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Juan Soto stays hot, Josiah Gray struggles as Nats drop opener to Mariners
Juan Soto homered for the third time in four games during the Nationals' 6-4 loss to the Mariners. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Two month-long trends continued Wednesday in the opener of a day-night doubleheader at Nationals Park: Juan Soto’s scorching-hot bat and Washington’s downward spiral. The Seattle Mariners’ 6-4 win included Soto reaching base four times — with a late three-run homer — as his team dropped to 1-10 in July.
Soto finished 1 for 2 with three walks. His ninth-inning blast into the visitors’ bullpen in left field pushed his average to .245. The homer was his 18th.
But the Nationals’ offense as a whole fell behind in counts, regularly chased pitches outside the strike zone and consistently failed to take advantage of scoring opportunities, stranding nine on the base paths.
“Our offense today, we stranded too many runners on base,” Manager Dave Martinez said. “We got to start driving in some runs and once we do that we’ll be fine.”
Soto, who homered for the third time in four games, is batting .462 for the month (12 for 26). His approach for most of this month has been taking the ball to the opposite field. He has repeatedly said that when he sprays the ball to left, he knows good things are coming.
But the Mariners (46-42) were very careful pitching to him, just as many teams have been with the young star this season. They walked him in the first, fifth and seventh, forcing the rest of the Nationals’ lineup to beat them. And Washington didn’t.
The Nationals (30-59) had the bases loaded with no out in the fifth inning, trailing 5-0, with Seattle starter Chris Flexen going through the order for a third time. Luis García brought a run in with a sacrifice fly, chasing an 0-2 pitch high in the strike zone to do so. Josh Bell bounced out to shortstop on a ball that was high because he had to protect the strike zone after falling behind in the count. Soto was intentionally walked and Nelson Cruz chased a slider that was well outside of the zone to end the inning.
The Nationals stranded put runners on second and third with one out in the sixth but failed to score. In the seventh, after Soto walked and Cruz doubled, Soto was caught in a rundown after straying too far off third, ending the inning.
“At the end of the day, it feels more terrible when I hit the ball because you know the things that happened on the base paths and everything and you can see how close the game would be,” Soto said.
Still, Soto’s resurgence has been a bright spot for the Nationals. The team has scored four runs or fewer in every game in July, a major reason they have lost 10 of 11.
“We’re pressing trying to score runs,” Martinez said. “Once again, we fall behind early and everybody’s trying to do too much. . . . Don’t try to drive in three or four, just try to drive in one.”
How was Josiah Gray’s outing Tuesday? Not good. Gray labored through five innings and allowed five runs. struggling to command his fastball. When he was in the strike zone, his pitches regularly caught too much of the plate. He allowed three home runs.
The first batter he faced set the tone — he missed his first four far outside of the strike zone against J.P. Crawford, drawing shocked reactions from the crowd. One pitch went past Keibert Ruiz, hitting the backstop.
Three batters later, Gray threw a fastball right down the middle that Eugenio Suárez launched into the left field seats that landed a few rows short of the concourse to push the Mariners ahead, 3-0.
In the first inning, 12 of Gray’s 22 pitches were fastballs. Over the next two innings, he threw four, relying primarily on his slider and curveball. That plan worked well until the fourth inning when he allowed a solo homer on a slider to Jesse Winker. Then, he threw his first change-up of the game two batters later to Adam Frazier — Frazier sent it into the Nationals’ bullpen as Gray watched with his hands on his hips.
Hunter Harvey, Mason Thompson and Cory Abbott finished the game. Harvey pitched a clean sixth inning in his first outing in the majors since April 20. Abbott pitched two innings, his only blemish being a solo shot to Cal Raleigh in the ninth.
What roster move was made after the first game? Tanner Rainey was placed on the 60-day injured list with a UCL sprain, an injury that typically leads to Tommy John surgery. Tyler Clippard, a two-time all-star with the Nationals who played with the team from 2008 to 2014, was recalled to fill his spot.
Rainey has been the team’s closer, recording 12 saves while posting a 3.30 ERA and 1-3 record. His last outing was Sunday, when he went a season-high two innings. Clippard has a 2.48 ERA and 49 strikeouts in 36 1/3 innings for Class AAA Rochester. | 2022-07-13T22:40:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Juan Soto stays hot, Josiah Gray struggles as Nats drop opener to Mariners - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/13/nationals-mariners-doubleheader/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/13/nationals-mariners-doubleheader/ |
Transcript: Reinventing Small Business
MS. ABRIL: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Danielle Abril, technology reporter here at The Post.
A record number of small business applications were submitted during the pandemic at a time when small businesses faced a unique set of hurdles, from supply chain disruption to record‑high inflation.
Today I'm joined by several small business owners to discuss how they braved the storm. My first guest is Brit Morin. She is the founder of Brit + Co and Selfmade, which is a 10‑week entrepreneurship course led by female entrepreneurs.
Brit, welcome to Washington Post Live.
MS. MORIN: Thanks for having me. I'm so glad to be here.
MS. ABRIL: Absolutely. And a quick reminder to our audience that we want to hear from you. Tweet us your questions using the handle @PostLive.
So, Brit, I want to just get into a little bit of your story. You were 25 when you left a job at Google to start Brit + Co, a life‑‑excuse me‑‑a lifestyle and education company that helps women cultivate creativity, and now you're with Selfmade, and you're encouraging women to take the entrepreneurial leap themselves. So tell us a little bit about Selfmade and how you pivoted form Google to Brit + Co to now launching this training program.
MS. MORIN: Yeah. And I should add that I've gone on to also launch a venture fund and another business, all in the last couple of years, so it's been a busy pandemic for me.
Yeah. But I was‑‑yeah, I was 25 when I was working at Google, as you mentioned, and, you know, being in your mid‑20s, especially as a woman, I feel like you start to lose a lot of that childhood wonder and creativity. And I was getting married. I was trying to think about, like, creative ideas for my wedding, and Pinterest had just launched. And, you know, there are all these women who are aspiring to do creative things but had no idea how to actually do them, and I realized that, you know, millennials and later Gen Z have grown up in the digital generation, not the homemaking generation. We didn't grow up learning all of these skills in school and from our parents and grandparents, and I really wanted to help women learn how to be creative. And that meant everything from how to, you know, cook different types of recipes and meals and decorate their homes to how to start companies, how to code. You know, creativity means so many things in today's world, and that was the essence of Brit + Co back 11 years ago now.
We now reach tens of millions of women around the world every month, and with that, you know, we've built such a robust business that one of the segments of that business is this audience of women who have creative skills or have big ideas but don't know how to turn those into a business and so when the pandemic hit and I saw that 5 million women were either forced out of the workforce or chose to leave the workforce, I freaked out a little bit. And I said, "No. Like, I can help you. I can help you learn how to make money on your own terms, with your own hours, whatever that might mean for you, and build a life and a business that is really impactful."
MS. ABRIL: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense, and actually, you just touched on the next point I wanted to discuss with you, which is, you know, there's this term that people are calling the "she‑cession," right, the recession for women, as women were‑‑represented a majority of the job loss during this time, and I wondered how much of that played into the launch of Selfmade.
MS. MORIN: Oh, exactly. That was like such a catalyst. I mean, it happened in the first couple months of the pandemic. Selfmade‑‑the idea for Selfmade began in May 2020, and one of the things that I thought about was, you know, I've been really fortunate. I've had to stomach, you know, raising capital for a company, Brit + Co, over 10 years, but because of that and because of my past at places like Google and Apple, I've been introduced to some of the most incredible people in Silicon Valley. I've been introduced to so many investors, so many other female CEOs, and I thought to myself, you know, I have the network that these women need. I can help them shortcut this. I can teach them all the things that I wish I knew in my first year or two of starting my business, and I think I can do it all within, you know, less than three months, because the reality is, actually, in a recession or in a down market, it's sometimes the best time to build because those are when some of the biggest companies get created. And I really wanted women in particular to be able to take advantage of that opportunity and not just have to sit on the sidelines, being furloughed or laid off or stuck at home caring for their kids at home school, so that they could, again, find meaning, despite what was going on in the world and, hopefully, a little bit of real income too.
MS. ABRIL: So you mentioned using sort of the experience that you've had previously, you know, working at these big tech companies to help others, but I'm curious what lessons did you learn from the pandemic that are sort of playing into the advice that you're giving other entrepreneurs now.
MS. MORIN: Well, I think the pandemic accelerated everything digital, right? So there are so many, you know, thousands and thousands of women who have come through Selfmade now in the last couple of years who had no idea how to build a website, had no idea how to make a, you know, at‑home mold‑testing company into something digital, how to create audiences on Instagram, how to do paid advertising to reach those audiences in addition to organic marketing, of course.
And so, you know, really the fundamentals of what we've taught in Selfmade and what we continue to teach are how to not just build a business but how every business needs to be a digital business at this point.
We are all connected. We are all transacting more than ever before from our phones and our computers, and if you are just a brick‑and‑mortar store, if you're just, you know, a service business in your hometown, you're going to lose out on a lot of potential income and audience growth opportunity that you could otherwise be getting if you knew how to operate a digital business as well.
MS. ABRIL: So Selfmade has quite a list of supporters; to name a few, Payal Kadakia, Bozoma Saint John, Gwyneth Paltrow. Tell us a little bit about how you got these big supporters behind this project.
MS. MORIN: Yeah. Like I said, you know, I've just been really fortunate to be able to have met some of these women myself. I think there's so few female founders in this world. You know, only 2 percent of venture capital funding goes to female founders, which is one of the reasons, by the way, I decided to launch a venture fund in the last couple of years to help change that ratio, and so because of that, we all tend to stick together. Whether you're a small business owner or a venture‑backed business owner, there's just not that many, and I think women naturally gravitate towards communities. We like to hear what‑‑what are you doing with your business right now during the pandemic? Like, how is it going for you?
And so I knew that these women have been my own advisors and I've been theirs over the last several years of running our businesses, and I really wanted to take the access that I've been so fortunate enough to have and to pay that forward to, you know, these thousands of self-made students and new entrepreneurs who are just starting out.
And the beauty of what we've done is that, you know, we've now probably had like maybe 60 or 70 of these really high‑profile female CEOs or experts come share their stories in hour‑long chats with me, really revealing it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And we now are creating kind of an on‑demand hub for Selfmade where if you sign up, you know, at any time, you can go back and look at all of these different fireside chats and these amazing, incredible leaders to learn their stories and hopefully take a piece of that into what you might build next with your own business.
MS. ABRIL: That makes sense. Sounds like a nice resource there.
I know I asked you about sort of how the pandemic changed the advice you're giving other leaders, but I'm also curious about how what you've learned from the pandemic has changed the other facets of your business acumen. Can you expand a little bit on what you've learned and how it's affecting you?
MS. MORIN: Yeah. You know, I think it's changed so many different businesses in different ways. Ironically, for Brit + Co, which is, you know, a site that teaches people how‑‑and largely women‑‑how to do it themselves, our traffic went way up during the first initial part of the pandemic, where most media and website traffic went down because people were freaking out and doing other things. But, you know, we had to learn how to survive at home and how to cook for ourselves and how to renovate our houses to be work‑from‑home houses and spaces, and so it was a really cool part of learning for us.
Also, all of our classes, we have over 200 courses teaching people how to do things, basic skills, creative skills, business skills. We saw, you know, hundreds of thousands of redemptions in even the first two weeks of the pandemic of people really seeking education. So, you know, I think the pandemic has been broken up into different phases. That was all, you know, the initial part of the pandemic.
And now, you know, fast forward a couple of years. We're at a place where it's just normal for you to, you know, video‑chat with people, and so I've been, especially even in my investing career, like, watching as the telehealth and sort of video‑first communities continue to rise. I've been thinking about that for some of my businesses. Especially, Selfmade is video first. It's online courses, live and recorded, that are online education, and so I think there have been a lot of really great wins for people in those types of spaces where connectivity through the internet and teaching and therapy, all these different ways, service businesses, have really thrived over the last two years because now you can do that anywhere you are from around the world, whether you're working remotely or sticking at home. And I think that that's a trend that's here to stay.
MS. ABRIL: So, actually, that leads right again into my next question, and you mentioned this earlier about digital acceleration. But what opportunities do you think have come out of the pandemic to help small businesses succeed?
MS. MORIN: Sure. So, yeah, like I said, some of the laws that changed especially around, like I was saying, telehealth but, even more than that, technologies that have enabled video‑to‑video chat‑‑you know, there's a company that I actually invested in called Daily.co. That's an API, that you can put it on your website or your app. So you can instantly create a video‑to‑video chat with anyone in your community.
You know, I think we've seen the rise of all different types of service industries. Like I said, nowadays, you know, whether you want to find an interior designer or a chef to teach you something or, you know, a workout instructor, all of these people that used to be just offering their services locally in their communities are able to offer them over the internet.
I know that I took, like, yoga classes from someone from Hawaii for many months during the pandemic, and so I think that really will continue to help accelerate small businesses forward and then, of course, the continued rise of e‑commerce in general. And I think with e‑commerce comes the idea of subscription, which is something I try to teach a lot of my Selfmade students about. You know, if you have a business that sells something, is it something that people would like on a recurring basis? And if so, there's so many easy ways to plug in a subscription or a membership feed, and that's an amazing channel for small businesses to grow because you're getting recurring revenue month over month or quarter over quarter instead of just, you know, one‑time purchase and then you have to go win that customer back to come back again.
So I think we're seeing a lot of big wins in those spaces because the tools are just better. There's easy website creators. There's app creators. There's no‑code apps‑‑You don't even have to know how to code anymore to get your app off the ground‑‑and all these plug‑ins that enable you to create different types of business models for your business with the click of a button.
MS. ABRIL: Got it. I want to pivot a little bit and move to crypto briefly. Brit + Co hosted a summit about crypto several years ago, and it highlighted that at the time, only 4 percent of women were buyers. Can you talk to us a little bit about how women have influenced this space and where women are still behind on representation here?
MS. MORIN: Yes. This is near and dear to my heart. It's actually one of the newest companies I launched just in January of this year called BFF, largely spurred by that event back in January of 2018 that Brit + Co did when women were only 4 percent of cryptocurrency buyers.
Fast forward to last year. I think we were about 15 to 20 percent. So it certainly has improved but certainly not taking over the crypto industry by any means, and what's happened with the crypto industry, despite the bear market we're all in right now on every front, is that it's continuing to grow and grow and grow. You've probably heard about things like Bitcoin and NFTs and maybe even Ethereum, but a lot of people don't understand it at all, especially women and especially underserved communities. And I really wanted to create the opportunity for women to come and not only learn about what all this means but to apply it to their own lives or their own businesses. I actually really do believe that crypto and Web 3.0 or "Web3," as we're calling it here in Silicon Valley a lot, is the future of the internet, and that those who understand it will be able to leverage some of the new tools that are being created to better serve their audiences and their communities and hopefully make, you know, a bigger and bigger business.
And so we started a company called BFF‑‑it's MyBFF.com, if you want to check it out, with all kinds of resources and guides, but also, we're actually building things, using crypto and using blockchain technology to help our audience, which are mostly very new people to this world and mostly women and nonbinary people, learn and play and discover what all of this is and why it could be useful for them for years to come.
MS. ABRIL: And why specifically is it important to you that women become more active in this space?
MS. MORIN: I think I genuinely believe that if this is truly the next chapter of the internet, like the third chapter, Web 3.0 as, like I said, many are calling it, you know, this is the first‑‑one of the first times in history that women have had full rights to participate from the start in a new technology and a new financial structure and system, and yet we're sitting on the sidelines, by and large. We are not at the table, and so not only are we not being able to generate potentially some of the wealth income that's happening that a lot of the men are creating right now, but we're not‑‑we're not being‑‑we're not sitting at the table and making decisions about where this goes in the future. And how crazy is it that we could see another 10 or 20 years of the internet and a new fundamental shift in the technological ecosystem of the internet without being able to help write the rules.
And so I'm really passionate about women at least understanding this so that they can raise a hand and say, "Why didn't we think of doing it this way" or "Here's an idea. Like, what if we tried this?" and, you know, it's one stat that I can't believe is that less than 5 percent of the entrepreneurs in Web3 and crypto are women right now. And so, again, we're just so far behind. We need to be the ones helping to build these tools, build these platforms and these systems of the future if, in fact, it's going to net out to be the future that many predict it will, which is a multi‑trillion‑dollar industry just in the next five years.
MS. ABRIL: Got it. So we've got a couple minutes left, and I definitely want to get this question in before we run out of time. You know, today's economic landscape might be kind of intimidating for a lot of small business owners or potential small business owners, and, you know, a recent report showed that 57 percent of small business owners actually expect the conditions in the U.S. to worsen. So I would love for you to kind of give us a little bit of hope. What are you encouraged by in today's economic landscape for new business ventures?
MS. MORIN: Yeah. Well, like I said, I'm doing a lot of seed investing right now, so very early stage. You know, I'm helping the people get their company started and off the ground, and I am the most excited I've been in the time I've ever been doing this because a recession and a down market is an incredible time to build a business. Not only are a lot of markets shifting and so there are a lot of new opportunities and white spaces to go after, but, you know, those that can start scrappy and start building and accumulating kind of product market fit, user research, you know, initial customer traction will likely get ahead of those that have been kind of on a rise for the last few years and have now had to do layoffs and have now had to sort of reconstruct their business. So those that are starting now are at such an advantage for so many different reasons, and if you look back in history, some of the greatest companies of the last 10 year were built in 2009‑‑Uber and Airbnb and so many more. If you look at the prior recession before that, some of the best companies were built right after the dot‑com bust in 2001.
And so it might not be until, like, later this year or next year, but I think in the next 12 months, we will see the birth of some of the biggest companies that we've ever seen before over the next, you know, 10 years' time, and maybe that could be you. Maybe it's time to get started.
MS. ABRIL: It's a great note to end it on, Brit. Thank you so much for joining us and giving us your insights. We really appreciate it.
MS. MORIN: Thanks for having me. Good luck, everyone.
MS. ABRIL: Of course. I will be just‑‑I will be back in just a minute with my next guests, Minnie Luong and Shiza Shahid. Please stay with us.
MS. KELLY: Hello and welcome. I'm Suzanne Kelly, CEO and publisher of The Cipher Brief, a national security‑focused publication.
You know, it's always fun as a small business owner to be able to talk to other small business owners about growth and scale and these things we obsess about.
Right now, I'd like to welcome Purnima Kochikar, who is vice president of Play Partnerships at Google Play to talk about some of the opportunities that exist for businesses to grow in this new app economy.
Purnima, welcome.
MS. KOCHIKAR: Thank you, Suzanne. Thanks for having me.
MS. KELLY: I thought we might start by defining what is an app economy.
MS. KOCHIKAR: To me, the app economy is the total economic impact that apps have, and it is also the collective creativity of entrepreneurs but mostly small businesses around the world to make a difference in the world.
To give you a stat, in 2021, two million jobs were created in the United States alone because of the android and play app economy.
MS. KELLY: That's an impressive number.
We're just coming out of the pandemic that was obviously devastating for many businesses. I'm very interested to know if you were seeing trends that came out of this pandemic.
MS. KOCHIKAR: Yes, of course. The pandemic, while devastating, was also transformational for small businesses. As you know, over the last two years, we had to make some really tough choices about life and livelihood. Those of us who could stay home, work in digital businesses, get paid, didn't have to make that tough choice. That was not true for a lot of small businesses who relied on people to come to their storefronts for the business to survive. Apps bridged the gap. They enabled businesses to stay live. They allowed for people to stay safe, and they created jobs.
Businesses that were like the grocery delivery, you know, food delivery apps, et cetera, reached 10‑year KPIs over the last two years. Similarly, we also found that apps help people connect with loved ones, transform education, health care, et cetera. We believe those trends are here to stay, and we're excited to play a small part in it.
MS. KELLY: What is one of the big things that you and your team are anticipating as these small businesses continue to sort of adapt and then grow?
MS. KOCHIKAR: I think one of the big messages for me, which has come through this pandemic, is that digital transformation is here to stay.
My big message to small business owners is that your users will not only come to you, but they'll also expect you to meet them where they are. And Google Play is here to support you. We are here to help you build great apps. We have tools like the Play Academy that will teach you how to build apps. We have programs like the Indie Games Accelerator and Start on Android that will discover and find you and help you build audiences. We have 2.5 billion people who come to Google Play monthly to‑‑you know, to look for your apps and games, and we are here to support you, to put the right app in front of the right people at the right time.
MS. KELLY: I'm curious to know, what were some of the lessons that you learned leading this Google Play app ecosystem?
MS. KOCHIKAR: One of the most important things we learned is how much apps mattered to the lives of people. Through the pandemic, we saw people use their phones for 4.8 hours a day, and that is 30 percent more than 2019. We also found that the app economy is driven by entrepreneurs, that they're the same. They are a connected world, and these entrepreneurs are truly committed to making the world better.
Let's look at two stories. Look at GoNoodle out of Nashville, Tennessee. This company is focused on bringing joy and health to kids and those who care for them, and this app now is being used by 95 percent of elementary schools in the United States. That wouldn't have been possible without Google Play.
Similarly, there are entrepreneurs like the one who created GiftAMeal out of St. Louis, Missouri, who are looking for app for good or technology for good. A person eating a meal in a local restaurant and thereby supporting a small business can take a picture and upload it to GiftAMeal, and a meal will be given to somebody who needs it. And you know how important it is in an economy like this. 300 restaurants have participated. 850,000 meals have been donated, and they're just getting started. They aspire to expand nationally and beyond.
Play is here to take those ideas, celebrate them, and let these small entrepreneurs reach the scale and the scope that they deserve.
We are celebrating those stories through WeArePlay campaign. Take a look, and you'll see that entrepreneurship and innovation is alive and well around the country and not just limited to San Francisco and New York, London, and the big tech hubs.
MS. KELLY: Yeah. I like that. It's certainly very inspirational.
I'm curious. What forms of support do you actually provide for small businesses?
MS. KOCHIKAR: Me‑‑my team and I provide business and technical consulting to small businesses to help them build great apps and make better business decisions. Through the Play Academy, we provide abilities to understand how to build a great app as well as how to keep users safe and secure, how to make better technology choices to things like the STK Index. We also have programs like Start on Android and Indie Games Accelerator to help‑‑to amplify some of these amazing new creators.
And, finally, we provide business and, you know, insights through the Google Play Console, which small businesses can use to understand what kinds of devices their users use, where are they growing, how can they make the decision, the way to expand and way to invest.
MS. KELLY: I have learned a lot I didn't know, which means this is a great conversation. Purnima Kochikar, vice president of Play Partnerships at Google Play, thank you so much for your time today.
MS. KOCHIKAR: Thank you for having me, Suzanne.
MS. KELLY: Now back to my colleagues at The Washington Post.
MS. ABRIL: Welcome back. For those of you just joining us, I'm Danielle Abril, technology reporter here at The Post.
My next guests today have several things in common, one of which is that food is at the centerpiece of their small businesses. Minnie Luong, owner of Chi Kitchen, and Shiza Shahid, founder of Our Place, welcome to Washington Post Live.
[Audio distortion]
MS. ABRIL: Hi. Apologies. We'll get this all figured out once we get rolling here.
As a reminder to our audience, we want to hear from you. Tweet us your questions using the handle @PostLive.
I want to start off by asking you both what prompted you guys to start your businesses, and we'll just go one at a time. So, Minnie, can you first tell us a little bit about your path to founding Chi Kitchen?
MS. LUONG: Yeah. So, to start off, I'm founder of Chi Kitchen. We are makers and manufacturers of healthy, fermented, probiotic, Asian flavor, profile vegetables based in Rhode Island, and really my love of food‑‑and I worked previously as a chef. I worked as a private chef in Los Angeles and as a chef for a tech company, and when I was growing up in New England, there weren't a lot of‑‑it wasn't easy to access the foods of my culture from Southeast Asia. So I grew up in a very food‑centric family where we grew and preserved and made our own foods. So that was really why I wanted to start a food business.
MS. ABRIL: That makes sense. Totally understand that.
And, Shiza, you pivoted from co‑founding the Malala Fund to starting Our Place. Talk to us a little bit about that transition and what skills you took from the fund to start this new company.
MS. SHAHID: Yeah. I'm thrilled to be here. You know, I‑‑for me, a lot of my life has been very similar to Minnie about food and gathering. I grew up in Pakistan. I was there till I was 18. I moved to the U.S. when I was 18 on a scholarship to Stanford University. That's the first time I was ever exposed to startups. Growing up, I'd never even considered the possibility of building a business, but now at Stanford, everyone around me was building businesses. And having worked primarily through the nonprofit model as a volunteer, as a grassroots activist all my life, I began to realize sometimes if you build a mission‑driven business, you can have as much, if not a greater impact as in through other models. And that's really where my interest in this idea of impact and storytelling and business and finance began.
I ended up co‑founding the Malala Fund with my friend, Malala Yousafzai, her father, Ziauddin, when I was 22 years old to help girls in countries like my own access an education but was always drawn to this idea of building a business that scaled but at the same time held very close to its values, held very close to its mission.
And I'm an immigrant. My partner is also an immigrant, and for both of us, we literally found Our Place in America by cooking and sharing food, having people come over to our homes, cooking a meal, sharing our stories. And so we've always believed that home cooking is at the heart of culture, of identity, of belonging, of so many of the things that we're passionate about. And we just saw this huge need in the market to build a brand rooted in representation, where we felt seen, and then to also design products that were both easy to sue but also sustainably and thoughtfully designed and sourced.
MS. ABRIL: So I want to pivot to how the pandemic impacted the ways you both built your business plans. Minnie, let's start with you. Tell me a little bit about how the pandemic altered your plans for scaling the business.
MS. LUONG: Yeah. So, first of all, as a food manufacturer, we are an essential business. So we were open and manufacturing throughout the pandemic and currently today.
So part of one‑‑some of the things that we did to pivot was we started‑‑we did a website and offered our products for mail order across the country, which we didn't previously have before that, and then we launched two new products, pretty innovative products, award‑winning products during the pandemic.
MS. ABRIL: Got it. And, Shiza, you also have an approach to e‑commerce. Tell me a little bit about how the pandemic played into that.
MS. SHAHID: Yeah. I mean, the pandemic was a curveball. We started out business in every sense of the word, right, for everyone. We started out business six months before the pandemic, and we were conceived as a gathering brand, a brand that was all about being together, cooking together, hosting together, celebrating our home‑cooking traditions, and of course, we could no longer do that. And we had to understand how to best support our community at this time, and what we realized was at times of deep isolation and uncertainty, people were actually finding comfort and connection to home cooking.
And so, if you recall April, when the lockdown‑‑the first full month of the lockdown here in the United States, that was the month of Passover. It was the month of Ramadan. It was the month of Easter, right? Three of the biggest home‑cooking traditions celebrated by most of the world, and we‑‑or by many people in the world. I don't know by most of the world, but, you know, one of‑‑one of the largest sort of months in terms of the number of people gathering together.
And so we went to our community, and we asked them how they were finding hope at the time, and over and again, what we found was, you know, people were calling up their moms and, you know, writing down those recipes that they always meant to write down and preserve. They were, you know, zooming with grandma and learning to cook, you know, that thing they'd always meant to get down to learning how to cook.
And even for me, I couldn't‑‑you know, my parents are in Pakistan. My sister is in London. I couldn't see them, but just cooking those flavors from home gave a sense of grounding, and so we leaned into that. And I think a lot of people learned to cook in the pandemic, who will continue to cook, who realized, you know, there is this beauty and magic and feeling and nourishment of making something with their hands, and with the right tools, it doesn't have to be so hard.
And, of course, from a business standpoint, there were many challenges to navigate. We couldn't visit our factories. We had to understand how to keep our amazing teams at our warehouses safe. There were challenges. There were also arbitrage opportunities. As advertising costs lowered in that period, businesses were able to, in some cases, advertise more effectively, and so there were a lot of shifts that happened. And I think for a young business, you know, overcoming the challenges, taking advantage of the opportunities, investing in people, team culture, most of all, making sure that you're supporting your team through this difficult time, but then also realizing that what you experience in the pandemic is an anomaly. And you can't entirely trust that data. So, as you start to emerge from those times, not to say the pandemic is anywhere close to over, but as things shift, you need to then question the data that you've gotten over these last two years as you build future plans.
MS. ABRIL: Got it. And, Minnie, I'm going to jump back to you real quickly. In hindsight, do you think the pandemic forced you to think more creatively about how to survive it?
MS. LUONG: Oh, most definitely. I think in terms of, you know, marketing our product, one of our biggest marketing things is to sample it. So once people taste it, they're more‑‑you know, they like it and they want to buy it. So we weren't able to do that, and that was a huge part of our marketing.
So, you know, we've gotten very creative. One of the things we do now is that for our food service accounts, we shipped them our product, and then we actually do online Zoom tastings, and they taste it right in front of us. And that's been very helpful.
And just every day, I mean, not just as an entrepreneur but as a mom of two young kids, you know, we just have to get really creative, and I think, you know, the uncertainty of what we've been through and what, you know, is‑‑you know, what we're facing now too with the economy, that's just a real‑‑you know, it's a part of life and particularly a part of being a small business owner.
MS. ABRIL: And, Shiza, what lessons are you taking away from this pandemic as a small business owner?
MS. SHAHID: Yeah. I mean, togetherness, whatever form that takes, is so important, right? And I think we've always believed at Our Place, the most important thing we can do as a business is bring together amazing people in our team and our community and build a culture that enables them to thrive.
And, initially, a lot of that was in person. You know, we would work together. Everyone was in Los Angeles. We had a kitchen in our office, and you'd show up in the morning, and someone would be making eggs for breakfast, and you'd sit down and eat together. And we lost a lot of that overnight.
And finding new ways to bring that back during a pandemic to support one another, to feel that sense of connectedness, and in this new world, you know, where remote work is more common, where our team has started to become more distributed, still really focusing on connections, moments of being together, moments of spending time and supporting and uplifting one another, to me that was the greatest takeaway from the pandemic.
MS. ABRIL: So I want to quickly shift to the current economic situation we're in. Everybody knows small businesses often feel the impact of these economic changes quicker and maybe more harshly than the rest of the country. Minnie, can you talk to us a little bit about how current supply chain shortages and prices for materials have affected your business?
MS. LUONG: Certainly. We have had price increases across the board, materials, raw ingredients, packaging, and we are also facing supply chain shortages of glass and labels for our kimchi jars. It's definitely affecting us, and we're monitoring things very closely and, you know, constantly, talking to our partners.
One of the nice things is that we do have these great relationships as small businesses, you know, with people that we've been working with for years and years, but it's definitely something that we're paying attention to and monitoring as we go on a daily basis.
MS. ABRIL: And, Shiza, you know, a lot of small businesses initially expected to see some significant revenue growth this year. Now they're a little unsure of that. Some are pulling back those forecasts. Are you guys prepared to respond to a lower consumer spend than anticipated, or how are you preparing for that?
MS. SHAHID: Yeah. You know, I caught the end of, I think, the previous segment with my dear friend, Brit Morin, and I think she was talking about how, you know, history shows some of the best businesses are built in difficult times, and I do really believe, you know, a lot of what Minnie was sharing as well is obstacles breed creativity. They breed excellence. They breed, you know, just a higher focus, and so the market has shifted, of course.
We‑‑you know, we go back to our core every single time which is we exist to bring people together around the power of home cooking. Whether you're in a pandemic, whether you're in a recession, cooking is good for you, being connected to those around you. Whatever form or shape that might take safely is important and good for you. Cooking is a lifeline to your health, to your food systems, to your heritage, your culture, your identity, and so, you know, we tap into something that I think is very core to all of us, is very nourishing and appealing to all of us, and so making great products, helping our customers understand why they do cost what they cost as supply chain challenges increase and really communicating with them the process of, you know, handmaking a tagine in Morocco, why that does cost so much more than, you know, a tagine, you know, made in a factory, you know, sold on Amazon, right? It's helping your community see that.
We're fortunate to have a community that does care a lot about sustainability, about nontoxic materials, about how products are sourced, designed, and made, and so just continuing to tell that story and going back to the basics of why we exist. I think when you have markets that are incredibly bullish, you can actually make a lot of bad decisions, right? And we've seen this in e‑commerce over and over again with, you know, companies raising very large valuations, you know, being told to be crazier by their investors and care less about burn. We've always been a business that focuses on making sure that we are fundamentally healthy in a business model, and that enables us to then go out into the world and do everything else, support our team, provide good benefits, give back to the causes we care about. And that's what we're going to continue to do in this moment.
MS. ABRIL: And, Minnie, you participated in a roundtable with Vice President Kamala Harris last year, and it was focused on female business owners. What kinds of support does your company need in order to brave the economic storm, and how has this shifted in this last year since that conversation?
MS. LUONG: I mean, I think from that conversation, just overall, we were talking about child care as part of infrastructure, as they were touting that bill, and that was, you know, something near and dear to me, having two young kids, wanting to start a business. I actually had to‑‑you know, when I got to the point where I was like, okay, this business is really happening and I want to focus on this full‑time, that was the‑‑it wasn't the decision to quit my job. It was the decision, okay, am I going to invest in myself in the business by putting my daughter at the time into child care and paying for that while I'm not collecting a paycheck and building this business? And so, you know, I think that is still an important part, not just for small business owners but for, you know, working parents today to have that early education piece and help with very, you know, costly child care.
All of the costs are going up, you know, for everybody across the board, but that's just one piece that we can't overlook.
MS. ABRIL: Got it. And so I want to go over some final thoughts. I'd like them to be brief, but I'd like them to be rich. You know, I think that, you know, unfortunately, small business optimism is at a really low point. A survey recently said its lowest point in 48 years.
Minnie, I want to start with you. In spite of these headlines, what are you optimistic about for the future of your company?
MS. LUONG: I am optimistic‑‑I mean, with Shiza, like, people still need to eat. They want to east healthy foods. They want to eat foods that connect with their culture, that make them feel good and bring people together, and that's just not going to go away. So, I mean, as far as our business is concerned, that's something I'm optimistic about.
I think that there's a lot of innovation and growth that can come out of uncertainty, and we didn't go to start businesses because we knew we were going to, you know, hit it out of the park. Hopefully, that is the goal, but, you know, that rub of that uncertainty and not knowing is part of‑‑part of it and part of the enjoyment and part of the fun you know, and so when the outcome is good, it's always so exciting. It's just‑‑it's similar to, you know, fermentation and what we do. When it's awesome, we're just like hooray and it's great and, you know, to be able to have that consistency.
So I think, you know, we will have to be more savvy, try to not listen to all the headlines constantly. I know that there's a lot of challenges, and it's not just us. Everybody that, you know, is running a small business is always going to have challenges. And I think, you know, really my motto is "It doesn't get easier. We get stronger." So that's what I would like to leave you with.
MS. ABRIL: Good motto. Shiza, what is keeping you optimistic about the future for your small business?
MS. SHAHID: Honestly, all of it. You know, I think that, you know, as Minnie said, nobody starts a business to do something easy. You start it because you're deeply passionate and you go into it knowing it's going to be hard.
We love what we do. We believe so deeply in the brand that we are building and the stories that we tell and the partnerships we have with cultures and communities to share their traditions and the products that we design with our amazing factory partners and artisans. We spend, you know, two years prototyping and testing and industrial designing our products from scratch to make sure that they make cooking easier and more joyful.
And we've always taken the hard way, right? We've always chosen to do the extra work, to go the extra mile, to build something with deep substance. Ultimately, I think we have a community that is nuanced, that is thoughtful, that wants to buy items with story, that are better for them, that are better for the planet, that are infused with meaning, and so that is a harder path to take. However, I think it's the right one, and I think it is what gives a business longevity and allows a business to thrive in the long term, even if in the short term, it's a little bit harder to get there.
MS. ABRIL: Well, Minnie and Shiza, this was incredibly insightful. Thank you so much for spending some time with us here today.
MS. LUONG: Thank you so much, Danielle.
MS. SHAHID: Thank you.
MS. ABRIL: Absolutely.
And thanks to all of you for watching. To check out what interviews we have coming up, please head to WashingtonPostLive.com to register and find more information about our upcoming programs.
I'm Danielle Abril. Thanks again for joining us today. | 2022-07-13T22:41:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Reinventing Small Business - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/07/13/transcript-reinventing-small-business/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/07/13/transcript-reinventing-small-business/ |
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, left, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley speak with the media at NATO headquarters in Brussels in June. (Olivier Matthys/AP)
The House of Representatives is expected to give bipartisan approval this week to a record-setting $840 billion defense authorization bill that would guide the U.S. military’s reorientation within NATO and elsewhere, but first lawmakers must agree whether to include dozens of proposed amendments with implications for several domestic and foreign policy priorities.
The legislation, considered one of the few “must-pass” measures each year, is a regular forum for policy disputes that, in some cases, are peripheral to national security. This year’s bill attracted more than 1,200 proposed amendments from House members, shattering levels of interest seen in previous cycles and earning rare public rebukes from the House Armed Services Committee’s top Democrat and Republican.
“If it doesn’t help the warfighter,” Rep. Mike D. Rogers (R-Ala.) admonished his colleagues this week, “it doesn’t need to be in this bill.”
In recent years, apart from directing the Pentagon’s annual funding, the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, has ordered the renaming of select military bases to dissociate those facilities from their Confederate heritage and instituted paid family leave for all federal workers.
The proposals under consideration this year focus on matters as diverse as expediting military health initiatives to surging capacity to process visas for Afghans left behind during last year’s harried evacuation; as timely as tracking security assistance to Ukraine and cracking down on Russia’s ability to participate in international forums; and as mundane as requiring that all flags and flowers displayed in Defense Department facilities are American-made.
The list also is notable for the many measures that were floated but ultimately excluded, such as Republican-backed efforts to dismantle the military’s coronavirus vaccine requirements and de-prioritize initiatives targeting extremism in the ranks, and competing proposals from both sides of the aisle to regulate how the military navigates abortion after the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down Roe v. Wade.
In many cases, the House Rules Committee — which dictates procedures for floor debates — opted for less-controversial substitutes. Instead of amendments regarding abortion, for example, its members allowed for debate on launching a pilot program to address unwanted pregnancy and other reproductive health measures.
But the floor debate, which began Wednesday, is expected to feature some friction. The amendment list includes, for instance, measures to strip up to $100 billion from the overall cost of the defense bill.
Another proposal would allow Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to boost “inflation bonus pay” for service members earning $45,000 per year or less on top of a 2.4 percent pay hike to account for hardships facing military families as economists fear the United States is on the cusp of a recession. Both would come in addition to a 4.6 percent general pay raise already in the bill and such competing ventures could split the House — and not necessarily along party lines.
There is also the potential for political fallout around proposals that seek to condition U.S. security assistance for certain countries on meeting benchmarks, including human rights. The House is poised to consider limiting assistance to the Philippines for that reason, precluding the sale of F-16s to Turkey over its conduct toward Greece, and pausing arms sales to Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi.
And passionate disagreement is possible over a subset of amendments related to recreational drugs and other controlled substances, as the House is poised to vote as part of the NDAA on whether to expand banking access for cannabis businesses, and allow ecstasy and certain psychedelics to be used as alternatives to prescription opioids in military medicine.
There is likely to be robust bipartisan support, however, for measures pertaining to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including amendments demanding reports and other measures to better account for U.S. weapons flowing into the country. Other proposals call for policy statements or expressions from Congress that Russia should never be allowed to rejoin organizations like the G-7 and should be compelled to release Russian political prisoners like Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza.
Two high-profile Americans being held in Russia, Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, are not mentioned by name in the defense bill or any proposed amendments.
There is likely to be bipartisan support for measures seeking to urgently enhance the Pentagon’s ability to defend against enemy drones, and shore up cybersecurity and satellite systems, alongside investments in other technological advancements.
“The Pentagon,” said House Armed Services Committee chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.), “is not typically good at moving fast.”
The amendment list includes some familiar ideas that have earned House backing in previous years but failed to garner the Senate’s approval. Those include efforts to repeal long-standing authorizations for use of military force passed in 2002 and 1991 to authorize hostilities against Iraq. They also include a measure to grant the mayor of Washington the authority to call up National Guard personnel in times of emergency, power that all state governors possess.
It also includes measures to build upon recent changes. One amendment would commission a report on how the Defense Department has reflected the contributions of Black Americans in its naming practices for military facilities. Another would guarantee that service members complaining of harassment or discrimination will have their cases heard within 180 days or be free pursue their claims in civilian court. Others target post-traumatic stress and mental health conditions affecting service members and veterans.
The House’s expected endorsement of its defense bill will be a significant step in the process, but not the final word on how the Pentagon’s funds will be directed.
The Senate has yet to schedule a vote on its version of the bill, which, once passed, will have to be reconciled with the House’s version and approved by both chambers.
The final legislation also could be limited by congressional appropriators. The House’s proposed defense appropriation bill for fiscal 2023, which begins Oct. 1 and has yet to receive a floor vote, envisions a $762 billion budget for the Pentagon and military — about $78 billion less than what the defense bill currently under consideration would authorize.
The appropriations bill also wades into matters the authorization bill avoids, such as abortion. The defense spending bill would guarantee that service members could not be denied the right to take leave for the purposes of having an abortion or assisting a partner’s efforts to obtain an abortion. The authorization bill is silent on that subject. | 2022-07-13T22:51:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NDAA: House tries to avoid political battles over Pentagon policy bill - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/13/pentagon-defense-authorization-bill-ndaa/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/13/pentagon-defense-authorization-bill-ndaa/ |
Sky-high inflation means the Fed will have to move even more aggressively to slow the economy
Analysis by Abha Bhattarai
Inflation keeps getting worse: Prices rose 9.1 percent in June from a year earlier. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)
The chances of a recession have gone up. Drastically.
Wall Street is betting higher on it. Policymakers are clinching their teeth. And jittery Americans are beginning to put off big-ticket purchases.
The latest inflation reading was supposed to offer hope that the U.S. economy had weathered the worst of the storm. But there was nothing reassuring in Wednesday’s report. In fact, inflation actually got much worse in June across the economy making it even harder — and more unlikely — that the Federal Reserve can bring down prices without triggering a recession.
Price growth surged to a new four-decade high, with inflation up to 9.1 percent for the 12 months ending in June, according Labor Department data. That unexpectedly high reading, combined with a stronger-than-expected June jobs report, means the central bank will likely take even more aggressive action to cool the economy.
“The odds of a recession have definitely gone up,” said Rodney Ramcharan, an economics professor at the University of Southern California and former senior economist at the Federal Reserve Board. “The central bank is a powerful institution but there’s no way it can carefully calibrate these interest rate increases to avoid a recession.”
During the pandemic, the Fed had allowed borrowing costs to go down to close to zero, to help the economy grow during a tense time when millions of people lost their jobs all at once. Now the economy looks like its bubbling over, with prices showing no signs of easing. The Fed has already raised interest rates three times this year — most recently in June by three-quarters of a percentage point — to try to control inflation. But stubborn price increases mean the central bank has much more work to do.
Economists now expect the Fed to raise interest rates by another 0.75 percentage point later this month, and there is new talk of a full one percentage point hike, which would be the largest one-time increase since the central bank began announcing rate hikes in the early 1990s. The Fed is trying to raise the cost of borrowing for businesses and households to slow spending. Slowing spending is supposed to slow inflation.
Five charts explaining why inflation is so high
The Fed faces a tough decision after that. If inflation continues to rise, central bankers would have to decide whether to keep raising rates and potentially halt any economic growth in the final months of 2022. In the past, the Fed has only managed to avoid a recession with these kinds of rate hikes a handful of times.
How far the Fed goes down this path will determine the likelihood of a recession.
“The Fed faces a daunting policy challenge,” said Gary Stern, who was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1985 to 2009. “Inflation has turned out to not only be higher but more sustained than they expected, and there’s no convincing sign that it’s abating.”
Essentials like fuel, food and housing have all gotten more expensive in the past year. Gas prices have nearly doubled — though they have inched down from mid-June peaks — and the cost of staples like rice, milk, butter and baby food have all risen by 12 to 16 percent.
Housing costs, meanwhile, are up nearly 6 percent and are likely to become an even bigger driver of inflation in coming months.
“Up until now, inflation reports have been disappointing but this latest one was just painful,” said Ellen Gaske, an economist at PGIM Fixed Income and former senior economist at the New York Fed. “Households are going to feel this. Their wages are not keeping pace with this kind of widespread inflation.”
On Wednesday, President Biden called inflation “our most pressing economic challenge” and talked about the importance of bringing down price increases. He has also said a recession is “not inevitable.”
The White House has misjudged the persistence of inflation for more than a year. And now, the global economy is looking a lot rockier than it did six months ago. The World Bank warned in June that the global economy could face several years of weak growth. And recession fears are sweeping through Europe.
Canada’s central bank on Wednesday raised interest rates by one percentage point in hopes of tamping down on the country’s 7.7 percent increase in prices over the past year.
Wall Street is already pricing in a similar rate-hike in the United States. Financial markets recoiled following the release of the new inflation data, as investors grappled with figures suggesting that peak inflation has yet to arrive, which could prompt the Federal Reserve to push the brakes on the economy even harder.
All three major stock indexes slumped on Wednesday. Market observers will also be closely watching corporate earnings this week. The financial snapshots offer another signal as to how businesses are coping with the high-inflation environment and how the actions of the Fed are influencing market conditions. Investors will also get a glimpse of business projections looking ahead to the second half of the year, providing more guidance on the direction of the economy.
Although inflation hasn’t budged — and has in fact gotten worse — some economists point to promising signs of cooling in other parts of the economy signaling that a recession isn’t imminent or inevitable. Job growth, though still exceptionally strong, is slowing. Consumers are beginning to think twice about spending on goods and some services. And there are signs that higher mortgage rates are leading to a slowdown in home sales. All of these forces work to cool down the economy and could help the Fed do its job without getting too far into the restrictive area.
“The totality of the data is more reassuring: These are all parts of the economy that need to slow to bring down inflation,” said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University and top economic adviser in the Obama White House. “I don’t think it’s time to start panicking yet. You should be nervous and wary, yes, but not panicking.”
Four ways the Fed's interest rate hike will affect you
In Boise, Idaho, the mood among prospective home buyers began souring early this year, shortly after the Fed began talking about raising interest rates. Demand for new homes has continued to drop as mortgage rates tick up, according to Colby Henry, a loan officer at Benchmark Mortgage. Rates for a 30-year mortgage have risen from 2.9 percent to 5.3 percent in the last year, according to Freddie Mac.
“It used to be that we’d be talking to 20 people a day and they were all making offers, and now we’re talking to four or five,” Henry said. “There’s a lot of confusion. A number of people we’d been working with were like, ‘No, we’re going to wait and see what happens.’ ”
The likeliest scenario, economists say, is several months of even higher interest rates. The federal funds rate — the overnight lending rate controlled by the central bank — is currently 1.5 to 1.75 percent, although it may have to go as high as 6 percent before it can make a dent in inflation, said Jeffrey Lacker, an economics professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and former president of the Richmond Fed.
“This is another terrible inflation report and just the latest sign that the Fed still has a long way to go,” he said. “There’s no way to rein in inflation without a recession, and it won’t surprise me if we enter one this year.”
Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell has maintained that the central bank will be able to engineer a “soft landing” — slowing the economy enough to muffle inflation without causing a full-blown downturn with massive job losses — although he has acknowledged growing concerns that it will be difficult to pull off.
“Do I still think that we can do that? I do,” Powell said in a news conference earlier this month. “Events of the last few months have raised the degree of difficulty, created great challenges ... there’s a much bigger chance now that it’ll depend on factors that we don’t control.”
The inflation data released Wednesday reinforced how challenging Powell’s task has become.
“I’m not sure we’ve ever had a soft landing — people can talk about it and they can hope for it, but in my opinion it’s not going to happen,” said Stern, the former Minneapolis Fed president. “I expect we will have a recession — it’s likely to be relatively brief and relatively mild — but I personally doubt a significant reduction in inflation is achievable without it.”
Hamza Shaban and Rachel Siegel contributed to this report. | 2022-07-14T00:01:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Recession risks rise as surging inflation adds to Fed's daunting task - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/13/fed-inflation-recession/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/13/fed-inflation-recession/ |
Families and solo migrants have a meal together after arriving at Union Station in D.C. on July 12 following a bus ride that originated in Texas. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post)
Aid groups helping migrants coming to D.C. on buses from Texas and Arizona were overwhelmed this week after coronavirus quarantines sidelined many volunteers and area shelters filled up, leaving some of the migrants to sleep at Union Station after they arrived.
The buses have been arriving from Texas and Arizona for months, after the Republican governors of those states started offering “voluntary” bus trips to the nation’s capital for migrants caught crossing the border from Mexico.
“We were told we were going to be helped here, that somebody was waiting for us,” Andres David Blanco, who left Venezuela a month and a half ago, said in Spanish after he arrived at Union Station on Tuesday night.
A network of mutual aid organizations armed with limited resources, and a nonprofit operating with a federal grant have been scrambling to help migrants, while the number of buses arriving in the city continues to rise.
That patchwork of aid fell short Tuesday night, after core organizers and volunteers with the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network advocates were in quarantine after being exposed to the coronavirus while helping migrants over the weekend. SAMU First Response, an international aid organization that has a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant to help the migrants, only operates Wednesday through Saturday.
SAMU’s managing director, Tatiana Laborde, said the organization tried to put together a team to find last-minute resources after it became clear Tuesday that there were not enough volunteers to help the incoming migrants.
Laborde said in an interview that SAMU does not have capacity to coordinate all the buses. “We are increasing our capacity, but all the agencies involved know that this is going to take time,” she said. Out of the roughly 15 buses arriving every week, the organization can handle half.
SAMU’s FEMA grant is enough to provide emergency aid for around 2,000 migrants a month, but the number has doubled in the last weeks.
SAMU has been operating at a shelter located in Montgomery County, Md., where Laborde said they prioritize migrant families from Arizona who often arrive with children. The shelter only has capacity for 50 people who are allowed to stay no more than three days. On Wednesday morning, Laborde said, the shelter was already full.
Laborde said the organization has initiated conversation with D.C. officials to secure a permanent place near Union Station, but the conversation “has not materialized” into concrete actions. The Migrant Solidarity Network has also asked for access to respite centers, coronavirus isolation hotels, and short-term housing for the migrants.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) did not immediately comment.
D.C. Council member Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1) said it appeared that SAMU was still working out kinks in its operations, underscoring the importance of a stronger response from local officials.
“SAMU has a learning curve, they have a deep bench of people who are good at emergency response and serving refugees, but haven’t done that work in D.C. before,” Nadeau said. “If governments across the region are depending on SAMU to get this done, it’s not feasible.”
She added, “as stretched thin as our government is right now, we probably need more boots on the ground with SAMU until they have things up and running.”
Nadeau, who is a chairwoman for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, said local leaders who are part of the group will convene next week to determine exactly what officials and nonprofits, including SAMU, can do to increase support for those arriving in the city.
In a statement released Wednesday, the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network said they took a two-day break following the coronavirus exposure, but that the group was “exhausted” and needed help.
“DMV area community organizations and volunteers have shown up every day for over three months to support migrants but we are exhausted, burned out, and do not have the resources that the government does,” said Madhvi Bahl, from Sanctuary DMV and Free Them All VA.
Meanwhile, many of the migrants who arrived Tuesday night spent the night inside Union Station. Shelters for families were not available Tuesday night, and the ones that could take in migrants could only receive male individuals.
Venezuelans Ángeles Pinto León, 22, and Pedro José Sánchez, 30, and their two children left Perú two months ago. They reached the border last Wednesday and were told at a shelter in Texas that they could be transported in a bus free to D.C.
They said the place they had secured in Richmond is no longer available. Now they are seeking shelter or a home to stay in D.C.
At 9 p.m., volunteer Matthew Burwick, a Venezuelan activist who said he was at the site helping SAMU, answering questions and handing out granola bars and water, coordinated transportation for four families and seven children to SAMU’s shelter in Montgomery County. On Wednesday morning, Pinto León, who was taken to the shelter, said she was told she could stay there for a few days, but she hasn’t found a permanent place to stay.
Several migrants are trying to reach other states like New York, Florida or Georgia, but many don’t have anywhere to go and are hoping the city can offer them a fresh start.
“Do you know where 14th and U is?” Leonardo Javier León, 26, asked in Spanish. “I was told there are many restaurants there where I can apply for a job.”
“I don’t have anybody here, but I have the will to work,” said León, who worked as a sous-chef in Venezuela.
Some, like asylum-seeker Eduardo Antonio Mendoza, are facing last-minute cancellations by friends or sponsors.
“I called my friend this evening, but he told me he can’t receive me anymore,” Mendoza, who traveled from Nicaragua and was planning to go to New York, said in Spanish.
Mendoza said he took the bus from Texas because it was on the way to New York, but now that he has nowhere to go, he’s glad he ended up in D.C.
“I’d have been lost there,” he said.
Michael Brice-Saddler and Julie Zauzmer Weil contributed to this report. | 2022-07-14T00:05:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. aid groups overwhelmed as migrants arrive from Texas, Arizona - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/13/dc-migrants-buses-texas-union-station/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/13/dc-migrants-buses-texas-union-station/ |
About 200 people rally near the U.S. Capitol on July 13 to demand more gun control and a federal ban on assault weapons. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Kimberly Rubio keeps trying to picture the classroom through her 10-year-old daughter Lexi’s eyes, haunted by the different ways that May day could have ended.
But the one question that lawmakers should ask themselves every morning and night, she posed, was: “What if the gunman never had access to an assault weapon?”
“We are no longer asking for change,” Rubio, 33, said to a cheering crowd of about 200 people at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. “We are demanding it.”
Those gathered wore bright orange shirts and included community members from Highland Park, Ill., where a gunman killed seven adults and injured dozens more during a Fourth of July parade, and parents of children who were among the 21 people killed in May at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex.
Rubio’s daughter Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, known as Lexi, was one of the children killed.
Many openly grieved at the rally, crying during Rubio’s remarks. A mother at the Highland Park parade recounted how she fled, holding her 1-year-old daughter in her arms as she was grazed by a bullet. Parents shared the terrifying questions they’re hearing from their young children who survived shootings. And speaker after speaker demanded more sweeping federal action to curb the scourge of gun violence.
Last month, President Biden signed a bipartisan gun-control bill into law, the most significant of its kind in three decades. It expands criminal background checks for some gun buyers, bars a larger group of domestic-violence offenders from purchasing firearms, and funds programs that would allow authorities to seize guns from troubled individuals. However, gun control advocates, and Biden himself, have noted that the legislation does not include everything they hoped for.
During an event on the White House’s South Lawn on Monday billed as “commemorating the historic achievement of the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” the father of a 17-year-old boy killed in the 2018 massacre at a high school in Parkland, Fla., heckled the president, demanding more action to curb gun violence. Biden renewed calls for a federal ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
Uvaldo was at the July Fourth parade with Hogan and their relatives when gunfire rained on the crowd. The parade was a family tradition and Uvaldo’s favorite holiday, she said.
Hogan said she thought about how when gunfire erupted from a nearby rooftop, she froze. Her son, Brian Hogan, 13, yelled to run and the family tried to flee. A bullet hit Brian in the arm and fragments hit Nubia Hogan’s mother, too. Uvaldo was also struck and was rushed to the hospital, where he died two days later.
“I get anxiety really bad. I get nightmares, waking up to hearing ‘boom boom’ like the shots,” said Nubia Hogan, of Waukegan, Ill. “These types of guns should not be out there for civilians. These are for the military and for police.”
Brett Cross, 39, stood toward the back of the crowd and said he thought about his nephew, 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia, and how the “system” didn’t protect his family and so many others. The day of the shooting in Uvalde, his wife raced over to the school where Cross said police pushed and blocked parents from entering the building to save their children.
In the first classroom the gunman entered, Cross said, was his nephew, “Uzi,” the young boy who was fast, always racing people, and who aspired to make music, be a YouTuber and one day become a police officer to help people.
“Those same cops that he looked up to failed him and his classmates,” Cross said.
His 10-year-old son and Uzi shared a room together but now, his son doesn’t want to be in there. Cross bought a cot and placed it next to his bed, where the two hold hands before falling asleep.
“He said he wanted to go to school that day so that he could have done something,” Cross said. “He wants to know why an 18-year-old kid can go buy these weapons, why it took his brother from him.” | 2022-07-14T00:05:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Uvalde parents, Highland Park survivors demand assault weapons ban - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/13/uvalde-highland-park-gun-violence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/13/uvalde-highland-park-gun-violence/ |
Joe Biden has a familiar list of U.S. partners and allies to woo and admonish on his current trip to the Middle East: Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf emirates. But there’s a new dance partner on his schedule he’d be wise not to ignore: India.
But India’s studied distance from multinational partnerships in West Asia also reflected distrust of the US role in the region. Leftists in India saw the United States as biased against the Arab world; the right saw it as over-trusting of the Pakistani military. Over the past few years, however, as Pakistan’s star has dimmed in Washington and Israel has grown closer to U.S. (and Indian) partners in the Gulf, India has had fewer reasons for isolation.
That does not mean it trusts the U.S., however — and with good reason. Indian policy makers saw the unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan as a betrayal, for example. At the same time, the debacle may also have convinced them that West Asia needs a more robust security architecture that does not depend entirely on the whims of a US president.
Yet another Indian concern about U.S. reliability has to do with oil supplies — also at the top of Biden’s to-do list this week. India has been reluctant to sign up to Western sanctions on Russian oil. Its foreign minister has pointed out that, in deference to the US, India has in the past agreed to cut down on oil imports from Venezuela and Iran without gaining much, either in terms of energy security or even a voice in energy supply decisions or regional security. Meanwhile, China has happily snapped up Iranian oil at a convenient discount.
If this quadrilateral grouping is to work out the way the U.S. would like, then India’s legitimate concerns about returning Iran to the mainstream, and getting a fair deal on West Asian oil, will have to be taken into consideration. The Indo-Pacific Quad is divided over Russia; the West Asian Quad over Iran. From India’s point of view, restoring the Iran deal to its original status as a pure arms control agreement, free of geopolitical trimmings such as sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is essential. In the past, Indian policy makers have quietly marketed the benefits of the deal to their interlocutors in Tehran; they would do so again, if convinced of the benefits.
The new India will thus play a key role in multinational West Asian partnerships with or without the U.S. But things will go far better for everyone if it’s the former, not the latter.
• Biden Should Call Off Iran Nuclear Talks: Bobby Ghosh | 2022-07-14T00:10:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden Should Welcome the Middle East’s New Player: India - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/biden-should-welcome-the-middle-easts-new-player-india/2022/07/13/5403db62-0300-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/biden-should-welcome-the-middle-easts-new-player-india/2022/07/13/5403db62-0300-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
People wait to get the monkeypox vaccine this month in New York, which is experiencing a severe shortage of vaccines. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
“We are working diligently and as fast as we can, and we are aspiring to have that process completed by the end of July,” Peter Marks, who oversees vaccines at the FDA, said in an interview Wednesday.
The inspection is finished, but even with authorization pending, the FDA is allowing the Jynneos vaccine, the only one specifically approved by the agency to prevent monkeypox, to be flown to the United States on special planes from Bavarian Nordic, the vaccine’s manufacturer in Denmark, Marks said.
“We have to fly those doses from Europe,” he said. “They have to come on special planes [to maintain needed cold temperatures]. … They can only load 150,000 to 160,000 doses at a time.”
The update on the vaccine supply comes amid heated criticism leveled at the FDA and other federal health agencies over the response to the monkeypox outbreak. In New York City, where demand for vaccines far outstrips supply, the city’s monkeypox vaccine appointment website crashed Tuesday “due to overwhelming traffic,” the city said.
City and state officials in New York have complained for days to the White House that they have not received enough vaccine, arguing that they are dealing with the nation’s largest monkeypox outbreak and should be apportioned more doses. New York had 158 cases as of Tuesday, according to federal health data. New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) held a call with Biden administration officials Tuesday in which he again raised concerns that the administration needed to send more doses to the city.
Monkeypox cases have climbed steadily since they were first reported in May, with 929 cases in 41 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Because of difficulties accessing testing, experts say the actual case count is much higher.
White House coronavirus coordinator Ashish Jha tried to allay concerns Wednesday on CNN, saying a shipment of vaccines is expected from Denmark this week and that there will be more doses arriving “in the days and weeks ahead.”
Jha, noting that gay and bisexual men have been disproportionately affected by the virus, urged anyone who develops a fever and rash to get tested and treated. “This is not some novel virus,” Jha said. “We have tests, therapies, we have vaccines. … We are going to get our arms around this thing.”
More than 10,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in more than 60 countries. The World Health Organization is expected to hold an emergency meeting — its second — next week to decide whether to declare monkeypox a global health emergency.
As monkeypox has spread, health advocates, especially those representing the gay, bisexual and transgender communities, have pressed the federal government to sharply step up its response. In a letter last month to top health officials, two nonprofits — Prep4All and Partners in Health — complained that “members of at risk communities are being turned away from monkeypox vaccination because these vaccines are not available in sufficient quantity in the U.S., but instead sitting in freezers in Denmark.” They said one of the holdups was a delay in the FDA inspection of the facility.
But Marks defended the agency, saying that when the monkeypox outbreak occurred, the FDA moved to accelerate the plant inspection, which had been planned for this fall. He said the FDA’s policy is to inspect new manufacturing operations to ensure that vaccines are being made “in a way that is consistent with the quality we expect … which is directly related to safety and effectiveness. This was not the place to skimp on that.”
The agency inspected the facilities that make the vaccine in 2019, when it approved the vaccine. But Bavarian Nordic recently started using its own “fill-finish facility,” where the vaccine is put in a vial and tested to ensure the material is stable to store. That facility required an agency inspection, Marks said. | 2022-07-14T00:10:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nearly 800,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine may be in U.S. by end of July - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/13/monkeypox-vaccine-800000-doses/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/13/monkeypox-vaccine-800000-doses/ |
By Acacia Coronado, Paul J. Weber and Jake Bleiberg | AP
In this photo from surveillance video provided by the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District via the Austin American-Statesman, authorities stage in a hallway as they respond to the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Tuesday, May 24, 2022. (Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District/Austin American-Statesman via AP) (Uncredited/Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District via Austin American-Statesman) | 2022-07-14T00:10:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Uvalde video raises more calls for police accountability - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/uvalde-video-raises-more-calls-for-police-accountability/2022/07/13/8ec2b05a-0302-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/uvalde-video-raises-more-calls-for-police-accountability/2022/07/13/8ec2b05a-0302-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
Delta is the first major carrier to report earnings for the second quarter, but other airlines are signaling they expect strong results
Delta Air Lines planes sit on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport in New York in June. (Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg News)
Strong demand for travel is giving U.S. airlines a financial boost as the industry battles through reduced flight schedules, higher fuel and labor costs, and concerns about the effects inflation could have on consumer spending, airlines officials said this week.
Leisure bookings, which have fueled much of the industry’s pandemic-era comeback, traditionally taper off at the end of summer, but business travelers are making up a greater share of air passengers. It comes as dropped coronavirus testing requirements for international travel — including for entry into the United States — are bringing a rise in overseas trips. Since the end of May, international ticket sales have outperformed those for domestic flights, according to BofA Global Research.
“People have not had access to our product for two years and we’re not going to satisfy that thirst in one busy summer,” Delta Air Lines chief executive Ed Bastian said Wednesday during a company earnings call. “A lot of that demand is still to come.”
Those trends, echoed by other industry executives, are another positive sign for an industry working to regain its footing after the near-collapse of air travel two years ago. The Transportation Security Administration is routinely screening more than 2 million people daily at airport checkpoints — nearly at levels recorded before the pandemic — but airlines are struggling to accommodate the demand amid staffing shortages and a rise in flight cancellations.
Delta is the first major U.S. carrier to report earnings for the second quarter of this year, but other airlines are signaling they expect strong results. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week, American Airlines said it expected second quarter revenue to be up 12 percent compared with the same period in 2019.
Staffing levels are an obstacle for several carriers, despite the industry receiving $54 billion in federal pandemic bailouts meant to keep workers on the job when travel demand resumed. At Delta, Bastian said the issue is less about hiring than training. The carrier has added 18,000 employees since 2021 and staffing is 95 percent of pre-pandemic levels, Bastian said.
He acknowledged the difficulties Wednesday, apologizing to Delta customers even as he sought to assure them the carrier is doing what it can to avoid delays and cancellations.
Replicating the work of thousands of veteran employees who left during the pandemic is a challenge, Bastian said, adding that the costs of rebuilding have been significant. Executives said the carrier is projecting to spend $700 million in overtime pay by the end of this year — 50 percent more than in 2019.
Delta reported a second quarter profit of $735 million. In 2021, the carrier reported profit of $652 million, fueled by billions in pandemic relief funds. It made $13.8 billion in revenue this quarter compared with $7.13 billion during the same period last year.
The gains come as airlines are operating fewer flights while ticket prices rise. Several U.S. carriers have trimmed their schedules, with some ending service to smaller communities while citing a shortage of qualified pilots.
With routes slashed during pandemic, small airports are on shaky flight path
Delta previously announced it would trim 100 flights daily between July 1 and Aug. 7, part of an effort to reduce delays and cancellations. Dan Janki, the company’s chief financial officer, said Delta is operating a network that is 18 percent smaller than in 2019. The carrier said schedule reductions will continue through the end of the year with a goal of moving closer to pre-pandemic levels next year.
“We’re going to have the capacity to grow when we’re ready, but we want to make sure we’re focused on serving what we have,” Bastian said.
Peter McNally, an analyst at the research firm Third Bridge, said despite Bastian’s upbeat assessment Wednesday, the industry still faces challenges while emerging from the pandemic.
“The underlying demand for air travel is strong, but it is a less profitable business today than it was before the pandemic,” he said in a statement. “Planning has become increasingly difficult for airlines and the shortage of labor is an issue that is unlikely to turn around soon.”
After a chaotic ramp-up last summer, airline executives this year pledged a renewed focus on reliability. A spate of delays and cancellations over Memorial Day weekend — and again during the Father’s Day and Juneteenth holidays — prompted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to press airline executives on how they would avoid a similar meltdown over the July Fourth holiday.
Did your flight get delayed or canceled? Tell us what happened.
Carriers have laid some blame on the Federal Aviation Administration, citing staffing shortages at key air traffic control centers.
In a memo to employees after the July Fourth holiday weekend, Jon Roitman, United Airlines’ chief operating officer, said the FAA’s air traffic management initiatives were responsible for 75 percent of the carrier’s cancellations over the past four months.
The memo drew a pointed response from the FAA, which said several other issues were to blame.
“It is unfortunate to see United Airlines conflate weather-related Air Traffic Control measures with ATC staffing issues, which could deceptively imply that a majority of those situations are the result of FAA staffing,” the agency said in a statement. “The reality is that multiple overlapping factors have affected the system, including airline staffing levels, weather, high volume, and ATC capacity, but the majority of delays and cancellations are not because of staffing at FAA.”
Airlines trim summer schedules, aiming to avoid high-profile meltdowns
The reduction in flight schedules has come with a downside for customers.
While data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed airfares declined slightly from May to June, the cost of an airline ticket has risen significantly since the beginning of the year. According to a June report of data collected for the travel industry by Adobe Analytics, the price for a domestic airline ticket has jumped 47 percent since January.
It also means there are fewer options for customers when their flights are delayed or canceled, although the price hike has done little to dampen enthusiasm for travel. On July 1, the TSA reported it screened nearly 2.5 million people — the busiest day for air travel since Feb. 11, 2020.
Among the nation’s largest carriers, American and United will report earnings next week. Southwest Airlines will follow on July 28. | 2022-07-14T00:11:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Summer air travel: Airlines see demand despite rise in ticket prices - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/07/13/air-travel-summer-flying/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/07/13/air-travel-summer-flying/ |
Numerous people unaccounted for after flooding in rural southwest Va.
There are no confirmed fatalities, and authorities say phone service is down in the area
An aerial view of flooding in Virginia's Buchanan County. Heavy rains Tuesday into Wednesday damaged homes, caused power outages and sent residents fleeing to higher ground. (Virginia Department of Emergency Management)
After the rainfall late Tuesday into Wednesday morning, about 40 people were unaccounted for, the county’s chief deputy sheriff, Eric Breeding, said at a news briefing. At 6 p.m., sheriff’s dispatcher Anita Smith said, “We’ve been able to locate some people, but we’re still trying to locate some.”
“Just because people can’t be reached doesn’t mean they’re missing,” she said. “We’re hoping a lot of them just left their homes and moved to higher ground.”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) declared a state of emergency to assist with response and recovery efforts. “We are deeply saddened to learn that another flood has impacted a community still recovering from last year’s flood,” Youngkin said in a statement. “In the wake of this devastation, I want Virginians in Buchanan County to know that we are making every resource available to help those impacted by this storm.”
“We have approximately 18 search-and-rescue organizations assisting,” Breeding said at the midday briefing. He added, “At this time, we have no confirmed fatalities.”
Lauren Opett, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, emphasized that the conditions in the area made it difficult to tally the unaccounted. “At this time we do not have a specific number of individuals that remain unaccounted due to difficulties accessing areas cutoff by flooding,” she said in an email. “There is no power, no landline service, and no cellphone service in the affected area which is also impacting the ability to reach residents.”
In Pilgrim’s Knob, Va., a Buchanan County community about 80 miles west of Blacksburg, a gauge registered 4.55 inches of rain. Much of that fell in just two hours, between 8 and 10 p.m. Tuesday. The torrents were triggered by a strong cold front draped over the Mid-Atlantic that also triggered violent thunderstorms in the Washington-Baltimore region Tuesday evening.
Gregory S. Schneider contributed to this report. | 2022-07-14T00:57:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Numerous people unaccounted for in flood in rural southwest Virginia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/13/residents-missing-flood-virginia-buchanan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/13/residents-missing-flood-virginia-buchanan/ |
After months of refusing to resign, the president fled the country with his wife on July 13. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in his capacity as acting president, imposed a state of emergency after protesters stormed some government buildings. Wickremesinghe, who only became prime minister in May after Rajapaksa’s brother Mahinda resigned, had offered days earlier to resign himself. In May the president had declared a public emergency for the second time in two months, giving him sweeping powers to suspend laws, detain people and seize property. A nationwide curfew was imposed and local media reported the army was called out in Colombo as some protests turned violent. | 2022-07-14T01:41:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Sri Lanka Landed in a Political and Economic Crisis and What It Means - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-sri-lanka-landed-in-a-political-and-economic-crisis-and-what-it-means/2022/07/13/c59ec688-030a-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-sri-lanka-landed-in-a-political-and-economic-crisis-and-what-it-means/2022/07/13/c59ec688-030a-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
FILE PHOTO: Celsius Network logo and representations of cryptocurrencies are seen in this illustration taken, June 13, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)
Embattled crypto lender Celsius Network on Wednesday night said it had filed for bankruptcy, dealing a further blow to depositors who’d spent the past month wondering if they would ever see their money again.
Joe Rotunda, the enforcement director at the Texas Securities Board that has been among the state regulators investigating Celsius, had said earlier Wednesday that bankruptcy filings “appear imminent.”
Shortly afterward, the company confirmed the news, saying that it had “filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.” The state is home to several of the company’s executives.
Celsius said it would “continue to operate,” noting it has “$167 million in cash on hand, which will provide ample liquidity to support certain operations during the restructuring process” but said that it “was not requesting authority to allow customer withdrawals at this time. Customer claims will be addressed through the Chapter 11 process,” it added.
The move jettisons hopes that a large number of depositors will be made whole — most retail investors are considered unsecured creditors in a bankruptcy and thus at low priority to be repaid.
An email sent to the company’s press account requesting comment was not returned Wednesday night but a separate request to the company’s public relations agency, C Street Advisory Group, brought a “no comment” response.
The company froze deposits on June 12, saying that “Due to extreme market conditions, today we are announcing that Celsius is pausing all withdrawals.” The “market conditions” alluded to falling cryptocurrency values as well as the crash of Terra, a company with a stablecoin and token that had swiftly lost nearly all its value over just a several-day span in May.
But Celsius also said that “We are taking this action today to put Celsius in a better position to honor, over time, its withdrawal obligations.”
A week later the company posted updates on its site intimating that an unfreezing and resumption of business was possible. “We want our community to know that our objective continues to be stabilizing our liquidity and operations. This process will take time,” it wrote on June 19.
Many of the depositors had hoped that a white knight could help Celsius get on surer footing. One depositor named Alan who spoke to The Post last month said that “At the moment I still believe Alex and the team at Celsius are figuring out ways to allow withdrawals at a certain point in time,” he said.
But as the weeks wore on a bailout and unfreezing appeared less likely. Skeptics redoubled their criticism of the company, including its decision to tie up a lot of its money in a potentially profitable but illiquid plan called “staking” currency as well as investment in a platform called BadgerDao that had suffered a major hack. They also noted the interdependency of the crypto world, with many borrowing from and lending to each other, increasing exposure in a crash.
Last week, a decentralized-finance player who had been among those managing deposits for Celsius, Jason Stone, sued the company, saying that Celsius not only took undue risks but manipulated markets. The suit alleged that executives “were, in fact, operating a Ponzi scheme.”
Mashinsky maintained Wednesday that the outlook for Celsius was bright. “I am confident that when we look back at the history of Celsius, we will see this as a defining moment, where acting with resolve and confidence served the community and strengthened the future of the company,” he said in the statement.
The company has repaid several hundred millions of dollars in loans to its own lenders in the past two weeks amid its bid to avoid bankruptcy, but has not made that gesture to its depositors.
In its statement it also quoted members of “the special committee of the board of directors” saying that the freeze was necessary to level the playing field.
“Without a pause, the acceleration of withdrawals would have allowed certain customers — those who were first to act — to be paid in full while leaving others behind to wait for Celsius to harvest value from illiquid or longer-term asset deployment activities.”
State regulators in Texas, Alabama, New Jersey and elsewhere have been working with Celsius lawyers over the past month investigating the company’s practices. Rotunda said in a message to The Post Wednesday night that “we will continue to work with attorneys for Celsius Network and we will welcome their cooperation in developing a solution for investors.”
But he added that “our investigation does not begin and end in negotiating with counsel” and that regulators would use “their investigative authority to independently develop evidence and other information relevant to the depository account scheme.”
He said his view of Celsius has not changed since they came across his and other regulators’ radars last year, prompting several states to issue cease and desist letters.
“I stand by our public allegations — that Celsius Network illegally offered the depository accounts and did not disclose important, material information such its assets and liabilities and the risks associated with the scheme,” he said. | 2022-07-14T02:46:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Celsius crypto firm files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/13/crypto-bankruptcy-celsius-depositors/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/13/crypto-bankruptcy-celsius-depositors/ |
Mark Fleischman, the former owner of the New York nightclub Studio 54, in 1981. (Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)
The death was confirmed by Dan Fitzgerald, a former business partner, who shared a text message from Mr. Fleischman’s wife, Mimi.
Mr. Fleischman announced his plans to die by suicide in an interview published last month in the New York Post. He had an undetermined degenerative condition that left him unable to walk or dress himself. He said he had attempted suicide two years ago, with an overdose of Xanax, but was revived at a hospital.
Because there are limits on assisted suicide in California, where Mr. Fleischman was living, he and his wife, Mimi, found a Swiss organization, Dignitas, that, after careful screening, assists terminally ill people seeking to end their lives.
“They want to be certain that I am making the decision for myself,” Mr. Fleischman told the New York Post. “After reading my material, they asked me some questions to make sure I was serious. I had to provide a notarized affidavit, stating that I want to die. I had to go to a psychiatrist and he confirmed that I am of sound mind.”
Early in his career, Mr. Fleischman owned and managed hotels in New York, Florida, Virginia and the Virgin Islands. He was in his late 30s when he joined the party scene at Studio 54, which opened in Manhattan in 1977 and became a prime hangout for celebrities.
The nightclub became notorious for is decadence, sexual encounters and open use of drugs, particularly cocaine and quaaludes. The nightclub’s two founders, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, became almost as famous as the rock stars, actors and models who indulged themselves at Studio 54 and danced the night away. The clientele included Elton John, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Liza Minnelli, Elizabeth Taylor, Freddie Mercury, Rod Stewart, John Travolta, Andy Warhol and cast members of “Saturday Night Live.”
“The key to a good party is filling a room with guests more interesting than you,” Rubell once said.
“It was a beautiful white horse that reminded me of mine,” she wrote in a 2015 letter to the Financial Times, explaining the incident, “and I made the foolish decision to get on it for a few minutes. … No doubt you will agree with me that it is one thing … on the spur of the moment, to get on a horse in a nightclub, but it is quite another to ride in on one.”
In February 1980, the first incarnation of Studio 54 came to an end after Rubell and Schrager were convicted of skimming money from the club and evading more than $700,000 in taxes. Both went to prison.
Mr. Fleischman arranged a jailhouse meeting with the two owners through lawyer Roy Cohn, who had been a key ally of the young Donald Trump. Mr. Fleischman ended up buying Studio 54 in a deal in which he sold an aging hotel to Rubell and Schrager.
Studio 54 reopened in 1981, with Mr. Fleischman as its new impresario.
“I was the ringleader for nearly four years and I became intoxicated with the scene,” he wrote in a 2017 memoir, “Inside Studio 54.” “Every night, celebrities and stunning women made their way through the crowd to sip champagne and share lines of cocaine with my golden straw or rolled up one-hundred-dollar bills.”
One employee’s job was to cut even lines of cocaine, as many as 40 at a time. To avoid the crowds, Michael Jackson would go to the DJ’s booth and dance alone. At 5 a.m., Mr. Fleischman had a cab arrive at the door to take Robin Williams, Christopher Reeve and other members of the “dawn patrol” to after-hours clubs for more partying.
Mr. Fleischman said he took Valium to fall asleep, then used cocaine to clear away the grogginess when he awoke in the afternoon.
In 1984, friends staged an intervention and helped Mr. Fleischman seek treatment for his addictions at the Betty Ford Center in California and later at a facility in Mexico. He sold Studio 54, and it closed for good in 1986.
When visiting Rubell in prison to arrange the purchase of Studio 54, Mr. Fleischman recalled to the New York Daily News in 2017, Rubell said, “The pressure of having to entertain people all day and all night every night was really getting to me. I’m glad that’s over with.’ I didn’t know what he meant. But after 3 1/2 years of owning Studio 54, I felt the same way.”
Mark H. Fleischman was born Feb. 1, 1940, in New York City and grew up in the Long Island community of Great Neck. His father owned hotels, and his mother was a homemaker.
He was 10 when his parents took him to New York’s Copacabana nightclub, “and it colored my world forever,” he wrote in his memoir.
Mr. Fleischman graduated from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration in 1962, then served in the Navy for two years, managing an officers’ club. He was in his 20s when — with a loan from his father — he bought his first hotel in Forest Hills, Queens, near the U.S. Open tennis venue. He later owned other hotels, restaurants and ski resorts.
After Studio 54, Mr. Fleischman opened Tatou, a New York music club and restaurant, then established other branches in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Tokyo and Aspen, Colo. From the 1990s to about 2007, he operated the Century Club, featuring hip-hop music, near Los Angeles.
“We’ll always have stars, we’ll always have stars’ friends,” Mr. Fleischman told the Las Vegas Review-Journal 2001. “I know how to take care of them. That’s how you keep a club hot and fresh.”
His marriage to Laurie Lister ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife since 1994, the former Mimi Leonard, of Marina del Rey, Calif.; a daughter from his first marriage; and two stepchildren.
In 2016, Mr. Fleischman said he noticed that his left leg was dragging as he walked, and his condition steadily grew worse. He said his father had the same malady and lost the use of his legs.
“Doctors originally thought he had a form of Parkinson’s,” Mimi Fleischman told the New York Post. “But it is not that. Nobody knows what he has.”
Mr. Fleischman said his wife would be at his side in Switzerland when he drank a solution that would put him to sleep, then lead to his death. | 2022-07-14T02:59:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mark Fleischman, Studio 54 owner dies by assisted suicide at 82 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/13/studio-54-mark-fleischman-suicide-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/13/studio-54-mark-fleischman-suicide-dies/ |
FILE - In this image taken with a fisheye lens, Michigan State center Derrick Nix (25) grabs a rebound in front of North Carolina forward John Henson (31), right, during the first half of the Carrier Classic NCAA college basketball game aboard the USS Carl Vinson, Friday, Nov. 11, 2011, in Coronado, Calif. They’re going to try to play college basketball on an aircraft carrier again, and Tom Izzo and the Michigan State Spartans will get a return trip to San Diego Bay to face Gonzaga on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on Nov. 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File) | 2022-07-14T03:12:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ahoy! Gonzaga, Michigan State to play on carrier deck - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/ahoy-gonzaga-michigan-state-to-play-on-carrier-deck/2022/07/13/090dc7a6-0316-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/ahoy-gonzaga-michigan-state-to-play-on-carrier-deck/2022/07/13/090dc7a6-0316-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
Dear Carolyn: My significant other and I (late 20s) are planning on moving in together this summer, after two-plus years as a couple. We are both very excited for this, except for one source of anxiety: I haven’t told my parents.
Yes, I know we are adults, and this is the right decision for us. This is also the norm for our generation, and maybe we’re even taking it slower than most. But let’s just say my mother STILL, after 30 years of marriage, insists on making it clear that, although she moved into Dad’s house three weeks before the wedding, he was traveling at the time, so they never lived together pre-marriage.
I know I just need to bite the bullet and tell them, and I’m probably making too much of this. But I think this is the first (major) thing I’m doing that they won’t 100 percent approve or be proud of. Let’s just say I’m a pretty stereotypical Oldest Child and Nerd, so there wasn’t a lot of teenage angst. Maybe it would have been a good idea to get practice before this …
Anxious: This feels like it’s coming out of the pipeline really terse and snippy, but here it is: Wow, you need to get over this image of yourself. Immediately. You are either a fully fledged human who is ready to build a shared life with a fellow adult, or you are still performing for your parents. One or the other. You can’t have both.
I actually think it will feel good to rip off the high-performing-child Band-Aid, but I might be misjudging your pain tolerance. Let me know.
Carolyn: I don’t think I’m doing any performing for my parents; I just meant there hasn’t been any friction before, because it didn’t exist. I haven’t been avoiding issues; there just haven’t been any.
We’ve had disagreements before (a recent one was about transgender people in sports), but I’ve been proud of maintaining our relationship even though we’re on pretty opposite sides of the political spectrum. I was able to get them to back off the anti-science ledge during the pandemic.
This is just the first time something we don’t agree on directly affects my everyday life vs. the lives of other hypothetical people. I’m doing this, no matter what. I was more looking for any advice on how to maintain that dialogue I’ve been working on since college.
— Anxious again
Anxious again: That it’s your life is exactly why it can’t be part of “that dialogue.”
I can totally see the value in learning political-coexistence strategies. But balancing your beliefs against friction potential is still a kind of parent-pleasing performance.
And transgender athletes and science aren’t hypothetical. And this is your life. Live it. Share it. As-is, without trying to finesse it or your parents.
If your parents react to your news without finesse? Then give them a quick, calm, “I’m sorry to hear you feel that way,” and don’t engage in anything from them that qualifies as judging, meddling, guilt-tripping or hypocrisy. On anything. Just be utterly unmoved by their (or anyone’s) unsupportable opinions, and keep doing your thing. That’s how to maintain you, which, in turn, is how to maintain anything real with them.
· When your parents married was 1991, not the Dark Ages. Let me promise you: People were having sex and cohabitating all. the. time. back then, and it wasn’t a big deal for most of us. So that is a cultural norm your parents would have been well aware of. Regardless of her own choices, your mom cannot possibly be surprised at your “revelation.” | 2022-07-14T04:35:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Hiding plans to cohabitate from parents who don't approve - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/14/carolyn-hax-hiding-moving-in-plans-parents/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/14/carolyn-hax-hiding-moving-in-plans-parents/ |
Imagine my surprise when the doorbell rang at 4 p.m. and there was the couple — plate of cookies in hand — cheerfully stating they were there for dinner.
I stammered out something to the effect of, “I didn't know you were coming, since I never heard from you.” They agreed they should have let me know, gave me the plate of cookies (which were delicious) and left with the promise of another invitation in the near future.
People make mistakes, which is why the apology was invented. Apologies also ease the situation even when you have not done anything wrong — eating your dinner early, for example, because the food was hot and you were not expecting company.
Etiquette does not want your friends to be kept waiting, but is indifferent as to how this is accomplished. | 2022-07-14T04:35:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: They never confirmed yet still showed up for dinner - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/14/miss-manners-invite-dinner-couple/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/14/miss-manners-invite-dinner-couple/ |
FILE - Director Roman Polanski appears at an international film festival, where he promoted his film, “Based on a True Story,” in Krakow, Poland on May 2, 2018. A California appeals court on Wednesday, July 13, 2022, ordered the unsealing of some documents in the criminal case against Polanski, who’s been a fugitive since pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl decades ago. (AP Photo/File) (Uncredited/AP) | 2022-07-14T04:43:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Court documents in Polanski criminal case ordered released - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/court-documents-in-polanski-criminal-case-ordered-released/2022/07/14/94eca640-032d-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/court-documents-in-polanski-criminal-case-ordered-released/2022/07/14/94eca640-032d-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
The U.S. is pushing leaders around the world to buy oil from Russia only at heavily discounted prices. Obstacles loom.
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen meets with Japanese economic officials on Tuesday in Tokyo. Yellen is pushing U.S. allies to agree to a global price cap on purchases of Russian oil. (Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg News)
TOKYO — Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen was feted by Japan’s leaders after arriving here on Sunday, lunching with the country’s top economists, meeting with senior executives from Sony and Panasonic and lighting incense at the wake of former prime minister Shinzo Abe.
But beneath the public bonhomie, Yellen’s hosts quietly expressed concerns about potential fallout from her push to create a new global price cap on Russian oil. Japanese officials have communicated that they are worried that Russia could retaliate to the price cap by restricting natural gas exports to Japan, a senior Treasury official said, damaging the country’s economy at an already precarious moment.
Yellen tried assuring the Japanese the United States will help meet its energy needs. But she still must persuade many international colleagues that her plan to diminish Russia’s massive revenue from energy sales won’t destabilize the global economy. After visiting Japan, Yellen flew on Wednesday to Indonesia for meetings of finance ministers from the Group of 20 industrialized nations, where she will attempt to rally a much broader swath of countries to pledge to buy Russian oil only at a discount rate.
If successful, her campaign could deliver a major blow to Russia’s war effort and help prevent the United States and the rest of the world from plunging into economic recession. If not, the West could continue sending billions to Russia or face skyrocketing energy prices that trigger a global recession. Soaring energy prices this year have already hammered economies in the United States and elsewhere, contributing heavily to a new 40-year high that U.S. inflation reached in June.
Yellen thinks she has a solution. “We’ve had two motivations: to deprive Russia of revenue to the maximum extent possible to impair their ability to wage war against Ukraine, and to shield the global economy from the adverse impacts of the war,” Yellen told The Washington Post on Wednesday in an interview while traveling between Japan and Indonesia.
Russia’s tax revenue 'will increase significantly to more than $180 billion'
This story is based on interviews with more than a dozen people, several of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of private diplomatic conversations. They include U.S. and European government officials and other domestic and international experts briefed on the Treasury Department’s lobbying blitz for the price cap.
The campaign began with a private dinner in April attended by the world’s most powerful economic leaders, overcame initial unease from other parts of the Biden administration, and now is turning to focus on international leaders beyond America’s closest allies.
Yellen’s high-stakes standoff with Moscow could have enormous consequences — for the war effort, for the U.S. and global economies, and, potentially, for the personal legacy of America’s first female treasury secretary.
Already, Putin has stoked fears he could respond to the price cap by slashing energy exports. International competitors such as India and China could step in and buy Russian oil above the price cap, depleting the West’s energy supply even as Russia continues to make money. And, at least for now, major questions remain unsettled about how the price cap would be implemented.
Untangling these diplomatic knots will fall to Yellen. Stymied in many of her top priorities both domestically and internationally, the treasury secretary has been absorbed in rallying the world to her proposal. That has made the bookish former chair of the Federal Reserve an unlikely commander in the West’s economic war — a macroeconomist marshaling forces on the financial battlefield.
“If it succeeds, if it even partly succeeds, and you manage to eat at Russia’s revenue — that’s a huge deal,” said Daniel Fried, who served on the National Security Council under prior administrations and is now at the Atlantic Council, a D.C.-based think tank. “There are enormous, enormous risks. But there’s a lot to be gained, if you can manage it.”
Yellen’s pitch began in April
On the night of April 21, as the West weighed its next move to counter Russia’s war in Ukraine, Yellen gathered some the world’s most powerful financial leaders together for a private dinner in Washington.
As they began to work toward a sixth sanctions package this spring, European officials discussed targeting the insurance firms that underwrite tankers hauling Russian oil — the vast majority of which are British or in the European Union. Stripping insurance from ships carrying Russian oil would prevent them from accessing some international waterways, while also undercutting the financing necessary for transporting the oil.
But in internal analyses, Treasury staff found such a move could cause the price of oil to soar past $150 per barrel and keep rising, two people familiar with the matter said. (It recently peaked around $120 a barrel but has since fallen closer to $100.) Worst-case scenarios suggested price shocks could be even higher. A senior Treasury official said estimates showed roughly 3 to 5 million barrels a day of Russian oil could be closed off from global energy markets. The United States could face a 1970s-style oil shock, and what had started as a limited energy crunch could drag down the world economy. Up to that point, Yellen had been publicly confident that the war wouldn’t pull the United States into recession. But if Europe went through with the ban on insurance firms, that calculus could change.
Treasury officials had already begun discussing the idea of a price cap when the Europeans started pushing their insurance ban. Treasury aides realized that the insurance ban could be an ideal mechanism for implementing the price cap proposal, giving them a vital chokepoint in the Russian oil supply chain. “There was always the question of: ‘How do you implement the price cap?,” Yellen told The Post. “This was a great enforcement mechanism.”
Yellen made her first major pitch to the economic leaders of the Group of Seven allies when they gathered over short ribs in the Treasury Department’s second-floor dining room, which overlooks the White House. Simply cutting off exports of Russian oil to the West could backfire, Yellen warned. Rather than deprive the Russian war machine of revenue, that move could drive up the price of oil — meaning Moscow would make even more money than it did before. The sanctions also risked devastating Western economies by starving them of energy, Yellen cautioned, creating a domestic political backlash that could undermine support for the war.
When Yellen pitched the price cap instead, some finance ministers had immediate questions about how it could work. But Yellen maintained that this plan could allow the West to solve a vexing financial and diplomatic puzzle, allowing Russian oil to flow while also reducing the Kremlin’s single biggest source of revenue. The ministers began to talk.
Yellen dispatched top aides for a global campaign
Yellen’s plan faced skepticism both at home and abroad. State Department and Energy Department officials were initially lukewarm to it, according to two people briefed on internal administration deliberations. Energy aides were concerned about the potential for Russian oil to go outside official channels, which would make it harder to track, the people said. (An Energy official said in a statement that the department “carefully reviews every policy that we generate or that we are asked to analyze by other parts of the government” but that it is “fully supportive” of the effort. State Department officials have also now joined the diplomatic push for the cap.)
Some European officials also initially chafed at the idea. Germany was already struggling to persuade E.U. allies to back the phased-in oil embargo. The price cap was first seen as a potential distraction from that effort. (Treasury officials have defended the cap as a way to augment, rather than replace, the oil ban, trying to not dictate the Europeans’ decisions.)
Three of Yellen’s top aides — Wally Adeyemo, the deputy treasury secretary; Elizabeth Rosenberg, assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes; and Ben Harris, assistant director for economic policy — were dispatched to lead the effort internationally. They flew to Brussels and met with top European officials, addressing questions and concerns posed by the Germans, French, British and others in the G-7. The European Commission played a key role in winning over allies.
Sometimes, Treasury negotiators found that different branches of the same country’s government would have different views of the plan. When Rosenberg and Harris reached an impasse, or if a government appeared uneasy about the idea, Yellen would make a call to a top-level official to keep negotiations moving. After months of back-and-forth, the G-7 endorsed the idea in principle in June. Although it remains unclear how committed the European powers are to, in fact, executing the plan, the endorsement was a major breakthrough for Yellen, with Biden also helping sell the plan.
“This is where Yellen is at her best: The economic officials in the rest of the world know her and respect her,” said David Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center at the Brookings Institution, a D.C.-based think tank. “It’s made a difference.”
But Treasury officials likely faces a steeper climb selling the price cap to countries in the G-20, a group that technically still counts Russia as a member. Of particular concern is whether China, India, Turkey and other nations will simply refuse to join the United States and instead purchase as much Russian oil as possible, enriching Putin while cutting off Europe’s energy supply. India, for instance, has substantially stepped up its purchases of Russian oil since the war began.
Yellen personally pitched the idea to officials in the Chinese and Indian governments, who were noncommittal, according to a Treasury official familiar with the matter. A senior Treasury official projected that only 20 percent of Russian oil sales — or, at most, 40 percent — might evade the cap.
“My national interest tells me I should buy it where it is cheaper,” India’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, told the Wall Street Journal last month.
After Japanese officials floated setting the oil cap price at half the current rate, Putin warned of “catastrophic consequences” for global energy markets. If Russia’s costs for producing the oil exceeds what it can earn under a low price cap, Moscow could close wells and curtail production. That could feed into much higher oil prices at a time when the Biden administration already faces enormous political challenges from expensive gas.
“This thing could go horribly wrong,” McNally said. “Let’s say Putin decides to have an endurance contest with the West. Who can survive $6 gas longer?”
A senior Treasury official acknowledged that predicting Putin’s next move would prove difficult and said cutting off natural gas in particular “is clearly in his playbook.” Yellen has emphasized the price cap will be set above Russia’s cost of production and that it would not be “logical” for Russia to stop selling at discounted rates.
Yellen said Treasury had not talked to Russian officials about their potential reaction and was not considering doing so. U.S. officials aren’t planning to meet with their counterparts from Moscow in meetings in Bali this week. But not every country at the conference will avoid Russia’s emissaries. | 2022-07-14T04:45:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Janet Yellen’s global campaign to defund Vladimir Putin's war - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/07/14/yellen-putin-oil-price-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/07/14/yellen-putin-oil-price-russia/ |
Kerry Donley, former Alexandria mayor, dies at 66
Mayoral candidate Kerry Donley, assisted by grandson Mason, 5, votes at James Polk Elementary School during primary election day in Alexandria, Va., on June 9, 2015. (Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post)
Kerry J. Donley, a banker and Alexandria civic leader who spent six years as mayor of the Northern Virginia city, serving as a forceful political character and a steadfast voice for economic development, died at his home on July 13. He was 66.
A nearly lifelong resident of Alexandria, Donley was just as well known for his work inside City Hall — steering the suburb through the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and the period of economic uncertainty that followed — as he was for his volunteering and civic activism outside it.
Hours before his death on Wednesday, he had been delivering Meals on Wheels to needy residents and attending a board meeting for the Center for Alexandria’s Children, a public-private partnership that seeks to fight child abuse.
“So much of our progress is built on the transformational work that Kerry led,” tweeted Alexandria Mayor Justin M. Wilson (D). “More importantly, he was a friend and I will miss him.
As a city councilman from 1988 to 1996 and then as mayor, Donley was an emphatic voice for growth, pushing for the reconstruction of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and persuading the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to relocate its headquarters to Alexandria from Crystal City.
“When you’re in local government and you build a school or library, every day you drive by and see kids going to school or people using the library, you know you’re having a direct impact on people’s lives,” he said in a biography for the Living Legends of Alexandria, a nonprofit organization that honors local civic leaders, including Donley in 2017.
A devoted family man and decades-long resident of the city’s West End, Donley joked that his five daughters gave him the robust network needed to build a political base across the city’s neighborhoods. After his two terms as mayor, he chaired the Democratic Party of Virginia for two years during Democrat Mark R. Warner’s term as governor.
For Party Job, Warner Picks Former Alexandria Mayor
Donley returned to the Alexandria City Council in 2009, serving one term as vice mayor before retiring from local politics.
Three years later in 2015, he made the surprise announcement to challenge sitting mayor Bill Euille (D). When both men lost the Democratic primary to Alison Silberberg, who took more of a “slow-growth” approach, Donley endorsed Euille’s write-in campaign during the general election. Silberberg won.
“Kerry was very hard-charging, always,” Wilson said late Wednesday. “He knew where we needed to go and knew how to get there.” | 2022-07-14T05:27:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kerry Donley, former Alexandria mayor, dies at 66 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/14/kerry-donley-alexandria-mayor-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/14/kerry-donley-alexandria-mayor-dies/ |
People sell items from the trunks of their cars at a market in Shenyang, in China's northeastern Liaoning province. The country's economy is slowing due to the impact of coronavirus lockdowns. (Str/AFP/Getty Images)
FUZHOU, China — China is set to report a grim second-quarter economic performance on Friday, adding to concerns about the prospect of a global recession, after coronavirus lockdowns in major cities hobbled trade and daily life.
The world’s second-largest economy may have contracted in the three months ending in June, experts say, though Beijing is likely to report modest growth.
“The government will not acknowledge a contraction,” said Max Zenglein, chief economist at the Mercator Institute for China Studies. He added, “The further growth is from zero, the less credible the official figure will be.”
The sharp slowdown is a painful setback for China, which last year was leading the pack of major economies in its rebound from the pandemic. Since then, countries like the United States have largely reopened. But Beijing’s leaders have doubled down on their “zero covid” approach of stamping out every outbreak through draconian measures, arguing too many will die if China were to lift restrictions and reopen.
This strategy has become increasingly controversial and economically damaging. The arrival of more infectious variants this year has meant longer and more severe lockdowns are needed to bring outbreaks to heel. The two-month lockdown of China’s most populous city, Shanghai, was particularly devastating.
Last week, China’s Premier Li Keqiang visited the coastal city of Fuzhou to meet with officials from across the southeastern industrial belt about how to stabilize the economy. According to the official Xinhua News Agency, Li said the situation was at a critical point and urged officials to steer the economy “back on track.”
Photographs in state media showed Li in meetings in Fuzhou where no one was wearing a mask, one of several maskless publicity appearances he has made recently. These have been interpreted by some as a show of support by Li toward a faster return to normalcy, even as his boss, China’s leader Xi Jinping, has declared the nation’s continued commitment to “zero covid.”
The repeated lockdowns have laid low the economy over recent months, leaving many people unemployed and underemployed, especially in service industries. The jobless rate of people aged 16 to 24 in cities reached 18.4 percent in May, the highest since Beijing started to publish the measure in 2018.
In April, not a single automobile was sold in Shanghai, with the city’s 25 million residents confined to their homes.
“The Chinese economy is in a very bad shape now,” said Tianlei Huang, research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “Consumer demand is very weak.”
Huang said he expects China to miss its target of 5.5 percent economic growth for the full year, due to the severity of the lockdowns. Around 4 percent will be more realistic, he said.
“Even in the most optimistic scenario, China will not be able to achieve its growth target for the full year,” he said.
The bleak picture is a far cry from a little over decade ago, when China was routinely posting growth close to or exceeding 10 percent.
The lockdowns have interrupted factory production, snarling supply chains and delaying shipment of goods to the rest of the world. These supply problems have been a major driver of U.S. inflation, which has soared to 9.1 percent. Consumer prices in China are only up 2.5 percent because of depressed demand.
Shanghai began to reopen at the beginning of June, but the arrival of the BA.5 coronavirus variant is now threatening new lockdowns. The northwestern city of Lanzhou has put four of its districts under a seven-day lockdown. Shanghai returned some housing complexes to lockdown, while ordering millions of people to be tested again.
“The Chinese economy in the second half of 2022 still faces the uncertainty of periodic lockdowns in response to new covid breakouts,” said Shang-Jin Wei, a finance professor at Columbia University. “If a recession breaks out in the U.S. or Europe, it will add further difficulty to the Chinese growth.”
Huang said foreign investors have been “voting with their feet” by shifting production to other countries because of the economic uncertainty. “The recent very negative outlook of the foreign business community is probably not just some noise in the short term but may have some longer-term implications,” he said.
Meanwhile, there are signs of distress in China’s housing market. An increasing number of home buyers are refusing to pay mortgages on unfinished projects, Bloomberg News reported this week, citing financial researchers, a worrying sign for banks and for the ruling Communist Party ahead of crucial leadership meetings in the fall.
China only acknowledged its economy contracting in the first quarter of 2020, as it began battling the coronavirus. Since then, the country’s statisticians have reported growth each quarter.
Independent economists take China’s official data as a general gauge, though the precision of the figures is widely distrusted. Li, the premier, once called China’s figures “man-made,” and “for reference only,” in a private meeting, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. | 2022-07-14T05:31:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | China GDP to reveal bleak growth after covid lockdowns - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/14/china-gdp-economy-covid-lockdown/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/14/china-gdp-economy-covid-lockdown/ |
Anti-government protesters swarm the Sri Lankan prime minister’s office in Colombo on July 13. (AFP/Getty Images)
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Late-night clashes near Sri Lanka’s Parliament between protesters and security forces following President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s flight from the country threatened to pull the island nation deeper into a political abyss, risking further delay to a much-needed International Monetary Fund bailout package.
Hours after a national curfew lifted early Thursday, there was an uneasy calm on the streets of Colombo, the capital. The military barricaded the road leading to Parliament, one of the few political landmarks that protesters have not managed to seize.
Rajapaksa, who had said he would resign Wednesday but let the deadline lapse, flew to the Maldives to escape public fury over an economy in free fall. The appointment of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as acting president further incensed demonstrators, who stormed his office after a confrontation with security forces. Later, protesters and security clashed near Parliament, and opposition leaders called on Wickremesinghe to resign as prime minister.
Rajapaksa’s departure without resigning has intensified chaos on the streets and among the political class. Many were happy that their longtime demand of ridding the country of Rajapaksa’s presence had been met, but the loss of public faith in the country’s political leaders has left officials shaken.
Sri Lanka’s top uniformed official, Gen. Shavendra Silva Sr., asked the public during a Wednesday night news conference to maintain order. He was flanked by the chiefs of the army, navy and air force.
“We call on all the people and the youth to be peaceful during this period until a new president is appointed,” he said.
Wickremesinghe rebuked the protesters who captured his office for trying to hinder the process of selecting a new president.
“Some of these people have said they don’t care for the constitution or the law or even the Parliament,” he said Wednesday at a news briefing. “You can’t just tear up the constitution like that.”
Julie Chung, the U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka, called for calm and a peaceful transfer of power.
“We urge all parties to approach this juncture with a commitment to the betterment of the nation & to work quickly to implement solutions that will bring long-term economic & political stability,” she tweeted.
Rajapaksa’s future also hangs in the balance. He is looking for passage out of the Maldives, most likely to Singapore, according to a former minister in the Rajapaksa government, who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.
Experts say an agreement with the IMF, which is essential for economic recovery, can only be formalized when there is stable political leadership.
Ongoing negotiations with the IMF have been disrupted by the recent turmoil, concerning Sri Lanka’s international creditors.
Manjuka Fernandopulle, a lawyer specializing in debt restructuring, said bondholders are “looking for a partner that believes in continuity, has credibility, legitimacy and confidence reposed in them by the people.” | 2022-07-14T05:44:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sri Lanka lifts curfew, as President Rajapaksa fails to resign - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/14/sri-lanka-protests-president-rajapaksa-resign/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/14/sri-lanka-protests-president-rajapaksa-resign/ |
There’s no escaping inflation. I woke up this morning in a hotel in Mexico City, and watched the sun rise above the vast cityscape and the mountains beyond. But that was only for a few seconds before I turned on my Bloomberg, and discovered that US consumer price inflation over the last 12 months had topped 9%. I talked about it in real time on Twitter Spaces with my colleague Jonathan Levin and Kathryn Rooney Vera in a conversation you can find here.
What is most surreal is to discover that inflation is actually lower here in Mexico than it is north of the border. This is not at all a usual situation:
The more you look at the data, the worse they appear. A year ago, “Team Transitory” was citing a number of different inflation measures that suggested price pressures were still under control. These metrics now look terrifying. To start, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland measures a “trimmed mean,” in which the biggest outliers in either direction are discarded and an average is taken of the rest. It’s now the highest since the series started in 1984:
The Atlanta Fed publishes indexes dividing inflation into “flexible” prices that can be moved quickly and with little cost, and “sticky” prices that are expensive to implement and require long-term planning. At first, this inflation shock was unambiguously driven by flexible prices, which have suffered the fastest rise on record. But now, sticky prices are beginning to pick up, and sticky inflation is the highest in three decades:
Digging into more detail, if we look at the annualized rate over three months, we see that sticky prices have taken off this spring. Inflation is now running at an annualized rate of almost 8%, the highest in four decades. It looks as though the impact of the transitory shock is now finding its way through into more prices in the economy — which is exactly what the Fed does not want to see:
One more number from the entrails of the report is concerning. Rental inflation tends to show up with a lag, because the index looks at all rental leases in force, rather than only those signed in the last month. It was predictable that it would rise, and now it is at its highest in 36 years. As shelter accounts for a third of the total consumer price index, this is a serious problem — and it’s hard to see how it can be combated other than by tighter monetary policy:
So, in sum, first impressions were accurate. The inflation numbers looked bad initially, and look even worse on closer examination. There’s more or less nothing good about this latest report.
This shifts expectations for the Fed. Since the last meeting, the decision for the central bank’s governors when they meet at the end of July had been perceived to be a choice between hiking by 50 basis points or by 75 basis points. Now, at least 75 basis points is priced in as a certainty, while the chances of a blockbuster 100 basis-points hike are now put at about one in three:
This matters a lot, obviously, and the Fed will need to balance the desire to shock the market out of any new inflationary habits against the risk of being perceived to have lost control if it raises that much.
In the longer term, however, that’s a side issue. Using the Bloomberg WIRP (World Interest Rate Probabilities) function for deriving predicted fed funds rates after each Federal Open Market Committee meeting between now and January 2024, we can construct its expected path over time. The latest news has lifted the expected peak to a new high, projected to come in February next year, but it’s still well below 4%. After that, the market continues to expect drastic cuts through the rest of next year. The entire curve is higher than it was on July 1, when growth fears were stronger. But by comparison with June 24, still not that long ago, it’s noticeable that the peak is barely any higher, and that the market at that point did not expect such a dramatic cutting campaign next year. The shift to a belief in a rapid exit from tight monetary policy is intact:
The reason for this, dolefully, is because a recession is seen as ever more of a working certainty. The reaction in many financial markets to these awful data was surprisingly muted. Stocks didn’t move all that much, and neither did bonds. What moved spectacularly, however, was the yield curve — the gap between the yields paid by two-year and 10-year bonds. Classically, a 10-year bond should yield more than a two-year, to compensate for the extra risk of investing further into the future. An inverted curve, in which the two-year yield is higher, signals a recession, in that the expectation is that rates will have to rise in the near term, and then fall. Unfortunately, the yield curve is now more inverted than it has been since 2000. Market confidence that a recession is our destiny now appears to be overwhelming:
To add spice to this, the three-month/10-year yield curve is less closely watched but tends to be an even better recession indicator, only inverting close to a recession. This measure had shown little recessionary anxiety for more of this cycle, and carried on widening into early May. That has now changed:
Put all this together, and there is growing certainty that the Fed will have to go through with hiking rates until they destroy demand, at which point the central bank will have to start stimulating again quickly. Inflation breakevens, which predict inflation over the next five and 10 years, and for the five years starting five years hence, are now lower than they were a year ago. This apparent positive message isn’t because markets are now convinced that inflation forces are transitory and will soon moderate. It’s because they’re convinced that inflation is so obdurate that the Fed will have no choice but to cure the problem with higher rates:
Am I being unduly negative? Perhaps. For a more positive take, read the piece written by Bloomberg News’ editor-in-chief emeritus, Matthew Winkler, headlined Inflation Alarm Bells Are Actually Getting Softer. In addition to some of the bond market measures I’ve just cited, he also points to the recent collapse in the price of many commodities, and to continuing moderation in surveys of consumers’ expectations. His conclusion:
The bottom line: Investors are pretty sure that inflation is less of a threat today than it was two years ago.
There is an important sense in which he is right, and another in which it’s important to add that this is driven by a) expectations of big rate hikes, and b) expectations of a recession in their wake that will then bring down inflation and growth. I wouldn’t personally say that investors don’t think inflation is anything to worry about, in a vacuum. Rather, they now have such confidence in tighter monetary policy, and such confidence that higher rates will cause the economy to buckle, that they expect inflation to be lower in the medium term.
We can see the logic unfolding ahead of us, but we still have to go through each step, one at a time. First, the Fed has to carry through with raising rates, and then we have to see the effects on the economy and prices. Recessions happen from time to time. It’s more or less a given that rates will rise for a while, and that then they will start to fall again. What is crucial is the timing, and that’s difficult. If inflation keeps surprising on the upside like it did for last month, then the rates will have to rise higher than the market now expects, and the subsequent campaign of cuts will have to be delayed. The issue of exactly how many months it takes to bring inflation to a turning point is now critical.
It’s true, in line with the Winkler argument, that there’s still a lot of confidence that rates will peak early next year and have to come down swiftly thereafter. I’m concerned that there’s too much confidence about this, particularly in the light of the latest CPI numbers.
But to end positively, note that it is the nature of things for inflationary peaks to be over swiftly and followed by sharp declines. History, going back more than a century, shows that inflation never stays as high as it is now for more than a matter of months (outside of wars and the 1970s stagflation):
The end is in sight. But much rests on exactly when inflation reduces enough for the Fed to relent.
OK, I’d recommend a trip to Mexico, starting with its capital city. Yes, the country has myriad economic problems, which I’m in the process of documenting, and much of it has suffered a terrifying breakdown in order. But there’s still something intoxicating about the vast sprawl of Mexico City. Many find it intimidating, but they shouldn’t. And it’s susceptible to change.
The notorious pollution is now more or less under control. It’s certainly far superior to when I was living here 20 years ago. The city’s massive fleet of Volkswagen Beetle taxicabs has disappeared. In its place, you can now find yourself in one of the many Chinese-made electric taxis. They work beautifully. There is public art everywhere, and the Paseo de la Reforma, the main thoroughfare, is now closed to traffic every Sunday morning to allow chilangos to go cycling in their thousands. And then there’s the food, which is very, very good. Starbucks arrived in Mexico 20 years ago and is now as ubiquitous as it has ever been in the US. If you can’t make it to the Valley of Mexico, you can duplicate the experience at home with the aid of cook books from the inimitable Diana Kennedy, the British cookery writer, now 99, who has won the Order of the Aztec Eagle for her tireless work colleting traditional Mexican recipes. So much better than Tex-Mex. Her classic is probably The Art of Mexican Cooking.
• Omicron BA.5 Is Worrisome But Not the Very Worst: Faye Flam | 2022-07-14T06:15:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hurtling Toward Double Digits — What Happens Now? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/hurtling-toward-double-digits-what-happens-now/2022/07/14/54c4a828-0333-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/hurtling-toward-double-digits-what-happens-now/2022/07/14/54c4a828-0333-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
As the war rages on, a new report finds that YouTube and Twitter are ignoring requests to take down hate and disinformation targeting Ukrainians
By Will Oremus
Russian disinformation and hate speech against Ukraine are propagating across Europe. (Vladimir Astapkovich/Sputnik Pool/AP)
In the frantic first weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. tech companies that control the world’s largest information hubs sprang into action. Responding to pressure from Western governments, social media apps like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube banned or throttled Russian state media accounts, beefed up their fact-checking operations, curtailed ad sales in Russia and opened direct lines to Ukrainian officials, inviting them to flag Russian disinformation and propaganda to be taken down.
“When it was the first months of full-scale Russian aggression, [the U.S. tech companies] were very proactive, very interested to help,” said Mykola Balaban, deputy head of Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, a government agency. “Now they are avoiding to make a call with us.”
While some platforms, including Meta’s Facebook and Microsoft’s LinkedIn, have continued to correspond regularly with Balaban’s agency, he said Google-owned YouTube hasn’t returned its emails for almost two months.
Frustrated with the radio silence, Ukraine partnered in late April with independent researchers at the Disinformation Situation Center, a Europe-based coalition spanning multiple nonprofit organizations, to analyze the effectiveness of the platforms’ moderation efforts. The findings, provided to The Post ahead of their publication Thursday, appear to bear out at least some of Balaban’s concerns.
Computer programmers are taking aim at Russia’s propaganda wall
As Russian efforts shift from state media megaphones to individual influencers and “troll armies” coordinated via the messaging app Telegram, Ukrainian authorities and their nonprofit partners have been tracking and flagging posts that use derogatory or dehumanizing terms for Ukrainians as a way of justifying the war.
The report finds that upward of 70 percent of posts flagged as anti-Ukrainian hate speech on YouTube and Twitter remained available as of late June, while more than 90 percent of the accounts responsible for such posts remained active. Posts included slurs that blend the Russian words for “Ukrainian” and “baboon”; a tweet that translates to “Death to Bandera supporters, take no prisoners!,” a reference to the late Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera intended to link Ukraine to Nazi Germany; and a YouTube comment in Russian that translates to, “Ukraine will be wiped off the face of the Earth, hurray!”
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter all have policies against glorifying Russia’s invasion or attacking Ukrainians based on their nationality, though they noted that it usually takes more than a single violation for the offending account to be suspended. Both YouTube and Twitter said they took action on some accounts after The Post brought them to the companies’ attention on Wednesday.
YouTube spokeswoman Ivy Choi did not directly address the company’s responsiveness to Ukraine’s takedown requests, but she said the company has “stayed in regular contact with the Ukrainian government” and has removed more than 70,000 videos and 9,000 channels for violating its policies since the war began.
Twitter spokeswoman Elizabeth Busby also didn’t directly address Ukrainian officials’ concerns, but said the company continues to work with outside organizations and monitors for policy violations. Busby added that Twitter’s policies go beyond a “leave up” vs. “take down” binary, including efforts to elevate credible information about the war and avoid recommending state media accounts or posts that may be misleading.
Blacklisted by the U.S., pro-Russia accounts have still been posting propaganda on Twitter and YouTube
On the positive side, the researchers found that Facebook had removed all 98 of the posts the Ukrainian government and its partners flagged as containing anti-Ukrainian hate speech, though many of the accounts responsible remained active. (Facebook spokeswoman Erin McPike noted that the company’s policies generally don’t include a ban for first-time offenders, but do include escalating consequences for repeat offenders.) Facebook and its sister platform Instagram also appeared to be generally responsive to requests to take down accounts impersonating Ukrainian officials and advertisements spreading Kremlin talking points, though the researchers said they would prefer to see the platforms take a more proactive approach.
“I don’t think it’s bad will on the part of the tech companies,” said Felix Kartte, senior adviser for the global nonprofit advocacy group Reset Tech, which focuses on accountability for social media platforms, and a co-author of the report. “It’s really just lack of resources, lack of investment, lack of preparedness,” and a shortage of staff with Russian and Ukrainian language skills and local expertise.
The criticism isn’t novel. While the largest U.S. social media platforms have expanded their efforts to police their platforms globally in recent years, researchers and whistleblowers have consistently pointed out that they devote fewer resources and have less expertise in non-English-speaking regions. Companies including Facebook and Google have also been criticized since long before the latest Russian invasion for paying too little heed to Kremlin-backed disinformation campaigns in Ukraine, including operations as early as 2014 that foreshadowed Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
But when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in late February, Ukraine suddenly had the world’s attention, including that of the tech companies. Under pressure from governments, the public and in some cases their own employees, tech firms rewrote their rule books to tackle Russian propaganda and protect Ukrainians online. Most notably, they blocked and downranked Russia’s state media outlets, such as Russia Today, which had amassed huge global followings on various online platforms.
Social platforms’ bans muffle Russian state media propaganda
Researchers and Ukrainian officials who spoke to The Post for this story agreed that has dented the Kremlin’s capacity to spread false narratives about the war. In retribution, the Russian government blocked Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter within its borders, though YouTube remains available.
But the tech giants’ attention has flagged over time, Ukrainian officials and researchers say, as headlines and public outrage in the United States and Western Europe have shifted from Russian aggression to domestic issues such as inflation, gas prices and, in Europe, the influx of Ukrainian refugees.
For instance, Balaban said he has seen signs of Russian influence in a spate of recent posts that seek to mislead Ukrainians about the safety of fleeing the country or sow division around the country’s military draft.
“This psychological game is very similar in methodology to 2014 or 2016,” Balaban said. “To find some problems in society, some cracks in society to exploit and create on that basis a conflict.”
Analysis: Social media wasn’t ready for this war. It needs a plan for the next one.
“The Russian disinformation war is a real invasion of our digital space,” Breton said in a statement to The Post. “The examples in the report show once again that big online platforms have taken insufficient measures to protect their users against this invasion. This has real life consequences across the whole world.”
Ukrainians aren’t the only audience for Russian propaganda, said Pia Lamberty, co-CEO of CeMAS, a German think tank that tracks online conspiracy theories and extremism. Pro-Russian influencers are also spreading disinformation and war denialism in Western Europe, aimed at undermining public support for costly measures such as sanctions on Russian oil or military support for Ukraine.
In Germany, they’re tapping into a small but growing segment of the population that has embraced right-wing politics and conspiracy theories about everything from the war in Ukraine to coronavirus vaccines, Lamberty said.
“Disinformation is not only successful if people believe what you say, but when they get undecided. Somebody who’s undecided, whether Ukraine is the victim of Russian aggression, or whether Russia had maybe a reason because [the Ukrainians] are maybe fascist, will be less supportive of Ukraine,” she said.
While tech firms responding to takedown requests is important, Lamberty added, what’s needed most is a more proactive, systematic approach to monitoring Russian propaganda networks across platforms. “As soon as you need a fact check, you’re already too late,” she said. | 2022-07-14T07:42:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ukraine struggles for Big Tech's attention as Russian propaganda evolves - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/14/ukraine-takedown-requests-russia-propaganda/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/14/ukraine-takedown-requests-russia-propaganda/ |
Bill Gates announced July 13 that he will donate $20 billion to his foundation so it can increase its annual spending on the fight against preventing future pandemics, reducing child deaths, and curbing climate change, among other causes. (Markus Schreiber/AP).
Gates said there have been several recent “huge global setbacks,” including the coronavirus pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and severe political division in the United States.
“The great crises of our time require all of us to do more,” he wrote in a lengthy blog post published Wednesday. Gates is the fourth richest person in the world, with a net worth of $113 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. French Gates is worth $10.3 billion, Bloomberg estimates.
The Gates Foundation is focused on developing drugs that can block respiratory infections, as well as widening the delivery of vaccine shots. Gates also said he was confident polio could be completely eradicated within four years. Smallpox, which global health officials declared eliminated in 1980, is the only disease to have been wholly erased.
The new resources will also support increasing food production in Africa, transforming the continent from a net importer of food to a net exporter. The efforts could lessen deforestation and help the world better adapt to climate change, he wrote.
The billionaire who cried pandemic
The Gates Foundation has spent nearly $80 billion since 2000 on causes that include combating malaria, HIV/AIDS and the coronavirus. Spending has risen sharply from about $1 billion annually. The foundation plans to disburse an additional $40 billion by 2026.
Gates noted that his foundation has been in large part supported by his mentor and fellow billionaire Warren Buffett, who has a net worth of about $97 billion, according to Bloomberg. As recently as last month, Buffett gifted $3.1 billion to the foundation.
“Since 2006, Warren has gifted the foundation $35.7 billion,” Gates said. The real value of his donations tally up to about $45 billion, as they include stocks that have appreciated.
“As I look to the future, my plan is to give all my wealth to the foundation other than what I spend on myself and my family,” Gates said. | 2022-07-14T07:46:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bill Gates donates $20 billion of his wealth to foundation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/14/bill-gates-donates-foundation-wealth/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/14/bill-gates-donates-foundation-wealth/ |
The University of Central Florida temporarily removed some academic departments’ statements, prompting fears of self-censorship under a new state law
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) championed a state law that limits what schools and workplaces can teach about race and identity. (Tristan Wheelock/Bloomberg News)
The University of Central Florida removed statements condemning racism from several academic departments’ websites this week, prompting some faculty members to worry that school officials were self-censoring in an effort to maintain compliance with a new state law limiting what can be taught about race and identity.
Shelley Park, a professor of philosophy and cultural studies at UCF, said the statement in her department, posted amid the national reckoning on race in 2020, “stood behind diversity, equity and inclusivity — which didn’t used to be such a radical thing to say.”
Park said her understanding was that the provost had contacted deans and that the pages were temporarily removed, with additional guidance to come when faculty members return in August. The provost, Michael D. Johnson, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday.
“The university recently removed some departmental statements that could be seen as potentially inconsistent with our commitment to creating a welcoming environment — one where faculty objectively engage students in robust, scholarly discussions that expand their knowledge and empower them to freely express their views and form their own perspectives,” Chad Binette, a spokesman for the university, wrote in an email Wednesday.
Binette did not specify in the email what in the statements could be “potentially inconsistent.”
On Wednesday, some links on department webpages — including those for the anthropology, philosophy and physics departments — appeared to be broken or removed.
The philosophy statement had read, in part, “we acknowledge the key place of the university as a site of struggle for social justice and are committed to addressing the problem of anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and all forms of implicit and explicit racism in our professions, wherever we find it, even if in our own department.”
The changes were first reported by the Orlando Sentinel.
A June 2020 statement by UCF President Alexander N. Cartwright entitled “Our Future Is Inclusion,” emphasizing the university’s commitment to be actively anti-racist remains accessible.
Park said some faculty members are “upset about issues of academic freedom and freedom of speech, as well as our institutional values.”
Park said her scholarly expertise is in the areas of social justice and political theory. “I think most of us are worried,” she said. She said she is concerned that the university is self-censoring.
“This is all happening very quickly,” she said.
The “individual freedom” act, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) called the “Stop WOKE Act,” went into effect July 1, regulating what schools and workplaces can teach about race and identity.
In his fight against ‘woke’ schools, DeSantis tears at the seams of a diverse Florida
A UCF professor is a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the act, arguing that it is unconstitutional and threatens academic freedom.
DeSantis has said he wants to prevent what he describes as intellectually repressive environments at public universities, and his administration has pushed changes to higher education that include altering tenure and accreditation.
Binette shared guidance given to faculty about the new state law, advising them that it mandates that educational institutions “may not subject any student or employee to training or instruction that ‘espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such student or employee to believe’ any of eight ‘specified concepts’ ” based on race, color, sex or national origin because such action would be discriminatory under the amended statute.
One of the “frequently asked questions” the university cited was, “Can I discuss topics or teach concepts in my classroom that may make people feel uncomfortable?” The answer: “Yes. … However, you may not tell students they should or must feel guilty because they belong to a particular race, color, national origin or sex. And you should not tell students how to feel or that they need to admit to feeling a certain way about these topics. The legislature’s stated purpose in adopting this law was to prohibit coercing students and employees to particular beliefs.” | 2022-07-14T09:18:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | University of Central Florida removes some anti-racism statements - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/14/ucf-anti-racism-statements-removed/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/14/ucf-anti-racism-statements-removed/ |
Many Biden aides believe such a declaration would be ineffective. But they face enormous pressure to show they are fighting for abortion rights every way they can.
Protesters gather at the White House earlier this month to pressure President Biden to take executive actions protecting abortion rights. (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)
White House officials are actively debating whether to formally declare abortion access a public health emergency, pitting the belief of many Biden advisers that such a move would be counterproductive against the overwhelming political pressure to show they are fighting hard for abortion rights.
Several top Biden aides have expressed internal reservations about declaring an emergency, saying it would give the administration little money and few new powers, according to a White House official and two people familiar with the conversations. And outside legal experts advising the administration have warned that an emergency declaration would face inevitable legal challenges, potentially giving conservative judges an opportunity to cut back on the administration’s emergency authority.
Biden calls for suspending filibuster to pass abortion rights
Biden has said repeatedly he believes the best way to protect reproductive rights is to elect more Democrats to Congress, so a federal law could be enacted legalizing abortion. But many Democrats are furious at the Supreme Court ruling and want to see the president hit back hard now.
A growing number of lawmakers have urged Biden to declare a public health emergency to signal how seriously he views the threat, and to potentially unlock new funding and authorities. More than 80 Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday signed a letter to Biden urging such a declaration. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and several reproductive rights groups, including Planned Parenthood and NARAL, have also called for the move.
“The administration should use all the emergency and disaster authorities and tools available to them, including immediately declaring a public health emergency,” Laurel Sakai, national director of public policy and government at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. “A crisis of this magnitude necessitates that all avenues are considered and explored as the administration continues to respond to the barrage of attacks on our reproductive freedom.”
Justice Department announces abortion task force
Biden on Sunday said he was debating whether to declare abortion access a public health emergency. “That’s something I’ve asked the … medical people in the administration to look at, whether … I have the authority to do that and what impact that would have,” Biden said.
Public health emergency declarations officially come from the Health and Human Services secretary, Xavier Becerra. They are typically used to address disease outbreaks and weather disasters, enabling the HHS secretary to move around department funds more easily. During the coronavirus pandemic, the declaration also relaxed health-care rules in significant ways, for example making it easier for doctors to conduct telehealth appointments.
But it is far less clear how such a declaration would play out on an issue such as abortion, in part because the “emergency” may not end in the foreseeable future. Further complicating the issue is the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion except if a pregnant person’s life is in danger or if the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.
“The key for the president and our entire team is making a real difference, which is why we’re always continuing to explore a wide range of options, and a public health emergency,” a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said in a statement. “There are limitations and drawbacks we’re all aware of, but the North Star for everyone is having the right impact, which is how we’re looking at every tool to protect women’s rights.”
Besides Klain and Dunn, others within the White House who have expressed concerns about the move include deputy chief of staff Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and Jennifer Klein, co-chair of the White House Gender Policy Council.
Still, a high-profile emergency declaration, announced defiantly by Biden, could help the White House politically by showing activists and lawmakers that it is pursuing every option available. Doctors and abortion advocates have argued that abortion bans and restrictions, enacted by Republican-led states across the country, will place millions of women in danger by cutting off access to lifesaving medical treatments, including for those experiencing miscarriages.
A public health emergency declaration for covid-19 has been in place for more than two years, tying up a large amount of emergency health funds. That means only tens of thousands of dollars would be available if the declaration were made for abortion, the White House official said. It also remains unclear to senior White House officials what kinds of new authorities the declaration would provide.
And the move would inevitably face legal challenges from Republican state attorneys general, likely ending up in front of the same Supreme Court justices who overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. Legal experts warn that the justices — or conservative lower-court judges — could end up curbing federal emergency powers in response to a public health emergency declaration for an issue such as abortion.
The Supreme Court has struck down significant parts of Biden’s covid-19 agenda, including a vaccine mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees. A conservative federal judge also overturned a federal mask mandate on public transportation, a ruling that health and legal experts warn may call into question the authority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during a health crisis.
Even with all the complications, White House officials have not yet ruled it out an emergency declaration. They are still trying to determine whether there is a version of such a move that would let the administration take meaningful action, the White House official said.
While Biden officials want to implement every policy they can to protect abortion access, the official added, many on Biden’s team believe they have not yet heard a compelling case for the move.
That is not the view of liberal groups such as the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which held a virtual meeting with Becerra on Wednesday.
Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), a member of the group, said she is among those who have been pushing for the White House to declare a public health emergency for abortion access, and that she directly asked Becerra about it during the meeting.
“I raised it with Secretary Becerra today, and the response is that they are looking into it,” Chu said. “They are looking at it more deeply, and I just hope that they come up with a positive declaration on this, because women in America are looking for something bold to protect them. And I think this would be a bold step.”
Rachel Roubein contributed to this report. | 2022-07-14T09:18:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | White House debates declaring abortion access a 'health emergency' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/biden-abortion-public-health-emergency/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/biden-abortion-public-health-emergency/ |
Immigration opponents are far more passionate than supporters
Public support for immigration is increasing. Can that push Congress to act?
Analysis by Alexander Kustov
Notes, flowers and other items are part of a makeshift memorial on July 6 in San Antonio to honor the victims and survivors of the recent human smuggling tragedy. All but six of 53 migrants found dead or dying in a tractor-trailer on June 27 have been identified. (Eric Gay/AP)
Last month, at least 53 migrants were found dead in an abandoned truck in San Antonio — one of the deadliest smuggling events in modern U.S. history. For many, this tragedy exposes the human costs of the country’s harsh restrictions on legal immigration.
Some polls have recently reported that Americans have grown friendlier to immigration over the past decades. For the first time since Gallup started polling on the issue almost 60 years ago, more people say immigration should be increased rather than decreased. That’s a shift from 7 percent in favor of increases and 33 percent in favor of decreases in 1965, with the 2020 numbers suggesting that 34 percent favor increases and 28 percent favor decreases.
But U.S. immigration attitudes may not have warmed as much as those numbers suggest. My new research shows that predominantly Democratic voters who support immigration simply do not see the issue as important as do the predominantly Republican voters who oppose it. As a result, opponents remain more politically influential than supporters.
Americans’ support for immigration is even weaker than it seems
It’s true that a greater proportion of Americans are willing to tell pollsters that they support immigration than before. But that support is still soft.
First, the aggregate change does not necessarily mean that individuals have changed their minds on the issue. My research with political scientists Dillon Laaker and Cassidy Reller looks at longitudinal survey data, in which the same respondents were interviewed over a decade. There we found much greater stability in individuals’ immigration attitudes. These attitudes form early in life and reflect deep-seated psychological traits such as openness to experience or ethnocentrism. In other words, if immigration public opinion changes in any significant way, it happens gradually, as older people give way to younger generations with different attitudes.
Second, some scholars find that those people who agree to participate in surveys tend to be more liberal and more ideologically extreme than the general population. People’s refusal to participate in public opinion surveys has only increased over the past decades. As a result, recent polls may be overestimating increases in pro-immigration views.
But even if more people do favor immigration, they may care about this issue less than those who oppose it — and therefore have less influence on public policy.
How 'great replacement' theory led to the Buffalo mass shooting
When individuals consider an issue to be personally important, they care more about it than other issues. They are more likely to think frequently and deeply about it, seek information, contact politicians and vote based on their views. Some scholars have recently tried to examine the immigration issue’s importance in public opinion, but high-quality data has often been lacking. I set out to identify all available nationally representative surveys with relevant questions about both immigration views and their importance.
According to my analysis of American National Election Studies, Voter Study Group, and Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics data, those who oppose immigration feel more strongly about the issue and are more likely to consider it as both personally and nationally important than those who support it. That’s especially true when the news media are paying more attention to the issue.
In 2012, when immigration was not discussed much nationally, only 4 percent of those who wanted to decrease immigration considered it the most important problem facing their country. Among those who wanted to increase immigration, the number was 2 percent, a difference barely outside the poll’s margin of error. After Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, however, 27 percent of immigration opponents considered it the most important issue compared with only 12 percent of immigration supporters, a sizable 9-percentage-point difference. In 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic overwhelmed the media’s attention and discussion of immigration decreased again, 17 percent of opponents said so compared with 12 percent of supporters — a statistically significant difference of 5 percentage points.
Another fruitful way to look at this data is to calculate what proportion of the public considers immigration their most important issue, on either side. Doing that, even in the most pro-immigration year recorded in polling history in 2020, I found that possibly fewer Americans considered supporting than opposing immigration the most important issue, 4 to 5 percent respectively. In 2016, when Trump was campaigning on attacking immigration, only 2 percent of Americans considered increasing immigration to be important — while the whopping 12 percent considered decreasing immigration to be the most important issue facing the country.
I find similar results across virtually all other available surveys, various questions about immigration issue importance, and even countries outside the United States. Those who want to decrease immigration routinely think of it as the most important issue facing the country. I could not find any major surveys in which more voters wanted to increase immigration and thought it was more important than other issues.
How deporting people from the U.S. increases immigration to the U.S.
Immigration opponents care more about the issue than immigration supporters
Even though more Americans are telling pollsters that they support immigration, lawmakers hesitate to tackle immigration policy in ways that would make it easier to enter the United States. My research suggests that they’re right to be cautious. Americans who oppose immigration are far more engaged and active on the issue than are immigration supporters.
Further, most political events that increase media attention to immigration will be more likely to activate those who oppose than those who support it. Unless pro-immigration advocates figure out a reliable way to get sympathetic voters to consider this important, they’re likely to face more pushback than support when trying to change policy. Even 53 people dead may not affect that disadvantage.
Alexander Kustov (@akoustov) is an assistant professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. | 2022-07-14T09:18:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Will the death of 51 migrants push Congress to change immigration laws? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/immigration-san-antonio-public-opinion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/immigration-san-antonio-public-opinion/ |
The hallowed No. 17 at St. Andrews, known as the “road hole.” (Chuck Culpepper/The Washington Post)
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — If history can lurk in the air in certain places, it lurks in the air so much here this week it’s a wonder the air does not collapse. It’s everywhere and everything, or as golf philosopher Eldrick T. Woods put it, “It feels more historic than it normally has, and it’s hard to believe that.”
It’s heavy and hallowed at “arguably our biggest event ever” in golf, the words of English golfer and frequent major contender Tommy Fleetwood on a British Open broadcast.
It hovers over at the Saint Andrews Cemetery, where the people from afar and more afar walk through and pay respects to “Old Tom” Morris (1821-1908) and “Young Tom” Morris (1851-1875), the father and son who won British Opens Nos. 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, four titles each. Now that the Open has reached No. 150, its celebrated sesquicentennial, it’s more evocative than ever to view the grave of “Young Tom,” a sculpture of whom stands ready to hit a ball that looks somewhat buried.
Maybe it’s harsh to have a guy face a bad lie into eternity, or maybe it’s complimentary to know he could handle it with aplomb.
In the pretty, stony gumdrop of a town founded around 1140, making it older than, say, Dallas, there’s history in the store windows, from which the late, magnificent Seve Ballesteros sometimes beams, his famed 12-foot putt from 1984 coaxing his famed fist pump plus the description as “the single happiest shot of my life.” The history breathes — and maybe even sips — a block up Golf Place from the course, at the Dunvegan Hotel restaurant and bar, also famed, where the ambitious sign in the window reads, “Good, fresh food served where you can eat with the Ghosts of Former Open Champions.”
The Open has come back here, and the town of 16,800 with its university students from the world and its craggy golfers from nearby has gone into a mighty festival. The “150” logos shout from T-shirts, bark from caps and blare from the chairs painted to make “150” in the grandstands. Otherwise it might not look all that much different from previous Opens here, with 2015 the most recent, but it certainly feels like a whole lot of more.
The 10 p.m. daylight at latitude 56 North, always impressive, seems a bit happier this week. When the sunshine comes and the TV presenters describe it with the mandatory adjective “glorious,” everyone might nod. Now and then and here and there, there’s singing in the distance, maybe from a pub. “EVERYTHING LED TO THIS,” go the signs on the grandstand at No. 18, and everything is a lot, on a course founded in 1754 and storied ever since.
Visitor at “The Road Hole,” No. 17: “I’ve heard this is famous.”
Marshal, with lickety-split wit: “Some would say infamous.”
The past stays alive in the chatter, the history, as when Jon Rahm tells how humongous Ballesteros’s putt was in Spain or as when four men walk along No. 18 while one says, “Rocca had just done the putt in ’95,” meaning Costantino Rocca’s 60-footer from the depths of the green known as Valley of Sin to force a playoff with John Daly, who then won in a commendable show of strong-mindedness.
They walk along with the history here on the east coast near Saint Andrews Bay and the North Sea, along a course known for that wind among winds, the Scottish wind. “I can see how the course can play a million different ways, depending on the weather,” said defending Open champion Collin Morikawa, making his St. Andrews debut. That’s with the blind tee shots, such as at No. 3, where the vegetation up ahead stares at you like some horror movie in which the director already has conditioned you that something might jump out of there.
He comes from nearby Lundin — not that other London — and because local clubs such as Crail and Leven manage certain holes, the Lundin Links club members will keep things sane this week at No. 3. He tells of the light show they had last spring, with about 6,000 in attendance, where a film of the history of the Open beamed off the walls of Royal & Ancient clubhouse.
“It wasn’t long after that,” he said, “that the stands went up. People that live locally have seen this getting bigger and bigger and bigger.” And: “And it has been building since the start of the year.” They even got the roads resurfaced, which should last a good while.
The 156 entries, up from eight in 1860, now try the odd, old course just a shout from town — as they do it in Scotland — with no trees or water, with 14 of its holes sharing seven greens, with the occasional purple flower and the frequent carnivorous bunker.
“I’d heard rumors,” said Scottie Scheffler, the Masters champion and No. 1 player in the world, “but to see it firsthand is definitely a lot different. What surprised me most is all the space off the tee where you’re trying to play into other fairways or just weird stuff like that.”
With fairways “like a motorway,” as Fleetwood put it on the Open broadcast — “I’ve never seen it this firm and fast” — suddenly a course noted for inviting width “becomes incredibly tight.”
“I can kind of see the history and how golf was designed to be played hundreds of years ago,” Scheffler said.
“Once you’ve got it figured out, you don’t,” said Will Zalatoris, the 25-year-old phenom who placed second at both the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open.
“It’s so bad down there,” Scheffler said of the iconic bunker on No. 17, having tried it out in practice.
There’s certainly history in the feeling that hits the eyes seeing the course, a feeling that might reach many of the 290,000 in attendance who, this week, come from among the 1.3 million who applied for tickets. Out at No. 13 not far from the little marsh with the mud and the gulls next to tee No. 12, the marshals come from Ladybank, about 20 minutes away.
“You think of what this land was,” marshal Steve Patrick says, “and things like the king [James II] prohibiting people playing golf here [in 1457] because they were playing golf and not practicing archery.” Patrick, too, recalls the light show as a kickoff of this “great buildup,” and he and Ladybank are excited even beyond Sunday. Gary Nicklaus will play Senior British Open qualifying Monday, and, Patrick said, “We’re hoping that Jack’s going to go there as well and see his son.”
There’s history in that, of course — Nicklaus won here twice, in 1970 and 1978 — just as there’s history everywhere except maybe the “glampground” near the course, what with “glamping” relatively new. Otherwise, it all goes back to Allan Robertson, whose death in 1859 led to the birth of the Open concept beginning in 1860. His tall tombstone, back near the Morrises, remains equipped with crossed clubs and a three golf balls in case he wants to come back out and play in a place where, this week more than ever, the ghosts are most welcome. | 2022-07-14T09:48:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At 150th British Open at St. Andrews, history has the tee - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/14/british-open-saint-andrews-golf/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/14/british-open-saint-andrews-golf/ |
How Whistler immortalized and erased the woman he loved
A National Gallery exhibition seeks to resurrect the woman in the painter’s ‘Woman in White’
Review by Philip Kennicott
In James McNeill Whistler's “Symphony in White, No. 3,” 1865-1867, we see Joanna Hiffernan on the left. She was his muse, model and companion. (The Henry Barber Trust, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham/Bridgeman Images)
James McNeill Whistler’s 1861-63 “Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl” is a deeply troubling painting. It is difficult to see where the personal magnetism of the woman represented therein ends and where the art begins. Perhaps there is no line to be discerned and the beauty of the woman depicted, Joanna Hiffernan, is too deeply woven in the art to be disentangled from Whistler’s almost demonic efforts to amplify it in paint.
The painting, one of Whistler’s finest achievements, was known to his contemporaries as “The Woman in White.” It represents Hiffernan full length, in a white dress, holding a white flower, standing against the backdrop of a luxurious white curtain. Her hair is auburn, her skin porcelain, her full lips the color of cherries, and her eyes a bit too large, with perfectly round pupils, like the eyes of a cartoon innocent.
Hiffernan wasn’t just the model for “Symphony in White.” She was also Whistler’s companion and lived and traveled with him for years. She was deeply involved in his personal and business affairs. They were effectively married and their lives were intertwined for more than 20 years. Whistler also gave her his power of attorney and made her his sole heir in his will, though she predeceased him.
The National Gallery of Art in Washington is exploring that relationship in a midsize exhibition of some 60 works that brings together most of the known images Whistler made of Hiffernan, including “Symphony No. 1” (part of the National Gallery’s collection) and the closely related paintings “Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl” (from the Tate in London) and “Symphony in White, No. 3” (held by the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham, England).
A seductive and disturbing representation of race and beauty
The goal of the show, which was first seen at the Royal Academy of Arts in London earlier this year, is to resurrect, as much as possible, some sense of who Hiffernan was. The biographical details are basic: She was born in 1839 to poor Irish parents who later moved the family to London, where she met Whistler in 1860. She appears in paintings, drawings, etchings and drypoint renderings, sometimes as the central figure, sometimes as a talismanic interloper, as in the small, sketchy figure in a white dress seen in the foreground of the river scene “Battersea Reach,” from 1862-63.
Early in their relationship, before Whistler fathered a child with another woman, the artist described Hiffernan’s beauty in a letter to a friend: She “looks supremely whorelike,” he gushed. That speaks volumes about Whistler, the pervasive misogyny of the world he lived in, and his particularly fraught relationship with a woman who would help raise a child he had with another woman. Whistler’s friends considered Hiffernan charming and vivacious, though uneducated. Her social allure was attributed to his good influence and the reflected luster of his sophistication.
That Whistler compared a woman he must have loved to a prostitute, at a time when sex work had zero dignity, suggests his feelings for her were thoroughly narcissistic. He could project onto her whatever he desired, depicting her in virginal white while eroticizing her status as a woman living outside the conventional patterns of bourgeois sexual propriety. Her beauty served him, sometimes literally as a model for his art, and otherwise as an adornment to the glamorous social life he struggled to pay for throughout his career. Hiffernan held no fixed position in his household, and when his mother came to stay with him in London, he moved her to another domicile (“I had a week or so to empty my house and purify it from cellar to attic!”).
In Chicago, a deep dive into the work of Cezanne
Even Hiffernan’s beauty doesn’t seem to be entirely her own, at least not in the images Whistler made of her. In the first “Symphony in White,” she seems vulnerable and defenseless, her arms held loosely at her sides, her stance retiring, her presence registering as an emanation from the white curtain behind her. She could be lively and passionate, as we know from accounts of her by others, but in this painting, all the agency and psychological presence have been transferred from the model to the snarling face of the bearskin rug on which she stands.
She was Whistler’s chameleon, serving as a model for book illustrations, including one in which she appears as a nun. In another painting, he dressed her in a kimono and surrounded her with Asian porcelain. Even when he gets close to giving her some genuine psychological presence, as in an 1861 drypoint called simply “Jo,” she seems to be dissolving into the background, her wild hair fusing with the animated lines that define the darkness behind her.
To some extent, this is the fate of the model, especially models in the 19th century who worked for artists like Whistler. The curators stress the collaborative aspect of the relationship, but the artist was at pains to erase it. Audiences who saw the painting dubbed it the “Woman in White,” recalling Wilkie Collins’s thrilling novel of the same name, but Whistler chose the musical name “symphony” to emphasize not the subject of the work, but the brilliance of the composer. “The picture should have its own merit, and not depend on dramatic, or legendary, or local interest,” he wrote. It should “appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it.”
This is an early appeal to ideas of artistic formalism that would later triumph in abstraction. It also draws that elusive line — between the beauty of the person represented and the beauty of the painting itself — almost entirely on the artist’s side of the ledger.
Whistler’s plea can’t be entirely dismissed. If there is a distinction to be made between artistic images of beautiful people and the beautiful people one sees on Instagram or in a fashion magazine, it must have something to do with art, with formal arrangements, design choices, underscoring and heightening of certain characteristics, blurring or erasing others.
But for the artist’s model, who was also his lover and effectively his wife, this all adds up to a suffocating and closed system. Just as her beauty makes us naturally curious about her inner life, the artist insists we erase that curiosity. She is there, compelling us to wonder about everything from the tone of her voice to the rhythm of her laughter. But he claims that the only legitimate wonder should be directed at him, at his skill and accomplishment, which was indeed formidable.
Curators and scholars are now in argument with that system. Exhibitions like this one, and the groundbreaking 2018 show “Posing Modernity: The Black Model From Manet and Matisse to Today,” aim to recapture some sense of those who were erased through the centuries by the inexorable commodification of people, usually women, in art.
It’s an important and exciting new direction in scholarship, but often very frustrating because the erasure is sometimes complete. In the case of Joanna Hiffernan, the traces that are left only make that erasure seem larger and more haunting. Look to another painter, Gustave Courbet, who also painted Hiffernan. Several versions of his portrait of her are in the National Gallery exhibition and, intentionally or accidentally, they give us one small clue utterly absent from Whistler’s images.
How did she negotiate any independence or power in what was a terribly unequal relationship? I’m just guessing, but based on Courbet’s more psychologically acute representation, she almost certainly knew how to cut Whistler down to size, trim his sails and render up to him an image of his own mean-spirited, churlish self, in all its ugliness.
The Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan and James McNeill Whistler Through Oct. 10 at the National Gallery of Art. nga.gov. | 2022-07-14T10:06:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | National Gallery's Whistler show seeks to resurrect 'The Woman in White' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/07/14/whistler-woman-in-white-national-gallery/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/07/14/whistler-woman-in-white-national-gallery/ |
Radio stations don’t have to check if programmers are foreign agents
An effort from the Federal Communications Commission to expose covert Chinese and Russian propaganda has been blocked by a federal appeals court.
Last year, the FCC directed radio and television broadcasters to ask sponsors whether a foreign government was involved in the program and check the answer against a Justice Department database of foreign agents and the FCC’s online report on U.S.-based foreign media outlets. The National Association of Broadcasters and other trade groups sued, saying the new order was an inappropriate burden.
The three judges — a Trump appointee, an Obama appointee and a George W. Bush appointee — all agreed in a Tuesday ruling that current law imposes on broadcasters “a duty of inquiry, not a duty of investigation,” and that the FCC could not expand that requirement.
“Congress chose the means for broadcasters to obtain the information necessary to announce who paid for programming,” the panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled. “The FCC cannot alter Congress’s choice.”
The FCC and FTC are still hobbled by vacancies. It’s not the first time.
It’s “a simple name check” to “confirm the information,” FCC attorney Bill Scher said at oral argument in April. If someone leasing radio time claims not to be a foreign agent and comes up in one of the two databases, “an alarm has gone off,” but it’s up to the broadcaster to decide how to handle it under existing law.
“Broadcasters are not investigatory bodies,” Stephen B. Kinnaird, representing the broadcasters, said at oral argument. “These are country music DJs, local businessmen in small towns who sell advertising. They’re not lawyers and analysts.”
Kinnaird said the broadcasters “would have no problem simply with an expanded disclosure” requirement but that the order was “extreme overkill.”
In a statement, NAB President Curtis LeGeyt said the “decision ensures that the rules rightly continue requiring the handful of stations airing foreign government-sponsored programming to identify it as such, but removes the burden on the overwhelming majority of stations that never air foreign government-sponsored content.”
John Bergmayer, legal director at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit that advocates for better communications access, said that “given the obvious importance of the issue it’s alarming that the court would adopt such a reading of the statute.”
While the direct impact might be limited, he said, “it does seem part of a trend where courts go out of their way to prevent agencies from carrying out their core missions.”
A former Spanish-language station in the D.C. area is one of a handful across the country that airs Russian propaganda; the small broadcaster regularly discloses that “this radio programming is distributed … on behalf of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency.”
“The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, however, it does not prevent private actors from exercising sound, moral judgment,” he said in the March statement. | 2022-07-14T10:23:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | FCC rule on foreign broadcasts struck down by D.C. Circuit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/14/foreign-radio-fcc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/14/foreign-radio-fcc/ |
Lawmakers who have publicly reported coronavirus cases overwhelmingly have been Democrats, and the absences have created headaches for Senate leaders
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who tested positive Sunday for the coronavirus, is faced with managing a spate of such absences. (Oliver Contreras for The Washington Post)
In recent months, the members of Congress who have publicly reported coronavirus cases overwhelmingly have been Democrats — including the party’s two top leaders on Capitol Hill — posing a big and ironic problem for the majority party.
The stakes were placed into stark relief after Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) reported positive tests, making them unable to vote this week. While their absence has not affected this week’s Senate agenda, and both senators have continued to work while isolated, any future Democratic absences could upend plans to pass the party-line economic package that is now under negotiation between Schumer, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and other Democrats.
“We need every Democrat,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who added that he was doubtful of an actual partisan disparity in viral incidence: “I would venture to suggest that the rates of infection are precisely identical between Democrats and Republicans. One group is publicly disclosing, and one group is not — that is my intuition.”
“Either they’re not telling us or they’re simply not getting tested,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii).
“We’re probably not reporting our results or offering as many tests,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who tested positive in January at the height of the omicron wave.
“We’re in an endemic now, not a pandemic, and I guess you can continue that [testing] protocol as far into the future as you want to,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said. But he added that “sometimes your policies can get to be very inconvenient when they don’t make sense.”
Others were outright flippant: Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, joked that the Democrats’ dilemma was a matter of “karma.”
In the House, positive tests have scant political consequences. In the early months of the pandemic, the chamber instituted proxy voting, which allows a member to designate a colleague to cast floor votes on his of her behalf. In April, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced that she tested positive for the coronavirus.
The Senate, however, does not allow proxy voting, and the margins are tighter — Vice President Harris’s tiebreaking vote is all that guarantees Democrats’ majority in a Senate that has been evenly split between the parties since January 2021.
Already there are non-covid-related absences that have given Democrats reasons to fret: Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) underwent hip replacement surgery last month and has yet to return to vote, and two other Democratic senators, Ben Ray Luján (N.M.) and Chris Van Hollen (Md.), suffered minor strokes that caused them to miss votes earlier this year.
For Republicans, meanwhile, testing practices appear to be spottier, and largely depend on the whims and schedules of individual lawmakers. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the last Republican lawmaker to disclose a positive test, said he took a test to attend an event.
“I test when I’m asked to test,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). “I wouldn’t be afraid to test if I had symptoms. But I’m not having symptoms, I’m not going out of my way to test.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said he has not taken a coronavirus test since January 2021, when one was required to attend was Biden’s inauguration. He said he has not experienced any symptoms since the pandemic began, and “I never took a test out of curiosity.”
Cramer said he has declined invitations to the White House since then, in part, because of the testing and masking requirements.
“The problem with testing positive at the White House is, other people know you tested positive as opposed to doing it in your own bedroom,” he said, explaining why he believed Democrats were reporting more cases.
Earlier in the pandemic, Democrats and Republicans could be discerned simply through their mask-wearing habits, but things are now less clear-cut.
On Capitol Hill this week, the vast majority of senators went maskless, though a handful of Democrats still wear them faithfully. Lines at the Senate testing center, which often featured hour-long waits during covid waves, are now largely nonexistent.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), who is in charge of corralling Democratic votes as majority whip, explained the partisan disparity by pointing to Democrats’ frequent White House visits. But he demurred when asked whether Democrats would be wise to take more precautions — and perhaps stop visiting the White House — should the economic talks advance.
But other senators and aides are quietly starting to wonder whether more precautions are warranted, given the stakes for both health and policy. Some have discussed encouraging more mask-wearing and substituting Zoom meetings for in-person gatherings.
“The whole country is depending on us, so we need to stay healthy,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). “As we get closer to go-time, we should be increasingly careful.” | 2022-07-14T10:27:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats keep testing positive for covid, imperiling their agenda - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/senate-covid-testing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/senate-covid-testing/ |
D.C. schools must report on classroom door locks, faulty HVACS under proposal
The bill would also require the city to report the percentage of students not up to date on their routine vaccines at each school
Eastern High School custodian Raymond Woodfork displays one of the air filters used at the school in D.C. on Jan. 22, 2021. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
The D.C. public school system would have to report to lawmakers the percentage of doors in each school building that properly lock and the working status of every air conditioning and heating system ahead of the upcoming academic year, under a bill approved unanimously this week by the 13-member D.C. Council.
Council members said they wanted to avoid a repeat of last August, when teachers and parents returned to classrooms and reportedly complained to their representatives of broken HVAC systems and other faulty equipment. After the school shooting in Uvalde, Tex., this spring renewed discussions about school safety, some teachers and parents in the District reported that locks on building and classroom doors were broken.
The legislation would also require traditional public and charter schools to report the percentage of students who have not received the routine immunizations required to attend schools. Many families missed doctor appointments during the pandemic and about a quarter of students are not up to date on their non-coronavirus vaccines, according to city officials.
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) wrote in a letter to the D.C. Council ahead of the vote Tuesday that she is against the passage of this law, saying it is cumbersome, duplicative and unnecessary. For example, the Department of General Services, which oversees the public school facilities, publishes online the requests it receives to repair HVAC systems. Bowser must still sign the bill before it takes effect, though she rarely vetoes bills.
“This will unfortunately duplicate work and cause unnecessary reporting and tracking issues,” Bowser wrote in her letter, shared with The Washington Post.
Specifically, under the bill, DGS would have to report to the D.C. Council in an “editable” table the condition of all HVAC systems at every school. For every HVAC system that is not working, the agency would have to say whether it has alternative plans to provide cooling or heating in affected classrooms. The first day of school is Aug. 29, and the city would have to provide this report by Aug. 19.
The agency also would have to report the number of mobile and permanent air-filtration systems on site. These reports would be made public.
The safety reports, which would include the percentage of doors with broken locks, would remain private.
“I do not want to be at the point where we were last year the week before school starts, where I am doing school tours and we are not ready,” said council member Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4), who introduced the bill with Chairman Phil Mendelson (D). “We have to be proactive.”
George said she had initially wanted the bill to require the school system to publicly report how many potential school employees, contractors and volunteers are stuck in the security clearance process. The Post reported that the school system’s backlogged background check process prevented critical tutoring and after-school programs from operating at full capacity because so many prospective workers couldn’t receive the necessary clearances.
But emergency legislation — which goes into effect far more quickly than standard bills — is not allowed to carry any costs, including administrative ones. The school system said it would cost extra money to pay needed staff members to report this, George said, noting the council would be working with school officials to streamline this background check process.
Under the legislation, charter schools do not have to comply with the school facilities and safety portion of the bill because school leaders said it could cost them money to do so, according to George.
Charter school facilities are not overseen by DGS.
Lawmakers could request council budget specialists to assess whether these measures actually require additional costs, but that could take too much time if the council wants the bill to go into effect immediately, George’s office said.
Charter campuses would have to report the number of students who are out of compliance with their vaccinations. | 2022-07-14T10:31:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Council would require D.C. schools report door locks, faulty HVACs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/14/dc-schools-door-locks-hvac/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/14/dc-schools-door-locks-hvac/ |
Fertilizer crisis delivers profits and pain as Ukraine fallout broadens
‘It’s brutal. Farmers aren’t buying what they need; they are buying what they can afford,’ one expert said
The CF Industries fertilizer complex in Donaldsonville, La., on June 30. (Emily Kask for The Washington Post)
DONALDSONVILLE, La. — A powdery white residue coats the warehouse floor, all that’s left of almost 90,000 tons of nitrogen fertilizer bound for farms in the United States and around the world.
Nestled on the western bank of the Mississippi River, just down the road from the Square Deal Casino and the Cajun Daiquiri bar, this CF Industries fertilizer complex has been operating at full tilt for months. Customers in U.S. farm states and several foreign countries want their crop nutrients as fast as the company can load its ships, barges and rail cars and send them on their way.
For more than four months, the war in Ukraine has disrupted shipments of fertilizer and foodstuffs, plunging millions of people into hunger in some of the poorest countries on Earth, threatening to depress future harvests and challenging companies such as CF Industries to adapt to a new commercial landscape.
“There is a lot of tension in the market … It has really wreaked havoc in the fertilizer market,” said P.J. Juvekar, a Citigroup stock analyst. “The fertilizer business has fundamentally changed.”
It’s also become vital for the global economy, as the world copes with a worsening shortage of food. Developing nations this year confront a “real risk” of multiple famines and 2023 could be even worse if fertilizer proves unaffordable, according to U.N. Secretary General António Guterres.
Hopes of averting widespread hunger rest on the ability of farmers to wring every last bushel of wheat, corn and soybeans from their fields. For that, they need adequate supplies of the nitrogen, phosphates and potassium solutions that help crops grow.
Yet soaring prices are imperiling farmers’ access to fertilizer just when it is needed most, forcing many in Africa and Latin America to substitute less potent alternatives or to alter their plantings in a desperate agricultural improvisation.
The war alone did not remake the global trade in chemicals and minerals that help farmers produce more food. But the European conflict intensified trends that were underway before the guns began blazing, such as increased hoarding by major producing nations like China and sharp jumps in the price of natural gas, the main fuel for the type of fertilizer that CF Industries produces.
Reduced shipments from Russia and Belarus, which account for nearly 25 percent of global fertilizer exports, have made a market that was tight at the outset of the fighting even tighter. The price of granular urea, the substance that filled the CF Industries warehouse here and the most widely traded fertilizer on global markets, jumped more than 70 percent in the first six weeks of the war.
Tunisia, cradle of the Arab spring, is being rattled by economic shocks from distant war
The market tumult, aggravating price pressures that began months before the war, forced producers in some cases to find new customers or new ways of supplying existing customers.
As CF Industries strained to operate at full capacity — ultimately setting a quarterly volume record — those higher global prices meant a financial windfall: $883 million in profits during the first three months of the year, almost six times the $151 million earned in the same period last year.
The company’s share price is up about 21 percentthis year, even as the stock market slumped to its worst half-year performance since 1970. Upheaval from the war also has left natural gas much more expensive in Europe than in the United States, giving CF Industries’ U.S.-centric operations a competitive edge over its European rivals.
“We feel very good about the position we’re sitting in today,” said Tony Will, the company’s chief executive.
The volatile fertilizer market has been less kind to end users, especially in countries outside the U.S. that are more dependent upon imports, such as Mexico and Brazil.
Fertilizer adds minerals to the soil, making farms healthier and more productive. Often, fertilizer can make the difference between a disappointing harvest and a profitable one. Fields treated with nitrogen fertilizer, for example, yield 200 bushels of corn while those left untreated produce just 60 bushels, according to an Iowa State University study.
Russia and neighboring Belarus are major sources of nitrogen fertilizers, like those produced by CF Industries, as well as phosphate and potassium products that use minerals from surface and underground mines. Ukraine is a relatively minor fertilizer producer. But it relied on Russia and Belarus for much of its needs and future deliveries are now in jeopardy, casting a cloud over next year’s harvest.
Numerous countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, meanwhile, rely on Russia for more than 30 percent of their imported fertilizer, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Future harvests are at risk in sub-Saharan Africa, where before the war farmers applied much less fertilizer than the global average. Now, short supplies and near-record high prices mean they use even less, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“The global outlook for 2023 may be even more dire. As the Russia-Ukraine war continues and the supply of fertilizer remains limited, high prices are likely to have a more profound impact on 2023 planting decisions,” the department’s Foreign Agricultural Service concluded in a report last month.
In the West African nation of Ghana, which buys half of its fertilizer from Russia, retail prices are more than five times higher than they were last year, prompting some corn and yam farmers to abandon chemicals in favor of cow dung and chicken droppings, even though that means lower crop yields and the risk of hunger.
Mumuni Baba, 36, said he could afford to plant only half of his 40 acres this year. He’s also switched some of his corn fields in Sagnarigu, northern Ghana, to soybeans and groundnut, which do not require fertilizer.
Baba has been tilling the fields for a quarter century. But he has never seen a time like this.
“Life in general has become very difficult … It’s killing our business,” he said.
If Ghana’s harvest this year falls short, the country will need to import corn from Brazil, said Alloysius Attah, CEO of Farmerline, which connects African farmers with seed, fertilizer and financing.
But with its currency having lost more than 16 percent of its value against the dollar since the war’s start, the Ghanaian government will struggle to pay for food imports without aggravating a chronic budget deficit.
“It’s brutal. Farmers aren’t buying what they need; they are buying what they can afford,” said Attah. “I’m hearing some people are not even farming this year.”
The smaller harvests of corn, wheat, rice and soybeans that are likely to result from reduced fertilizer use would represent enough food to feed 92 million people for one year, according to Gro Intelligence, which this month introduced an online tool for modeling the impact of fertilizer shortages on individual nations.
“The fertilizer crisis is just beginning,” said Sara Menker, Gro’s CEO. “This is going to be a multiyear crisis. It’s not one-and-done.”
Sprawling across 1,400 acres, the CF Industries complex here is a warren of pipes, furnaces, cooling towers and storage chambers. The facility uses natural gas to produce ammonia, which is then upgraded into a variety of fertilizers: urea, ammonia nitrate and nitric acid.
The process calls for managing extremes. In one corner of the site, substances are heated to 1,400 degrees. Elsewhere, they are cooled to 28 degrees below zero for storage in massive aboveground tanks.
The facility boasts numerous links to U.S. and global markets, reflecting Donaldsonville’s origins in 1750 as a trading post. Fertilizer travels to customers on 700-foot vessels that call at two deepwater docks, via rail cars or through a 2,000-mile pipeline that reaches seven states.
“We’re unique in the chemical industry in that everything we make ends up in the ground,” said Morris Johnson, general manager of the Donaldsonville complex.
The shale gas revolution over the past decade made U.S. fertilizer production among the lowest cost in the industry.
What determines CF Industries’ fortunes is the difference between the price of natural gas here and in Europe. So even as U.S. natural gas prices rose, the increase was dwarfed by the enormous jumps in Europe, which were fueled by fallout from the war.
Natural gas prices in Europe prompted some plants in Italy, France and Romania to temporarily halt production. CF Industries shuttered one of its small plants in the United Kingdom.
That made basic ammonia much more profitable than usual, especially relative to urea. As the gap between European and U.S. gas prices in dollars roughly doubled, CF Industries executives adjusted their product mix — making more basic ammonia and less urea — to capitalize on the shifting economics.
“What’s happened as a result of just some of the evolving trade flows is that our mix has shifted, has changed a little bit,” Will said.
With more ammonia to ship than usual, Will sent a record number of rail cars racing to inland terminals and chartered three times the usual number of vessels to bring product to the East and West Coasts.
The ships, laden with urea ammonium nitrate liquid, replaced Russian fertilizer imports, which had been blocked by new tariffs CF Industries had petitioned the Commerce Department to impose. The company alleged Russia and Trinidad and Tobago had improperly subsidized or sold in the United States below their costs.
Yet, even as fertilizer prices hover at unusual levels — and domestic fertilizer production enjoys an edge over European alternatives — there is little prospect of CF Industries adding to its capacity here.
The Donaldsonville complex has been upgraded several times since it opened in 1966. The most recent overhaul, a $2.5 billion project completed in 2017, expanded output by 50 percent.
Building a new ammonia plant is a multibillion-dollar investment that would take at least four years to come to fruition. Market conditions can shift dramatically before it even opens, company officials said.
Plus, the fertilizer industry faces the same imperative to become more environmentally friendly as any other part of the petrochemical sector. CF Industries’ major new investments are in plants that will rely on renewable energy sources rather than natural gas, or would capture the carbon emissions from using gas and sequester them underground.
The war in Ukraine had a near-immediate impact on exports of Ukrainian and Russian grains through the Black Sea, where ports were shelled and ships sunk. Tons of Ukrainian wheat were effectively trapped in storage facilities in the country’s south, blocked from foreign markets. That’s left many countries, especially in North Africa and the Middle East, scrambling to secure alternative supplies while struggling to increase production at home.
Obtaining enough fertilizer to do that hasn’t been easy.
In April, the European Union also imposed restrictions on Russian fertilizer imports, which took effect July 10. Lloyd’s Joint War Committee, which represents insurance underwriters, added Russian waters to its formal list of areas requiring vessel owners to notify their insurance carriers of planned voyages. The pricey maritime insurance required to enter such areas raised the cost of cargoes that can get exit Russia via a Crimean port or St. Petersburg in the north, discouraging some potential buyers.
Some customers also shied away from Russian cargoes for fear of violating U.S. financial sanctions, even though U.S. officials had said such shipments were not prohibited.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in late May that Washington wanted to encourage “companies who are holding back on shipping of Russian grain and fertilizer” to proceed.
The Treasury Department would provide so-called “comfort letters” for shippers and maritime insurance companies, making clear that the U.S. did not object to such shipments, she said.
Such reassurances, coupled with Russia’s financial needs, explain why Russian fertilizer exports continue to flow.
World Bank warns global economy may suffer 1970s-style "stagflation"
Despite initial fears, Russia this year is expected to ship at least 5.8 million tons of urea to global customers, according to Chris Lawson, head fertilizer analyst for CRU Group. That estimate, which is likely to be revised up, is down from last year’s 7 million tons, he said. But the decline is minor for a global market that sees about 49 million tons of the product traded annually, he said.
“We’re seeing some changes in trade flows and relationships,” Lawson said. “But it hasn’t been nearly as bad as anticipated for Russia. We’re still seeing a decent flow of product exiting Russia from Baltic and Black Sea ports.”
Still, market pressures are keeping fertilizer prices elevated. Though urea, for example, has dropped more than 40 percent from its April high, it remains roughly twice its pre-pandemic level.
Meanwhile, China continues to block its exports of urea, fearing higher prices and shortages at home. Chinese exports of the nitrogen-based fertilizer in May were 86 percent below figures from a year ago, before the ban was imposed, according to JPMorgan Chase.
“The Russia-Ukraine conflict is another black swan in a pond full of black swans,” said Josh Linville, head of fertilizer for StoneX, a commodity brokerage.
In Colombia, skyrocketing fertilizer prices follow two years of the weather pattern known as La Niña, whose punishing rains were responsible for last year’s disappointing coffee crop, said Hugo Gomez, director of land and rural development programs for Mercy Corps in Bogotá.
His efforts to encourage smallholder farmers to switch from growing coca plants for the illicit drug trade to planting legal crops such as coffee have been stymied by the latter’s thirst for fertilizer.
As poor farmers balk at the cost of using so much expensive fertilizer, acreage devoted to coca cultivation is expected to jump by 30 percent and many young people are expected to abandon rural areas for the cities, he said.
Colombia, and its Latin American and Caribbean neighbors that depend on Russian fertilizer, have suffered the highest rates of food price inflation in more than 10 years.
In June, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced $331 million in funding to boost food security in the region, including by aiding farmers in Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Peru improve productivity and withstand the impact of high fertilizer prices.
Edwin Salazar, 37, a farmer in Cauca in southwestern Colombia, a region that has suffered chronic drug-related violence, eradicated his coca plants last year and switched to coffee. Mercy Corps helped by absorbing some of his fertilizer and seed costs. But it’s still been an expensive transition.
“Food and fertilizer prices have increased significantly in the last months,” he said. “Most families don’t know what they are going to do. Farmers need to apply fertilizer every three months, which becomes very expensive, but plants need it to grow stronger.” | 2022-07-14T10:49:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fertilizer shortage, price spike creates profit and pain around the globe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/14/fertilizer-inflation-food-shortage/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/14/fertilizer-inflation-food-shortage/ |
Bloomberg (Autonomous Research)
It is spreading like wildfire. Homebuyers in China are refusing to pay the mortgage on properties they’ve bought but that their financially strapped developers can’t finish. Some say that they will only resume payments when construction restarts.
The protest involved more than 100 delayed projects as of July 13, up from 58 projects just one day earlier. The frustrated buyers accuse the developers of misusing sales proceeds and the banks of failing to safeguard their loans.
But this mortgage strike isn’t entirely unpredictable. Homebuyers have every reason to be angry. Most of the projects were begun by developers who have defaulted. China Evergrande Group led the pack, accounting for an estimated 35% of the total projects that faced mortgage revolts, data compiled by CLSA shows. One such project in eastern Jiangsu province was launched before the Covid-19 pandemic. Construction has been suspended since last August, while property values in its neighborhood has come down by about 10%.
In other words, not only did the affected households see their wealth dip, they can’t move in and enjoy their new apartments either. Over the years, with consent of local governments, the likes of Evergrande and Country Garden Holdings Co. fed the residential housing boom through a so-called pre-sales model: Apartments are bought long before they are completed. Now the builders don’t have money to finish these projects.
Granted, developers’ debt woes were met with protests in the past, from suppliers, employees, all the way to hapless retail investors who had bought their wealth-management offerings. But this new development is something entirely different. It opens a Pandora’s box and poses direct threat to the stability of Chinese banks. The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development met with financial regulators and major banks this week to discuss the mortgage boycotts, Bloomberg News reported Thursday.
Unless President Xi Jinping’s government stops this stampede, a collapse of the banking system on the scale of Lehman Brothers Holdings in 2008 is very much in the cards. China is unprepared for such a big chunk of its bank loans to go sour.
According to Autonomous Research, banks have about 62 trillion yuan ($9.2 trillion) of exposure to the property sector. More than half is in the form of mortgage loans. At China Construction Bank Corp., one of the world’s largest banks, mortgages account for more than 20% of its total assets.
Until this week, China’s middle class were excellent customers, dutifully paying their monthly bills. The government’s social credit system — a national credit rating and borrowing blacklist — has worked well; bad credit can even hamper one’s ability to take high-speed rails. But what if some are just fed up and willing to walk away from their obligations?
We’re not talking about one or two delinquent developers. In the past year, 28 of the top 100 developers have defaulted or asked their debtholders for extensions, data compiled by CLSA shows. Collectively, they account for about 20% of China’s total property sales. Money is even tighter now. In the first half, property sales plummeted 72% from a year ago, further eroding their cash flow.
A CLSA monthly survey on the current status of Evergrande projects gives us a glimpse of how many unfinished sites there are across China. As of June, over half of Evergrande’s projects were under construction halts. The broker reckons that about 840 billion yuan in mortgages are tied to abandoned sites across China.
All we have seen is policy inertia. Developers have been in distress for more than a year now, but there has been no progress in restructuring their finances. Local officials have been unwilling to make difficult decisions, write off bad debt and reach resolutions. Unable to shed financial burdens, builders can’t focus on operations. They become zombies, and their construction sites turn into ghost towns.
• Why China’s Property Crisis Is Spreading: Shuli Ren
• China’s Failing Small Banks Point to Big Problem: Trivedi & Ren
• China’s Central Bank Needs a Greater Helmsman: Ren & Trivedi | 2022-07-14T10:49:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Is China Stumbling Into Its Own Mortgage Crisis? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-china-stumbling-into-its-own-mortgage-crisis/2022/07/14/c2099a3a-0359-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-china-stumbling-into-its-own-mortgage-crisis/2022/07/14/c2099a3a-0359-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
Military Mission Creep Threatens Brazil’s Democracy
Not since the end of Brazil’s military dictatorship nearly four decades ago have its generals wielded so much political clout. Between active duty and reserve officers, they have policed the Amazon and urban hot spots, filled executive offices at state-controlled companies, extended their hold of federal government positions and even helped run a growing number of schools. Their perks and benefits have multiplied. Now the armed forces have waded into the thorny debate over electronic voting and plan to help oversee October’s presidential poll. In a democracy, it’s a step too far.
Even by the standards of a country that brushed the repressive excesses of the 1960s and 1970s under the carpet, President Jair Bolsonaro has been a cheerleader for the armed forces. With no political foundation to lean on when he took power, the one-time army captain spotted a suitably conservative support base, trusted by voters. So it was unsurprising when his government, lagging in the polls, demanded a role for the military in securing a voting process that Bolsonaro has repeatedly questioned. Electoral authorities made room, giving dangerous credence to baseless claims of vote fraud, bolstering senior officers’ view of themselves as guardians of the nation.
For all the president’s golpista ambitions, an all-out coup in the mold of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol remains unlikely, especially if, as surveys suggest, leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wins by a wide margin. Bolsonaro has a core of backers, but the armed forces are not united in their enthusiasm — not least because military men will first and foremost seek to preserve themselves, and their influence. The judiciary, Congress, the media and civil society, meanwhile, remain counterweights to presidential excesses.
There are other toxic possibilities, say, an outbreak of violence that results in soldiers being called in to restore order. Isolated events like this weekend’s killing of a pro-Lula activist by a Bolsonaro supporter provide good reason for alarm. The far graver long-term threat to democracy, however, is less dramatic and already real: The sheer number of current and former officers in all manner of civilian functions, a presence that promotes deference to the supposedly superior capacities of the military and erodes civilian control. That includes electoral mission creep.
The military has for months been amplifying Bolsonaro’s allegations of vote fraud. Having never done so before, the armed forces began raising questions about the electronic voting process from late 2021, and have now filed dozens of queries, plus suggested changes. They’ve demanded electoral records from 2014 and 2018. To ease tension, electoral authorities had already included them in a transparency commission. That, says Vinicius Mariano de Carvalho of King’s College London, was a mistake, granting the armed forces power they do not and should not have, and legitimizing their claim to a political role. It’s also proved insufficient — officers feel irked after some of their suggestions were brushed aside, and the armed forces are preparing a parallel monitoring and inspection program, a first.
The head of Brazil’s electoral authority said earlier this month that the military would collaborate, ruling out intervention. That looks increasingly like wishful thinking.
This problem is not a new one for Brazil, which has mostly soft-pedaled discussions on a military dictatorship seen as less brutal than those of neighbors like Argentina and Chile, though more than 400 were killed(1) and thousands were tortured between 1964 and 1985. The result has been an incomplete transition, in which military and civilian affairs mix. The army has been called in to help with security on numerous occasions, memorably cracking down on crime in Rio de Janeiro, while the president of the Supreme Court in 2018 chose a retired general as his advisor. That same election year, the commander of the army escaped serious sanction for repeatedly wading into political discussions.
The situation is far more dangerous today. Despite his pedestrian army career, Bolsonaro has basked in the reflected glow of the military’s reputation for efficacy, competence and incorruptibility. Yet his efforts to tap those qualities have largely backfired: Bolsonaro’s decision to place a general with no medical training at the health ministry at the height of the pandemic in 2020 proved disastrous, as did the move to involve soldiers in the Amazon, where more was spent and deforestation surged. The armed forces, meanwhile, have sought to use the president as a bulwark against the perceived threat from the left — few have forgotten President Dilma Rousseff’s ill-timed Truth Commission to investigate torture and other abuses during the dictatorship — and against the dissemination of liberal values they see as dividing society.
They’ve been compensated for their support. In 2020, there were 6,157 military men in federal government jobs, more than double the figure during the last year under Bolsonaro’s predecessor, Michel Temer. Defense has hoovered up discretionary funding more effectively than any other ministry. Civilian-military schools are on the rise. And come October, Bolsonaro will run once again with an army man as his vice president — this time, former defense minister and retired general Walter Braga Netto, picked over several civilian candidates (including at least one woman, impressive former agriculture minister Tereza Cristina, who might have helped his flagging fortunes).
Bolsonaro’s undisguised authoritarian tendencies offer no reassurance. He has sought to rehabilitate the military dictatorship, labeled a torturer as a “national hero,” said only God will remove him from office and seeded unfounded talk of a “secret room” for vote counting — while allowing his sons and supporters to tweet Josef Stalin memes and other comments suggesting unsubtly that the left seeks to manipulate elections.
At a time when inflation is eating into incomes and hunger is on the rise, yet more worrying is the significant support among Brazilians for the military and its underlying order-and-prosperity pitch.
Joao Roberto Martins Filho, a veteran political scientist working on the Brazilian dictatorship and the armed forces, says the risks of military mission creep were underestimated; even experienced researchers working in the field thought the military had accepted the rules of the democratic game. Instead, given the chance, the top brass jumped at the chance to fill the political void, closing their eyes to Bolsonaro’s limitations and contradictions. The military, he says, still views the world through a Cold War lens.
Three things must now happen. One, ahead of the election, civil society must raise the alert, give prominence to discussions about the realities of authoritarianism and about the need to keep generals out of the ballot box in a democracy. That may at least limit damage already done. The Supreme Court must hold its nerve, as it says it will, and push back against parallel electoral adventures by the military, which only store up problems. Then, if Lula wins the election, he must use the popular mandate to quickly and quietly reduce the number of military men in civilian roles, and, among other things, name a civilian defense minister once again.
That will put Brazil on the path to the last step, a long-overdue public discussion about the role of the military. As Marina Vitelli of the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro points out, political parties will have to reach a consensus that a politicized military benefits no one, a realization that came in Argentina. It will be a tough consensus to build in this polarized nation — but for Brazil’s democracy, it’s also vital.
• A Bolsonaro Pardon Is Ugly Pre-Election Omen: Clara F. Marques
• Governance Must Trump Ideology in Latin America: Shannon O’Neill
• Brazil Expats Flee Bolsonaro’s Country of the Past: David Wainer
(1) According to Anthony Pereira’s “Ditadura e Repressao: O Autoritarismo e o Estado de Direito no Brasil, no Chile e na Argentina”, 2010, there were 284-364 deaths and disappearances in Brazil between 1964 and 1979, compared to 3,000-5,000 in Chile between 1973 and 1989, and as many as 30,000 in Argentina between 1976 and 1983. | 2022-07-14T10:49:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Military Mission Creep Threatens Brazil’s Democracy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/military-mission-creepthreatens-brazils-democracy/2022/07/14/c35274dc-0360-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/military-mission-creepthreatens-brazils-democracy/2022/07/14/c35274dc-0360-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
The key to the Bastille, on display at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. (Courtesy of Mount Vernon Ladies' Association)
On July 14, 1789, an angry French mob stormed the royal Bastille prison in Paris, igniting the French Revolution. But as France celebrates Bastille Day and the birth of its republic, one of the most potent symbols of the revolution — the main key to the Bastille — hangs in George Washington’s historic estate in Mount Vernon, Va.
The key arrived at Mount Vernon after a convoluted journey involving the Marquis de Lafayette, Thomas Paine, a South Carolina lawyer, and stops in New York and Philadelphia.
Lafayette first arrived in America at age 19 to fight in the American Revolution against England’s King George III and wound up as a “boy general” leading the decisive defeat of the British at Yorktown, Va., in 1781. After returning to France, he was a leader of the revolt against King Louis XVI.
This map helped George Washington win the Revolutionary War. Now it’s on display at Mount Vernon.
On March 17, 1790, after taking over the Bastille, revolutionaries presented the key to Lafayette, the 32-year-old head of the Paris National Guard. He endeavored to send it, along with a letter, to Washington in New York, then the U.S. capital.
“Give me leave, My dear General, to present you with a picture of the Bastille just as it looked a few days after I Had ordered its demolition, with the Main Key of that fortress of despotism—it is a tribute Which I owe as A Son to My Adoptive father, as an aid de Camp to My General, as a Missionary of liberty to its patriarch,” Lafayette wrote. He included a drawing of the Bastille ruins by the French architect who oversaw its demolition.
Lafayette entrusted delivery of the key to Paine, the author of the American revolutionary pamphlet “Common Sense,” who was visiting Europe at the time. On May 1, Paine wrote Washington, “I feel myself happy in being the person thro’ whom the Marquis has conveyed this early trophy of the Spoils of Despotism and the first ripe fruits of American principles transplanted into Europe.”
When Paine’s voyage to America was postponed, he gave the Bastille key and drawing to John Rutledge Jr., a prominent South Carolina lawyer who was sailing home from London. Rutledge presented the items to Washington in early August. Lafayette’s letter was delivered separately.
An edible token of esteem: The 1,325-pound cheese given to Thomas Jefferson
Washington wrote Lafayette a thank-you note: “My dear Marquis, I have received your affectionate letter of the 17 of March by one conveyance, and the token of victory gained by Liberty over Despotism by another” and “I pray you to accept my sincerest thanks.” In return, Washington sent Lafayette a pair of shoe buckles, “Not for the value of the thing, my dear Marquis, but as a memorial, and because they are the manufacture of this city.”
Washington displayed the Bastille key at a presidential reception in New York. The key, made of dark-colored wrought iron, is seven inches long and weighs one pound and three ounces. Its teeth are designed in the shape of the royal fleur-de-lis.
After the U.S. capital was moved to Philadelphia in late 1790, Washington displayed the key in a gilded wood-and-glass case in the president’s state dining room. Just before finishing his second term as president in early 1797, he took the encased key to his estate at Mount Vernon, Va., where he hung it first in the “Lafayette bedchamber” and then in the first-floor entry hall, according to Mount Vernon curators. Washington died in 1799, and his widow, Martha, kept the key on display.
Stolen Alexander Hamilton letter now on display
Meanwhile, Lafayette helped lead the French Revolution and the establishment of the First Republic of France in September 1792. In the subsequent “Reign of Terror” carried out by the victors, Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were beheaded with the recently invented guillotine. The new leaders also went after French aristocrats, even Lafayette, who in August 1792 fled to Belgium, where officials turned him over to Austria. He was put in prison there for five years as a dangerous radical. After his release, he returned to France.
In 1824, at the invitation of President James Monroe, the 67-year-old Lafayette and his son, George Washington de Lafayette, embarked on a one-year tour of the United States. That September, they visited Mount Vernon, where Lafayette’s son had lived during his father’s imprisonment. The aging hero “found in the place where Washington had put it the principal key of the Bastille, which Lafayette sent him after the destruction of that monument of despotism,” Lafayette’s secretary wrote in his journal of the trip. “The note which accompanied it is still carefully preserved along with the key.”
The Bastille key remained on display at Mount Vernon after the nonprofit Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association purchased the estate from the Washington family in 1858 and opened it to the public. One visitor in 1922 was former French prime minister Georges Clemenceau, known as the “Tiger of France,” who, like Lafayette, was once imprisoned for political reasons. “What interested me most there,” Clemenceau wrote later, “was the key of the Bastille—the gift of Lafayette. As an ex-jailbird I am naturally interested in such things.”
In 1959, during the Eisenhower administration, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s wife, Nina, visited Mount Vernon. When the tour director “started to explain that the dove of peace on the mansion’s weather vane carried an olive branch, Mrs. Khrushchev muttered, ‘Yes, yes’ and walked away,” the New York Daily News reported. “She was more interested in the Key to the Bastille. She put on her glasses for a closer look.”
In 1951, the syndicated columnist Drew Pearson urged that the key be returned to France after French President Vincent Auriol had visited Washington’s home. “When he departed, there remained behind him, hanging on the walls of Mount Vernon, a symbol of France as dear to the French people as the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia is to the American people. It is the key to the Bastille,” Pearson wrote. “The average American who visits Mount Vernon does not appreciate the key’s significance and the role it played in French history. But in France it means the day of liberty, the founding of the French republic.”
The key did return to France temporarily in 1989, when President George H.W. Bush took it to Paris for the 200th anniversary celebration of Bastille Day. He presented the key to French President Francois Mitterrand to be displayed for a week at the newly opened Bastille Opera House next to the original Bastille site.
As France celebrates La Fete Nationale on Thursday’s Bastille Day, in the United States, visitors to Mount Vernon can see the Bastille key in the central passage there. For $29.95, you can even show your support for the French Revolution by buying your own “Mount Vernon Cast Iron Key to the Bastille Paperweight.”
More on George Washington
Why George Washington has two birthdays — and neither falls on Presidents’ Day
Mandatory immunization for the military: As American as George Washington
At the nation’s first presidential transfer of power, George Washington was ‘radiant’ | 2022-07-14T10:50:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Bastille key ended up at Mount Vernon, via Marquis de Lafayette - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/14/bastille-day-key-mount-vernon/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/14/bastille-day-key-mount-vernon/ |
Journalism has long conflated objectivity with White perspectives
When invited on a pro-segregation press tour of Mississippi 65 years ago, White journalists saw no conflict
Perspective by Brie Thompson-Bristol
Kathy Roberts Forde
When the news media covered the Black Lives Matter protests of the summer of 2020, it grappled with questions about “objectivity.” Some reporters spoke out against traditional journalistic standards they thought constrained who could report on the protests and whose views were deemed neutral. The movement culminated with Wesley Lowery’s New York Times opinion piece, “A Reckoning Over Objectivity, Led by Black Journalists.” Since then, some outlets have made changes to their policies that include permitting reporters to participate in certain forms of protest.
As outlets debate their ethics policies, Black reporters have raised the question: Whom were these “classic” journalistic standards originally intended to serve? As Lowery pointed out, “The views and inclinations of whiteness are accepted as the objective neutral.” In fact, the White press in America has a history of playing fast and loose with its ethics and disguising racism behind the veil of objectivity.
A key example came 65 years ago, when 20 newsmen from New England participated in a pro-segregation tour of Mississippi and reported on the state’s race relations. In 1956, that group of reporters and editors from the New England Press Association took a trip to the Magnolia State, where a state-funded segregationist organization wined and dined them on a mission to create positive press about the state’s “separate but equal” status quo. After the week-long, carefully curated tour, many of the journalists returned home to publish articles and editorials sympathetic to Mississippi’s “Negro problem.” The junket was a propaganda coup for Mississippi.
It was also a desperate attempt to preserve a white supremacist power structure that Mississippians felt slipping away. Two years earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.
So, if not objectivity, then what? Masha Gessen and Lowery might suggest “moral clarity,” an ideal that gained traction after Lowery’s piece appeared in the Times and Gessen published “Why Some Journalists re Afraid of Moral Clarity” in the ions department, claiming its mission was to educate the American public about life in Mississippi. Behind closed doors, however, the organization functioned as both a spy agency and a propaganda hub — surveilling Black Mississippians and civil rights workers and working to quash civil rights advances while shaping coverage of segregation outside the South.
One of the priorities of the MSSC was to stifle Northern criticism of Southern segregation. Hal DeCell, the MSSC’s first public relations director, was also the editor and publisher of the Deer Creek Pilot, Sharkey County’s most-read newspaper. DeCell’s role as editor and co-owner of the Pilot gave him a firm position in the all-White boys’ club of the 1950s mainstream newspaper industry.
Obsessed with spinning positive representations of white supremacy in the South, DeCell took a trip to Cape Cod to attend a meeting of the New England Press Association. There he invited journalists on a week-long, all-expenses-paid tour of Mississippi to “see the state’s racial situation for themselves.” He flew the 20 men to visit the state from Oct. 6 to Oct. 14, where he entertained them and took them on a tour designed to present Mississippi as “separate but equal.” After Brown v Board of Education, public perception of segregation was growing increasingly critical. DeCell recognized this — his goal was to challenge the Supreme Court’s ruling and forge an image of Black Southerners thriving under segregation.
“Mississippi has been the target of more unfounded acrimonious and antagonistic falsehoods and/or misrepresentations — amounting to the mass slander of all Mississippians — than any other state in history,” read a MSSC-created pamphlet that was sent to news outlets the same year as the tour.
The group spoke with Gov. James P. Coleman. For two hours, Coleman pushed an anti-integration agenda, claiming that the state wouldn’t integrate for the next 50 years. “We must have segregation if we are going to have any public education at all,” Coleman told the journalists.
Throughout the week, the group was shuttled to locations hand-selected by the commission to exemplify the state’s “separate but equal” facilities. The journalists were allowed to do their own exploring at night, but, in an unfamiliar state with no tour guide, it was difficult for them to wander far from the towns in which they were staying.
The tour’s destinations included the predominantly Black Delta region, the nearly all-Black town Mound Bayou, the state’s newest and best all-Black schools, a steamboat trip on the Mississippi River and a weekend at a resort area on the Gulf Coast. Save the resort, DeCell handpicked these locations to paint the best image he could of a contented Black community in Mississippi — intending to prove that segregation was beneficial for all.
The problem wasn’t only that this was a lavish trip, presented to the journalists as an expenses-paid vacation. Although the ethical standard that prohibits journalists from accepting gifts was not officially established until 1975, when the American Society of Newspaper Editors adopted a Statement of Principles condemning the practice as a conflict of interest, even some libertarian editors in 1956 would have raised an eyebrow at the MSSC junket.
But the problem was also, more importantly, the way the mainstream news industry conflated objectivity — a professional standard well-established since the 1920s — with White perspectives. These White New England journalists who visited Mississippi may have believed they were analyzing the facts rationally and without bias. But their journalistic “objectivity” often served as a cover for the prejudices inherent in their coverage of Mississippi’s race relations.
Some articles were critical of the state and segregation. (Time magazine published an article that compiled some of the criticism.) But some of the reporting was sympathetic to segregation and displayed an array of racist ideas.
“I cannot see integration happening in the state of Mississippi in my time,” read an editorial written for the Associated Press by Foxboro Reporter editor J. Clark Samuel. The editorial, which portrayed Black Southerners as content to remain in a segregated society, was carried by at least 19 papers across 13 states, including the Miami Herald. “We were served in hotels and restaurants by cheerful Negroes who seemed proud of themselves and their jobs,” the editorial went on. “They were merely simple people going about their daily work.”
The Mansfield News wrote that Mississippi is “happy as it is” and is “perfectly happy to establish ‘equal but separate’ facilities for negroes.” The Belmont Citizen claimed that Black Mississippians didn’t shy away from the polls because of voter intimidation but because “the status of the average Southern Negro is such that he just isn’t interested in voting.” The Wellesley Townsman acknowledged that “Mississippi has a problem” but held that it should be “resolved by Mississippians.” While all three of these articles included Black Mississippians as sources, most were cherry-picked to appear in support of segregation. Even the Boston Globe, which provided a detailed, critical accounting of Mississippi’s “way of life,” wrote that “neither race is ready for integration.”
Practically every article used the terms “Mississippi” and “Mississippians” to refer to White citizens of Mississippi, as if Black people were not truly part of the state. That is, the New England journalists assumed Whiteness as the normative perspective for Mississippians — and for themselves and New Englanders, too.
To flaunt its PR success and justify the spending of taxpayer money, the MSSC published “The Report to the People,” a compilation of the trip’s press coverage. “It is our opinion that the tour was tremendously successful and will prove a great benefit to the state for years to come,” DeCell gloated.
The Northern press, dominated by White owners, editors and reporters, was complicit in amplifying the pro-segregation message that Mississippi officials crafted for them. The “objectivity” standard led many not only to privilege powerful White official voices over those of Black leaders and Mississippians, but also to reproduce existing power and social caste hierarchies while claiming neutrality.
So, if not objectivity, then what? Masha Gessen and Lowery might suggest “moral clarity,” an ideal that gained traction after Lowery’s piece appeared in the Times and Gessen published “Why Some Journalists Are Afraid of Moral Clarity” in the New Yorker. To both, moral clarity is a quest for the truth that is guided by facts, context and clear moral values that might have been put aside under journalistic objectivity.
Objectivity, which originally meant evidentiary rigor but has too often been practiced as naive empiricism and neutrality, remains the status quo. Many news organizations still reinforce traditional hierarchies that have allowed standards to remain unchanged for decades. In the next few years, journalism may see a shift as younger newspeople advance into leadership. Today’s generation of up-and-coming journalists, namely students, women and people of color, stands poised to reform these standards.
“We need to fundamentally reset the norms of our field,” Lowery tweeted in summer 2020. “The old way must go.” | 2022-07-14T10:50:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Journalism has long conflated objectivity with White perspectives - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/14/journalism-has-long-conflated-objectivity-with-white-perspectives/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/14/journalism-has-long-conflated-objectivity-with-white-perspectives/ |
TV and films have long taught audiences transphobia
Today’s political assaults on trans rights build on media depictions of trans people as dangerous
Perspective by Traci B. Abbott
Traci B. Abbott is an assistant professor of English and media studies at Bentley University and author of "The History of Transgender Representation in American Television and Film Genres" (2022, Palgrave Macmillan).
Demonstrators pose holding placards ahead of the London Trans Pride rally on July 9 in London. (Hollie Adams/Getty Images)
So far in 2022, a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills have filled up state legislative dockets, with more than 300 proposed in over 35 states. The legislative focus centers on the trans community by banning trans people from spaces such as bathrooms, locker rooms or athletic teams that fit their identity.
Worse, some are designed to prevent trans people from existing at all. These proposed laws criminalize gender-affirming care for trans children and adolescents, ban legal changes of gender for trans adults and bar discussion of trans identities in the classroom.
Such anti-trans rhetoric can seem startling, but a closer look at how American television and film have portrayed trans characters demonstrates a troubling history that probably still contributes to many of the sentiments and stereotypes underpinning these legislative efforts.
For decades, popular culture has relied on assumptions about the trans community that implies there is something different, even disturbing and dangerous, about them. The origin of this stereotype is most likely Ed Gein, an alleged cross-dresser in Wisconsin who murdered two local women in 1957. According to recent scholarship, local investigators linked Gein’s “transvestism” to his grave robbing and desecration of his victims during a forced confession, and leaked the revelation to the press.
Robert Bloch used the case to create his murderous protagonist in the novel “Psycho” (1959), following on the popularity of other trans psychotic killers as in “The Lady was a Man” (Shane, 1958) during this starkly homophobic decade. Bloch’s novel became the basis of the film “Psycho” (Hitchcock, 1960) and influenced the plot of an episode of the television show “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” (NBC, 1965) soon after.
Although sodomy and cross-dressing laws were already in place at this time, the mid-20th century began a more explicit war against gender and sexual nonconformity. Already struggling with the post-World War II restabilization of gender roles, society roiled when faced with new scientific theories about the commonality of non-heterosexual behavior and advances in surgical and physiological treatments which enabled transsexual women such as Christine Jorgensen to physically transform themselves. Medical transition techniques commonly performed today, like jaw and forehead reshaping, breast augmentation and vaginoplasty, could effectively “erase” one’s sex as assigned at birth, adding to concerns about how to identify “real” women.
By the 1970s, an archetype of a violent trans criminal had become firmly entrenched in popular entertainment. Variations on this archetype appeared on the most popular television crime dramas of the 1970s and 1980s, from “The Streets of San Francisco” (ABC, 1974) and “Police Woman” (NBC, 1976) to “Magnum, P.I.” (CBS, 1982) and “T.J. Hooker” (ABC, 1984). These psychotic mass murderers impersonated nuns or nurses to target women but were ultimately “exposed” as men, often with a dramatic wig reveal.
During this time, horror films and thrillers — freed from the restrictions of network television with regard to more explicit sexual references and depictions of genitalia — began to sexualize the trans murderer more explicitly. The disturbed incestual longings of Marguerite in “A Reflection of Fear” (Fraker, 1972) and Dr. Elliott’s sexual frustration in “Dressed to Kill” (De Palma, 1980) led to perhaps the most famous trans serial killer, Buffalo Bill in “The Silence of the Lambs” (Demme, 1999). His erotic “tuck” dance before the mirror connected his grotesque decortication with gender dysphoria, a durable image that the American public has never forgotten.
Comedic satire also contributed to these negative depictions. The film “Myra Breckinridge” (Sarne, 1970), an adaptation of Gore Vidal’s best-selling 1968 novel, featured a trans woman who graphically raped a blond young actor using a strap-on. Reviews, like in Time magazine, called the film a “nadir in American cinema,” reflecting not only this tasteless act but the added presumption that a trans woman would transition to seek out sexual dominance over heterosexual men. This ridiculous notion also supported commonly accepted attitudes about homosexuality as a mental illness, its official diagnostic category until 1973, as well as ongoing debates on female sexual power during this period of second-wave feminism.
This deceptively sexy female aggressor with a “secret past” persisted into the 21st century. Handsome young men in films such as “American Wedding” (Dylan, 2003) were hit on by a conventionally attractive woman with a deep voice, height or musculature. During such performances, a woman’s “real” sex — and the men’s fearful disgust — becomes comedic fodder. And yet the persistence of these stereotypes may be why some Americans continue to believe trans feminine predators exist despite ample evidence to the contrary.
In fact, trans women are more likely to be victims, not perpetrators, of homicide, and trans people are four times more likely to be the victim of a violent attack than their cisgender counterparts. But even on this point, television and film have generated a narrative that portrays trans women as responsible for their own victimization. Or, as a 2005 “Law & Order” episode noted, it’s their own fault for “playing a dangerous game.”
In this way, more recent scripted narratives may sympathize with trans victims of assault or harassment but still suggest that the world isn’t “ready” to embrace the trans community. Even if a trans character is attacked by her boyfriend’s business partner as on “Law & Order: SVU” (NBC, 2016), a stranger as on “Doubt” (CBS, 2017) or other children as on “Council of Dads” (NBC, 2020), this transphobia is presented not as an indictment of misguided social attitudes but as an admission of intractable prejudice, something to shrug at rather than work to change. Even the usually unflappable Detective Tutuola on “SVU” admits during a trans woman’s murder investigation, “This whole gender fluidity thing is coming out more nowadays, but the truth is, it’s confusing, and a lot of people can’t make sense of it all. Me included.”
But how the characters and the storylines that define trans people are written matters in the greater context of how they are seen and treated in our society. This problem will persist unless creators are cognizant of these ramifications as they address trans issues, and viewers become aware of their own perceptions and conclusions drawn from the movies and shows they’ve seen and continue to watch. | 2022-07-14T10:50:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | TV and films have long taught audiences transphobia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/14/tv-films-have-long-taught-audiences-transphobia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/14/tv-films-have-long-taught-audiences-transphobia/ |
What pre-Civil War history tells us about the coming abortion battle
Fights over fugitive slave laws pitted states against each other and showcased the risks of the federal government not supporting liberty
Perspective by Kate Masur
Kate Masur is associate professor of history at Northwestern University and author of the new book "Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction," and "An Example for All the Land: Emancipation and the Struggle over Equality in Washington, D.C."
A billboard in Rancho Mirage, Calif., reads: “Welcome to California, where abortion is safe and still legal.” (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion, is prompting allusions to slavery and the antebellum United States. There’s talk of a new “Underground Railroad” that conjures clandestine networks helping people to flee their home states in search of the freedom to end a pregnancy. And some predict Dobbs will result in conflicts among the states of a magnitude not seen since before the Civil War.
Any historical comparison requires considerable care, with attention to differences as well as similarities. The inability to access abortion, however degrading and oppressive, is quite unlike the horrors of chattel slavery, in which enslavers tortured and murdered enslaved people with impunity, sold children and adults away from loving families and required enslaved status to be passed from one generation to the next.
Yet, like antebellum slavery, abortion is a question of fundamental individual rights, an issue of critical national importance and a matter of great moral significance, marked by bitter divisions in public opinion. And like the battle over slavery, the fight over reproductive freedom raises questions about federal and state authority — in other words, who gets to make the rules.
The Dobbs decision, which gives states complete control over abortion laws, has unleashed conflicts that resemble the battles that arose when enslaved people fled slave states for free states, and enslavers, in turn, mobilized state and federal power to get them back.
This history doesn’t provide a blueprint for action in our own time, but it does remind us of the corrosive impact of interstate conflict and of the importance of federal protections for freedom and individual rights.
In the late 18th and early 19th century, northern states abolished slavery, and a long border emerged within the United States, between free states and slave states. It also became clear that some Americans were strongly committed to enslaving people while others found the practice morally abhorrent. Enslaved people themselves brought the clashing views into relief as they regularly escaped bondage and fled to states where slavery was outlawed.
In 1793, Congress passed a law intended to enforce the Constitution’s fugitive slave clause, which recognized that enslavers had some power to claim enslaved people who managed to get to free states. But that law left open many questions, including how enslavers’ claims would be adjudicated and the extent to which free states could establish their own procedures for such cases.
Over time, as the abolition movement grew, northerners insisted that enslavers had no business sending agents to enforce slavery beyond the borders of their own states, and free states enacted a variety of policies to constrain enslavers’ power. Known as “personal liberty laws,” these included state-level provisions to protect free Black people from kidnapping, strict standards of evidence for evaluating enslavers’ claims and jury trials for adjudicating those claims, rather than cursory proceedings before a single local official.
Infuriated enslavers demanded better treatment from White Americans in the free states. The governments of slave states sometimes sent delegations to free states to demand repeal of personal liberty laws. And free states vacillated in their policies, often changing course when a new political party took power in the legislature. The relative safety of Black people living in the North was in constant flux as a result.
Many looked to the federal government to resolve the conflicts and uncertainty. The U.S. Supreme Court entered the debate in the 1842 case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania. There, the court declared that enforcement of the Constitution’s fugitive slave clause was a matter of exclusive federal jurisdiction, invaliding many personal liberty laws and opening the door for a much more stringent federal fugitive slave law.
But Prigg also made space for free state local officials to refuse to cooperate with enslavers, and this they certainly did. In the 1840s, many free states passed new personal liberty laws, some of which declared that state and local officials were not permitted to cooperate in the renditions of fugitive enslaved people.
As part of the broader Compromise of 1850, Congress weighed in heavily on the side of enslavers, adopting a new Fugitive Slave Act that created a cadre of federal commissioners to oversee claims to human property in the free states. The new law permitted commissioners to deputize people to help them and commanded “all good citizens” to participate when asked. The 1850 law’s vast expansion of federal power in the states gave the lie to the idea that what enslavers really cared about was “states’ rights.” To the contrary, enslavers and their supporters advocated federal power of unprecedented reach when it served their purposes.
Hundreds and probably thousands of Black northerners fled the country rather than face capture and enslavement under the repressive new regime.
Broad-based resistance in the free states grew in the late 1850s, as states passed new personal liberty laws in defiance of the Fugitive Slave Act and local officials and citizens stood up against efforts to enforce it. They continued to do so even after the Supreme Court reinforced in Ableman v. Booth (1859) that the act was constitutional and federal authorities had exclusive jurisdiction in such matters.
Northerners’ growing refusal to tolerate slavecatchers and cooperate with federal law contributed to the coming of the Civil War, and the war, in turn, resulted in the abolition of slavery. The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, adopted after the war, were an effort to set the nation on a new constitutional footing.
The amendments for the first time put the force of the federal government on the side of freedom, not slavery. In fact, the first federal civil rights statute, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, used the same enforcement mechanisms as the Fugitive Slave Act had, this time in the service of protecting, rather than denying, people’s basic rights.
The capacious language of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment promised that states could not deny people due process or equal protection of the law, and could not deny citizens the privileges or immunities of citizenship. Americans have never agreed on precisely what these broad phrases encompassed, but combined with Section 5, which gave Congress enforcement power, they promised an array of new individual rights, backed by the power of the federal government.
In Roe v. Wade (1973), the court found in the 14th Amendment a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy under some conditions. In Dobbs, the Court reversed course, declaring that no such right existed and that states get to decide whether residents can access abortion at all and, if so, under what conditions.
This decision has created a landscape with parallels to the fight over slavery and fugitive slave laws. In places where abortion is already severely restricted or banned, state legislators and lobbyists now discuss exerting jurisdiction outside the confines of their states. Referring to proposals along these lines, the vice president and senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, a conservative legal organization, recently said: “Just because you jump across a state line doesn’t mean your home state doesn’t have jurisdiction.”
In response, states that support reproductive rights like Connecticut, California, New Jersey and Delaware have created protections for abortion providers against out-of-state lawsuits and prosecutions. These are today’s personal liberty laws.
Control of Congress is now more important than ever, as some Republicans insist that the next step is a federal ban on abortion, while Democrats seek to rally voters with the argument that if they keep control of the House and gain a couple of senators, they will be able to “codify” Roe v. Wade.
The history of the 19th century reminds us that arguments for states’ rights, or for federal power, have no intrinsic political or moral valence. Northerners adopted personal liberty laws to mitigate oppressive aspects of the Constitution and federal law, while enslavers insisted on extending their jurisdiction beyond state lines and put unprecedented federal power in the service of human bondage.
But that doesn’t mean the best option for the country is to leave questions of fundamental rights in the hands of the states. To the contrary, history also shows that the United States has been at its best when, as in the Reconstruction amendments and federal civil rights laws, it offered federal guarantees of freedom, dignity and equality to all people. Federal guarantees not only strengthen democracy, they also tamp down conflicts among the states. Now the Supreme Court has withdrawn the 14th Amendment’s protection of reproductive freedom. No wonder we find ourselves looking for parallels to a period before the amendment existed. | 2022-07-14T10:50:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What pre-Civil War history tells us about the coming abortion battle - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/14/what-pre-civil-war-history-tells-us-about-coming-abortion-battle/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/14/what-pre-civil-war-history-tells-us-about-coming-abortion-battle/ |
New York bodega worker’s murder charge sparks self-defense debate
New York Mayor Eric Adams (D), a former police captain, was elected last year after making crime reduction a centerpiece of his campaign. (John Minchillo/AP)
The case of a New York bodega clerk who was charged with murder after he fatally stabbed a man who confronted him at work — in an altercation recorded on video — has sparked a vigorous debate about crime and what constitutes self-defense.
Jose Alba, 61, was charged with second-degree murder after he fatally stabbed Austin Simon, 35, in the Blue Moon bodega, where Alba works, on the evening of July 1. The incident was captured on surveillance footage, which first showed Alba arguing with a woman later identified as Simon’s girlfriend, before Simon walked in, stepped behind the counter toward Alba and shoved him. As the two men tussled, Alba grabbed a knife and repeatedly stabbed Simon.
United Bodegas of America, a trade group that represents bodega owners in the United States, has publicly defended Alba and used his case to advocate for New York to pass a “stand your ground” law. The group’s co-founder, Fernando Mateo, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor of New York as a Republican last year, has also suggested bodega owners should be armed.
The case has taken on increased prominence after the Supreme Court’s watershed decision last month to strike down a New York law requiring a special need for carrying a weapon.
What happened in the bodega attack in New York City?
What we know of the incident comes from surveillance footage and edited clips from inside the bodega, released by local media outlets, as well as the criminal complaint filed against Alba.
According to the complaint, Simon’s girlfriend — whom police have not identified — was inside the Blue Moon Convenient Store in Hamilton Heights around 11 p.m. on July 1 when she tried to pay for a bag of chips for her 10-year-old daughter with an electronic benefits card that was declined. She told police that Alba reached over the counter and took the chips from her daughter’s hand. Footage shows her and Alba arguing before she can be heard shouting threats to bring her boyfriend in and have him hurt Alba.
Simon then walked into the bodega, went behind the counter to confront Alba and “attempted to steer [him] out.” Simon did not appear to have a weapon: According to the complaint, he “was carrying a small white towel in his left hand and his right hand was empty.”
Alba later told the police that Simon “wanted me to come apologize to the girl.” A video shows Simon shoving Alba into a wall inside the bodega. As the two fought, Alba grabbed a knife and stabbed Simon in the neck and chest at least five times, according to the complaint. “Simon fell to the ground, face-down and bleeding,” it said.
“I took the knife we use to open boxes and I stabbed him,” Alba told police.
The police, who reviewed security footage at the scene, said in the complaint that Simon’s girlfriend tried to pull Alba off Simon and “held the defendant’s right arm but the defendant continued to stab [him].” She then took out a knife from her purse and stabbed Alba in the arm, the complaint says.
Simon was pronounced dead around 11:50 p.m., two miles away at Harlem Hospital. Police arrested Alba.
What was the bodega worker charged with?
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) charged Alba with second-degree murder, a felony, and initially set bail at half a million dollars. After a public outcry about Alba’s case, bail was dropped to $50,000. Alba also had to surrender his passport and agree not to leave New York City, along with electronic monitoring.
Court records show the bond was posted and Alba was released from Rikers Island on July 7.
Alba has received support online from New Yorkers who say the charges against him should be dropped entirely because he was defending himself. A GoFundMe page to raise money for Alba’s legal fees collected about $20,000, according to the Daily Mail, before it was taken down for violating GoFundMe’s rules against “fundraising for the legal defense of a violent crime,” the company told the New York Post in a statement. Another appeal for help, set up by Alba’s son on GiveSendGo, a Christian fundraising website, has brought in over $100,000. Alba’s son did not respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post.
Douglas Cohen, a spokesperson for Bragg, told The Post via email, “We are continuing to review the evidence and the investigation is ongoing.”
The Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, the legal group defending Alba, did not respond to requests for comment from The Post.
What does New York law say about self-defense?
To prove self-defense outside the home under New York law, a person must — broadly speaking — show that they used physical force “to avoid an imminent public or private injury,” in a situation not of their own making, “which is of such gravity that, according to ordinary standards of intelligence and morality,” the benefit of avoiding that injury outweighs the benefit of avoiding the use of physical force in the first place.
New York law also imposes a “duty to retreat.” This means that if someone believes they are in danger of imminent injury outside their home, they must first try to get out of that situation — by fleeing the scene, for example — before they respond. This is different from other states’ “stand your ground” laws.
The call from United Bodegas of America for New York to pass a “stand your ground” law has proved particularly divisive in light of New York State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen, the case in which the Supreme Court ruled that law-abiding Americans have a right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense.
Bragg, who is New York’s first Black district attorney, was elected on a promise to reform how justice is served in the city — part of a wave of liberal prosecutors who pledged to get more people out of jails (and put fewer people in them) and focus on other ways to stop crime, including mental health counseling.
But for Bragg, these policies proved controversial from the start: After he published guidelines that showed how his office would lower incarceration rates, he had to scrap a rule that could have made some types of gun crime misdemeanors. He clarified that “the default in gun cases is a felony prosecution.”
New York district attorney toughens prosecution policy that drew outrage
Bragg met with United Bodegas of America and other groups on Tuesday to discuss Alba’s case. Cohen, his spokesperson, said the meeting “centered on how to keep bodega owners and workers safe, including in a post-Bruen world when more people may legally obtain and carry firearms.”
“D.A. Bragg expressed support for New York’s strong gun laws, and emphasized that more guns in our communities make us less safe,” Cohen continued.
The case has highlighted the contentiousness of the crime debate in New York and the tightrope that district attorneys have to walk ahead of a November general election that is set to be partly dominated by the issue.
New Manhattan DA wants to stop prosecuting some offenses, make prison a ‘last resort’
What has New York Mayor Eric Adams said about the case?
Adams (D), a former police captain who was elected last year after promising a tougher approach to crime reduction, has expressed support for Alba. In an interview with WABC Radio on July 8, Adams said “hard-working New Yorkers, and Americans to be honest with you, should not be attacked in their place of work.”
“There is a line that must be drawn when you are a primary aggressor, and that is what I saw on the video,” he added.
“It’s not to say the taking of a life should not be taken seriously, and one should not interpret that,” the mayor continued. “But I also know far too many people are becoming victims of criminal actions of those who are repeated violators of the law. And a hard-working person like that bodega employee was being attacked, and we need to factor that in when we make these decisions.”
On Tuesday, Adams was asked about a new video, published by the New York Post, that appeared to show Simon’s girlfriend stabbing Alba after the bodega owner stabbed Simon. Adams said he hadn’t seen the video but added that “anyone who carries out an assault of any nature should be held accountable for it.”
“So if in that video, it determines that she broke the law, I believe that the law must be enforced,” he said. “But the district attorney makes the final outcome.”
Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow contributed to this report. | 2022-07-14T10:50:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NYC bodega worker’s murder charge sparks self-defense debate - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/nyc-bodega-worker-stabbing-murder/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/nyc-bodega-worker-stabbing-murder/ |
Conventional wisdom says it’s too soon to tell. Our research suggests otherwise.
Analysis by Jonathon P. Schuldt
Peter K. Enns
Former president Donald Trump speaks on June 17 in Nashville. (Mark Humphrey/AP)
Will President Biden seek reelection in 2024? Will Donald Trump try for a second, nonconsecutive term? Is Ron DeSantis, the outspoken Republican governor of Florida, planning to run for the White House? Although the next U.S. presidential election is more than two years away, pundits are already speculating.
First-term presidents are usually their party’s nominee in the next election. Aside from that, however, conventional wisdom suggests it’s too early to say who the 2024 contenders will be.
We’re not so sure. We believe that even this early, we can gain insight into who the nominees will be by asking Americans the right question.
We ask a different question than do most pollsters
Most surveys ask who Americans support for president by having them choose from a list of prominent politicians. We take a different approach. Instead, we ask respondents to name who they would like to see on the ticket. This more open-ended technique has proved remarkably accurate. More than 18 months before the 2020 Democratic primary contest was decided, we asked likely voters to name the one person they would most like to see run for president. For the Democratic ticket, the most frequently mentioned names were Biden (21.7 percent), Bernie Sanders (10.6 percent), Hillary Clinton (8 percent) and Elizabeth Warren (7.6 percent). Setting aside Clinton, who did not run, these results perfectly matched the top three delegate winners, in order.
Biden's poll numbers are exactly what we should expect
So who are voters likely to favor in 2024?
To find out, we analyzed online survey data from Verasight, which asked 1,594 U.S. adults recruited through a mix of address-based probability sampling and online advertisements, “Thinking ahead to 2024, who do you think will be the next president of the United States?” To be sure, asking who respondents think will be president is different from asking who they want to be president, but this wording has the advantage of tapping into what social scientists call “voter expectations,” or who respondents think enjoys the most support. Respondents could name anyone who came to mind, giving a more direct picture than surveys that ask Americans to pick from a preselected list.
The survey was fielded between April 12 and 14 — more than 900 days before the 2024 election. Data were weighted to match the Current Population Survey on age, race/ethnicity, sex, income, education, region and metropolitan status, as well as to population benchmarks of partisanship and 2020 presidential vote. At this early stage, who do Americans think will win the presidency?
Four names stood out: Trump, Biden, DeSantis and Kamala D. Harris. Not surprisingly, the order of these names depended on partisanship. Among Republicans, Trump received the most mentions by a significant margin, named by 57 percent of Republicans surveyed. DeSantis took second place among this group, but with only 10 percent, followed by Biden with 6 percent. Among Democrats, Biden received the most mentions with 42 percent, followed by Harris and Trump, tied with 6 percent each.
The next most popular names among Republicans were Mike Pence, Nikki Haley and Ted Cruz; for Democrats, those were Hillary Clinton, Pete Buttigieg and Michelle Obama.
Why do we think these answers might be accurate?
The election is a long way out and many things can change. So what makes us think these results predict anything?
One reason is that they provide a clear measure of name recognition, which research suggests contributes to electoral success. They also reflect the strong role of partisanship, another key factor in presidential voting. Combined with ever-earlier starts to fundraising and campaigning, we believe data on candidate popularity more than two years in advance, if measured in this way, offer important insights both into the electorate’s mind-set and into electoral success.
This survey’s results are notable for a few reasons. DeSantis was the second most-named among Republicans back in April, before the House Select Committee’s closely watched hearings on Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. That suggests that Republicans’ support for DeSantis may be more entrenched than previously thought. Further, Trump and Biden dominated their party members’ responses fairly overwhelmingly, being mentioned five to seven times as often as anyone else.
Yes, a lot can change over the next two years. But these data suggest that for all the talk about whether they are viable 2024 candidates, Trump and Biden are likely to enjoy strong support from their parties should they choose to run.
And if either of them does not, whether because of health, scandal or something entirely unexpected, we have a pretty good idea of who will take their places at the top of the ticket.
Jonathon P. Schuldt (@JonathonSchuldt) is associate professor of communication and executive director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University.
Peter K. Enns (@pete_enns) is professor of government and professor of public policy at Cornell University, Robert S. Harrison director of the Cornell Center for Social Sciences and co-founder of Verasight. | 2022-07-14T10:51:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Who will be the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees in 2024? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/will-biden-trump-face-off-again-2024/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/will-biden-trump-face-off-again-2024/ |
I know I need to go on disability leave, but I’m still terrified
Intellectually, I know it is time to take short-term disability leave. Emotionally, I am terrified of leaving a well-paid job at the age of 60.
Reader: I have an intractable and disabling neurological condition that has gotten worse the past few years. I can no longer put in a full workweek or give some parts of my work the attention they deserve. Intellectually, I know it is time to take short-term disability leave. Emotionally, I am terrified of leaving a well-paid job at the age of 60, even temporarily. It is possible that my condition will not improve in the short run and I would need to go on long-term disability. How do I gear up emotionally to take the steps I need to focus on my health?
Karla: I’m so sorry you’re having to face this abrupt detour in your life and career. If you’re not already talking to someone, your doctor or employee assistance program (if available) can point you to a mental health professional or support group to help you navigate the emotional challenges ahead.
While I have not (yet) had to face a health crisis of this magnitude, I know this: When I’m terrified, it’s usually because I’m looking too far ahead of the path in front of me. I’ve barely laced up my boots, but my brain is already scaling Worst-Case Scenario Mountain. For me, focusing on the practical helps cut through fear like a flashlight in the fog. So that’s the approach I’m going to recommend here.
Two things help me rein in anxiety: charting a map of the terrain ahead, and then focusing on the reality of the next step.
Learn about your benefit options
When mapping out your future in this kind of situation, “most of it is educating yourself and getting the information you need so you can make an informed decision,” says Terri Rhodes, CEO of the Disability Management Employer Coalition.
The standard path for someone facing a long-term illness or disability would be to claim short-term disability benefits until they run out, then claim long-term disability until eligible for federal disability benefits through Social Security. But additional benefits and options may be available depending on your employer and state; some private retirement savings accounts also include a disability component, Rhodes noted.
For each of these options, you’ll want to find out:
How do I qualify for this benefit?
How much does it pay?
Consult experts
For the nuts and bolts of how your benefit plans work and interact with one another, consult your HR department or your employer’s third-party benefits administrator. They can also tell you how your health care coverage may be affected if you stop working long-term.
Unfortunately, your income will almost certainly take a hit. People with disabilities face disproportionate economic hardship. Census Bureau data indicates that up to 25 percent of people with disabilities live in poverty. Start looking into how to reduce expenses, boost savings, or find alternative income sources without losing your eligibility for assistance. EAPs often include access to financial and legal advisers who can help you prepare for lapses in income, or you can retain a private fiduciary financial planner (https://www.napfa.org/).
Rhodes notes that the Social Security Administration offers an excellent Benefit Eligibility Screening Tool that walks you through what federal benefits you’re entitled to based on your work history, marital status, health and other factors with a simple questionnaire. Try it out at https://ssabest.benefits.gov/.
For some workers with disabilities, the pandemic brought surprising benefits.
Facing the next step
Going on short-term disability is scary, and you don’t know what comes after. But you said it yourself: You know it’s the next best step. And just in case you’re thinking it means you’re “giving up”: It’s a strategic necessity. Taking disability leave will let you focus on managing your health and making plans.
And try not to get ahead of yourself. You may feel you should keep all your options open by working part-time while intermittently claiming disability leave. But that could sabotage your chance at recovery, the same way working through vacations defeats the purpose of taking them.
Also, Rhodes notes, there’s generally an even longer waiting period to qualify if you find you need long-term disability benefits. If you’re working on and off during the preceding months, “you’re eating up your short-term disability and not meeting your waiting period for long-term disability,” says Rhodes. You may end up having to start that new waiting period over without any pay.
Consult your map. Consult the experts. Take in a clear-eyed view of your current situation. Then take the next best step, along with my best wishes for you.
Reader query: This column just scratches the surface of all the considerations of incorporating long-term illness or disability into one’s life. If you have personal experience with this process, what did you find helpful, or what pitfalls can you alert others to? Share your advice at karla.miller@washpost.com. | 2022-07-14T11:11:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to find the mental strength to file for short-term disabliity leave - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/14/how-to-be-mentally-strong-dealing-with-disability/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/14/how-to-be-mentally-strong-dealing-with-disability/ |
With a .302 average and an on-base-plus-slugging percentage of .742, Luis García has been a bright spot in a mostly dim year for the Nationals. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Luis García leaned far back in the rolling chair at his locker, looking ready for a midmorning nap Wednesday. But instead of closing his eyes, he grinned, considering how to answer if batting leadoff might make him more patient at the plate.
He entered Wednesday’s doubleheader swinging at 58.2 percent of pitches, tied for 15th highest among players with at least 100 plate appearances. His swing rate on pitches outside of the zone, 47.2 percent, ranked fifth. So his response, however coy, was really no surprise.
“For me, it’s pretty simple,” García said. “I just love to swing.”
García is not the archetype of a leadoff hitter. Sure, he often batted first in the lower rungs of the minors. But up here, clubs often desire speed, plate discipline and someone who works long at-bats, helping his teammates see pitches before their first crack at a starter. García digs in with the intention of making early contact. The 22-year-old does not discriminate between pitches in the strike zone or close to it. Take two of his at-bats in a 6-4 loss to the Seattle Mariners in the first game of the doubleheader, his second time batting leadoff in the past three games.
Juan Soto homers twice, but Nats are swept by Mariners, extending July woes
Facing starter Chris Flexen in the third, García saw a change-up well outside and flicked it for an opposite-field single against the shift. In the fifth, with none down and the bases loaded, Flexen threw an 0-2 fastball above the zone and García pounced. The result was a sacrifice fly to center for the Nationals’ first run. Here was the plus side of a double-edged tool.
On one hand, García can reach pitches inside, outside, low and high, making him effective with two strikes and when a runner is on third with less than two outs. On the other, the Nationals sometimes want him to save his contact for better pitches, not ones he can simply get his bat on to put in play. Through six weeks as Washington’s starting shortstop, García has a .302 average and an on-base-plus-slugging percentage of .742. At the plate, averting attention from his still-shaky defense, he has been a bright spot in a mostly dim year.
“I’m not looking for him to walk,” said Manager Dave Martinez, who moved García to leadoff with the hope that he sees fastballs in front of Josh Bell and Juan Soto. But in the ninth inning of the second game Wednesday, García was ahead 3-0 and fouled off an outside fastball. If he took the pitch, he would have walked and been on first base as the tying run with one out. Instead, he took the next pitch, a called strike, then whiffed on a slider in a 2-1 loss. There was the down side.
“That’ll come eventually,” Martinez continued. “For him, he’s got to be aggressive and try to be aggressive in the strike zone. ... But any time the ball is up he can cover a lot, and that’s what we’re really trying to get him to understand.”
The message there: Chase a bit less on pitches in, out or under the strike zone. If the pitch is high, though, the coaches want García to let it rip. A perfect example was García singling on Matt Brash’s 98-mph fastball, a shoulder-high pitch, in the seventh inning of Wednesday’s nightcap.
For that game, Martinez slid García to fifth in the order. Since being promoted June 1, he has batted first (two times), fifth (10), sixth (six), seventh (seven), eighth (nine) and ninth (four). But echoing his manager, García seemed uninterested in changing his approach for where he hits. And those old-school norms shouldn’t matter if they don’t to his team.
“Ever since I was a little kid, my dad told me you go to the plate to hit, not to walk or look at pitches,” García said. “Obviously there are some pitches that are not for me. But I feel like a lot of them are.” | 2022-07-14T11:45:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Luis García, hitting leadoff or not for Nationals, just loves to swing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/14/luis-garcia-nationals/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/14/luis-garcia-nationals/ |
Justyna Wydrzynska faces up to three years in prison under Poland’s strict abortion law
Karolina Jeznach
Justyna Wydrzynska, co-founder of Abortion Dream Team, shares women's stories during a protest in Warsaw last year. (NurPhoto/Getty Images)
A Polish activist accused of illegally giving a woman abortion pills appeared in a Warsaw court Thursday in a first-of-its-kind case that could be a harbinger of what is to come in a United States without Roe v. Wade.
Justyna Wydrzynska, a Polish human rights activist who co-founded Abortion Dream Team, which provides people with information about how to safely terminate their pregnancies, faces three years in prison for helping a woman who was seeking an abortion.
She is accused of giving abortion pills in 2020 to a woman identified as Ania, whose husband was allegedly abusive.
Poland’s abortion law under scrutiny after pregnant woman dies in hospital
In a brief hearing on Thursday, she answered questions on her organization before proceedings were adjourned for a second time after Ania’s husband failed to show up in court.
Abortion rights in Europe and elsewhere have been thrown into sharper focus since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month. While the Biden administration has said abortion pills are authorized as safe and effective for use in all 50 states, their provision to people in states where abortion is now illegal is a gray area.
Speaking to reporters and supporters outside the court, Wydrzynska smiled and blew kisses. Such cases are becoming a “real possibility” in the United States, she said.
“I am angry,” she said following the hearing, calling it a waste of time. “Once I leave the court, I am turning on my phone and will continue taking calls from people in need, informing them how and where to get an abortion.”
Poland has some of Europe’s strictest abortion laws, in effect a near total ban. In 2020, a court banned abortions in cases of fetal abnormalities — one of the few remaining exceptions under which abortion was allowed. It remains legal to terminate a pregnancy resulting from rape or for which there is a risk to the woman’s life or health.
In practice, however, abortions under those circumstances are still hard to come by: Rape victims must obtain a certificate from a prosecutor to access the procedure, and many doctors are afraid to provide care to pregnant people experiencing obstetric emergencies out of fear of violating the law.
A 30-year-old pregnant woman, Izabela Sajbor, died of septic shock at a Polish hospital in September after medical workers refused to treat her until her fetus died, her lawyer said. At least one other woman has died under similar circumstances.
Activists in Poland and abroad have stepped in to fill the gap by shipping Polish women abortion pills from other countries in Europe or helping them travel to places with looser restrictions to obtain surgical abortions. The activist groups have coalesced into a transnational network called Abortion Without Borders — the coalition Ania, the woman whose story is at the center of Wydrzynska’s trial, found online when she was seeking an abortion.
While it is legal for a pregnant woman to give herself an abortion in Poland — by taking pills, for example — helping someone else access abortion is prohibited. Activists in Poland have tried to operate within the law and protect the people they help from harassment, including by taking measures to cover their digital tracks. The organization Women Help Women, which is part of the network, ships pills across Poland’s borders to avoid legal ramifications. All told, Abortion Without Borders has helped tens of thousands of Polish women to obtain abortions since the court ruling in October 2020.
Ania wished to have an abortion, but threats from her husband prevented her from traveling to a clinic in Germany, according to a briefing on the case published by the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Wydrzynska has spoken out about her own story of surviving domestic violence.
When Ania contacted Abortion Without Borders in February 2020, at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, international mail had become less reliable, so Wydrzynska sent Ania a package of abortion pills from her house. Ania’s husband reportedly found the pills and called police, who confiscated them. Ania said the stress of the police investigation led her to miscarry.
In June 2021, more than a year after Wydrzynska provided the pills, police searched Wydrzynska’s home and confiscated medicines, a computer, flash drives and mobile phones belonging to her and her children. A Warsaw prosecutor charged Wydrzynska in November with facilitating an abortion and with possession of unauthorized medicines. Police had discovered mifepristone and misoprostol, common abortion medications also used for other purposes, in Wydrzynska’s home, and the prosecutor argued that two of the confiscated drugs were not authorized for use in Poland.
The proceedings are a test of both the country’s abortion law and the independence of its judiciary, activists say.
The charges against Wydrzynska have drawn international condemnation. Nearly 100 members of the European Parliament signed a letter to the Polish government, calling for them to be dropped.
In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe ruling, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in early July urging E.U. member states — including Poland — to remove barriers to abortion access. It also called for the right to abortion to be enshrined in the E.U. Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Special rapporteurs from the United Nations, meanwhile, voiced concern that the charges “appear intended to punish her work as a human rights defender and to instill fear among all of those who are supporting Polish women in accessing safe abortion care, and who are already working in a hostile environment.”
Polish authorities responded by pointing to a pharmaceutical law prohibiting unauthorized marketing of drugs, which they said includes “both paid and unpaid transfer” of medicines.
Activists worry that the prosecution, the first against an abortion rights activist for breaking Poland’s law, could make their work even more challenging.
Wydrzynska’s case “is a mind-blowing example of how the law actually doesn’t work and how violent it is in criminalizing help,” Zuzanna Dziuban, an activist with an Abortion Without Borders affiliate that helps Polish women travel to clinics in Berlin, told The Washington Post this spring.
Wydrzynska previously told The Post the proceedings have not deterred her from activism.
“I have not stopped doing my job and I will not stop doing it,” she said. “I’m not really afraid, and I know my colleagues know how important our work is and how important it is that people deserve to have the right to the proper information.”
Jeznach reported from Warsaw, Morris from Berlin. | 2022-07-14T11:45:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Justyna Wydrzynska: Polish activist tried for giving woman abortion pills - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/14/justyna-wydrzynska-trial-abortion-activist-poland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/14/justyna-wydrzynska-trial-abortion-activist-poland/ |
By Ruby Mellen | Jul 14, 2022
In the past week, videos of Sri Lankan protesters taking over the president’s house, swimming in his pool and scaling the walls of the prime minister’s office have captured global attention. The country, mired in economic and political crises, has descended into chaos.
The president has left the country, and the prime minister declared a state of emergency.
Buddhika Weerasinghe/Bloomberg News
It’s a crisis that’s rooted in months of financial struggle and popular unrest.
Niha Masih/New Delhi
Since March, regular protests have taken place in the South Asian nation, whose 23 million people are contending with an economic crisis that has led to severe shortages in medicine, fuel and food. As the situation grew more desperate so did anger at the decades of political corruption.
The country has been run by one family, the Rajapaksas, for most of the past 20 years. Following the unrest, which began earlier this year, the family’s power has collapsed.
In one year, Sri Lanka’s inflation rate grew by more than 50 percent. It rose by around 15 percent just between May and June.
Residents line up for liquefied petroleum gas in the country's capital of Colombo on April 12.
Jonathan Wijayaratne/Bloomberg News
Sri Lankan auto rickshaw drivers endure long lines to buy gas in Colombo on April 13.
Nadil Pahanmith via Storyful
Protests in late March against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s government pushed him to declare a state of emergency, giving police more power to crack down on dissent.
In mid-April, security forces clashed with demonstrators, injuring 10 and killing one in Rambukkana, a town about 50 miles from the capital of Colombo.
Five days later, students in Colombo descended on the president and prime minister’s offices, demanding their resignation as the country faced soaring inflation.
Demonstrators in Colombo on April 28.
In May, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa — Gotabaya’s brother — announced his resignation as clashes between protesters and police continued.
Nuzreth Jalaldeen via Storyful
The hardships faced by Sri Lankans have worsened since then. Last week the World Food Programme said more than 6 million residents don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
Sri Lankan troops guard a closed gas station amid a fuel shortage in Colombo on June 28.
Chamila Karunarathne/ EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Sri Lankan troops hand out fuel tokens to essential workers to buy petrol at a gas station in Colombo on June 28.
A vegetable market with few stalls in Galle, a city on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka, on June 28.
Buddhika Weerasinghe/ Bloomberg News
A vegetable vendor prepares carrots for sale at a market in Galle on June 28.
Months of desperation and struggle came to a head this week as Sri Lankans stormed the president’s house.
They splashed in his pool. They cooked in his kitchen. They lifted weights in his gym.
The palatial surroundings served as a stark backdrop to the disconnect between the people and their government.
Protesters outside the president's office on July 9 in Colombo.
Protesters inside the president's official residence in Colombo on July 9.
Chamila Karunarathne/ EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
A protester sleeps on a couch inside the president's residence in Colombo on July 10.
People take a dip in a swimming pool at the president's residence in Colombo on July 10.
“We are desperate,” Himantha Wickremerathne, a 34-year-old lawyer who joined the protests told The Washington Post. “People from all walks of life have united with one intention — to demand that the corrupt president who clearly does not have a mandate step down.”
Less than a week later, Rajapaksa had left the country.
For a brief moment, protesters appeared victorious.
But the country remains in a deep crisis, and it’s not clear who will fill the power vacuum, or how they will meet the needs of their people.
Sri Lankan soldiers stand guard on an elevated position as protesters storm the prime minister's office on July 13.
Rafiq Maqbool/ AP
Demonstrators take selfies inside the office building of Sri Lanka's prime minister on July 13.
Niha Masih and Hafeel Farisz contributed to this report.
Sri Lanka protesters withdraw from key buildings, with president yet to resign
Editing by Olivier Laurent and Reem Akkad. Video editing by Jason Aldag. | 2022-07-14T11:46:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As inflation soared, Sri Lankans rose up: A visual timeline of the crisis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/sri-lanka-protest-inflation-photos-videos/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/sri-lanka-protest-inflation-photos-videos/ |
Brazilian Amazon loses forest areas at record high rate
The first six months of 2022 saw 1,500 square miles of the jungle destroyed.
Cattle graze on land recently burned and deforested by cattle farmers near Novo Progresso, Para state, Brazil, on August 23, 2020. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon broke all records for a six-month period during the first half of 2022. Criminals often seize public land and expect that the areas will be legalized for agriculture or cattle-raising in the future. (Andre Penner/AP)
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon during the first half of 2022 broke all records, a measure of the increasing destruction of the world’s largest rainforest taking place under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.
Satellite images taken between January and June show 1,500 square miles of forest destroyed, more than in any six-month period in the seven years of the current record-keeping system. The areas together would be four times the size of New York City.
What makes the statistic more remarkable is that the forest-cutting is taking place during the rainy season. Deforestation is usually higher in the drier second-half of the year when it is easier to get to remote areas on the region’s unpaved roads.
Bolsonaro, who has a record of weakening environmental protections, will run for a second four-year term. Recent polls of voters show him trailing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The area destroyed in the first-half of 2022 is 80 percent larger than the same period in 2018, the year before Bolsonaro took office, according to an analysis from the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), a Brazilian nonprofit organization.
Around half of the tree-cutting was on public lands, according to the IPAM analysis. The pattern in Brazil is that criminals take control of public land expecting that the areas will be legalized for agriculture or cattle-raising in the future.
Other illegal real estate and timber deals plus lack of enforcement contribute to the increasing deforestation rates, according to Ane Alencar, IPAM’s science director.
“Those who control the Amazon don’t want it preserved,” Alencar told the Associated Press. “The standing forest has no value in today’s Amazon.”
The Amazon is important to the environment because it produces oxygen and absorbs huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a gas produced by burning fossil fuels.
The most aggressive cutting took place in Amazonas state, overtaking both Para and Mato Grosso, which historically have more tree loss. That is a worrisome trend, as Amazonas is deep in the rainforest and had been relatively untouched. | 2022-07-14T11:58:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brazilian Amazon loses forest areas at record high rate - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/14/brazilian-amazon-loses-forest-areas-record-high-rate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/14/brazilian-amazon-loses-forest-areas-record-high-rate/ |
A CEO stood trial twice in Calif. slaying. He’s now charged again.
Laurie Houts was found dead in her car in Mountain View, Calif., in September 1992. (Mountain View Police Department)
John Kevin Woodward, her boyfriend’s roommate, was identified as the prime suspect. His fingerprints were found on the car’s exterior, and prosecutors argued that Woodward’s motive was his jealousy of his roommate’s romantic relationship with Houts.
Woodward’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post late Wednesday. Todd D. Greenberg told the New York Times that Woodward is “anxious to get to the California courts to answer these charges, which he adamantly denies.”
In a statement, Houts’s family thanked law enforcement and said they hoped “justice can finally be served for Laurie.”
“She’s not coming back. That makes us angry, that makes us sad, and we hope that justice will come,” Houts’s friend Marilyn told KGO. “But the hole in our hearts will not heal.”
ReadyTech said in a statement to the Times that Woodward’s arrest “was a jolt to all of us” and that the company has “the utmost empathy for the families involved.”
On Sept. 5, 1992, Houts planned to do some work before meeting up with her boyfriend, Brent Fulmer, who was Woodward’s roommate, the Mercury News reported at the time. The couple, who had been dating for just five weeks, had plans later to attend a wedding.
Later that day, however, a jogger found Houts dead in her car about a mile from her office near a garbage dump, according to the Mercury News and prosecutors. Investigators suspected that Houts knew the killer and had let the person into her car. After strangling Houts, the killer drove the car to a nearby street, abandoned it and tried to stage a robbery by throwing Houts’s purse over a fence, prosecutors said, according to the Mercury News.
Prosecutors said that Woodward’s fingerprints were on the roof of Houts’s car, as well as the passenger door, the Mercury News reported. They also argued that Woodward became emotionally attached to Fulmer and grew jealous of Fulmer’s relationship with Houts.
Woodward’s defense argued the jealousy claim was homophobic, and a judge eventually ruled the prosecution lacked enough evidence to prove it, the Mercury News reported. The defense additionally argued that Woodward had inadvertently left his fingerprints on Houts’s car while it was parked at his apartment complex days before the killing.
Now, nearly 30 years after Houts was killed, Santa Clara County prosecutors say they have the evidence needed to bring the case against Woodward for a third time. They say detectives have linked Woodward to the rope left around Houts’s neck using improved DNA technology.
“I want [Ms. Houts’s] family and friends to know that we never gave up on her,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “Neither time nor distance will stop us from finding out the truth and seeking justice.” | 2022-07-14T12:11:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | John Woodward charged with murder in 1992 death of Laurie Houts - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/laurie-houts-john-woodward-arrested/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/laurie-houts-john-woodward-arrested/ |
A Nobel laureate’s novel about dictatorship gets a welcome new edition
Miguel Ángel Asturias’s ‘Mr. President,’ first published in 1946, is a reminder of the current Guatemalan situation, which that has driven so people to attempt risky illegal entry into the United States
Review by Manuel Roig-Franzia
If you’ve used one of those online translation tools, you probably quickly figured out that simply generating the literal meaning of a string of words can produce an incomprehensible pile of mush.
Language defies such two-plus-two-equals-four formulism. Instead, it demands a more complex equation, a fusion of literal meanings with an understanding of what the original author was trying to say.
This is one of the many challenges David Unger overcame in his masterful translation of “Mr. President,” a classic but often overlooked novel by Miguel Ángel Asturias. In making this work accessible, Unger didn’t just swap Spanish for English. He also navigated a work that draws from the vernacular of a country where half the residents do not speak Spanish, instead primarily communicating in one of more than 20 Indigenous Mayan languages.
Unger, a self-proclaimed “Guategringo” (born in Guatemala; raised and educated in the United States), spells out his task in a fascinating “Note on the Translation” that gives readers a peek into his artistry. Even a pair of Guatemalan aficionados of Asturias were stumped by some of the 250 questions he needed to check with them.
Unger’s note is one of three — three! — introductory sections to this Penguin Classics translation, which is an obvious tell that some context and buildup were needed to prime the reader for this seminal work of the Latin American dictator genre. In a foreword, the famed Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa — author of one of the best Latin America dictator books, “The Feast of the Goat,” based on the Dominican despot Rafael Trujillo — calls “Mr. President” “qualitatively better than all previous Spanish-language novels.”
Then, in an introduction, Gerald Martin, a professor emeritus of modern languages at the University of Pittsburgh, declares that it was Asturias — not Gabriel García Márquez as generally believed — who invented magical realism. Martin tells the gripping origin story of “Mr. President,” a novel that Asturias partially wrote in Guatemala in 1922 and finished a decade later in Paris in 1932 after he fled political persecution in the country of his birth. Fourteen years more would pass before the book was finally published, in 1946, in Mexico — the delay necessitated by the threat of more political persecution because Asturias, no longer able to afford to live abroad, had been forced to return to Guatemala. The book was a flop.
It wasn’t until “Mr. President,” which is set in the early 20th century, was republished two years later in Argentina that it became an “overnight sensation,” Martin writes. In later years, Asturias, who died in Madrid in 1974, became a Guatemalan diplomat but went into exile after a coup surreptitiously supported by the United States. He once again achieved great literary acclaim in 1967, sealing a reputation as one of the greats of the region, by becoming the first Latin American novelist to win the Nobel Prize.
These unread books have a long shelf life — as decor
The prize renewed interest in “Mr. President,” which draws from the autocratic reign from 1898 to 1920 of the Guatemalan dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera. The book, which even its translator adjudges to have prose that “is often overly poetic, and at times repetitious and redundant,” revolves around the murder of a colonel known as “the Man with the Tiny Mule.”
The search for his killer is manipulated by a callous president, who is never named, and his confidant, a slippery and ultimately tragic figure named Miguel Angel Face, who “like Satan” was “both good and evil.” Face warns one suspect not to “ask whether you’re innocent or guilty. … An innocent man, without the president’s support, is worse off than a guilty person.”
Asturias fills the novel with beggars, the idle rich, simpering aristocrats and political sycophants. There are dungeons, vicious beatings, a capricious execution — all in service to a president fawningly known as the “Supreme Godfather,” the “Benefactor of the People” and the “Defender of the Studious Youth.”
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In the president’s erratic regime, even his closest allies are at risk. Betrayal is the norm. In one military honcho’s household, the maid is spying on the general and the cook, while the cook is spying on the general and the maid.
Given such oppression and mistrust, it only follows that the novel’s characters would be plagued by hallucinations and nightmares, each a manifestation of the traumas they face in their real lives. At times, the graphic gruesomeness and despair in the novel can be hard to stomach. But Asturias knew how to moderate those horrors by, thankfully, releasing the tension with absurd or scathingly mocking scenes. During one such moment, a beggar’s hallucination includes what has to be one of the longer compound words ever printed: “Curveofacurveinacurveofacurveinacurveofacurveinacurve.” (The beggar was in agony, but when I came upon that crazy word I couldn’t help but chuckle.)
Reading “Mr. President,” it’s impossible not to think about the current, sad situation in Guatemala, where endemic corruption, lawlessness, savage drug traffickers, heartless human smugglers and staggering economic inequality — combined with climate change-induced agricultural woes — have driven hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans to attempt risky illegal entry into the United States. (Guatemala consistently is rated among the most corrupt countries by international good-government advocates.)
As “Mr. President” descends deeper into a chasm of injustice, violence and despair, a prisoner embarks on a long lament that almost reads like a premonition: “We are a cursed country. Heavenly voices shout when it thunders: Vile, filthy creatures! Accomplices of wickedness!”
Manuel Roig-Franzia is a Washington Post staff writer who has served as the paper’s bureau chief in Mexico City and Miami.
By Miguel Ángel Asturias. Translated by David Unger
Penguin Classics. 282 pp. Paperback, $17.99 | 2022-07-14T12:20:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In a new translation, "Mr. President," by Miguel Angel Asturias is reintroduced to the world - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/07/14/mr-president-book/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/07/14/mr-president-book/ |
By Martine Powers
Dakota Johnson as Anne Elliot in Netflix's “Persuasion.” (Nick Wall/Netflix)
There are many questions a person might ask after watching the trailer of the new Netflix adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Persuasion,” which starts streaming Friday.
What’s going on with the “Fleabag” asides? Did the term “exes” actually exist in early-1800s Britain? And is Dakota Johnson’s bright-eyed, irreverent Anne Elliot a brilliantly modern depiction, or a blasphemous crime?
I’d felt the same pull. In the land of Austen novels, there are the Big Three: “Pride and Prejudice,” “Sense & Sensibility” and “Emma.” They’re the reliable crowd-pleasers with the name recognition, the volumes of fan fiction, the gazillion movie remakes.
Anne is relatable for modern readers: She’s older, more contemplative and has to choose between priorities: the man she loves, the friend and mentor she values, and the snobby family she feels obligated to care for.
Perhaps the part of “Persuasion” that feels most resonant now is the sheer amount of time that the protagonist is stuck thinking — it’s been almost eight years since she saw Captain Wentworth, and she has spent every day contemplating her other life, wondering if she’s wasting her current one.
The audience for this movie isn’t averse to radical reinterpretations of Austen novels. This year’s “Fire Island,” a queer, sexed-up and yet delightfully earnest retelling of “Pride and Prejudice” won rave reviews, as did the tart and zippy “Emma” remake of 2020, in which whole bare regency buttocks were revealed to the audience.
“I love this book so deeply. And everyone involved in this project loves the book so deeply. We all have a deep and long emotional connection to the material. So nothing was done carelessly,” Winslow said. “And I hope that everyone comes with an open mind … and an understanding that Austen has such a playful spirit.” | 2022-07-14T12:20:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Persuasion' by Jane Austen is growing in popularity - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/07/14/persuasion-jane-austen-netflix/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/07/14/persuasion-jane-austen-netflix/ |
Chris and Allison Marvin lived in their Chevy Chase, Md., home for eight years before embarking on a renovation and creating a space for their artwork. The design team also added a loggia on the rear of the house to blend in the new windows in the dining room while creating more usable outdoor space. (Jennifer Hughes)
A Chevy Chase family refreshes a stately Colonial
Design-integrated spaces highlight an extensive art collection
Chris and Allison Marvin owned a home in Chevy Chase, Md., where they lived with their two children and needed more space. But an expansion could have overcrowded the lot.
They wanted to stay in the neighborhood, but homes there practically sold as quickly as they were listed. So the Marvins decided on an unconventional approach to finding a new home.
They wrote about 80 letters to their neighbors and asked if they wanted to sell. “We said, ‘If you’re thinking about selling now or down the road, we’d love to talk to you,’ ” said Allison, 50, who owns Sightline, an art consultancy business she runs out of her home.
Within 15 hours they had six replies.
The Marvins came through the process in 2012 paying $2.95 million for a 3,600-square-foot, six-bedroom, five-bath, three-story Colonial that was built in 1957.
They lived in their new house for eight years, all the while pondering a gentle renovation. They began interviewing architects, and through a personal referral scheduled a consult with Catherine Fowlkes, a principal at Fowlkes Studio based in Washington.
“They had a very keen design eye,” Fowlkes says. “The idea of highlighting their art collection came up.”
Maxed-out townhouse sets the stage for minimal impact on environment
Fowlkes says the couple wanted to elevate the house while improving the primary suite. The idea of the screened-in porch was integral as well. At one point, the Marvins weren’t going to renovate the home’s original galley-style kitchen. But things started to go wrong with it.
“The kitchen was a late add-on,” says Chris, 47, a software executive. “A cabinet broke, and the appliances were breaking down. “We got to know the appliance repair guy really well.”
Many home renovations begin by removing all the home’s interior walls and reconfiguring the space, but that didn’t happen here. “We wanted to respect the house for what it was,” Chris says. “We weren’t trying to make it something that it wasn’t.”
Besides updating the kitchen and primary suite, the plans called for replacing all the windows. Door heights downstairs would be raised to give the house a more open, gallery-like feel. Crown molding and chunky baseboard trim was scheduled for removal. A bay window looking out on the backyard would become modernized and squared off. A new primary suite was laid out above the back porch, which would have to be demolished and rebuilt.
Before demolition could begin, the family needed to deal with their extensive art collection, which includes paintings, ceramics and photography. It filled 140 boxes.
“I created a spreadsheet to keep track of everything, and we had specialty crates built,” Chris says. Some of the items went into storage, but most of it lived with Allison’s parents during the renovation.
Demolition begins
The demolition began October 2020 and the family moved back in June 2021, while the punch list items were still being punched. That process and exterior improvements kept going until fall.
The front of the house looks similar to what it did before the hammers began swinging. The front door opens into a hallway running the width of the house with the dining room straight ahead. There’s a cozy den around the corner to the left, and a powder room is tucked between the den and kitchen. The living room is to the right. Most of the original hardwood floors on the lower level survived and were patched where needed.
The gracious living room that helped sell the house to the family the first time they walked in only needed a few tweaks. The double-hung windows were replaced with casement units with reduced mullions, and the side windows got a bit larger. The fireplace and egg crate-style built-in bookshelves survived, while the trim was scaled back.
There are two entrances to the dining room, leaving expanses of wall space large enough for bigger pieces of art. The room runs along the back of the house. A new steel and glass door was installed and offers access to the screened-in porch.
Reworking the kitchen
The den connects to the kitchen via a pocket door. The kitchen, despite being gutted, maintained its original galley-style arrangement. Upper cabinets that used to flank the stove were removed, along with upper cabinets on the side wall. They were replaced by a spare amount of shelving to open up the space. A custom, narrow, pullout spice rack hides in plain sight next to the stove. The kitchen windows were updated and increased in size.
The refrigerator is a Sub-Zero paneled to match the off-white painted finish of the cabinets, which were supplied by D.C.-based Ferris Custom Cabinetry. Doors that lead to the basement were disguised as cabinets with a matching finish and hardware. The range and stove are both Wolf; the countertop and backsplash are Caesarstone.
Items deemed nonessential to cooking were relegated to a floor-to-ceiling wall of cabinets that borders an eat-in breakfast nook. The wall used to be occupied by a large stone fireplace that constricted the flow to the back porch. It was removed and a new double set of steel and glass doors provides easy access.
The back porch was a point of emphasis during the process. It’s a favorite family hangout but was suffering from a rotting floor and crumbling ceiling. It was also the logical place to support a second-floor bump-out that was needed to create space for the main suite. The original porch was demolished along with its foundation all the way down to the basement level. The only covid-related delay on the project was securing the steel beams needed to carry the weight of what was happening on the second floor.
The porch roof also gave the design team a chance to add a bit of modern influence through the use of slotted, industrial-looking cementitious siding finished in gray. A loggia was added to the back of the house at the basement level to help frame the rear patio and tie in the new dining room windows.
The second floor includes a laundry room; Chris’s office, with a full bath; one of the kid’s rooms with a full bath; guest room; and the main suite. The primary bedroom looks out onto the backyard and includes a fireplace set into an accent wall. There’s a large walk-in closet with built-in cabinets and drawers.
‘Another living space’
The primary bathroom is adjacent to the main bedroom and features a large window overlooking the backyard and golf course beyond. The window is partially shaded by roof-mounted planters and turned out to be one of the home’s most distinctive features.
“We wanted it to feel like another living space. Another room with furniture,” Allison says.
Privacy concerns were checked out by Chris, who confirmed there were no sightlines into the shower. Ferris also did the floating vanity in the main bath, which is topped with Caesarstone. Tile in the shower was nixed in exchange for Venetian plaster, and the floor is treated hardwood. The home’s third floor holds Allison’s home office, another child’s room and a full bathroom.
The biggest challenge the family faced during the ordeal was their own discerning eyes.
Your spring home maintenance should include an energy audit
“I was worried about making things come out the way we wanted them to,” says Allison. “We’re very detail-oriented.”
Although much of the house remained untouched during the renovation, the overhaul came with a significant budget that the homeowners declined to reveal. Even with the delays incurred while rebuilding the porch, they were able to stay within 5 percent of their planned costs.
To get the house they wanted, working the way they wanted, the family went the extra mile. Financially they feel like they are close to even. “Based on the neighborhood and the transactions that happen around here, what we put in, we feel like we can get it back out. Especially as the prices have jumped,” Chris says.
Allison adds, “This is the home we want to be in for the long haul. … We’re making a big investment, but the idea is we’ll be here for a while. The village is a special place.” | 2022-07-14T12:20:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A crumbling house in Chevy Chase, Md., is given new life - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/14/fabulous-home-remodel-in-chevy-chase-md/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/14/fabulous-home-remodel-in-chevy-chase-md/ |
If This Is Your First Bear Market, There’s No Need to Panic
Trading apps such as Robinhood Markets Inc. introduced millions of investors to the stock market during the pandemic, and many of them are experiencing a bear market for the first time. I suspect they have already learned some valuable lessons, notably that picking stocks is much more difficult in a down market. I’m reminded of others I learned as a business student and later experienced during my first bear market, the long and painful dot-com bust from 2000 to 2002.
Foremost among them is that although it’s reasonable to expect the market to rise over time, no one knows what it will do in the short term. Naturally, people want guidance during a downturn; they want to know when their investment accounts will stop shrinking. The financial industry knows this, so it parades out its prognosticators to tell the public how low stocks will go and how long the bear market will last.
Let me save you some time and disappointment: These would-be oracles have no idea where the market is going. Worse, most of them know there’s no way to anticipate markets’ moves. But they can’t resist the opportunity to promote their firms and themselves because they also know that nothing grabs investors’ attention like a declining market.
Still, bear markets do end eventually, even if it never feels that way at the time. There have been 12 bear markets since 1945, generally defined as a stock market decline of 20% or more from the previous high. Their average duration was about a year from peak to trough. Some, including the dot-com bust, were closer to two years. The big outlier was the Great Depression, which coincided with a wave of bear markets throughout the 1930s.
The fact that no one knows when a bear market will end is one reason it’s a mistake to put off investing or pull money out of the market. Compounding the problem, stocks tend to surge at the start of a new bull market. So by the time it’s obvious that the bear market is over, a big chunk of the gains is already in the books.
As a result, those who aren’t invested when the bear market ends are invariably forced to buy at higher prices — and in some cases higher than the price at which they sold previously. A better approach is to keep buying at regular intervals throughout a bear market. That way, as prices decline, so does the average cost of purchases along the way, resulting in bigger gains when the market finally turns higher.
Bear markets are also a good reminder that no stock is a sure bet. Companies are more closely scrutinized during prolonged downturns, which often reveals and topples those that are dealing dishonestly. Perhaps the best-known examples from the dot-com bust are the energy giant Enron Corp. and the telecom behemoth WorldCom Inc., both of which were wiped out when their accounting shenanigans came to light.
It’s hard to convey to someone who wasn’t around at the time just how mighty both companies seemed before they collapsed suddenly. The closest I can come is to point out that at the end of 1999, WorldCom was among the largest 20 US companies by market value and that several months later, Enron broke into the top 60. Today, that would be like Home Depot Inc. or CVS Health Corp. disappearing overnight.
Other companies never regain their former glory after a bear market. General Electric Co. was the most highly valued US company in 2000. I remember people saying at the time that it was the only stock anyone needed to own. Today GE isn’t even in the top 100, and it’s weighting in the S&P 500 Index is a rounding error. Investors who bought GE in 2000 lost about 70% of their money through June, and that includes the dividends the company paid along the way. Betting everything or even mostly on GE turned out to be a terrifically bad idea.
Nor is it guaranteed that a stock will reclaim its pre-bear market high. Netflix Inc. is down about 70% from its 52-week high of $700 a share. It may never reach that level again. Just because some investors paid more for Netflix than it’s now worth doesn’t mean the market is obliged to return to that price.
An easy way around these problems is to own the entire stock market. Companies and bear markets have come and gone, and still the S&P 500 has returned roughly 10% a year during the past 150 years, including dividends. S&P 500 funds are widely available, as are funds that track the full US stock market or global stock market, and many have minimal fees.
Amid all the unknowns, one thing is clear: Investors are most likely to succeed when they invest regularly in low-cost funds that track broad markets and ignore everything else. That’s never more important — or profitable — than during a bear market.
• Commodities Never Belonged in Your Portfolio: Jonathan Levin
• The Redditors Should Know When They Are Conquered: Jared Dillian | 2022-07-14T12:21:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | If This Is Your First Bear Market, There’s No Need to Panic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/if-this-is-your-first-bear-market-theres-no-need-to-panic/2022/07/14/ec6c046a-0364-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/if-this-is-your-first-bear-market-theres-no-need-to-panic/2022/07/14/ec6c046a-0364-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
Labor Market Will Help, Not Hinder, Fed’s Inflation Fight
The labor market is turning out to be a new source for optimism in the Federal Reserve’s fight against inflation. Worker shortages that drove up wages during the pandemic and in the economic reopening are fading. It might not amount to a labor glut, but we at least have new areas of employment stability in some industries.
While the overall labor market remains strong, it also now appears that worker pay in these industries may have overshot the fundamentals. That’s leading to a growing prospect that wage growth for certain jobs is going to stagnate for a while. It’s not great news for people employed in warehouses or hospitality businesses, but it offers up more hope that the elevated inflation the country has experienced over the past 18 months will normalize quickly.
Amazon.com, as I’ve written before, continues to be a good reflection of the country’s labor market dynamic. In its quest to meet growth targets, Amazon went on a hiring spree in 2021 that drove up wage growth not just in the warehousing industry, but in related industries like manufacturing and transportation, where employers were competing for similar kinds of workers. Because Amazon is such a big employer, it almost single-handedly pushed average hourly earnings up almost 17% in 2021 for warehousing and storage workers.
Then at the end of April the company said it was finding itself overstaffed as Americans’ spending began to shift from goods back to services — a sign that wages for warehousing workers were set to slow. We now have wage data for warehousing and storage workers through May: year-to-date wages in the industry are essentially unchanged from December in nominal terms, and deeply negative in real terms that account for inflation.
This hasn’t led to net layoffs in the industry — warehousing and storage employment has grown by more than 100,000 workers in 2022 — it’s just that the wage growth we got in 2021 appears to have been too high. So the rebalancing we’re getting in 2022 is continued employment growth, but with wages declining in real terms until we hit some sort of new equilibrium.
Something similar appears to be happening in the leisure and hospitality industry. Wage growth soared in 2021, clocking in at 16.6%, but has slowed noticeably in 2022. In June, wages in the industry grew at just a 2.7% annualized rate, below the rate of inflation and signaling that the industry has caught up on staffing after a frantic year of hiring. Meanwhile, leisure and hospitality employment has grown by 550,000 in 2022, suggesting that here, too, the adjustment is playing out as continued employment growth with declining real wages.
The formerly red-hot housing industry could be next. In a Twitter thread on the state of the housing market in various metros, Rick Palacios Jr. of John Burns Real Estate Consulting noted that builders in several metros like Boise, Idaho, expect labor costs to fall in the coming months as the market adjusts to the slowing pace of activity.
We’ve already seen prices moderating in other areas of the economy that contributed to rising inflation: used vehicles, freight, and more recently commodities prices. But the concern has been that an overheating labor market would be the trickiest area to contain without having a recession. Some economy watchers feared that wage momentum would take on a life of its own, like a roaring fire, and the only way to slow it down would be to douse it with water — a recession.
For at least some of the industries that experienced the fastest wage growth last year, that doesn’t seem to be the case. As staffing in the leisure and warehousing industries has caught up to demand, wage growth is stalling out. Maybe it’s just a short-term trend, but it’s worth watching.
It’s important to remember how nothing about this pandemic economic cycle has been typical, including the labor market. Double-digit wage growth for restaurant and warehouse workers in 2021 wasn’t normal, and we shouldn’t expect stagnant wage growth to persist, either, when the unemployment rate is 3.6%.
Consider it another piece of evidence that inflation really can normalize with a little help from monetary policy. As various parts of the economy find post-pandemic normalcy, the chances increase that we can avoid the more dire economic scenarios that people are worried about. | 2022-07-14T12:21:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Labor Market Will Help, Not Hinder, Fed’s Inflation Fight - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/labor-market-will-help-not-hinder-feds-inflation-fight/2022/07/14/1b740100-0369-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/labor-market-will-help-not-hinder-feds-inflation-fight/2022/07/14/1b740100-0369-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
What It Will Take for the Fed to Tame Inflation
Analysis by Bill Dudley | Bloomberg
Developments in the US economy have recently been going the Federal Reserve’s way, with price pressures peaking even as economic growth and strong payroll gains have been sustained. But don’t be fooled: The task of getting inflation back to the Fed’s 2% target remains extremely daunting, both practically and politically.
Economic indicators — including the employment report for June, industrial production, and the Institute for Supply Management’s activity indices — suggest that growth has slowed but the economy is not in recession. Meanwhile, energy prices have fallen, core inflation is decelerating, wage inflation might be declining and longer-term inflation expectations remain well-anchored. To some, this might look like the beginning of a soft landing and a potential triumph for the Fed.
Far from it. For one, the Fed hasn’t made much progress in curbing the excessive demand for workers. Despite months of large employment gains, the ratio of job openings to unemployed workers remains at 1.9, nearly twice the level Fed Chair Jerome Powell has indicated as desirable. To get inflation back to 2%, the central bank will have to push the unemployment rate up significantly from the current 3.6%. Even an 0.5-percentage-point increase would probably mean a recession, because that’s what has always happened in the past when the unemployment rate has breached that threshold.
Second, the Fed needs to be confident that it has succeeded in pushing inflation back down on a sustainable basis. Chair Powell correctly understands that the costs of not hitting the 2% target over the next year or two outweigh the costs of a mild recession – because failure would cause inflation expectations to rise, necessitating an even tighter monetary policy and a deeper downturn later. In the late 1960s and the 1970s, the central bank tightened monetary policy enough to push inflation lower at times, but it reversed course too soon. As a result, the peaks and the troughs for inflation kept moving higher — until the 1980s, when Paul Volcker had to force a deep recession to regain control. Given this history, officials will be hesitant to stop tightening until they’re highly confident (probability greater than 80%) that they’ve done enough — that the labor market has sufficient slack to keep inflation low and stable, and that easing financial conditions won’t lead to a inflation rebound.
Third, tightening will create political challenges for the Fed. Aside from the pain of job losses and economic contraction, higher interest rates will generate operating losses for the Fed, as the interest it pays on bank reserves far exceeds the return on its holdings of Treasury and mortgage securities. The central bank’s own estimates suggest that it will start losing money in the fourth quarter of this year, and post large losses in 2023 if interest rates evolve in a way close to what they and markets expect. Fed losses, which will be at the taxpayers’ expense, could embolden opponents of quantitative easing to argue that the Fed has breached the boundary between monetary policy and fiscal policy. Congress could even seek to take the tool away, undermining the Fed’s ability to provide further monetary stimulus the next time that short-term interest rates reach the zero lower bound.
Beyond that, operating losses could make the Fed reluctant to sell mortgage-backed securities, despite its commitment to eventually return to an all-Treasuries portfolio. Such sales would realize losses on the securities, which have declined considerably in price as interest rates have risen.
All told, the Fed still has an extraordinarily difficult path to navigate and a long way to go.
Americans Are Talking Themselves Into a Recession: Jared Dillian
Bill Dudley is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and senior adviser to Bloomberg Economics. A senior research scholar at Princeton University, he served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and as vice chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee. | 2022-07-14T12:21:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What It Will Take for the Fed to Tame Inflation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-it-will-take-for-the-fed-to-tame-inflation/2022/07/14/4cda4606-036d-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-it-will-take-for-the-fed-to-tame-inflation/2022/07/14/4cda4606-036d-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
A bristlecone pine tree on the trail to Telescope Peak, in the Panamint Mountain Range of the Death Valley National Park, Calif. (Sundry Photography/iStockphoto/Getty Images)
By Sarah Kaplan
The trees had stood for more than 1,000 years. Their sturdy roots clung to the crumbling mountainside. Their gnarled limbs reached toward the desert sky. The rings of their trunks told the story of everything they’d witnessed — every attack they’d rebuffed, every crisis they’d endured. Weather patterns shifted; empires rose and fell; other species emerged, mated, migrated, died. But here, in one of the harshest environments on the planet, the bristlecone pines survived. It seemed they always would.
Until the day in 2018 when Constance Millar ascended the trail to Telescope Peak — the highest point in Death Valley National Park — and discovered hundreds of dead and dying bristlecones extending as far as she could see.
The trees’ needles glowed a flaming orange; their bark was a ghostly gray. Millar estimated that the damage encompassed 60 to 70 percent of the bristlecones on Telescope Peak.
“It’s like coming across a murder scene,” said Millar, an emerita research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service who has studied bristlecone pines for the better part of 40 years.
In a study published this spring, she and fellow researchers showed that the West’s worst drought in at least 1,200 years had critically weakened the trees. Voracious bark beetles — a threat to which bristlecones were previously thought immune — delivered the death blow.
After outlasting millennia of disruptions and disaster, human-caused climate change is proving too much for the ancient trees to bear. Rising temperatures have caused an explosion in the populations of insects that threaten the trees and undermined their capacity to defend themselves, scientists say. Although Great Basin bristlecone pines are not considered at risk of extinction, cherished specimens and distinctive populations are struggling to survive.
Seeds of hope: How nature inspires scientists to fight climate change
And bristlecones are not the only victims. At this very moment, a fast-moving fire is scorching through the iconic giant sequoia grove in Yosemite National Park. Cedars are choking on saltwater as rising seas engulf shorelines on the East Coast. A rare oak species clings to life as the Texas desert grows hotter and drier.
A new study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, found that climate change has pushed almost a quarter of Earth’s best-protected forests to a “critical threshold” for lost resilience — the point at which even a minor drought or heat wave could tip them into catastrophic decline.
Standing amid the devastation atop Telescope Peak, Millar realized, “This could be a harbinger of what could be happening in the future.”
If nature’s consummate survivors could not cope with catastrophic warming, she wondered, what did that mean for the rest of life on this planet?
And if humanity didn’t heed the warnings of these fallen elders, what would it say about us?
‘Prehistoric jewels’
No organism on Earth is known to live as long as the Great Basin bristlecone pine. The oldest documented tree, a well-hidden specimen nicknamed “Methuselah,” after the long-lived biblical patriarch, was a sapling when the ancient Egyptians built their pyramids more than 4,500 years ago. Even the relatively youthful trees in Death Valley are older than gunpowder, paper money and the English language.
“Their presence and their stability and their fortitude stretches our own sense of time,” Millar said. “It just slows people down ... and reminds us of how things were before humans were here.”
The secret to their survival is their ability to withstand what others cannot. They exist at higher elevations than almost any other tree, thriving in the rocky, meager soils near rugged mountain peaks. Their branching root systems and waxy needles help them make the most of scant water. They produce a thick resin that traps insect invaders and quickly patches wounds. Their genomes, which are nine times as long as a human’s, contain a multitude of mutations that give them a better chance of adapting to changing conditions.
Few trees can take a beating like a bristlecone. They deal with crisis by sectioning off parts of their structures, enabling the rest of the tree to keep living while the injured limb is allowed to die. Their wood is so dense it rarely rots; the trunks of dead trees will remain standing for millennia.
The species needs all these strengths to exist in Death Valley — a forbidding environment even by bristlecone standards. The park is farther south than any other bristlecone habitat, and hotter and drier than any other place in the United States.
Scores of other creatures benefit from the trees’ persistence, Millar said. Bristlecones provide shade to elk and bighorn sheep, and shelter chipmunks and jack rabbits from predators and fierce weather. They allow snow to cling longer to the mountains’ upper slopes, ensuring a supply of meltwater during the brutal summer months.
And their staying power makes them invaluable to scientists. Bristlecone tree rings have allowed researchers to reconstruct a record of Earth’s climate going back thousands of years; the field of research is known as “dendrochronology.” The rings reveal when volcanic eruptions occurred, how long droughts lasted, even when the surface of the sun became blotted by magnetic storms.
“By translating the story told by tree rings, we have pushed back the horizons of history,” the pioneering dendrochronologist Andrew Ellicott Douglass wrote in National Geographic in 1929.
He compared tree ring records to the Rosetta Stone and called the ancient trees of the desert Southwest “prehistoric jewels.”
In preserving the planet’s past, bristlecones also have given humans a key to understanding our future. They capture the interactions between greenhouse gases, rising temperatures, shifting weather patterns and altered ecosystems, and they allow scientists to project what will happen as Earth continues to warm.
“It’s well spelled out that the loss of these trees would remove this natural archive,” Millar said. “I hope the general public will realize what a loss that would be.”
A death on our watch
After her grisly discovery atop Telescope Peak, Millar immediately contacted Barbara Bentz, a research entomologist for the Forest Service based at the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Logan, Utah.
Just a few years earlier, Bentz had surveyed bristlecone populations across the West and found that few were succumbing to the bark beetle outbreaks that decimated so many other species. She felt confident that the trees would remain resilient even as rising temperatures caused beetle populations to explode.
Yet, when Bentz peeled a piece of bark off one of the Death Valley bristlecones, she found scores of tiny tunnels created by beetle larvae as the insects chewed through the tree’s living tissue.
“Oh, no,” Bentz thought to herself. “It really is beetles. Oh, no.”
She and her colleagues uncovered further evidence of insect damage in Utah’s Wah Wah Mountains, where young bristlecones were attacked by a small brown beetle called a pinyon ips.
The swift march of climate change in North Carolina’s ‘ghost forests’
In both cases, the beetles were unable to complete their life cycles inside bristlecone pines, Bentz said. Instead, it seemed that they were reproducing in nearby trees from of species different from the bristlecone. Higher temperatures — Inyo County, home to Death Valley, is already more than 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.9 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter than in the preindustrial era — allowed the beetles to reproduce faster and caused their populations to swell dramatically. When the surplus spilled over into bristlecones, their defenses were overwhelmed.
The scientists think the trees had been so stressed by drought that they could not fend off attacks they once would have vanquished with ease. Climate analyses showed that 2020 soil moisture levels in Death Valley and the Wah Wah range dipped to their lowest levels in at least 40 years.
Millar said the discovery should raise alarms all over the West, where lakes are shrinking, snowpacks are declining and heat records are being set. The White Mountains — home to Methuselah and many more of the world’s oldest bristlecones — lie just 100 miles from Death Valley and have a similar climate. They could easily become the next site of a beetle attack.
“We don’t want Methuselah to die on our watch,” Millar said.
Although the species is not considered at risk of extinction, she added, the death of important subpopulations is still a reason to mourn. Each disappearance represents not only a loss for the landscape, but also is a sacrifice of the genetic diversity those populations contained.
Humanity’s greatest ally against climate change is the Earth itself
Millar recalled another visit to Death Valley, when she hiked through an area called the Last Chance Range in search of a bristlecone pine cluster that was rumored still to exist there. By the time she found a single remaining tree, it was dead.
If the specimen had a gene that made it uniquely capable of surviving in that forbidding landscape, there was no chance of resurrecting it. No hope of collecting seeds for replanting, or taking a cutting in an attempt to produce clones. No opportunity to draw on the tree’s DNA to help the rest of the species survive.
“That, to me, is the dramatic element of watching a population go extinct,” Millar said: All of that unique genetic material, the product of thousands, if not millions, of years of evolution, is gone for good.
Arid forests around the globe have experienced a devastating loss of resilience in the past two decades, according to the analysis published Wednesday in Nature. Satellite imagery shows that these ecosystems are less able to bounce back after a fluctuations in weather or periods of drought. Tropical and temperate forests — the steamy Amazon, the North Woods of Minnesota — are in similar decline.
The trend was seen in forests altered by human activities as well as those that remain almost untouched by direct human action — an indication that climate change, rather than local deforestation or pollution, is primarily at fault.
Indeed, 23 percent of untouched forests are approaching the point at which they could be pushed into an abrupt and irreversible transition, the scientists said. Rainforest could turn into grassland. Thick stands of pine might give way to shrubs and desert.
“It’s a strong warning, I think, for society,” said lead author Giovanni Forzieri, a professor of sustainable development and climate change at the University of Florence.
He pointed out that most of the world’s climate plans count on forests to pull planet-warming gases out of the atmosphere. If these ecosystems collapse, humanity will find it difficult, if not impossible, to stave off catastrophic warming.
Averting extinction
To Murphy Westwood, the vice president for science and conservation at the Morton Arboretum in Illinois, each loss feels like a moral failing.
“It’s overwhelming and almost crushing,” she said, “the stark reality of the biodiversity crisis that’s on our hands.”
Last year, Westwood helped publish a sweeping assessment of 58,497 tree species worldwide that found that nearly 30 percent are at risk of being wiped out. At least 142 species have gone extinct in the wild.
It’s not just trees. With global temperatures already more than 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than in the preindustrial era, the Earth is losing species at a rate hundreds to thousands of times faster than normal.
If the world remains on its current warming track, as much as 29 percent of all creatures on land will face very high risk of extinction. In the ocean, the destruction will be even greater.
But humanity’s growing understanding of all we might lose, Westwood said, also offers us a chance to change course. We can conserve rare organisms and protect fragile ecosystems. We can reverse deforestation and stop burning the fossil fuels that cause the planet to warm.
“If we can see it happening in front of our very eyes,” she said, “then we know we have the tools and knowledge to prevent another extinction.”
She pointed to an expedition she helped direct this spring, which rediscovered a tree that scientists had believed extinct.
Rising temperatures and dwindling water over the past century had killed off every known specimen of Quercus tardifolia, an oak known for its fuzzy evergreen leaves. But Westwood and other scientists held out hope that the species still clung to existence somewhere.
After weeks of trekking through the canyons of Big Bend National Park in Texas, they stumbled upon a single tardifolia tree — scorched by fire and ravaged by fungal disease but undeniably, miraculously, alive.
The researchers plan to collect acorns and cuttings from the tree that can be used to regrow the species in botanic gardens and arboretums.
“We have a second chance to prevent a species extinction,” said Wes Knapp, the chief botanist for the conservation nonprofit NatureServe and another member of the expedition. “That’s really rare, to have a second chance in nature. It means we can move. We can act. That’s what we have to do now.”
Farther west, Millar and Bentz plan to return to Death Valley this August to more thoroughly assess the state of the park’s bristlecone pines and then develop strategies for preserving the trees that remain. They are developing chemical repellents based on the trees’ natural defenses to protect “high value trees,” such as Methuselah. And they are surveying all the nation’s bristlecone stands, searching for the genetic variations that might help the species survive.
Amid the challenges facing both trees and humanity, Millar said, the bristlecones offer lessons in how to hang on. Their tenacity is an antidote to despair. Their genetic diversity is a bulwark as they face the unknown.
“From a human standpoint, I think that translates into innovation and resilience,” Millar said.
To live like a bristlecone is to never let go of hope. | 2022-07-14T12:21:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bristlecone pines, world's forests are imperiled by climate change - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/14/these-trees-have-survived-1000-years-can-they-survive-climate-change/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/14/these-trees-have-survived-1000-years-can-they-survive-climate-change/ |
A decade after the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ details on new guidance remain scarce
The Department of Veterans Affairs in 2019. (iStock)
Nearly a year after the Department of Veterans Affairs promised to restore benefits to some former members of the military who were forced out for being gay, a nonprofit legal group that represents veterans says VA has refused to explain what its new guidance entails — or whether it was implemented.
The National Veterans Legal Services Program (NVLSP) filed a complaint in federal court late last month, alleging that VA has not responded to requests to release what the department called “newly-issued guidance.”
“There was all this attention with the announcement, then we started asking around, and no one had a copy of the policy,” said Renee Burbank, the nonprofit’s director of litigation. “What does it actually say? What does it actually change or do? For all we know, it could be perfect. It could be great. But we don’t know unless we see it.”
A decade after ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ LGBTQ veterans say they still feel the effects
Since Congress first banned sodomy under the 1916 Articles of War, more than 100,000 people have been pushed out of the military because of their sexuality, including an estimated 14,000 under President Bill Clinton’s policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Because many of those were booted from the military with “less than honorable” or “other than honorable” discharges, thousands of people ousted under “don’t ask, don’t tell” do not have benefits, including access to health care, home loans and educational support through VA.
Last fall, on the 10th anniversary of the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” VA spokeswoman Kayla Williams announced in a blog post that the department planned to issue new guidance allowing VA adjudicators to possibly grant benefits to servicemembers who were discharged based on homosexual conduct, gender identity or HIV status. Williams said the new guidance would also direct adjudicators to consider changing the discharge status for veterans who were kicked out because of their sexuality.
Veterans groups celebrated the announcement. But in the 10 months since, Burbank said, officials at VA have not explained how it will decide who will receive the benefits. The NVLSP filed a public records request in April to review the guidance, and VA officials acknowledged receipt of the request, but they have not fulfilled it, the complaint alleges. (Officials at VA did not respond to multiple requests from The Washington Post for comment.)
From 2011: ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ officially ending
Without a written version of the guidance, Burbank said, many veterans appear to remain ineligible for benefits. A VA regulation, for example, still states that if a servicemember was separated from the military due to “homosexual acts involving aggravating circumstances or affecting the performance of duty,” they are barred from most VA benefits, with no corresponding provision for heterosexual acts.
Many others, including Navy veteran Stephan Steffanides, are still struggling to upgrade their discharges.
When Steffanides, who is nonbinary, joined the Navy in 1987, they intended to spend the rest of their life in the military. For a hundred years, they said, all their male relatives had served, and Steffanides grew up hoping to emulate them.
The Navy assigned Steffanides to the USS Abraham Lincoln, a ship that docked in Norfolk and Newport News, and Steffanides said they immediately felt happy. They had always longed to sail. But a few years later, Naval superiors found a magazine in Steffanides’s locker. The Navy began investigating, and on Christmas Eve 1991, the Navy kicked Steffanides out for “engaging in or attempting to engage in or soliciting another to engage in a homosexual act.”
The Navy issued Steffanides an “other than honorable” discharge.
“I was completely ashamed,” Steffanides said. “It completely destroyed my relationship with my family.”
Steffanides didn’t receive any benefits or help from VA. They didn’t know how to find other work, either, because at the time, homosexuality was considered a “crime against nature” in Virginia. (Though the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 2003, via Lawrence v. Texas, that anti-sodomy laws were unconstitutional, Virginia’s regulation remained on the books until 2014, when the legislature removed it.) Because Steffanides’s discharge papers labeled them a homosexual, they were afraid to put their military experience on a résumé.
“I felt like I had been branded as a shameful, unhonorable person,” Steffanides said.
Pentagon sets policies for transgender troops to openly serve again, reversing Trump-era bans
That shame was so debilitating, Steffanides said, that they turned to alcohol, then meth. They lived on the streets “behind a trash can” in Los Angeles for 24 years, and did not receive any benefits or mental health help from VA. Eventually, in 2016, Swords to Plowshares, a San Francisco nonprofit that helps homeless, low-income and at-risk veterans, found Steffanides on the streets.
“I could barely face them,” Steffanides said. “But they were so kind to me, and they treated me with respect, and they thanked me for my service, which was something nobody had ever done. It made all the difference in the world. It was like the ice started to melt.”
The nonprofit gave Steffanides an attorney and helped them apply for substance-abuse treatment and disability benefits. After three years, VA granted Steffanides a waiver to receive benefits, but Steffanides still hasn’t been able to upgrade their discharge.
Last fall, when VA published its blog post, Steffanides felt a renewed hope, they said. That same week, President Biden called “don’t ask, don’t tell” a “great injustice” and called on his colleagues to fight for “full equality” for LGBTQ veterans. Steffanides believed the two announcements meant they might soon be able to have their discharge upgraded.
“I had had such a hard time with VA, and I thought, ‘This is going to make it so much easier,’ ” Steffanides said. “We’re going to have something that says, ‘We are so glad you decided to serve your country as a member of the LGBTQ community, and we embrace that, and we’re happy to have your service. We made a mistake, and this is how we’re going to correct it.’ But it was nothing.”
Steffanides now documents other LGBTQ veterans’ stories through an oral history project. They also frequent American Legion Post 448, a group whose members are largely LGBTQ, and run “Do Ask! Do Tell!,” a Sword to Plowshares support program for LGBTQ veterans. Many of the veterans in those groups still lack benefits, Steffanides said, despite last year’s VA announcement.
Burbank, the litigator with the NVLSP, said she hopes to receive a response from VA this month.
“The blog post sort of indicated that this is reemphasizing what’s already in the law, and also they’re adding some procedures, but we don’t know,” Burbank said. “And we haven’t seen this work out. We’re not aware of how this guidance is affecting cases that are being adjudicated right now.”
Steffanides will continue to receive benefits, even without the discharge upgrade, but the words “other than honorable” haunt them. It’s on their military paperwork, and some of their family members died still believing that Steffanides’s service was dishonorable.
“For someone who loves serving their country, to be told you’re dishonorable …” they said, trailing off. “The Marines have an expression, ‘Death before dishonor.’ It’s not only true for the Marines. That’s how all people in the service feel. They would rather be dead than be without honor.” | 2022-07-14T12:21:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Veterans ousted under ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ still await VA benefits - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/14/dont-ask-dont-tell-va/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/14/dont-ask-dont-tell-va/ |
The Yankees are red-hot, but will their season be legendary?
They have won more than 70 percent of their games so far. Few teams have accomplished that for an entire season.
New York Yankees' Aaron Judge, left, celebrates with Giancarlo Stanton on Sunday after both scored on Stanton's home run. The Yankees have won 70.1 percent of their games this season. Only a handful of teams have done that over an entire season. (Steven Senne/AP)
A big story going into next week’s Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star break is the New York Yankees’ chance to finish the regular season winning more than 70 percent of their games. Led by slugger Aaron Judge and ace pitcher Gerrit Cole, the Bronx Bombers have a record of [TK-TK] after Tuesday’s game. That means the Yankees have won [TK] percent of their games.
Not many teams have played .700 ball or better for a full season. The last team to play .700 ball was the 2020 Los Angeles Dodgers. But the Dodgers played only 60 games because the season was shortened by the coronavirus pandemic. A record of 43-17 (43 wins, 17 losses) is impressive, but it’s more like a couple hot months.
The last team to go .700 for a full season was the Seattle Mariners in 2001 with a record of 116-46 (.716). Most baseball fans have forgotten the Mariners because they didn’t win the World Series. They were a powerhouse. Led by a rookie sensation from Japan, Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle led the big leagues in runs, stolen bases, on-base percentage, earned run average (ERA), shutouts and runs allowed.
The 1998 New York Yankees were almost as good with a 114-48 (.704) record. The Yanks were definitely better in the playoffs as they swept through the post-season with an 11-2 mark. Add it all up and the Yankees won a record 125 games in 1998.
The 1998 Yanks had Hall of Famers such as shortstop Derek Jeter and reliever Mariano Rivera. New York’s secret, however, was that the team was stocked with very good players, such as Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams and Paul O’Neill, at almost every position.
The 1954 Cleveland Indians were like the 2001 Mariners, great during the regular season but a disappointment in the post-season. Led by three Hall of Fame starting pitchers — Early Wynn, Bob Lemon and Bob Feller — Cleveland posted a 111-43 (.721) mark to run away with the American League pennant. But the team dropped four in a row to the New York Giants to lose the World Series.
For years, the 1927 Yankees were generally considered the best team ever. That season New York posted a 110-44 (.714) mark and boasted legendary stars such as Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Ruth blasted a record 60 home runs that year while Gehrig batted .373 and drove in an amazing 173 runs.
There were other .700 teams stretching way back to the 1886 Chicago White Stockings (90-34), 1887 St. Louis Browns (95-40) and 1897 Boston Beaneaters (93-39) when MLB teams played fewer than 162 games.
Can this year’s Yankees join those legendary winning teams? It’s a story to keep your eye on for the rest of the season. | 2022-07-14T12:21:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Yankees are red-hot, but will their season be legendary? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/14/yankees-are-red-hot-will-their-season-be-legendary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/14/yankees-are-red-hot-will-their-season-be-legendary/ |
James Kincheloe is 32 and a veterinarian in infectious-disease policy. His dream date is “a humanitarian who is incredibly competent at her profession yet also somewhat of a socialite.” Mattie Friberg is 25 and entering graduate school. Her dream date is “a surfer who does the NYT crossword every day, bakes fresh chocolate croissants … and paints on the side.” (Daniele Seiss)
Mattie Friberg, 25, applied to Date Lab on a whim last year. Not long after, however, she was accepted into graduate school in Los Angeles, starting this fall. The D.C. native forgot about her application until last month, when we reached out to set her up.
The week prior, Mattie had been traveling in South America but had to cut her travel short to attend a funeral in D.C. “I had a very strange week,” she said. Then she reasoned, “Why not?” Even though she’s traveling for most of the summer and moving soon, she decided to go on the date. “A part of me was like, ‘Why couldn’t it work out?’ It’s like a crazy happenstance that the week that I’m in D.C., I am contacted. So I was like, ‘There’s no harm in seeing how it goes.’ ”
On the day of the date, she sought advice on her outfit from friends. They wanted her to wear a crop top. She went against their advice and landed on a dress with an orange-and-yellow checkered pattern and a yellow sweater with flowers. “Very clashing colors between the dress and the sweater,” she said, “but I think it worked.”
“The more I think about something, the more stressed I get,” she explained, so she limited her prep time to 20 minutes and then left the house to meet her best friend for a drink at a dive bar near the restaurant, Destino, in Northeast Washington. At the bar, they practiced ridiculous dating scenarios that ended in laughter, which helped calm her nerves.
For her match, 32-year-old James Kincheloe, it was a miracle that he even made the date — and wasn’t late. He had spent the day traveling from St. Louis to D.C. A friend picked James up at the airport at 5:30 p.m., drove him home, waited in the car while he changed and then dropped him off at the restaurant at 6:30. James made the most of his time at home. He shaved a little bit, patted his hair down with water to make it look like he “wasn’t just sitting on a plane for a few hours” and picked “a random patterned shirt.” With the hectic schedule, he didn’t have time to feel nervous.
“One of our friends was featured in Date Lab a while ago and we all thought it was funny, and so we all put in applications,” he said of his friend group. “I am also on the dating scene, and it just seemed like it would be fun.”
Mattie arrived moments before James. They laughed at the absurdity of being on a blind date organized by a newspaper. “It was a little awkward,” Mattie said. “I was definitely trying to chat, make a few jokes, trying to suss out the vibe. I found him pretty easy to talk to and joke with.” James immediately felt that Mattie “seemed nice and well put together and smiled easily.”
She noticed that, once seated, James barely glanced at the menu. “I generally request for the server to bring out something random, drink-wise,” he said. The pair decided on a few appetizers, then James set his menu aside and asked the waitress for drink recommendations after every round.
Throughout the evening, the menus “were across the table, both on his side,” Mattie recalled. She wanted to order different drinks but felt obligated to avoid the menu, so she stuck to margaritas. “I could have been more outspoken. That’s on me,” she said.
After James, who is from California, learned that Mattie is traveling most of the summer and then moving to the West Coast, it became “pretty explicit that this can’t really go too many places,” he said. “It really just switched to a fun night out chatting with someone.”
Despite the circumstances, Mattie — who describes herself as “a secret romantic” — was still trying to evaluate potential compatibility. James talked about living in New Orleans, Minnesota and central California. As the conversation continued, Mattie “kept thinking, man, this is not all adding up to being a similar age to me.” That’s when she asked James about his age. At the time of the date, he was 31.
James got the sense that “31 was not necessarily in her age range” — though 25 was within his. Early 30s “is not absurdly old or unthinkable,” Mattie said. “But I really want to date someone at the same place as me. … I’m a step back in my phase of life. To me, it makes us a little bit incompatible.”
They exchanged numbers, and James told her to reach out later in the summer if she wants to talk about her summer travels. They hugged and parted ways. “It was a pleasant conversation over dinner,” James said. “I didn’t get a sense that we had a deep connection or that we were really on the same page.” Mattie relayed a similar opinion. “I was looking for that common ground and I felt like I didn’t find it. He was a really good listener, but I never found something where I felt like we could go back-and-forth.”
Mattie: 3 [out of 5].
James: 3.
Prachi Gupta is a writer in New York. | 2022-07-14T12:21:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Date Lab: It’s a miracle he showed up on time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/07/14/date-lab-its-miracle-he-showed-up-time/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/07/14/date-lab-its-miracle-he-showed-up-time/ |
MAGA Republicans don’t speak for America. So Democrats should.
A billboard is seen in Rancho Mirage, Calif., on July 12. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Women’s rights to autonomy and health care are being eradicated. There has been minimal progress on gun safety. Republicans are either defending or downplaying an attack on the U.S. Capitol motivated by lies of a stolen election.
But for those despairing about our capacity for rational self-government, there is some good news: Voters aren’t the problem.
The raft of polling since the Dobbs decision that overturned abortion rights underscores just how unpopular the GOP’s position is. The latest Morning Consult-Politico poll, for example, shows that voters disapprove of the decision by a 55 to 36 margin. Worse for the forced-birth crowd, 74 percent disapprove of banning all abortions (61 percent strongly). Only 17 percent approve of such bans. More than 60 percent of voters oppose bans (49 percent strongly) even when they include exceptions for cases in which the life or health of the mother is at risk.
These findings are reflected in a wide array of polls. Even more troubling for the forced-birth side: FiveThirtyEight finds that abortion is the fourth-most important issue for voters, with 19 percent rating it as the most important issue, up 10 points since Dobbs.
It’s too early to see whether the issue will drive Democratic voters to the polls and is sufficient to overcome voters’ concerns about inflation. But what is clear is that the GOP’s stance puts the party at odds with a sizable majority of Americans — as is the case with its opposition to almost all reasonable gun safety laws. On these issues, the electorate is not “polarized”; rather, the GOP is outside the mainstream.
And despite Republicans’ insistence that the Jan. 6 hearings reveal nothing new (ignoring all of the members of Team Crazy who confessed under oath that there was never any evidence of fraud), the same Morning Consult-Politico poll shows even Republicans are getting the message: “Compared with a survey conducted June 24-26, the shares of Republicans who said Trump misled people about the 2020 election outcome (up 5 percentage points to 30%), attempted to overturn the 2020 result (up 5 points to 45%) and claimed without evidence that the last presidential contest was fraudulent (up 7 points to 44%) all increased in the wake of [former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s] testimony.”
Among voters as a whole, 59 percent said former president Donald Trump “definitely” or “probably” misled people about the election. Sixty-five percent say he claimed fraud without evidence, and 67 percent said he tried to overthrow the government (only 25 percent said otherwise). By a 56 to 35 percent margin, most voters believe he committed a crime.
At a time when America is hyper-tribalized and right-wing news outlets are working overtime to conceal the truth from their audiences, this represents a remarkable level of consensus. It should serve as reassurance that a solid majority of voters haven’t lost their minds.
It also suggests Democrats would be wise to rethink a couple assumptions. First, instead of running from “cultural” issues in favor of “pocketbook” issues, Democrats should stress the clash in outlook between the large majority of rational, respectful voters and the delusional MAGA camp. Now is no time to mince words: The current GOP is nuts and unfit to govern.
Second, Democrats have understandably looked to the federal government to protect fundamental rights, including the right not to be gunned down in schools, stores and at parades. But as a matter of necessity, Democrats now must focus on state and local elections in a way they have not done previously. They must invest resources in all elections, from governors to state supreme court justices to district attorneys. Those races have become nationalized insofar as gun safety, abortion access and respect for election results have now been dropped on the doorsteps of state and local politicians.
Democrats should welcome the opportunity to make elections all about their values (respect for women, safety for communities, the rule of law, truth, nonviolence). They should do this in every race up and down the ballot — and not just in this election but for the foreseeable future. | 2022-07-14T12:22:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | MAGA Republicans don’t speak for America. So Democrats should. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/abortion-january-6-republicans-dont-speak-for-america-democrats-should/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/abortion-january-6-republicans-dont-speak-for-america-democrats-should/ |
By Veronica Pear
A woman wipes tears after a mass shooting at the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)
Veronica Pear is an epidemiologist and assistant professor at the Violence Prevention Research Program in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of California at Davis.
So many warning signs were dismissed by law enforcement and others ahead of the mass shooting at the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill. The gunman was able to legally purchase a military-style rifle and four other firearms after attempting suicide, threatening his family and declaring that he wanted to “kill everyone.”
Some may see this as a failure of Illinois’s red-flag law, which allows courts to issue extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs) that temporarily bar access to firearms from those who are at high risk of harming themselves or others. But as a firearm violence researcher, I see it somewhat differently: This was a failure of implementation, not of the law itself.
This is a particularly important distinction, given that Congress recently allocated $750 million for states to develop and implement red-flag laws. Nineteen states and D.C. have already enacted these laws. The success of newly adopting states will largely depend on learning from these early experiences.
Let me first make something clear: There is compelling evidence that red-flag laws can help prevent mass shootings. My research in California found 58 cases over three years in which ERPOs were used in response to a mass shooting threat. None of these threats were subsequently carried out.
Another study of red-flag laws (on which I am a co-investigator) found more than 600 people who made mass shooting threats and were temporarily disarmed by ERPOs across six states from 2013 to 2020. Many of these had the potential to be another Highland Park. But they weren’t. No doubt this is at least partly due to the fact that these individuals lost access to the firearms with which they would have carried out their attacks.
Importantly, red-flag laws can help reduce firearm violence beyond mass shootings. They are primarily used in response to threats of self-harm or interpersonal violence. This “everyday” violence constitutes 99 percent of firearm deaths each year. We have strong evidence that ERPOs are preventive of firearm suicide, with an estimated one suicide prevented for every 10 to 20 orders removing firearms.
As we saw in Highland Park, having a red-flag law on the books is not good enough. The single-most common barrier to red-flag use appears to be awareness. People simply don’t know about these laws, including those responsible for their implementation, such as police officers and civil court judges. As a result, in my state of California, fewer than 100 orders were issued in each of the first two years that the law was in effect. Without a doubt, deaths occurred in those years — not just from mass shootings, but also from suicides, domestic violence and workplace violence — that could have been prevented had the law been used.
Robust implementation also depends on the early delineation of roles and responsibilities, the creation of clear procedures and the training of law enforcement and civil court judges. It also helps immensely to have a local champion of the law who can promote its use and jump-start implementation efforts. These steps may seem obvious, but state after state have faced the same problems as they try to implement red-flag laws of their own.
Such laws vary across states with regard to who is allowed to petition for an order and how long the orders remain in place. It’s too early to know whether these variations impact their effectiveness. But to promote equitable implementation, a more expansive range of people should be permitted to petition — including family members, co-workers and school personnel — since not everyone will be comfortable involving law enforcement. Legal assistance should also be provided to petitioners and respondents, and orders should be co-served by law enforcement and a social worker, to connect those at risk with needed resources.
Even with perfect implementation, red-flag laws can’t eradicate firearm violence alone. They will work best in conjunction with other laws that prevent high-risk individuals from obtaining firearms, such as waiting periods, firearm licensing laws and universal background checks.
Take a case from California: A man who was fired purchased a shotgun shortly after threatening to gun down his former co-workers. California has a waiting period, so he couldn’t pick up his new firearm for 10 days. Meanwhile, a concerned citizen reported the threat to law enforcement, and eight days into the waiting period, an ERPO stopped the transaction. In this case, the waiting period and the red-flag law worked together to prevent the shooting. Likely, neither would have been successful alone.
One of the best things about red-flag laws is that they empower individuals to help prevent firearm violence. Imagine your loved one — a sibling, spouse, child — telling you that they’ve thought about killing themselves. Imagine seeing a video online of a classmate firing an AR-15, captioned by a screed praising school shooters. Red-flag laws can help defuse these desperate situations. Don’t we all deserve access to these lifesaving tools? | 2022-07-14T12:22:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Here’s how to make red-flag laws most effective against gun violence - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/heres-how-make-red-flag-laws-most-effective-against-gun-violence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/heres-how-make-red-flag-laws-most-effective-against-gun-violence/ |
ADHD is just a part of the story in this middle-grade novel
Perspective by Amy Joyce
Author Melanie Conklin and her son. (Courtesy of Melanie Conklin)
When my teen son was younger, I found myself at my favorite book store, asking if there were any middle-grade novels featuring a main character with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). My son was a reluctant reader, and he was diagnosed with ADHD when he was in fifth grade. I figured a book that reflected his experience might hold his interest. Plus, I wanted him to see that ADHD can be a superpower; I found that the way his brain worked, and how he worked around what others would see as obstacles, was pretty amazing. There were some options — including our beloved Percy Jackson series — but nothing quite like what I had in mind.
That’s why, when I recently saw the premise for the new middle grade book “A Perfect Mistake,” I wanted to read it. When I finished, I handed it off to my 12-year-old, the younger brother to our reluctant reader. He was captivated; I had to beg him to turn his lights off and go to sleep already. Although he doesn’t have ADHD, I’m pretty sure it gave him some insight into his brother.
The book was just what I had been looking for years ago.
I recently spoke with Melanie Conklin, the author of the book, about why she wrote it, what inspired her and what she hopes kids (and parents) will take away from it. Here is an edited excerpt of that conversation.
Tell me about this book. How did it come to be?
I started thinking about this book four or five years ago. I knew I wanted to write a book that centered on a child with ADHD who was struggling with a situation where they felt they made a terrible mistake. I really love books with high-stakes situations, but that have relevant issues of growing up.
What if this child has made a really bad mistake, but comes to learn other people make bad choices too? A child with ADHD really ends up thinking something is wrong with them because they get so much of that feedback, but I want to show them that other people and adults make mistakes too. I loved books that showed messy grown ups.
Let’s talk ADHD — why does your main character, Max, have it?
My experience with ADHD started when I met my husband in high school 28 years ago. That was a time when ADHD was just starting to be recognized and diagnosed. By the time we got to college, he was failing out. It was becoming more common knowledge that this might be going on, so I took him to the health center and he was diagnosed with ADHD. And my older son, who just turned 16, has ADHD. So it’s been a part of my life and something I’ve navigated a lot. The parts of the story where I’m showing you how this goes with Max is what we’re dealing with every day. I relate to parenting and managing all of that.
We’re really fortunate there are so many resources for kids now. I won’t spoil the book, but a lot of times [when] kids get diagnosed, adults do too.
I specifically showed Max with the inattentive type of ADHD because that’s what my son and husband are diagnosed with. These kids are often called daydreamers, or they zone out or they’re flaky. [But] their brain is constantly [going]. It shouldn’t be called a “deficit.” It’s not a lack of attention.
Unfortunately we aren’t born with a manual, we write it as we go. And we shouldn’t expect everyone’s user manual to look the same. We should tell kids we’re going to pay attention to you and what strategies work for you, and let you write your own manual. And that is how you empower a kid.
That’s what I tried to show with Max. Part of where he got the conviction to help his friend is he’s already gone through this trial and tribulation. He’s kind of willing to put his neck out there, and I think that’s because of who he is, not in spite of who is.
[Max] was given this feeling of not being enough. And I wanted to show who he is is just enough. I think sometimes we need to work harder at understanding other people’s perspectives. The real gift of humanity is to imagine and empathize with other humans.
Despite so many kids being diagnosed with ADHD, I feel like I haven’t seen many books where the main character is a kid with ADHD. Have you felt the same?
I had already read several, [including] “Focused” by Alyson Gerber. A few others, most of them focus on the diagnosis part of the journey. Discovering that you have ADHD is something I know a lot of kids really relate to. I wanted to write about a kid who’s just living with ADHD. Max already has support people in place, like this cool therapist. I just felt like I want to show this is how your life can be. This kid is out here solving a mystery, helping his community.
What do you hope readers will get out of this book?
I hope anyone who reads this story is wildly entertained. I hope they are also then surprised by the emotional connection they feel by the end of the story, and they get a sense of reward as Max figures out his life. And that they will get a sense of assurance that they will figure out their life as well.
[Through] my stack of books as a kid, I got such reassurance that I will be able to get through. It’s just comforting to relate to these fictional people. I do end up feeling like the characters in my books are real. This one was emotional for me because so many qualities about Max relate to my son.
I’m a more anxious person who likes to clean. I don’t like stuff out — it makes me feel stressed. My son explained to me, because every inch of his room is covered in objects, that if everything is out “I can find it really fast.” Oh, so there’s a functionality here. It hadn’t crossed my mind that he needed to do his room differently.
I’m hoping there are some of those moments in this book, and readers go “Oh, it’s not a choice, it’s a different way of moving through the world.” | 2022-07-14T12:22:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Middle-grade novel where life with ADHD is just life - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/07/14/adhd-is-just-part-story-this-middle-grade-novel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/07/14/adhd-is-just-part-story-this-middle-grade-novel/ |
After Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered, Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a pariah.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid listens as President Biden speaks during a virtual summit with the leaders of India and the United Arab Emirates in Jerusalem, July 14. (Evan Vucci/AP)
JERUSALEM — President Biden defended his decision to meet with the Saudi crown prince who orchestrated the killing and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying the Saudis must be involved in any effort to stabilize a volatile region.
Biden made the statement during a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on the second day of a five-day trip to the Middle East.
“My views on Khashoggi have been absolutely, positively clear and I have never been quiet about talking about human rights,” he said in response to a question. “The reason I’m going to Saudi Arabia is to promote U.S. interests in a way that I think we have an opportunity to reassert our influence in the Middle East.”
Analysis: Two killings haunt Biden’s Middle East trip
Biden also said alienating the Saudis would contribute to a leadership vacuum and added “I always bring up human rights.”
“There are so many issues at stake, I want to make sure that we can continue to lead in the region and not create a vacuum — vacuum that is filled by both Russia and China,” he said.
U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia who is widely called by his initials MBS, ordered the 2018 killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist.
The killing was widely condemned, including by Biden on the campaign trail where he publicly vowed to make Saudi Arabia a pariah and expressed deep reservations to aides about meeting with Mohammed. He said the country’s government has “very little social redeeming value.”
In June, he said “I’m not going to meet with MBS.”
The White House has since confirmed the meeting with MBS, saying that Biden will encounter the crown prince as part of a bilateral meeting with Saudi King Salman and the country’s broader leadership team.
During a Thursday meeting with Lapid earlier in the day, Biden spoke of the collaboration needed to stabilize the region, and to ensure that Iran will never obtain a nuclear weapon.
“This is a vital security interest to both Israel and the United States and I would add for the rest of the world as well,” he said.
He said that it would be the principal message in his meeting with the Saudis.
“When I see the Saudi leadership tomorrow, I’ll be carrying a direct message,” Biden said. “A message of peace and of the extraordinary opportunities a more stable integrated region could bring to the region and, quite frankly, to the rest of the world.”
Still, his decision to share space with MBS has been a lightning rod. Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, condemned Biden’s visit.
“You can imagine how shocked and disappointed I was to learn that you would break your promise and travel to Saudi Arabia to likely meet with the crown prince — the person who U.S. intelligence determined was responsible for ordering Jamal’s murder,” she wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post.
Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan chastised Biden for “going to Jiddah on bended knee to shake the ‘pariah’s’ bloodstained hand.”
Ryan wrote that the meeting “will signal that American values are negotiable” and that Biden “is turning a blind eye to Jamal’s murder in an effort to lower gasoline prices in advance of this fall’s midterms.”
Questions about the tense meeting even overshadowed the first segment of Biden’s trip, when he made his 10th visit to Israel and stepped off Air Force One offering fist bumps instead of handshakes.
The White House defended itself against criticism that the new presidential protocol that eschewed handshakes was less about protecting the president from the coronavirus and more about gracefully avoiding the optics of a handshake between MBS and Biden. | 2022-07-14T12:22:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden defends Saudi Arabia trip despite Khashoggi killing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/biden-israel-lapid-khashoggi-saudi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/biden-israel-lapid-khashoggi-saudi/ |
Granite City, a conservative-leaning community near the state‘s southern border, now offers the closest abortion clinics for many patients across the South and Midwest
The U.S. Steel Corp. Granite City Works plant in Granite City, Illinois. As the town outside of St. Louis, Missouri, has seen thousands of jobs from U.S. Steel disappear and business close it could begin to see an increase in visitors from neighboring states seeking abortion care. (Whitney Curtis/For The Washington Post)
GRANITE CITY, Ill. — The executive director of the chamber of commerce has tried to revive the image of the steel mill town where she has spent every one of her 82 years: Granite City isn’t dirty, she’ll tell anyone who asks, it’s industrial. Its residents aren’t down-and-out, but working hard to get back on track.
In the newsletter she writes once a month, Rosemarie Brown urged Granite City residents to reject “those unpleasant labels that neighboring communities have placed on us.” She hosted a barbecue dinner to celebrate local business owners. For the chamber’s black-tie event, she made centerpieces out of hunks of raw coal from the mill, tying them together with a shiny orange bow.
Then came news from Washington that could saddle Brown’s city with an entirely different reputation.
The Supreme Court’s decision last month to overturn Roe v. Wade suddenly left Granite City and other communities in southern Illinois as home to the closest abortion clinics for women hundreds of miles away. At the bottom of a long blue state that dips into red America, where many states across the South and Midwest have banned abortion, the region is now poised to become an island of abortion access, with as many as 14,000 people expected to come for abortions this year. Although the area leans conservative, Illinois’ government is led by Democrats elected by more densely populated regions upstate.
As soon as Brown heard about the Supreme Court decision, alone in her office, she started to cry.
With abortion patients pouring in from all over the country, the ruling could usher in a new industry and infuse much-needed cash into the city, where 46 businesses have closed since a round of steel mill layoffs in 2015. But some in Granite City — which backed former president Trump in 2020 — are not comfortable hitching their economic fortunes to a practice many see as immoral.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to our city,” Brown said.
Change is likely to come fast. The Hope Clinic for Women, which has operated in Granite City since 1974, experienced a threefold spike in calls on the day of the ruling. To meet demand, the clinic plans to hire at least five new staff members and extend its schedule, adding nighttime hours and an additional day of abortion care each week, according to co-owner Chelsea Souder.
New facilities are also popping up to help the region’s two existing abortion clinics — Hope Clinic and a Planned Parenthood in Fairview Heights, Ill. — absorb out-of-state patients. Soon, at least two clinics that were forced to shutter in antiabortion states will reopen in southern Illinois, including one owned by Alan Braid, the doctor who defied a Texas abortion ban last fall.
Unlike a lot of her friends and family, Brown opposed the overturning of Roe v. Wade. A decision like this would just bring more division, she thought to herself — to the whole country, and especially to her beloved hometown.
Brown contemplated what she might write in her next newsletter, which would go out to business owners throughout the county. On one hand, she thought, the surge of abortion patients might bring back some of the businesses that had closed. On the other, did they really want to be known as the city where women went to end their pregnancies?
She sat at her computer — manicured pink nails on the keyboard, her honey-blonde bob blow-dried two inches high — for almost an hour.
“There’s no way we’ll be able to run away from this,” she said.
Sixty years ago, many saw Granite City as one of the country’s most desirable places to live. With the steel mills booming and the union strong, the city’s factory workers took home hefty salaries while their children attended some of the state’s top public schools.
Locals could go to the theater for a double matinee on a Sunday, or stop by the counter at the drugstore for what was rumored to be the best fountain cherry Coke anywhere in the world.
In 1958, the National Civic League declared Granite an “All-American City.”
“That meant it was a great place to live,” said Brown.
Asked when things started to change, several longtime residents singled out the early 1970s: When one of the largest steel mills closed — and the Hope Clinic for Women came to town.
Since then, the population has declined from more than 40,000 to about 27,000.
“Nobody wants to live in the valley of death, really — and that’s what it is,” said Mark Yehling, 78, a former agent at the unemployment office who moved here in 1971 and now regularly joins the near-constant crowd of demonstrators outside the clinic.
You just have to look at the area around the clinic to know it’s true, said Joan Kane, an antiabortion activist who recently moved from southern Illinois across the river to St. Louis.
In the shadow of the steel mill, which towers over the clinic, many of the houses in downtown Granite City are boarded up with red signs on the doors, awaiting demolition. A few blocks over, long lines of store fronts sit empty, dotted with a few open tattoo parlors and rent-to-own appliance stores.
“It’s like evil has been there for so long,” said Kane. “Death just keeps destroying everything that it touches.”
Brown has heard these theories blaming the clinic for the city’s decline — and she isn’t buying them.
“I find that very hard to believe,” she said, sitting in her office at the chamber of commerce. The city’s fortunes are tied to the mills, she added.
Granite City is a longtime Democratic blue-collar town that threw its support behind Trump. The former president visited the steel mill in 2018, touting the tariffs he imposed on steel and aluminum from foreign countries, which, according to the mill, helped bring approximately 800 people here back to work.
Inside the plan to create an abortion refuge for a post-Roe era
People in Granite City usually don’t focus on the clinic unless they have to. When the subject comes up, there’s nervous laughter. Long pauses. Eventually, someone changes the subject.
When the clinic asked to build a four-foot fence around its property in the fall of 2020, to minimize contact between patients and the protesters, the city council turned down the proposal, without any members voicing an opinion on the matter before they took a vote.
City officials seem to prefer avoiding the topic altogether.
Mayor Michael Parkinson, who was elected last year, did not respond to requests for comment on this story. Nor did nine of Granite City’s 10 city council members.
“That place needs to leave,” said city council member and longtime Granite City resident Bob Pickerell, referring to the abortion clinic, before he excused himself and hung up the phone.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D), on the other hand, is eager to talk about the issue. The people of southern Illinois have an obligation to take in the thousands of women who will be turned away elsewhere, he told The Washington Post, whatever their personal views on abortion.
“I understand there are people who may be opposed to providing abortions or becoming known for having a clinic,” he said. “But frankly this is an emergency.”
At Hope Clinic, Souder said the leadership team has been working hard to build relationships with local officials since she and two others bought the business in May. Souder said owners have met with elected officials, the police chief, and nearby businesses to discuss the influx of abortion patients.
While Hope Clinic has attracted out-of-state patients for decades — restrictive laws in Missouri, in particular, led many to make the short drive across the river — this surge will be unlike anything the facility has ever seen.
“We want to make sure people are on the same page and prepared for what’s coming,” Souder said — “and how much change this means for Granite City.”
In the meetings with officials, she said, no one talks about how they feel about abortion.
“What we owe people, if anything, is to make sure we have systems and processes and relationships in place to keep everyone safe.”
Beyond that, she said, the clinic just needs to do its work.
The Supreme Court decision has forced many in Granite City to reckon with abortion and the role it plays in their region.
“Today we are especially reminded that in our land, Roe was overturned this week,” said Pastor Alan Beuster as he addressed his parish at Hope Lutheran Church on the last Sunday in June. “Within our own state, however, the battle continues to rage mightily.”
For years, the pastor has been a regular among the antiabortion demonstrators outside the clinic, handing out pamphlets and encouraging women to make a different choice.
“Lord in your mercy,” he said.
“Hear our prayer,” his 50 parishioners answered back.
Beuster moved to Granite City eight years ago — and he feels like God placed him here for precisely this moment, to serve a community that will see far more abortions now that Roe has been reversed.
He plans to double down on his sidewalk ministry efforts, recruiting more people to gather outside the clinic in the morning. His church buys baby wipes and bibles for women who may be considering abortion, which he helps to distribute outside of the clinic.
While the surge in abortion patients might bring more jobs to Granite City, Beuster acknowledged, there would be consequences for welcoming that kind of industry.
By relying on business from the clinic, he said, the city would be “going against God’s word.”
“And there is a day of reckoning for that,” he said.
Some who own businesses in the area see things differently.
Cesar Caratachea, a devout Catholic who owns Tres Caminos, a Mexican restaurant, said he doesn’t support abortion — but he also wouldn’t judge anybody who decided to have one.
The spike in abortions will be “good business,” said Caratachea. His restaurant, just outside the Granite City limits, is right next to a cluster of hotels where Hope Clinic patients often stay.
“If my business grows, I don’t care what they come to do,” he said.
Felicia Urioste, one of the owners of the ice cream store, Mr. Twist, said she’d also welcome any new customers. A cinder block roadside stand with a red roof, Mr. Twist has been an institution in Granite City for 45 years, famous for its strawberry cheesecake sundae, with whipped cream, chopped nuts and a cherry on top.
“I don’t judge anybody who comes and buys ice cream,” she said, adding that the community is divided on the issue and that as a business owner whatever she says “could make me or break me.”
All over town, people approached the subject with apprehension. A few miles down the road from Mr. Twist, a group of eight women gathered at the Granite City senior center for pinochle, the card game they played every Wednesday at noon.
They kept score with a blue ballpoint pen, cards in hand, bantering back and forth about who was winning and the best movies they’d seen.
Asked about the abortion clinic, they all went quiet.
“It’s almost too controversial to talk about,” said Gail, an 87-year-old who spoke on the condition that only her first name be used, concerned she might be attacked for her views on abortion.
“I’m a woman,” she said, tentatively. “I’m on the side of women. Each woman has to make her own decision.”
“You know they’re killing children, babies,” said Gail’s longtime friend, Betty Homyer, 82.
“Illinois is going down the tubes,” Homyer added. “We’re turning into — what do you call it when all the illegals come over? A sanctuary state … for abortions.”
“It’s very complicated,” one of the others whispered.
Some of the women gathered around the card table had known each other for decades.
This was the first time they’d ever talked about abortion.
At the bar behind the abortion clinic, the clientele mainly sticks to two topics of conversation.
“They’re either talking about sports or the weather,” said Robin Will, who owns Ken’s Lounge.
Her customers all know they’re right next to the clinic, she added — but no one seems to care.
Ken’s Lounge has been around for 50 years, opening every day at 6 a.m. so anyone on the overnight shift at the mill can grab a beer after work. Will screens every Cardinals game, and serves up vats of pulled pork and potato salad whenever one of her regulars retires. If someone starts to mouth off, Will said, she tells them to take it somewhere else.
“If you act up,” she likes to say, “I’ll call your mom because she’s been a regular here for 30 years.”
When Will bought the bar a few years ago, she said she didn’t think twice about her new neighbor, which she sees as “just another business.” Raised as a Democrat, Will has always believed women should be able to do what they want with their bodies.
Sometimes men will wander in alone for a few hours in the middle of the day, Will said. She always knows they’re waiting on someone at the clinic because they keep a close eye on the clock.
Whenever this happens, she said, she’ll ask the guy’s name and where he’s from — then introduce him to the other guys at the bar.
She wants to make sure he feels comfortable.
Around 7:30 p.m. on a recent Wednesday in June, Will went to find a woman she knew would be eager to talk about abortion.
Tracy, a longtime Granite City resident, went to the Hope Clinic at age 15. She said she was raped as a freshman in high school.
If she had been forced to carry her pregnancy to term, “I would have been mentally destroyed,” said Tracy, who spoke on the condition that only her first name be used because of the sensitivity of her story.
“I would have looked at that child every day and it would have reminded me of something horrible.”
To Tracy, all this talk about the clinic bringing a bad reputation to Granite City didn’t make any sense. Thousands of women will be coming here for the care they desperately need, she said — care they’re now unable to get anywhere else.
Granite City would be a place they’d remember for the rest of their lives, she said: not as a valley of death, but a “sign of hope.”
One week after the Supreme Court decision, Brown was still wrestling with what she should write in the chamber’s monthly newsletter.
She thought back to the last time the community was the focus of a story in a national newspaper. The headline she remembered was, “Dirty, Gritty Granite City.”
Brown had immediately written a letter to the editor, kindly suggesting they might have been a little more sensitive. If they’d really gotten to know the people here, she wrote, they would have settled on a different set of adjectives.
She worried the city would get the same kind of negative coverage once abortion patients started pouring in. If only people could focus on the women who would be helped here, she thought to herself. But she wasn’t particularly optimistic.
“We as a society see the negative before we see the positive,” she said.
“They’ll see the abortion side of it first, not that it might be giving hope to people.”
Lately Brown had been thinking she might not mention the ruling in her newsletter at all: Let business owners make up their own minds about what it meant for their city.
In the meantime, women would come and stay and eat and fill up their cars with gas.
And if that helped Granite City, even a little bit, she would be glad. | 2022-07-14T12:38:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Post-Roe surge could turn this city into a national abortion destination - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/an-illinois-town-wrestles-with-new-identity-national-abortion-destination/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/an-illinois-town-wrestles-with-new-identity-national-abortion-destination/ |
Dear Sahaj: I have married a wonderful man from India (and by extension his entire family); I am from an American background (and a nuclear/single-parent family). We’ve had conflicts several times regarding having family coming over and staying for extended periods.
We’re planning our long-overdue celebration/wedding with friends and family, and yesterday he informed me that his parents would be coming six weeks ahead of the celebration and staying with us, instead of the previously discussed two or three weeks.
I understand their importance to him and am open to it (although my mother-in-law constantly around does give me anxiety), but I can’t seem to get through to him that he needs to at least discuss it with me first! We’ll thankfully have more space than the last visit, but at least saying, “Hey my parents are thinking of coming a month earlier, what do you think?” would have been so much better than, “BTW, they’re coming.”
We argued about this because he would be fine with my mom coming, but I can’t seem to get it through to him that I would have at least cleared it with him as my partner. Please help, is there a way to calmly get through to him that doesn’t end in a fight/standoff?
— Husband doesn’t consult me
Husband doesn’t consult me: It’s easy to see why you’d be frustrated right now: On a granular level, this is an issue of your husband excluding you from the conversation about his parents extending their stay. But this also sounds like one example of a bigger issue: You don’t feel respected by your partner, and there doesn’t seem to be agreed-upon boundaries in your relationship.
First off: the immediate issue. I can imagine that planning this long-overdue celebration is already taking up a lot of emotional and mental energy, and perhaps it feels like your husband isn’t taking that stress into consideration. Understanding the parameters around your own mental and emotional capacity, and being able to communicate them to him, could help him understand this as something separate from “an issue with his parents.”
However, the fact that your husband doesn’t understand why this is a big deal to you — and that he made the decision without you — indicates a deeper-rooted issue of differing marital expectations and roles.
Because this has been a recurring conflict, I can imagine your frustration has been slowly building into resentment. If it goes unaddressed, this type of resentment has the ability to create an insurmountable wedge in your marriage.
But it’s not doomed yet, if you both can come to the understanding that choosing to build a life with a person of a different culture is about creating your own family norms that bridge both cultures in ways that feel good to both partners.
Culture, family dynamics and gendered socialization contribute to our understanding of these roles and norms, and both you and your husband have your own framework in which marriage and family are defined. It’s obvious to each of you. Of course you’d be fine with hosting my family for longer. Or, Of course you should talk to me about it first.
You’re both convinced you’re right. Hence the standoff.
But just because it’s obvious to you doesn’t mean it is to your partner. I wonder if you have explicitly discussed how your cultures have helped you define your own values and understanding of family/marital roles?
You’ll also want to discuss your expectations of each other, and expectations you feel are placed on you as a husband, a wife, a son, a daughter-in-law. If you lead with kindness and curiosity, this may help you uncover the feelings that are presenting themselves in your conflict.
As a daughter of Indian parents who is also in an intercultural marriage, I understand that there are cultural considerations in regard to an extended family’s role and presence in the marriage. The focus, however, should be on the fact that as a couple, you should decide why and what boundaries are important.
You’ll want to develop a clearly stated understanding of shared expectations. (For example: “If we host people, no matter who it is, we have to discuss it with each other before making a decision.”) Creating a list of agreements and new family norms you both feel good about can help you develop a united front.
If creating shared expectations and a mutual understanding of your roles widens the chasm between you two, I would encourage you to seek out a couples therapist. It’s not a sign that you can’t solve this, but you may require a professional to help guide you in the process and hold you both accountable.
Remember: You are both responsible for making your marriage a priority, and you both bring your own family experiences to the relationship. Each of your cultural and familial norms are important, but they are not meant to serve as an excuse for hurtful behavior.
Just because we have normalized certain dynamics doesn’t mean they’re healthy. | 2022-07-14T13:08:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Sahaj: How can I get my husband to consult me on big plans? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/14/ask-sahaj-husband-doesnt-consult-wife/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/14/ask-sahaj-husband-doesnt-consult-wife/ |
An X-ray image of a Vincent Van Gogh self-portrait; Van Gogh's "Head of a Peasant Woman," 1885. (Courtesy of National Galleries of Scotland)
Frances Fowle, senior curator at the National Galleries of Scotland, got what was likely to be the most exciting text message of her career while waiting in line at a fish shop on a Friday afternoon. It was an image from an X-ray. Not of broken bones — but of a previously unknown self-portrait by Vincent Van Gogh.
Stevenson, a conservator at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, discovered the painting when she X-rayed another painting by Van Gogh, “Head of a Peasant Woman,” ahead of an exhibition — a routine step that normally does not reveal such a major find.
Hidden under layers of glue and cardboard on the Van Gogh was another painting on its reverse — a portrait of a man in a hat with a scarf tied around his throat.
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has examined the X-ray of the newly-uncovered painting, which is “almost certainly” a Van Gogh self-portrait, the National Galleries of Scotland said in a news release. Still, experts are searching for ways to uncover it without damaging the painting whose canvas it sits under, so they can confirm its authenticity.
Van Gogh was known to reuse canvasses due to lack of funds, and Scottish conservators believe that was the case here. Several other self-portraits from the Nuenen period — between 1883 and 1885, when Van Gogh lived in the southern Dutch town — have been discovered on the backs of his paintings and now hang in museums in the Netherlands and the United States.
Conservators suspect that at some point, the self-portrait was covered up to make room for “Head of a Peasant Woman,” an 1885 study for a larger painting, “The Potato Eaters,” widely considered one of Van Gogh’s masterpieces. It had been hiding in plain sight, inside a painting that had belonged to the National Galleries of Scotland for over 60 years.
Experts believe the self-portrait was covered up with cardboard around 1905, “when the Peasant Woman was lent to an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam,” according to a news release. “At this date the Peasant Woman was evidently considered more ‘finished’ than the Van Gogh self-portrait,” it added.
“Head of a Peasant Woman” changed hands several times in the years following, until it was acquired by private collectors in Scotland and gifted to the National Galleries in 1960.
The National Galleries of Scotland already own three works by Van Gogh, painted between 1885 and 1889 — “and then suddenly, we have potentially another, which is probably the most exciting one of all” Fowle said in the series of interviews released Thursday by the public art body.
The announcement of the find early Thursday generated interest from social media users, who joked they would check the backs of paintings in their homes, just in case they contained a stray masterpiece or two. | 2022-07-14T13:08:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New Van Gogh self-portrait discovered via X-ray in Scotland - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/14/van-gogh-self-portrait-discovery-scotland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/14/van-gogh-self-portrait-discovery-scotland/ |
Storm cleanup continues, with some in D.C. region still without power
About 6,000 homes and businesses — mainly in Prince George’s County — are affected by the outages
A house that was occupied by University of Maryland students in the Lakeland neighborhood of College Park, Md., is seen on July 13, 2022, a day after it was severely damaged during a major rainstorm. (Photo Gaya Gupta/The Washington Post)
Some parts of the D.C. region are still cleaning up and without power two days after a major storm hit, and officials in a rural county in Southwest Virginia said they continue to search for numerous people who were possibly missing after major flooding in the area.
Roughly 6,000 residents and businesses were affected by power outages Thursday morning in the metropolitan area, most in Prince George’s County, Md. At one point after Tuesday’s storm, more than 230,000 homes and businesses in the D.C. area were without electricity.
Pepco said Thursday that it had restored power to the “vast majority of customers” who had outages because of Tuesday’s storm. Crews were “continuing to work around-the-clock to repair outages,” it said.
At the University of Maryland in College Park, officials said on Twitter, “power was in the process of being restored” and the campus would reopen Thursday morning. It closed Wednesday because of downed trees and problems with electricity.
Some roads in the region still had downed trees, and crews were working to clear those areas, authorities said.
Wires were still down on some roadways, including in Prince George’s County, where part of Route 1 remained fully blocked near Lakeland Drive.
In rural Southwest Virginia, 44 people were unaccounted for after major flooding, and phone service was down. Officials with the Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook that the flooding occurred in the Whitewood area. The tally of 44 “reflects the number of people that has been reported to law enforcement by loved ones and family members as being unable to make contact with them.”
“This does not mean the person is missing, it means we are attempting to reach and locate the person and check on their well-being,” the Facebook post said.
There are no confirmed fatalities, the officials said. They are expected to hold a news conference Thursday with more details on the flooding and conditions. | 2022-07-14T13:17:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Storm cleanup continues in D.C. region - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/14/dc-storm-cleanup-power-outage/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/14/dc-storm-cleanup-power-outage/ |
(Washington Post illustration; Sony)
Sony is adding a free rewards and loyalty program for gamers called PlayStation Stars. The program will launch “later this year,” the company said, though specific details about a release timeline remain under wraps.
Players can use PlayStation Stars to earn rewards through completing tasks, called “campaigns,” such as spending time on a particular title or working toward in-game achievements. It will be the first rewards program for the 27-year-old brand.
“We really feel like this is just the best time to be launching this type of program, in terms of us having the healthiest player base, the PlayStation 5, obviously, is a huge success and we really wanted to do something that can honor and celebrate PlayStation’s history, and now’s the best time to do so,” said Grace Chen, vice president of network advertising, loyalty and licensed merchandise in an interview with The Washington Post. “We wanted to create a program that honors that journey and the role that PlayStation may have had in someone’s life. We wanted to do that in a way that only PlayStation can.”
The program is named after stars because Sony liked their connotation of being unbound and limitless, which lines up with PlayStation’s slogan that “play has no limits.” Later this year, it will roll out to regions worldwide, including Asia, the Americas, Europe and more.
Chen said PlayStation Stars will not be a competitor to Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft’s video game subscription service, and that the program is meant to appeal to both new and veteran players.
“It’s beneficial for all players. Obviously, for players who have been with PlayStation for a long time and have been on this game journey with us, we want to be able to recognize and reward them in distinct ways, but there will be a lot of aspects about this program that new customers will enjoy as well,” Chen said.
All players will earn loyalty points that can be redeemed for PlayStation Network wallet funds (and thus traded in for items worth real money). Gamers who are also subscribed to Sony’s PlayStation Plus online service will earn additional points to spend in the PlayStation Store, a perk that non-subscribers will miss out on.
Players can redeem points for stand-alone games, add-on content and specially themed collectibles in the reward catalogue. Sony plans to add new rewards, campaigns and collectibles over time.
PlayStation’s announcement echoes a larger shift in the entertainment sphere toward subscription models and more consumer-facing initiatives.
“As a broad array of entertainment services move to subscriptions, loyalty emerges as a critical metric,” said Joost van Dreunen, a lecturer on the business of games at the New York University Stern School of Business. “By incentivizing players to check in regularly and making their membership more visible, Sony will likely improve retention and brand loyalty. It will prove key during a period in which inflation and an economic depression will weigh down consumer spending on games.”
As part of PlayStation Stars, the first player to reach platinum — completing all in-game achievements — in a blockbuster title in a local time zone will also receive a reward, precluding others from winning it. Chen said the company would work to minimize fraudulent activities in the event that people cheat or buy and sell accounts with certain rewards attached.
Another kind of reward Sony is offering is digital collectibles, which are 3D rendered representations of things like figurines of video game characters and past Sony devices. Some will be ultra rare and hard to obtain. They aren’t non-fungible tokens, despite also being digital and collectible. | 2022-07-14T13:25:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sony announces PlayStation Stars, a loyalty program for gamers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/07/14/sony-playstation-stars-announcement/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/07/14/sony-playstation-stars-announcement/ |
Real estate agents, condo associations and mortgage brokers say the new rules from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are having a chilling effect on the market
Gabrielle Smychynsky, a first-time home buyer, walks with her boyfriend, Wes White, and their two dogs in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on July 13. (Madeline Gray for The Washington Post)
First-time home buyer Gabrielle Smychynsky had started packing in anticipation of moving into a townhouse in Myrtle Beach, S.C., excited to have a contract accepted after getting outbid on three homes.
Then she received a phone call the day before settlement, telling her the financing had fallen through. The 24-year-old teacher was devastated.
“I had saved up all this money,” Smychynsky said. “It was something I was looking forward to, and it felt like it was all crashing down.”
Under new rules instituted by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the wake of the collapse of Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Fla., last year, condo boards or property managers are required to answer a 12-question form about the structural integrity of the building and the financial health of the association for the transaction to proceed.
Because her two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom townhouse was deeded as a condo, Smychynsky had to follow the rules even though they were originally intended for multistory buildings.
Real estate agents, condo associations and mortgage brokers say the questionnaire is having a chilling effect on the condo market across the country and making it even harder for first-time buyers like Smychynsky or those on fixed incomes who are already up against overheated housing prices and more expensive mortgage rates.
“Seniors, first-time home buyers, those who are able to own a home because condominiums are often more affordable housing options, they are going to lose out,” said Dawn Bauman, senior vice president of government and public affairs at Community Associations Institute.
Fannie Mae said it has not experienced a drop-off in its business. “We’ve seen no significant impact overall related to our temporary policies,” a Fannie Mae spokesperson wrote in an email. “These measures help protect borrowers from physically unsafe or financially unstable projects.”
Buildings that don’t meet the standards are added to a list of buildings ineligible for loans backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
While that list is not public, Orest Tomaselli, president of project review at CondoTek, a company that reviews condo documentation for lenders, says it included more than 900 condo buildings within 60 days. It has since grown to more than 1,000 properties.
“That list is the worst list you can be on if you are a condominium property,” Tomaselli said.
A Fannie Mae spokesperson wrote in an email: “Fannie Mae has long required scrutiny of project reserves on condo loans delivered to us. … There are a number of factors that would make a specific condo property eligible or ineligible for mortgage financing.”
However, some board members and property management companies say the questions are vague or require a level of expertise that is beyond them.
For example, Question 3 asks if the condo board is aware of any deficiency in the structure of the building. Critics say this question is better asked of a structural engineer than a volunteer board member.
As a follow-up to Question 4 about outstanding zoning violations or codes, Question 5 asks: “Is it anticipated the project will, in the future, have such violations?” — a question critics say is impossible to answer.
Because they fear liability, associations are refusing to fill out the form.
In Smychynsky’s case, neither the property management company, First Service Residential, or the homeowners association would fill out the questionnaire. First Service Residential did not respond when asked for comment.
“A lot of these HOAs, they’re not signing the documents so now you have an incomplete condo questionnaire and the loan can’t close,” said Hans A. Neugebauer, the real estate agent who represented Smychynsky.
Smychynsky was not the only one frustrated by the new requirements.
The seller “was emailing the HOA begging them to do the questionnaire because she had to pay a bunch of medical bills and needed to sell the house,” Smychynsky said.
After much back-and-forth communication with the underwriter, Tim Diedrich, senior loan officer at Motto Mortgage, found a workaround.
“The underwriter says if you can get me six months’ worth of HOA meeting minutes we’ll review those,” Diedrich said. “If we don’t see anything that looks like it’s a structural issue or something like that we’ll consider approving it.”
Smychynsky closed a week after her initial settlement date. Asked if he had run into this problem with other loans, Diedrich said, “Absolutely.” At the moment he is working with a registered dietitian who is trying to buy her first home, but the homeowners association is refusing to fill out the questionaire.
What the Fed's interest rate hike means for mortgages
The problem is widespread, according to Ken Fears, a senior policy representative for banks, lending and housing finance for the National Association of Realtors.
“It was initially suggested to us that this change would only be a challenge in Florida, but we are seeing it in markets across the country — urban, rural, coastal and central,” he said. “What’s already been a tough market for underserved communities has been made even worse. In a worst-case scenario, it could create an open door for investors to take over the market or push some homeowners into distress because they can’t sell when they need to.”
It’s not just real estate agents who are concerned. The Mortgage Bankers Association has been hearing from big, medium and small lenders, said Dan Fichtler, associate vice president of housing finance policy at MBA.
And Hanna Pitz, a senior policy specialist at MBA, said the new requirements could make it harder to get condo loans.
“We saw in previous years when FHA added some more requirements for their condominium lending that share of the market correspondingly decreased, she said.
Tomaselli is sympathetic to the associations that are struggling to adhere to the new policies but says they are needed.
“The reality is in 13 years of doing this type of work we’ve seen many, many, many developments that have massive problems that the unit ownership within the building didn’t even know how pervasive and extensive the problems were,” Tomaselli said. “This flushes that all out.”
Even those who have problems with the new requirements agree their intention is sound. “We all want safe, stable buildings," Bauman said. “We all want this to work.”
CAI, MBA and NAR have written letters to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, asking for a pause in the implementation of the rules. MBA’s letter offers suggestions on how to reword each of the questions so that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can obtain the information they are seeking without unduly burdening the condo associations.
An FHFA spokesperson said that the agency is working with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to review the rules and is soliciting feedback.
Smychynsky and her boyfriend are now living in the townhouse.
“We have exactly what we wanted. Our neighbors are great. It’s a great community,” she said.
But the experience has left its scars.
“I don’t want to move again,” she said. “I don’t want to buy a house again. It’s too scary. All that money I had saved, they were kind of playing with my money, my emotions.” | 2022-07-14T13:52:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New rules after Surfside tragedy make it harder to buy a condo nationwide - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/14/new-condo-lending-rules-surfside/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/14/new-condo-lending-rules-surfside/ |
“God willing, it’s going to save a lot of lives.” So said President Joe Biden on June 25, after signing the most consequential gun-safety legislation in decades. Barely a week later, he was expressing shock at yet another senseless mass shooting — this time at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois.
Despair is not the answer to this depressing — and grimly familiar — juxtaposition. The fact is, the US is making real progress on gun reform, despite the best efforts of the Supreme Court and extremists in Congress. That progress must continue if the bloodshed is to stop.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which Biden signed last month, is a significant achievement by any measure. It includes incentives for states to pass “red-flag” laws — which allow courts to temporarily prevent people from accessing guns when they pose a threat to themselves or others — and funding to train officials in applying those laws. It expands background checks for would-be gun buyers under age 21. And it closes the so-called boyfriend loophole, which had exempted certain domestic abusers from firearms restrictions. Not only did 15 Senate Republicans (and 14 of their counterparts in the House) join Democrats in passing the bill, they took barely one month to do so — a strikingly swift response by federal standards.
Elsewhere, there’s mounting evidence that Americans are fighting back against gun violence. After a 2018 shooting that left 17 high-schoolers dead, Florida’s conservative legislature passed a red-flag law, raised the age to 21 for the purchase of semiautomatic rifles, and banned the use of so-called bump stocks. After the Supreme Court foolishly overturned a century-old New York law limiting the issuance of concealed-carry permits, the state quickly passed laws requiring 16 hours of in-person training before such permits are granted, declaring specific venues no-carry areas, and expanding background checks to purchases of ammunition as well as firearms. It also raised the age limit for semiautomatics, following a mass shooting in Buffalo in May.
Gun manufacturers, too, are under growing pressure. Earlier this year, the parents of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre won a $73 million settlement from Remington Arms Co., after suing the gunmaker for wrongful marketing practices. Similar suits are expected in response to the Buffalo massacre and one in Uvalde, Texas. Several states are attempting to make such lawsuits easier, especially against manufacturers that are marketing weapons to children.
As for the federal government, more legislation is unlikely any time soon. But the Senate on Tuesday finally confirmed Steve Dettelbach as the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which had lacked a permanent director for seven years. Dettelbach should bring focus and vision to an agency that has lacked both for some time.
Now, it’s up to voters and lawmakers to build on these efforts. Looking ahead, two principles are worth keeping in mind.
One is that the gun-safety movement will need to take a creative and multi-pronged approach going forward. At a minimum, that should include more proactive lawsuits, renewed efforts to advance commonsense reforms in state legislatures, and the aggressive use of federal regulations. The decades-long struggle to hold tobacco companies accountable offers an instructive model.
Second, the movement needs to be realistic about what’s working. As one example, both New York and Illinois have passed red-flag laws. The shooters in Highland Park and Buffalo previously had run-ins with the police. Yet both managed to legally purchase firearms and carry out their killing sprees. It’s crucial that the criteria for disarming such subjects be revisited as needed. States also should use new funding from the bipartisan gun bill to ensure that officials are trained to invoke such laws and the public is widely aware of them.
It’s hard to be optimistic amid America’s epidemic of gun violence. But it’s essential to build on what progress has been made, and to carry on the fight for as long as it takes.
The Supreme Court Just Made New York’s Streets Meaner: Noah Feldman
America’s Gun Laws Are as Old as the Republic: Francis Wilkinson
An Executive Order That Might Actually Stop Gun Violence: Timothy L. O’Brien | 2022-07-14T13:52:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The US Is Making Progress on Gun Safety. Keep Pushing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-us-is-making-progress-on-gun-safety-keep-pushing/2022/07/14/b0ad2f60-0375-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-us-is-making-progress-on-gun-safety-keep-pushing/2022/07/14/b0ad2f60-0375-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
The wonderful and bizarre “Elvis’ Birthday Fight Club” combines staged fisticuffs between pop culture icons (such as this bout between Leatherface and My Little Pony) with burlesque dancing and interactive games. (StereoVision)
Bastille Day: France’s national holiday is a great excuse for a party, especially in D.C. The epic party at the French Embassy’s Maison Française is sold out, but there are plenty of restaurants around the city where you can drop in to toast le 14 Juillet with a glass of wine. Le Diplomate’s annual soiree features a strolling accordionist, a caricature artist, balloon animals, face painting and — oh, right — a menu that ranges from croque madame to Dover sole. La Jambe in Shaw is pouring “delightful St Tropez rosé” at happy hour prices beginning at 5 p.m., with food specials from the South of France and wine and cheese giveaways. Bistrot Lepic has a special menu as well as live jazz in its cozy upstairs wine bar. Le Sel, the French restaurant inside the Kimpton’s Banneker hotel, starts with a happy hour featuring free rosé and hors d’oeuvres from 4 to 6 p.m., plus a $49 three-course menu in the dining room. The Sofitel’s Opaline lounge has a special menu of bar snacks, such as beer tartare and country pâté; French DJ David Dupree; and prizes for the best French outfits. The $17.89 combo at Fig and Olive includes a cocktail, olives and crostinis. Can’t party Thursday night? Tenleytown’s Le Chat Noir and Matisse are among the sponsors of Bastille Day at the Park, held in the neighborhood’s Fessenden Park on Saturday. The afternoon gathering includes live accordion music, pétanque lessons, family craft activities, quiche tasting and rosé from 2 to 4 p.m. and costs $20 per adult, which includes one child (and food, drink and activities).
Capital Fringe Festival: The Capital Fringe Festival looks a bit different than it did before the pandemic. Performances by more than 250 artists will run for two weekends out of spaces in the Georgetown Park mall that were once home to retailers like DSW and Forever 21, and capacity at each venue is limited to 51 seats. The 31 productions include a fantasy drama about astronomers, a dark comedy homing in on a mother-daughter duo and a musical set on the Appalachian Trail. Through Sunday, then July 21-24 at various locations in Georgetown. Full schedule at capitalfringe.org. $15 per show.
D.C. Asian Pacific American Film Festival: The D.C. Asian Pacific American Film Festival is getting closer to a return to normal. The 22nd edition of the festival includes 65 films from nine countries — a mix of feature-length offerings and collections of short film programs with such themes as “Working in a Weary World” and “Family Histories.” While some shorts programs and several features will be shown on demand online, audiences can attend seven in-person events at locations including Eaton Workshop and AFI Silver Theatre. The festival begins Thursday in NoMa’s Alethia Tanner Park with a free outdoor screening of “Waterman,” a documentary about Hawaiian surfer Duke Paoa Kahanamoku. Through July 17. Locations vary; the full schedule is posted on apafilm.org. Free-$20.
Lake Arbor Jazz Fest: After a brief sojourn to National Harbor, the Lake Arbor Jazz Fest returns to Lake Arbor proper this weekend, with a pair of pre-festival events taking place at the Center for Performing Arts at Prince George’s Community College. Thursday’s concert features South African guitarist Jonathan Butler and singer Ann Nesby, formerly of Sounds of Blackness. Friday’s Summer White Affair (suggested attire: “All White”) includes saxophonists Gerald Albright and Langston Hughes II, plus violinist Chelsey Green and the Green Project. Saturday’s main event, held outdoors at the Lake Arbor Community Center, is headlined by War and Down to the Bone; Sunday brings a full day of music including Sweet Cherie, guitarist Tim Bowman and saxophonist Kirk Whalum. Gates open at noon both Saturday and Sunday, and the grounds feature dozens of vendors and a beer and wine garden. Through July 17. Pre-festival events $69-$125; weekend day tickets $65-$95.
‘Elvis’ Birthday Fight Club’ at Gala Hispanic Theatre: The first rule of “Elvis’ Birthday Fight Club” is — well, you’ll probably want to talk about it a lot, considering how wacky this long-running show is. It features a combination of staged smackdowns — think MTV “Celebrity Deathmatch”-style matchups between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, Vladimir Putin and a unicorn or Daniel Snyder and a Native American — and burlesque dancers, interactive games and running commentary from hosts “Elvis” and “Kittie Glitter.” The fight club is usually held in January in honor of the King’s birthday, but this year’s festivities were postponed due to the coronavirus. You can’t keep the big man down, though, and the in-person fight club returns this weekend. Friday and Saturday at 7 and 10 p.m. $30-$40.
Culture Caucus Summer Festival at the Kennedy Center: Last summer, the Kennedy Center celebrated its reopening with three-day outdoor mini-festivals on its Millennium Stage. The series returns from July 14 through Sept. 3, with outdoor concerts, events and gatherings every Thursday through Saturday. Each week is curated by the center’s Culture Caucus, a group of artists, arts organizations and creators from the D.C. area. The opening week includes an art show, DJs and cabaret performance with tap dancing on Friday and a slew of events on Saturday: jazz and gospel performances, a panel discussion about the history of gospel in D.C., a yoga class and an art market. Mark your calendars now for the following week with Don’t Mute D.C., featuring go-go bands, panel discussions, yoga and drumming classes. Most events do not require reservations. July 15 from 5 to 8:30 p.m.; July 16 from 2 to 8:30 p.m. Free.
Mary McLeod Bethune guided tours and neighborhood walking tours: On Wednesday, educator and activist Mary McLeod Bethune became the first Black American to represent a state in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. Her statue was donated by Florida, replacing one of Confederate Gen. Edmund Smith Kirby. Learn more about Bethune and her work with the National Council of Negro Women by taking a tour of the NCNW headquarters in Logan Circle, which also served as Bethune’s home and is now managed by the National Park Service. Guided tours with a park ranger are offered every half-hour between 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. and 1 and 4 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, though tours are limited to 10 people. On Friday and Saturday, the Park Service offers a one-hour guided walking tour of Logan Circle and Shaw at 10:30 a.m. “What Makes a Thriving Community?” looks at the Black residents of the neighborhood after the Civil War and their contributions to its development. All tours are free, no reservations required.
Sour Liz Week at Dacha Shaw: When you think of beers at Dacha, you probably envision glass boots full of lager or hefeweizen. But Dacha is a destination for sour and funky beers, too. The Sour Liz Week brings 14 sours to the taps, including offerings from Evolution, Cascade, Caboose and Ithaca and a trio from Chantilly’s Mustang Sally. Union’s Older Pro, which adds plum to the Baltimore brewery’s flagship gose before aging it in wine barrels, sounds like a standout. Through July 20. Beers $9-$15.
‘American Prophet’ at Arena Stage: Frederick Douglass’s speeches and books are the basis of this world-premiere musical. Director Charles Randolph-Wright also helmed “Motown the Musical” on Broadway, and the title role is portrayed by Cornelius Smith Jr. of “Scandal” and “All My Children” fame. Through Aug. 28. $92-$102.
Fiesta Asia on Pennsylvania Avenue NW: This popular street fair is normally held in the spring, but after May’s event was postponed, Fiesta Asia returns to Pennsylvania Avenue NW between Third and Sixth streets this weekend. The 2022 National Asian Heritage Festival’s big celebration includes a parade, martial arts displays, a shopping bazaar, musical performances, activities for kids and exhibits of Asian crafts. Try snacks from food vendors such as Rice Culture, which whips up treats including taiyaki: fish-shaped cakes stuffed with a red bean filling. 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Free.
Summer Jazz Celebration at the Kreeger Museum: This weekend brings a chance to listen to jazz in a different sculpture garden. The Kreeger’s sculpture garden has the vibe of an exquisitely decorated and maintained backyard, with John Dreyfuss’s blocky monoliths arranged around a fountain-filled pool and Sandra Muss’s “Portals” tucked along a wooded trail. It’s the perfect setting for a picnic and concert. The Summer Jazz Celebration, a collaboration between the museum and saxophonist Elijah Jamal Balbed, brings together the Crush Funk Brass Band; Brazilian guitarist Flavio Silva, who is performing in a quartet with Balbed; and DJ John Murphy. Picnic blankets and BYO beverages in cans are allowed; glass bottles and chairs are not. 3 to 6 p.m. $25.
158th Anniversary of the Battle of Fort Stevens: The battle of Fort Stevens isn’t as well known as Antietam or Gettysburg, but the two-day engagement in Brightwood in July 1864 was the closest the Confederate army came to capturing the U.S. capital during the Civil War. The annual commemoration of the battle, held at the reconstructed portion of Fort Stevens, brings together military and civilian reenactors, historians and performers of period music. This year’s theme is “Women and the Defense of the Capital,” which will be featured in the talks and living history demonstrations, alongside hands-on children’s activities. 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Free.
Sounds of Africa in the Enid A. Haupt Garden: Originally scheduled as a Juneteenth celebration but postponed due to the Something in the Water festival, this outdoor summer concert stars Eme & Heteru, featuring Chelsey Green, performing “songs of liberation,” sponsored by the National Museum of African Art. 6:30 to 10 p.m. Free.
Greatest HITS at Hole in the Sky: After more than a decade as one of D.C.’s cooler underground DIY art spaces-slash-punk venues, Hole in the Sky is closing for good. The final event is an art show called Greatest HITS, with contributions from at least 20 artists who’ve displayed work at Hole in the Sky over the years. As always, BYOB. 6 to 9 p.m. $5 donation requested.
The U.S. Army Band at the Anthem: This year marks the centenary of the U.S. Army Band, nicknamed “Pershing’s Own” after General of the Armies John J. Pershing, who ordered its creation. Those 100 years are honored during a special concert at the Anthem, with a program featuring classical, jazz, pop and country music. ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz hosts. Tickets are free but should be claimed in advance. 8 p.m. Free.
Black on the Block at Franklin Square: Franklin Square is turning into a true block party at this free festival, presented with NFL star Stefon Diggs. Black on the Block features more than 100 Black-owned businesses, with DJs, food trucks, art installations and a photo booth. The event is for all ages, though the VIP Garden Dome is 21 and over only. (Advance tickets to the Garden Dome are $30, which includes two drink tickets.) 1 to 8 p.m. Free.
‘Afro-Atlantic Histories’ closing weekend at the National Gallery of Art: This weekend is the final chance to immerse yourself in “Afro-Atlantic Histories,” the National Gallery’s exhibition examining art and the African diaspora, delving into “how the Atlantic slave trade refashioned geography into a vast, in-between space of unsettled and shifting identities,” as Post critic Philip Kennecott wrote in his review of the show. The museum offers slide show overviews of the exhibit with expert staff at noon Saturday and Sunday. The exhibition’s final day also includes a screening of “Black Lions, Roman Wolves,” a documentary in progress about Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in the 1930s. Filmmaker Haile Gerima — an owner of Sankofa bookstore — will be at the 2 p.m. screening. Registration is free; a limited number of same-day passes will also be available. Through Sunday. Free.
Watchhouse at 9:30 Club: Watchhouse’s self-titled 2021 album is a reintroduction to the folk duo previously known as Mandolin Orange. Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz, who are married and based out of Chapel Hill, N.C., chose a new name that better suits what they’re trying to do with their music. It refers to a friend’s cabin on the Chesapeake Bay that Marlin visited as a teenager, he told WBUR radio, where there was no electricity and only the company of others. The duo’s music has always effused a calming aura that now matches the inspiration of their new name. Their latest project features more layered instrumentation than usual, providing a lusher experience for listeners. The nimble and delicate strumming on “Better Way” sounds like stars sparkling, and the couple closes the song by sincerely singing, “Hope you find a better way to be kinder.” Regardless of the name change, Watchhouse is still giving fans the tranquil and endearing Americana that they have come to expect. 7 p.m. $35.
Fort Reno Concert Series opening night: Free summer concerts have been held in Fort Reno Park since 1968, and during the 1990s, the series became famous for annual appearances by some of the area’s biggest rock acts, including Fugazi and the Dismemberment Plan. This year’s schedule has eight concerts over four weeks. Glue Factory, the Periwinkles and Leon City Sounds kick things off on July 18, and everything wraps up Aug. 11 with a banger of a show featuring Ted Leo, the Owners and Koshari. 7 to 9:30 p.m. Free.
Hannah Georgas at Songbyrd: Singer-songwriter Hannah Georgas opens her 2020 album “All That Emotion” by calling herself out. “Hide behind all that emotion / See how long you can keep going,” she sings on “That Emotion,” while subdued drums guide her through her coping. Georgas’s fourth album is produced by the National’s Aaron Dessner, who also produced Taylor Swift’s “Folklore.” The 38-year-old Canadian singer’s previous works usually found her deep in thought as her sweet vocals articulated a relatable inner monologue. Georgas gives listeners more of that on her latest project while submerging herself more deeply into the nostalgia of it all. She subtly refers to childhood trauma but never in explicit detail, instead letting listeners drop their own experiences in for hers so there’s a collective healing happening. Georgas beautifully executes self-introspection, letting her music speak her mind. 7 p.m. $20-$22.
Tour of the Universe on the National Mall: If you’ve been captivated by the breathtaking images from the James Webb Space Telescope, make plans to be on the National Mall on Wednesday. At eight locations between Fourth and 14th streets, participants can use telescopes to observe the sun, learn about ultraviolet and infrared light, touch meteorites and find out how black holes bend light, with stations organized by Smithsonian museums and the National Gallery of Art. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Free.
Teen Mortgage at Songbyrd: Despite losing a year’s worth of bookings and scuttling a U.S. tour due to the pandemic, power duo Teen Mortgage was able to take advantage of unusual opportunities, like live-streaming a show from DC9 or playing mobile shows on the back of D.C. concert venue Songbyrd’s “Byrdmobile” truck. But Teen Mortgage is a band that needs to be experienced live, where mosh pits and tinnitus overwhelm the senses — live-streaming would never do. Life under a pandemic threatened to disconnect the band from time and space. “I almost feel like we got blipped or something,” says drummer Ed Barakauskas. “I know we did stuff during the last couple years that kept the momentum going, but it feels like we just reappeared on the other side of it.” Firmly un-blipped, the band can finally properly tour behind “Smoked.” Released last fall, the EP is an all-killer, no-filler collection of outbursts from the D.C.-based pair, loaded with searing riffs, sneering vocals and skin-punishing drumming. The songs affirm that getting smoked is an inevitability in skateboarding, making music and living life, but that dusting off and trying again is often the only way through. 7 p.m. $18-$22.
Interview: Teen Mortgage is firmly un-blipped and back on tour where it belongs | 2022-07-14T13:53:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Outdoor concerts, festivals, movies and other things to do in the Washington, D.C., area. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/14/best-things-do-dc-area-week-july-14-20/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/14/best-things-do-dc-area-week-july-14-20/ |
James Webb Space Telescope images ranked by how good they look to eat
At right, the planetary nebula cataloged as NGC 3132, and known informally as the Southern Ring Nebula. At left, a slice of Spanish chorizo. (Washington Post illustration; photos by NASA ESA CSA and STScI HANDOUT/E and iStock)
1Stephan’s Quintet
2Southern Ring Nebula
3WASP-96b
4Carina Nebula
5SMACS 0723
One of those things that they always say about space is that you ought to send a poet there. But instead they are always sending expensive pieces of equipment and scientists and astronauts and people who say things like, “Super! Really enjoyed it!” when asked how it was to go to the moon.
Well, I am not a poet but I am an English major who has not had lunch yet. So I thought I would do my part to make the case for poets by ranking the James Webb Space Telescope pictures in order of how good they looked to eat. By the time I am done, you bet that you will wish you had sent me instead of that costly and elaborate equipment!
This looks delicious! It looks like those fancy poached eggs you get in a restaurant where the egg gets to drift around in simmering water first and take on a shape of its own, not the eggs you poach at home in little UFO-shaped cylinders. This looks like something you would have to know that you were ordering at the very beginning of the meal so that the chef could make it specially in advance. Whoever made these looks like she knows what she is doing and knew just when to take them out of the oven so they would not collapse. And I am glad you get five because I think just one would not be enough. I would love to eat this!
I would definitely eat this, although I would eat the one on the right for sure and the one on the left only if I had not seen the one on the right. If you told me that they were two pictures of the same thing, I would say, “Oh, the one on the left has clearly gone bad. I have seen a version of this phenomenon happen to bread that I leave in the fridge too long.” My dad would say to just cut off the part that looks weird and eat the rest, but just to be safe I think I would toss the whole thing. The one on the right looks delicious, like some sort of fancy cured meat or thinly sliced radish, or a movie theater candy that was supposed to look like a fancy cured meat or thinly sliced radish. I would definitely drink a Gatorade in either of these flavors, and both of them would be raspberry.
No, I don’t think I would like to eat this (the chart, not the people — but also not the people). Much of this is because it is called WASP, and I do not want to eat anything called WASP. At best, it would be crunchy; at worst, it would be alive. But also the presentation is just not there! It is not a cool picture but rather a chart of wavelengths of light telling me about the atmosphere composition of this planet. I am very excited about these readings, but I don’t feel like they were shown off to their best advantage by being juxtaposed with the gorgeous photos of stars being born. This is like showing up to prom with a verbal description of an outfit rather than an outfit. It’s very Magritte.
Hmm, I am not sure about eating this. On the one hand, it looks savory, and I love savory eats! That rich brown color would go great in a stew or a steak pie! On the other hand, though, the texture. The texture looks, not to put too fine a point on it, very dusty. That’s not a characteristic I like in food! When I look at this, my first thought (after about 90 minutes of thoughts that are awe and wonder about the cosmos and our place in it) is: This looks like mushroom powder. Or the gravy you get in a packet. It might be okay to dip a chip in, but I am not raring to get at it, exactly. I think I would have a little of it if the person I was with said it was good, but if it were just an hors d’oeuvre being thrust at me, I might demur.
Even though the name SMACS sounds like a popular kids’ snack from the 1990s that later turned out to derive its neon hue from being full of lethal chemicals, it does not fool me. This in no way looks good to eat. This looks like something that would be very difficult to send by mail, and if you opened up the envelope the wrong way, you would say “Darn” as it got all over everything. This looks like a dress your aunt would wear to Christmas Eve dinner. I guess these might be good to sprinkle on something? Maybe you could get a little canister of it to use for decorating holiday cookies. But this is less than bite-sized, and certainly not a dish of its own. Also, elements of it are apparently distorted, so I cannot be sure that this is how it would actually look if I ordered it. I have been burned before, Arby’s! Some of these look kind of wormy, actually. I am not sure I would like to taste this at all, the more I look at it.
But I am certainly enjoying looking at it. | 2022-07-14T13:53:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | James Webb Space Telescope images ranked by how good they look to eat - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/james-webb-space-telescope-images-ranked-yummy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/james-webb-space-telescope-images-ranked-yummy/ |
Climate goals face major headwinds, two reports say
Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! This has absolutely nothing to do with climate change, but we're really enjoying the Twitter account “cats being weird little guys.” But first:
Two reports show major headwinds facing U.S., global climate goals
More than 70 countries have committed to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, while President Biden has vowed to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
But two big reports released Thursday underscore the steep challenges facing Biden and other world leaders as they seek to slash planet-warming emissions in the crucial coming decades.
The first study, conducted by the independent research firm Rhodium Group, finds that the United States is on track to reduce emissions 24 percent to 35 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 — significantly short of Biden's target — absent additional policy action.
The second study, issued by the financial data powerhouse S&P Global, concludes that a looming shortage of copper — a critical mineral used in most green technologies — imperils global efforts to zero-out emissions by midcentury.
Taken together, the reports paint a sobering picture of the difficulties of deep decarbonization. They also stretch more than 100 pages and include dozens of charts and data points.
We read both analyses in their entirety so you don't have to. Here's what to know about their main findings:
America has a ‘big gap to make up’
On its current trajectory, the United States is set to reduce emissions 24 to 35 percent by 2030 and 26 to 41 percent by 2035, according to the Rhodium report.
“Those reductions are not sufficient under current policy to meet the U.S. stated climate target,” Ben King, an associate director at Rhodium and co-author of the analysis, told The Climate 202. “So there's still a big gap to make up.”
Rhodium conducts the same analysis of America's emissions pathway, dubbed “Taking Stock,” every year. The estimates in this year's report represent a rosier outlook than last year, when the firm forecast a 17 to 30 percent emissions reduction by 2030.
However, the shift is largely attributable to slower macroeconomic growth projections and higher fossil fuel prices amid the war in Ukraine — not large policy changes.
In the policy arena, the report notes that there has been some movement in the past year, including the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure law and the enactment of new tailpipe emissions standards for cars and light trucks.
But “uncertainty reigns,” the study says, when it comes to Democrats' long-stalled budget reconciliation bill and the Environmental Protection Agency's regulation of power plants following a recent Supreme Court ruling.
Other sector-specific findings include:
The industrial sector is expected to overtake the transportation sector as the nation's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the early 2030s.
Emissions from the power sector will probably continue to decline, but the price of natural gas and renewable energy will have a major impact on the 2035 outcome.
Gas mileage improvements and more electric vehicle sales will drive declines in transportation sector emissions.
Copper shortage may short-circuit net-zero goals
Meanwhile, the S&P Global study highlights that global net-zero goals are heavily dependent on the supply of copper, which is essential to electric vehicle batteries, offshore wind turbines, solar cells and other green technologies.
The report looks at two scenarios: a “rocky road” scenario in which current trends continue, and a “high ambition” scenario in which copper mines increase their output and countries ramp up their recycling of copper from discarded equipment.
Under the “rocky road” scenario, the study predicts annual copper shortfalls of nearly 10 million metric tons in 2035.
Even under the “high ambition” scenario, it projects a deficit of nearly 1.6 million metric tons in 2035.
“People talk a lot about lithium and cobalt, but copper is the metal of electrification,” Dan Yergin, vice chairman of S&P Global and a co-author of the study, told The Climate 202. “And even under an optimistic scenario, we see a significant shortfall."
The looming copper shortage imperils not only governments' climate pledges, but also automakers' commitments to selling more electric vehicles, the study says. The average EV uses roughly 2½ times more copper than an existing internal combustion engine car, according to the analysis.
“EVs are definitely the big drivers of the copper demand increase in the clean-energy transition,” Olivier Beaufils, director of energy transition consulting for S&P Global Commodity Insights and another co-author of the study, told The Climate 202.
Manchin sounds the alarm — again — on spending package amid inflation
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) on Wednesday warned that the budget reconciliation bill “needs to be scrubbed much better,” potentially dealing a blow to the climate provisions that remain on the table, Alexander Bolton reports for the Hill.
The warning came after a new report showed that inflation — a key issue for the elusive senator — hit 9.1 percent in June, reaching the highest measure in 40 years and a new pandemic-era peak.
Manchin told reporters Wednesday that prescription drug pricing reform could be the only new spending in the reconciliation bill, although he didn't rule out other spending, as long as it doesn't worsen inflation, Burgess Everett and Anthony Adragna report for Politico's Congress Minutes.
“We know what we can pass is basically the drug pricing. … Is there any more we can do? I don't know,” he said. “But I am very, very cautious and I am going to make sure I have every input on scrubbing everything humanly possible that could be considered inflammatory.”
Sen. Cotton criticizes BlackRock over climate action
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Wednesday sent a letter to Larry Fink, the chief executive of the financial firm BlackRock, criticizing the company’s involvement in Climate Action 100+, saying that by calling on top emitters to address climate change, the investor-led group is pressuring fossil fuel companies to drill for less oil and gas.
“Your anti-drilling coercion threatens our national security, hurts Americans struggling to buy a tank of gas, and appears to violate antitrust laws,” he wrote in the letter. “By ‘collaborating’ with other investors, you and your fellow CA100+ investor participants appear to be acting like a climate cartel.”
Cotton’s letter asks Fink to provide a list of companies and investor participants that BlackRock has engaged with as part of the initiative by July 20.
BlackRock declined to comment on Cotton's letter. But in a previous response to a letter from the Texas comptroller, the firm wrote: "Our investment decisions are governed strictly by our fiduciary duty to clients, and that duty requires us to prioritize our clients’ financial interests above any commitments or pledges not required by law."
Biden’s Saudi trip is unlikely to bring down oil prices
The Biden administration is insisting that the president’s trip to Saudi Arabia on Friday is about much more than just energy — but oil is bound to come up, Ben Lefebvre reports for Politico.
Biden's op-ed in The Washington Post last week justifying his decision to visit the kingdom, despite his earlier vows to make it a “pariah” for its human rights violations, contained few references to energy. But he is desperately searching for more oil, and Saudi Arabia — which holds some of the world’s largest oil reserves — could help settle the global market and lower prices at the gasoline pump.
However, experts said a hard push by the president would probably fail to get the kingdom to bolster oil production because it may have limited spare capacity. Instead, the best that could come of talks with Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would be modest agreements to invest in more production.
The visit comes after the OPEC nations decided in June to slightly increase oil production sooner than originally planned, succumbing to calls from Biden.
Bristlecone pines have survived for more than 1,000 years in one of the harshest environments on Earth, but by 2018 hundreds of the trees were found dead and dying in Death Valley National Park, The Washington Post’s Sarah Kaplan reports.
According to a study published this spring, the West’s worst drought in 1,200 years is critically weakening the trees, a sign that climate change is proving too much for the ancient trees to bear. The warming temperatures have caused an explosion of bark beetles, which the bristlecones were previously thought to be immune from, undermining the trees' capacity to defend themselves against other hazards.
With the trees' decline, a record of the past is also at risk. Bristlecone tree rings have helped scientists for centuries by revealing a history of the Earth’s climate and capturing the interactions between greenhouse gases and altered ecosystems.
But researchers remain hopeful that the prehistoric species can survive, given their documented tenacity. The researchers plan to collect acorns and cuttings from the tree that can be used to regrow the species in botanic gardens and arboretums.
“We have a second chance to prevent a species extinction,” said Wes Knapp, the chief botanist for the conservation nonprofit NatureServe. “That’s really rare, to have a second chance in nature."
Extreme heat scorching Western Europe could set all-time record in U.K.
Severe heat warnings are expected to expand across the United Kingdom late this weekend into early next week as temperatures reach all-time highs between 90 and 95 degrees, in some areas possibly hitting triple digits, Matthew Cappucci and Karla Adam report for The Post. The heat wave marks the second time in recent weeks that climate change has helped hike temperatures in the region.
The extreme heat could bring temperatures roughly 18 degrees above normal for mid-July in London, nearly topping the 2019 record of 101.7 degrees. The excessive temperatures are not expected to fall at nighttime either, increasing the danger posed by the heatwave to vulnerable populations living in homes without air conditioning.
Since the 1970s, the U.K. has reached 95 degrees on a single day nine times — four of which were in the past decade. Climate scientists say human-caused global warming is linked to an increase in the frequency and intensity of such abnormal hot spells in Western Europe.
Once nearly extinct, bison are climate heroes in Oklahoma — Jess McHugh for The Post
Texans hit with second power conservation request this week as temperatures hit triple digits — Julia Mueller for The Hill
EU to urge countries to curb gas use to buffer against Russian cuts — Kate Abnett for Reuters
How demand for twigs is bringing down a rainforest — Dionne Searcey for The New York Times | 2022-07-14T13:53:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Climate goals face major headwinds, two reports say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/climate-goals-face-major-headwinds-two-reports-say/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/climate-goals-face-major-headwinds-two-reports-say/ |
Open Championship live updates Tiger Woods returns to St. Andrews in search of another major title
Phil Mickelson cards even-par 72
Want to win the British Open? Don’t fall into an early hole.
Rory McIlroy isn’t counting out a Tiger Woods win
Max Homa finally gets dream pairing with Tiger Woods
Ian Poulter shakes off the boos, shoots a 69
R&A chief says LIV Golf is ‘harming the perception of our sport'
Justin Rose withdraws just before first round
Cameron Young’s blistering 64 is early leader
John Daly’s latest eye-catching outfit
Weather conditions cloudy but calm in St. Andrews
British Open groups to watch
Tiger Woods back at it at the British Open
Tiger Woods is back at St. Andrews, where he has won two British Opens. (Robert Perry/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
After sitting out last month’s U.S. Open to rest his ailing, surgically repaired lower right leg, Tiger Woods is back at a major championship, vying for his fourth British Open title and third at St. Andrews, known as the “home of golf.”
This is 30th edition of the British Open played at the Old Course in Scotland, where Woods won in 2000 and 2005. He has stressed the importance of making this appearance St. Andrews, noting that he may not be able to make it back when the tournament next returns to the Old Course.
Woods has had a quiet year inside the ropes as he’s made his way back from a devastating car crash in February 2021. The 46-year-old finished 47th at the Masters in April and withdrew from the PGA Championship after three rounds in May before skipping the U.S. Open.
Follow along for live updates on Woods’s first round and all the other happenings at St. Andrews.
Woods had some harsh words at his Tuesday news conference for the breakaway, Saudi-funded LIV Golf Invitational Series and its CEO, Greg Norman. “Greg has done some things that I don’t think are in the best interest of our game, ” Woods said.
Rory McIlroy, the 2014 British Open champion, entered the tournament as the favorite to win. American Xander Schauffele, who has never won a major but captured last week’s Scottish Open, had the second-lowest odds, according to DraftKings.
The first two rounds of the British Open will be broadcast on USA Network until 3 p.m. Eastern time, and will stream on Peacock from 3 p.m. until 4 p.m. The weather forecast calls for highs in the mid-60s, with a chance of a few of showers developing later in the afternoon, and winds out of the west at 10-20 mph.
Phil Mickelson’s bland look continued, a consequence of lost sponsorships since he made the unpopular jump to the Saudi-sponsored LIV Golf tour.
The 2013 Open champion has been wearing clothing with his own logo, featuring him leaping every so slightly after winning the 2004 Masters. On Thursday at St. Andrews, the “Home of Golf,” he appeared to have dialed it back a bit more, with a T-shirt under his quarter zip.
Phil is playing The Open in ... a t-shirt? pic.twitter.com/y8MXtbtBvz
Cameron Young set a scorching pace in the British Open’s first round, firing an 8-under-par 64 in benign conditions early Thursday. It was the second-lowest opening round at a British Open held at the Old Course after Rory McIlroy’s 63 in 2010.
As of this writing, Young is three shots clear of McIlroy (who’s finishing up his round) and Cameron Smith, who carded a 5-under 67.
British Open winners historically have not been far off the pace after the first round.
Plus, 15 of the last 16 British Open winners were inside the top 20 after the first round.
It should be noted that McIlroy followed his 63 in 2010 with an 80 on Friday. He would finish in a tie for third, eight shots behind winner Louis Oosthuizen (who was two strokes behind McIlroy after the first round).
Rory McIlroy isn’t counting out Tiger Woods, surgically reconstructed right leg and all, from winning his fourth British Open.
Woods is seeking his 16th major championship and would become the first player to win three Opens at St. Andrews, the course he unsurprisingly calls his favorite in the world.
“I think the way the golf course is and the way the conditions are, I could certainly see it,’’ McIlroy told reporters earlier this week. “It’s going to be a game of chess this week, and no one’s been better at playing that sort of chess game on a golf course than Tiger over the last 20 years.’’
When the two played together in a four-hole exhibition featuring Open champions Monday. Woods birdied two of the four holes (12 and 18).
“For those four holes, he was moving better than I’d seen him move in awhile,’’ McIlroy said. “And his swing … hitting the golf ball and swinging the club aren’t the issue. It’s the walking part of it that’s the struggle. But he seemed to be moving well. Everything looked pretty good, so that’s encouraging.”
Woods played all four rounds of the Masters at undulating Augusta National and withdrew after three rounds of the PGA Championship at Southern Hills in Tulsa. St. Andrews is a mercifully flatter course, but Woods tempered expectations earlier in the week when he met the media.
“It’s still not easy,” Woods said. “Granted the inclines are not steep in any way. They’re not — the declines are not steep — but it’s the unevenness that is still difficult on me. I have a lot of hardware in my leg. So it is what it is. It’s going to be difficult.”
Woods won at St. Andrews in 2000, 2005 (when he completed his career Grand Slam) and 2006. He’ll tee off at 9:59 a.m. Eastern time (2:59 p.m. in Scotland) in a threesome with U.S. Open champion Matthew Fitzpatrick and Max Homa.
Max Homa was on the verge of turning pro in June 2013 after a standout NCAA and amateur career when he shot his shot, asking Tiger Woods via Twitter if he would just join him for just one practice round:
That practice round never came to fruition, but Homa has crafted a pretty nice career that’s included some face time with Woods. In 2021, Homa won the Genesis Open in California, the tournament Woods hosts, and got a nice photo op with him and the trophy.
Homa’s patience finally has paid off. He’s in Woods’s group for the first two rounds of this year’s British Open, and don’t think he’s not excited about it.
Homa, Woods and U.S. Open champion Matthew Fitzpatrick tee off at 9:59 a.m. Eastern time.
Ian Poulter, one of the defectors to the Saudi-sponsored LIV Golf tour, was welcomed to the first tee at St. Andrews with a smattering of boos — and very nearly shanked his first shot out of bounds.
But he shook it off, saving par on the hole and going on to card a three-under 69 in the first round.
The 46-year-old Englishman, whose best performance in the British Open was a second-place finish in 2008, carded the first eagle of the tournament a little later.
The first eagle of the 150th #TheOpen Championship.
📺: @USA_Network pic.twitter.com/koSzTIYqEz
Martin Slumbers, the head of the R&A, criticized the Saudi-funded LIV Golf series, saying it was “harming the perception of our sport” and threatened to change criteria for entry into the British Open in the future.
“Professional golfers are entitled to choose where they want to play and to accept the prize money that’s offered to them. I have absolutely no issue with that at all,” Slumbers told reporters at St. Andrews, “but there is no such thing as a free lunch.”
Two LIV Golf events have been held so far and were “entirely driven by money,” Slumbers said. Forty-eight players participated in the 54-hole events in London and Portland, with $25 million in prize money and no cuts. Signing fees for some of the biggest names, like Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, reportedly were $150 million or more.
The R&A will consider changes to qualifying, he added.
“Looking ahead to The Open next year, we have been asked quite frequently about banning players. Let me be very clear that’s not on our agenda,” Slumbers said. “But what is on our agenda is that we will review our exemptions and qualifications criteria for The Open. And whilst we do that every year, we absolutely reserve the right to make changes as our Open Championships Committee deems appropriate. Players have to earn their place in The Open, and that is fundamental to its ethos and its unique global appeal.”
The attitude at the tournament has been decidedly frosty toward LIV. Greg Norman, a two-time winner of the British Open and LIV Golf CEO, was asked to stay away so that he would not be a distraction. Although Norman called the decision “petty,” Tiger Woods agreed with it. “Greg has done some things that I don’t think are in the best interest of our game, and we’re coming back to probably the most historic and traditional place in our sport,” Woods said. “I believe it’s the right thing.”
Slumbers disagreed with the idea voiced by Norman and several players that the Saudi circuit would help the sport grow. “I would also like to say that in my opinion the continued commentary that this is about growing the game is just not credible and if anything is harming the perception of our sport that we are working so hard to improve.”
Justin Rose pulled out of the British Open just before he was to tee off in the first round, citing a back injury, and was replaced by Rikuya Hoshino of Japan.
Rose, who will miss the tournament for the first time since 2006, was in a threesome with Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood.
South Africa’s Erik van Rooyen also pulled out of the tournament because of a neck injury. He was replaced by Brit Aaron Rai.
Cameron Young fired an 8-under 64 to take the early lead into the clubhouse at St. Andrews.
The 25-year-old Tour rookie who has had five top-three finishes, including one at the PGA Championship, finished his bogey-free round with a birdie at 18.
Young said the course felt like it “wasn’t too hard” but acknowledged that it could play completely differently Friday. “You really have to be careful and think your way around [the course],” he told NBC Sports.
John Daly, still sporting a beard that Santa would envy, broke out another pair of the bold pants he has made a part of his game.
With his son Patrick on the bag, he finished with a one-over 73.
Pure athleticism. pic.twitter.com/8ybFYWtX1c
The golfers took the Old Course under mostly cloudy skies and calm conditions, with rain showers here and there.
The forecast for the rest of Thursday calls for more of the same, with temperatures in the mid to upper 60s, breezes of 10 to 20 mph and intermittent rain showers.
The Old Course is particularly vulnerable to today’s professional golfers in the absence of wind. The last time the British Open was held at St. Andrews, in 2015, windy conditions on Saturday led to a Monday finish, but Zach Johnson still carded a 15 under par to win the tournament.
“I don’t think it stands the test of time if it’s benign,” 2017 British Open champion Jordan Spieth said of the course this week. “If the conditions are calm for four days — which I don’t think happens over here — I think that with today’s technology, it becomes a shootout.”
While half the field already is on the Old Course at St. Andrews, the other half will tee off at the British Open on Thursday morning, East Coast time. Here’s a look at some of better groups in the second wave of the first round.
Scheffler’s insane play from earlier this season — four wins in six starts, including the Masters, and a rise to No. 1 in the world rankings — was unsustainable, but he still has six top-20 finishes in eight starts since winning the green jacket. Niemann won earlier this year at Riveria, while Hatton’s temper sometimes gets the best of him.
9:59 a.m.: Tiger Woods, Max Homa, Matthew Fitzpatrick
Woods has won the British Open at the Old Course twice, and he’s paired with a possible sleeper selection in Homa and the reigning U.S. Open champion in Fitzpatrick.
Spieth, who won the British Open in 2017 and finished one shot out of the playoff the last time it was held at the Old Course in 2015, is among the favorites with Rahm. Varner’s two professional wins both have occurred outside the United States.
Cantlay won the FedEx Cup last year but has never played particularly well at majors. Burns has won twice on the PGA Tour since March, while the rising star Pereira is making his British Open debut.
After withdrawing from the PGA Championship in May and then skipping last month’s U.S. Open to continue his recovery from serious injuries suffered in a February 2021 car crash, Tiger Woods returns to major-championship golf on Thursday morning at the British Open.
Everything you need to know about the British Open
Woods takes the Old Course at St. Andrews at 9:59 a.m. Eastern in a group with Max Homa and U.S. Open champion Matthew Fitzpatrick. We’ll be tracking his round throughout the day, along with any other major happenings from Scotland.
Woods, 46, has won the British Open twice at the Old Course, in 2000 and 2005, and said this week he wanted to return at least once more.
“I don’t know how many Open Championships I have left here at St. Andrews, but I wanted this one,” Woods said. “It started here for me in ’95, and if it ends here in ’22, it does. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. If I get the chance to play one more, it would be great. But there’s no guarantee.”
The R&A generally tries to hold the British Open at St. Andrews every five years. This year’s tournament is the 30th at the “Home of Golf.”
Open Championship live updates: Tiger Woods returns to St. Andrews in search of another major title | 2022-07-14T13:54:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Open Championship: Tiger Woods tee time, tracker and live coverage - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/14/tiger-woods-british-open/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/14/tiger-woods-british-open/ |
Amid global crisis, Italy’s government cracks over garbage
Trash bins overflow in the Prati district of Rome as the Italian capital struggles with a renewed garbage emergency. (Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images)
ROME — For the last 17 months, Prime Minister Mario Draghi has served as a rare unifying force in Italy’s politics. But that period appears to be crashing toward an end.
On Thursday, senators from one of the biggest parties in Draghi’s coalition — the Five Star Movement — abstained from a confidence motion, a stunt that throws Italy’s government into crisis and could even lead to its collapse.
The Five Stars — a onetime populist party that has hemorrhaged most of its support — opted for the boycott ostensibly because of a series of grievances with Draghi and over a bill linked to the confidence vote. The bill, aimed at helping businesses and households with high energy prices, also contained a provision for a trash incinerator in Rome, a project the Five Stars opposes.
Italy needs a new president and a stable government. Mario Draghi cannot be the answer to both.
Draghi had made it clear that he would interpret a walkout as a vote against the unity government he leads and that he would feel obliged to reconsider his mandate, potentially offering his resignation to the Italian president. The Five Stars went ahead, anyway.
As a result, at a time of inflation, record-breaking drought and war in Europe, Italy’s government is cracking over a garbage incinerator.
“Absurd,” said Roberto D’Alimonte, a political science professor at Luiss Guido Carli University.
What comes next requires some guesswork. Italian President Sergio Mattarella, who plays an influential role during periods of political crisis, could persuade Draghi and the parties to patch things back together. Mattarella, a revered former constitutional court judge, has proved adept over the years at appealing to a sense of national responsibility, and there are clear reasons Italy would benefit from keeping its government intact for a while longer. In the autumn, it has a budget to pass. And it must carry out reforms to receive its windfall from the European recovery fund.
Mattarella, theoretically, could also persuade Draghi to carry on as prime minister in a new government without the Five Stars, in what would be a narrower majority. But Draghi, who in February 2021 was handpicked by Mattarella to lead a unity coalition, has indicated that he wants no part in such a scenario.
“There is no government without the Five Stars,” Draghi said earlier this week, adding that he wouldn’t lead a coalition with an alternate makeup.
That leaves open the possibility for early elections.
Many analysts say that such a move would be embarrassing for Italy, given the emergencies confronting Europe. Among investors, Draghi is seen as a guarantor of stability in one of the world’s most heavily indebted economies. And in Brussels, where he is widely respected for his past eurozone-saving work as Europe’s top central banker, Draghi has given Italy a political clout it rarely enjoys. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he has firmly backed sanctions against Russia and helped Italy scramble to find alternative energy sources.
But some of the same parties that have been supporting Draghi for 18 months now have reasons to prefer elections, if given the choice. Parties on the center-right and far right are convinced they could win any vote held in the coming months. The Five Stars’ move gives them such a chance without looking as if they initiated the government’s breakup.
“The situation such as it is cannot go on,” said Lorenzo Fontana, a deputy leader of the nationalist League. “Clearly, for us, there is no fear of leaving the final word to Italians.”
Italy is notorious for its topsy-turvy politics, but the latest turbulence caught the country off-guard, coming just before the political class decamps for its summer holidays. The source of the tumult, the Five Star Movement, is fighting for its political future and struggling to figure out how to do it.
Can a party founded by a comedian run a major European country? Italy may soon find out.
The Five Star Movement only a few years ago was Italy’s most popular party — an anti-establishment band of populists, comprising ideas from the left and the right, that promised a radical form of democracy, including internet votes among party supporters. But the movement has proved more effective at agitating from the outside than governing.
As part of various Italian coalitions over the last four years, it has zigzagged on issues including immigration and the European Union. The party recently splintered when Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi di Maio picked off about one-third of the Five Stars’ parliamentarians, who were divided over the issue of weapons shipments to Ukraine. The remaining Five Star members are led by Giuseppe Conte, a former Italian prime minister and law professor, who earlier this month had handed Draghi a nine-point list of the party’s proposals.
“A government won’t be able to work under an ultimatum,” Draghi said in response.
There is a history between Draghi and Conte, who had been Italy’s leader during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, and who made the difficult — but ultimately lifesaving — decision to call for a nationwide lockdown at a time when such moves were unprecedented in a democracy. But in early 2021, Conte was pushed out as part of a fight within his own coalition just as Italy was trying to ramp up its coronavirus vaccination campaign. Mattarella, at the time, said it was time for a government that could tackle “the great emergencies.”
Stefano Pitrelli contributed to this report. | 2022-07-14T15:10:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Five Star votes against Prime Minister Mario Draghi, endangering coalition - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/14/italy-government-collapse-fivestar/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/14/italy-government-collapse-fivestar/ |
After months of refusing to resign, the president fled the country with his wife on July 13. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, in his capacity as acting president, imposed a state of emergency after protesters stormed some government buildings. Rajapaksa tendered his resignation the next day in Singapore, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Wickremesinghe, who only became prime minister in May after Rajapaksa’s brother Mahinda resigned, had offered days earlier to resign himself. Wickremesinghe said that parliament will choose a new president shortly. In May Rajapaksa had declared a public emergency for the second time in two months, giving him sweeping powers to suspend laws, detain people and seize property. A nationwide curfew was imposed and local media reported the army was called out in Colombo as some protests turned violent. | 2022-07-14T15:23:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Sri Lanka Landed in a Crisis and What It Means: QuickTake - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-sri-lanka-landed-in-a-crisis-and-what-it-means-quicktake/2022/07/13/c59ec688-030a-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-sri-lanka-landed-in-a-crisis-and-what-it-means-quicktake/2022/07/13/c59ec688-030a-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
Protesters rally in support of abortion rights outside the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus on June 24. (Barbara J. Perenic/AP)
President Biden last week channeled the horror that many felt regarding the news of a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio who was forced to go out of state to obtain an abortion. "Imagine being that little girl,” he said, decrying the suggestion from antiabortion zealots that she should be forced to give birth to her rapist’s child. “I can’t think of anything as much more extreme.”
Well, now, we have something even more extreme: Right-wing Ohio politicians accusing the child of making a false allegation to get an abortion. Think about that. They thought a 10-year-old was simply promiscuous and looking for an excuse to end her pregnancy? The mind reels.
The Columbus Dispatch reports, “Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost appeared on Fox News this week, casting doubt on the veracity of Dr. Caitlin Bernard’s account that a 10-year-old Ohio rape victim needed to travel to Indiana for an abortion.” Yost repeated the accusation during an interview with USA Today: “Every day that goes by, the more likely that this is a fabrication. I know the cops and prosecutors in this state. . . . And shame on the Indianapolis paper that ran this thing on a single source who has an obvious axe to grind.”
The shame was his. After the alleged rapist was arrested on Tuesday, I reached out to Yost’s office to see if he would apologize for his comments. He did not respond.
Yost wasn’t alone in casting aspersions on the victim’s account. The Dispatch reported:
Rep. Jim Jordan ... also cast doubt on the veracity of the story this week and shared an article about Yost’s comments that no evidence had been found.
“Another lie,” he tweeted. “Anyone surprised?”
After news of the arrest broke, Jordan tweeted that the man charged “should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
No response from his office either.
As a preliminary matter, it is grossly inappropriate — and arguably a violation of prosecutors’ code of ethics — to publicly (and with zero basis) demean a victim’s account. The American Bar Association rules state: “The prosecutor should not make, cause to be made, or authorize or condone the making of, a public statement that the prosecutor knows or reasonably should know will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing a criminal proceeding or heightening public condemnation of the accused.”
In the case of sexual violence, Yost’s conduct is especially egregious given the aversion that many victims already feel about going to law enforcement. And in the case of a child, it is nothing short of barbaric. Yost’s remarks could encourage abusers to tell their victims, “No one’s going to believe you.”
Former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade tells me: “This is the new world we live in. To get an abortion under a rape exception to the law, a victim must prove there was a rape, and must do so more quickly than a pregnancy will permit.” She continues, “Instead of diligently investigating the rape, a Republican official is incentivized to signal to his supporters that he cares more about preventing the abortion than prosecuting the rapist. Rape victims will be twice victimized.”
The rape victim in Ohio was put in this position because the state’s GOP legislature passed a six-week abortion ban with no exception for rape or incest, and Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed it. While DeWine did not insult the victim upon learning of the case, his statement gave no indication that he understood the law he signed was responsible for the victim’s extended trauma. “This is a horrible, horrible tragedy for a 10-year-old to be assaulted, for a 10-year-old to be raped,” DeWine said on July 6. “As a father and as a grandfather, it’s just gut-wrenching to even think about it.”
Not gut-wrenching enough, however, to spare her the delay and ordeal of out-of-state travel to terminate the pregnancy.
The entire episode should underscore the forced-birth cohort’s monstrous dehumanization of women. They do not trust women, their families, doctors or clergy to make decisions that involve serious risks of mental and emotional harm. These politicians would deny women and girls the autonomy to make life decisions that will have life-changing consequences for them and their families. Even worse, too many politicians fail to demonstrate any respect for victims who report sexual assault.
If there were ever an advertisement against allowing politicians to override intimate health decisions of women and girls, this is it. Do Ohioans really want to sign over control of their lives to the likes of Yost, DeWine and Jordan? The voters can answer that question in November. | 2022-07-14T15:24:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | A 10-year-old rape victim’s plight shows why politicians should stay out of abortion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/abortion-ohio-10-year-old-rape-case-just-got-worse-yost-jordan-dewine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/abortion-ohio-10-year-old-rape-case-just-got-worse-yost-jordan-dewine/ |
An antiabortion protester stands outside the Jackson Women's Health Organization clinic in Jackson, Miss., on July 2. (Rogelio V. Solis/AP)
No one wanted the story of a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio to be true. How could they? It’s grim and disconcerting in the way that only such crimes can be.
Some people wanted it not to be true for another reason.
The story came to light in an Indianapolis Star report — an Indiana story because the child’s Ohio doctor — concerned that changes in abortion law in that state made aborting the victim’s pregnancy illegal — sought a colleague’s help across state lines. The Star, writing about how the deep-red state suddenly found itself as an unlikely (and temporary) abortion haven, featured the 10-year-old’s story.
For opponents of abortion, the lack of details about the case and the seeming convenience of it were reasons to dismiss it. After all, here was an example of the sort of extreme situation in which most Americans would say abortion needs to be available, just as concerns about the availability of the procedure to address such situations was coming into question. So a number of conservative politicians expressed skepticism about the story — or went further, declaring it fake news.
It was not. But the story highlighted two alarming patterns in the new, post-Roe v. Wade world of abortion politics. The first is a continued effort to downplay the need for legal abortion. The second is that the political utility in expressing opposition to abortion hasn’t evaporated; instead, the utility has simply shifted further to the right.
The latter was foreseeable in at least one way. With Roe being overturned, states are now free to legally restrict abortion, meaning that Republican legislators in red states like Indiana are moving quickly to figure out how they plan to do so. That’s meant jockeying not for abortion to be made illegal but, instead, over how strict the prohibitions should be. For GOP politicians and activists, the political fight has shifted to the right, meaning that standing out from the pack in appealing to conservatives can necessitate outflanking the opposition by moving closer to the extreme.
Consider the reaction to the Ohio case from Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R). He appeared on Fox News on Wednesday evening to discuss the case. Host Jesse Watters was trying to take credit for the arrest of a suspect in the rape case, as though law enforcement in Columbus was waiting for Watters’s efforts to doubt the story (as he had earlier in the week) before moving in. Rokita, a former conservative member of Congress, appears to have shared Watters’s desire to turn the situation into a personal victory.
His office would investigate the situation, he pledged to Watters and Fox viewers, and press charges as needed. Not against the rapist. Against the doctor in Indiana who spoke about the case to the Indianapolis Star.
“We’re gathering the evidence as we speak, and we’re going to fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure,” Rokita said, claiming that the doctor might have violated laws about disclosing abuse.
The victim “was politicized, politicized for the gain of killing more babies, all right?” he added later. “That was the goal. And this abortion activist” — that is, the doctor — “is out there front and center. The lamestream media, the fake news is right behind it.” He declared the Indianapolis Star to be fake news … though their story was accurate.
This response — appearing on the right’s favorite cable-news network to assure viewers that some criminality would be found to punish supporters of abortion — is the sort of thing that supporters of the procedure feared once Roe was overturned. Rokita is politicizing the incident as surely as anyone else, to stake out a position further to the right than his state’s current abortion restrictions. The law says that a child could get an abortion? Well, rest assured that Rokita will try to find some way to impose punishment on those involved, if possible.
In his response to the crime, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) manifested the first pattern mentioned above: He tried to downplay the idea that his state’s laws blocking abortion were too strict.
“Every day that goes by the more likely that this is a fabrication,” he said of the case in a media interview earlier this week. “I’m not saying it could not have happened. What I’m saying to you is there is not a damn scintilla of evidence. And shame on the Indianapolis paper that ran this thing on a single source who has an obvious ax to grind.”
The Columbus Dispatch reported that there were 52 incidents in which children under the age of 15 obtained an abortion in the state in 2020, an average of one each week. Why was it so important for Yost to cast this as wildly unlikely? To get ahead of local police, to whom he presumably could have appealed for information about their investigation? In part, certainly, because it’s politically useful to Yost — up for reelection this year — to demonstrate his loyalty to the Republican base. And that means expressing skepticism that there are regular occurrences in which the sorts of abortion most Americans see as important to protect under the law are actually deployed.
Last month, PRRI asked Americans how they felt about a battery of possible abortion-related laws. Among the restrictions they introduced were one limiting legal abortion only to the life of the mother, one expanding that slightly to include cases of rape and incest and one making it illegal to cross state lines to obtain a legal abortion.
Only about half of Republicans opposed a law in which the only allowed exception would be to save the life of the mother. Only a bit over a third opposed a law tightening access to include only preserving the mother’s life or pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Most Republicans, however, opposed legislation that would make it illegal for women in a state with bans on abortion to seek a legal procedure elsewhere.
This, of course, is what happened in the case of that young girl from Ohio. Her doctor was concerned about the legality of aborting the pregnancy that followed her rape. So she contacted the doctor in Indiana, where there was no question about the legality — at least until the state’s Republican legislature figures out what new boundaries it plans to impose.
After Roe was overturned, some abortion opponents suggested that there was an opportunity for Republicans to demonstrate new commitment to care for mothers and their children. A smattering of national Republican politicians have made noises about legislation that could help do that. But the Ohio incident makes clear that at the state level, where these fights have now shifted, the political jockeying is often not pushing Republicans toward the middle but further to the right. | 2022-07-14T15:24:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What the Ohio rape case tells us about post-Roe abortion politics - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/what-ohio-rape-case-tells-us-about-post-roe-abortion-politics/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/what-ohio-rape-case-tells-us-about-post-roe-abortion-politics/ |
Juan Soto will take part in his second Home Run Derby next week in Los Angeles. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Juan Soto will participate in the Home Run Derby for the second consecutive year, and after hitting a derby record 520-foot blast last summer at Denver’s Coors Field, the Nationals slugger has his eyes set on another mark — the longest opposite-field home run in the event’s history.
“Everybody can pull the ball,” Soto said Tuesday. “Let’s see how far you hit the ball oppo.”
Soto revealed that right-hander Jorge Mejia, his offseason hitting coach in the Dominican Republic, will pitch to him in the derby. Former Nationals hitting coach Kevin Long, who pitched to Soto last year, joined the Philadelphia Phillies in the same role during the offseason.
Mejia was the hitting coach for the Nationals’ Gulf Coast League team during Soto’s two years with the squad in 2016 and 2017. He served as the hitting coach for the Fredericksburg Nationals last year before leaving the organization to join an agency and train amateurs in the Dominican. While Mejia knows Soto’s swing as well as anyone, and their chemistry could produce quite a show Monday at Dodger Stadium, here are 10 other names we’d love to see pitch to Soto in the derby. (There’s always next year.)
Soto’s dad, also named Juan Jose Soto, used to pitch to his 5-year-old son after his local men’s league games in the Dominican Republic. The younger Soto honed his hand-eye coordination by swinging a soda bottle at bottle caps lobbed in his direction in the living room of their Santo Domingo home.
It’s not uncommon for a Home Run Derby participant to pick his dad as his pitcher for the event. Robinson Cano won the 2011 title with his father Jose, a former Astros pitcher, tossing meatballs from in front of the mound. Bryce and Ron Harper teamed up to win the 2018 derby at Nationals Park. Cody Bellinger and Kris Bryant both did it. Who wouldn’t want to see the Sotos reprise the embrace they shared after the 2019 National League wild-card game?
Soto fared just fine against a left-handed pitcher in last year’s derby, and he has some experience taking Kershaw deep at Dodger Stadium. In the eighth inning of Game 5 of the 2019 NLDS, Anthony Rendon and Soto hit back-to-back home runs off the Dodgers’ ace to tie the game. Washington went on to eliminate Los Angeles thanks to Howie Kendrick’s 10th-inning grand slam.
Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander
Cole and Verlander will both be in Los Angeles after being named to their fifth and ninth all-star teams, respectively, and the former Astros teammates have experience serving up moonshots to Soto. In Game 1 of the 2019 World Series, Soto took Cole deep onto the train tracks at Minute Maid Park. In Game 6, he obliterated a Verlander fastball to give the Nationals the lead.
“If there’s one guy I could play with again for sure it would be him,” Turner said of Soto in May, when he returned to Nationals Park for the first time since being dealt to the Dodgers along with Max Scherzer at last year’s trade deadline.
“That guy’s really fun,” Soto said of Turner, a pending free agent, after learning he would join his former teammate on the National League all-star squad. “I hope we’re going to have a good time there and try to convince him to come back. We’ll see.”
Soto and Long sat behind home plate at Dodger Stadium and cheered on Turner and Scherzer in last year’s National League wild-card game. It’s time for Turner to return the favor and take their friendship to the next level.
Soto’s agent, Scott Boras, is no stranger to making pitches on behalf of his clients. Boras played baseball at the University of the Pacific and spent four years in the minors before getting his law degree. He could begin the derby by announcing a record-breaking contract extension that would keep Soto in Washington, with the stipulation that every home run his client proceeded to hit in the contest would earn him an extra $1 million in deferred money.
Ali Modami
The former Nationals batting practice pitcher — and secret good luck charm — left the organization before the 2021 season. He’s not far from the All-Star Game festivities after joining the Angels’ staff, and tweeted Tuesday that it’s his “dream” to throw in the derby.
***DREAM CHASING***
Thrown BP in the Show for 15 years, my DREAM is to throw in the Home Run Derby and I’d like to help the next WINNER take down the Polar Bear 🐻❄️. Anyone need an arm??? 30 minute drive to Dodgers Stadium, I’m ready!! PLEASE!!#MLBAllStar #miketrout #bryceharper pic.twitter.com/AJAWAWsYFn
— Ali Modami (@Ali_Mo21) July 12, 2022
Yes, the novelty of position players pitching is gone, but we’re willing to make an exception for the derby. Escobar, the Nationals shortstop, didn’t allow a home run in his two pitching appearances earlier this month, but he didn’t have to face the red-hot Soto.
Clay deserves some shine after his whirlwind tour of the NL East this month. The left-handed reliever was designated for assignment by the Nationals on July 1, claimed by the Phillies on July 5, designated for assignment by the Phillies on July 8 and claimed off waivers by the Mets on Sunday. The job will give the Marlins a good look at Clay before the Mets inevitably DFA him next week.
Soto and Smith — the Braves’ reliever, not the Dodgers catcher with the same name or the Chris Rock-slapping actor — have a juicy history that stems from their head-to-head showdown during the 2020 season. (TLDR: Smith took offense at where Soto was standing while he threw his warm-up pitches; Soto homered off Smith and glared back at the mound; Smith got mad — again — drilling Soto with a pitch the following year). The NL East rivals could squash their beef once and for all by teaming up in L.A.
Open Championship live updates: Tiger Woods has disastrous start in St. Andrews return | 2022-07-14T15:25:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ten people we’d like to see pitch to Juan Soto in the Home Run Derby - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/14/10-pitchers-juan-soto-derby/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/14/10-pitchers-juan-soto-derby/ |
After arrest in rape of 10-year-old girl, Fox News hosts shift their focus
Fox News host Jesse Watters said his show “put the pressure” on authorities to make an arrest in the case of a 10-year-old rape victim who had to get an abortion, even as the host suggested the story was “a hoax.” (Screenshot via YouTube/Fox News)
Among that group of outlets that cast doubt on the story were the Wall Street Journal and Fox News. (The Post’s Fact Checker column pointed out that the story lacked details that made it difficult to verify.)
Some of Fox’s most high-profile hosts — Tucker Carlson, Jesse Watters, Laura Ingraham — suggested this week that the account of the 10-year-old rape victim was a “hoax” and “politically timed disinformation,” and claimed that the Biden administration was “lying” about the case after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
But hours after the arraignment of Gershon Fuentes on a charge of felony first-degree rape was first reported by the Columbus Dispatch, the Fox hosts did not correct or amend their previous reporting, like The Post or the Journal did on Wednesday. Instead, Watters, who had suggested the story was a “hoax,” took some of the credit for the arrest during a show that featured Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) calling for an investigation of the doctor who provided abortion care to the 10-year-old girl.
“‘Primetime’ covered this story heavily on Monday, put on the pressure, and now we’re glad that justice is being served,” Watters said alongside a graphic that read, “Justice Served.”
Later on Wednesday, Carlson and Ingraham shifted their attention to Fuentes and his uncertain citizenship status. The hosts featured chyrons on their shows saying that the 10-year-old girl “in Biden’s abortion story” was raped by an “illegal immigrant.” Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Dan Meyer said during Wednesday’s hearing that he believes Fuentes, 27, is undocumented, according to video of the arraignment.
“So the obvious headline here was not about abortion. It was about the crime committed against a child — ‘Who raped a 10-year-old?’” said Carlson, who had previously claimed the story was “not true.” “Nobody seemed interested at all in learning who this person was. And maybe there was a reason for that.”
Carlson added, “Apparently, the rapist was an illegal alien.”
Note that Fox News, who had hosts say the story of the 10-year-old might be a lie, is calling it "Biden's Abortion Story" even though the incident has nothing directly to do with Biden. H/T @Acyn pic.twitter.com/pNzF0XASKO
— Richard W. (@IceManNYR) July 14, 2022
Fuentes was arrested Tuesday after he allegedly confessed to authorities that he had raped the 10-year-old on at least two occasions, according to the Dispatch. Columbus Police Detective Jeffrey Huhn testified at Fuentes’s arraignment that the arrest was made after a referral from Franklin County Children Services, which had been in touch with the girl’s mother on June 22 — two days before Roe was overturned. The girl had an abortion at an Indianapolis clinic on June 30, Huhn said. The detective added that Fuentes’s DNA is being tested to confirm that he was the father to the aborted fetus, according to video of the hearing.
Huhn testified that Fuentes admitted to detectives, through an interpreter, that he had sexual contact with the girl. The detective added that the girl also identified Fuentes as the man who impregnated her. Meyer noted that the girl had only recently turned 10, according to video of the arraignment — meaning she may have been 9 at the time she was raped and became impregnated.
The girl had to travel to Indiana for her procedure because abortions are now banned in Ohio after six weeks. Ohio was among the 13 states with “trigger bans” designed to take effect once Roe was struck down. Since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, Ohio has imposed a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape and incest.
The story quickly received international attention, including from President Biden, who decried the reported case last week.
“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 at the White House last week. “Ten years old — 10 years old! — raped, six weeks pregnant, already traumatized, was forced to travel to another state.”
But the story also drew some skepticism because Bernard gave no corroborating details and reporters who tried to find a criminal complaint linked to the alleged rape came up empty. Ohio Republicans — including Attorney General Dave Yost and congressman Jim Jordan — soon seized on the information vacuum, accusing critics of the Dobbs decision of weaponizing an unproven rumor. Yost told Watters this week that he had “not heard a whisper” about the reported case of the 10-year-old victim, while Jordan called the story a “lie” on Tuesday in a tweet that has since been deleted.
Both Yost and Jordan celebrated Fuentes’s arrest on Wednesday, but did not address their previous remarks.
After the Journal’s editorial board criticized Biden in a Tuesday op-ed titled, “An Abortion Story Too Good to Confirm,” the editorial was updated with an editor’s note on Fuentes’s arrest.
The Post’s Fact Checker also updated its Saturday story titled, “A one-source story about a 10-year-old and an abortion goes viral,” to include Fuentes’s arrest.
“This is an interesting example of the limitations that journalists face in corroborating this type of story without evidence confirmed by law enforcement,” The Post’s Glenn Kessler wrote.
On Fox, Watters did not address his previous statements on Monday, in which he said that if “the mainstream media and president of the United States [are] seizing on another hoax, then this is absolutely shameful, and fits a pretty dangerous pattern of politically timed disinformation.” Carlson echoed that sentiment on Tuesday, telling his viewers that “politicians are lying about this.”
“Why did the Biden administration — speaking of lying — repeat a story about a 10-year-old child who got pregnant and they got an abortion or was not allowed to get an abortion when it turns out the story was not true,” he said. “Where is the rapist?”
“The facts didn’t make any sense,” Carlson said. | 2022-07-14T16:02:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tucker Carlson, Jesse Watters shift focus on Gershon Fuentes arrest in 10-year-old rape victim case after calling it a 'hoax' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/abortion-girl-rape-fox-carlson-watters-ohio/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/abortion-girl-rape-fox-carlson-watters-ohio/ |
A Maryland police officer lowered himself into a storm drain to pick up the ducklings one by one as the mother kept watch
A duck was walking on a sidewalk circling a storm drain for about an hour Wednesday morning in Olney, Md. The duck made distressing noises that sounded like crying. Montgomery County police later arrived at the scene for a rescue. (Montgomery County Police Department)
People walk in to police stations for all kinds of reasons — to file a report, to ask an officer a question or maybe to check on a case. At 11 a.m. Wednesday, someone walked into a Montgomery County police station in Olney, Md., with an unusual request for help: A duck was acting strangely by a storm drain. Could the police check it out?
The duck, the person said, had been walking on a sidewalk atop the storm drain for about an hour, making a distress noise that sounded like crying.
Chen noticed two small tunnels inside the drain and became concerned that the tiny ducklings might waddle inside the tunnels where he couldn’t reach them. He didn’t want to wait for the county’s animal control service, but he needed to remove the drain cover, which weighed about 100 pounds.
So he called three Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service members he knew and explained the situation. Trapped baby ducks. A mother duck yelping. They raced over and arrived within five minutes. The rescue was on.
The emergency-responders opened the drain cover, and Chen ran behind a nearby CVS, where he found blue plastic containers sitting on the ground, perfect to block the underground tunnels.
With the plastic containers in hand, Chen reached down about four feet into the storm drain while a Fire and Rescue employee held onto Chen’s body from his belt. Once the containers were in place, it was time to scoop up the ducklings.
Her dog died suddenly. Then a Chewy delivery brought a surprise.
Montgomery County police posted photos of the rescue on Twitter, prompting people to comment on the lighthearted and adorable situation.
“I saw a lot of likes that we did a great job for the community,” Chen said.
Chen, who joined the department in 2014, said he wanted to be a police officer since he was a kid. His family immigrated to New York from China in the 1990s, and while learning English, Chen became enamored with movies in which Jackie Chan played police officers, such as “Police Story” and “Rush Hour.”
He joined the military in 2010 following his graduation from the University of Connecticut’s ROTC program. Now, while working full-time with Montgomery County, Chen trains on weekends for the Army Reserve.
He said he’s glad he helped the ducklings reunite with their mother, and even better that it made people smile.
“It’s great that people are joyful,” Chen said. “If those photos made their days, then I did my part.” | 2022-07-14T16:50:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland police officer rescues ducklings from storm drain - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/14/maryland-police-rescue-ducklings/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/14/maryland-police-rescue-ducklings/ |
Summer isn’t summer without the beach. For millions of Americans, hitting the sand is a near-sacred ritual, a time to catch waves, soak up the sun, build sand castles, enjoy picnics, spot wildlife and go exploring. The pandemic disrupted many seasonal trips to the shore, but beach time is back on the calendar. Hooray! We all could use a little beach therapy.
Now is also the perfect time to reevaluate and revamp how you behave at the beach, because all that fun in the sun places stress on the coastal environment and the animals that inhabit it. Yes, you’re there to have a good time, but there are ways to be more mindful, minimizing your negative effects or even taking on a stewardship role during your oceanside visit.
Here are a dozen tips from three experts on how to be a better beachgoer, ensuring your favorite strip of sand remains vibrant, so future generations of sea lovers can get their beach therapy when they need it.
Plastic ain’t fantastic. One of the biggest contributors to beach litter is single-use plastic, such as chip bags, candy wrappers and juice boxes. “Buy food and drinks in bulk and put them in reusable packaging instead,” says Anne Marie Moquin, founder and executive director of Beaches Go Green, an environmental education nonprofit. Transfer snacks into Tupperware or silicone pouches, put meals in lunch bags or bento boxes, and bring beverages in water bottles or thermoses.
Thoughtful toys for tots. Yes, it’s fun for your little ones to play with their plastic pail, shovel and seashell mold in the sand, but there can be a potential environmental downside. “Plastic toys break easily, leaving behind shards and pieces,” says Zach Plopper, senior environmental director at the Surfrider Foundation, a nonprofit devoted to the protection of oceans and beaches. These end up polluting the environment and can be accidentally eaten by animals, causing them serious harm or even killing them. Pack metal or wooden toys instead.
No-fly zone for balloons. When hosting a party at the beach, don’t bring balloons. They often blow into the water, where turtles, birds and other animals sometimes mistake them as food and eat them, creating health problems or killing them. Additionally, the balloons and their strings can entangle aquatic creatures, so they can’t swim or move, leaving them defenseless and unable to feed themselves properly.
Destroy what you build. It doesn’t matter how much time and effort you and your children spent building an epic sand castle or digging the giant moat around it: If you are on a beach marked as a sea turtle habitat, fill in the trench and knock down the structure. “Sea turtles have massive, heavy bodies, and they’re out of their element when they come on shore,” says Moquin, noting that they can die if they fall into a hole and get trapped. Sand structures also can prevent them from reaching birthing areas.
Pack it in, pack it out. “Most things are left on the beach totally by accident,” says Richard Arterbury, founder of the Ocean Blue Project, a nonprofit that organizes cleanups of oceans, beaches and rivers. To prevent this from happening, either take a strong mental inventory or create a list when you arrive, then double-check everything before you leave.
Don’t compost. The beach isn’t a compost bin. “One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing people leave behind orange peels or an apple core,” Moquin says. “ … Even though those items are biodegradable, I don’t want to see your food waste on my beach for days, weeks and months.”
Use safer sunscreen. Many sunscreens advertise that they are “reef-safe” or “reef-friendly,” but those terms don’t have firm definitions, and their usage isn’t regulated by the Food and Drug Administration or any other governmental body. So, it’s best to read the fine print carefully. Only purchase mineral-based sunscreens powered by zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. Make sure the sunscreen is labeled “non-nano,” meaning there are no nano-size particles in it, which can be ingested by coral. Don’t buy any containing oxybenzone or octinoxate, two ingredients known to be harmful to reefs. “Avoid sprays, because they’re wasteful and get on the sand,” says Moquin, who recommends Stream2Sea products. “Creams and sticks are always better.”
Read the signs. Signs posted at the beach aren’t optional reading; they are there to alert you to where you can’t go, what you can’t do, and what you can’t take, so you don’t mess with the local ecosystem or its inhabitants. Moquin urges beachgoers to generally stay off dunes. “They are storm barriers,” she says, “and home to many different animals.”
Respect the animals. The beach isn’t a petting zoo. “I want people to fall in love with the creatures of the ocean, to have amazing experiences with them and have a connection to them, because that’s when they want to protect them,” Moquin says. “But don’t touch them. For example, if you take a starfish out of the water, even for 10 seconds, it could suffocate and die.”
Choose eco-friendly watersports. Sure, Jet Skis, motorboats and wakeboards are thrilling amusements. Unfortunately, they all leave a carbon footprint, have a potential to pollute, and their noise can have negative effects on wildlife. Stick to swimming, snorkeling, surfing, paddleboarding, kayaking and sailing.
Take only pictures. It’s fine to pick up sea glass, fishing buoys and other nonorganic treasures on the shore, but limit the number of shells you take. “They are a part of the beach ecosystem, providing habitat and protection for lots of little critters,” Plopper says.
Pitch in. Bring a reusable bag to clean up while you’re walking the shoreline. If you forget to bring one, it’s (unfortunately) likely that you can find a discarded bag or box at the beach to use. It may seem like a little gesture, but it will help remove trash while serving as an inspiration to fellow beachgoers. “If we work together, we can really make a difference,” Arterbury says. “Don’t forget that.”
Martell is a writer based in Silver Spring, Md. Find him on Instagram: @nevinmartell. | 2022-07-14T16:54:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to be an environmentally responsible beachgoer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/07/14/responsible-beachgoer-beach-conservation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/07/14/responsible-beachgoer-beach-conservation/ |
Lauren Boebert with a gun at her waist in front of Shooters Grill in Rifle, Colo., in 2018. The restaurant closed this week. (Emily Kask/AFP/Getty Images)
Shooters Grill, the gun-themed restaurant where the servers packed heat and which helped propel its hard-line conservative owner into the halls of Congress, served its last Swiss & Wesson burger over the weekend in the small Colorado town named, appropriately enough, Rifle.
The Glenwood Springs Post Independent published a story Wednesday that said Rep. Lauren Boebert, the firebrand Republican from Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, had closed her restaurant Sunday. Along with the story, reporter Ray K. Erku snapped a photo outside Shooters Grill. There was a sandwich board blocking the entrance. In chalk, it read: “Thanks for the Support. Stay Tuned. #covfefe.” The last word, of course, was a reference to former president Donald Trump’s famous late-night typo tweet.
News of the restaurant’s closure wasn’t a surprise. Boebert had told reporters in June that the building’s new owners decided not to renew her lease. Records from Garfield County, where Rifle is located, indicate the building that housed Shooters was sold May 26, two days after the school shooting in Uvalde, Tex., where 19 children and two adults were killed.
Leaked video in which Uvalde gunman is heard shooting inside school spurs uproar
The closing was on the same day Boebert went on Fox News and said, “When 9/11 happened, we didn’t ban planes, we secured the cockpit.” The new owner, a company named Milkin Enterprises, shares an address with another local business, the Green Cross Recreational Dispensary, which sells a wide line of flowers, edibles, cartridges and other THC and CBD products.
The owners of Milkin Enterprises, Mike Miller and Dan Meskin, have not provided many clues as to why they gave Boebert and Shooters Grill the boot. They have declined interviews. The Washington Post called the Rifle dispensary (and its sister location in Silt, Colo.), looking for the owners. The Post also emailed an account for Meskin found in public records. Neither Miller nor Meskin responded.
But when the news of Shooters Grill’s potential closing emerged, the Daily Beast reported that a “person familiar with the arrangement said the property manager felt he had a ‘moral’ imperative to close the business.” The same story also said Boebert had dismissed the idea that the new owners, one of whom is the son of the previous landlord, were politically motivated to shut down her business. Boebert’s office did not respond to a message requesting comment on the closing.
Whatever the reason, the western restaurant has ridden off into the sunset after a nearly 10-year run.
“We were like a family,” Boebert told Erku with the Post Independent. “I would say Shooters, for any employee, was their life. We lived and breathed it every single day. They were a part of this culture and brand that we created in Rifle, and there was a lot of pride with that.”
Shooters opened in 2013 in a location across the street from the current one. The grill looked like a saloon straight out of central casting. The floors were hardwood, the walls decorated with rifles, knotty pine wood, a cross, pro-gun signs and American flags, including one that had the Pledge of Allegiance printed on it. A sign was placed in the front window, announcing the restaurant’s position on open carry and positioning itself as a safe place for the MAGA crowd.
“WARNING,” the sign read in all caps, “THIS IS NOT A GUN FREE ZONE.”
A scroll through the restaurant’s Yelp page photos proves that point: Numerous patrons have taken pictures inside the dining room, or outside the grill, their hands hovering over a pistol strapped to their hip, as if ready for a quick draw. The servers, frequently young women in T-shirts and denim shorts, also carried firearms, which probably explains why numerous journalists dubbed Shooters Grill a Hooters parody for Second Amendment die-hards.
Its menu borrowed the language from weapons manufacturers, the National Rifle Association and middle America, often twisting words into food-related puns. The restaurant sold Guac Nine and Swiss & Wesson burgers. It offered a Ruger Reuben. Appetizers were listed under the heading of “Target Practice.” The kids menu was dubbed Lil Slingers. There was a prayer to “Father God” at the bottom of the menu.
The God-and-guns message would carry over into Boebert’s political career when she was elected to Congress in 2020. She has been a staunch advocate for gun ownership, rejecting any calls for bans or controls, even after mass shootings. When she started her first term in the House, Boebert said she would carry her Glock pistol on Capitol grounds and in Washington, even though D.C. gun laws do not recognize concealed-carry licenses from other states.
She created a stir last month at a religious service in Colorado when she said: “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk that’s not in the Constitution. It was in a stinking letter, and it means nothing like what they say it does.” Experts called her interpretation of the Constitution false and “dangerous.”
GOP Rep. Boebert: ‘I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk’
A photo on the business’s Yelp page shows a plaque that was dedicated to the opening of Shooters Grill on May 22, 2013. It features a quote from Proverbs, in script that mixes cursive with all caps: “Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.”
Shooters, however, struggled over the course of its existence. According to one public disclosure statement filed by Boebert, Shooters lost more than $242,000 in 2018. The Daily Beast reported that public disclosures indicated that Shooters had lost “more than $600,000 in total between 2018 and 2020.” The restaurant also had accumulated nearly $20,000 of unpaid unemployment insurance premiums, which Boebert reportedly paid off days before the general election in 2020. Shooters also reportedly sickened dozens of people at a rodeo with its pork sliders.
Despite the hardships and the fact that she easily won her Republican primary in June, Boebert has not given up on Shooters. She told the Post Independent that she and her husband, Jayson, have been praying about the business’s future.
“We would just dramatically scale it back, because, obviously, we’re not in our building,” she told the publication. “It may look like a Shooters coffee shop with pastries and some easy breakfast sandwiches and merchandise.” | 2022-07-14T16:54:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rep. Lauren Boebert's Shooters Grill restaurant in Colorado has closed - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/07/14/lauren-boebert-shooters-grill-closed/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/07/14/lauren-boebert-shooters-grill-closed/ |
Hockey Canada outlined several organizational changes in an open letter, including plans to reopen the investigation into an alleged sexual assault by members of Canada’s 2018 world junior team. (Mike Carlson/Getty Images)
In response to the fallout from its handling of sexual assault allegations against members of Canada’s 2018 world junior team, Hockey Canada on Thursday issued an open letter outlining several planned organizational changes, including the reopening of its probe into the alleged assault.
“We know we have not done enough to address the actions of some members of the 2018 National Junior Team, or to end the culture of toxic behaviour within our game,” the sport’s national governing body said in a statement. “For that we unreservedly apologize. We know we need to do more to address the behaviours, on and off the ice, that conflict with what Canadians want hockey to be, and which undermine the many good things that the game brings to our country.”
An open letter to Canadians. 🇨🇦
Hockey Canada’s response stems from an incident in which a woman alleged she was sexually assaulted by eight unidentified members of Canada’s 2018 world junior team that June after a Hockey Canada Foundation golf event in Ontario. That led to a criminal investigation by police that was closed in 2019. A separate investigation was conducted by a law firm hired by Hockey Canada and ended in 2020.
The NHL announced in May that it would “endeavor to determine the underlying facts and, to the extent this may involve players who are now in the NHL, we will determine what action, if any, would be appropriate.”
Through the law firm’s investigation, players from the team were “strongly encouraged” to cooperate with the probe, but Hockey Canada CEO Scott Smith testified to Canadian lawmakers last month that “12 or 13″ of the 19 players from the team were interviewed. Former CEO Tom Renney called the subsequent report incomplete and said it should not be released.
Now, Hockey Canada says it will reopen that investigation and require all players to participate. It said those who don’t “will be banned from all Hockey Canada activities and programs effective immediately.” Once complete, an independent adjudicative panel “will determine the appropriate consequences, which may include a lifetime ban from Hockey Canada activity, on and off the ice.”
Hockey Canada said it will require players, coaches and staff in its high-performance program to participate in sexual violence and consent training beginning this summer. The organization also announced plans to create a “fully independent and confidential channel to investigate complaints – even those historical in nature.”
“Changes to policies and procedures can occur with the stroke of a pen.” Hockey Canada said in the open letter. “Those changes are meaningless, however, without an equal commitment to addressing the toxic behaviour that exists in many corners of the game. We know this change will not occur overnight, but we are committed to learning, and working with our partners to do better.”
The woman, who sought $3.55 million in damages in a lawsuit filed in April, settled with Hockey Canada for an undisclosed amount in May. News of the alleged assault and the settlement led Canadian lawmakers to question Smith and Renney last month about the organization’s response to the allegations. Canadian Minister of Sport Pascale St-Onge said the government would freeze Hockey Canada’s federal funding, and several corporations with ties to Hockey Canada paused their sponsorships of the organization, including fast-food chain Tim Hortons and Scotiabank.
In its letter, Hockey Canada said it intends to release an action plan outlining internal steps to make additional strides “to advance and improve the culture around our game.”
“Reopening the investigation is a step towards addressing the disappointment so many feel about the outcome of the process we followed,” it said. “Our organization has strived to work in the best interest of Canadians, but we recognize many of the actions we are taking now should have been taken sooner, and faster. We own that and will do better to deliver on our responsibilities to Canadians.” | 2022-07-14T17:42:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hockey Canada reopens investigation into alleged 2018 sexual assault - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/14/hockey-canada-investigation-sexual-assault/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/14/hockey-canada-investigation-sexual-assault/ |
Phil Mickelson said he “couldn't be happier” with his decision to join the LIV Golf series. (Alastair Grant/Associated Press)
Tiger Woods was unusually plain-spoken when asked earlier this week about golfers like Phil Mickelson who have joined the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit. Offered the chance to respond on Thursday, Mickelson chose not to turn up the dial on what has been a hot topic at the British Open.
Woods said Tuesday that he disagrees “with [the decision of golfers like Mickelson to join LIV]. I think that what they’ve done is they’ve turned their back on what has allowed them to get to this position.”
After his even-par 72 in the first round Thursday at St. Andrews, Mickelson was diplomatic when asked about the strong language from Woods.
Woods and Mickelson have had an up-and-down relationship over the years, one that has warmed as they’ve aged. But Woods was unsparing in his LIV critique, broadening it to include Greg Norman, the LIV series CEO.
“The R&A obviously have their opinions and their rulings and their decision,” Woods said, referring to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, one of golf’s governing bodies, which declined to invite Norman to this year’s Celebration of Champions. “Greg has done some things that I don’t think are in the best interest of our game,” Woods said, “and we’re coming back to probably the most historic and traditional place in our sport. I believe it’s the right thing.”
Mickelson had also missed this year’s champions’ dinners at the Masters and PGA Championship during his months-long absence from the sport. The defending PGA Championship winner, Mickelson skipped this year’s tournament after igniting controversy with his comments about LIV, saying he would overlook Saudi Arabia’s human rights record to get the new golf enterprise up and running.
“They’re scary motherf------ to get involved with,” he told writer Alan Shipnuck of the Saudis. Still, Mickelson joined the breakaway circuit, reportedly earning a nine-figure deal to do so.
Sally Jenkins: Golf has done so very much good — for Phil Mickelson and his pals
Several golfers lost sponsorship deals after joining the new series, but the price may be especially steep for Mickelson, long one of the sport’s most popular players. Gone are the multiple logos he once wore in exchange for sponsors’ money. On Thursday, he wore only his personal logo, the silhouette of his Masters celebration, on his cap. Otherwise he was a bearded, sunglasses-wearing man in black, playing for only a few days away from the LIV, whose next event is July 29-31 at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.
Mickelson is part of a large contingent of LIV players at the Open, after the R&A decided last month that any player who had qualified for this year’s tournament could play. Englishman Ian Poulter, one of those players, was greeted with a smattering of boos when he began his first round on Thursday that he said he “didn’t hear.” Mickelson’s reception was warmer, but possibly less enthusiastic than he has been accustomed to over the years.
Still, Mickelson said he remains happy with his decision to join LIV, which is financed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
“I made the right decision for me,” Mickelson said. “And I’m excited about, like I say, having the opportunity to play competitive golf and have it in my life in a more moderate scale to where I can do some things outside of that, too. I freed up a lot of other — freed up a lot of time as well.
“I couldn’t be happier. I think it’s been really good. I can’t wait to get to New Jersey and play another event there. The player experience, the experience of those events from a player standpoint is a 10. You can’t get it any better. Look, it’s not my job to explain or help you understand or whatever. It’s just, I couldn’t be happier.” | 2022-07-14T17:42:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Phil Mickelson responds to Tiger Woods criticism of LIV Golf - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/14/phil-mickelson-tiger-woods-liv/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/14/phil-mickelson-tiger-woods-liv/ |
Dr. Konstantin Frank Rkatsiteli 2021. (Rey Lopez for The Washington Post)
Two months ago, I wrote about the “Class of 1972,” wineries that either were founded or released their first vintage that year and went on to have a prominent impact in California wine. This year marks an important viticultural milestone in the East as well, as the 60th anniversary of the founding of Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery. That’s a not-so-subtle reminder that the story of American wine has its deepest roots on the East Coast.
I also mentioned Konstantin Frank in a piece on the growing popularity of the Georgian grape variety saperavi, which he introduced to the United States in the late 1950s. Saperavi was a small part of the legacy Frank is most known for: Convincing viticulturists in Upstate New York that European vinifera grape varieties could survive the region’s cold winters, and they needn’t rely on American labrusca grapes or French-American hybrids.
California’s ‘class of 1972’ wineries continue to raise the bar
Frank, of German heritage, was born in 1899 in Ukraine, then part of the Russian empire. He worked in agriculture and viticulture at the Polytechnic Institute of Odessa in the 1920s and 1930s under Stalin’s Soviet Union, helping to restore vineyards decimated by successive wars. He became a refugee toward the end of World War II and settled in the Finger Lakes area in the early 1950s. Since English was not one of the nine languages he spoke, he took a menial job at the Geneva agricultural station. But he could converse with Charles Fournier, a Frenchman from Champagne who had been making sparkling wine at Gold Seal Vineyards since the 1930s using French-American hybrid grapes. Fournier hired Frank, and together they imported and planted vinifera varieties. By the early 1960s, just as Frank was striking out with his own winery, Gold Seal was producing well-regarded chardonnay and riesling.
Frank was proved right, and today vinifera is grown successfully not just in New York but all along the East Coast. He mentored and supported a group of vintners he called his “cooperators,” who became pioneers in their own states. Remembered today primarily by wine lovers of a certain age, they included G. Hamilton Mowbray of Montbray Wine Cellars in Maryland, Elizabeth Furness of Piedmont Vineyards in Virginia, Doug Morehead of Presque Isle Wine Cellars in Pennsylvania, and Arnie Esterer of Markko Vineyard in Ohio.
Frank’s campaign for vinifera was not without controversy. He was harshly critical of hybrid varieties, which were championed by Philip Wagner of Maryland’s Boordy Vineyards as the best grapes for quality wine in the East. He repeated unsubstantiated claims made in Europe that hybrids were toxic. The vinifera versus hybrid question became a politically divisive debate rather than a collaborative discussion of which grapes grow best where.
Ironically, concern about the environment and climate change is leading today’s viticulturists to take a second look at hybrid and native varieties. Those grapes are more disease resistant and require fewer chemicals in the vineyard than the European varieties. Vinifera won’t be going away any time soon, but hybrids should gain increased acceptance among winemakers and consumers.
Konstantin Frank passed away in 1985. His son Willy took the reins and transformed the winery from an artisan tinkerer’s laboratory to a thriving business, focusing on the vinifera grape varieties that were most commercially viable. Today the winery is helmed by Willy’s son, Fred, and Fred’s daughter, Meaghan, the third and fourth generations of a New York wine institution.
One of the world’s oldest wine grapes is poised to take off in America
On a recent trip to Hammondsport, I visited with Fred Frank on the porch of Chateau Frank, an old farmhouse a stone’s throw from the main winery on the western shore of Keuka Lake. Willy had purchased this facility in the 1980s to make sparkling wines. As we tasted through several outstanding wines and discussed his grandfather’s legacy, I asked Fred what excited him about the region’s future. His answer surprised me.
“There’s a lot of premium sparkling wine in the pipeline,” he said as he poured me some 2019 Riesling Nature bubbly. “Our climate is closer to Champagne’s than California’s is.”
“Ultimately, down the road, sparkling wine will become the next big buzz for the Finger Lakes,” Frank said. | 2022-07-14T17:51:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 60-year-old winery that changed the way America grew grapes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/07/14/konstantin-frank-winery-finger-lakes/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/07/14/konstantin-frank-winery-finger-lakes/ |
The rescue mission left Ripley’s with a new attraction: The ultrarare lobster is currently “acclimating” at the center, which will be open to the public for tours later this month, the spokeswoman said. Eventually, she will move to the aquarium, which also houses penguins, piranhas, jellyfish, sharks and sea turtles.
Cheddar joins the ranks of other unusually hued lobsters rescued by Red Lobster workers. Clawdia, a rare female blue lobster, is on display at the Akron Zoo after arriving last year at the seafood chain’s Cuyahoga Falls location. And Freckles, a calico lobster, resides at the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News. She arrived there via the Manassas, Va., Red Lobster, whose employees alerted the company and were connected with the Virginia museum after reaching out to the Akron facility that had adopted Clawdia a few months prior. | 2022-07-14T17:51:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Red Lobster workers rescue Cheddar, the rare orange lobster - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/07/14/red-lobster-rescue-orange-cheddar/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/07/14/red-lobster-rescue-orange-cheddar/ |
Flooding in Buchanan County, Va., damaged homes after heavy rains on July 12. (Virginia Dept. of Emergency Management)
Earlier: Three people not yet located after flooding in rural southwest Va., police say
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) has declared a state of emergency to assist with the recovery, which Breeding said is expected to take weeks. In the meantime, he said, “We also want to express that looting of any kind will not be tolerated.” | 2022-07-14T18:17:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | All residents accounted for after Buchanan County, Virginia flooding - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/14/buchanan-virginia-flooding-all-accounted/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/14/buchanan-virginia-flooding-all-accounted/ |
The biggest debate in financial markets is whether the US economy is already in recession, and that’s because the data is decidedly mixed. Inflation is raging, but the jobs market is red hot. Perhaps the answer lies with discount retailers.
Even though the benchmark S&P 500 Index is fallen into a broad bear market by tumbling 20.2% this year through Wednesday, Dollar General Corp. has risen 4.58%, Dollar Tree Inc. has surged 18.1% and Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Holdings Inc. has soared 33.2%. This is a stunning level of outperformance, and reflects the theory that as inflation accelerates, consumers will be forced to trade down to cheaper and lower-quality goods sold by discount retailers.
Lo and behold, all three chains are in expansion mode and opening new stores. Dollar General is forecasting about 10% revenue growth in 2023, and Dollar Tree a little less. “We are taking the necessary actions now to position ourselves for accelerated growth in what I view as the most attractive sector in retail, especially in the current economic environment,” Dollar Tree Chief Executive Officer Michael Witynski recently said on an earnings call. It’s never a good sign when discounters are the growth segment in retail.
True, there’s really not enough history behind these stocks to make any definitive statements about whether the economy is contracting. Ollie’s went public in 2015 and Dollar General in 2009. Only Dollar Tree has been in existence long enough to gauge its performance during recessions, but just barely, having gone public in the mid-1990s. Its shares outperformed strongly during the financial crisis, when there was true pain for the consumer by way of mortgage defaults, but less so during the dot-com bust, when it was viewed more as a growth stock.
The cost of living is going up rapidly, and the performance of these three companies suggest there is no end in sight. The Labor Department said this week that its consumer price index shot up 9.1% in June from a year earlier, the largest gain since the end of 1981. Bloomberg Economics has estimated that US households will have to spend an extra $5,200 this year, or about $433 a month, for the same consumption basket. It’s actually not very ironic that Dollar Tree recently raised prices to $1.25 from $1 because they were being squeezed by rising costs.
This wouldn’t be so bad if wages were keeping up, but they’re not. Adjusted for inflation, weekly earnings fell 4.4% in June, the Labor Department also said, the biggest slide in data going back to 2007. There’s evidence that consumers are dipping into rainy-day funds to make ends meet. At 5.2%, the personal saving rate fell in April to its lowest since 2009. Here’s an astonishing fact: More than a third of Americans earning at least $250,000 annually – almost four times the median US salary -- say they are living paycheck to paycheck, according to a survey by industry publication Pymnts.com and LendingClub Corp.
All this makes Friday’s month retail sales report extremely important. The Commerce Department is forecast to say that sales for June among a control group that is used to calculate gross domestic product rose an anemic 0.3% after no gain in May. If not for the spike in gasoline prices, there would likely be no increase in retail sales for June, Bloomberg Economics said in report previewing the data.
But we don’t really need that report or the official declaration from the National Bureau of Economic Research to get around to tell us the obvious, which is that the economy is already in a recession. You may not be able to see a recession in the economic data, but the stock market tells you everything you need to know. | 2022-07-14T18:26:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Are We in a Recession Now? Just Look at Discount Retailers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/are-we-in-a-recession-now-just-look-at-discount-retailers/2022/07/14/36ab3c58-0397-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/are-we-in-a-recession-now-just-look-at-discount-retailers/2022/07/14/36ab3c58-0397-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
JPMorgan’s Bad Earnings News Really Isn’t So Bad
Still plenty to smile about for JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. (Bloomberg)
Recession fears are everywhere — except in the quarterly results of banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. Financial markets are in a world of pain, but consumers and companies are borrowing and spending as if a threat of economic hurricanes was that last thing on their minds.
JPMorgan’s second-quarter results on Thursday, the first from the large US banks, were closely watched for any signs of debt-repayment problems. Not only were there none, but the bank raised its estimate for net interest income for the year to $58 billion — a $2 billion increase from its forecast of only two months ago. And yet JPMorgan’s stock was down more than 3%. Shares of Morgan Stanley, which also reported second-quarter results, were 1% lower, and those of Bank of America, which reports on Monday, were off more than 2%.
The declines are more about sentiment than the details of the results. As evidence for that, consider the big difference between the two: JPMorgan suspended share buybacks temporarily; Morgan Stanley announced a new $20 billion repurchase program. The reason has a lot to do with next year’s capital ratio targets after the recent Federal Reserve stress tests. Morgan Stanley was unaffected, but JPMorgan has to build in extra capital worth more than $13.5 billion on its current balance-sheet size.
This was the perfect excuse for Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive officer, to rail against “ridiculous” and “capricious” regulatory demands, but he still expects to hit the targets easily by cutting some risks and holding on to more of the bank’s profits during the rest of this year. None of this came as a surprise.
There was some bad news for both, mostly in investment banking: Fees for arranging equity and debt sales or advising on deals were down more than 50% compared with those in the period a year earlier at both banks. This was worse than expected. The trading side performed better, with volatility in currencies, commodities and equities continuing to drive buying and selling activity and demand for derivatives. Revenue growth was solid for both banks.
One of the worst-hit markets this year has been leveraged loans, which are used mostly to fund private equity deals. JPMorgan took $257 million in markdowns on the loans it hasn’t sold to investors because of the turmoil. Morgan Stanley also took a hit but didn’t give details. JPMorgan’s loss looks bad for rivals because it has been increasingly cautious on this business and deliberately reduced its market share over the past year. Bank of America said last month that its losses on such loans would be $100 million to $150 million in the second quarter, though that might turn out to have been optimistic. Other big banks in the business will also have to absorb painful markdowns.
Dimon, however, put this into perspective compared with the financial crisis of 2008. Heading into that disaster, banks were sitting on $480 billion of unsold loans collectively, he said, whereas today the total stuck on bank balance sheets is less than $100 billion. The current batch of unloved loans is also a much smaller share of the overall market, so in time it should be easier to shift.
Morgan Stanley also put aside $200 million for an expected penalty related to its staff members’ use of non-company messaging systems like WhatsApp, which is the same amount that JPMorgan paid in fines late last year. There is a grim acceptance across US and European investment banks that everyone is going to get dinged for this — the only question is how much they will have to pay.
The thing is, this bad news isn’t that damaging yet for either bank overall: JPMorgan’s return on equity was 13% and Morgan Stanley’s was 10%, worse than last year but pretty good in the context of what is happening in financial markets. And the underlying story of lending to people and businesses still looks fine. JPMorgan said consumer spending on cards was up 15% year over year, credit card balances grew and corporate lending was strong, too. Financial buffers for lower-income people were thinning, but consumers in general still had good cash balances to support them as the costs of living rise, it said. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman told investors that a severe US recession was unlikely.
This is obviously an incredibly uncertain time for interest rates, inflation and the global economy. But bank balance sheets are stronger than going into previous modern crises, and much has to go wrong in terms of unemployment and output before banks will truly start to suffer. It feels as if storm clouds are ahead, but investors in JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley look as if they are already living the worst-case scenario.
• Labor Market Will Help, Not Hinder, Fed’s Inflation Fight: Conor Sen
• Twitter Still Wants Musk’s Money: Matt Levine | 2022-07-14T18:26:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | JPMorgan’s Bad Earnings News Really Isn’t So Bad - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/jpmorgans-bad-earnings-news-really-isnt-so-bad/2022/07/14/9da86cc2-0398-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/jpmorgans-bad-earnings-news-really-isnt-so-bad/2022/07/14/9da86cc2-0398-11ed-8beb-2b4e481b1500_story.html |
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks to anti-abortion supporters outside the Supreme Court following arguments over a challenge to a Texas law that bans abortion after six weeks. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
The suit follows new guidance from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that asserted federal law requiring emergency medical treatment supersedes any state restrictions on abortion in cases where the pregnant patient’s life or health is at risk.
The lawsuit challenges the Biden administration guideline on the grounds that it uses federal funds — because it ties compliance to Medicare funds and because Justice Department funding would be spent enforcing the federal law — in violation of the Hyde Amendment that bars federal spending to facilitate an abortion.
And it contends the guidance violates the Tenth Amendment, along with a law that forbids “arbitrary and capricious” actions by federal agencies. | 2022-07-14T18:26:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Texas sues Biden admin for requiring abortions in medical emergencies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/texas-sues-biden-emergency-abortion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/texas-sues-biden-emergency-abortion/ |
How Supreme Court reform unites Canadian conservatives and American liberals
Aerial view of the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (iStock)
To American liberals demoralized by a string of defeats at the U.S. Supreme Court — on abortion, guns, separation of church and state — the Canadian Supreme Court must sound like something out of Big Rock Candy Mountain (“Where the rulings are all unanimous, and progressives never lose!”).
Canada’s left-leaning Supreme Court, after all, has now all but erased any visible remnants of the decade of Conservative rule that preceded Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2015 election.
In May, the court unanimously overturned as unconstitutional the practice of imposing consecutive prison terms on murderers with multiple victims — one of the last remaining pieces of the previous Tory government’s “tough on crime” agenda. It was the latest bit of former prime minister Stephen Harper’s legacy to be unraveled — a practice that started while he was still in office, when the high court rejected his marquee initiatives on drugs, gun crime and Senate reform, among other things.
As is so often the case, Canada and the United States embody parallel versions of a common trend. In the United States, a Democratic Party that controls the House, Senate and presidency is forced to grapple with a conservative Supreme Court eager to curb its ambitions; in Canada, a Conservative Party energized by the imminent leadership of Pierre Poilievre has to accept the disenchanting reality that even if it does eventually unseat Trudeau, it too faces the looming threat of constant vetoes by a court ideologically inclined against them.
As I discussed in 2020, the democratic deficiencies of the Canadian Supreme Court are even more intense than the U.S. one. U.S. progressives often bemoan that three judges on their court’s six-member conservative majority were appointed by a single president, Donald Trump, who never won the popular vote. The critique is even truer in Canada: Prime Minister Trudeau appointed four of the court’s nine members while Harper appointed five — and neither man ever won a share of the vote over 40 percent.
Though Canada’s court shares a Conservative-appointed majority, unlike its U.S. counterpart, this fact has made no noticeable effect on the progressive character of its routinely unanimous rulings. Some have interpreted this as an encouraging sign of an “apolitical” court, though when all evidence of that consists of Conservative defeats, suspicion is warranted.
The Canadian court’s high degree of groupthink is doubtless due to the fact that “judicial supremacy” — the notion that the Supreme Court should be the highest arbitrator of the constitutionality of laws and policy — is a newer concept in Canada than the United States, only formally enshrined in 1982 via the package of constitutional amendments that created the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The United States has held the principle a lot longer, though historians dispute its precise birth: some date it back to the Marbury v. Madison ruling of 1803, while others, like legal scholar Larry Kramer, see Marbury as overrated, arguing the court didn’t really establish its supremacy over the rest of the government until the “late 20th century.”
In any case, an earlier start to U.S. judicial supremacy meant the pushback started earlier as well. The Federalist Society, a right-leaning organization that promotes the appointment of conservative judges — and indeed, claims the loyalty of many of the conservatives on the current U.S. court — was founded the same year the Canadian Charter took effect, and is usually understood as a counter-reaction to liberal Supreme Court rulings dating back to the 1950s.
The comparative newness of binding judicial review in Canada might explain why so many top-level Canadian judges interpret the constitution the same way; there’s simply been less time to develop contrarian philosophies on the bench and within elite law schools. The Runnymede Society, which is popular with Canadian Conservatives and sometimes analogized as being the closest thing Canada has to the Federalist Society, was not formed until 2016.
Fights over institutions are inseparable from fights about outcomes, and Canada’s center left-politicians and pundits — who are clearly pleased with having a Supreme Court that rarely produces rulings they dislike — are always quick to decry any criticism of the Canadian Supreme Court as dangerous “American-style” politicization that threatens to undermine its legitimacy. Which is fair to a point, given that questioning the Supreme Court’s legitimacy has long been common practice in U.S. politics — today mostly on the left, but for decades prior, on the right.
But partisan opportunism aside, the fact that this argument is so easy to make from both sides of the political spectrum, on both sides of the border, should provoke serious reflection about the uniquely North American institution of an arbitrary and unaccountable nine-member oligarchy that’s wound up holding final say on all of this continent’s substantial laws and legislation. American liberals have their ideas on how to fix this; Conservatives in Canada have theirs. Contrary motives should not mask the fact that they’re pursuing a common democratic good. | 2022-07-14T18:26:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How Supreme Court reform unites Canadian conservatives and American liberals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/canada-supreme-court-conservatives-american-liberals-undemocratic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/canada-supreme-court-conservatives-american-liberals-undemocratic/ |
People make their way through a flooded street after a heavy rain shower in Karachi, Pakistan, on July 11. (Rizwan Tabassum/AFP/Getty Images)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — I never took climate change seriously until last year, when a mother and her child drowned in flooding just a few streets away from my home in Islamabad. This year the flooding is even worse. At least 150 people, including women and children, have died from heavy monsoon rains across Pakistan in 2022. Sherry Rehman, climate change minister, says that recent rainfall has been 87 percent heavier than in previous years.
Pakistan and India have fought each other several times over the decades, but this summer they are facing a common foe that has killed many people and displaced millions of others: climate change. Now the two countries’ armies are struggling to carry out rescue operations in flood-affected areas. Fighting the effects of global warming, it turns out, is far harder than waging war on human enemies.
Temperatures are rising across the globe, but South Asia is proving particularly vulnerable. The region has been enduring heat waves, cyclones, droughts and flooding.
In 2015, experts informed the Pakistani Parliament that three cities — Karachi, Badin and Thatta — might succumb to rising sea levels by 2060. Nobody showed much concern at the time. But now parts of Badin and Thatta are already under water, and Karachi will probably follow sooner than predicted. The city, which just experienced its hottest April in 61 years, is already sinking. India’s Mumbai and Bangladesh’s Chittagong are among the other cities in the region that are under threat as seas continue to rise. One South Asian country — the island nation of Maldives — could disappear entirely by the end of the century.
Small wonder that Rehman recently declared climate change to be a matter of national security. Viewed objectively, global warming is a far bigger threat to Pakistan than terrorism.
None of this should come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. But few Pakistanis have ever worried much about the environment. The United States has its climate change deniers; here, in contrast, few people have ever given much thought to global warming at all.
The era of complacency might be nearing its end. A German think tank recently ranked Pakistan No. 5 on its recent list of countries most vulnerable to climate change. Yale University’s environmental performance index is even more alarming: It lists Pakistan at 176 (followed by Bangladesh at 177 and India at 180, the very bottom). Lahore, here in Pakistan, and India’s Delhi are among the most polluted cities in the world. A United Nations report estimates Pakistan’s annual economic loss to climate change at $26 billion under the worst-case scenario, and says that this environmental instability could rob the country of up to 9.1 percent of its gross domestic product in the future.
Extreme climate events have become a regular phenomenon in South Asia. We are facing weather-related problems in almost all parts of Pakistan. Flooding has become almost routine in some areas; others are plagued by drought. Glaciers are melting fast, resulting in reduced water flow in rivers. Farming is suffering as a result, and the decline in agricultural productivity is creating food insecurity. All this is accelerating migration from rural areas to cities.
Deforestation is a particular problem. Pakistan has the second-highest rate of deforestation in Asia. When Pakistan was created in 1947, 33 percent of its total area was covered by forests; now that area is only 5 percent. I know from personal experience that Islamabad has lost many of its green spaces to housing developments in the past two decades. Forested areas in Islamabad declined from 19.3 percent in 1979 to 10.3 percent in 2019. One of the most beautiful capitals in the world is losing its forest cover very quickly due to urbanization and population growth.
Deforestation contributes to rising heat. We need to reduce the high temperatures melting our glaciers. Pakistan has more glaciers than almost any country on Earth. Urgent action is required to protect these glaciers. Mountaineers once viewed northern Pakistan as a paradise, but now this area, too, is facing the threat of flooding.
It is unfortunate that Pakistan and India are locked in a conflict on the Siachen glacier, the highest battleground on Earth. By deploying their armies on the roof of the world, they are contributing to the meltdown of the glacier. They immediately need to demilitarize Siachen in order to save its enormous expanse of ice.
Doing so wouldn’t only be a major victory for the environment. It would also send a powerful signal that tackling climate change is an existential issue faced by the entire region.
Opinions about South Asia
Why did India listen to Arab governments before its own Muslim citizens?
The world is finally reacting to India’s descent into hate
In the Taliban’s Afghanistan, control of women begins at home | 2022-07-14T18:27:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Climate change is a bigger threat to Pakistan than terrorism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/climate-change-pakistan-india-worse-threat-terrorism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/climate-change-pakistan-india-worse-threat-terrorism/ |
Armed man arrested outside home of Rep. Jayapal for alleged death threat
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) speaks for a television interview on Capitol Hill on Nov. 4, 2021. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
A neighbor told police she heard the man shout something like “Go back to India; I’m going to kill you” and that she had seen the man drive by Jayapal’s house three times while shouting profanities, according to the statement.
The man was arrested shortly before midnight Saturday, police said. They said the man told them that “he knew who lived at the residence and wanted to pitch a tent on their property,” the statement said.
The man’s name was redacted from publicly available police reports. He was released from jail Wednesday because police could not confirm his threats or that he told Jayapal to “go back to India,” and an investigation is ongoing, the Seattle Times reported.
Jayapal, 56, was born in India and moved to the United States to attend college when she was 16. She has served as a congresswoman since 2017 and was the first South Asian American woman elected to the House. Jayapal is a member of the House Judiciary Committee and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
“The Congresswoman and her family are safe and appreciate the many calls and good wishes she is receiving from constituents,” her office said. “She is very grateful for the swift and professional response from the Seattle Police Department, the US Capitol Police, and the FBI investigators who are working together diligently on the investigation, and ensuring that she and her family stay safe.”
Her office declined to comment further, citing an ongoing investigation.
The Associated Press reported that Seattle police were concerned about the man’s behavior and mental health, and obtained a temporary Extreme Risk Protection Order on Wednesday to require him to surrender his firearms and concealed-pistol license.
Casey McNerthney, a spokesperson for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, told the AP that prosecutors did not yet have evidence to prove a hate crime and that a person must be released from jail after 72 hours if criminal charges were not filed by then.
“In a time of increased political violence, security concerns against any elected official should be taken seriously, as we are doing here,” McNerthney told the AP. “The investigation is ongoing and our office is working with police investigators to make sure we understand the full extent of the suspect’s actions to build the strongest case possible.”
Representatives of the Seattle police and the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office did not respond to requests for comment and more information Thursday. | 2022-07-14T18:27:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Armed man arrested after threatening to kill Rep. Pramila Jayapal outside her Seattle home - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/man-arrested-threats-pramila-jayapal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/man-arrested-threats-pramila-jayapal/ |
For what little good that will do
Trump supporters stand outside of the Clark County Elections Department in North Las Vegas, on Nov. 7, 2020. (Wong Maye-E/AP)
Think about what it would take at this point to dissuade people from believing that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.
The election was more than 600 days ago, more than a year and a half. Over that period, there’s been not one person who has stepped forward to admit participation in a nationally orchestrated plot to subvert the election in more than a half-dozen states, despite the fact that such an effort would take the involvement of dozens if not hundreds of people.
Beyond the lack of proven human involvement, there has been no demonstration of rampant fraudulent voting in any state. There have been plenty of cases of individual fraud, rooted out through the established, successful mechanisms that are in place to catch such illegalities. There are plenty such cases in every national election. What hasn’t emerged is any evidence of hundreds or thousands of votes having been illegally cast in any state.
Nonetheless, millions of people believe that the election was stolen. So how might they be dissuaded? Perhaps a robust articulation of all of the claims about fraud that have been raised to date? A delineation of the dozens of lawsuits filed in the wake of the election and how they were adjudicated? An explanation of specific clusters of claims, such as the “audit” of votes in Arizona?
The source for any such analysis, of course, would need to be some entity of unimpeachable agnosticism toward Trump. A group of Republicans, for example, willing to consider the claims made by Trump and his allies and assess them objectively. Anything less, after all, would be trivial to cast as inherently biased.
On Thursday, an analysis that checked nearly all of those boxes emerged. A group of Republican staffers and officials with robust partisan credentials released a 70-plus-page report walking through precisely the considerations above: the lawsuits, the evidence, the audits. Its conclusion is as unsparing as it is unsurprising.
“For this Report, we examined every count of every case brought in these six battleground states,” its executive summary reads. “We conclude that Donald Trump and his supporters had their day in court and failed to produce substantive evidence to make their case.”
The focus on the lawsuits is important in part because the authors — a group that “has worked in Republican politics, been appointed to office by Republicans, or is otherwise associated with the Party,” the report notes — emphasize the importance of challenging election results in a timely fashion. The campaign tried to do so and was unsuccessful. What’s more, no evidence has emerged since the post-election window of legal challenges to bolster any of the claims the Trump campaign and its allies alleged in court.
“Even now, twenty months after the election, a period in which Trump’s supporters have been energetically scouring every nook and cranny for proof that the election was stolen, they come up empty,” the report notes. “Claims are made, trumpeted in sympathetic media, and accepted as truthful by many patriotic Americans. But on objective examination they have fallen short, every time.”
As they carefully note. State by state, the report presents a claim about how the vote in that place was allegedly corrupted and then explains why it wasn’t or why there’s no reason to believe it was. Arizona. Georgia. Michigan. Nevada. Pennsylvania. Wisconsin. All introduced and all subsequently dispatched with.
Other claims introduced after the 60-plus filed lawsuits were resolved are dismissed more broadly. The claims of “2000 Mules,” for example, are not discussed at length, though the report’s authors note that the film’s assertions have “been thoroughly debunked in analyses” — including at The Washington Post. There is, of course, no evidence to have emerged since President Biden was inaugurated that introduces any reason to doubt that the election was fairly conducted and determined. Most of what has emerged is simply new flavors of the same mush presented in the election’s immediate aftermath.
The authors — including former senator John Danforth (Mo.) and former solicitor general Theodore Olsen — explain why they see their work as important.
“To have 30 percent of the country lack faith in election results based on unsubstantiated claims of a ‘stolen’ election is not sustainable in a democracy, and it discredits the political party making those charges,” they write. “We hope that setting out the full record in this Report will help restore faith in the reliability of our elections.”
It will not, of course.
For one thing, the credentials of the authors are imperfectly Trump-agnostic. Among them are Benjamin Ginsberg and J. Michael Luttig, both of whom testified before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Both are staunchly, impeccably conservative, and both should be considered credible interlocutors on this question. But all that’s needed is a crack through which doubt can be poured, and their willingness to aid the efforts of the hated House committee is a fissure more than wide enough.
That’s the other point, of course. As I’ve noted before, the evidence is not and never has been the point. Those who think the election was stolen will think that no matter what, adding or subtracting whatever “evidence” they want to assert that their belief is justified. It’s the logical approach of the religious zealot, giving primacy to the belief — as articulated by the subject of devotion — and not worrying about what undergirds it.
Put another way, there are zero people who both have considered the available evidence with objectivity and who also believe the election was stolen. Having Danforth sit them down and walk them through everything will have no more effect than my doing so. It will probably have no more effect than if Trump himself were suddenly to recant his past claims; this would simply be chalked up to some ninth-dimension chess play by the former president.
Those who believe Trump’s claims that the election was stolen are participants in a torrid love affair with the idea. There’s no dissuading, no telling them that their partner is toxic, dishonest and deceptive. Over time, one hopes, their feelings will simply fade and, while they’ll always harbor positive feelings toward the idea that election was stolen, they’ll move on. Perhaps even trust another election in the future.
Their parents sitting them down and scolding them, however gently, won’t do the trick.
Noted: Armed man accused of threatening to kill Rep. Jayapal outside her Seattle home | 2022-07-14T18:27:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | We have reached the apex of election-fraud debunking - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/we-have-reached-apex-election-fraud-debunking/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/14/we-have-reached-apex-election-fraud-debunking/ |
Live updates:Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Deadly missile strike in Vinnytsia; Zelens...
A building and car hit by a Russian military strike in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, on Thursday. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)
The strikes, by three cruise missiles launched from a Russian submarine in the Black Sea, damaged a nine-story office block and destroyed cars in its parking lot far from the war’s front lines about 10:50 a.m., Ukrainian officials said, according to the Reuters news agency. Restaurants and nearby residential buildings also appeared to have been struck in the attack. President Volodymyr Zelensky said two “community facilities” had been destroyed.
Ukraine’s state emergency service said 23 people were killed in the strike, including three children. Sixty-six people were hospitalized, with 34 in serious condition and five in critical condition. Rescuers are still searching for 39 other people in the aftermath.
On his Telegram account, Zelensky denounced the attack, which struck about 110 miles southwest of the capital, Kyiv, far from the front lines in eastern Ukraine. He called it “an open act of terrorism” against civilians.
Ukrainian officials accused Russia of striking a target with no military value. Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of Russia’s state-sponsored media organization RT, said the Defense Ministry told her the Vinnytsia strike hit a military officers’ club. The Washington Post could not verify the claim.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Russia of committing “another war crime.” He tweeted a video from the scene that appeared to show a stroller lying on a debris-littered street as a casualty is wheeled on a stretcher and flames billow from the site of the attack.
Images taken by journalists show emergency responders sifting through the rubble around a blackened building with blown-out windows, as charred husks of cars sit on the street outside. Some of the vehicles are stained with blood.
International law prohibits deliberately targeting civilian sites or attacks that cause disproportionate civilian casualties given the military objective.
The attack came as officials from Ukraine, the European Union and the United Nations gathered in The Hague for a conference on accountability for war crimes in Ukraine, hosted by Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan and E.U. Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders.
The gathering aimed to coordinate the slew of efforts by international and domestic actors to investigate and prosecute alleged war crimes committed during the war in Ukraine. At Thursday’s conference, 45 countries, including the United States, signed a declaration to work together on investigations.
In a video address to attendees, Zelensky cast the conference as a watershed moment for international law.
Invoking the attack on Vinnytsia, “an ordinary, peaceful city,” earlier in the day, Zelensky called for a moment of silence for “the memory of all those killed by Russian crimes.” Assembled officials stood and bowed their heads.
An ‘unprecedented’ effort to document war crimes in Ukraine. But what chance of justice?
Russian atrocities during the invasion of Ukraine — including the shooting of unarmed civilians, sexual violence and forced deportations — have prompted an unprecedented global effort to hold Russia accountable under international law, even as the fighting grinds on. Funding, resources and support has poured in to assist Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova and investigators from the International Criminal Court, among other actors.
The array of probes has raised concerns about duplication and overlap, however. Countries represented at Thursday’s conference agreed to create an umbrella group to prevent duplication of efforts, train Ukrainian prosecutors and expand the number of forensic teams operating in Ukraine, Reuters reported. They also pledged $20 million to help the ICC.
Ukrainian courts have already convicted three Russian soldiers of war crimes, and the prosecutor general’s office has registered more than 22,000 more suspected war crimes. Meanwhile, a global movement to prosecute Russian President Vladimir Putin for the crime of aggression is growing, as the invasion has turned attention to the issue of illegal war.
Analysis: A growing movement against illegal war
Addressing diplomats, judicial authorities and prosecutors at the Ukraine Accountability Conference via video link, Kuleba said the legal “architecture” of the ICC alone was not enough and urged others to back the creation of an “ad hoc” special tribunal with “temporary jurisdiction” to look at crimes committed by Russia since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24. The ICC does not have jurisdiction to prosecute the crime of aggression.
“We call on our international partners to consider entering into agreement on the establishment of the special tribunal for the punishment of the crime of aggression against Ukraine,” Kuleba said. Zelensky said such a tribunal will “ensure the fair and lawful punishment” of Russian officials who started the war.
Hoekstra, the Dutch foreign minister, said the Netherlands would consider setting up an international Ukraine war-crimes tribunal, according to Reuters.
“Let me be very clear: The perpetrators of these unspeakable crimes must and will be held accountable,” he said.
Robyn Dixon and Bryan Pietsch contributed to this report. | 2022-07-14T18:28:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Vinnytsia: Russian strikes on business center kill at least 21 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/14/ukraine-russia-missile-strike-vinnytsia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/14/ukraine-russia-missile-strike-vinnytsia/ |
Woman says Walmart fired her for ‘problematic’ breast milk pumping
Customers outside a Walmart store in Torrance, Calif., in May. (Bing Guan/Bloomberg News)
A Florida mother is accusing Walmart of discrimination after she said her managers harassed her and then fired her because her need to pump breast milk was “problematic,” according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.
The new mother, Kyla Alegata, alleged in the July 7 lawsuit that Walmart violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act by denying her request in January 2021 for a reasonable accommodation for “pumping breast milk and pregnancy-related absences.” Days later, she was terminated, according to the new lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove told The Washington Post on Thursday that the company “does not tolerate discrimination or retaliation.” He said Alegata was fired for “excessive absences that were unrelated to any breaks or protected activity,” meaning that the firing was not related to her civil rights.
“We support our associates by providing accommodations every day and believe store management provided Ms. Alegata with the necessary breaks to express milk in a secure, clean and private area,” he said in the statement. “Our pregnancy policy has always fully met or exceeded both state and federal law.”
Alegata’s attorney was not immediately available Thursday morning for comment on the case.
Workplaces must give moms space to pump breast milk.
The lawsuit states that Alegata was hired in December 2019 as a deli worker and baker at the Walmart store in DeFuniak Springs, Fla. Soon after she gave birth to her daughter in 2020, she said the store manager and the manager of the deli department began harassing her when she tried to take breaks to pump breast milk.
Alegata alleged in the lawsuit that the room that was designed for her was kept locked and that she would have to wait — sometimes up to an hour — for management to let her in to pump. Once inside, she said she was “constantly interrupted” by others and would see men working on their laptops in the room while she was pumping, making her uncomfortable, the suit stated.
At one point, Alegata alleged that she provided a note from her doctor requesting a reasonable accommodation and was told by the deli manager that Walmart does not accept doctors’ notes.
On Jan. 14, 2021, she brought the issue to the general manager and two days later, she was fired, the lawsuit said.
Women share their stories of pumping at work. It’s not pretty.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against their employees based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 amended Title VII to include protections for “pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions,” according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
The lawsuit accuses Walmart of sex/pregnancy discrimination as well as retaliation and claims Alegata suffered lost wages, benefits, compensatory damages and emotional distress as a result.
It states that Alegata filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC and the Florida Commission on Human Relations (FCHR) in September 2021, and in May of this year the EEOC granted her permission to sue Walmart.
At the same time, Hargrove, with Walmart, said in the statement that the FCHR “found it unlikely that any discrimination violating the law occurred in this case.”
The mother is requesting a jury trial. | 2022-07-14T18:43:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Walmart sued by Florida mother Kyla Alegata over breast-milk-pumping accommodations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/mother-sues-walmart-breast-milk/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/mother-sues-walmart-breast-milk/ |
Accused shooter Payton Gendron was indicted Thursday on more than two dozen federal charges related to the shooting.
BUFFALO, NY - MAY 15: The scene of the Tops market shooting in Buffalo, at around 6:00AM on May 15, 2022. (Libby March for The Washington Post)
Buffalo’s East Side was a food desert. The shooting made things worse.
Tops was a desperately-needed market in what was considered a food desert on the city’s East Side. The grocery chain and local officials pledged to reopen the store as soon as possible, saying they recognized the need the area had for residents to have healthy food options.
“Many in our community DO NOT ever want to step foot inside of that place,” wrote the petition’s organizer, Jerome R. Wright. “More importantly, most have expressed a desire to have a memorial constructed on that site for the community to visit and pay their respects to the murdered, the injured, and the traumatized.”
'Too many bad memories': What happens to the sites of mass shootings?
“They never got the input from the families with regard to how they felt about the store reopening,” said Spight, who is mourning the loss of her 77-year-old aunt, Pearl Young, on one side of her family, and her cousin, Margus D. Morrison, 52, on the other side.
Relatives of victims that she’s talked to — including members of her own family — are on both sides of the issue, Spight said. Some think it is important to reopen the store, especially for elderly residents who can’t easily travel elsewhere. Others think it’s an insult. | 2022-07-14T19:13:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Buffalo's Tops market reopens after mass shooting that killed 10 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/tops-reopen-buffalo-indictment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/tops-reopen-buffalo-indictment/ |
Anna Geisler at home in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. (Emily Elconin for The Washington Post)
Anna Geisler, 16, was about to walk outside and drive to her summer job waitressing at a Michigan cafe when her mother approached. Her face told Anna something was wrong.
“Did you hear the news about Roe,” her mother said — and just like that, Anna learned she had lost her constitutional right to an abortion. Tears welled. A new and nervous driver, Anna suddenly doubted her ability to make it safely into work.
“Just drive,” she told herself, even as anxiety hardened her chest. “Focus. Get to work.”
The teenager was one of millions of Americans shocked by the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn the landmark 1973 ruling. For some, the ruling signaled victory after years of fighting against abortion; others were left lamenting the loss of what they view as a fundamental right.
The end of Roe v. Wade, which had protected abortion rights for almost exactly 50 years, means at least 52 percent of American women of childbearing age will face new restrictions on their ability to have abortions, The Washington Post reported.
The decision has a particular resonance for members of Generation Z, defined as those born after 1996. Many teenagers, who have never known life without Roe, grew up viewing the case as a long-settled issue, whether it provoked joy or despair. Now, members of that generation are coming of age with fewer reproductive rights than their mothers had.
How will the decision reshape life for what cable pundits are already calling “the post-Roe generation?” The Washington Post sought submissions from teenagers across the country to gauge their thoughts and feelings about the ruling: how and whether it changed the way they see themselves, their futures and America.
Here are the stories of four of them.
‘God has a plan’
The first time Joelle Peña, 18, stood outside an abortion clinic, she was scared.
A devout Christian raised by a conservative family in Miami, Joelle believes abortion is murder and a sin in God’s eyes. She had watched YouTube videos posted by Christians who waited outside clinics, seeking to deter pregnant people from entering. She was intimidated by the idea of confronting other women.
But last year, inspired by a speech from a pastor, she decided to try it. One November morning, she and six friends piled into a car, Joelle gripping a sign lent to her by the advocacy group End Abortion Now. The sign’s front side, which she held toward the clinic doors, read, “We Will Adopt Your Baby.” The back side, which Joelle kept facing the road, declared, “Babies Are Murdered Here.”
That first day was hard. Many patients — parents, as she called them — refused to speak. But there was less conflict than she had feared, just a lot of distressed people crying. Plus, some passing drivers gave her supportive honks and thumbs ups.
Listen to Joelle Peña
Joelle kept at it. She developed a routine, visiting clinics on Saturday mornings. When she could, she’d visit after school, too. The clinic she visited most often was one close to her high school, sited off a busy road next to a McDonald’s.
Joelle estimates she has spoken with more than 1,000 women across roughly 100 days of what she calls “abortion ministry.” Recently, she joined the antiabortion group Love Life, where she is now spending the summer as an intern.
She always opens clinic conversations the same way: “I am Joelle. I’m a Christian missionary. I’m here because I’m trying to help abortion-minded parents.”
If the person seems willing to talk, she asks if they are pregnant and if they plan to keep the baby. If they say no, she asks why — “usually it’s because of resources or because they feel unprepared,” Joelle said.
“I tell them they can raise this child,” Joelle said. “I say, ‘We’re partnered with over 40 churches that want to walk alongside you. You’re not alone; God has a plan for this.’ ” Sometimes she shows people pictures of baby showers.
Joelle said 16 people have decided, after speaking with her, to keep their babies. She calls these women “saves.” Once, on an especially memorable Saturday, Joelle and her friends “made three saves in one day — that was incredible!”
Sometimes people at clinics tell her to go away or shut up, because she’s “just a kid.” Students at Joelle’s liberal private high school are also critical. When she shared pictures of her activism on Instagram, one girl wrote, “Drop out like wtf is this.” Another commented: “girl. why r u the way that u are,” and another added, “ur going to hell.”
But Joelle has never doubted she is right. Sometimes she thinks of her twin brother, Nathanael, who died in the womb one day before they were born. She is confident she will see Nathanael again in heaven.
“My brother was an actual person with a name who passed away,” Joelle said. “There’s no distinction between my brother at 36 weeks and another baby at like 12. … Babies inside the womb are children and image-bearers of God.”
Joelle was in her bedroom when Roe fell, scrolling through Instagram. Elated, she gave thanks to God and ran to tell her father.
Then she read more posts warning Christians that their work wasn’t done. Some called for a national law banning abortion. Joelle recalled that Florida’s antiabortion law prohibits the procedure after 15 weeks, which she thinks is nowhere near enough.
Happiness gave way to a fiery feeling.
“Roe being overturned,” Joelle said, “is just the beginning step to a long journey.”
‘Now I don’t have control of my body’
Irene Vera, 15, was sitting in biology class this spring at her D.C. high school when she overheard two students whispering about Roe v. Wade.
Irene had always viewed the constitutional right to abortion as graven in stone, immutable. But the students were saying something about a leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe.
Irene reeled. She felt several things at once: Disbelief that Roe could fall after so many decades. Anger that “men in power” would try to make such a personal decision for women. Worry for the future, because she knew abortions wouldn’t stop, just grow more dangerous.
But most of all she felt robbed: “Now I don’t have control of my body,” she said, words she repeated in her head for the rest of biology — and for weeks to come.
Listen to Irene Vera
Before that May day, Irene hadn’t thought much about abortion. Since then, she has thought about little else. Irene likes to take walks to order her mind, and sometimes she slips onto the roof of her house at night, staring up at the stars.
Alone, she for the first time seriously considered taking advantage of her international citizenship — one of her parents is Spanish — to move to Europe. In Spain, she knew, abortion is legal upon request up to 14 weeks and permitted afterward if there are risks to the pregnant person’s health or fetal defects.
It didn’t matter that abortion is legal in D.C. and likely to remain so. Roe’s stand or fall, Irene realized, meant something more to her.
“It meant that I have a right to my body, that I have control of my life and I have control of my future,” she said.
Roe fell for good while Irene was sitting in humanities class. Another student ran in, shouting, “Guys, it got overturned. I’m going to go to the White House or the Supreme Court and protest after school. Would anybody like to join?”
Irene wanted to go. But it was her last day of school, and she was supposed to catch a flight to Spain that afternoon, to spend the summer with relatives there.
Before she left, she helped other students prepare posters. “GET OFF MY Body,” she wrote on a piece of paper, coloring the “OFF” in electric blue. “Land of the Free?” she wrote in orange marker on another. She taped both posters to plastic coat hangers, symbols of unsafe “backstreet” abortions.
As her classmates lined up outside the White House, Irene began her 15-hour trip. She spent the first hour silent, fixating on what had happened. She kept asking herself why. Later, after grimacing through a bad Ashton Kutcher movie, she managed some fitful sleep.
When Irene debarked in Spain, she was surprised by a sudden sense of freedom. Of escape. Away from America, her body felt like hers again.
In that moment she decided: As soon as she could, she would move to Europe.
‘Don’t let this go too far’
A few months ago, a 16-year-old in Louisiana raised the issue of abortion with a family member for the first time.
The teen spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his family’s privacy and for fear that sharing his views on abortion will lead to harassment. After reading widely on the subject, he has come to believe abortion should be granted in cases of rape or incest, or if the pregnant person’s life is in danger. But he is less sympathetic to people who seek abortions “if they were, I don’t want to say, irresponsible” — and he does not think abortion is the answer in cases where people lack the resources to raise a child.
“To me, I think it’s more important that the kid at least has a chance to live,” said the teen, who is Catholic. “Even if they go into foster care, it may not be the best environment, but they’ll have a chance.”
He and a family member, a woman, started chatting about abortion after news emerged in May that the Supreme Court would probably overturn Roe v. Wade. The teen said Roe’s fall would be a good thing, because there is no explicit constitutional protection for abortion. “It’s better left up to states,” he said.
The teen was surprised to learn his family member disagreed; his slice of Louisiana — and much of his family — is conservative, although he identifies as an independent. But he was more surprised by her second admission.
“She told me she had had an abortion,” he said. “She already had a daughter. She didn’t want to have a second child at that time.”
The teen tried to organize his thoughts, but it was complicated. “I know she wouldn’t have been able to support another baby most likely, so that’s tricky. But then there’s still the part of me that’s like, ‘That baby should have been given a chance.’ ”
He didn’t reach any firm conclusions. He and the family member ended their discussion on good terms.
The teen was playing Minecraft with a friend when the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. He learned the news from Twitter.
The teen’s friend said he didn’t care, but the teen was in shock, for a time unable to give attention to anything else. In the first hours, part of him felt pleased. But as he proceeded through his day — an otherwise regular summer day, filled with video games and yard work — misgivings began to swirl.
He read about how, in Louisiana, Roe’s overturn has triggered a law that bans abortions totally, including in situations in which the teen thinks the procedure should be allowed. He scanned Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion suggesting that the Supreme Court should also overturn rulings that legalized same-sex marriages and the right to contraception. That made the teen shudder.
Late in the day, he remembered his female relative who’d had an abortion. He thought about how, if she were to become pregnant now, she would have to have the baby.
When he knelt by his bed to pray that night, he added a special message.
“Thank you,” the teen said to God. “But don’t let this go too far.”
‘What do we do’
In Michigan, Anna drove to work without incident. She pulled into the parking lot and sat for five minutes, collecting herself, before going inside.
As she waited tables, her phone buzzed every few seconds with notifications. Anna is vice president of a feminism club at her high school; its members were reaching out for reassurance, asking what came next. She didn’t know what to say.
Listen to Anna Geisler
“Like what do we do,” Anna texted her best friend, Chloe. “I’m trying not to cry at work.”
“My stomach hurts,” Chloe replied.
“I feel like i need to mourn,” Anna wrote. “But like how.”
“I wish I could be more support,” Chloe wrote. “I have more questions than answers.”
Anna did, too. A politically active and ambitious teen, she was determined to fight back — but she wasn’t sure how, not yet.
After stumbling through the rest of her shift, she joined an evening march for abortion rights. Soon, she was researching Michigan’s position on abortion, discovering the state has a 1931 law forbidding almost all abortions, although the future of that law — for now temporarily enjoined — depends on a fierce political and legal fight being waged in part by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). Anna made mental plans to lobby legislators this fall, and “vote like hell in 2024,” and felt better.
But as she lay in bed that night, darker thoughts returned.
“I am a woman of 16, who just came of age,” Anna said. “And when I fell asleep that night, I knew I had less rights than my mom had growing up.”
A previous version of this article misstated the year in which Michigan passed a law forbidding almost all abortions. It was 1931, not 1849. This version has been corrected. | 2022-07-14T19:57:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. teens share how they feel about the fall of Roe v. Wade - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/14/teenage-views-dobbs-ruling/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/14/teenage-views-dobbs-ruling/ |
A Fox News sign is seen outside the channel's building in New York City in 2017. (REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton)
June 24 was a happy day at Fox News. Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision codifying a right to abortion, had been overturned by the court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. On his evening program, Fox host Jesse Watters took a victory lap tinged with his trademark snark:
“Abortion is an emotional issue, and liberals are furious, and they want you to know that,” said Watters, who also alleged that “the Democrat politicians are scaring the heck out of them.”
A few weeks later, it was Watters who appeared scared. Roe’s demise, which tossed abortion policy to the states, had been implicated in the story of a 10-year-old rape victim who was seeking an abortion. It was just the sort of scenario that abortion advocates had predicted. Could Fox News handle it?
Nuh-uh.
Details on the matter came from the Indianapolis Star, which reported on July 1 that a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio had traveled to Indiana to get an abortion. Following the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs, Ohio moved to ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The newspaper attributed the story to Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist Caitlin Bernard, who said she was contacted by a child abuse doctor in Ohio.
The double victimization of a 10-year-old — who reportedly could have been impregnated at age 9 — shook the shoulders of a country that had lived for a half-century under Roe’s protections. “Imagine being that little girl,” President Biden said Friday as he signed an executive order on reproductive rights and care. “Just, I’m serious. Just imagine being that little girl.”
This was troubling stuff, so Watters got serious. He said on Monday night that his show had “decided to investigate this alleged child rape” and noted that Ohio authorities hadn’t launched a criminal investigation. “This doesn’t make any sense,” said Watters, who made reference to a Post Fact-Checker column by Glenn Kessler, which looked at sourcing — and sourcing challenges — for the IndyStar report that had gone viral. Though Watters held out the possibility that the story was true, he made clear his leanings:
So, where do we stand? If there’s a 10-year-old child abuser out there on the streets of Ohio, he needs to be brought to justice. And if so-called doctors are covering up child rape, they need to be prosecuted. But if this horrific story isn’t accurate, and the abortion doctor and the Indianapolis Star are misleading us and the mainstream media and the president of the United States seizing on another hoax, then this is absolutely shameful, and fits a pretty dangerous pattern of politically timed disinformation.
Fox News’s midday roundtable show “Outnumbered” tossed out whatever restraint Watters had sewn into his report. “There’s no shortage of 10-year-old rape victims,” panel member Emily Compagno said on Tuesday’s program. “There’s victims from infants through the elderly — both genders. There is more than you can count. There are so many monsters out there. So for me what I find so deeply offensive is that they had to make up a fake one. There’s actually so many, there are countless real ones that I would love for them to use as advocacy for law and order.”
Later on Tuesday, Fox News prime-time host Tucker Carlson said, “Why did the Biden administration — speaking of lying — just repeat a story about a 10-year-old child who got pregnant and they got an abortion or was not allowed to get an abortion when it turns out the story’s not true?”
But there was no lie at all: The Columbus Dispatch reported on Wednesday that a Columbus man — 27-year-old Gerson Fuentes — had been charged with rape of a 10-year-old. The newspaper cited a police official as testifying that the girl had undergone a medical abortion on June 30 in Indianapolis. Ohio bans abortions after pregnancies reach six weeks, and the 10-year-old was six weeks and three days into her pregnancy when she was examined.
How did Watters filter the development? By attacking Bernard, the abortion provider at the center of the story.
Carlson (predictably) pivoted to a detail in the Dispatch’s story — namely, that Fuentes is “believed to be undocumented.” “10-YEAR-OLD’S RAPIST IS AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT” read a chyron adorning Carlson’s discussion of the case Wednesday night. There was no “allegedly” in the screen graphic to signal that Fuentes hasn’t been convicted — a tendency that Carlson displayed years ago as he hyped high-profile rape charges against immigrants in Rockville, Md. — charges that were later dropped.
Another Fox News talking point emerged Wednesday night in Watters’s monologue, when he said the girl had not needed to flee to Indiana for the abortion. For that bit of commentary, Watters was relying on an interview that he had aired Monday night with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. “Ohio’s heartbeat law has a medical emergency exception, broader than just the life of the mother,” Yost told Watters. “She — this young girl — if she exists, and if this horrible thing actually happened to her, breaks my heart to think about it — she did not have to leave Ohio to find treatment.”
Elizabeth Nash, principal policy associate for state issues with the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, points out that the exception for medical emergency (see text here) doesn’t encompass the circumstances of the 10-year-old rape victim. “The medical emergency exception doesn’t include rape and incest,” Nash told the Erik Wemple Blog on Thursday. “It just doesn’t. It’s really disingenuous for [Yost] to have made this comment.”
Disingenuous, yes, as well as condescending and paternalistic: Who are Yost and Watters to second-guess the decisions of a family regarding medical care for their 10-year-old daughter who had been raped?
The tl;dr version of all this: Fox News has been playing an extraordinary amount of defense on this story — first by doubting its veracity and then by deflecting to the real issue at play here. It’s as if the network couldn’t countenance the realities behind a sea change in legal policy for which it had long advocated. Perhaps it had budgeted a few weeks to celebrate the Dobbs decision and hadn’t expected the ruling’s grim impact to intrude so quickly. The panic of Watters, Carlson & Co. suggests that they were more prone to ridicule, rather than listen to, warnings from pro-choice voices about the scenarios that would unfold in the absence of Roe.
“As much as they are panicked, it’s for political reasons more than caring about the patient,” says Nash.
As the Erik Wemple Blog noted on Twitter, this national story pivots on the work of regional and local newspapers in red states, which is precisely where nightmarish post-Roe stories will continue to emerge. Which is to say, exposing the ramifications of the Supreme Court’s decision will fall in large part to a hollowed-out sector of the American media. And Fox News will be there to throw cold water on the scoops that those overworked reporters churn out. | 2022-07-14T19:58:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How story of a 10-year-old Ohio rape victim reflects the post-Roe world Fox News wanted - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/10-year-old-rape-story-fox-news-criticism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/10-year-old-rape-story-fox-news-criticism/ |
Women's rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul and her husband, comedian Fahad Albutairi. (Loujain al-Hathloul/Instagram)
President Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia this week is unlikely to bring any significant diplomatic breakthroughs — whether or not he decides to shake hands with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (who, according to a CIA assessment, ordered the murder of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi). The Saudi regime almost certainly won’t make any human rights concessions. Nor will it make promises to help stabilize world energy markets, even though Biden cites this as a key reason he’s traveling to Jiddah in the first place.
So what will Biden have to show at the end of the week for abandoning his campaign promise to treat the regime as a “pariah”? Not much. But there is one way for Biden to salvage something positive from this debacle and deliver real relief to American citizens suffering at the hand of the Saudi regime: He can bring some of them home on his plane Saturday.
“Air Force One is large enough for all of them,” reads a letter sent to Biden on Tuesday by Ali Al-Ahmed, president of the Committee for American Hostages in Saudi Arabia, a group that works with families of American citizens and residents who are unjustly imprisoned in Saudi Arabia or barred from leaving the kingdom. “These American citizens need to come home now. There is no better way to come home than riding home with their top elected leader.”
Ahmed’s cousin, Badr al-Ibrahim, was released in 2021 after spending two years in prison for criticizing the regime’s human rights record, but he is still banned from leaving the country. The physician is only one of many American citizens being held hostage by the Saudi regime. They include American journalist Salah al-Haidar, his mother Aziza al-Yousef, physician Walid al-Fitaihi and women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul, all of whom were jailed for human rights activism and now are banned from travel. Fitaihi and Hathloul were allegedly tortured in prison.
The families of these Americans perceive a double standard in how they are treated by the U.S. government, compared with the efforts the State Department has made when helping American citizens detained in places such as Russia, Venezuela and Iran. Ahmed told me that the Saudi government is holding about 10 additional American citizens unjustly in its prisons, but those families have not gone public because they fear retaliation if they speak out.
“MBS has increased the climate of fear to its highest levels in Saudi history, and that is driving American hostages and their families to remain silent,” he said. “If Mr. Biden is unable to free American hostages from Saudi prisons and others trapped in the walled kingdom, he cannot justify his trip.”
There are several U.S. citizens in Saudi cells who need the U.S. government’s help to get out. I spoke with one U.S.-based family member of an elderly Saudi American who has been languishing in a Riyadh prison since last November. The family member, who asked to keep the details of the case private, told me that the elderly man was arrested for a tweet that included criticism of the Saudi regime. No charges have ever been brought against him.
The State Department told the family member it would not even classify the elderly man as “wrongfully detained,” because he hadn’t been charged. The U.S. citizen has received only one visit from a U.S. diplomat in eight months. Moreover, the State Department urged the family member of the elderly prisoner not to go public with the case, the family member told me, claiming it would make it more difficult to resolve.
In Biden’s Post op-ed justifying his trip, the president pledged that his administration would continue to push for lifting travel restrictions for the released American citizens, but he didn’t say anything about the Americans who remain imprisoned. Will he head home on his plane and leave them to suffer without even a mention?
U.S. officials say Biden must engage with Saudi Arabia because of the continuing war in Yemen and the threat from Iran. Sure. But that doesn’t mean Biden has to give the regime a pass on human rights or its mistreatment of our people. The administration also touts the fact that Biden will become the first American president to fly directly from Israel to Jiddah in Saudi Arabia. Fine. But that’s a symbolic move that can’t be seen as a substitute for real accomplishments.
Yet if Biden and his team decide to use his visit to secure the release of U.S. citizens who are imprisoned or banned from leaving, the political benefits to him will be enormous. This is the bare minimum that Biden would need to claim that his trip is not a failure. The lives of these American citizens deserve more attention than a handshake. | 2022-07-14T19:58:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Biden should bring home American hostages from Saudi Arabia on his plane - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/biden-saudi-arabia-mbs-imprisoned-american-citizens-khashoggi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/14/biden-saudi-arabia-mbs-imprisoned-american-citizens-khashoggi/ |
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