join Breanna Stewart as the first WNBA players to debut signature models since Candace Parker in 2011. The self-described sneakerheads are just the 10th and 11th women to have their own shoe.
Howard has those same aspirations.
For Delle Donne, everything changed when Sheryl Swoopes became the first women’s player with her own shoe, the Nike Air Swoopes in 1995.
“The moment I got the Swoopes was like one of the greatest moments of my basketball career,” Delle Donne said. “Being able to play in the Swoopes, being out in my backyard with the shoes on, thinking I was Sheryl. So that memory really is like a big moment of why I fell so in love with basketball.
“My mom was probably so annoyed with me. ‘Can we go get them? When can we go get them?’ There’s just something like when you can get your favorite players’ shoes and then be able to kind of try to emulate them and be in their gear, it feels really neat.”
More than two decades later, Delle Donne is a two-time MVP wearing the Nike Air Deldon 1, which is expected to release in October. Stewart owns her own MVP trophy and her Stewie 1 is due out in September. By comparison, 22 NBA players had their own signature shoe at the start of last season, according to sports business website Boardroom. WNBA players have sneaker deals and some have player editions, but the signature is the mountain top. Those are models specifically designed for the player and marketed as their own shoe. Player editions, which Delle Donne has had before, are unique tweaks on other models.
Both Delle Donne and Stewart grew up dreaming of having their own shoe, knowing that few women were able to reach that pinnacle. Swoopes, Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie, Dawn Staley, Cynthia Cooper, Nikki McCray, Chamique Holdsclaw, Diana Taurasi and Parker are the entire list.
Stewart, like sneakerheads around the globe, has been on the hunt for the latest signatures from LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, but she always wanted more.
“I hope that I’ll be the start of something,” Stewart said. “There’s so many amazing players in this league and unique stories and things like that, and hopefully we’re going to have more signature shoes in the WNBA coming a lot quicker than they have been.”
Sneakers have grown beyond basic function. They’re used as a storytelling avenue to convey a multitude of ideas. The Jordan 13 was inspired by Michael’s Ferrari. Durant has had colorways, a shoe with a different color scheme, dedicated to his aunt Pearl who passed away from lung cancer in 2000. The Nike Air Deldon is inspired by Delle Donne’s sister Lizzie, who has cerebral palsy and autism and was a tester during the creation process. The shoe features a “press and go fit” system that allows the shoe to be easily put on without the use of hands, which was important to Delle Donne. The rainbow colorway is Pride inspired and there are others attached to her woodworking business, her alma mater University of Delaware, a green version with a nod to her Lyme disease and one dedicated to the WNBA orange hoodie popularized by Kobe Bryant. There will even be an insole with a nod to the movie Bring it On after Delle Donne had a crush on the character Missy.
The WNBA, which plays its All-Star Game on Sunday, is constantly trying to reach new fans while also further engaging with the current base. The sneaker market is an opportunity to do so, but companies simply haven’t taken that step with regularity.
“No matter what, they’re in the business of making the most money they can,” Taurasi said. “There was a time that women’s basketball was very important to these sneaker companies. And you see how they dictate what society thinks is cool and not cool. And when they put things at the forefront, those are the things that they push and move.
“So I think you're going to be seeing, hopefully, with the reemergence of different companies getting back in the game and pushing each other.”
Puma is one of those companies after getting back into the performance basketball market in 2018. The return started with a heavy investment into that NBA draft as it signed five of the top 16 picks, including No. 1 overall Deandre Ayton. The company hired fashion designer June Ambrose — who has worked with Jay-Z, Missy Elliot and Diddy — as creative director in 2020 to spearhead its women’s basketball collection. Stewart, who previously wore Nikes, said it was Puma’s dedication to women in sports and women’s basketball in particular that made the partnership a good fit. Skylar Diggins-Smith, Jackie Young, Katie Lou Samuelson and NaLyssa Smith are also part of that roster.
The timing of the investment seems perfect as interest in the WNBA is at an all-time high, including clothing merchandise that the league struggles to keep in stock.
“Change has happened,” said Allison Giorgio, vice president of marketing for Puma North America. “I think we, and I personally would say, there hasn’t been enough change, and it hasn’t happened fast enough. But I think that things like working with Breanna Stewart, launching a women’s signature will help to be one more step in the string of changes that needs to be made. And my true hope is that this inspires other brands, other athletes and even ourselves to do more like this.
“I would hope that this is not the last women’s signature model.”
Howard is certainly watching as the favorite to win rookie of the year — like both Delle Donne and Stewart — and being named an all-star in her first season. She’s already signed with Jordan Brand and regularly wears the Jordan Zion 1 and the Jordan 36. She said there’s already been a discussion about having her own signature one day.
“It would be huge to have a signature shoe,” Howard said. “I feel like that would be inspirational.
“It just gives [young girls] hope that bigger things are coming for women’s sports and that they should never give up and by the time they grow up and are playing in this league, things will be different. And just for them to continue to want to fight for it.”
The Stewie 1 is scheduled to drop first in September after if was officially unveiled Friday. The Quiet Fire colorway features a neon yellow toe and body blending into a black heel — a nod to her personality and passion. Stewart called it “crazy” that a decade has passed in between women’s signature shoes and said the biggest hurdle is companies being willing to invest in and get behind women.
“Representation of signature shoes are huge for women’s sports, huge for women’s basketball, a way to really connect to the youth all the way up,” Stewart said. “And that’s what we’re lacking. That’s really the investment in women. … Continuing to fight for equality.”
Both Delle Donne, who has 200 pairs in her collection, and Howard listed the Jordan 1 as their favorite sneakers — a timeless model that can be worn anywhere. And that’s a key for new models Delle Donne noted, being fashionable both on and off the court. She was hands on in the creation of the shoe, which has been in the works for over a year. The six-time all-star was, and still is, obsessed with the Space Jam Jordan 11s. She doesn’t really remember the movie, but the shoes are a whole other story.
Despite having her own signature shoe, Delle Donne is like other sneakerheads around the world — getting up Saturday mornings for a release, logging on with her wife, Amanda, on multiple devices and still catching ‘Ls’ when they sell out in minutes. She joked that they need a bigger house to store all of the sneakers the two have collected.
Though having a signature sneakers is a huge first step, it’s not the end. Sneakers come and go that aren’t advertised well and, thusly, don’t sell well. And, to Taurasi’s point, companies are out to make money.
“They have to put the same marketing dollars behind the shoe because you don’t want to hear, ‘Hey, the shoe didn’t sell,’” Delle Donne said. “But it’s like, ‘Wait, you didn’t put any dollars into marketing it. People didn’t even know it was out.’ So I think that’s crucial.
“I do think now is the time. I think, obviously, it’s late, but it’s a good time to do it. And I think companies will see the value in women’s sports and continue to invest.”
Delle Donne got her Swoopes, but she wanted more Taurasis. The Swoopes were also a must-have for Taurasi, who also had Cooper’s model. These are moments that go beyond footwear and fashion. They were inspiration to some of the greatest players in the world.
“A signature shoe is something that will last forever, which I think is something that is really important when you look at how important sneakers are to basketball,” Taurasi said. “You think about the Jordan line, the LeBron line, Griffeys. They become more than just the person. It becomes this way of life that everyone can latch on to.
“And I don’t think we’ve had that on the women’s side where you’re saying, ‘Man, I’m gonna go get the Delle Donnes every year. I’m going to go get the Maya Moores. I’m going to get the Sues. I’m going to go get the A’ja Wilsons every year.’ You don’t feel like you have that connection. And for me, that’s probably the saddest thing.” | 2022-07-09T13:17:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Breanna Stewart, Elena Delle Donne get signature sneakers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/09/elena-delle-done-breanna-stewart-shoes-wnba/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/09/elena-delle-done-breanna-stewart-shoes-wnba/ |
Analysis by Pete Saunders | Bloomberg
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - MARCH 13: The Space Needle stands over the Seattle skyline on March 13, 2022 in Seattle, Washington. The iconic observation tower was constructed in 1962 for the World’s Fair and was once, at 605 feet, the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River. The Space Needle remains a top tourist attraction, despite the city’s recent struggles with an uptick in homelessness and violent crime. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) (Photographer: John Moore/Getty Images North America)
I often hear from people living in thriving cities that other metropolises should copy their economic policies. Examples? Be more business-friendly. Keep taxes low. Tout your city’s unique assets. Foster an entrepreneurial culture. Make your city a more affordable destination. Make your city a more exclusive destination.
Yet, living in a part of the country that’s seen better days, I’m well-aware that economic success can be transitory, even ephemeral. Today’s winners might want to think more carefully about how much credit they can claim for their success.
Do cities really control their economic destiny? Or are they pawns to broader forces? Was the decline of the Rust Belt, say, the result of bad policies or fundamental economic trends?
Some cities certainly can claim to be self-made, their fortunes built on hard work and visionary polices. A case could be made that Los Angeles, blessed by beautiful weather but distant from natural water sources, should never have grown into the metropolis it is now. Similarly, one could argue that Las Vegas should never have existed at all. Both cities capitalized on their initial advantages — sunshine for Los Angeles, gaming for Las Vegas — to establish themselves. Then they actively transformed themselves into leading destinations.
What I like to call windswept cities, on the other hand, find themselves buffeted by external forces. Perhaps Detroit and Cleveland, or Orlando and Tampa, could have attained their peak sizes had broader economic shifts not favored them, but it’s not likely.
This can cut both ways. Some windswept cities are uplifted by global forces such as the rise of manufacturing or technology. Smaller but no less consequential changes — air conditioning, improved road systems, the rise of tourism — can have an equally momentous effect.
Other windswept cities are pummeled by change. As the broader economy evolves, they find themselves stuck with an infrastructure and workforce better suited to an earlier era. Most Rust Belt cities suffered this fate, saddled with an inventory of obsolete manufacturing plants and workers without the education and training to seek out new economy jobs.
The most successful US cities, I’d argue, have been those that benefited from shifting economic trends but also enhanced their advantages with smart policy moves. Compare Seattle with Detroit. In the late 19th century, the two cities were in similar positions. Detroit was the busiest port on the Great Lakes and one of the busiest in the nation, shipping millions of tons of goods. It was a national leader in shipbuilding and a major center of cast-iron stove manufacturing, earning the title “stove capital of America.”
That put Detroit in an enviable position when the automobile was invented. The city was filled with skilled, mechanically inclined workers. Moving from shipyards and stove plants to auto factories was not a great leap for them.
Detroit, whose factories had been a key part of the “Arsenal of Democracy” that won World War II, could have gone on to develop a burgeoning defense industry. In fact, the federal government looked for big automakers to spin off armament manufacturers. However, those companies declined and went back to focusing on cars. By contrast, Seattle smartly pivoted from shipbuilding to commercial aircraft production after World War II, led by local planemaker Boeing, and then built on its engineering workforce to develop a thriving tech industry.
Success stories such as Seattle’s are rare, however. More often, cities have enjoyed something akin to dumb luck. Boston’s concentration of elite educational institutions facilitated its transition from port city to knowledge center. Other cities took advantage of their status as a state capital, home of a major university, or host to educational and medical institutions to do the same. Atlanta, Austin, Nashville and Phoenix seem to fit that bill.
No one wants to believe that the aphorism, “standing on third base and thinking they hit a triple” applies to them. We all want to be recognized for efforts that lead to success. But the saying correctly applies to many cities as well as people. While some metropolises have benefited from excellent policy decisions, many more — perhaps most — simply fell into a favorable economic situation as the winds of economic change shifted directions.
The next “big thing” could easily disrupt those economic success stories. They probably won’t be too happy when the cities that supplant them start dispensing advice on how they, too, can revive their fortunes. The one skill all city leaders would be wise to learn is a bit of humility.
• Boston’s Michelle Wu Is a Mayor of Many Firsts: Matthew Winkler
Pete Saunders is the community and economic development director for the village of Richton Park, Illinois, and an urban planning consultant. He is also the editor and publisher of the Corner Side Yard, a blog focused on public policy in America’s Rust Belt cities. | 2022-07-09T13:34:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Do Cities Control Their Economic Destiny? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/do-cities-control-their-economic-destiny/2022/07/09/da1b8122-ff87-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/do-cities-control-their-economic-destiny/2022/07/09/da1b8122-ff87-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is on his way out, having alienating his Conservative Party colleagues with one scandal too many. The idea is straightforward enough — and deserves a wider following in America: The party leader’s job is to serve the party, not vice versa.
A British (or Canadian or Australian) prime minister who becomes a source of inconvenience to his or her parliamentary colleagues gets dumped. The reason can be anything from gross misconduct to simple unpopularity, and represents a holistic judgment: All things considered, fellow party members think they’d be better off with someone else in charge.
In the US, by contrast, dumping a president involves the pseudo-judicial impeachment process. The question is not: “Would it be better for the vice president to take over?” Instead, it is: “Is the president guilty of whatever ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ means?”
In part, this reflects our political institutions. The US doesn’t have a parliamentary system; the president is elected by the citizens directly, not chosen by party members. It would be difficult, to put it mildly, to change the rules and organization of the federal system of government.
But much of the difference rests on a foundation of norms that can be shifted more easily. It’s common to describe figures such as Liz Cheney and Adam Kitzinger, the two Republicans on the House Jan. 6 committee, as “courageous” for their willingness to defy former President Donald Trump. They are said to have put principle over party.
In the UK, by contrast, there was no particular courage on display when members of Johnson’s cabinet quit. And more important, they absolutely did not put partisan considerations aside in pressing him to step down. He’d become politically toxic, an embarrassment to the Conservative Party. By shoving him aside, his fellow Conservatives hoped to improve their party’s performance at the next election and give their policies a new lease on life.
The current prime ministers of Sweden and Finland both came to office simply because their predecessors had become unpopular and the ruling left-of-center parties thought they’d be better served by a fresher face.
But in the US there is a tradition, long predating Trump, of treating it as a partisan duty to stand behind a tarnished leader. Perhaps the most striking example was former President Bill Clinton’s sex and perjury scandal in 1998. Clinton’s conduct was clearly disreputable — and wholly unrelated to public policy.
In a different country, leaders of his party would have told the president he was embarrassing and had to resign. Indeed, when it first came out that the core allegations against Clinton were true, many people observers thought this would happen. Instead, Clinton rallied his cabinet behind him and Democrats stood by their man. Republicans moved to impeach — setting off a legal and constitutional struggle that backfired when he was acquitted by the Senate and the GOP lost seats in the 1998 midterms.
More than a decade earlier, there was a scandal that involved an official crime. But in the Iran-Contra affair, it was the White House chief of staff rather than the president who took the fall. Or consider the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, where the judgment of history is that it was wrongheaded of Republicans to try to remove a president over what was basically a policy disagreement.
Most recently, Trump’s cabinet seriously considered invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him after Jan. 6. But the usual interpretation of this provision treats the question of whether the president “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” as a medical rather than political judgment, which deters its use.
There is something fundamentally silly about all of this.
If members of the cabinet or Congress believe it would be better for the country to remove the president and replace him with the vice president, why should they stick with the worse option? One of the absurdities of the Clinton impeachment is that even though it became a huge partisan showdown, the actual policy stakes were non-existent. Had he resigned or been removed from office, Al Gore would have continued the same policies.
It’s a myth that the textual formalisms of “crimes and misdemeanors” and “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” genuinely bind the hands of the political process.
If Trump had been removed, he wouldn’t have been able to appeal to the Supreme Court for a review of the decision. By the same token, the UK cabinet had few formal tools at its disposal to genuinely force Johnson to step down. The point is that it was politics, not law, that drove the process. The UK has an unwritten constitution, and there are non-justiciable aspects of the US Constitution that deal with branch-versus-branch conflict. But these decisions largely operate in the realm of norms.
And in this case, the American norms are quite a bit worse. The idea that you can and should dump a leader whenever it’s expedient comports with the significance of the office. The US makes it very difficult to become president in the first place, but then sets a strong expectation that the winner will get to stay there for at least four years. Instances of personal misconduct or idiosyncrasy become appropriate subjects for partisan debate, and polarization leads Americans to believe that their views on abortion or taxes should strongly correlate with apologetics for various scandals.
Political leadership should be seen as a high-stakes job like any other — a great privilege that comes with awesome responsibilities. And when politicians mess up, it should be far easier to remove them from office, and far more common for their party colleagues to urge them to leave voluntarily.
• Boris Johnson Finally Admits Defeat: The Editors
• The Tories Should Be Wary of the Threat From Labour: Adrian Wooldridge | 2022-07-09T13:35:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | It Should Be Easier to Get Rid of Presidents, Too - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/it-should-be-easier-to-get-rid-of-presidents-too/2022/07/09/da6a1e5e-ff87-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/it-should-be-easier-to-get-rid-of-presidents-too/2022/07/09/da6a1e5e-ff87-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Screenshot of Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn at Cool Springs, Tenn., in June 2022. (From NewsChannel5 video) (Valerie Strauss/NewsChannel5Nashville)
Larry Arnn is president of a small but influential Christian college in Michigan who has become a key education adviser to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R). Last week, at an invitation-only reception, Arnn repeatedly denigrated teachers, saying, among other things that they “are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country,” and that “anyone” can teach. Lee offered no pushback. WTVF NewsChannel5 in Nashville obtained video (watch below) of the event, and now both men have come under criticism.
While such sentiments are not exclusive to Arnn (people across the political spectrum have belittled teachers), his comments have resonance at a time when the Christian right — with the Supreme Court’s ultraconservative majority on their side — is gaining ground in a movement to erase the separation between church and state and push Christian values into the public sector.
Hillsdale College — which Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas called “a shining city on a hill” and which hired his activist wife, Ginni Thomas, to help establish a full-time presence in the nation’s capital — has became an important force in that movement under the leadership of Arnn, who has allied himself with former president Donald Trump. The college has helped launch dozens of “classical” charter schools across the country (Hillsdale doesn’t own or operate the schools but trains faculty and staff and shares curriculum) — and, now, at Lee’s invitation, Hillsdale is helping to open at least 50 charters schools in Tennessee. Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated.
The charter schools use a Hillsdale K-12 curriculum that is centered on Western civilization and designed to help “students acquire a mature love for America.” A Hillsdale K-12 civics and U.S. history curriculum released last year extols conservative values, attacks progressive ones and distorts civil rights history, saying, for example: “The civil rights movement was almost immediately turned into programs that ran counter to the lofty ideals of the Founders.” Hillsdale College itself offers a “classical liberal arts core” to its students; the website lists more than 30 authors and thinkers that students will encounter — nearly all of them White men.
In Florida, where Hillsdale has helped opening a growing network of affiliated charter schools, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has welcomed Arnn, and Arnn, in February, called DeSantis “one of the most important people living,” the Tampa Bay Times reported. Hillsdale helped create new K-12 civic standards for Florida public schools is partnering with the state’s Department of Education to help train teachers on those new standards. Some teachers who had the training told the Miami Herald that Christian and conservative ideology ran throughout the material.
At the reception last week, held at a Cool Springs conference center in Tennessee, Arnn made comments while addressing an audience from a podium and while sitting on the stage next to Lee on a stage. Here’s a sample:
“Ed departments in colleges. If you work in a college you know, unless you work in the ed department. Ours [Hillsdale’s] is different. They are the dumbest part of every college. [Audience laughs.] You can think about why for a minute. If you study physics, there is a subject … How does the physical world work? That’s hard to figure out. Politics is actually the study of justice. … Literature. They don’t do it much anymore but you can read the greatest books, the most beautiful books ever written … Education is the study of how to teach. Is that a separate art? I don’t think so. …”
“If you read a book called ‘Abolition of Man’ by C.S. Lewis, you will see how education destroys generations of people. It’s devastating. It’s like a plague … The teachers are trained in the dumbest part of the dumbest colleges. And they are taught that they are going to do something to those kids … My wife is English and she is a gardener, big time. And she doesn’t talk about what she is going to do to these plants. She talks about what they need. Because if you give them what they need they will grow.”
“The philosophic understanding at the heart of modern education is enslavement …. They’re messing with people’s children, and they feel entitled to do anything to them.”
“Here’s a key things we are going to try to demonstrate — that you don’t have to be an expert to educate a child. Because basically anybody can do it.”
Educators and other Tennesseans said they were angry at Arnn for making the comments and at Lee for failing to defend his state’s teachers and teacher preparation programs. Claude Pressnell Jr., president of Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association, tweeted, “This is incredibly disturbing. Dr. Larry Arnn’s demeaning portrayal of Tennessee’s Ed prep programs and professors is uninformed and offensive. I’m disappointed that @GovBillLee is not on record with Dr. Arnn defending the integrity of Tennessee’s education programs.”
NewsChannel 5 quoted retired teacher DeWayne Emert as saying: “Teachers do not have an agenda. “But what this proves to me, Gov. Lee, is that you do have an agenda, and it’s an attack on public education.”
On Tuesday at a private event, Lee declined again to take on Arnn and said instead, “I disagree with left-wing activism in public education,” Lee said according to the Tennessean, “but I fully support the teachers in our state, a vast majority of them who are well trained and who are fully committed to serve the citizens of Tennessee.” Lee had surprised Tennesseans during his State of the State speech in January when he announced the partnership with Hillsdale, actually asking for 100 charter schools though Arnn committed to about 50. Lee also announced funding for a new Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee, which he said would fight “anti-American thought” in colleges and universities.
Lee’s office did not respond to queries for comment from The Post, but Laine Arnold, Lee’s press secretary, responded to NewsChannel5 by saying, among other things that did not address the incident, “Under Gov. Lee, the future of public education looks like well-paid teachers and growing a workforce to support our students and build the profession.”
Hillsdale College media director Emily Stack Davis defended Arnn’s comments in an email, saying in part: “In his recent remarks during a conversation with Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Dr. Arnn clearly criticized only the educational bureaucracy that has done a great disservice to both teachers and students by depriving them of the high-quality, content-rich education that makes for excellent teaching. A good education program should encourage its students to become masters of the subjects they love and to pass that great knowledge and enthusiasm on to their own students.”
Though members of the Christian right do not all subscribe to the same faith, many of them come together in the belief that the country was created as a Christian nation — the Founding Fathers were all White Christians — and that government and its institutions should operate on their version of Christian values, with religion fully integrated into public life.
One key goal of the movement has been to provide publicly funding for private and religious education, efforts that have often been accompanied by attacks on traditionally operated public school districts. Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a key ally of Arnn’s, has for decades pushed for public funding to pay for private and religious education while attacking public education; she once called it a “dead end.”
DeVos delivers fiery polemic at Hillsdale College
Another goal is to allow religious practices, such as school-sponsored prayer, to become part of public school life. The Supreme Court in June issued two rulings that blurred the constitutional separation of church and state, including in one case in which the justices said the state of Maine cannot deny tuition aid to religious schools if it gives it other private schools. The second ruling went again a Washington state school board that had disciplined a former football coach for leading postgame prayers at midfield with student-athletes and others. Some constitutional scholars said the decision had opened the door for the court to allow school-sponsored prayer; now, anybody can quietly pray in a public school if they so choose.
Vital education issues the Supreme Court could revisit
Hillsdale’s new civics and U.S. history curriculum comes out of the work he did leading Trump’s “1776 Commission,” which itself was created after the creation of a racial justice movement following the 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The commission’s work was also meant to be a rejection of the 1619 Project of the New York Times, a series of essays and articles that put slavery and its consequences at the center of America’s historical narrative, and which was taught in some classrooms.
The commission released a tendentious curriculum in 2021 that equated American progressives with European fascists and said it was “untrue” that the Founding Fathers were hypocrites for enslaving people while calling for equality in the nation’s founding documents. Just a few days after taking office in January 2021, President Biden removed the report from the White House website and disbanded the commission.
NewsChannel 5 in Nashville asked historian David Ewing to review material in the 1776 Curriculum, and he said it rewrote civil rights history. For example, he said, it wrongly says that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. did not support “the force of law” to win civil rights for Black Americans. The curriculum itself says, “On the philosophical or moral side, King argued for a voluntary transformation in the heart of each American.”
As for Arnn’s comments about teachers, educators and others are sick and tired of hearing the attack lines that Arnn employed. The reference to teaching being trained in the “dumbest part of the dumbest colleges” involves data released years ago saying that education majors go to schools that have lower SAT scores than more selective schools — as if SAT and ACT scores were an important determinant as to what kind of professional a student graduating from a less selective school will be. They aren’t — and in fact, the majority of America’s highest-ranking schools have suspended or ended the use of SAT/ACT scores for admissions. (Arnn did make an exception for the education department at Hillsdale.)
The notion that anybody can teach is both laughable in its misunderstanding of what disciplines are necessary to do all the things teachers are required to do but also obscene in its intentional denigration of a female-dominated profession that is responsible for educating America’s children. It is worth recalling a revelatory post on this blog written by Pasi Sahlberg, titled “What if Finland’s great teachers taught in U.S. schools?” Sahlberg, one of world’s leading experts on school reform and the author of the best-selling “Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn About Educational Change in Finland.”
In the piece, Sahlberg notes that teachers in Finland are highly regarded professionals but that even if they came to teach in the United States in place of U.S.-trained teachers, nothing much would change much in those classrooms. Why? Because many states “create a context for teaching that limits (Finnish) teachers to use their skills, wisdom and shared knowledge for the good of their students’ learning. ”
Meanwhile, the U.S. teachers transported to Finland would thrive, he wrote, “on account of the freedom to teach without the constraints of standardized curricula and the pressure of standardized testing; strong leadership from principals who know the classroom from years of experience as teachers; a professional culture of collaboration; and support from homes unchallenged by poverty.”
What if Finland’s great teachers taught in U.S. schools? | 2022-07-09T13:35:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Teachers go to 'dumbest colleges’ — who said it and why it matters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/09/controversy-teachers-dumbest-colleges/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/09/controversy-teachers-dumbest-colleges/ |
Boxes of mifepristone at the West Alabama Women's Center in Tuscaloosa, Ala. (Allen G. Breed/AP)
The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade has brought a flurry of changes to abortion laws across the country, opening the gates for legal battles in states with or without “trigger bans” on the procedure.
Now, medical abortion — ending pregnancy through the use of medication — is the next focus of questions surrounding abortion care.
Why are people talking about this now?
Abortion pills were used in more than half of abortions in the United States as of 2020, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
After the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe, demand for abortion pills has continued to rise, as some Republican lawmakers look to restrict access moving forward.
How do medical abortions work?
The most common medical abortion regimen uses two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol.
The Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone in 2000, then the two-drug protocol in 2016 to end early pregnancies. It can be used through 70 days, or 10 weeks gestation, which begins on the first day of a person’s last menstrual cycle. The protocol involves taking mifepristone on the first day, then misoprostol 24 to 48 hours after.
The protocol can be done at home, said Holli Jakalow, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center. She added that patients can consult a provider or take a pregnancy test four weeks after the regimen to check that it was successful.
Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone, making the uterus unable to support a pregnancy, Jakalow said. Misoprostol then causes the uterus to contract and expel the pregnancy.
“People can safely take these pills and safely pass the pregnancy at home and not have any issues like bleeding or needing urgent medical care,” said Emily Godfrey, a primary care physician and family planning researcher at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “It’s a very, very safe way to pass a pregnancy.”
Jakalow added that, in cases when mifepristone is not available, it possible to follow a medical abortion protocol with only misoprostol. Both mifepristone and misoprostol require a prescription from a certified health-care provider.
Guidance from the World Health Organization states that misoprostol alone can be used for medical abortions for pregnancies of up to 12 weeks, or 84 days, gestation. It can also be used for pregnancies over 12 weeks but in different doses.
Stephanie Rand, a New-York based OB/GYN and family planning specialist, said people usually don’t experience symptoms after the first medication but will feel cramping and bleeding after taking misoprostol as their pregnancy passes.
Other possible symptoms within 24 hours of taking misoprostol include increased nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, fever and chills, Rand said.
In rare cases, people may experience excessive bleeding and infections. In the case of mifepristone, the FDA has stated that the adverse events reported to the organizations “cannot with certainty be causally attributed” to the drug.
Are medical abortions safe?
While antiabortion activists have questioned the safety of medical abortions, studies have shown that medical abortion is highly effective and has a low complication rate, particularly for pregnancies in the first trimester. One study found over a five-year period that more than 13,000 women who used the two-drug regimen through 63 days gestation had high success rates.
The protocol ended pregnancy in 97.7 percent of the group.
Although medical abortions have become increasingly common, there are exceptions to using mifepristone outlined by the FDA, such as if a person has an ectopic pregnancy, has bleeding problems or has an IUD.
Rand isn’t worried about the safety of the procedure — she’s worried about its legality.
“I’m not worried if these medications will be safe for people,” Rand said. “I’m worried about: Will people be safe, or will they be criminalized?”
Are abortion pills still legal?
The short answer — it depends on where you live, and it will be the subject of litigation in the future.
The Supreme Court decision placed the discretion of abortion access in the hands of states. For people living in places with trigger bans — laws designed to prohibit abortion if Roe were to fall — abortion by any method is illegal, with some exceptions depending on state law.
Since the Supreme Court ruling, 15 states have banned or mostly banned abortion, which includes medical abortions because the trigger laws largely include medicine and drugs that end pregnancy in their definitions of abortion.
“It’s up to states, really, as to how they want to go about making abortion unacceptable,” said Khiara M. Bridges, a professor at University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
Laurie Sobel, the associate director of women’s health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said the overturning of Roe has created an open question of who gets authority to regulate mifepristone for abortion — the FDA or states.
“We’re in a bit of a gray zone,” Sobel said.
How have abortion pills been restricted before?
Even before Roe was struck down, many states had passed laws that added specific requirements to the process of getting abortion pills, such as counseling for patients. In five states, that counseling requires patients be told that personhood begins at conception, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
More than 30 states also allow only physicians to dispense mifepristone, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis published in April.
Before the pandemic, mifepristone had to be picked up at hospitals, clinics or medical offices.
When the FDA lifted that requirement in December 2021, it allowed mifepristone to be prescribed through telehealth appointments and mailed to patients in states where the medication was legal.
But this didn’t affect the 19 states that had already banned receiving medical abortion drugs through telehealth appointments, according to Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute.
Nash said she expects lawmakers to continue limiting medical abortions.
“What I’m anticipating is that states will try to enforce abortion bans to the fullest extent that they can,” she said.
Can the federal government protect access to abortion pills?
While the Dobbs decision allows states to restrict abortion access, the looming legal crisis over abortion pills remains centered on state versus federal authority.
Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed to “protect and preserve access to reproductive care” in a statement issued after the Supreme Court ruling, specifically mentioning mifepristone.
“In particular, the FDA has approved the use of the medication Mifepristone,” Garland’s statement said. “States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy.”
But Bridges, the UC Berkeley law professor, said that despite Garland’s statement, the issue will likely be “a long-term battle.”
“That statement is aspirational, because that’s a huge legal question that will have to be litigated,” she said. “And the question is whether federal law would preempt state law on that issue.”
A federal court in Mississippi is considering this question. GenBioPro — which makes mifepristone — filed a lawsuit in 2020 challenging restrictions against medical abortion.
On Thursday, the company said FDA approval of the medication should override any state ban, citing Garland’s statement, Reuters reported.
Evan Masingill, president of GenBioPro, said in a statement that the company believes in “reproductive autonomy.”
“Medication abortion care is safe, effective and the FDA has set clear guidance for how to administer it, whether at a health center, or delivered to their home,” Masingill’s statement said. “These guidelines are what should determine how medication abortion care is administered in all states and we look forward to making this argument in court.”
The Department of Justice declined to comment on the case.
Even with legal questions left to be resolved, the Supreme Court decision has limited access to abortion pills in the United States, leading some patients to drive across state lines for telehealth appointments to access the drugs where they’re still legal.
The confusion over abortion pills has also spiked concerns about emergency contraceptives, such as Plan B. But emergency contraceptives are not related to abortion — they are taken to prevent a pregnancy rather than to expel one.
Health experts say the Supreme Court decision will lead to surges in telehealth consultations for medical abortions, purchasing the pills online and “self-managed” medication abortion — when someone seeks out the drugs themselves and does the protocol on their own.
“That’s been happening already,” Sobel said. “That’s going to be very hard to monitor or to enforce any state laws against, because it’s through mail and mail is private.” | 2022-07-09T13:35:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What you need to know about abortion pills since Roe v. Wade fell - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/09/abortions-pills-explainer-after-roe-abortion-decision/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/09/abortions-pills-explainer-after-roe-abortion-decision/ |
By Cathy Dyson, The Free Lance-Star | AP
Mark Brown, right, co-founder of Zoe Freedom Center, explains how Narcan is used to patrons of Imperial Cuts and Braids in Fredericksburg, Va., on Saturday, Jun. 18, 2022. The Popes said they were honored when Zoe Freedom Center, a faith-based recovery program in Spotsylvania, recently launched a Mobile Harm Reduction Unit, or “Narcan van,” in memory of Lauren Pope, who was 26 when she died after snorting heroin laced with fentanyl. (Tristan Lorei/The Free Lance-Star via AP) | 2022-07-09T13:35:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Virginia-based van, training targets opioid overdoses - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-based-van-training-targets-opioid-overdoses/2022/07/09/45f8f0d8-ff87-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-based-van-training-targets-opioid-overdoses/2022/07/09/45f8f0d8-ff87-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Japanese Americans shocked by Abe killing: There ‘is no safe place’
Shoppers walk inside Japan Center in the Japantown district in San Francisco in August 2021. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News)
When Koji Sato heard about former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s assassination, he couldn’t believe it.
“Japan is one of the safest places in the world,” said Sato, the president of the Japanese American Association of New York. “It was absolutely shocking.”
Across the United States, many Japanese Americans echoed Sato’s horror over the killing of Abe. Many also expressed shock that gun violence, which is increasing in the United States, could strike in such a high-profile way in Japan.
The news of Abe’s killing came after a spate of mass shootings in the United States at a supermarket, an elementary school and a Fourth of July parade. In Japan, where the barriers to gun ownership are high, gun violence is exceedingly rare. A single incident can shake the country, Sato said.
“It’s quite different here in the United States, where there is gun violence all over,” Sato said. “Especially for this to happen to the former prime minister of Japan is just unbelievable.”
President Biden ordered that American flags to be flown at half-staff and said in a statement, “I am stunned, outraged, and deeply saddened. … He was a champion of the friendship between our people.”
Sato said that because Abe, who studied at the University of Southern California in the 1970s, sought to strengthen ties between U.S.-Japanese ties, Japanese Americans generally viewed him favorably. “He wanted to maintain that relationship,” Sato said.
David Inoue, the executive director of the Japanese American Citizens League, which promotes the civil rights of Japanese Americans, also spoke of Abe’s strong commitment to strengthening relationships between the two countries.
Inoue met Abe during a 2018 trip to Japan as part of a Japanese American leadership delegation. Abe was “very warm” and very “engaged,” Inoue said.
“We were able to talk a little bit about the history of Japanese Americans specifically and the impact that the war [World War II] had had on our community,” Inoue said. “So we really appreciated that opportunity to share that story with him.”
After Inoue heard that Abe had been assassinated, he watched NHK-World, a Japanese news network, until 2 a.m.
“As Americans, we are almost numb to the impact of gun violence,” Inoue said. “To see it happen, not just in Japan, but to happen to such a high-profile individual, that was incredibly shocking.”
What are Japan’s gun laws? Abe killing shocks a nation with few shootings.
Sam Shichijo, the honorary consul of Japan in Dallas, said his wife noted that after the shooting, bystanders in the crowd stood still.
“My wife told me that in America, if you shoot a gun … you try to run away. But Japanese people didn’t seem to know what to do,” Shichijo said. “They probably weren’t sure what it was. They’re not used to hearing gunshots like most people do here.”
“It shows that gun violence can happen anywhere,” Shichijo said. “There really is no safe place.”
‘I stayed up all night’
Masato Kawahatsu and his wife, Alice, couldn’t believe what they were seeing on NHK news Thursday night when the channel switched from its regular programming to the report that Abe had been shot.
“I stayed up half the night watching it,” Alice Kawahatsu said Friday, while members of Konko Church of San Francisco set up for a bazaar at the church in Japantown. “It’s so heartbreaking.”
Masato Kawahatsu, a senior minister at the church, said the shooting was “shocking,” especially because it happened in a country that has been relatively safe from gun violence.
The minister, who was born in Yamaguchi prefecture and immigrated to San Francisco in 1971, says he respects the former prime minister’s helping Japan to rebuild in the years that followed the 2011 earthquake and the tsunami it triggered. He also praised Abe’s work to build Japan’s ties with the United States.
“I feel sorry to him, his family and the country,” Kawahatsu said.
The minister bought an empty picture frame on his way to the church Friday, planning to get a picture of Abe to set up a sort of memorial in the historic neighborhood, where Japanese supermarkets, restaurants and shops populate every block. His wife was trying to organize a sacred table at the nearby Japan Center Mall so people could have a place to pay tribute to the former prime minister.
In the calm plazas that make up the center of Japantown, restaurants and shops operated as normal, and a few people reflected on their disbelief that such a violent and public assassination would occur in Japan.
A shop worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject of guns in U.S. society, said she is a citizen of Japan and has been delaying applying for U.S. citizenship because of the proliferation of guns in the country. The isolated shooting of Abe in Japan does not compare to the high level of gun violence in the United States, she said but declared that she was taken aback nonetheless.
“It’s shocking, extremely shocking,” she said.
‘A catalyst for more cooperation’
Two weeks ago, Yuki Ishii stood in front of a Tokyo train station watching former prime minister Shinzo Abe speak at a campaign event.
When the 21-year-old New York University student saw the news that Abe had been shot at a similar gathering Friday, the parallels deepened his shock.
“It was my first time seeing him, but I didn’t really think too much of it,” he said. “When I kind of digested [the shooting], it hit even more because of that experience.”
He said he and his friends first heard about the shooting while playing soccer and “couldn’t really wrap our minds around it.” It was only after the game that it set in “how surreal it was,” he said.
Ishii said many Japanese Americans will remember Abe foremost for his focus on foreign affairs, with events such as visits with President Barack Obama to Hiroshima and Pearl Harbor etched in recent memory. He said he hopes that once the shock fades, Japan and the United States can continue Abe’s legacy in deepening their relationship.
“I think a lot of people will use this as a catalyst for more cooperation between the two countries,” he said.
Dale Watanabe, the executive director of the Japan-America Society of the State of Washington, said his wife elbowed him to tell him the news while they were in the stands at a Seattle Mariners baseball game.
He said that Japanese Americans held differing views on Abe’s politics but that most agreed on the priority he placed on U.S.-Japanese relations.
“He went out of his way to make sure that that relationship with the U.S. was done on a personal level,” he said. “He, by his example, showed that the U.S.-Japan relationship was important.”
That relationship was particularly important in the state of Washington, Watanabe said. The state is a major trading partner with Japan and home to about 85,000 Japanese Americans, according to the Japanese consulate in Seattle. About 1.5 million Japanese Americans live in the United States, according to a recent Pew Research Center report.
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell — a “nisei” or second-generation Japanese American — called the news of Abe’s assassination “heartbreaking” on Twitter.
“Shinzo Abe was a champion for strengthening relationships — and advancing shared progress — between the United States and Japan,” he wrote. “I was honored to meet with him in 2016 to discuss how we can strengthen ties between countries and with Japanese Americans — a community I’m proud to be part of.”
‘They didn’t even run’
Along Los Angeles’s Sawtelle Boulevard, or Sawtelle Japantown, those with ties to Japan described Abe’s assassination with one word: “shocking.”
At Sushi Tsujita, general manager Chiyo Okagawa, 54, said she read the news alert on her phone five times before the words sank in. “We couldn’t organize our feelings. Too much shock,” she said. “I never even spoke to Mr. Abe. But still, shock.”
Okagawa moved to the United States from Japan more than 30 years ago. The idea of gun violence surprised her because Japan is a safe country, she said, “not like here.”
Americans are so accustomed to mass shootings, they know how to react, she said. But after Abe was shot, bystanders didn’t try to escape.
“If somebody starts shooting in a shopping center, people run away. I was shocked about the people’s reaction [in Nara]. They didn’t even run,” she said, because people in Japan lack experience with gun violence.
Haji Kamata, 52, lives in Japan and Los Angeles because of his job at Sony. He, too, was stunned by the video of the shooting.
“Japan is very different. Unlike the U.S., [guns are] something very unusual. Strictly controlled. You need a license, which is not very easy to get and limited to professional people who need firearms for their business,” he said.
At the Tokyo Japanese Lifestyle boutique, employees were unsettled. Although Sawtelle has historically been a Japanese American stronghold, the businesses are slowly changing. At this outpost for Japanese goods and snacks, all of the employees speak Japanese. Only Japanese music, or the Japanese version of K-pop, plays in the shop.
Ami Takeyama, 23, grew up in the neighborhood, the daughter of two Japanese immigrants who came to the United States for school. She said that the assassination colors her entire view of how safe Japan is, despite the seemingly targeted political nature of the killing.
“I had no words just seeing that type of violence in Japan,” she said. “Now it’s a little weird to go back there. ... Things like that happening — it’s so scary.”
But for some Japanese Americans, the news seemed disconnected from their lives.
For tech worker Sarah Ohta, 23, the Japanese American community is a loosely defined concept. “Everyone’s become so dispersed,” and there aren’t that many Japanese Americans, she said, adding that even in college at Stanford, the Japanese student union was run by non-Japanese students.
Ohta is fourth generation Japanese American on her mother’s side; her father was born in Japan and immigrated to the United States as a child. Her maternal grandparents were sent to internment camps in the United States during World War II: her grandfather to Poston and her grandmother to Tule Lake.
“If your family’s been here before the war, that very much influenced how people raised the next generation,” she said. “It’s just hard for me to form an opinion. My opinion is like a regular person. Me being Japanese is not going to determine how I think.”
One block west, at the Japanese Institute of Sawtelle, instructor Jerry Hazemoto, 62, was preparing the gym for a judo lesson and echoed Ohta’s sentiment.
“As far as Japanese Americans are concerned, something happened, but the connection to Japan and that prime minister, it’s just … news.”
Hatzipanagos and Bikales reported from Washington and Lerman from San Francisco. Soo Youn in Los Angeles contributed to this report. | 2022-07-09T13:35:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Shinzo Abe assassination shocks Japanese Americans - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/shinzo-abe-assassination-reaction/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/shinzo-abe-assassination-reaction/ |
Many young people were among the onlookers and parade participants who fled a July 4 shooting that killed seven.
Clara Rozenberg, 10, pets a crisis response support dog at the memorial site for the Highland Park shooting on Thursday. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
Just before bullets from a semiautomatic rifle ripped into concrete, glass windows and their neighbors’ flesh, the Highland Park High School marching band was providing the soundtrack for the Fourth of July celebration. Then they dropped their instruments and ran.
Meeting Thursday at their school with two psychologists, some of the teenagers who participated in the parade said they felt guilty, and wished they’d done more to help others escape.
“It’s a natural feeling when people go through traumatic experiences,” said school psychologist Casey Moravek, who shared aspects of the counseling session with The Washington Post. “But to hear guilt from people who should not have been put through this in the first place — the fact that they have this negative feeling about themselves — is heartbreaking.”
In Chicago's more violent neighborhoods, some say attending a July 4 parade would be unthinkable
In the days since Monday’s mass shooting, which killed seven and injured more than 40, Highland Park community leaders and advocates have focused on addressing the psychological toll on children and teenagers touched by the violence.
Both the parade and the crowd of onlookers included hundreds of youngsters of all ages. The community’s schools and churches have been converted into therapy resource centers for families seeking guidance in the aftermath.
Michelle Marks brought her sons, 8 and 4, to the parade. Her 10-year-old was at summer camp. The family sat about a half-block from where the gunman, perched on a rooftop and disguised in women’s clothing, concentrated his assault.
Last month, Marks, who practices employment law, decided to tell her eldest sons about the massacre at Robb Elementary School, 1,100 miles away in Uvalde, Tex. She believed that if she didn’t tell them, they would hear about the shooting from friends or online.
Somebody came to a school with weapons he shouldn’t have had and tried to hurt kids, she told the boys. She didn’t say 19 fourth graders were killed — that seemed incomprehensible. Instead, she told them to be watchful of people at their school who didn’t belong. And she assured them they were safe, and that nothing like that would happen here.
“Kids can hear about stuff like that and assume it happens everywhere all the time,” Marks said. “I believed what I said, because the chances really are low. Now all I can say is, ‘it won’t happen twice.’ ”
How mass violence takes a toll on Americans' psyches
“I felt like the 8-year-old would think maybe I’m having him see someone because something’s wrong with him or maybe he’s not feeling enough about this,” Marks said. “I’d rather just follow his lead and give him some time.”
Alex Ochoa, a clinical social worker with Family Services of Glencoe, a town that borders Highland Park, met with about 15 people affected by the shooting between Tuesday and Thursday. She said parents reported their children having difficulty sleeping during two nights of thunderstorms across the Chicago metropolitan area. Young children asked parents, “Is the bad guy here? Is he coming to get us?”
“I recommended keeping them close, helping them fall asleep by remaining in the room, letting them know what they can do to access them,” said Ochoa. “And it’s important to answer all their questions.”
Far beyond mass shootings: The staggering scope of U.S. gun deaths
Ashlee Jaffe’s 5-year-old son had plenty.
A 39-year-old pediatric physiatrist in Philadelphia, Jaffe was visiting family in Northbrook, Ill., over the holiday weekend. She took photos of the very beginning of the parade, when neighborhood children walk the route on bicycles and tricycles festooned with streamers and American flags, their pet dogs in tow. Then came the first responders, Highland Park’s police and fire departments, then the high school marching band.
A few minutes after most of Highland Park’s first responders passed by, a bullet struck Jaffe’s hand. She dove for her son, pulling him by a leg and shoving him underneath the bench they had been sitting on, inadvertently smearing blood on his face and leg.
“My son guessed the paramedics painted around the wounds in red paint, so the doctors would know where they were,” Jaffe said.
Trying to stay safe in a mass shooting, and overcome the fear created
He guessed that maybe someone was shooting at balloons, accounting for the loud bangs. He asked if parades always end like this. And he was eager to see the stitches in Jaffe’s hand when she removed the bandage.
“We answered all of his questions, and then he wanted to talk to his grandma, so we FaceTimed her and he asked all the same questions,” Jaffe said.
After speaking with her son’s pediatrician, she’s also holding off on therapy, for now.
“I can’t believe that I have to explain to my son what a shooter is,” Jaffe said. “I can only hope this is the only mass shooting he’ll ever be a part of.”
“What I heard expressed was that they were more on edge at school and felt prepared if something happened at school,” said Moravek, the high school psychologist. “But they did not feel prepared at the parade and were shocked that something happened there.”
Gun control was a major factor in keeping the Marks family in Illinois during the pandemic, Michelle said. They considered moving back to her home state of Texas. But she said they couldn’t square Texas’s gun culture and comparatively lax gun control laws with the values they wanted to impart to their sons. | 2022-07-09T14:40:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In Highland Park, teenagers and children cope with shooting aftermath - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/children-july-4-counseling-highland-park/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/children-july-4-counseling-highland-park/ |
ATV rider arrests in D.C. are down. The irritation with them is not.
Police say they are vexed by the riders — who some view as a public nuisance, and others see as a part of the city’s culture
A man on an ATV streaks up the street on two wheels accompanied by a wheelie popping motorbike rider during a street concert at 14th & U in 2019. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Rodrigo Clark-Turrent and his husband pedaled through the August night as they biked toward their Woodley Park home after dinner at a friend’s place in Logan Circle. The sun had set as the pair approached 15th and U streets when the thunderous roar of all-terrain vehicles suddenly broke their calm.
By Clark-Turrent’s account, 50 ATV riders swarmed the intersection, turning the area into their playground for 15 minutes and leaving drivers and bike riders stranded in their lanes.
“It was frightening and felt like bullying, the way they wouldn’t let people pass,” Clark-Turrent, 39, said. “It was late, we were tired and just wanted to get home. We didn’t see an end point.”
ATVs have long made their presence known on city streets, but a recent shooting involving riders and viral video of the vehicles driving on the grass by the Washington Monument have renewed tensions with residents. Some want to see more vehicles impounded and more riders fined, to cut down on what they see as a noisy, disruptive and unsafe practice. Police — who have made fewer arrests of people operating ATVs in public spaces in the first half of this year than during the same time period in pre-pandemic 2019 — say the problem is particularly vexing, because chasing the riders is unsafe, and because riding is such a part of D.C. culture.
“It’s a complex issue. People respond differently depending on their proximity to the pain,” said D.C. police Chief Robert J. Contee III. “When those ATVs are rolling down your block or your street where your family is, it is a concern for you. It’s more of a cultural issue that we really need to put our arms around folks and figure out the best way to deal with this.”
D.C. police searching for large group of illegal dirt bike, ATV riders
City officials note they have taken some steps to crack down. The police department periodically publishes images of the riders on Twitter, seeking public help in identifying them, and its “Bonu$ to Phone Us” reward program offers $250 rewards to residents who call the police tip line with the location of an illegal ATV or dirt bike. The department’s no-chase policy prohibits officers from pursuing the riders, but police can still seize and impound the vehicles.
Since 2019, the overall number of arrests have gone down. Citywide, police made 49 arrests in 2019 — 18 of them between January and June 15. They made 25 arrests in 2020 — 17 of them between January and June 15. They made 21 arrests in 2021 — 7 of them between January and June 15.
Between January and June 15 of this year, police made 9 arrests. Police said they did not have available data on how many vehicles have been seized.
Officials in other cities have taken intense action. In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams (D) recently waved a checkered flag as a bulldozer crushed a line of illegal dirt bikes and ATVs; D.C. took similar steps several years ago.
Not all D.C. residents oppose the riders. Some say the noise of the ATVs and dirt bikes bring liveliness to the city, and the City Council should take steps that don’t involve curbing their activity, such as setting soundproofing standards for residents’ homes, or giving the riders a dedicated space to ride.
Just avoiding the riders can be impossible. Clark-Turrent said he and his husband decided to go around the riders using 17th Street, but one swerved in front of him, while another charged toward him before coming to a sudden stop. Since the incident, Clark-Turrent changed his routine to avoid the riders when possible.
“If we have visitors over, we want to be sure they’re here during the day,” Clark-Turrent said. “My husband and I bike everywhere since we don’t have cars, so we try not to leave our place after 9:30 unless it’s to let out the dogs.”
The riders have periodically been accused in connection with violent altercations. On June 12, for example, four ATV riders argued with a man near the 2600 block of Branch Avenue SE, and one of them pulled out a gun and shot him, police said. The man survived and sought treatment for his injury; police later released images of the riders to the public.
Contee said that he believes the people who ride on ATVs and dirt bikes do so to put a performance for anyone who sees them, not because they want their own space.
“We want to do all that we can to deter that behavior and make sure that there’s some consequence that’s associated with that kind of reckless behavior,” Contee said.
One ATV and dirt bike rider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid police attention, said he believes that D.C. residents unfairly demonize the riders. The rider, a 32-year-old Brightwood Park resident who has been riding dirt bikes and ATVs since 1996, said older riders in his neighborhood introduced him to the activity, and he passed it on to his three kids.
“There aren’t a lot of opportunities for kids to learn how to ride in the city. Even if they don’t end up riding, they should at least know how to fix them,” the rider said.
The rider, who also repairs ATVs and dirt bikes, says that riding his ATV is a stress reliever. He said that “bad apples” in the rider community — like those involved in the shooting — have led to negative perceptions. The animosity, he said, leads some riders to be defensive in confrontations with drivers or police officers. Last November, the rider said he was hit by a car while on his dirt bike and had to have a plate put in his leg.
“As a rider community, we have a common enemy in cars. Civilians try to be police officers when they don’t see police nearby,” the rider said. “On the road, we have to watch out for everyone.”
Opinion: Stop the hundreds of illegal off-road vehicles swarming D.C.’s streets
After the June 12 shooting, someone claiming to represent U Street residents emailed D.C. police Cmdr. James M. Boteler, Jr., who was tapped in April to lead the department’s Third District, alleging that D.C. police were turning a blind eye to what the person called “utter lawlessness.”
Boteler Jr. responded that since he took over, police had seized about 10 ATVs, arrested four to five operators, and recovered a few guns associated with them.
“I can promise you I’m all about holding these folks being menaces on ATVs accountable,” Boteler Jr. wrote.
Councilmember Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1) has proposed a range of measures to keep ATVs and dirt bikes off city streets, including impounding vehicles, building dedicated space for riding, and creating programs to decrease violent incidents. Nadeau said that riding on ATVs helps youths avoid getting involved in violence.
“My goal is to work with residents and riders in a way that improves resident quality of life while acknowledging the impact of bike life culture,” Nadeau said in an email statement.
Sabel Harris, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for the U Street neighborhood who ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for the Ward 1 council seat, said she doesn’t believe in impounding the vehicles or enforcing punitive measures that don’t work.
“Several residents have told us about the noise,” Harris said. “But we need to look at this situation holistically and address the safety concerns.”
Kelvin Brown, a Ward 7 ANC commissioner, said residents complain to him about safety and noise disruption, but he does not want the riders gone altogether.
“The riders get a thrill from drawing people into the spectacle. Even if people don’t like it, you have to admit that it’s fun to watch,” Brown said. “Knowing that, we should give the riders the opportunity to channel that energy into something that can be great for the entire city.”
Dieter Lehmann Morales, a Columbia Heights ANC commissioner, said he sympathizes with those who have noise complaints, but that comes with living in the city. If officials were to legalize the vehicles on city streets, he said, it might dissipate the thrill of bucking authority.
“It’s not fair that people’s lives are disrupted, but these are the sounds and lifestyles that come from living in a big city,” Morales said. “Some people don’t want to grapple with that, but it comes with the territory.”
Gary Zottoli said he doesn’t mind the noise or the riders. The 30-year-old Park View resident said he knows that the riders can be annoying at times, but he believes the disruption brings excitement.
“You have a very diverse dynamism that builds up the fabric of the city. You see it, you get annoyed for a few minutes, and then you move on,” Zottoli said. “What about this is it that makes people so angry?”
The Brightwood Park rider said that he is skeptical of those who say they want to hear the voices of ATV and dirt bike riders, and that dirt bike riding will continue regardless of police seizures or negative sentiment from residents. The rider said his goal isn’t to get attention, but to pass on his love of riding to kids, just as older riders did for him.
“You know who doesn’t complain about the riding? The youths don’t,” the rider said. “The attention we get is nice, but I like doing the tricks for kids the most because they like to see that. If I can make them happy, then I’ve accomplished something.” | 2022-07-09T14:44:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ATV-rider arrests in D.C. are down. The irritation with them is not. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/09/atv-riders-nuisance-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/09/atv-riders-nuisance-dc/ |
FILE - This Dec. 2, 2021, photo provided by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources shows an endangered North Atlantic right whale entangled in fishing rope being sighted with a newborn calf in waters near Cumberland Island, Ga. The federal government hasn’t done enough to protect a rare species of whale from lethal entanglement in lobster fishing gear, and new rules are needed to protect the species from extinction, a judge has ruled, Friday, July 8, 2022. (Georgia Department of Natural Resources/NOAA Permit #20556 via AP) (Uncredited/Georgia Department of Natural Resources) | 2022-07-09T15:02:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Weak protection for vanishing whale violates law, judge says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/weak-protection-for-vanishing-whale-violates-law-judge-says/2022/07/09/c7c08830-ff94-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/weak-protection-for-vanishing-whale-violates-law-judge-says/2022/07/09/c7c08830-ff94-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Hungary is the sole European hold-out against a worldwide minimum corporate tax, a Biden administration priority
A boat on the Danube River passes the Hungarian parliament building in Budapest in 2018. The United States is terminating its 1979 tax treaty with Hungary over a dispute about whether to set a global minimum corporate tax rate. (Darko Vojinovic/AP)
The Biden administration on Friday said it will terminate its four-decade-old tax treaty with Hungary over that country’s resistance to implementing a global minimum tax, as the United States seeks to create a global tax floor for large multinational corporations.
In a statement on Friday, the Treasury Department said the United States is ending the treaty with Hungary because “the benefits are no longer reciprocal,” citing a loss of tax revenue for the United States and little return for American investment in the country. Hungary, which has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe, is currently blocking the European Union’s implementation of the global minimum tax agreement. World leaders have agreed on a 15 percent corporate tax floor, championed as a top priority by Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen. Hungary’s corporate tax rate is 9 percent. Each country in the European Union has veto power over the bloc’s tax agreements, and every other E.U. member country supports the proposal.
“The United States, across administrations, has had long-held concerns with Hungary’s tax system and the Hungary treaty,” the Treasury statement said. “We discussed these concerns with Hungary starting last fall, but are taking this step due to a lack of satisfactory action by Hungary to remedy these concerns.”
An analysis by the Treasury Department said the treaty unilaterally benefits Hungary. When the treaty was agreed to, Hungary’s tax rate was 50 percent; it is now 9 percent — less than half the U.S. rate.
Tax treaties are designed to help residents of countries that have signed them avoid paying taxes on the same income to both nations and to resolve other potentially complicated tax situations.
The Biden administration has said the new global minimum tax will help states fund social programs and escape a mutually damaging “race to the bottom” by competing for business by lowering corporate tax rates. Those efforts have largely unified countries in the European Union, with Yellen and her partners winning over holdouts such as Ireland and Poland.
But Hungary’s resistance has become the latest major roadblock to implementing the plan, with Hungarian officials warning that the measure will hurt investment and growth in their country. The Washington Post previously reported that Republican lawmakers, who also oppose the global tax deal, are working with senior officials in the Hungarian government.
“No matter how much pressure we are under … we do not risk the jobs of tens of thousands of Hungarians,” Peter Szijjarto, Hungary’s foreign minister, said in a Facebook post on Saturday. “We continue professional consultations on tax affairs with our Republican friends.”
The news that the tax treaty would be terminated was first reported by Reuters. | 2022-07-09T15:03:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. terminates treaty with Hungary over resistance to global tax - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/07/09/hungary-treaty-yellen-tax/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/07/09/hungary-treaty-yellen-tax/ |
Cloudburst kills at least 16 on pilgrimage in India’s Kashmir region
By Anant Gupta
Shams Irfan
Soldiers carry a flood victim during the Amarnath pilgrimage near Baltal base camp in Kashmir on July 9, 2022. (Abid Bhat/AFP/Getty Images)
KOLKATA, India — Flash floods triggered by a cloudburst killed at least 16 people during an annual Hindu pilgrimage to a Himalayan mountain cave in India’s Kashmir region.
Officials mounted a mass rescue effort as 40 others were missing Saturday. The cloudburst that occurred in the area of a sacred Hindu cave about 75 miles west of Srinagar the previous day brought the Amarnath pilgrimage to a halt.
Roughly 15,000 pilgrims were shifted to a base camp at a lower altitude, and rescue workers used helicopters to move those stranded around the cave.
9 Dead, Many Missing After Cloudburst Near Amarnath Shrine: 10 Points https://t.co/Y9O1g6D21K pic.twitter.com/aBP6PWkfFn
“First it started to rain slowly, which is normal at this altitude. Then, all of a sudden, we heard a loud bang, like a blast,” said Manzoor Ahmad Lone, 31, a photographer who said he has camped near the cave every year since 2012. “I feel lucky to be alive,” Lone said.
Video from local media show floodwaters gushing down the hills as loudspeakers instruct people to leave the area. Eyewitnesses reported seeing huge, truck-size rocks fall from the top of the hills as torrents swept up tents and kitchens. Rescue work was hampered by the difficulty of moving heavy machinery into the region. Army personnel worked with hand tools to clear debris.
“We were terrified by what we saw,” an eyewitness told ANI news agency. This year, more than 300,000 pilgrims had registered for the journey to catch a glimpse of the Amarnath shivling, a natural ice stalagmite considered a form of the god Shiva, at an altitude of nearly 4,000 meters above sea level. The trek to the cave can be made on foot or by pony. Some 80,000 people had completed the pilgrimage this year.
“We quickly ran towards higher grounds for safety. But not everyone was so lucky or quick. We could hear people crying for help,” Lone, the photographer, said. “They were buried under heaps of rock and debris.”
“We have evacuated nearly 100 injured persons. There are people still buried here,” Lt. Gen. Amardeep Singh Aujla told reporters at the Sangam base camp. “We hope to get them out in the next 24 hours.”
With rescue operations underway, the death toll is expected to rise. Cloudbursts are not unknown in the region, but the growing frequency of extreme weather events has alarmed researchers and activists. The last major flood in the valley occurred in 2014. Rapid urbanization and erosion of natural wetlands has made the region particularly vulnerable to a changing climate.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his condolences and spoke to local officials about rescue efforts. “Rescue and relief operations are underway. All possible assistance is being provided to the affected,” he said.
This was the first pilgrimage in three years after a stoppage because of the coronavirus pandemic. In 2019, the government halted the pilgrimage midway and asked people to turn back days before it revoked Kashmir’s semiautonomous status.
The pilgrimage has been fraught with risks in the past as well. Until a few decades ago, it was conducted over 15 days only. In 1996, snowstorms and blizzards killed nearly 240 pilgrims. A committee set up by the government in the aftermath of the tragedy had recommended capping the number of pilgrims at 100,000 every year.
Irfan reported from Srinagar. | 2022-07-09T15:03:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amarnath pilgrimage suspended after cloudburst and flash floods - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/09/india-amarnath-yatra-cloudburst/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/09/india-amarnath-yatra-cloudburst/ |
Luis Echeverría, Mexican politician with tarnished legacy, dies at 100
As Mexico’s top law enforcement official, he was indicted on genocide charges for his role in a massacre. As president, he led a ‘dirty war’ against opponents
By Alexander F. Remington
Luis Echeverría in 1969. (Anonymous/AP)
Luis Echeverría, who as Mexico’s top law enforcement official was indicted on genocide charges for his role in a 1968 student massacre, then later as president presided over a severe economic crisis and a violent “dirty war” against government opponents, died July 8 at his home in Cuernavaca, according to Mexican media reports. He was 100.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed the death in official statements. The cause was not disclosed.
The October 1968 clash between federal troops and student protesters, which occurred days before the Olympic Games began in Mexico City, received international condemnation and became a defining moment in modern Mexican history. The killings also brought Mr. Echeverría a tarnished legacy that continued far beyond his troubled presidency from 1970 to 1976.
Mr. Echeverría was “a failed, tragic figure in Mexican history,” Kate Doyle, a Latin America human rights scholar with the Washington-based National Security Archive, said in an interview. “He contained the possibility of modernity, the possibility of openness, the possibility of youth, of some kind of forward-thinking. And he was ultimately destroyed by his inability to see beyond, or his inability to rescue himself from, the political apparatus that created him.”
Mr. Echeverría advanced rapidly in Mexico’s ruling party, the PRI, after marrying into the family of a political boss. In 1964, when he was 42, he became secretary of the interior under President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz.
The powerful job gave Mr. Echeverría control over Mexico’s police and law enforcement apparatus at a time when the government was leading crackdowns on students demanding reforms. Despite huge increases in economic growth since the late 1950s, little had been done to improve the plight of the vast Mexican peasantry.
In October 1968, federal troops gunned down dozens of protesters in the capital’s Tlatelolco square and jailed many more. Hundreds of citizens were wounded.
Mr. Echeverría’s precise role is still unknown, as is the exact number of dead, but much of the blame fell on him and Díaz Ordaz. At the time, Mr. Echeverría headed a government strategy group to deal with the protests.
Under the PRI, whose candidates ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000, outgoing Mexican presidents picked their successors, who were then assured of victory. Selected by Díaz Ordaz, Mr. Echeverría as president continued Mexico’s fight against guerrillas and government protesters.
At a student protest in 1971, dozens more were killed by right-wing paramilitaries, a reprisal that Mr. Echeverría attributed to the mayor of Mexico City. According to data compiled by Mexico’s National Commission for Human Rights, 342 people were “disappeared” during Mr. Echeverría’s presidency.
Vicente Fox’s election in 2000 as the first modern non-PRI president led to the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the crimes of the dirty war, including the student massacres of 1968 and 1971. Mr. Echeverría was indicted on genocide charges because the statute of limitations for murder had elapsed.
Mr. Echeverría denied responsibility for the deaths, and in 2007 a federal magistrate ruled that not enough evidence existed to try him. An appeals panel later upheld that decision in 2009.
Luis Echeverría Álvarez was born in Mexico City on Jan. 17, 1922, and received a bachelor’s and a law degree at the National Autonomous University.
His political career began in 1945, when he married María Zuno, daughter of a party boss in Jalisco state. The following year, he joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known by its Spanish acronym PRI, and became the private secretary to the president of the party.
His wife, with whom he had eight children, died in 1999. A son, Álvaro Echeverría Zuno, died in 2020. A complete list of survivors could not be immediately confirmed.
In 1970, when Mr. Echeverría became the youngest PRI nominee for president in nearly two decades, he campaigned across Mexico, saying, “To me, it is not only important to win, but to win over.” According to campaign literature, he traveled 35,100 miles in 229 days, delivering 850 speeches for an election he was assured to win.
During his campaign, he advocated land reform and sought to win support among the poor, who accounted for almost half the country’s population. He defined himself as “neither to the right, nor to the left, nor in a static center, but onward and upward.”
But Mr. Echeverría’s presidency was marked by deep economic turmoil, partly attributed to the world oil crisis. Deficit spending was compounded by an inability to collect tax revenue, and he was forced to devalue the peso twice at the end of his term.
In keeping with his populist rhetoric, much of his spending was on social programs, which angered many of the business elite. Shortly before the end of his term, oil was discovered in Mexico, which permitted Mr. Echeverría to secure more foreign loans. Foreign debt increased from $3.5 billion to more than $20 billion by the end of the term.
Mr. Echeverría did further damage to the economy by lending support to a 1975 U.N. resolution that equated Zionism with racism. This prompted many Jewish Americans to boycott Mexico, resulting in the cancellation of 30,000 hotel reservations and costing the country’s economy $200 million, as George Grayson, an authority on Mexican politics, told the Los Angeles Times.
At the end of his presidency, Mr. Echeverría designated Finance Secretary José López Portillo as his successor. However, López Portillo’s management of the economy was even worse than Echeverría’s, leading to the 1982 peso devaluation and an economic crash.
In later years, Mr. Echeverría kept a low profile. He served as Mexico’s ambassador to Australia and was a representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. He also ran a center for Third World studies until his criticisms of López Portillo prompted the president to yank funding for the institute. | 2022-07-09T15:49:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Luis Echeverría, Mexican politico with tarnished legacy, dies at 100 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/09/luis-echeverria-mexico-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/09/luis-echeverria-mexico-dead/ |
Former Manchester United star Wayne Rooney played for D.C. United in 2018 and 2019 before returning to England to finish his playing career — and start his coaching career — at Derby County. (Aleksandra Szmigiel/pool photo via Associated Press)
D.C. United has spoken to former superstar Wayne Rooney about becoming its head coach, four people familiar with the situation said late Friday and early Saturday. It remained unclear when such a move would happen, if at all.
The sides, one person said, have been in regular contact for some time about his interest in coaching the MLS club next season. But with United — the team Rooney starred for in 2018-19 after a storied Premier League career — near the bottom of the league under interim coach Chad Ashton, talks have pivoted to him possibly coming this season.
Rooney, though, is also weighing job interest from a Premier League club, that person said.
United officials declined to comment. Paul Stretford, Rooney’s agent, did not reply to a message seeking comment. Those who confirmed the talks spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could freely discuss the matter.
The Daily Mail was first to report Rooney’s interest in guiding United, which fired second-year coach Hernán Losada six games into this season. Ashton, a longtime assistant, was slated to oversee the team for the rest of the year.
However, United (5-10-2) has not improved, and Friday’s 7-0 away defeat to the Philadelphia Union tied the MLS record for largest scoring margin. Since the coaching change, United is 3-6-2 and conceded 32 goals in dropping to 26th among 28 teams in the overall standings.
United has not qualified for the playoffs since Rooney’s second season in MLS. He had planned to play in Washington at least one more season, but because his family wasn’t comfortable living abroad, he and the club mutually agreed to part ways.
Rooney returned to England and joined second-flight Derby County as a player and assistant coach. When Phillip Cocu was fired in fall 2020, Rooney and three others shared duties until Rooney was named permanent head coach. He soon retired as a player, finishing as the highest scorer in English national team history.
The Rams narrowly avoided relegation, but this past season, Rooney faced huge challenges. They were declared insolvent, resulting in a 12-point deduction in the standings. Later, they forfeited nine points because of financial violations.
Derby finished second to last and was relegated to League One, prompting Rooney, 36, to step down last month. Since then, he has been exploring coaching opportunities in Europe and spoken multiple times to United co-chairman Jason Levien, two people said.
Despite ending his D.C. playing career earlier than expected, Rooney has remained close with United officials and players. He and captain Steven Birnbaum — as well as their spouses — are good friends, and the four got together in December in England.
Furthermore, club management has at times reached out to Rooney for advice on player targets in Europe, one person said.
One such player, that person said, was Welsh forward Tom Lawrence, who played with, and for, Rooney at Derby. United expressed interest in signing him this summer before he joined Glasgow Rangers.
During Rooney’s playing days in MLS, United officials and players marveled at not only his technical ability but his soccer mind and ability to analyze matches. He was the team captain, and many thought he would become a coach before long.
Returning to Washington, though, would raise questions about his family’s happiness, and by extension, his happiness. He and his wife, Coleen, have four children, ranging in age from 4 to 12.
Until moving to the D.C. area, the family had never lived outside the Liverpool-Manchester area. Rooney’s wife reportedly was miserable living abroad.
Before appointing anyone, United would have to comply with MLS’s diversity hiring policy, which requires at least two non-White candidates among the finalists for technical staff positions. No other names have surfaced publicly.
The league, though, does grant waivers under “extenuating circumstances.”
United did not have to follow league policy when Ashton replaced Losada because it was filling the job on short notice and on an interim basis.
Hiring Rooney would help shift the focus from another losing season. In his time as a D.C. striker, Rooney won over supporters with not only his scoring exploits but his work ethic, leadership traits and interaction with the public.
His arrival in Washington coincided with Audi Field’s opening in July 2018 and his attacking partnership with Luciano Acosta (now with Cincinnati) electrified crowds and brought worldwide attention to a club that had lost relevance locally and nationally.
In 2018, he made one of the greatest plays in club history, racing back to midfield to deny a scoring opportunity while United’s goalkeeper was in the attacking end, then launching a long ball to Acosta for a stoppage-time game-winner.
One person familiar with the negotiations said the former English national team star believes he can win in Washington. Despite the team’s poor record, Greek attacker Taxi Fountas is one of the league’s top newcomers, Chilean attacker Martín Rodríguez will debut soon, and the club says it plans to sign at least two others before the summer transfer window closes Aug. 4. United has two designated player slots available. | 2022-07-09T15:58:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wayne Rooney, D.C. United in talks about coaching job - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/09/wayne-rooney-dc-united-coach-talks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/09/wayne-rooney-dc-united-coach-talks/ |
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1940 with a drawing of his design for Crystal Heights in Washington. Also known as Crystal City, the mixed-use development was never built. (Library of Congress/Harris & Ewing Collection)
Legend clung to the massive oak tree that once stood in the nine-acre triangle of forest that grew incongruously at the corner of Connecticut and Florida avenues NW. The tree was known as the Treaty Oak, supposedly because Native Americans and White settlers negotiated agreements under its branches. But by the 1940s, any tree in an expanding Washington was threatened with the ax.
It’s hard to say if the Treaty Oak would have survived the plan the District’s Freemasons had for the site, known as the Dean tract. As Answer Man wrote last week, in 1922 the Masons announced plans to turn the land into Temple Heights, the setting for an impressive complex of neoclassical Masonic buildings.
The stock market crash ended those dreams. The next dreamer would be “the world’s greatest living architect.”
That’s how D.C. developer Roy Sage Thurman described Frank Lloyd Wright in 1940. The 73-year-old Wright’s modernist style may have been celebrated around the world but it was unrepresented in the nation’s capital.
For Temple Heights, Thurman envisioned what today we would call a mixed-use development. And he hired Wright to design it.
Wright was not a fan of prototypical Washington architecture, proclaiming that the city had “a sufficiency of the deadly conventional.” Federal buildings were meant to “satisfy a kind of grandomania utterly obsolete.” Greek and Roman influences were everywhere, producing too many stolid buildings. John Russell Pope’s domed Jefferson Memorial, he felt, was “the greatest insult yet.”
With the commission from Thurman, Wright was going to shake things up — or try to.
The fascinating story of Wright’s unsuccessful attempt to enliven Washington’s skyline is told by Neil Levine in his 2016 book, “The Urbanism of Frank Lloyd Wright.”
Thurman had turned to real estate development after co-founding the National Home Library Foundation, which published educational and patriotic books in flexible bindings. He was a bit of an unknown quantity, so much so that the architect, Levine writes, hired an investigator to compile a confidential report on Thurman. (The report was completed after Wright was well into the project. It found that Thurman had not enjoyed great success.)
Thurman asked Wright to place on the sloping Dean tract site a complex that would include a hotel, an apartment house, a parking garage, a movie theater, a shopping center and other commercial spaces. It would be an almost self-contained city within the city.
The design morphed over the months in 1939 and 1940 that Wright worked on it. What all the designs had in common was a crescent of tall, conjoined buildings — more than a dozen, most of them around 12 to 14 stories high — on the high ground at the back of the site. A large parking structure overlooked Florida Avenue. Between the buildings and the garage, Wright had preserved much of the existing forest, including the Treaty Oak.
There was also a bowling alley, an art gallery, a banquet hall, a cocktail lounge and other amenities.
The buildings, Wright wrote to Thurman, “should be worked out in white marble, verdigris bronze and crystal [glass], and show up the Capitol for a fallen dumpling and Washington hotels as insufferable. And this is to suggest that you change Temple Heights to CRYSTAL HEIGHTS because of the crystalline character of the whole edifice. It will be an iridescent fabric with every surface showing of the finest quality.”
Thurman preferred the name Crystal City for the $15 million project.
Levine suggests Thurman hoped Wright’s cachet would help smooth over some of the same problems that had bedeviled the Masons’ design, among them the District’s height restrictions. There was also the matter of the Dean tract’s zoning designation: residential, not commercial. Buildings in residential areas were limited to 90 feet tall. The tallest tower in Wright’s design was around 200 feet. And the residential designation meant the stores Thurman would depend on weren’t allowed.
And then there was the striking, modern design itself, which Newsweek likened to “a burlesque show in Sunday school.” Crystal City did not get zoning approval. Like the Masons’ temple, it’s a case of what might have been.
On March 13, 1953, a bulldozer felled the Treaty Oak. Government experts who examined the toppled tree estimated it was around 350 years old. In 1962, construction began on the building that stands there today: the Washington Hilton.
Questions, please
Have a question about the Washington area? Send it to answerman@washpost.com. | 2022-07-09T16:33:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Crystal City was an unrealized D.C. design by Frank Lloyd Wright - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/09/crystal-heights-wright/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/09/crystal-heights-wright/ |
Hundreds marching to White House, risking arrest to protest Roe’s reversal
People protest about abortion outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on June 24, 2022. (Steve Helber/AP)
Hundreds of people are planning to protest for abortion rights Saturday by marching to the White House and planting themselves in front of the building, risking arrest.
The demonstration is being organized by the Women’s March, a movement that drew millions to the streets in the nation’s capital and across the country the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president in 2017. The group has called for a “Summer of Rage” in response to the Supreme Court’s overturning last month of Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that had enshrined abortion as a constitutional right for more than 50 years.
The Women’s March also targets President Biden, calling on him to declare a national emergency that would allow the federal government to dedicate additional funds for abortion procedures. Other actions requested by the group include new federal guidance increasing access to abortion pills and the leasing of federal land to abortion providers.
For this weekend’s protest, organizers expect between 400 and 1,000 total participants. The marchers gathered at Franklin Square at 10 a.m. for a short rally and training before marching at noon to Lafayette Square, where a group plans to remain motionless on the White House sidewalk in an act of civil disobedience, according to a National Park Service permit.
The organizers say the “most likely scenario” is that Park Police will arrest demonstrators “for not being in continuous motion on the sidewalk,” according to guidance given to participants.
“The goal of this action is not mass numbers of participants, but a smaller number of people taking coordinated action together in order to elevate a demand to a specific target,” the guidance states. “The action will be centered around folks who are risking arrest.” | 2022-07-09T16:33:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hundreds arrested outside White House while protesting for abortion rights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/09/march-white-house-abortion-rights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/09/march-white-house-abortion-rights/ |
FILE - This Feb. 8, 2020 file photo shows Oprah Winfrey speaking at “Oprah’s 2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus” tour in New York. Winfrey’s father, Vernon Winfrey, has died at the age of 89. Oprah confirmed in an Instagram post that her father died in Nashville, Tenn., on Friday, July 8, 2022. (Brad Barket/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-07-09T18:09:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Vernon Winfrey, Oprah's father, dies at 89 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/vernon-winfrey-oprahs-father-dies-at-89/2022/07/09/7225afec-ffb0-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/vernon-winfrey-oprahs-father-dies-at-89/2022/07/09/7225afec-ffb0-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html |
Teens fatally beat 73-year-old man with traffic cone, video shows
Surveillance footage released by the Philadelphia Police Department shows teens fatally beating a man with what appears to be a traffic cone on June 24. (Video: Philadelphia Police Department)
Authorities are searching for seven teenagers accused of fatally beating a 73-year-old man with a traffic cone last month in Philadelphia, police announced late this week.
Officials with the Philadelphia Police Department said Saturday that four teen boys and three teen girls attacked James Lambert in the early morning hours of June 24 on Cecil B. Moore Avenue in North Philadelphia. The teens struck him several times with “objects,” knocking him to the ground and causing head injuries, police said.
Surveillance video released by police shows a group of teens chasing the victim and hurling what appeared to be a traffic cone at him. The footage shows one teen chasing him across the street and striking him with the traffic cone. Immediately afterward, another teen could be seen picking it up and hitting him again, then chasing him down the sidewalk and hitting him with it for a third time.
Police said Lambert, who was blurred in the video, was taken to a hospital where he died the next day of his injuries.
Attempts to reach Lambert’s relatives on Saturday were unsuccessful.
The White DA, the Black ex-mayor and a harsh debate on crime
It is not clear what happened in the moments leading up to the attack or whether the teens knew the victim. But for about 20 minutes afterward, the teens could be seen on surveillance video wandering around the area, one of them riding a scooter.
Family members told WCAU in Philadelphia they had seen Lambert, also known as “Simmie,” hours before the incident and could not believe kids had attacked him. Police said the Black teens appeared to be in their early to midteens. Police did not provide any further descriptions except that one teen had a blond patch of hair.
The family members told the news station that they are heartbroken.
There have been 280 homicides in Philadelphia in 2022 — a 4 percent decrease from same time the previous year, according to crime statistics from the Philadelphia Police Department.
More people were killed in Philadelphia in 2021 than any other year in recent history. It prompted a harsh debate on policing and criminal justice between two well-known Philadelphia Democrats — District Attorney Larry Krasner, who is White, and former mayor Michael Nutter, who is Black.
As Washington Post reporter Cleve R. Wootson Jr., reported at the time:
The year 2021 in the City of Brotherly Love will always be marked by the shocking number of people whose lives came to an abrupt and violent end: an 18-year-old shot two weeks before his high school graduation, two men killed in a hail of gunfire at a July Fourth cookout, a pregnant woman gunned down as she unpacked presents from her baby shower.
Police said a $20,000 reward is being offered for any information leading to an arrest and conviction from the June 24 attack. The case is being investigated by the homicide unit, police said. | 2022-07-09T18:09:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Philadelphia teens fatally beat 73-year-old man James Lambert with traffic cone, video shows - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/philadelphia-traffic-cone-beating-teens-lambert/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/philadelphia-traffic-cone-beating-teens-lambert/ |
Updated July 9, 2022 at 1:58 p.m. EDT|Published July 9, 2022 at 12:46 p.m. EDT
Brandy Bottone argues that she should not have been ticketed for driving in the HOV lane in North Texas, arguing that her pregnancy constituted an exception. (Screenshot via YouTube/KXAS)
A pregnant Texas woman who was ticketed for driving in the HOV lane suggested that Roe v. Wade being overturned by the Supreme Court means that her fetus counted as a passenger, and that she should not have been cited.
Brandy Bottone was recently driving down Central Expressway in Dallas when she was stopped by a sheriff’s deputy at an HOV checkpoint to see whether there were at least two occupants per vehicle as mandated. When the sheriff looked around her car last month, she recounted to The Washington Post that he asked, “Is it just you or is someone else riding with you?”
“I said, ‘Oh, there’s two of us,’” Bottone said. “And he said, ‘Where?’”
Bottone, who was 34 weeks pregnant at the time, pointed to her stomach. Even though she said her “baby girl is right here,” Bottone said one of the deputies she encountered on June 29 told her it had to be “two bodies outside of the body.” While the state’s penal code recognizes a fetus as a person, the Texas Transportation Code does not.
“One officer kind of brushed me off when I mentioned this is a living child, according to everything that’s going on with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. ‘So I don’t know why you’re not seeing that,’ I said,” she explained to the Dallas Morning News, the first to report the story.
“I will be fighting it,” Bottone, 32, of Plano, Tex., said to The Post.
The news comes as all corners of the country are dealing with the fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision more than two weeks ago. President Biden delivered an emotional speech Friday announcing an array of steps aimed at bolstering abortion rights, responding to growing demands from activists that he take bolder and more forceful action. Biden signing an executive order to enhance access to reproductive health-care services was a move generally welcomed by abortion activists, many said it would likely do little for women in states where abortion is banned. The president acknowledged the limits of his executive powers, saying the Dobbs ruling was “the Supreme Court’s terrible, extreme and, I think, so totally wrongheaded decision.”
A judge in Harris County, Tex., granted a temporary order last month to allow clinics to offer abortions for at least two weeks without criminal prosecution. Judge Christine Weems (D) ruled that a pre-Roe ban enforced by Paxton and prosecutors would “inevitably and irreparably chill the provision of abortions in the vital last weeks in which safer abortion care remains available and lawful in Texas.”
Five days after the Dobbs ruling, Bottone said she was in a rush to pick up her 6-year-old son and decided to drive her GMC Yukon into the HOV lane since she “couldn’t be a minute late.”
As she attempted to argue the fetus was her second passenger, Bottone told The Post that the deputy wasn’t open to the debate.
“I thought it was weird and said, ‘With everything that’s going on, especially in Texas, this counts as a baby,’” she said. “He kind of waved me on and said, ‘This officer will take care of you.’”
Bottone said that while one of the deputies told her that the ticket would likely get dropped if she fought it, she’s upset that the citation was issued in the first place.
“I thought it was a waste of my time. It just rubbed me wrong,” she said. “I don’t think it was right.”
Bottone emphasized that while she believes women should have a choice on what they do with their bodies, “that’s not saying I’m also pro-choice.” She noted that she also drove in the HOV lane when she was pregnant with her first child, her 6-year-old son.
Bottone maintained to The Post that she hoped the Texas laws would be consistent on how the measures recognize unborn children.
“The laws don’t speak the same language, and it’s all been kind of confusing, honestly,” she said.
She’s due in court on July 20, which is only two weeks before her daughter’s due date of Aug. 3.
“It wasn’t because of Roe v. Wade that I hopped in the HOV lane,” she said. “I just thought of it as me and another person.”
Matt Viser, Caroline Kitchener and Adela Suliman contributed to this report. | 2022-07-09T18:09:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pregnant Texas woman Brandy Bottone uses Roe reversal to fight HOV lane ticket, says fetus is passenger - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/texas-abortion-pregnant-woman-hov-bottone/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/texas-abortion-pregnant-woman-hov-bottone/ |
President Biden speaks after signing an executive order on abortion access. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg News)
Two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated a woman’s constitutional right to choose, President Biden signed an executive order Friday that calls on the federal government to do everything in its authority to safeguard some abortion access for residents of states that outlaw the procedure. Exact details of how the administration aims to accomplish this goal remain to be seen; Mr. Biden directed the secretary of Health and Human Services to produce a report. That he didn’t act sooner, and that his order wasn’t sweeping in scope, drew criticism from activists who wanted bold action. But the fact is that the president is limited in his ability to restore abortion access. Mr. Biden is right to take care in devising solutions that have the best chance of success and can withstand legal challenges.
“We cannot allow an out-of-control Supreme Court, working in conjunction with the extremist elements of the Republican Party, to take away freedoms and our personal autonomy,” Mr. Biden said in a speech from the White House. The executive order he signed directed HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to produce a report within 30 days outlining steps to protect access to medication abortion, expand access to emergency contraception and increase public education about reproductive rights. The order calls on the Federal Trade Commission — an independent agency — to consider taking steps to protect the privacy of people who are looking for information about abortion services. And it directs the attorney general and White House counsel to convene private pro bono attorneys, bar associations and public interest organizations to encourage robust legal representations of patients, providers and third parties. Among those needing possible representation: those traveling out of state to seek medical care.
The order falls short of the demands of some abortion rights advocates, who pushed for the establishment of abortion services on federal or Native American land or in VA hospitals. That those strategies likely would run afoul of laws such as the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds for abortions, seems not to matter to those who would have Mr. Biden exceed his authority to accomplish their goals. Surely the country had enough of disregard for the law during the Trump administration.
Whatever the end result, Mr. Biden is correct when he says the only way to secure reproductive rights is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe as federal law. The votes don’t exist for that and accordingly Mr. Biden rightly urged, “The challenge is go out and vote. Well, for God’s sake, there is an election in November. Vote, vote, vote, vote!” | 2022-07-09T18:10:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | With his executive order, Biden protecting abortion access - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/09/biden-executive-order-abortion-access-limits/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/09/biden-executive-order-abortion-access-limits/ |
His predecessors struggled to govern. Abe helped transform Japanese politics.
Analysis by Phillip Y. Lipscy
People pray on July 8, 2022, next to tributes laid at the site where former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was fatally shot earlier that day, in Nara, Japan. (Issei Kato/Reuters)
Violence against Japanese political figures is not without precedent, but the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe on July 8, days before an upper house election, shocked a nation known for its safety and strict gun control laws.
The longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history, Abe presided over a period of remarkable political stability and decisive lower-house election victories in 2012, 2014 and 2017. Citing health reasons, he resigned in September 2020 amid public criticism of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic — although covid-19-related deaths in Japan were relatively low.
Abe came to office — first serving as prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and then again from 2012 to 2020 — with an ambitious agenda to remake Japan’s economy and role in the world. His namesake “Abenomics” policies sought to reinvigorate Japan’s economy through bold monetary and fiscal stimulus while pursuing structural changes in areas including agriculture, corporate governance, energy, labor markets and women’s employment.
Abe championed proactive leadership for Japanese foreign policy, making significant changes to security policy and stepping up support for the liberal international order as its traditional defenders, such as the United States and Britain, retreated. He also took advantage of institutional changes in Japanese politics to stabilize his political rule.
Abe’s predecessors struggled to govern Japan
Japan’s political institutions have undergone significant transitions in the past three decades. In 1994, lower-house electoral changes shifted the incentives of Japanese politicians, placing greater emphasis on broad appeals to the median voter rather than the traditional focus on pork-barrel politics. Administrative restructuring that started in 1998 shifted power from the bureaucracy to politicians. The staff of the cabinet secretariat expanded threefold over the past 20 years, giving the prime minister greater independent capacity to formulate policy.
Until 2012, Japanese leaders struggled to exercise effective leadership under Japan’s new political institutions. Electoral changes in the lower house were not mirrored in the upper house, which made it difficult for parties to control both houses of the Diet, or parliament, while maintaining internal coherence. Governments of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) were hampered alternatively by internecine struggles and divided government.
When Abe assumed office, Japan had seen a revolving door of six prime ministers lasting only about a year each — including Abe’s first term. The only recent prime minister to achieve longevity was Junichiro Koizumi, but his approach — which relied on personal charisma and an orchestrated assault against his own party — was not replicable.
Abe came to office with a model to govern Japan
Abe sought to overcome these problems with three main strategies. First, he strove to maintain strong public support by pivoting to Abenomics growth themes whenever his popularity waned, such as after passing controversial security legislation. His media strategy looked to shape popular narratives by limiting and controlling access to the prime minister, managing scandals quickly with an eye to the news cycle and pressuring critical news outlets to moderate their tone.
Second, Abe used elections as a mechanism to quell internal dissent and impose party discipline. The 2014 election set the tone, as Abe overcame opposition to a postponement of a hike in the consumption tax within his Liberal Democratic Party and the Finance Ministry by calling an election and winning a public mandate. His robust public support, which averaged close to 50 percent, made the threat of snap elections credible.
Third, Abe built on previous institutional changes by concentrating greater authority in the cabinet office and expanding control over personnel decisions in the bureaucracy. He also implemented a variety of practical measures to improve coordination and public messaging, such as the participation of his key lieutenants in the Diet Affairs Committee to coordinate legislative strategies.
Japan’s prime minister is a third-generation politician. That’s more common than you might think.
On some goals, Abe came up short
Abe was unable to achieve his lifelong ambition of amending the Japanese constitution, despite requisite Diet supermajorities. This effort was stymied by lukewarm public support and the reluctance of Komeito, his coalition partner in government. Despite considerable efforts, he could not resolve the North Korean abduction of Japanese nationals or conclude a peace treaty with Russia. He sought to resolve the World War II comfort women issue “finally and irreversibly,” but the issue became globalized, and relations with South Korea continued to deteriorate.
There also were important areas of omission. Despite shifting Japanese public opinion on social issues such as same-sex marriage, dual citizenship and allowing married couples to use separate surnames, the Abe government resisted change. Abe’s policies on climate change were unambitious, despite his green rhetoric. Journalists and the United Nations criticized Abe’s media strategy as compromising press freedom.
Abe also benefited from good fortune, such as the absence of major crises. A weak and divided opposition in an electoral system emphasizing single-member districts gave him a substantial structural advantage. His landslide victories came despite lukewarm public support for the LDP’s policies.
Abe the kingmaker
Abe remained influential after his resignation. He was a key member and leader of the largest political faction of the LDP, which gave him leverage over his successors. His public statements on policy issues often made headlines, and speculation continued that he would eventually seek a return to office.
Abe’s immediate successor, Yoshihide Suga, was the chief cabinet secretary during Abe’s entire tenure. Suga tackled new issues including digital transformation and charted a more ambitious climate change policy. However, Suga’s public support suffered along with successive coronavirus waves and a scandal-plagued Tokyo Olympics. He ultimately lost the confidence of key LDP power brokers — including Abe — and reluctantly resigned.
Abe played kingmaker in the subsequent LDP leadership election. He shrewdly maneuvered to undercut the initial front-runner, Taro Kono, by forcing a runoff that handed the LDP presidency to Fumio Kishida. Kishida cruised to victory in the October 2021 lower house election and remains popular: Abe probably would have remained an influential figure in Japan’s governing coalition for the foreseeable future.
Abe was no stranger to controversy, and critics raised legitimate concerns about his governance approach. Nonetheless, he oversaw consequential changes that live on and continue to shape Japan’s politics, economy and foreign policy.
Phillip Y. Lipscy is professor in the political science department and Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, where he also directs the Centre for the Study of Global Japan. He is also cross-appointed as professor in the faculty of law at the University of Tokyo. He is editor, with Takeo Hoshi, of “The Political Economy of the Abe Government and Abenomics Reforms” (Cambridge University Press, 2021). This article updates a Monkey Cage post published in September 2020. | 2022-07-09T18:10:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What is Abe Shinzo's legacy? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/09/japan-abe-legacy-assassination-abenomics-political-economic-reform/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/09/japan-abe-legacy-assassination-abenomics-political-economic-reform/ |
Boris Johnson enters 10 Downing Street in London on July 7, 2022, after announcing that he was resigning as Conservative Party leader but would remain in the post of prime minister until his party had chosen a successor. (Frank Augstein/AP)
LONDON — What next for Boris Johnson, the most omnipresent, omnivorous British politician of his age, once loved, now not, who delivered Brexit to Britain but now exits the global stage as a toxic dissembler?
Assuming the short-timer prime minister makes it through the next few months until his successor takes over?
Johnson’s likely to-do list:
1. Make money.
2. Remake brand.
3. Make comeback.
First up, Johnson needs money — and to live the plush life he lives now, surrounded by the finest of the finest. The best antiques, paintings, wine and sausages. He will want a lot of it. So there might be newspaper columns, more books, speaking engagements.
Before he became prime minister, Johnson was the highest-paid newspaper columnist in Britain. So there’s that to fall back on, if he can get it.
But because Johnson is leaving in pseudo-disgrace — branded unworthy of leadership by his own party because of the scandals and all the lies he told — his way forward is tricky.
His biographers, his enemies and frenemies and friends, say Johnson isn’t very good with money and is always complaining that he is broke.
This weekend, Johnson, his wife and children are out at Chequers, a 16th-century manor house, set on 1,500 acres, a “grace-and-favour” country home for top government officials — with 10 bedrooms, a chef and a large staff.
Johnson adores Chequers. It is his happy place. He wanted to have his official wedding party with Carrie there in July — until he withdrew the idea after a storm of criticism.
After he leaves office? It is unclear where the Johnsons — he 58, she 34 — will live. Carrie’s flat in London? Where the neighbors busted the couple to the police for having a wine-fueled row, with Carrie shouting, “Get off me” and “You just don’t care for anything, because you’re spoilt”? Not likely.
Why Boris Johnson ultimately resigned — and Trump never did
Johnson has two former wives and seven children. With his new wife, Carrie, he has a baby and a toddler. The prime minister, the son of a diplomat, went to Eton College and Oxford University. That is an expensive education.
“So he thrives on being the center of attention, and he will be yesterday’s man once he leaves office,” said Catherine Barnard, a legal scholar at the University of Cambridge.
“He can play house husband, he can write columns for the Daily Telegraph and get paid large sums of money for that, larger sums for corporate things, but I suspect he will get very bored.”
Many assume Johnson will eventually return to his former profession, journalism. Writing a weekly note for the Daily Telegraph was lucrative, $330,000 a year, which fellow hacks calculated to garner him $2,755 an hour.
In one of his last columns there, in 2018, Johnson wrote that women in burqas resemble “bank robbers” and “letter boxes.”
He also owes a publisher a biography on William Shakespeare, which he has not completed.
He did finish a biography of his idol, Winston Churchill, which some critics panned as a worthless retread, lacking in insight, scholarship or new material, but which the reviewer in the Financial Times called “crisp, punchy, full of the kind of wham-bam short sentences that keep the reader moving down the page.”
Most think he will also join the after-dinner speaker circuit, where it’s thought he could easily command $100,000 or more for a speech.
“He’ll go on performing,” said Andrew Gimson, the author of the biography titled “Boris.”
“He’ll write books, do journalism, give speeches. Unlike some famous speakers, he can be relied on to give an amusing speech. And he can now give a speech as someone who’s entertained at the G-7 in Cornwall and knows Biden and knows Zelenksy.”
Gimson said that Johnson also will plot to return to what he called in his resignation speech “the best job in the world.”
In that speech Thursday, resigning as leader of the Conservative Party, Johnson made no apologies. Instead, he blamed his own party for his downfall, comparing his fellow lawmakers to stampeding animals.
“As we have seen at Westminster … when the herd moves, it moves. And my friends, in politics, no one is remotely indispensable,” Johnson said.
“He will try to be PM again,” Gimson said. “I see no sign he’s abandoned politics. In his resignation speech he said, ‘I’ll give the leader all support I can,’ well, that might not be very much support at all.”
Gimson said Johnson “is a very competitive person, will keep himself in the public eye. He’ll make amazing amounts of money. He will still be a big figure, firing on all cylinders.”
Tom Bower, author of “Boris Johnson, The Gambler,” predicted that Johnson could get more than $3 million for his memoirs, if they are juicy. “The question is, how candid will it be. David Cameron got a million for a book that was dull. [Former prime minister Tony] Blair’s was more revealing, and he got bigger sells. That’s the question, though: Is he prepared to tell the truth about his marriages? His attitude to other people? Is he prepared to settle grudges? He’s a good writer, but whether he’s prepared to deliver the headlines is what matters.”
Bower said Johnson would hope to return to the highest office in the land.
“He believes, in the long term, that there’s a realistic chance of a political comeback, that in the end, there will be a Churchillian appeal to him as the only man who can save the party,” he said.
“Much depends on how he conducts himself from now on. I thought his resignation speech wasn’t only defiant, but admitting no mistakes, and saying he’d been knifed in the back and he’d come back again. I think that’s the way to interpret it,” Bower said
Some day soon, Johnson officially will tender his resignation as the British prime minister. He will deliver a final speech outside 10 Downing Street. He will meet Queen Elizabeth II and tell her he’s leaving. Removal vans will pull up to the prime minister’s residence and take away the Johnsons’ belongings — although maybe not the wallpaper, which reportedly cost $1,100 a roll.
If Johnson wants to rise to the top again, he will need to be a member of Parliament, so he may opt to keep his seat in the House of Commons and serve on the backbenches, representing Uxbridge and South Ruislip, a suburb in West London.
Other British prime ministers have made a comeback, including Churchill, who served from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. More recently, Harold Wilson, a Labour politician, served as prime minister from 1964 to 1970 and then returned for a second stint, from 1974 to 1976.
Some of Johnson’s predecessors kept that job in Parliament, others retired fully from politics.
Former prime minister Theresa May has continued to sit in the House of Commons and serve her constituents, with whom she remains a popular figure. She has largely left the Johnson administration to do its thing but has delivered a blistering broadside or two.
Her predecessor, David Cameron, left politics almost immediately. He took up several positions, including the presidency of Alzheimer’s Research UK. Cameron wrote a book, too, called “For the Record,” for $960,000.
Cameron also took up advisory posts for a number of companies, including Greensill Capital, where his lobbying was decried as “sleazy” by the opposition. A parliamentary report concluded that his actions were not criminal but displayed “a significant lack of judgment.”
The former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown has worked for the United Nations in the field of global education and campaigns to end child poverty.
Johnson might want to keep on supporting Ukraine in some fashion.
Blair set up his own nonprofit organization, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, and became Middle East envoy for the Quartet, a grouping of the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia. But he also pursued lucrative work in the private sector, creating what critics argued was a conflict of interest.
Former Conservative prime minister John Major stayed on as a member of Parliament for four years before taking on a variety of roles in business and in the sport of cricket.
In other words, there’s no conventional route for an ex-prime minister. But Johnson isn’t a conventional politician, either.
Adam Taylor in Washington contributed to this report. | 2022-07-09T18:10:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What next for Boris Johnson? Books, columns, speeches, a comeback? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/09/what-next-boris-johnson-books-columns-speeches-comeback/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/09/what-next-boris-johnson-books-columns-speeches-comeback/ |
Live updates:Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Blinken criticizes China’s ‘alignment’ wit...
The secretary of state hasn’t spoken to any senior Russian officials for the entirety of the war. Some veteran diplomats say that’s a mistake.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks on July 9, 2022, in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian island of Bali following a G-20 meeting. (Stefani Reynolds/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The top U.S. diplomat has not held a single meeting or phone call with a senior Russian official throughout the conflict — a cold shoulder strategy he continued over the weekend at a gathering of foreign ministers of the world’s 20 biggest economies in Indonesia where his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, was sometimes in the same room as Blinken.
Some veteran diplomats say the lack of contact is a mistake given the United States’ wide set of interests involving Moscow. The war in Ukraine has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians, sent global food and energy prices soaring, and raised military tensions between Russia and NATO to new heights. The U.S. is also seeking the return of high-profile American detainees from Russia, including WNBA star Brittney Griner and Marine veteran Paul Whelan.
“The first step is opening channels of communication where you can measure what your adversary is looking for,” said Tom Shannon, a former senior State Department official with three decades of government experience. “You can’t know unless you try.”
Maps of Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Blinken hasn’t spoken to Lavrov since January and chose not to meet him on the resort island of Bali despite their close physical proximity here. The avoidance came as the G-20’s host urged her fellow diplomats to start talking to find a resolution to the conflict.
“It is our responsibility to end the war sooner rather than later and settle our differences at the negotiating table, not at the battlefield,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said in a keynote speech.
U.S. officials offered several reasons for not engaging, including a concern that it would be seen as inappropriate as the Kremlin engages in a brutal war, and a suspicion that the failed attempts of other countries, such as France, Turkey and Israel, to engage Moscow would only be repeated.
“A number of other countries have engaged with Russia in recent months and they report the same thing: no sign that Russia is prepared to engage in diplomacy,” Blinken said.
Critics say meetings between Russian officials and foreign allies provide a poor comparison.
“If the United States isn’t present, it’s not a serious conversation in the mind of the Russians,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a Europe scholar and former Obama administration official. “That shouldn’t be a surprise: The United States provides the vast majority of assistance to Ukraine and is the leader of the Western coalition.”
Shannon said shifts in the war’s momentum can open diplomatic opportunities. The United States needs to be testing Russia’s appetite for an off-ramp as the conflict evolves, he said.
“What’s happened is we’ve let a period of maximum leverage slide,” he said.
“We had the Russians on the run when they were in northern Ukraine and trying to take Kyiv and they were suffering heavy casualties,” he said. “Since then, they've rectified that situation: moving the fight to the east and largely fighting through artillery.”
“You want to be talking through those phases,” he added.
‘They’re in hell’: Hail of Russian artillery tests Ukrainian morale
Talking to the Kremlin in the middle of a crisis has precedent, from the Cold War to more recent conflicts. During the George W. Bush administration, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Lavrov on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, a month after Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. John F. Kerry, President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, spoke frequently with Lavrov after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and stoked an insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
“Being in a room with John Kerry is not a favor to anybody,” said Shapiro. “It’s an old State Department joke but it’s an important point. The job of secretary of state is to talk to friends and enemies to figure out what can be done through negotiation.”
Some U.S. officials argue that Lavrov’s relative weakness within the Russian system makes him an inconsequential negotiating partner. But advocates of engagement say they’re missing the purpose of talks.
“It’s true Lavrov is not a decision-maker but he is a conduit who faithfully reflects the position of the Kremlin,” Shapiro said. “You wouldn’t meet with Lavrov to close the deal, but if you want to understand where the Russians are or send a message discreetly to Putin, he’s your guy.”
Russia’s frustrations with being locked out of discussions seem apparent, though officials in Moscow are loath to admit it. Last month, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, was overheard by a Politico reporter bemoaning the lack of contact with U.S. officials while dining at a popular Washington restaurant.
In Indonesia, Lavrov rejected the notion that he was upset but made clear that the lack of dialogue was beyond his control. “It was not us who abandoned all contacts, it was the United States,” he said Friday. “We are not running after anybody suggesting meetings. If they don’t want to talk, it’s their choice.”
Though a broad array of nations at the G-20 advocated strongly for dialogue, many made clear that they blamed Russia for starting the war and exacerbating global food and energy insecurity.
“A supermajority of the delegates were critical of Russia,” said a Western official present for the closed door meetings and who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive talks. “A minority of delegates were more even[-handed].”
The presence of Russia and its friendlier partners, such as China, India and South Africa, resulted in the meeting ending without a joint communique expressing shared goals. The “family photo,” a hallmark of G-20 events usually featuring matching shirts, was also scrapped due to sharp disunity within the group.
Advocates of engagement admit it offers no guarantee that Russia will seek a settlement of the war, especially as the battlefield momentum shifts to Russian forces, which have captured all of the eastern region of Luhansk in recent days.
While Blinken maintains his distance, other U.S. officials have had some minor engagement with Moscow. In March, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke by phone with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev. In May, the top U.S. military officer, Gen. Mark A. Milley, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke over the phone with their Russian counterparts on security-related issues. The scope of military-to-military discussions was limited, however, and not designed to negotiate an end to the conflict.
Blinken, who often champions the power of diplomacy, said he would seize the opportunity if he sensed Russian sincerity.
“If we see any signs that Russia is actually prepared to engage in real diplomacy and bring this war to an end, of course, we’ll engage in that,” he said on Saturday.
Others said there is only one way to find out.
“The very basis of international negotiation is that you don’t show signs of making compromises until you’re at the table making compromises,” Shapiro said. “You don’t offer compromises before you even start.” | 2022-07-09T19:14:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As war nears fifth month, Blinken keeps Russian diplomats at arms-length - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/09/blinken-lavrov-diplomacy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/09/blinken-lavrov-diplomacy/ |
The Democratic left is frustrated with Biden. How much could it matter?
Biden and the liberal wing of the party have never been truly in sync, but they need one another if Democrats hope to avoid big losses in November
President Biden grows visibly angry while relating the story of a 10-year-old girl forced to travel to another state for an abortion after being impregnated by a rapist, in his remarks before signing an executive order on protecting access to reproductive health-care services. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Two weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, President Biden stood in the Roosevelt Room in the White House on Friday to announce an executive order aimed at preserving, where possible, the right to an abortion. The moment illustrated the tension between the president and a portion of his party’s base frustrated by his leadership.
The Democratic left sees their rights and values under attack, whether by the Supreme Court or Republican-held state legislatures, from abortion to guns to voting laws. They see a Republican Party poised to take control of the House and possibly the Senate in the November elections. They want both reaction and action — stronger and more forceful rhetoric from the president and more aggressive steps to counter the right. In their eyes, Biden, who in temperament and instinct is still as much a creature of the Senate as of the executive branch, has not risen to the challenge.
From the White House, there is a somewhat different perspective, that the complaints from progressives are both expected and acceptable, that this is normal buffeting of a president by an activist base in an effort to keep pushing him to do more. But in this formulation, Biden presides over a broader Democratic coalition that includes everyone from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on the left to Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) on the right and must never forget the importance of that.
Whatever frustrations are being expressed about Biden’s leadership, the view from the White House is that where it has counted most, in Congress, Biden has delivered major pieces of legislation with hopes for something more this summer, and that the president has held together a congressional coalition with fewer defections than either of his two Democratic predecessors, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. In a 50-50 Senate and a House where the Democratic majority is slender, even a few defections can be deadly, and that is part of the discontent — and disconnect — between the president and his Democratic critics.
The criticisms from the left fall into several categories. One is that Biden has lacked a consistent tone of anger and outrage over what is at risk and what is at stake at an unprecedented moment in American politics. At times he has risen to the occasion. At times, in the eyes of his detractors, he has not.
On the night of the mass shootings in Uvalde, Tex., Biden’s anger was palpable, and his language reflected it: “Why are we willing to live with this carnage?” he exclaimed. That rhetoric may have contributed to the passage of the first major gun-safety legislation in decades.
But when a gunman killed seven people at a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Ill., his initial words seemed unexpectedly tepid, at least in comparison to those of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), who gave voice to the fury of many Americans at the epidemic of gun violence.
On Friday, speaking about abortion, Biden attacked the high court’s ruling in strong language, calling it “terrible, extreme and, I think, so totally wrongheaded.” But while pointed and emotional in his criticism of the justices, the executive order Biden issued fell short of what some advocates had hoped for. Many of these advocates were also frustrated by the fact that the White House wasn’t ready with a response on the day of the decision, given that a leaked draft of the majority opinion had been in circulation since May.
That goes to the second area of criticism of the president, which is that he has been unnecessarily restrained in what he has pushed for. That could reflect the real-world politics in which he lives: the knowledge that he and the Democrats have quite limited power to get their way on issues in the Senate and also that some of what he is proposing on abortion won’t stand up to the expected legal challenges.
To his critics on the left, he should be more willing to take on the big fights, even losing ones, to put down markers, to show where he is trying to lead, to rally and mobilize voters, to show more explicitly that he understands the feelings and frustrations of many in his coalition. As Faiz Shakir, senior adviser to Sanders, put it: “Show me you’re willing to be a disrupter, just as we’ve seen the right do. Give me politics that animate the fights I care about … and give me things I can touch, feel and see. … There is a desire to see bold fights and friction.”
Ironically, at the beginning of his administration, Biden was being described by some supporters as the boldest Democratic president since Lyndon B. Johnson, perhaps since Franklin D. Roosevelt. He signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which put money in people’s pockets, and later won bipartisan support for a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package.
He also pushed for the multibillion dollar Build Back Better bill, with money for social programs and funding to combat climate change. It was with that bill, which stalled after months of negotiations, that the momentum was broken, and with that came a rising sense of frustration on the left.
Biden and the Democrats had no path on that bill or voting rights or immigration or much else on the progressive agenda, given opposition from Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). But one complaint from the left is that as the legislative process broke down, the president lost the thread of his message, that he was unable to sustain the idea that he has a progressive agenda and goals that match the aspirations of many of the critics in his party.
From the administration’s perspective, some of this criticism feels like a repeat of what happened during the 2020 Democratic primaries: that the same people who were critical of him then as not rhetorically strong and not in tune with where his party was, are the ones who are most critical today. In the primaries, Biden fought it out — principally with Sanders — and prevailed; center-left trumping the left. His advisers believe that should suggest that the president’s political instincts were sound then and are sound today, that he knows how to calibrate his words and actions, that he deals in political reality.
The counter to that is that the world has changed since those primaries. The pandemic happened. The attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, happened. New voting laws have been enacted in some states. Threats to future elections have arisen. Rulings by the Supreme Court’s new conservative majority happened. Mass shootings have continued. People are exhausted and on edge. They ask: Where is the passion, day in and day out, that reflects those changed circumstances and the new threats?
Biden has some obvious goals over the next weeks as the Democrats head toward the November elections. One is to win passage of a package that could lower the price of prescription drugs and possibly raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Negotiations continue on Capitol Hill, though administration officials are not in the room in part because of strained relations with Manchin. Friday’s strong jobs report gives Biden another talking point, though the combination of inflation and fears of a recession make it difficult to get a hearing on jobs alone.
The second is to use the abortion issue to mobilize voters to turn out in what is usually a low-turnout election. That was Biden’s main message on Friday. Though he outlined the elements of the abortion executive order he was signing, his rhetoric focused principally on November — the importance of everyone voting and the consequences of not doing so. He called on women to lead that charge.
Changing laws, he said, requires more election victories, and that in turn demands a big turnout in November. No one can say with any certainty whether the decision to overturn Roe will dramatically change the trajectory of an election in which inflation remains the voters’ principal concern and Biden’s low approval ratings act as a drag on many Democratic candidates. For some activists that ignores the obvious problem: November is months away; the threats are immediate.
Biden and his liberal critics may never be on the same page. He is who he is and not likely to change. They have an agenda about which they feel passionate and have expectations for what they want in their president. Biden will need as much enthusiasm from his base as possible to boost Democrats’ hopes of avoiding big losses in November, which also means as much enthusiasm for him personally as possible. He will be under pressure to lead, and lead forcefully. That’s the challenge he asked for when he sought the office. | 2022-07-09T19:23:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats on left are frustrated that Biden's not hard-charging. Does that matter? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/09/biden-democrats-frustrations-sundaytake/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/09/biden-democrats-frustrations-sundaytake/ |
The Washburn Fire burns on July 8 in Yosemite National Park's Mariposa Grove, threatening the park's famed sequoias.
The world’s largest trees are struggling to survive climate change
From 2021: Fire threatens trees at Sequoia National Park. Fireproof blankets are the defense.
Mariposa Grove, located near Yosemite’s south entrance, closed in 2015 and reopened three years later after a $40 million restoration project — the largest in the park’s history. The initiative restored sequoia habitat, realigned roads and added a shuttle service from the arrival area.
People who never considered themselves at risk from climate change are waking up to floods and fires. (Video: Monica Rodman/The Washington Post) | 2022-07-09T19:40:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Washburn Fire in Yosemite threatens sequoias in Mariposa Grove - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/wildfire-yosemite-sequoias/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/09/wildfire-yosemite-sequoias/ |
By Laurence H. Tribe
Dennis Aftergut
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) during a subcommittee hearing in May. (Win McNamee/Pool via Reuters)
Laurence H. Tribe is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor of constitutional Law emeritus at Harvard University. Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor. Norman Eisen is a senior fellow at Brookings and co-authored its report on Georgia’s Trump investigation.
Why is a local prosecutor dragging Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) into a Fulton County, Ga., grand jury?
On July 5, the judge overseeing a special grand jury approved a subpoena of Graham as part of an investigation into whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies tried to corrupt the state’s role in the national election and steal the franchise of millions of Georgia voters.
Graham’s lawyers say the grand jury is a “fishing expedition.”
We say it’s anything but. From the perspective of a constitutional scholar, a criminal defense lawyer and a former federal prosecutor, the subpoena poses a big question for our democracy: Will the rule of law prevail — or are there some people who are just too important to ask to cooperate with a lawful state investigation into whether outsiders tried to use illegal means to overturn the results in a presidential election?
At center stage is a set of rules from the Constitution’s speech and debate clause. It provides that in all cases “except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace,” senators and representatives “shall not be questioned” outside of Congress “for any Speech or Debate in either House.”
The clause helps protect lawmakers’ freedom to express their thoughts and positions in the legislative process. But the immunity those rules confer is limited, or bounded, as lawyers say, to ensure that lawmakers do their jobs and not the bidding of external forces with potentially criminal goals of their own. Such as holding onto power regardless of the people’s will.
Graham, a lawyer himself, might or might not have been part of a criminal caper to mess with Georgia’s duly cast and fairly counted millions of ballots to help Trump steal the state’s 16 electoral votes. The Georgia judge approving the seven subpoenas issued on July 5 described the evidence as indicating “multi-state, coordinated efforts” to influence the November 2020 election results in Georgia and elsewhere.
Graham’s precise role remains unclear. We do know that in Trump’s call on Jan. 2, 2021, to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the then-president pressured Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” that did not exist — just enough to overturn the election. The hope was that flipping the outcome in Georgia would trigger similar actions in other battleground states and in sufficient numbers to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s electors four days later, on Jan. 6.
Graham telephoned Raffensperger on Nov. 13, 2020. The grand jury is entitled to hear sworn testimony about what was behind that call, what Graham sought by making it and who said what to which Georgia officials.
Raffensperger has said that in that call, Graham “questioned the validity of legally cast absentee ballots, in an effort to reverse President Trump’s narrow loss in the state,” as The Post reported. Raffensperger asserted that he understood the South Carolina senator to mean that the Georgia official should “‘[l]ook hard and see how many ballots you could throw out.'”
Graham has contested that account. Which interpretation reflects the truth? That’s for the Georgia grand jury to determine, by hearing all relevant testimony. The rule of law requires that those responsible for attacks on our nation’s democracy be held to account.
Graham can try to claim exemption under the constitution’s speech and debate clause, but, as an experienced attorney and lawmaker, he has surely read its words. The Supreme Court has long held that the provision’s specific language means that lawmakers such as Graham cannot use the clause as a pass to avoid testifying about crimes.
On July 6, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney issued a careful ruling denying claims parallel to what Graham is expected to argue. They were made in that case by Georgia state legislators seeking to quash their own subpoenas from the same grand jury. The court correctly cited Gravel v. United States, a 1972 Supreme Court case, as holding that the speech and debate clause does not “immunize a Senator or aide from testifying at trials or grand jury proceedings involving third-party crimes where the questions do not require testimony about or impugn a legislative act.”
The Georgia court also has made clear that the privilege ends “when a witness (or his staff) has engaged with [non-legislators] on topics relevant to the grand jury’s investigative charter.”
The central question in cases involving legislative privilege is whether requiring a lawmaker’s testimony would undermine the legislative function. By calling Raffensperger, Graham looks to have been engaging in political activity well outside any proper legislative function and, therefore, beyond the privilege’s protection.
Graham’s appearance before the grand jury is important not only to understanding the full extent of what happened in the alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. It also matters to a core tenet of our constitutional democracy. No one, including a senator or a president, is above the law. | 2022-07-09T19:41:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why Lindsey Graham must testify in the Georgia voting fraud probe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/09/lindsey-graham-georgia-grand-jury/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/09/lindsey-graham-georgia-grand-jury/ |
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, center, is escorted by a Shinto priest, right, during a 2013 visit to the Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo. (Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images)
As news of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s assassination spread, tributes gushed forth from the social media accounts and websites of presidents, prime ministers, monarchs, diplomats and business leaders. President Biden went so far as to order that flags be flown at half-staff to honor Abe, described by the president as a “proud servant of the Japanese people and a faithful friend to the United States.” It was an exceptional tribute to the deceased leader of a U.S. ally.
Abe inherited this mind-set from his maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who served in the wartime government, was jailed for a time as a war criminal and then returned to politics in the 1950s determined to restore Japan’s full independence as a member of the “free world.” With the end of the Cold War unsettling Japan’s foreign policy, Abe and his fellow conservatives saw new opportunities to pursue this vision. They wanted to revise the constitution, strengthen Japan’s military and reform the education system, breaking the power of the left-wing teachers union that they believed taught young Japanese a “masochistic” version of Japan’s history, particularly its wartime past. | 2022-07-09T19:41:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Shinzo Abe was the most polarizing Japanese political figure of his time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/09/shinzo-abe-polarizing-controversial-national-conservative-japan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/09/shinzo-abe-polarizing-controversial-national-conservative-japan/ |
Many Democrats were dismayed by the slow White House response but cheered his more forceful tone and actions
President Biden reacts to a story of a young rape victim who went to another state for an abortion. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)
Three days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, President Biden used a break between Group of Seven summit meetings at the luxury Schloss Elmau resort in Germany to get an update on the stunning and sudden loss of abortion rights for millions of Americans back home.
Huddling with top aides, including some who dialed in from the White House, Biden declared at the outset of the call that he wanted to endorse ending the Senate filibuster to codify Roe into law, a position he so far had refused to take, angering many Democrats in the process.
But Biden kept his decision private until three days later when, during a news conference in Madrid, he deployed the carefully crafted language he and his team had perfected just moments before, denouncing the “outrageous behavior of the Supreme Court” and calling for “an exception to the filibuster for this action to deal with the Supreme Court decision.”
Other voices emerge as some Democrats grow impatient with Biden
For many Democrats, however, it was too little and too late, just one more example over the two weeks in which Biden and his team struggled to come up with a muscular plan of action on abortion rights, even though the Supreme Court ruling had been presaged two months earlier with the leak of a draft opinion.
Biden and his team were also caught off guard by the timing of the decision and, in the immediate hours afterward, failed to channel the raw and visceral anger felt by many Americans over the decision.
To many increasingly frustrated Democrats, Biden’s slow response on abortion was just the latest example of a failure to meet the moment on a wave of conservative rollbacks, from gun control to environmental protections to voting rights. Some aspects of the White House reaction have felt to some Democrats like a routine response, including stakeholder calls and the creation of a task force, to an existential crisis.
This account of the administration’s 14-day struggle to craft a message and policy plan after the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is based on interviews with 26 senior White House officials, Democratic lawmakers, abortion rights activists, Democratic strategists and other Biden allies, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to share candid details.
While many exasperated Democrats and activists argue the administration could do much more, others say they understand the White House view that its options are limited and that most major steps would need to come from Congress or the states.
“The reason this one feels different is because the decision we have feared for nearly 50 years finally happened,” said Scott Mulhauser, a Democratic strategist who previously served as a senior adviser to Biden’s commerce secretary. “This moment, as the country takes a giant step backward, and moments like it are too often laid on the White House, as if they had a magic wand to fix it all, rather just insufficient votes in Congress and a regressive Supreme Court majority.”
On Friday, Biden gave an emotional speech that cheered many Democrats with its tone of outrage and a call to combat, while signing an executive order bolstering abortion rights and access to contraceptives. He railed against the Supreme Court ruling, calling it “wrongheaded” and “an exercise in raw political power,” and urged women to “turn out in record numbers to reclaim the rights that have been taken from them by the court.”
Yet Biden’s genteel tendencies were still in evidence, as he referred to “my Republican friends” even while calling them “extremist” and deriding them for “talking about getting the Congress to pass a national ban” on abortion.
“One of the reasons he was elected was that he is a decent, temperate person, and there is no doubt that he can raise his voice, but it doesn’t come naturally to him and it doesn’t land well,” said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to former president Barack Obama. “People got the president they voted for, and I think those are good qualities that he has, but they may not be the qualities that some people, particularly activist Democrats, are looking for right now.”
‘Worth being bold’
About four hours after the decision overturning Roe v. Wade was handed down on June 24, the White House emailed numerous abortion rights allies asking them to join a call with top officials that afternoon to “hear more about the Supreme Court ruling and the fight ahead.” Those invited expected a fiery call to action and a detailed plan from the White House, a road map not just for the immediate aftermath but for the weeks and months ahead.
Instead, top White House and administration officials stressed the issue was important to Biden and reiterated the actions the president had already outlined earlier that day, including expanding access to the abortion pill and protecting women who travel across state lines to get an abortion. The call lasted about 20 minutes and officials took no questions, according to an outside adviser who was on the call. Afterward, multiple attendees complained to each other that the call was a waste of time, the outside adviser said, and left deflated.
The sentiment was similar after the draft opinion leaked two months prior. At the time, Democratic activists quickly contacted the White House asking for ways to organize a response. But many of the groups felt they were met with vague platitudes, a handful of listening sessions and promises the administration was working on a plan, said a Democratic strategist who works with some of the groups. After the official decision came out, some Democrats felt the administration had wasted valuable time in organizing the party apparatus to respond, the strategist added.
Democratic left is frustrated with Biden. How much could it matter?
Decision day did not unfold as White House officials had expected, or as Democrats had hoped. White House aides had expected the Supreme Court to release the ruling as its final decision of the term on June 30, the day Biden was set to return from Madrid. It is not clear why they believed that. The court announces expected release dates shortly ahead of time but does not say which opinions will be dropped on a specific day.
Still, the president had already signed off on his prepared remarks. Had the decision been released on June 30, Biden would have given his speech upon returning to Washington, one White House official said.
Biden had been planning to nominate a conservative opponent of abortion rights to a lifetime federal judgeship in Kentucky on the very day that Roe was overturned, according to emails first reported by the Louisville Courier Journal. The White House appears to have abandoned that idea after the abortion ruling, according to those emails.
After the decision dropped, the White House scrambled to accelerate its timeline. In an Oval Office meeting that morning, Biden gathered with top advisers to fine tune his remarks. The group focused on what actions he quickly could take to protect women’s rights, as well as the impact the ruling would have on the lives of millions of Americans and the nearly 50-year effort by Republicans to restrict abortion access, two senior administration officials said.
Democrats offer patchwork of countermeasures with Roe overturned
Then, they sent the president out to deliver his speech. “Make no mistake: This decision is the culmination of a deliberate effort over decades to upset the balance of our law,” Biden said at the time. “It’s a realization of an extreme ideology and a tragic error by the Supreme Court.”
But Biden’s delivery lacked the urgent tone that many Democrats felt was required, and even some White House officials later said they wished the president had been more fiery, another senior administration official said. The official added that they felt Biden had missed the mark in part because he and his team had been unprepared for the timing of the decision, and the reality of the ruling had not fully set in.
Vice President Harris was on the way to a previously scheduled speech in Illinois when the ruling came down. Her team printed it out for her aboard Air Force Two, and she pored over it on the plane as her motorcade sped to her first event, where she and her aides overhauled her remarks to reflect the sudden crisis. “This is the first time in the history of our nation that a constitutional right has been taken from the people of America,” Harris said.
The White House also canceled the previously scheduled briefing by press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Although she did an MSNBC interview, the canceled briefing dismayed some White House allies, who felt the administration should have used all available opportunities to drive its message and attack Republicans in the immediate aftermath of the decision. A White House official, however, said the decision was made to let the remarks from Biden and Harris carry the day.
Meanwhile, some progressive lawmakers began calling on the administration to declare a public health emergency, a mostly symbolic gesture that would signal how seriously the administration viewed the issue but that would make limited difference in terms of policies or actions Biden could take.
Some in the White House and Department of Health and Human Services supported the idea, believing it would bring more attention to the issue, according to a person familiar with the discussions. But White House aides and agency officials became uncomfortable declaring the Supreme Court decision a public health emergency, the person said.
They worried that declaring an emergency without the ability to fundamentally change things would backfire and argued that such a declaration would not necessarily unlock many new authorities or funds for the White House to deploy, this person and another familiar with the discussions said. Still, the second person added that the White House has not yet ruled out such a declaration.
White House officials have also been reluctant to put forward policy proposals that are likely to be struck down in court. The administration’s most ambitious policies on the coronavirus response, for instance, have almost all been overruled in court, including a vaccine mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees and a federal mask mandate on public transportation.
Frustration spreads among Democrats over caution on abortion
But some Democrats and advocates have called on the administration and Democratic lawmakers more broadly to adopt the Republican playbook and put forward more creative policies and proposals, even if they may ultimately get struck down, as a signal to voters that they are fighting for them.
Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), who is among a group of Democratic women who have consulted with White House officials on possible actions since May, applauded Biden on Friday for finally taking action after weeks of consultation. But she said the moment demands more.
“I do think that he is working overtime with his administration to figure out ways that can protect women,” she said. “I do have to say, though, I myself favor a public health emergency. And I think there are others that do as well.” She added, “I think it is worth being bold, and then deal with the legal challenges in court. The issue is that there is suffering right now.”
Young Democrats have been particularly disappointed with their party’s response to the Supreme Court ruling. In a focus group of 10 Democratic base voters between the ages of 25 and 39 convened Wednesday evening by Democratic consulting firm HIT Strategies, participants reported feeling disappointed and discouraged.
Most of the voters said they wanted elected officials like Biden to demonstrate and clearly articulate how lawmakers are fighting for them, and said they wanted to see a specific plan. Some pointed to tweets from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) shortly after the decision that clearly outlined steps Democrats could take.
“They still concluded at the end that, ‘Yes, I’m going to vote no matter what,’ but they’re craving Democrats” being “active in the way they are being active,” said Ashley Aylward, who moderated the group, noting that young voters engage by donating to women’s funds, volunteering for abortion rights groups and helping to transport friends in states with restrictive abortion laws. “They’re looking for many more specifics in the plan to react to the overturning of Roe and protecting their abortion rights.”
‘Went into overdrive’
On Friday, exactly two weeks after the abortion ruling, Biden again stood in the White House and addressed the nation. He excoriated the Supreme Court ruling and railed against the “extreme” laws in some states that do not allow abortion even in the cases of rape and incest.
And he became visibly moved as he recounted the story of a young girl, pregnant by rape, who was reportedly forced to travel out of her home state of Ohio to seek an abortion in Indiana. The case, described by a doctor to the Indy Star, has not been corroborated.
“Ten years old. 10 years old! Raped, six weeks pregnant, already traumatized, was forced to travel to another state,” Biden said. “Imagine being a little girl.”
It took two weeks but, in the view of many Democrats, Biden had finally hit the right tone. “I was glad to see him come out today with some specific responses,” said Rep. Dina Titus (D-N. V.) after his remarks Friday, adding that it likely “put some of that criticism to rest” from Democrats who have been eager for the president to mount a more aggressive response to the overturning of Roe.
The White House began planning for a possible overturning of Roe last summer, when the Supreme Court did not stop a Texas law that banned abortions at around six weeks, two senior White House officials said. Biden appointed Jennifer Klein, director of the Gender Policy Council, and White House counsel Dana Remus to run a response team “on the anticipated wholesale assault on women’s rights,” one of the White House officials said.
Abortion rights activists direct fury at Biden and top Democrats
That work “went into overdrive” after the leak of the draft decision in May, culminating in an effort that involved the White House Counsel’s Office, the Justice Department and Health and Human Services Department, along with outside allies and advocacy groups, the White House official said. Biden began receiving regular briefings on potential policy responses and White House officials held calls and meetings with stakeholders ranging from abortion providers and doctors to patients and faith leaders.
On the day the Supreme Court decision came down, White House aides argue that not only did Biden and Harris speak forcefully on the issue, but that the administration held several calls with roughly 2,000 individuals in the abortions rights community.
Still, some Democrats and activists felt Biden’s tone and the White House response more broadly failed to capture the anger, betrayal and fear that many of them felt. Progressive lawmakers, including Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), began calling on the administration to do more, such as opening up abortion clinics on federal lands in states that had banned or would soon ban abortion.
The White House was intrigued by the proposal, one senior White House official said, and began evaluating it. But while they found they could protect federal employees who used that option, they could not protect other women or providers once they stepped off federal land, putting them at legal risk, an assessment echoed by outside legal experts.
A White House official also pointed to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll that found Biden’s approval ratings rising from 77 percent to 84 percent among Democrats in the wake of the Supreme Court decision.
But other polls show differing results. A Monmouth University poll that overlapped with the decision found 74 percent of Democrats approved of Biden, down from 81 percent in May. An Economist/YouGov poll in early July found 59 percent of Democrats said they approve of the way Biden is handling the abortion issue, which is 18 points lower than his overall approval rating among Democrats at 77 percent. About one in four Democrats disapproved of his handling of the issue at 26 percent, while a sizable 16 percent had no opinion.
Several Democrats who were critical of Biden’s initial response welcomed the more forceful spirit of his speech on Friday. “The tone was right, the political symbolism was right, all of the values and deepest concerns that advocates have raised were addressed,” said Lawrence Gostin, a professor of medicine at Georgetown University and faculty director of its Institute for National and Global Health Law. “The one thing that was missing was tangible concrete action.”
For Jennifer Palmieri, the White House communications director under Obama, the criticism was never fair to begin with. “Republicans gamed the system and they got two Supreme Court justices they shouldn’t have, and those people had a 40-year plan to overturn Roe and they did it, and to continue to blame Biden for the fact that more Americans didn’t vote for Democrats is an epic example of missing the forest,” she said.
“We are in such a bigger fight than what the president of the United States can deliver, and if you’re thinking that it can be solved by a president taking any action in the course of the two weeks after the decision, then you’re not appreciating what a big fight it is and what a precarious moment it is,” Palmieri added.
Scott Clement and Mike DeBonis contributed to this report. | 2022-07-09T21:12:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inside Biden’s struggle to respond to abortion ruling - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/09/biden-democrats-abortion-dobbs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/09/biden-democrats-abortion-dobbs/ |
Moonlight Graham letters discovered at Baltimore medical school
In the stuffy fourth-floor attic of a Baltimore academic building, amid discarded furniture and dusty filing cabinets, Larry Pitrof discovered treasure.
Then, years after his death, author W.P. Kinsella included Graham in his 1982 novel “Shoeless Joe,” which became the inspiration for the 1989 film “Field of Dreams.” The film that immortalized the phrase “If you build it, he will come,” and which is beloved by American fathers and sons, launched Graham into folk hero status.
Pitrof is the medical school alumni association’s executive director. He’s also a baseball fanatic who has long been intrigued by Graham.
Writing from Scranton, Pa. — where he played in the minor leagues after his MLB appearance with the New York Giants — Graham noted he was enclosing $30, which he owed to the institution. In one letter, he sought a recommendation. In another, he asked whether there was “any chance for me to get into Bay View” in a training position, probably referencing the current Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center east of the city.
'Everybody had that chance that got away'
A baseball autograph collector who works in a foundry in Pennsylvania, Algard had the remote goal of landing a Graham signature. He took a meticulous approach, purchasing yearbooks from a high school in Chisholm, Minn., where Graham lived as an adult. He hoped Graham, a school physician, might have signed one for a student.
Algard, 52, has been collecting autographs since he was 5, and his collection numbers in the thousands. He estimates he has six Hank Aaron autographs. But the Graham autograph is the one he went the greatest lengths to get.
It’s unknown why Graham’s moniker was “Moonlight.” His medical school yearbook notes he enjoyed “midnight” walks and it has also been suggested it’s because he “moonlighted” as a doctor. But articles at the time dubbed him “Deerfoot” for his supreme speed and “Dr. Graham,” because of his medical background. He was an exceptional minor league player and a fan favorite.
And yet, he had only the solitary MLB appearance — 117 years ago — stepping into the on-deck circle once, but never batting. He later served as a doctor for more than half a century, until his death at 88.
Letters between Graham and the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s dean sat in the cabinet, probably for decades. Despite not being preserved until recently, they remain in good condition. They are easy to read and detail practical matters: Graham sending a certification from a former school (the University of North Carolina), Graham requesting an academic catalogue for a friend, and the dean writing that he is “very glad to see that you have done so well” academically.
One letter is signed “Your friend, Archie W. Graham,” while another has a squeezed-in “A.W. Graham.” Two matriculation cards are signed “Archibald Wright Graham.”
“You could credibly make the argument that the signatures are a few thousands of dollars, and you could certainly make the argument that they’re tens of thousands of dollars,” said David Hunt, president of Hunt Auctions in Exton, Pa., which specializes in vintage sports memorabilia.
Pitrof said the letters will probably stay in an archive at the school’s Historical Collections Department; the storied system boasts one of the oldest medical schools in the country, as well as the world’s first dental school.
“If they ever put them on display,” said Algard, who still flips through his Graham-signed yearbook on occasion, “I will probably go see them.” | 2022-07-09T21:25:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Moonlight Graham letters discovered at Baltimore medical school - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/finding-of-dreams/2022/07/09/389bc908-fe6d-11ec-a7eb-d66bb98bbf0f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/finding-of-dreams/2022/07/09/389bc908-fe6d-11ec-a7eb-d66bb98bbf0f_story.html |
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and daughters Sherry, 20, and Sydney, 18, at the governor’s summer residence on Mackinac Island. (Sarah Rice/For The Washington Post)
— MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich.
Sherry was asleep. She was home from college for the summer. It was barely 10 a.m. Her door swung open and light filled up the bedroom. Then she saw her mother bounding in. She groaned. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“Roe v. Wade was overturned,” her mother said. Then she rushed out.
Sherry’s younger sister, Sydney, was at her summer job not far from the house. She got a call from her mom with the news: “Roe v. Wade was overturned.”
At home in Lansing, Mich., Sherry and Sydney’s mother dialed into a call with her senior leadership team. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had been planning for this day since early last summer, not long after the Supreme Court agreed to take up a case called Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It was April of this year, early enough to appear alarmist to some, when she had moved to file a lawsuit seeking to overturn an old abortion ban in Michigan, a law on the books from 1931 that would suddenly become viable again without the protection of Roe. Because of a temporary injunction issued in a separate lawsuit challenging the 1931 law, abortion in Michigan remained legal that morning in June — for the time being.
As she sat down in her home office, the governor’s legal team prepared a motion urging the court to expedite her lawsuit. Her press team booked interviews on as many networks as they could. CBS, NBC. I’m thinking about my daughters, she said. CNN, MSNBC. They now have fewer rights than I’ve had my whole life, she said. Almost every Michigan market, 12 local interviews from her home office. I’m incensed, she said. From the Lansing house, a low-slung ranch-style home granted to the governor, Whitmer, a Democrat, was becoming the face of an existential battle for abortion access playing out across the states.
Sherry got up to brush her teeth. She was awake now and felt her stomach drop. “What can we even do,” she thought. Sydney was angry. “Like, what is going on?” They had known it was coming, talked it though with their mother again and again. In their family’s house, the Michigan abortion ban — which would prohibit the procedure even in the case of rape or incest — was referred to simply as “the 1931.”
Just two months earlier, after a draft of the Supreme Court opinion leaked on May 2, Whitmer told the girls to delete their period tracker apps. She said she believes it’s important to be “just totally blunt and honest” with her kids about politics and their life at the center of it. She asked if they wanted to pursue long-acting birth control. Sydney said yes. Sherry said no, she didn’t think so.
The girls are close, with birthdays only 19 months apart. Both are students at the University of Michigan. They’d had difficult conversations with their mother before. They were 11 and 10 years old when, amid a fight over abortion in the state legislature, Whitmer first decided to publicly share the story of how she’d been raped as a freshman at Michigan State University, in 1989.
Now Sherry is 20 and Sydney is 18.
Six days after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs, the Whitmer family gathered at the governor’s summer residence on Mackinac Island, a three-hour drive from Lansing, plus a 15-minute ferry ride. The conversations here were different, more immediate and personal. Yes, Whitmer was leading one of the nation’s most precarious political and legal battles over reproductive health care. She was a woman, a star in the Democratic Party defined as much by her bold executive action as by the pique it provoked in state Republicans, aggravated by her use of executive power during the pandemic years. She was a pro-abortion rights governor of a pro-abortion rights state, now in danger of reinstating a law enacted by men more than 90 years ago. But she was also a mother to two young women, navigating the consequences of America’s new reality inside her own home. When she talked about abortion access, Whitmer was also talking to and about her daughters.
Whitmer is one of just nine women governors. At 50, she is also among the youngest. Roe v. Wade had been in place for as long as she was old enough to know the word “abortion.” When she was in school, kids did tornado drills and learned about the ozone layer. Sherry and Sydney have grown up with active shooter protocols and the threat of political violence. Now, sitting on the porch overlooking the Straits of Mackinac, Whitmer heard the girls consider possibilities that frightened her.
Sydney said she wasn’t even sure she wanted to have kids anymore.
Sherry said she had changed her mind about the birth control.
She thought no at first, because she didn’t need it, really.
“To be fair, I was hesitant because I am gay,” she said. The risk of unwanted pregnancy “is not a thing that’s on my mind all the time.” Sherry is out to family and friends but not on “the national scene,” as her mom puts it. That Friday, reading the majority ruling from Justice Clarence Thomas, she’d seen the language suggesting the court review other precedents, including the right to use contraceptives and for two women to be married. These were conversations she was having in private, but she recently told the family she was ready to share them in public, too, though Whitmer didn’t know she was going to do it here on the island. Like thousands of other women, Sherry now felt she had to imagine, to account for, even make plans for, the nightmare possibilities of the unimaginable.
“I live on a college campus,” Sherry said. “There are people out there who would force me into conceiving. It’s a scary thought, but I’ve made the decision.”
Inside the Mackinac Island residence, a three-story house that sits at the top of a steep hill, the Whitmer family looked accustomed to some measure of crisis. Sherry sat on the couch in the sunroom watching television. Sydney had just come in from an afternoon ferry, brow wet from the uphill summer walk. Their stepfather Marc Mallory, a dentist who recently retired, brought out a cardboard granola bar box containing the rocks he’d been collecting around the island, a new hobby. Granite, pumice, quartz, feldspar, dolomite. He held up each one, looking for glimmers in the light. Marc had been reading books about rocks from the pre-Cambrian age Canadian shield. They were 4.03 billion years old, he said. Sherry rolled her eyes.
Mackinac Island is small — a strange and beautiful place, eight miles round, with about 400 year-round residents. Cars are forbidden. Everyone rides bikes and horse-drawn buggies. The island smells like manure and chocolate. Fudge shops line all of Main Street.
At the top of the hill, just beyond an 18th-century French Canadian fort, tourists lingered outside the residence. In a room just off the kitchen, Whitmer’s security detail monitored a grid display of the scene out front. A pantry room to the side held stacks of card games, a Ouija board, sets of Tupperware. Around the corner, the governor was back from a health policy conference on the island, watching as caterers set up a spread of food and drinks for a reception on the porch.
The family’s two merle-colored Aussiedoodles, Kevin and Doug, ran outside behind the governor and her daughters.
“Marc?” Whitmer said.
Marc came out holding a slim paperback: “Great Lakes Rocks: 4 Billion Years of Geologic History in the Great Lakes Region.”
“What?” he asked.
“How’d they get out?”
“I don’t know. Who let ’em out?”
“We did,” Whitmer said, sitting down with Sherry and Sydney. “But you’re in charge, so get them in.”
All week long, Whitmer had been getting questions about the abortion fight. She told her daughters she saw Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary and a former Democratic governor from Rhode Island, a few days earlier in Washington.
“Why do you seem so calm?” she said Raimondo had asked her.
On the porch, Whitmer shrugged. “What are my options? To light my hair on fire or to crawl under a rock? No.”
“We are stoic people,” she said.
T he name Gretchen Whitmer, if it’s known outside Michigan, is set against a story of upheaval and unrest.
It begins with the pandemic, when the caseload and fatality rates in her state ranked among the highest in the nation. She was one of the first governors to criticize then-president Trump’s management of the outbreak. And she was among the first to implement a far-reaching state lockdown, setting off armed protests at the Michigan Capitol just 16 months into her tenure as governor.
Even then, her view of politics wasn’t particularly ideological. She would denounce Republicans in her state, and do it sharply, but the fights inside her own party didn’t seem to hold her interest.
Her father, Bill Whitmer, was a Republican, an aide to moderate, pro-business governors George Romney and William Milliken. Her late mother, Sherry Whitmer, was a Democrat, an assistant attorney general serving under Frank Kelley. Whitmer’s husband Marc, who has three sons from a previous marriage, has historically voted Republican. He now identifies as a fiscal conservative and social liberal. (Sherry and Sydney’s father, Gary Shrewsbury, is still close with Whitmer. A photographer, he occasionally helped take photos during her 2018 campaign.)
Politics was a kind of family trade, and Whitmer described it as one might a business passed down from one generation to the next, with an eye toward the process itself. When she came into office in January 2019, she wrote a one-page “Values Outline” to her staff, instructing them to “do less and obsess about doing it well” and “move deliberately and quickly in all things.” No department, division, or person, she wrote, would take credit for an achievement. “It is always given to the S.O.M.,” i.e. the state of Michigan. Meetings were to be held without phones and according to her rules of “Pathological Punctuality,” meaning, “If you’re on time, you’re late. Seriously.” Be present, she wrote. “Don’t waste time. No distractions.”
The abortion fight was another process, to be tackled with all the “tools” of government available. She was leading litigation to challenge the 1931 law, asking the Michigan Supreme Court to rule on whether the state’s constitution protected the right to an abortion. She was urging volunteers to collect signatures to put the issue to voters in a ballot measure this fall. She was instructing all department and agency officials — from education to transportation — to present her with new ideas for protecting abortion and contraceptive access. And she was pushing President Biden to be more aggressive in his preparations.
On a call with a few other governors and health secretary Xavier Becerra, Whitmer said, she told him Biden needed to think through “what it would take” to help Canada set up abortion clinics just across the border. If abortion were banned in neighboring Michigan, a state to which women from Ohio and Indiana also travel to receive abortions, Canada would see in influx of patients seeking care. When she raised the idea, Whitmer recalled, she heard the governors of Oregon and Maine, both women and Democrats, gasp on the other line.
“Right now, their states are fine on this issue. They don’t have to think about things like this,” she said. “I hope like hell it doesn’t come to that — but if it does, you got to have a plan.”
This week, Whitmer again called on the administration to account for women seeking care across the border. There was “conflicting guidance” from the federal government as to whether Americans are allowed to bring medication from Canada into the United States, including pills that abort a pregnancy, she wrote in a letter to Becerra and Biden’s homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. “Americans deserve to know all their legal options as they seek vital health care,” she wrote. “We must lead.”
There was already confusion and alarm in Michigan about the status of the law. On the night of the Dobbs ruling, the state’s largest health system, Beaumont-Spectrum Health, said they would no longer administer abortions for fear of legal action, only to reverse the policy later that weekend. At least two conservative prosecutors in the state have already threatened to bring cases against providers. An antiabortion state representative, Steve Carra, has introduced a bill to outlaw plan B and penalize abortion providers with prison time. In the Republican primary to challenge Whitmer for reelection this fall, the candidates describe her tenure as a time of “draconian” pandemic restrictions that closed schools and, they argue, discouraged businesses and families from settling in Michigan. The 1931 lawsuit, according to Carra, the lawmaker behind the abortion bill, was another example of Whitmer’s “tyrannical type of government.”
Whitmer is an exasperating political rival in the Republican-controlled legislature, particularly among men. At the height of the pandemic, she recalled, a fellow Democratic governor said to her, “Gretchen, why do you take so much more heat than anyone else? We’re all doing the same thing.” As soon as he said it, he cut himself off, the reason suddenly obvious. “Don’t answer that,” he told her.
Whitmer is a woman, but she is also an attractive woman, and her use of executive power, when wielded broadly, seems to deeply trigger her male antagonists. The Republican leader of the state Senate, Mike Shirkey, bragged on a hot mic that he had “spanked her hard on budget, spanked her hard on appointments,” and also contemplated “inviting her to a fistfight on the Capitol lawn.” Another Republican lawmaker, Sen. Ed McBroom, complained that Whitmer had been “neutering” him and his colleagues, the cause of the legislature’s “emasculation.”
“I don’t talk about gender,” she said. “But I am treated differently.”
At the start of the pandemic, Whitmer urged the federal government to supply more equipment to Michigan. On live television from the White House press briefing room, Trump dismissed her as “the woman from Michigan.” She was in national headlines. Democrats called it a political gift. Joe Biden thought about making her vice president, inviting her to Delaware to talk about the job in secret.
But that’s also when the threats started. Hundreds that don’t make it into the media, she said. And then there were the armed protests. And then there was the hit list with her name on it, belonging to a man who shot and killed a former Wisconsin judge. And then there was the kidnapping plot, a saga that began in the fall of 2020 and stretched on into a trial this year. Four men were charged, their plans and fantasies spelled out in public court filings: hogtying the governor, laying the governor out on a table, shooting the governor in the skull, shooting the governor in her doorway. She tried not to follow the trial coverage, but the headlines always passed by on Twitter and in push alerts. How could she not look? “Like, for weeks that this trial was going … every day,” she said. “So even if I wasn’t reading those articles, I couldn’t get away from them.”
The hardest moment came on April 8, 2022, the day the jury delivered its verdict: two men acquitted, two granted a mistrial. “It was awful,” said Whitmer. “It felt like my life’s not worth …”
She didn’t finish the thought. “We’re supposed to expect this now? People plot to kidnap and kill a governor?”
And this was something else that bothered Whitmer. Why did people always call it a “kidnapping” plot?
“The man who turned himself in outside of [Justice] Brett Kavanaugh’s house, they said it was an assassination plot,” Whitmer said.
“Does anyone think these kidnappers wanted to keep me or ransom me?” she asked. “No. They were going to put me on a trial and then execute me. It was an assassination plot, but no one talks about it that way. Even the way people talk about it has muted the seriousness of it.”
Sherry and Sydney listened in silence.
“No one thinks about it,” their mother said. “I do!”
Whitmer’s position and accompanying fame is now bigger than anything the girls remember from her years in the state legislature. It can be frightening, knowing their mom is vulnerable in public.
“But then again, I never feel out of control,” Sherry told her mother. “You’re always safe.”
“When the kidnapping plot was announced, it was summer. And people were blowing up your phone, right?” Whitmer asked.
“Oh, yeah,” said Sydney.
By then, Whitmer’s daughters had already known about it for a month or so. Friends and teachers emailed and texted. “I hope you’re OK,” they said. “I know this is really terrifying,” they said. “It must be really scary.”
Sherry laughed. “By that time, I’d already processed it.”
This is the running conversation between Whitmer and her daughters.
The unimaginable possibility that Sherry felt she had to imagine in the days after the ruling — a rape on her college campus — was a horrible one. But she knew it could happen because it happened all the time. It happened to her mother.
Whitmer was the state Senate minority leader in late 2013 when she shared the story for the first time as a public official. It was a last-minute decision, amid a debate over a bill that would require women to purchase additional insurance coverage for elective abortion, without exceptions for rape or incest.
Whitmer had urged a colleague to share the story of his family’s fertility journey. After multiple IVF treatments, the colleague’s wife had required an abortion because the fetus posed a threat to her health. But the colleague said he wasn’t ready to talk about it. It was too raw. Before she was set to deliver a speech about the bill on the floor of the Senate, Whitmer felt the sting of hypocrisy: How could she ask him to share his story if she wasn’t willing to do the same, she thought. So she did.
“I am not enjoying talking about it,” Whitmer told her colleagues. “It’s something I’ve hidden for a long time. But I think you need to see the face of the women that you are impacting.”
Now, after Dobbs, Whitmer was talking about it again, and this was difficult. “It’s traumatizing. Every time a woman shares her assault story with me, I get teary because I go right back to that place. But I’ve gotten to a point where I can talk about it,” she said. Her staff put together roundtables with women this summer, and it was usually here that Whitmer recalled that feeling in the days after the assault — “coming to terms with, ‘Oh my God, what if I’m pregnant.’” She wasn’t, but if she had been, she would have had access to care.
Now her daughters would be the ones to bear the impact. The Whitmer family has been in Michigan for five generations. But if her daughters don’t have the same choices — if they don’t have full reproductive rights, the governor said; if Sherry doesn’t have full marriage rights, she said — they will probably settle their lives elsewhere. “And it breaks my heart to even say that.”
They didn’t want to leave, they said, but they would.
“I always see myself coming back here and settling down. It’s where my family is,” Sydney said.
“I want to be here with you,” Sherry said to her mother. “I would be really sad if I couldn’t — if I would have to make that choice.”
Seated between the two girls, Whitmer put an arm around each daughter.
As a governor, she said, “I want them to consider Michigan.”
“And as a parent — not as a governor — I would encourage them to go where they can live their fullest, truest lives.” | 2022-07-09T22:21:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as she fights for abortion access - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/09/gretchen-whitmer-profile/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/09/gretchen-whitmer-profile/ |
Zelensky dismisses ambassador to Berlin
In a flurry of presidential decrees posted Saturday, Zelensky’s office also announced the dismissals of ambassadors to Bangladesh, the Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Maldives, Nepal, Norway and Sri Lanka.
Reports had swirled in recent days that Melnyk’s dismissal in particular was imminent. As a long-serving envoy, Melnyk had fiercely defended his country’s interests abroad, but he also caused controversy for his blunt remarks and sometimes caustic public style. He clashed with Ukraine’s German allies and blasted Berlin for its “hesitant” response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Two more join race
for prime minister
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and Finance Minister Nadhim Zahawi joined the race to succeed Boris Johnson as British prime minister on Saturday, as the committee overseeing the contest looks to speed up the process of whittling down candidates in what is expected to be a crowded field.
The Conservative Party’s 1922 Committee of legislators will set out the exact rules and timetable for the contest in coming days.
Shapps and Zahawi became the latest Conservative Party lawmakers to officially declare they were putting themselves forward for the leadership, taking the total to six. In addition, around 10 others, including Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, are also expected to join the race.
Iran sets up enhanced uranium enrichment, U.N. report says: Iran has escalated its uranium enrichment further with the use of advanced machines at its underground Fordow plant in a setup that can more easily change between enrichment levels, the U.N. atomic watchdog said in a report seen by Reuters. The use of these so-called modified sub-headers means Iran could switch more quickly and easily to enriching to higher purity levels. Iran is required to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency about such a switch.
U.S. imposes sanctions on Cuban officials over crackdown: The U.S. State Department announced visa restrictions on Saturday against 28 Cuban officials that it said were implicated in a crackdown on largely peaceful protests in Cuba nearly one year ago. The department said the restrictions would apply to high-ranking members of the Cuban Communist Party and officials who work in the country's state communications and media sectors. Cuba's Foreign Ministry blasted the U.S. measures, saying they violate international law.
Police discover truck packed with migrants in Macedonia: Police in North Macedonia discovered 87 migrants crammed into a truck with a trailer in the southern part of the country and arrested two Macedonian men for migrant smuggling. Police said the migrants, found early Saturday during a routine check on a highway near the border town of Gevgelija, are believed to have entered illegally from Greece, heading for Serbia and onward to wealthier countries.
Death toll from Hindu pilgrimage rises to 16: Emergency workers continued to dig through mud, sand and rocks as they rescued thousands of pilgrims after flash floods swept through makeshift camps during an annual Hindu pilgrimage to an icy Himalayan cave in Indian-controlled Kashmir. At least 16 people have died and dozens have been injured. | 2022-07-09T22:26:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Digest: July 9, 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-july-9-2022/2022/07/09/ded10c4a-ffb5-11ec-a07f-799ab6d06557_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-july-9-2022/2022/07/09/ded10c4a-ffb5-11ec-a07f-799ab6d06557_story.html |
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