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Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita speaks at the U.S. State Department, before a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Washington on July 19. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/Pool/Reuters)
Moldova is “very worried” about a potential Russian invasion as Russian forces prepare to step up attacks in Ukraine’s east and south, close to the border with the small nation of 2.5 million.
Moldova’s prime minister, Natalia Gavrilita, said the possibility that her country could be the next to be invaded on orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin “is a hypothetical scenario for now.”
“But if the military actions move further into the southwestern part of Ukraine and toward Odessa, then of course we are very worried,” she said in an interview Sunday with CNN.
What is Transnistria, and will Russia advance toward Moldova?
Moldova, which remains militarily neutral, split from the Soviet Union and gained independence in 1991. It has publicly condemned Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled there from across the border.
“We had to deal very quickly with a massive refugee flow,” Gavrilita said, adding that recent polling revealed a significant majority of Moldovans were willing to take in even more displaced people.
The energy supply of Moldova, considered one of the world’s poorest countries, is controlled by Russia, and the nation has long expressed concern over Russia’s next step in the conflict. Putin’s war next door poses Moldova’s most direct challenge to date, as The Washington Post reported earlier this year.
After Ukraine, Gavrilita said Moldova has been hit hardest economically since Russia’s invasion, citing high inflation.
Moldova was granted candidate status to join the European Union alongside Ukraine last month.
The two nations will have to go through a lengthy process to become members and are expected to meet certain criteria.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the move to grant candidate status strengthened Ukraine and Moldova “in the face of Russian aggression” along with the European Union and sent a strong signal to Putin.
E.U. leaders make Ukraine, Moldova candidates for membership
In April, a Russian military commander suggested that Moscow would seek to create a corridor through Ukraine’s south to Transnistria, a breakaway republic in eastern Moldova. Following the remarks, Moldova summoned Russia’s ambassador to express “deep concern.”
Gavrilita expressed alarm Sunday that Russian troops “are on the territory of the secessionist Transnistria region,” and warned that other countries should also be concerned about Putin’s ambitions.
“If a country can start an annexation war without any regard for international law, then in this sense, nobody is safe,” said the prime minister, who took office in August last year. “I think a lot of countries are worried.”
Gavrilita added that Moldova is doing “everything possible to maintain peace and stability and to ensure that the fighting does not escalate.” | 2022-07-25T11:49:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Moldova ‘very worried’ Russia may invade after Ukraine, prime minister says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/moldova-russia-invasion-prime-minister-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/moldova-russia-invasion-prime-minister-ukraine/ |
Tunisia's President Kais Saied, with his wife after voting at a polling station during a referendum on a new constitution in Tunis, July 25. (Mohamed Messara/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
TUNIS — Soon after he was elected president of Tunisia in late 2019, Kais Saied strolled into his usual coffee shop in the capital as if nothing had changed.
Farouk Chihaoui, who serves shisha, or tobacco water pipes, at the cafe, couldn’t believe his eyes.
Here was the man who until recently taught university law courses, always parked outside in a beat-up Peugeot, paid off his tabs, and “looked exactly like the people.”
Except now — accompanied by security, greeted by a swarming crowd — he was their president. “I took a selfie like a friend would have. Frankly, it was pretty special.”
For Chihaoui, that encounter bolstered his belief — one shared among many of the president’s supporters — that Saied is one of them. He will vote “yes” Monday in a controversial referendum on a new constitution that Saied insists will lead Tunisia to a more prosperous future.
Resistance builds in Tunisia as populist leader seeks more power
Many other Tunisians believe the opposite will come true. They say Saied has spent the past year executing a drawn-out power grab and that his proposed constitution — published just weeks ago — was conceived through an illegitimate process. They say the referendum will only further cement his one-man rule and destroy the progress made since the country’s 2011 revolution overthrew dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and kicked off the Arab Spring across the Middle East.
With no minimum participation rate required and many of Saied’s opponents boycotting the process to avoid lending it credence, the referendum is widely expected to pass.
The vote comes one year to the day since Saied dismissed parliament and fired his prime minister, suddenly dividing the country between those who celebrated his decision as necessary to end an ongoing political crisis and those who decried it as a coup that threatened the survival of the only democracy to have come out of the Arab Spring.
The move — which came amid a deadly surge of coronavirus cases and political deadlock between the president and a divided parliament — was initially widely celebrated in Tunisia and threw Saied, a man who once seemed an unlikely candidate to wield such immense political power, into the spotlight.
His stilted manner of speech and insistence on using formal Arabic rather than the Tunisian dialect have earned him the nickname “RoboCop.” Even some of his supporters, including Chihaoui, acknowledge he lacks the typical charisma and gregariousness that so often accompanies a successful political figure.
Still, he ran for president at a moment when Tunisians — tired of a decade of failure to improve the economy and politicians that didn’t deliver on their promises — welcomed his status as a relative outsider in the political system and a perception of his trustworthiness. He won 73 percent of the vote.
He became immensely popular last summer with those who saw his drastic moves to suspend parliament as necessary to weed out corrupt or ineffectual officials, including in the moderate Islamist Ennahda Party, once a dominant force in the government.
But for some of those supporters, the popularity was short-lived. Now the country, submerged in a worsening economic crisis and facing widespread political division, is grappling with what many of his onetime supporters see as the consequences of their earlier misconception.
“He passed right under everyone’s nose,” said Abderraouf Betbaieb, a retired diplomat who has known Saied for decades and was part of his inner circle before quitting in 2020. “He plunged the country into crisis.”
Lawyer and politician Samia Abbou was never enthralled by Saied but was among those who applauded his unconventional intervention last July, hoping it would mark a fresh start for the country’s democracy.
But by September, when Saied announced an extension of the state of emergency and a further expansion of his powers, she felt he had veered too far off-script. Then, in December, he proclaimed that parliament would remain suspended until after a July referendum. Finally in March, he announced parliament had been dissolved and has since replaced the members of the independent electoral commission with his appointees.
Now, she said, she feels certain the new constitution is just laying the groundwork for a “dictatorship.”
“I cannot regret something that needed to happen,” she said of her support for his initial decision last July. But what came next “was done in bad faith. It was not honest.”
“He succeeded in dividing the people in two. ... We have never lived through this, even under the regime of Ben Ali,” she said, referring to the dictator ousted in 2011. “We have become fanatics, either for or against. People no longer smile together, even in a single family.”
Even the expert Saied tasked with writing the new constitution is among those now publicly decrying the president and boycotting Monday’s vote, saying it would be an ethical “betrayal” for him to participate.
Sadok Belaid, the former dean of Tunis University’s law school who taught Saied as a young man, agreed this spring to lead the consultative commission responsible for crafting the new legal document. He had known Saied for decades, he said, and described him as having been “very affable, very nice, very modest.”
For weeks, Belaid recalled, he worked tirelessly on the project. The day after he submitted his completed version of the new constitution, he said, he checked into the hospital for an operation he had postponed to write the document.
Later that day, in his hospital bed and still under the effects of anesthesia, he said, Saied visited him and handed him a pile of papers he described as a modified version of Belaid’s work.
It wasn’t until the president left that Belaid, who is in his 80s, realized he was holding an entirely different version of the constitution — one that Saied appeared to have largely written himself. The new version hands Saied further powers and reduces the influence of parliament, among other changes widely condemned by his opponents.
“It’s a true comedy ... one that ends badly,” Belaid said. “The reality is that the president used this prestige he has in the eyes of the population to pass a text that does not respond to the needs or demands of the people but to his own intentions.”
Back at the cafe, Chihaoui, said it was indeed Saied’s reputation as someone “cultivated” that drew him toward his candidacy.
Still, in a Tunisia racked by political infighting, “I thought it was a dream.”
“A man of the people becoming president? It wasn’t too logical,” he said. Now that Saied is in power, he said, he supports any decision the president may make. “Everything he does is for the people.”
Just outside the cafe, Sami bin Mohamed, 42, a salesman, expressed a much less optimistic opinion. Smoking a cigarette, he bemoaned the worsening economic situation and said he will be boycotting Monday’s vote.
“Any president works for his own good,” he said. And in poorer neighborhoods, he added, “everyone is planning to leave illegally. I don’t think it’s possible to fix stuff around here.”
Downtown on Saturday, a small crowd gathered to protest the referendum and voice their support for the Ennahda Party.
“We are here because Mr. Kais Saied is doing a coup in Tunisia,” said Fathia Azaiz, 63. “He’s changing everything. ... The president is isolating himself and not being democratic.”
Nearby, Kawthar Guettiti, 36, a graphic designer, was walking with her 6-year-old daughter, who held a small Tunisian flag. She will be voting “yes” on Monday, she said, because she trusts that Saied intends to put the country on a sturdier path for her daughter’s future.
“He has a background in law. He knows very well what he is doing. He won’t be a dictator any more than the others,” she said. | 2022-07-25T11:50:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kais Saied's constitutional referendum could dismantle Tunisia's democracy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/tunisia-kais-saied-referendum-constitution/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/tunisia-kais-saied-referendum-constitution/ |
Pope Francis greets members of an Indigenous tribe during his welcoming ceremony at Edmonton International Airport in Canada on July 24. (Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images)
EDMONTON, Canada — Pope Francis on Monday will begin a long-sought act of reconciliation in Canada, visiting the former site of a residential school on the first full day of a trip that he has said will “begin and end” with penitence.
Francis is expected to apologize for the Catholic Church’s involvement in a school system that forced Indigenous children from their parents and tried to assimilate them — often brutally — into Euro-Christian society.
Francis’s visit is the result of years of Indigenous requests for an official acknowledgment from the church. Though Francis for much of his pontificate had demurred, he had faced mounting pressure after Indigenous groups last year said ground-penetrating radar had located hundreds of unmarked graves near former residential schools.
The trip is a major break from the norms of papal overseas travel, where celebration and evangelization tend to be the central goals. In this instance, Francis, 85, opted only for a modest welcome ceremony when landing Sunday in Edmonton, where he was greeted with Indigenous music, and he has chosen not to issue any remarks until arriving Monday morning in Maskwacis, an Indigenous community in the plains of Alberta.
Though the residential schooling system is no longer in use, with the last schools closing in the 1990s, the colonizing ideas that underpinned it remain sources of reckoning in the modern Roman Catholic Church. Francis, the first South American pope, comes from a continent where Christianity was brought by conquerors. During a 2015 trip to Bolivia, he apologized for the church’s “grave sins” during colonialism and for crimes committed against native people.
In Canada, at least 150,000 Indigenous children were forced into the residential school system, which was notorious for poor conditions. Malnutrition was rampant, as was physical and sexual abuse, and children died at rates several times above the national norm.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in 2015 a landmark report, called it “institutionalized child neglect.” The Catholic Church ran a majority of the schools; others were run by Anglicans, Presbyterians and the United Church. The report said the schools played to the idea of bringing “civilization and salvation” to children.
“These were the rationales that were used to justify making the lives of so many children so unhappy,” the report said.
Francis, after hosting an Indigenous delegation at the Vatican, apologized in April for the “deplorable conduct” of some “members” of the Catholic Church involved with the residential school system. But some survivors say those words did not go far enough, and they hope that Francis will address the complicity of the Catholic Church. They also have urged him to pledge the release of records related to residential schools, and for the return of artifacts from the Vatican museum.
At Francis’s first stop Monday, he is expected to speak in front of several thousand people, many of them survivors of the residential school system. He will also pray at cemetery grounds believed to include the remains of residential school students, and he will visit the former site of the Ermineskin residential school, which opened in 1895 and was operated by Roman Catholic missionaries for much of its existence. It was taken under federal control in 1969 and closed in 1970.
In testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, former students from that school painted a picture of days marked by loneliness, fear and abuse. One said she was told that the Sun Dance, an Indigenous ceremony, amounted to devil worship.
Marilyn Buffalo told the commission that teachers called the children “savage.”
Overcrowding and outbreaks of diseases, including measles, hepatitis and diphtheria were common. A 1940s survey found that one-third of the students had tuberculosis and suggested students be sent to the hospital. Instead, some were sent home and others were kept under observation.
In 1966, a supervisor at the school wrote the federal department of Indian Affairs chief superintendent of education to report that priests were whipping girls with straps on their “bare bottoms.” She included the testimony of two students. She was dismissed.
At least 15 children died or went missing at the Ermineskin school, according to the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation, in the course of its history.
Victor Buffalo was 7 years old when he was sent to the Ermineskin school and spoke no English. He told The Washington Post that school administrators withheld food as punishment and whipped him frequently for speaking his native Cree.
After one such beating in front of his friends, Buffalo, the former chief of the Samson Cree Nation in Alberta, retreated to a nearby bathroom to cry — not because he was in physical pain, he said, but because his mother and father weren’t there to care for him.
Buffalo said that his relationship with his parents, who also attended residential schools, was strained for many decades after he left the school in 1961. Severing ties to Indigenous culture, including familial ones, was an aim of the system.
“The greatest thing that we lost was love,” said Buffalo, who will be present when Francis visits Maskwacis. “The love of a family, the love of a mother, the love of a father.” | 2022-07-25T12:18:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pope Francis to apologize to Canada's residential school survivors during trip - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/pope-francis-apology-canada-residential-homes/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/pope-francis-apology-canada-residential-homes/ |
A law enforcement official stands next to a picture of Katelyn McClure and Johnny Bobbitt during a 2018 news conference. A New Jersey judge sentenced McClure to one year and one day in prison for her role in a scam that raised $400,000 using a fake story about Bobbitt. (Seth Wenig/AP)
Her claim that she’d run out of gas on Interstate 95, where the homeless veteran came to her rescue, went viral in 2017. But after all the media frenzy, it turned out to be mostly bogus — and a huge chunk of the funds raised had been used on a luxury car, clothes, vacations and trips to casinos, federal prosecutors said. Now, McClure has been sentenced for her role in the three-person scheme — one that the Justice Department called “a GoFundMe scam that gained nationwide attention.”
GoFundMe scammer pleads guilty after defrauding donors who thought they were helping homeless vet
But the campaign gained widespread attention — including in an article from The Washington Post — and people soon donated over $400,000. The couple had informed Bobbitt about the campaign in November 2017, when about $1,500 had been raised, according to court records. They later set up a bank account for the veteran and deposited $25,000 of the GoFundMe proceeds, prosecutors said.
Investors paid thousands for rare wines. It was a scam, feds say. | 2022-07-25T12:31:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kate McClure sentenced for role in GoFundMe scam that swindled $400,000 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/25/kate-mcclure-gofundme-scam/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/25/kate-mcclure-gofundme-scam/ |
Fariha Róisín’s ‘Who Is Wellness For?’ explores the cultural appropriation and commodification of a basic need — and how that can be changed
Review by Sylvia Chan-Malik
(Rebecca Storm; Harper Wave)
Wellness is something we all want — to be well, even as the world crumbles around us. But as shows such as “The White Lotus” and “Nine Perfect Strangers” demonstrate, wellness has become a commodity, geared toward the wealthy, White and able-bodied, who seek to shiatsu and savasana their way out of late-capitalism though mindfulness, dewy skin and a Pilates-sculpted core. For less-privileged others, wellness is an unattainable luxury, gatekept by racism, ableism and fatphobia, and thus cordoned off from those who need it most, e.g. the poor, workers, queer and trans folks, and people of color. Indeed, as online essays on toxic wellness culture and recent books like Kerri Kelly’s “American Detox” and Dalia Kinsey’s “Decolonizing Wellness” argue, wellness is not well.
Fariha Róisín’s new book, “Who Is Wellness For? An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind,” tracks the author’s “own personal experience of needing wellness,” while simultaneously examining the wellness industrial complex and its failures. Róisín, author of the poetry collection “How to Cure a Ghost” (2019) and the novel “Like a Bird” (2020), identifies as a queer Bangladeshi Muslim, part of a new generation of Black and Brown women of color writers who — following in the tradition of Black feminist poet-scholar-activists such as Audre Lorde, June Jordan and bell hooks (all of whom Róisín names as heroes) — take up themes of trauma and identity through a social justice lens. For Róisín, healing and self-discovery are closely tied to collective reckonings with lived legacies of racism and colonialism, as well as sexism and homophobia. As “Who Is Wellness For?” argues, healing is an integral — if not the most — important step toward liberation from such legacies.
Wellness is an industry, a journey and now a $5,000-a-year club
Róisín’s journey begins with her desire to heal from her mentally ill mother’s psychological, physical and sexual abuse, which she describes in the book’s opening as leaving her body “forever in a state of distress.” The abuse is compounded by the author’s ever-increasing awareness of being a queer Brown Muslim woman in a White settler-colonial world. Róisín, who grew up in Australia, and later moved to Montreal and New York City, writes harrowingly of her inability to escape — as she quotes from psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk’s best-selling title, “The Body Keeps the Score.”
Soon, she encounters her trauma not only in her thoughts, but in her body — as she struggles with severe body dysmorphia and irritable bowel syndrome — and her relationships, which are fraught with manipulation and harm. Yet the search for “wellness” continually brings Róisín to spaces that amplify her trauma — an all-White yoga studio in Montreal, a massage therapist who speaks dismissively of Dylan Farrow’s abuse allegations, toxic female friendships.
The book takes readers through what Róisín describes as the four aspects of wellness — mind, body, self-care and justice. Through each section, she acts simultaneously as subject and scholar, sharing her own stories of struggle and healing, which are peppered through with academic and scholarly references. This works well at times, for example when Róisín describes how early in her healing journey, she encounters yoga, surmising that she is drawn to it at age 13 because “it was the closest tangible understanding that I had to being South Asian.” While there have been numerous critiques of yoga’s cultural appropriation (and corruption) by White practitioners in the West, “Who Is Wellness For?” astutely takes such criticism a step further, highlighting how British colonizers approved of particular forms of yoga as practiced by upper caste Indians, while displacing those of the homeless and poor.
At other times, however, Róisín’s narrative shifts can be jarring, moving abruptly between her personal experience and academic analysis. And while the book is critical of the wellness industry’s decontextualization of its practices’ cultural, ethnic and spiritual origins, Róisín herself often cites Black and Indigenous women scholars and writers (such as Lorde, Jordan, and hooks, as well as Robin Wall Kimmerer, Winona LaDuke and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson) with little engagement with the histories of violence and struggle that produced their desire to heal. Further, while being Muslim is a central part of Róisín’s identity, the book gives short shrift to Islam, in particular its vast teachings on holistic health and healing, as well as its rich history of liberation for Black Americans.
So, who is wellness for? Róisín’s poignant response to her own question is that our healing must be collective, accessible and available to all: “Wellness isn’t for anyone if it isn’t for everyone. Otherwise, it’s a paradox.” This may be the book’s most important takeaway — that what we need isn’t “wellness,” but a justice-based ethos of reciprocity, compassion and care.
Sylvia Chan-Malik is an associate professor of American studies and women and gender studies at Rutgers University and the author of “Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color and American Islam.”
Who Is Wellness For?
An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind
By Fariha Róisín
Harper Wave. 320 pp. $26.99 | 2022-07-25T12:36:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Who is wellness for? by Fariha Róisín book review - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/07/25/wellness-book-privilege/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/07/25/wellness-book-privilege/ |
But as the hearings of the House Select Committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol of Jan. 6, 2021 have demonstrated, practically no one from the Trump campaign, nor anyone in the administration who knew anything about elections, believed Trump’s lies, which is why he wound up bringing in outsiders to make his case. That means that anyone eligible for a future Trump administration job is either a sycophant willing to pretend to believe dangerous nonsense, or a fool who believes dangerous nonsense after it’s been revealed that those who propagated it didn’t even believe it.
The third qualification appears to favor people preparing to carry out extreme conservative policies — not things Trump cares about at all, but goals that movement conservatives such as former Senator Jim DeMint, whom Swan reports is involved in one of the groups vetting names, have tried and failed to accomplish in Republican administrations from at least Ronald Reagan through Trump.
Unfortunately, most of what Trump and his allies appear to be preparing for is a fight against the law and the constitutional order. Trump has never understood that presidents are not dictators, and he appeared to take it personally whenever anyone in the political system resisted his preferences — not realizing that pushback from the executive branch, the judiciary and Congress was not personally directed at him, but was part of how diverse legitimate interests are represented within a democratic government. Therefore, what Trump and his allies are attempting to do is likely to end either with the kinds of fiascos and failures that wound up with Trump impeached twice — or with his victory over the republic and the end of Constitutional government. | 2022-07-25T13:20:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump Is Plotting to Blow Up the Constitution - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/trump-is-plotting-to-blow-up-the-constitution/2022/07/25/4fc3429e-0c16-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/trump-is-plotting-to-blow-up-the-constitution/2022/07/25/4fc3429e-0c16-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
How ‘ghosting’ is linked to mental health
The term refers to when a person cuts you off from all online communication. Here’s what I learned in my study of 76 college students.
Perspective by Royette T. Dubar
Worried about your kids’ screen time? Check your own first.
In some instances, participants opted to ghost if they thought meeting with the person would stir up emotional or sexual feelings they were not ready to pursue: “People are afraid of something becoming too much … the fact that the relationship is somehow getting to the next level.”
That said, recent data suggests that U.S. adults generally perceive breaking up through email, text or social media as unacceptable, and prefer an in-person break-up conversation.
According to one 19-year-old woman: “I think it’s rare for there to be open conversation about how you’re truly feeling [about] what you want out of a situation. … I think hookup culture is really toxic in fostering honest communication.”
Our research supports the idea that ghosting can have negative consequences for mental health. Short term, many of those ghosted felt overwhelming rejection and confusion. They reported feelings of low self-worth and self-esteem. Part of the problem is the lack of clarity — not knowing why communication abruptly stopped. Sometimes, an element of paranoia ensues as the ghostee tries to make sense of the situation.
20 minutes of vigorous exercise daily works wonders for teens
“It can be partly positive for the ghostee because they can realize some of the shortcomings they have, and they may change it,” an 18-year-old woman said.
Also emerging from our discussions: The feeling that ghosters may become stunted in their personal growth. From a 20-year-old man: “It can [become] a habit. And it becomes part of your behavior, and that’s how you think you should end a relationship with someone. … I feel like a lot of people are serial ghosters, like that’s the only way they know how to deal with people.”
Why the children's mental health crisis predates the pandemic | 2022-07-25T13:20:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How ‘ghosting’ is linked to mental health - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/25/ghosting-college-mental-health/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/25/ghosting-college-mental-health/ |
Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! Maxine is back from vacation today and taking the reins of the newsletter again. Send tips and advice for surviving D.C.'s heat and humidity to maxine.joselow@washpost.com. But first:
Other countries have declared climate emergencies. They've been ‘wholly symbolic,’ activists say.
In June 2019, the Canadian government declared a national climate emergency, calling the Earth's rapid warming a “real and urgent crisis” for the country and the planet.
The next day, the same government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which would triple the amount of crude oil that moves from the Alberta tar sands to the Pacific Coast for shipment around the world.
That may seem like a contradiction. But environmental activists say that climate emergency declarations in 39 countries around the world — including Canada, Japan and the entire European Union — have been more about virtue signaling than substance.
However, activists argue that President Biden, who is considering declaring a climate emergency in the coming weeks, could issue a declaration that temporarily unlocks new powers to bolster clean energy and curb investments in fossil fuels.
“Canada's climate emergency declaration was wholly symbolic,” Eddy Pérez, international climate diplomacy manager at Climate Action Network Canada, said in a text message. “Declaring a climate emergency in Canada didn't come with new powers or the ability for the federal government to do more. It hasn't stopped Canada's support for fossil fuels.”
But Pérez, like other climate activists interviewed for this report, said he would welcome a climate emergency declaration from Biden.
“If by declaring a climate emergency President Biden helps bring back the U.S. from its current path toward climate failure, with a Congress kidnapped by fossil fuel interests, then of course I'd support it,” he said.
‘Climate action in name only’
In April 2019, after 10 days of climate protests, Britain's Parliament voted to declare a climate emergency, making the United Kingdom the first country to do so.
But today, as the U.K. swelters under an extreme heat wave, activists say the government has yet to release a credible plan for reaching its goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
“Unless these declarations are backed by real plans and concrete policies that rapidly reduce emissions, they risk invoking climate action in name only,” Joanne Etherton, head of climate at ClientEarth, a London-based environmental law group, said in an email.
Following in the U.K.'s footsteps, 39 countries and thousands of towns, cities, and counties have issued their own climate emergency declarations.
In the United States, such a statement has been adopted by more than 190 local governments, according to Climate Mobilization, an advocacy group.
New York became the largest city in the world to endorse such a measure in June 2019.
“I’ve not seen any tangible evidence that NYC’s declaration of a climate emergency had any discernible policy impacts. It was symbolic and ‘feel-good,’” Eddie Bautista, executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, said in an email.
“Of course, that is a local dynamic,” he added. “At the federal level, we join our allies across the country demanding a national climate emergency declaration.”
If Biden declared a national climate emergency, he could unlock executive authority to tackle the climate crisis, even as ambitious climate legislation appears doomed in Congress, according to activists and some Democrats.
In a February report, the Center for Biological Diversity argued that an emergency declaration would empower Biden to take the following steps:
Halt crude oil exports, which would cut greenhouse gas emissions up to 165 million tons per year — the equivalent of shuttering 42 coal-fired power plants.
Direct Defense Department funds toward the construction of renewable energy systems, energy-efficient housing, cooling stations and wildfire barriers.
Direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to build clean energy projects in communities affected by a climate disaster, rather than rebuilding fossil fuel infrastructure that was damaged by the disaster.
Expand use of the Defense Production Act to bolster electric transportation, including public buses, high-speed rail and passenger vehicles.
“This is an emergency, by any definition, and Biden’s powers to address it are real, not symbolic,” Jean Su, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an email. “If he deploys every single one of them, he can slow this runaway climate catastrophe.”
On Saturday, activists demonstrated outside White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain’s Maryland home to demand a climate emergency declaration:
A White House spokesman declined to comment on a potential climate emergency declaration. But a White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, said the administration would announce new initiatives this week to mitigate wildfire risk and protect communities from extreme heat.
Heat indexes soar above 100 in the Northeast, and it’s not over yet
More than 100 million Americans sweltered under heat alerts over the weekend, with heat indexes across the Northeast reaching triple digits, Meena Venkataramanan, Marisa Iati and Brittany Shammas report for The Washington Post.
The exceptional heat has been tied to increased susceptibility to illness. Officials urged people to stay hydrated and watch for signs of heat-related illness, as people flocked to pools and cooling centers in cities stretching from Boston to D.C.
London hit 104 degrees. That’s like 129 in Phoenix.
Temperatures have been soaring across the globe this month, with highs in London and Hamburg in northern Germany reaching 104 degrees — a number that seemed unthinkable in previous generations, Naema Ahmed, John Muyskens, Kevin Schaul and Jason Samenow report for The Post.
Compared to large areas of the western and central United States that are arid, landlocked and routinely exceed 105 degrees, the average July temperatures in those parts of Europe rarely go above mid-70s.
To put these records in context, The Post and the nonprofit Climate Central calculated what the high temperatures would feel like in U.S. cities:
Last week, Madrid matched its highest temperature on record of 105 degrees and experienced its hottest night ever at 79.1 degrees. In a country where only one-third of homes have air conditioning, many people congregated in air-conditioned workplaces and public spaces.
Temperatures remained warm throughout the night. Elevated nighttime temperatures can make it difficult for people to cool down and can lead to heat exhaustion, strokes and death. In the past week, nearly 900 people in Spain have died of heat-related illnesses.
Dublin set an all-time record this month at 91.4 degrees, Ireland's highest temperature in the 21st century. People flocked to beaches to cool down, and at least one wildfire appeared about 15 miles south of the Irish capital. The heat wave was exceptional but short-lived, with rainfall returning to the region this week.
Forest Service announces emergency action to save sequoias from wildfires
The Forest Service on Friday said it is taking emergency steps to save California’s giant sequoia trees from the increasing threat of wildfires by speeding up projects to clear brush that serves as fuel for the blazes, Brian Melley reports for the Associated Press.
The agency said it would bypass some environmental reviews for such projects, potentially shaving years off the normal approval process for cutting smaller trees in national forests and using prescribed burns to reduce brush.
Already, wildfires have killed up to 20 percent of the world’s largest trees over the past two years. The agency's move could accelerate efforts to protect sequoias in 12 groves spread across Sequoia National Forest and Sierra National Forest.
The agency’s announcement is among a growing list of efforts to save the iconic species that can live up to 3,000 years. The Save Our Sequoias Act, which was introduced by a bipartisan group of House lawmakers this year, also includes a provision to accelerate environmental reviews like the Forest Service plan.
The trees are natural carbon sinks, meaning they can lock away massive amounts of planet-warming gas. But when they burn, much of the sequestered carbon dioxide is released back into the atmosphere, contributing to further warming.
On Wednesday: The House Natural Resources Committee will mark up the Environmental Justice For All Act from Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.). The measure would direct agencies to follow certain environmental justice standards while creating new funding programs to address the disproportionate effects of climate change on front-line communities.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing to discuss the status of carbon capture, utilization and storage projects in the United States. The panel will also vote on Joseph Goffman's nomination to lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s air office, a pivotal role for the Biden administration's climate agenda.
If the committee deadlocks 10-10 over Goffman's nomination, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) could file a petition to discharge the nomination to the full Senate.
On Thursday: The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will meet to examine pathways to prevent corporate polluters from obtaining a contract with the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power will hold a hearing on several pending bills, including a measure that would require the Energy Department to boost the domestic capacity of high-assay, low-enriched uranium, which is used in nuclear power plants.
The House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on the Environment will hold a hearing to investigate whether aviation fuel containing lead is polluting the air and harming children’s health.
Wildfire explodes beyond 14,000 acres near Yosemite National Park — Praveena Somasundaram for The Post
Fahrenheit 121: for a billion people, the great heat wave is here — Dhruv Khullar for the New Yorker
How the government is failing Americans uprooted by calamity — Christopher Flavelle for the New York Times
Al Gore compares ‘climate deniers’ to Uvalde police officers — David Cohen for Politico | 2022-07-25T13:21:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Climate emergencies in other countries have been 'wholly symbolic,' activists say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/25/climate-emergencies-other-countries-have-been-wholly-symbolic-activists-say/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/25/climate-emergencies-other-countries-have-been-wholly-symbolic-activists-say/ |
(Steve Luciano/AP)
The NFL announced Monday that it will launch a direct-to-consumer streaming service ahead of the 2022 season, the latest digital move by the country’s most popular and most watched league.
NFL Plus will offer live in-market and prime-time games, as well as some NFL Network shows on demand and NFL Films archives. The NFL Plus app will make live games available on phones and tablets, but they cannot be streamed on television.
The service will be tiered, with the basic package available for $5 per month or $40 per year. A second tier will available for $10 per month or $80 per year; that includes condensed game replays and the “All-22” coaches’ film.
Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s chief media and business officer, said that when the NFL launched its NFL Network and RedZone channels, it believed there was unfilled demand for NFL content on cable TV. “Pay TV was dominant then,” he said. “We feel there’s more room in digital now.”
The content available on NFL Plus is also dependent on what the league sells to other companies. Verizon used to pay for a package of in-market streaming rights similar to what NFL Plus will offer, but that deal was not renewed.
The league is also continuing negotiations with several of the streaming platforms to replace DirecTV as the home of NFL Sunday Ticket, the league’s package of out-of-market Sunday games, beginning in 2023. Rolapp said he believed a deal on Sunday Ticket would come before the end of the year but declined to comment on any specifics.
Interested bidders include Amazon, Apple, ESPN’s streaming service and Google-owned YouTube. The New York Times reported over the weekend that Google had made an offer. According to Sports Business Journal, Amazon and Apple are willing to spend significantly more on the package than ESPN is. What the NFL ultimately does with its rights has an outsize impact across the rapidly evolving media landscape because of its popularity — 75 of the top 100 TV broadcasts in 2021 were NFL games.
Rolapp said the NFL looks at streaming services as it did cable in the 1980s, when it began with smaller deals at networks such as ESPN. When the league signed a new round of media deals last year worth some $100 billion over the next decade, it stuck with traditional broadcasters and cable TV for most of its games but gave its Thursday night package to Amazon.
What the NFL’s new TV deal means for the league, fans and networks
“As pay TV got bigger, we committed a few more games [in the 1980s],” Rolapp said. “Now reach is more complicated, and you’ve seen the migration of some rights. We took a step with ‘Thursday Night Football,’ similar to what we did with ESPN years ago. Now you have the growth of these streaming platforms, and you’ll see an evolution over time.”
The NFL also has explored selling stakes in its media businesses, including NFL Network and RedZone. NFL Plus now theoretically could be part of those discussions as well. | 2022-07-25T13:21:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFL Plus streaming service will offer live games on phones, tablets - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/nfl-plus-streaming-service-live-games/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/nfl-plus-streaming-service-live-games/ |
Shira Rubin
A sign at the entrance of a Russian branch of the Jewish Agency for Israel, in Moscow. (Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters)
JERUSALEM — The Israeli government is pushing back against moves by Moscow to outlaw the private agency that helps Russian Jews immigrate to Israel, ramping up tensions between the two uneasy allies, which have worsened since the invasion of Ukraine in February.
A Russian court is expected this week to approve a government request to shut down the Jewish Agency for Israel, a private charity closely affiliated with the Israeli government. Prime Minister Yair Lapid has dispatched an emergency delegation to discuss the case with Russian officials, but that group was still waiting Monday for Moscow to grant it permission to travel.
The Jewish Agency has been vital to helping more than 238,000 Jews immigrate from Russia since 1989. The group has also facilitated a surge of 16,000 immigrants since the war in Ukraine began and 37,000 more who entered Israel on tourist visas and are either seeking residency status or waiting out the war.
Israel throws its weight behind Ukraine but is wary of provoking Russia
Israel said it was preparing a range of retaliatory actions it would consider if Russia follows through with the ban, although officials would not specify what they were.
“We’re in a battle here. This isn’t shutting down McDonald’s,” a senior Israeli official told the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth. “We won’t accept this silently.”
The Russian Ministry of Justice, which made the request to shutter the agency, did not specify its issues with the group, only that it was in “violation of Russian law in carrying out its activities.”
A Jewish Agency official said the Russians seemed be characterizing the agency’s routine collection of immigrants’ personal data as a violation of privacy laws, an accusation he characterized as an obvious pretense.
“It’s routine paperwork. No one is hiding it. It’s what the Jewish Agency has always done,” said the official, who asked not to be identified to discuss the sensitive case. “It’s something absurd. And it shows us that there are ulterior motives.”
The official speculated that the highly unusual move could be due to a variety of reasons: a broader Russian crackdown on foreign-linked organizations, retaliation against Israel’s support of Ukraine or even an expansion of the kind of “extortion” that targeted the Jewish Agency in the past. Russian officials have harassed Jewish Agency field officers before the cases were settled to show “us who’s the boss,” the official said.
It could also potentially be an internal Russian political rivalry, in which one part of the government is using the Jewish Agency as a political pawn to challenge another.
He said Russia has not officially asked it to curtail its operations and that the group continues to work normally. Another 600,000 Russians remain eligible to immigrate under Israel’s right-of-return laws, the agency estimates.
Many in Israel see Moscow’s move as retaliation for Israel’s increasingly vocal stance against the invasion.
Then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett condemned the violence in Ukraine but held back from direct criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite pressure from Washington and other Western allies. Instead, Bennett put himself forward as a mediator, talking to both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and making one emergency trip to Moscow and Berlin for talks.
But Lapid, who took over as interim prime minister earlier this month when Israel’s coalition government collapsed, has been more critical. In April, Moscow slammed Lapid, then foreign minister, for overseeing Israel’s vote to kick Russia off the U.N. Human Rights Council and then making “anti-Russian” comments by condemning the “killing of innocent civilians” in an “unjustified invasion.”
The two countries also engaged in a public spat in May after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed Zelensky’s Jewish faith by claiming that “Hitler also had Jewish blood” — a discredited antisemitic claim.
Lapid called the remarks “both unforgivable and outrageous.” Putin later apologized for Lavrov’s statements in a call with Bennett, according to the prime minister’s office.
Israel’s stance against the war in Ukraine has been complicated from the beginning by its fraught relationship with Russia, which it relies on for two key priorities, allowing Russian Jews to emigrate and its freedom to strike Iranian-backed forces in Syria.
Israel conducts regular airstrikes — officially unacknowledged — against militia sites in Syria. Most of the attacks don’t prompt Russian comment, although Moscow condemned one attack attributed to Israel on the Damascus airport last month. In 2018, Russia accused Israel of shooting down a Russian military plane near the Syrian coast, which resulted in the death of 15 on board.
The competing needs have prompted a debate here between those who think it is too dangerous to take sides and those, like Lapid, who want the country to fully align with the Western alliance aiding Ukraine. To date, Israel has declined entreaties, most recently from President Biden, to provide weapons to Ukraine.
This is not the first time Russia has seemingly tried to use the Jewish Agency as a pawn in its relations with Israel. In 1996, Moscow temporarily revoked the group’s credentials to work in the country.
Natan Sharansky, an Israeli human rights activist who spend nine years in Soviet prisons as a Jewish “refusenik,” was among those who warned that Israel should not let Russia intimidate it by threatening the agency, a group he helped lead for a decade.
“We must protect our interests in ways that don’t rely on relinquishing our moral positions,” Sharansky wrote Friday in a Facebook post. “The Jewish Agency does very important work in Russia, and I hope it will continue to do so. Nevertheless, it behooves us to remember that Israel knew how to fight for immigration even when the Jewish Agency and all Israeli diplomats were barred from Soviet Russia.” | 2022-07-25T13:22:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Suspension of Jewish Agency increases tensions between Israel and Russia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/israel-russia-jewish-agency-suspension-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/israel-russia-jewish-agency-suspension-ukraine/ |
Britain is to host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of Ukraine, which won the competition in May, organizers have confirmed.
Traditionally, the winner plays host to the following year’s event. But with Ukraine embroiled in a war with Russia, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), organizer of the broadcast, announced last month that the show could not be held there. As Britain was this year’s runner-up, the EBU opened talks with the BBC.
“We’re exceptionally grateful that the BBC has accepted to stage the Eurovision Song Contest in the UK in 2023,” said Eurovision executive supervisor Martin Österdahl in a statement Monday.
The statement added that “regrettably, next year’s event could not be held in Ukraine for safety and security reasons”.
Ukrainian band wins Eurovision Song Contest as war rages back home
Ukraine’s national broadcaster, UA: PBC, had earlier expressed disappointment at the EBU’s decision. But in Monday’s statement, Mykola Chernotytskyi, head of the broadcaster’s managing board, said they were “grateful to our BBC partners for showing solidarity with us.”
Cheers for Ukraine at Washington’s Eurovision watch party
Ukrainian band Kalush Orchestra took the top prize at this year’s Eurovision — the world’s longest-running televised music contest — in Turin, Italy, after a huge show of public support. Britain’s Sam Ryder came second.
The BBC will now begin the search for a host city for next year. It says prospective candidates will have to prove they have the right facilities and go through a bidding process. Glasgow and Manchester have expressed interest while Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham, Aberdeen, London, Brighton, Belfast and Cardiff could also be in the running.
The Eurovision final traditionally draws tens of millions of viewers from around the world, and doubles as a promotional vehicle for the host city. | 2022-07-25T13:22:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Britain, BBC set to host 2023 Eurovision on behalf of Ukraine due to war - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/uk-host-eurovision-ukraine-war/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/uk-host-eurovision-ukraine-war/ |
The new, one-ounce coin goes on sale as public confidence in the country’s currency plummets
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor John Mangudya holds a sample of a gold coin at the launch in Harare, Zimbabwe, on July 25, 2022. (Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP)
With inflation soaring in Zimbabwe and the country’s currency in free-fall as people abandon it for the U.S. dollar, the government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa is fighting back with a novel strategy: gold coins.
Starting Monday, Zimbabwe is selling one-ounce, 22-carat gold coins bearing an image of Victoria Falls, its world-famous natural wonder. Each has a serial number, comes with a certificate and will be sold at a price “based on the prevailing international price of gold and the cost of production,” the central bank said in its announcement on July 4.
The coins will be tradable both in Zimbabwe and overseas, the bank said, and can be exchanged for cash. The goal is to reduce the quantity of Zimbabwe dollars in circulation to eventually restore its value.
What’s unknown is whether the approach has any real chance of success.
While gold is traditionally the ideal hedge against inflation and general economic uncertainty, no country has previously tried to tackle a weakening currency by selling gold coins. “In that sense, it is unusual,” said Carlos Caceres, the International Monetary Fund’s representative to Zimbabwe.
And with gold trading at $1,710 per troy ounce late last week, institutional investors may be the coins’ principal buyers.
“No ordinary person will be able to afford it,” said Prosper Chitambara, a senior researcher at the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe. “Right now, Zimbabweans are living hand-to-mouth.”
Economic crises are nothing new to people in the southern African nation, who for more than two decades have faced hyperinflation, food and fuel shortages, staggering unemployment and other hardships.
For many, the current crisis recalls the late 2000s under then-president Robert Mugabe. Annual inflation hit a record 489 billion percent in September 2008, and shoppers carried garbage bags full of bank notes to buy groceries.
Mugabe’s government was forced to print a trillion-dollar note, the largest in world history, before the country abandoned its currency in 2015 for the U.S. dollar. Mugabe was forced to resign in 2017, and the Zim dollar, as it is known, was reintroduced two years later. But as confidence in it again falls, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube has warned that businesses refusing to accept the currency from customers could lose their trading licenses.
This year the Zim dollar has already lost roughly 72 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar. Annual inflation reached triple digits in May, climbing again in June to 192 percent even as interest rates more than doubled — to 200 percent from 80 percent.
Chitambara said the government wants sales of the gold coins to moderate high demand for U.S. dollars, a key factor in the local currency’s depreciation. If that happens, in turn reducing some of the excess money supply and easing inflationary pressures, “then it would’ve been a positive experiment,” according to Caceres.
Still, Caceres said, the IMF prefers tried-and-tested tools as it advises member countries on best economic policies. When confronting both inflation and a weakening currency, such tools include raising or cutting interest rates to control inflation and tweaking the amount of money that banks must set aside as reserves.
Most of Zimbabwe’s inflationary pressures emanate from its currency troubles. But rising prices are also being fueled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has sparked a global wave of inflation amid supply shortages of grains and fuel.
On the streets of the capital city of Harare, there isn’t much chatter about the new coin — the Mosi-ao-tunya, the traditional name for the Zambezi River waterfall. It translates to “the smoke that thunders.”
Vendor Trust Muyererwa is focused on his increasingly difficult day-to-day life.
“In January, I would pay $10 U.S. to buy a pack of mealie meal, cooking oil, sugar, and salt and this would push me through the month,” said Muyererwa, 28. “Now, a bottle of cooking oil costs $5 U.S., and I cannot buy much more” with the remainder.
Many people survive via a parallel, illegal market, with currency traders waiting on street corners and outside shopping centers waving bundles of U.S. dollars as well as Zim dollars.
Teachers and nurses went on strike in June and demanded that half their salaries be paid in U.S. dollars to offset the tumbling local currency. Retailers often are raising prices every other day, and more of them are starting to quote prices in U.S. dollars. The Zimbabwe central bank last month offered bakers access to foreign currency to keep down the price of bread.
Hilda Musungu, 33, has started charging U.S. dollars for the traditional meals she sells from her sidewalk stand because “no wants the Zimbabwean dollar anymore.”
“Last December, $200 U.S. was enough for me to buy food packs to sell the whole day,” she explained. The cost has climbed to $270 U.S., and she has increased her own prices in turn. “Sadly, fewer people are now coming to our place.”
Bernard Mpofu in Harare contributed to this report. | 2022-07-25T13:50:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Zimbabwe starts selling gold coins to fight inflation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/zimbabwe-gold-coin-inflation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/zimbabwe-gold-coin-inflation/ |
Len Oliver, soccer Hall of Famer and D.C. coaching mentor, dies at 88
Len Oliver in 2014. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)
Len Oliver, a National Soccer Hall of Fame member who mentored thousands of aspiring coaches and was a fixture in the D.C.-area soccer scene for decades, died Sunday in Washington. He was 88.
His daughter Erika Jerram said the cause was complications from a recent stroke.
In 2016, Mr. Oliver pledged, upon death, to donate his brain and spinal cord to the Concussion Legacy Foundation, which studies brain trauma in former athletes.
At the time, he was believed to be the oldest person to decide to donate to the foundation. Even though he did not have symptoms consistent with those of former athletes who developed dementia and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), Mr. Oliver stressed the importance of researchers examining brains of those who competed many years before the lasting effects of head injuries became prevalent.
“Take an old guy. Take a guy who has been in the sport his entire life and take a look,” he said in 2016. “If there’s nothing there, good.”
Mr. Oliver was a regular at Washington Diplomats matches at RFK Stadium in the 1970s and became a D.C. United season ticket holder when Major League Soccer launched in 1996. At the stadium, he often ran into former pupils who took his national coaching course. Over more than 30 years, some 5,000 passed his courses and entered youth coaching ranks.
“That is the most wonderful part of teaching: People come up and say, ‘I took your course and it made a difference in what I do in soccer,’ ” Mr. Oliver said in 2014.
He was a longtime director of coaching for DC Stoddert Soccer, a large youth organization now known as DC Soccer Club.
To further the career of youth players, he often sent handwritten letters of recommendation to college coaches, former Georgetown men’s coach Keith Tabatznik said. “Maybe the last of his kind in that regard,” Tabatznik said.
Even after leaving Georgetown, Tabatznik said, he continued receiving those notes, because Mr. Oliver “knew I might be able to help the kid.”
Mr. Oliver was a native of Philadelphia, where he and his twin brother, Jim, played soccer in a rundown neighborhood cemetery. After graduating from Temple University in 1955, he served in the U.S. Army and, while stationed overseas, represented an armed forces soccer team that toured Europe.
Shortly after arriving at a U.S. base in Bad Aibling, Germany, Mr. Oliver wandered into town and found everyone at the local field. After the game, he introduced himself to the organizers and said, “I play football!”
They laughed and said, “No way, you’re an ‘Ami’ [American] — you mean American football,” and mimed a quarterback throwing a pass.
He insisted, “No, I play football,” pointing to the soccer ball.
His dribbling impressed the group, so he was told he could play for the B team.
The following week, he scored six goals and was promoted to the A squad.
Upon returning stateside, Mr. Oliver played in the semipro American Soccer League for teams such as the Philadelphia Uhrik Truckers and Baltimore Pompeii. As part of the arrangement to play in Baltimore, he was promised that, after every match, he could eat as many steamed crabs as he wanted for no charge at Bud Paolino’s Restaurant on East Lombard Street.
When the Baltimore club folded, he joined Washington’s Central Valet.
Mr. Oliver was an alternate on the 1952 U.S. Olympic team. Injuries and an illness ended his hopes of making the 1956 and ’60 squads, respectively. He played on the 1963 Pan American Games team in Brazil.
He moved to Washington in 1960 to take a job with the CIA. He held a graduate degree from the University of Maryland and a PhD from the University of Chicago. After working for the National Endowment for the Humanities, he launched Oliver Associates, which trained leaders in national trade unions.
Mr. Oliver stopped playing competitive soccer in 1966 but continued competing in adult leagues.
“He was a midfielder on the field and in life, and loved directing the play from the center of the action,” his daughter Erika said. “He played wherever and for whatever team would let him.”
He earned the highest U.S. coaching licenses, then taught courses that prepared others for the field.
“He never really retired,” his wife, Eleanor, said. “His clientele did.”
In 1981, Mr. Oliver was inducted into the Hall of Fame at Temple, where he was a three-time all-American in soccer and captained the baseball team.
In 1996, he was elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame. Five years later, he founded the Virginia-DC Soccer Hall of Fame and was a member of the first class of inductees.
“I just loved the game,” he wrote in 2019. “By continuing to seek any opportunity to play and just staying in our game of soccer, I achieved my goals. But the true rewards are the events and people I met along the way.”
Survivors include his wife of 60 years, the former Eleanor Wahlbrinck; two daughters, Erika and Britt-Karin; and two granddaughters. Details of a memorial service are pending. | 2022-07-25T14:38:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Len Oliver, Washington, D.C., soccer luminary, dies at 88 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/len-oliver-soccer-washington-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/len-oliver-soccer-washington-dies/ |
Boeing workers at 3 St. Louis-area factories vote to strike
2,500 members of the Machinists and Aerospace Workers union are prepared to walk out Aug. 1 after rejecting the planemaker’s wage and 401(k) offers
Boeing workers at three plants in the St. Louis area plan to go on strike Aug. 1. The 2,500 workers are represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837. (Reed Saxon/AP)
Nearly 2,500 Boeing workers at three St. Louis-area factories are prepared to go on strike next month, union officials say, after members voted down the planemaker’s latest contract offer.
The strike is set to begin Aug. 1, according to an announcement Sunday by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837.
The company offered a 401(k) match of up to 10 percent, wage increases of 4 and 3 percent in the second year of the contract, and ratification bonuses, according to a contract summary published by the union. But workers felt that the company’s proposed 401(k) support was insufficient in comparison to the pension benefits that were taken away years ago, according to an unsigned statement from the union.
“Boeing previously took away a pension from our members, and now the company is unwilling to adequately compensate our members’ 401(k) plan,” the union wrote in an unsigned statement. “We will not allow this company to put our members’ hard-earned retirements in jeopardy.”
Company spokespersons did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Monday.
The St. Louis factories are part of Boeing’s Arlington, Va.-based defense unit. They produce weaponry and military aircraft including the F-15 Eagle and F-18 Hornet fighter jets, the T-7 Red Hawk training jet, and the MQ-25 refueling drone. | 2022-07-25T14:52:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Boeing workers vote to strike at 3 St. Louis-area plants - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/25/boeing-union-strike-st-louis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/25/boeing-union-strike-st-louis/ |
Photos by April Greer
Many Americans are reconsidering their relationship to alcohol. But if we drink less, is that automatically a good thing?
As I write this, I’m sipping two drinks. One is a classic gin and tonic. The other is a tonic mixed with a “spirit” called Pentire Seaward. I write “spirit” in quotes because while Pentire Seaward’s ingredients list includes numerous items — sea rosemary, woodruff, sea buckthorn, pink grapefruit, seaweed, orange juice concentrate, tartaric acid — that list does not include alcohol. The label doesn’t actually use the word gin (it’s a “botanical non-alcoholic spirit”), but I will, in quotes: This is an alcohol-free “gin.” At first I was certain I could taste the difference between the gin and tonic and the “gin” and tonic, but then I got deep into writing and the glasses got mixed up on my desk, and now I’m not totally sure which is which.
Mustard. Honey. Hot sauce. Welcome to the era of surprisingly specific expertise.
American connoisseurs have traditionally stayed away from German wine. A new generation of producers — and global warming — is changing that.
This sort of confusion mirrors how I’ve felt the past few months as I’ve delved into the complex dynamics at play with Americans and their drinking. For a few years now, we’ve been hearing a lot about the fact that millennials and Gen Z drink much less than older generations, about the growing “sober-curious” movement, about large numbers of people reconsidering their relationship to alcohol, about Dry January, about the explosion of adult nonalcoholic beverages, about the legalization of cannabis and people choosing to go “Cali sober,” about the dubious wellness claims surrounding “clean,” “additive-free” or “hangover-free” wine, about mounting scientific evidence on the health risks of drinking, about how “alcohol is the new smoking.” Many in the drinks industry have figured this all might be a fleeting reaction brought on by the pandemic, but it’s starting to look more and more like a lasting cultural shift.
Millennials have sparked a sober revolution, and alcohol brands are starting to notice
Meanwhile, I am still processing how one afternoon I ended up in a store called Boisson, a “dry drinks & mixology shop,” a self-proclaimed “welcoming, judgment-free zone” that seeks to satisfy the “widespread, underserved need for quality alternatives to alcohol.” Boisson has five locations in New York City and has just completed a round of investment that will fund nationwide expansion.
Boisson looks like a really cool, high-end wine and spirits shop — except none of the products contain alcohol. There are rums that aren’t rums, whiskeys that aren’t whiskeys, tequilas that aren’t tequilas. There are shelves of hemp-based drinks, CBD-infused drinks, German riesling that’s been de-alcoholized, orange Aperol-like spritzers, alcohol-free beers from big brands like Heineken and Stella Artois and craft breweries like Athletic Brewing. There’s Katy Perry’s De Soi nonalcoholic aperitifs and Blake Lively’s Betty Buzz nonalcoholic sparkling mixers. The salesperson pointed out the so-called adaptogenics. “If you’re looking for something functional that actually gives you a feeling,” she said, “some of them contain caffeine to give you an upper. Some contain melatonin and mushrooms to actually give you that mellow feeling.” The adaptogenics shelf includes pastel-canned Kin Euphorics (co-founded by model Bella Hadid), supposedly full of nootropics that “support neurotransmitters in charge of mood, pleasure, and reward for a boost of social stamina” and adaptogens “tuning you back into homeostasis.”
“So, what are you into?” the salesperson asked me. My mind went blank. I was out of my element. “Uhhh, I still drink booze,” I said. “I’m kind of just exploring.”
“I, too, am not sober,” she replied. “But I’ve found some really cool alternatives. Would you like to try a gin alternative?” She poured a sample of the Pentire Seaward along with a cucumber-flavored tonic into a plastic cup. I was surprised by how tasty it was. “Now, there are so many different options other than water or O’Doul’s,” she said. “I feel like a part of a movement. It’s so fun because we’re creating the rules here.”
‘I’m not drinking right now.’ You don’t need to have a problem to take a break.
When I spoke with Boisson’s CEO, Nick Bodkins, a few weeks later, he told me that 90 percent of their customers still drink booze. “They’re rethinking their relationship with alcohol. They’re starting families, they’re taking nights off, they’re training for marathons,” Bodkins said. “We’re focused on the experience. Drinking is a social construct. There’s a drinking moment. We want to help people meet that moment. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg of what’s going to come out of this space.”
A number of big brands such as Budweiser, Gordon’s and Tanqueray have already moved into that space. There’s even a trade group — the Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association — that launched in 2021 and currently includes 65 companies. The association’s statistics echo Boisson’s: Nationwide, 80 percent of those who buy adult nonalcoholic beverages still drink alcohol. I left Boisson having joined this demographic, with $119 worth of nonalcoholic wines, aperitifs, spritzers, beers and the Pentire Seaward in my shopping bag.
Even though I have covered wine and spirits for 15 years, have written three books on booze and publish a newsletter called Everyday Drinking — in short, I have as much invested in America’s drinking culture as anyone — I support the idea of rethinking our relationship to alcohol. I’ve seen too many colleagues struggle with alcohol, some even dying prematurely. I have a family member who’s been in recovery for over 30 years. I have a brother who hasn’t consumed alcohol in two decades for religious reasons (and is a connoisseur of nonalcoholic beer). I’m genuinely happy when people find alternative ways to deal with the everyday stress in their lives, whether it’s therapy, exercise, cannabis, meditation, adaptogenics, fake gin or something else.
But I’ll admit to being somewhat bewildered by aspects of this cultural shift. Americans have always had a fraught relationship with alcohol. Throughout history, we’ve loved our cocktails, an American invention. Yet, in the past century, we also lived through the banning of alcohol during Prohibition. When it comes to drinking, we tend to think about things in black and white.
Raise a toast to the all-American history of the cocktail
In this moment, I see something fundamentally different. Even colleagues who for years had been cheerleaders for high-proof alcoholic beverages are now extolling the virtues of being sober-curious and consuming nonalcoholic drinks. I wanted to delve deeper into what exactly was happening and why. I wanted to know, more than a century after America’s original temperance movement, whether this new era of moderation is the gray area on drinking we’ve long sought.
I came of legal drinking age in 1991, only a few months before “60 Minutes” told America that drinking red wine was healthy. In that legendary segment on the “French paradox,” Morley Safer asks: “Why is it that the French, who eat as much — or more — fat than we do, suffer fewer heart attacks?” Safer raises a full glass of red wine and says to the audience: “The answer to the riddle, the explanation of the paradox, may lie in this inviting glass.” He interviews a French researcher who tells him wine consumption may cut the risk of heart attack by as much as 50 percent. “There is no other drug,” says the researcher, “that’s been so efficient as the moderate intake of alcohol.” In the United States, for more than three decades, daily moderate wine intake has been considered two glasses for a man and one for a woman.
The “60 Minutes” segment had a profound effect on mainstream attitudes toward drinking in the United States. Baby boomers who’d previously never considered consuming wine now bought cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel by the case. By 1994, wine consumption in the United States had soared. Per capita consumption would continue to increase annually for the next 22 years. More studies followed that showed it wasn’t just red wine, but any alcoholic beverage that was good for the heart. Those decades would also coincide with the rise of craft beer and a renaissance in craft cocktails. The early 21st century, it seemed, was a golden age of drinking: No other generation of Americans had access to such a vast selection of high-quality wine, spirits or beer. Sure, there were plenty of research studies that began to question how healthy it was to drink even “moderate” amounts of alcoholic beverages. But little slowed the momentum. For most of my adult life, moderate social drinking has been viewed as part of a healthy lifestyle.
Then, in the late 2010s, as the youngest millennials came of drinking age, things suddenly shifted. In January 2018, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services deleted the dietary guidelines that said moderate drinking could lower the risk of heart disease. A few months later, the National Institutes of Health halted a major study meant to prove, once and for all, that moderate alcohol consumption had health benefits — after the New York Times reported that much of the $100 million budget came from five of the world’s largest alcoholic beverage manufacturers.
In September 2018, a bombshell study and commentary published in the Lancet asserted that “no level of alcohol consumption improves health” and cited alcohol as a leading risk factor in worldwide deaths. “These results,” said the study’s authors, “suggest that alcohol control policies might need to be revised worldwide, refocusing on efforts to lower overall population-level consumption.” Another study in the Lancet in 2021 said that 4 percent of global cancer cases in 2020 could be attributed to alcohol. Meanwhile, the position of the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has become clear: Alcohol is unhealthy, and the more you drink, the higher your risk for myriad health conditions.
Separate from science and policy, a slew of sober influencers and self-help books emerged during the late 2010s. First came “This Naked Mind” by Annie Grace in 2015. “The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober” by Catherine Gray followed in 2017. Then, in late 2018, Ruby Warrington published “Sober Curious,” coining a term for the movement and giving people a new way to talk about what they were experiencing, a different path from declaring their problem drinking to be “alcoholism.” (I use “alcoholism” in quotes here because alcohol use disorder is the clinically preferred term now.) The following year, Holly Whitaker published a more pointedly anti-alcohol book, “Quit Like a Woman,” in which drinking is portrayed as useless, toxic and anti-feminist. Whitaker went on to publish an opinion piece in the New York Times with a headline that dismissed Alcoholics Anonymous as “The Patriarchy” and then raised millions to create Tempest, an online alcohol-counseling service geared toward women that costs $59 per month.
All of this messaging seems to be having an effect. In 2017, wine consumption shrank for the first time in more than two decades, and in 2021, according to a Gallup survey, just 60 percent of Americans reported drinking any alcoholic beverages, down from 65 percent in 2019 and tied for the lowest level in two decades. Not only are fewer adults drinking, but those who do are consuming less. In the same Gallup survey, Americans who drink said they consumed 3.6 drinks per week, the lowest level in 20 years. Google searches for the term “nonalcoholic” rose in both 2021 and 2022. Each year millions of Americans participate in Dry January.
In February, Silicon Valley Bank released its State of the Wine Industry Report, as it has for the past 21 years. Usually, this is a rather businesslike document — though recent editions have included a pronounced note of worry that millennials are not drinking as much wine as baby boomers do. This year, however, the report struck a tone of great alarm. The era of “neo-prohibition,” it warned, is upon us: “The anti-alcohol lobby continues to push an agenda ... that starts by concluding that all alcohol consumption is bad and then backs into the research. The cumulative negative health message is eroding public faith in the science that proved moderate wine consumption was healthy.” The report added: “When will the wine industry show up to help promote well-researched, positive science on moderate consumption?”
A newsletter I subscribe to, the Wine Curmudgeon, written by Jeff Siegel, recently posted an article lamenting that the “neo-Prohibitionists have taken control of the discussion, and until the wine business — and its colleagues in beer and spirits — take it back, we’re going to see more of this. And yes, it could come to the point where … drinking will be as much anathema as cigarette smoking.”
Perhaps it’s not surprising that some see the trend away from alcohol as a threat. “In 2017, things started to change. And if you’re an analyst, you have to ask yourself why,” Rob McMillan, founder of Silicon Valley Bank’s wine division and the author of its annual wine report, recently told me. “We took our eye off the ball. If you asked people several years ago, most would say drinking a glass or two of wine a day was good for you.” All of a sudden, McMillan said, “there was the idea that there is no safe amount. That’s become sacrosanct to the anti-alcohol people.” He added: “The prohibition side of this argument will never give up.”
Raising the specter of a new prohibition felt a little extreme. While anti-alcohol Americans have always existed, the people I’d met who espoused neo-moderation and sober-curious and nonalcoholic beverages were not necessarily against booze.
Who are these neo-prohibitionists, I asked McMillan. Could he name them? “The World Health Organization is the leader,” he said. “The Bill Gates Foundation is also putting a lot of money towards this.” It sounded so vague and conspiratorial. Wasn’t that foundation also villainized by anti-vaxxers and covid deniers? And yet, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is clearly credited as funding the 2018 study in the Lancet. “People want to use science as a weapon,” McMillan said. “It’s a blunt instrument. It doesn’t matter what side of the argument you’re on. You can find science that’ll support you.”
Likewise, McMillan is just as angered by the new wave of nebulous health claims made by certain winemakers who toss around meaningless terms such as “clean” or “natural.” (Scout & Cellar says “every bottle of Clean-Crafted™ wine is independently lab-tested”; Dry Farm Wines says its wine is “Independently lab tested for purity.”) A controversial essay in the New York Times in 2019 suggested that “natural” wines were part of self-care and resulted in less-intense hangovers. While cheap, mass market wines do contain a multitude of additives, plenty of quality wines — the ones recommended by wine writers like me — are made without them. Calling a wine “clean” is a little like Don Draper in “Mad Men” convincing his Lucky Strike clients to call their cigarettes “toasted”: “Everybody else’s tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strike’s is toasted.”
Making health claims on alcohol labels is illegal, something that the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) takes seriously. Over the past few months, in the TTB’s own newsletter, there have been numerous articles published on the topic of health claims on alcoholic beverages. “Our regulations don’t define the word ‘clean.’ If someone is going to use the word ‘clean,’ we’re going to look at the label in its entirety,” Tom Hogue, director of congressional and public affairs for the TTB, told me.
McMillan thinks the rise of pseudo-health claims — or some wine companies’ attempts to tap into the $4 trillion wellness market — is the result of the wine industry’s reluctance to engage in the level of label transparency demanded by millennials. “I think the industry has shot itself in the foot by ignoring the transparency that the consumers want,” he said.
Even with the heated talk of neo-prohibitionists, longtime observers of this issue know what happens next: Just when you think one side has the last word, a new study emerges. And it did. A 2021 study in the International Journal of Epidemiology claimed that the analysis and findings in the 2018 Lancet study are flawed. “One cannot now say any amount of alcohol is harmful in the same way as one can say any amount of smoking is harmful,” said study co-author Sir Nicholas Wald, a University College London professor. Along with co-author Chris Frost, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, he argued that there is no scientific model that can dictate exactly how much alcohol it will take to affect one’s health. “One need not feel,” Wald said, “that the only safe alcohol intake is zero.”
On an unseasonably hot spring afternoon in San Francisco’s Mission District, I sat in the bar Chezchez drinking something called a Nogroni — an alcohol-free alternative to my favorite cocktail, the Negroni. The Nogroni is made with a de-alcoholized “vermouth” and a de-alcoholized, red-hued aperitif that’s meant to taste vaguely Campari-like, both made by the international alcoholic beverage company Martini & Rossi. The Nogroni tasted of adult flavors — mostly chamomile and bitter — and cost $14. It was fine, but it wasn’t going to replace my regular Negroni. By this point, I’d consumed a lot of premium-priced nonalcoholic beverages in various settings, and while some I found appealing or interesting, a question kept lingering: Who and what, exactly, are these drinks for?
I was drinking this Nogroni with my friend Camper English, who lives nearby. Like me, English has written about spirits professionally for many years, and he also does some industry consulting. These days, when English organizes private events, as he often does for the tech industry, he insists on a nonalcoholic option. Those drinks, he said, “should look identical to the ones with liquor in it. Nobody can tell who’s drinking because it’s nobody’s business. I want the nondrinkers to feel safe and happy and comfortable.” I found this curious. I want people to feel safe, happy and comfortable, too. But is the pressure to drink in America so great that sober adults need to appear as though they’re having a “real” cocktail in a social situation? If so, that’s an issue that runs much deeper than the sober-curious movement. And if that’s not the case, is this the kind of “problem” often created by a marketing team so they can sell a “solution”?
At Chezchez, English opted for a cocktail with actual booze, a martini variation with aquavit and manzanilla sherry. “I enjoy nonalcoholic cocktails, but I don’t enjoy them as an alternative to alcohol,” he said.
English’s point resonated with me. If I’m not drinking alcohol on any given day, there’s an entire universe of soft drinks, an industry worth well over $200 billion, with choices ranging from sparkling water to flavored kombucha to specialty sodas to fresh-pressed juices to fancy coffees. If I’m at a social function and I choose to drink chocolate milk or a juice box, what do I care what someone else thinks? I finished my Nogroni and ordered a Negroni.
English and I had been on an afternoon bar crawl through the Mission, and were discussing his new book, “Doctors and Distillers: The Remarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine, Spirits, and Cocktails,” published in July. The book is a rollicking, quirky story of alcohol and medicine’s “inextricably intertwined history,” from ancient Greek health treatises on wine to elixirs concocted by medieval monks to blood donors in Ireland receiving a pint of Guinness to American snake-oil salesmen making wildly false health claims about alcoholic tinctures, liniments and tonics to early-20th-century soda fountains where you could buy laudanum and soda spiked with cocaine. “Early on,” he writes, “alcohol and medicine were interchangeable: distilled spirits were called eau-de-vie meaning ‘water of life,’ speaking to their healing (or at least invigorating) powers.”
Throughout human history, alcoholic beverages were designed for “easing everyday discomforts,” he says. “You hear it every other week. There’s always a story about someone who lived to be 103 years old, and they credit their daily glass of whiskey. That’s about easing everyday discomforts. But it’s about one. It’s not an entire six-pack or multiple whiskeys.”
“Doctors and Distillers” grew out of English’s observations surrounding alcohol and health claims. On his blog Alcademics, he used to publish an ongoing feature called “Good Booze, Bad Booze,” in which he noted: “One day science says drinking will make you live forever. The next day science says it will kill you tomorrow.”
As English and I sipped our cocktails, Chezchez’s managing partner, Drew Record, stopped by our table. Record says that when the bar opened last year, he and his team committed to offering high-end alcohol-free drinks. “Ten years ago, we wouldn’t have put out a menu like this,” Record said. “I do think it’s a new frontier. But everything’s a pendulum. We’ll see where things come back to.”
On the final day of the Columbia Room — Washington’s venerable cocktail temple until earlier this year — Derek Brown mixed me some cocktails with a product called Kentucky 74, a nonalcoholic bourbon that tastes a little like bourbon tea. The new owners would take over the space the next day, but amid the packing and cleaning, Brown wanted to show me his new career, as director of education for Spiritless, the producer of Kentucky 74 and other nonalcoholic drinks.
Brown prepared a nonalcoholic julep with Kentucky 74, a ginger syrup, pineapple juice and mint. “It adds a bit of texture,” he said. “With these spirits, you can build really excellent drinks around them, but you do have to kind of make up for some things if you want it to taste like alcohol.”
The change of career might seem strange for Brown, who for more than a decade has reigned as the cocktail impresario of Washington, running popular bars like the Columbia Room, the Passenger, Southern Efficiency, Eat the Rich and a string of successful seasonal pop-ups — as well as writing cocktail books and columns, running a National Archives series on the history of the cocktail, and even mixing drinks at the White House. In 2012, he wrote a cheeky piece for the Atlantic, “Confessions of a Binge Drinker,” in which he took the CDC to task for its definition of a binge drinker as someone who — in “a short period of time” — consumes more than five drinks. He wrote, “I did it about four times in the last month. ... I seem to be doing just fine.”
In reality, he wasn’t doing fine. “For me, there was this moment when I realized that, if drinking has a gauge, and good is one side and bad is on another, it had passed the good stage and was now going into the bad,” Brown told me. “I would often say, ‘This is my hobby, this is my life’ — everything revolved around alcohol. There were positives around that, and that remains, but there were some big negatives around it. I got divorced, I was treating people I worked with badly, I was being unreasonable in the way I behaved. I was not being a good version of myself.” In 2020, as part of this reflection, Brown published a confessional essay in Vox about how becoming a “mindful drinker” changed his life.
“We’re all coming to the same conclusion — that weed makes us feel good, and alcohol doesn’t.”
Earlier this year, Brown released his second book, “Mindful Mixology,” which charts his personal journey through no- and low-alcohol cocktails. Mindful drinking, for Brown, is not about shame or guilt, and it’s not even about totally cutting alcohol out of your life. “You have options,” he writes. “And you can explore those options on your own terms. ... I’m not asking you to sacrifice because you’ve curbed your drinking.”
At first, Brown said his life changes felt like a big contradiction: “Like, wait a minute, I’ve been telling people all along to drink alcohol. I’ve made most of my living off people drinking. Now I’m saying don’t drink alcohol.” But he added: “A person makes the decision for themselves.”
Others working in the nonalcoholic space echo Brown’s talk about personal choice. “We don’t actively promote abstinence,” said Ruby Warrington, the author of “Sober Curious.” “I’m very much like: You figure out what works for you, and let’s support you in doing that.”
Focus on personal choice makes the sober-curious movement quite different from temperance movements of the past. As Elva Ramirez writes in her 2021 book “Zero Proof: 90 Non-Alcoholic Recipes for Mindful Drinking,” “Whereas temperance-era churches and social organizations sought to mandate how entire communities should or should not drink, the impetus behind the neo-moderation movement is coming from individuals themselves.”
Sometimes those individual choices involve other substances that have faced federal prohibition, namely cannabis. As the legalization of cannabis spreads, more and more people are giving up alcohol in favor of it, going by what many call Cali sober.
My friend Jackie Bryant, who covers the cannabis industry and publishes the newsletter Cannabitch from her base in Southern California, is one of these people. “It’s a stupid name, Cali sober. But in a way, I’m living it,” she said. “I smoke weed all day, every day. I have it with coffee in the morning. And I’m able to work just fine. I’m a prolific journalist.” Though Bryant wrote about wine and spirits for years (her day job is managing editor of San Diego Magazine), she scaled back to almost zero drinking during the pandemic. “Alcohol was a big part of my life, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. I started to see that when I was around 35,” she said.
“There’s a reason it’s catching on. People feel better,” Bryant added as she rolled and smoked a joint with a strain called Guava Cake. “We’re all coming to the same conclusion — that weed makes us feel good, and alcohol doesn’t.” (While cannabis is establishing its place within wellness culture, it’s fair to wonder what will happen when it eventually encounters the level of scientific scrutiny and health studies that alcohol has faced over the decades.)
Others see a drinking culture in America that’s slow to change. “I want not-drinking to be as normalized as drinking is, and we’re really not there yet,” Julia Bainbridge told me. Her book, “Good Drinks: Alcohol-Free Recipes for When You’re Not Drinking for Whatever Reason,” was published in 2020. She recalled one of her editors asking her, “What’s your 30-second pitch about why a whiskey fan or cocktail lover should embrace this movement?” Her response: “I don’t have one! If you’re not into it, you’re not into it, and I’m happy for you to drink what you like. But whether you believe in it or not, it’s very much happening.”
Bainbridge stopped drinking several years ago and sought treatment for alcohol use disorder. “I can’t say what’s generally a good or bad idea for others, especially since alcohol use disorder can be mild, moderate or severe, and people who don’t even meet the criteria for alcohol use disorder can also experience problem drinking,” she wrote in an email to me. “I support anyone who is interested in moderation as well as those whose aim is to remove alcohol from their lives completely, even if just for a little while.”
Stopping for a little while is supposed to be the point for Dry January, which was created by Alcohol Change UK for people to take a full month off drinking — to “examine their alcohol use,” as Bainbridge wrote in the New York Times. The first year, 2013, 4,000 people in Britain took part. This year, millions worldwide did. Market research firm Morning Consult released a survey that reported that 19 percent of Americans said they were participating in Dry January (up from 13 percent in 2021). That share rose to 27 percent for millennials.
But that survey went even further. It asked respondents at what level they would be participating in Dry January. Only 52 percent said they would not drink at all during the month. Twenty-four percent said, “I will drink more than a few days [in January] but less than I normally would in a month.” That sounds more damp than dry, and should signal concern to those advocating for people to self-manage their problem drinking.
As I delved deeper into the neo-moderation movement, something kept nagging at me: I’m all for personal choice, but are people really equipped with enough knowledge, information and support to do this by themselves? For instance, even if AA’s values are based on a “patriarchal society,” as Whitaker argues, at least it’s a free and available group support. I want to believe that people can manage their own drinking, but as a society we are seriously lacking in what I would call drinking literacy.
Just consider the well-established metric of “moderate drinking” we’ve had for more than three decades: two standard drinks for a man and one standard drink for a woman, per day. Those standard drinks have been clearly defined as 5 ounces for a glass of wine at 12 percent alcohol by volume, 12 ounces of beer at 5 percent abv, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof spirits. But who truly consumes that? Many bars will pour you twice that much wine and call it a “glass.” A pint (16 ounces) of beer has become the standard pour at bars. Craft beers are generally much higher than 5 percent abv, many California red wines are over 15 percent abv, and many of the bourbons people love clock in at 100 proof or higher. How do people who actually want to manage their drinking — and manage their personal risk — compute all those numbers while sitting at a bar or wandering a liquor store?
Every day, in our capitalist society, we are bombarded with advertising and media messaging that does not have our best interests at heart. Beyond that, people are notoriously unreliable at calculating and reporting their own drinking. How many of us, when our doctor asks if we drink and how much, reflexively say, “Oh, I just have a couple of drinks socially” — whether that’s true or not?
With so much swirling data and messaging, so many claims and theories, I can certainly understand why some people just avoid alcohol altogether. Why enter the gray area? Why take a chance? I can see how the safest route feels like not engaging with alcohol at all.
For better or worse, that has never been my route. Brown told me something that really resonated: “There’s beautiful traditional spirits throughout the world. I would be horrified if they didn’t exist anymore. Alcohol can be a cultural expression. I don’t want that to go away. I think what needs to go away is problem drinking, not drinks.” That hardly sounds like the words of a prohibitionist, and I agree with him. Humans like to drink, and they always will. At the end of the day, with all the talk of adult nonalcoholic beverages and sober-curious and clean wines and adaptogenics and Cali sober — 31 years after “60 Minutes” told us it was okay to drink wine — we’re all still trying to decide what moderate drinking really looks like. Or more precisely: How do we bring the good things about wine and spirits into our life while keeping out the bad?
On that last day of the Columbia Room, Brown served me his julep made with alcohol-free bourbon. The concoction had a spicy ginger kick balanced by the sweetness of the pineapple. Brown the mixologist was in fine form as always, and it was tasty. But it still felt like something was missing.
Jason Wilson writes the newsletter Everyday Drinking. He is the author of “Godforsaken Grapes,” “Boozehound” and “The Cider Revival.”
Interior photos taken at Swingers Crazy Golf in Washington. Wardrobe: Lindsey Evans. Hair and makeup: Anita Bahramy. Wardrobe: Lindsey Evans. Models: Sonya Boldaji, JC Paz, Asia Abdullah, Cyndy Reyes and Steven Johnson. Bartender: Tyler Soliday, bar manager at Swingers Crazy Golf. | 2022-07-25T14:53:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | From Dry January to Fake Cocktails, Inside the New Temperance Movement - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/07/25/cocktails-sober-curious-drinking-alcohol/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/07/25/cocktails-sober-curious-drinking-alcohol/ |
LeBron James has to decide if he wants to sign an extension with the Lakers or possibly head to free agency next summer. (Mark J. Terrill/AP)
For all the ink spilled about Kevin Durant’s trade request and the challenges ahead for the Brooklyn Nets, LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers have had it worse. There’s no honor in comparing catastrophes, but it’s a useful exercise given that James will soon face his latest “Decision”: whether to sign a contract extension.
James and Durant each missed more than 25 games with injuries last season, but the Nets qualified for the playoffs and didn’t feel the need to fire their coach. When it comes to co-stars, Kyrie Irving and Russell Westbrook both presented unresolvable problems, though Westbrook possesses the more onerous contract and therefore holds less trade value.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn has a more talented roster and better young players — no trivial matter given that James, 37, and Durant, 33, are in the win-now phase of their careers. Despite the chaos surrounding their centerpieces, the Nets managed to add two players in Royce O’Neale and T.J. Warren who are more likely to aid a 2023 playoff push than any of the Lakers’ budget-friendly newcomers.
Given that side-by-side appraisal, it’s amusing that Durant sought to hit the eject button while James has been conspicuous in his absence from headline-making drama. Besides his annual jaunt to Las Vegas Summer League, a well-received cameo at the Drew League and some backlash to his comments about Brittney Griner’s detention in Russia, James has kept a low profile this offseason. Crucially, the four-time MVP will become eligible to sign a two-year, $97 million extension on Aug. 4 but has yet to hint at his intentions.
Perhaps James’s relative silence can be explained by a lack of anything nice to say. Since sidestepping questions about the extension during his April exit interview, James watched Stephen Curry, a chief rival, win a fourth title, and then endured a month of unconsummated rumors involving an Irving-for-Westbrook swap. As the Lakers continue to scour the league for a Westbrook deal and pin their fading hopes on a bounce-back campaign from Anthony Davis, the crosstown Clippers are preparing to reenter the title conversation with a healthy Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. These are trying times for James, who has insisted that winning drives him but now finds the Lakers stuck without the trade capital needed for a quick fix.
James last faced a contract decision in December 2020, and he signed an extension because there wasn’t much to think about. The Lakers had just won the title in the bubble, James had just been named Finals MVP and Davis had just looked ascendant in his first season in Los Angeles. “Space Jam: A New Legacy” was headed for theaters, and James’s dream of playing in the NBA with his teenage son, Bronny, was still several years away.
Much has changed in the two seasons since, as James has battled nagging injuries, seen his supporting cast turn over and flirted with a possible return to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Should he choose to ink a new deal with the Lakers that would run through the 2024-2025 season, it would be a matter of financial and familial comfort. Los Angeles is an unmatched base for his off-court investments in media and entertainment, and it could remain home until after Bronny, who is now a rising high school senior, becomes eligible for the 2024 draft.
On the court, staying put would be far less desirable. Even if the Lakers landed Irving, they would still trail the West’s top contenders by a considerable margin in depth and cohesion. Alternatively, if Westbrook stays, the Lakers would be looking at the prospect of another lost season given his poor fit with James and Davis. In that scenario, Westbrook’s contract would come off the books next summer, but the resulting cap space almost certainly wouldn’t be sufficient to address all of the Lakers’ roster holes.
Proceeding without a contract extension would have its own complications. Most obviously, James’s 2023 free agency would draw wall-to-wall media coverage, with every twist and turn of the Lakers’ season being analyzed for its impact on his future. That dynamic could prove exhausting and distracting for an overhauled roster guided by a first-time head coach in Darvin Ham.
Consider also the lessons from this summer, when five notable stars have faced obstacles and made concessions. Durant remains in limbo nearly a month after making his trade request, as no suitors have emerged with fantastic offers to blow away Brooklyn. Irving, for his part, drew little interest when he sought sign-and-trades in June and had to settle for picking up his player option.
James Harden was forced to choose between a maximum salary and maximizing his title chances, and he wound up taking a $15 million pay cut to remain with the Philadelphia 76ers. John Wall, who was shut down by the Houston Rockets last season, agreed to a buyout so that he could sign a modest mid-level contract with the Clippers. Westbrook, finally, parted with agent Thad Foucher, who issued a statement to ESPN advising his former client to reconcile with the Lakers rather than seek a trade that could lead to a reputation-damaging buyout.
Those situations have made it clear that teams won’t move heaven and earth to appease the sport’s biggest names forever. While the NBA’s “player empowerment” era continues at breakneck speed, even A-listers must reckon with their diminishing influence once they age and their contracts balloon.
In theory, every team wants James or Durant. In practice, how many aspiring contenders would be willing to trade away a half-decade of draft picks or gut their rosters for the right to pay them well over $40 million annually? Some, surely, but not all. And, if Durant’s current plight is any indication, maybe not as many as one might assume.
James has been a meticulous storyteller throughout his career, crafting the electric “Heatles” era, the heartwarming Cleveland homecoming and the glitzy Lakers run. This coming season will feature his chase of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring record, but even that hallmark achievement won’t bring him closer to his ultimate measuring stick: Michael Jordan’s six rings.
Maybe James has come to terms with that, opting to make the best of his late-career partnership with the Lakers, a la Kobe Bryant. Or maybe he will take his chances by shaking up the chessboard next summer, eyeing a more fulfilling final chapter somewhere else. Either way, it’s striking that an icon whose power plays have long shaped the NBA is now struggling to have it all. | 2022-07-25T14:54:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Will LeBron James sign a contract extension with the Lakers? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/lebron-james-contract-extension-lakers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/lebron-james-contract-extension-lakers/ |
Victor Robles sported a red clown nose before Sunday's game. (MLB.tv)
A clown showed up to the Juan Soto circus Sunday in Phoenix, where Victor Robles sported a red foam nose in the dugout before the Nationals’ 4-3 win over the Diamondbacks. By the end of the day, Soto was still a National and LeBron James had weighed in on the ridiculous scene.
“Something I would do for sure!” James wrote after sharing a photo of Robles wearing the clown nose on his Instagram story.
“King James said it, say no more,” Robles said after sharing the four-time NBA champion’s story on his own Instagram.
The latest drama befitting this Nationals season began Saturday night, when Robles hit a towering home run off Diamondbacks starter Madison Bumgarner. Robles took his time admiring the 413-foot blast, a solo shot in the eighth inning that cut Arizona’s lead to 7-2.
Bumgarner, a noted defender of baseball’s unwritten rules, didn’t take too kindly to Robles enjoying his third home run of the season, which raised the struggling outfielder’s on-base-plus-slugging percentage to .623.
“He’s a clown. Golly,” the 32-year-old Bumgarner said. “No shame. … No shame. Like, it’s 7-1, you hit your third homer of the year, and you act like Barry Bonds breaking the record. Clean it up. I don’t care about giving up the run. Hell, we won 7-2, 8-2, whatever it was. It’s frustrating. I’m the old grumpy guy, I know, but that type of stuff — that didn’t use to happen. That’s ridiculous.”
“When he’s pitching well, he’s able to celebrate and do what he likes to do,” Robles said in Spanish through a team interpreter after Saturday’s game. “It seems like he calls everybody a clown that actually has a big hit or home run against him. If he doesn’t want anyone hitting a home run against him or having any issues with that, then just strike people out or make better pitches to where he doesn’t have to worry about that.”
While Bumgarner doesn’t call everyone a clown, the four-time all-star and 2014 World Series MVP with the San Francisco Giants does have a history of taking offense at batters who get the best of him.
In 2015, Bumgarner shouted at Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Carlos Gomez for having the nerve to scream at himself for fouling off a pitch he thought he should’ve barreled. In 2019, Bumgarner’s long-simmering beef with Yasiel Puig boiled over again after the former Los Angeles Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds outfielder punctuated a home run off him with a bat flip.
“He’s a quick study,” Bumgarner quipped after the game. “It only took him seven years to learn how to hit that pitch.”
Later in 2019, Bumgarner yelled at Max Muncy to run to first base after the Dodgers infielder admired a home run that landed in Oracle Park’s McCovey Cove.
“I hit the ball and then he yelled at me,” Muncy said afterward. “He said, ‘Don’t watch the ball. You run.’ And I just responded back, ‘If you don’t want me to watch the ball, you can go get it out of the ocean.’”
A few days later, Muncy and his teammates wore T-shirts featuring the hilarious quote.
Robles’s clown nose may not inspire a T-shirt — he’s hitting .236/.300/.321 for the worst team in baseball, after all — but it was good for some laughs as Soto trade rumors continue to swirl, and may have surpassed Lucius Fox vomiting on the infield grass back in April as the most memorable moment of a dismal season.
Robles would remove the prop, which he appeared to affix to his nose with some sort of tape, before taking the field and making an ill-advised throw in the bottom of the first inning.
“There is Victor Robles, who Madison Bumgarner called a clown after last night’s ballgame for celebrating an otherwise meaningless home run late in the game in what turned out to be a 7-2 Nationals loss,” Diamondbacks TV play-by-play man Steve Berthiaume said. “So here’s Robles having some fun.”
“Is what I’m hearing true?” MASN play-by-play man Bob Carpenter said. “Is Victor Robles wearing a clown nose in the dugout? Oh my gosh, that is awesome.”
The person behind the Nationals’ Twitter account enjoyed Robles’s troll job, but Nationals Manager Dave Martinez didn’t find it so funny.
“I didn’t see it,” Martinez said. “I heard about it. I will talk to him. … That’s not who we are, right? It happened; it’s done. I don’t want to see that kind of stuff.”
Advantage: LeBron James. | 2022-07-25T15:19:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nationals' Victor Robles trolled Madison Bumgarner with a clown nose - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/victor-robles-clown-nose/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/victor-robles-clown-nose/ |
Two men stand armed with guns on Jan. 6, 2021, in front of the Governor's Mansion in Olympia, Wash., during a protest supporting then-President Donald Trump and against the counting of electoral votes affirming Joe Biden's election. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
It’s disconcerting that Americans see politics as the most important trigger for whether to pursue a friendship with a new acquaintance. It’s far more disconcerting that most Americans feel like the government is rigged against them and that more than a quarter speculate that armed opposition to the government may soon become necessary.
Just before the Fourth of July holiday weekend, the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics (IOP) published new polling including those findings. Conducted in May, the poll was elevated in a segment on “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Its findings gave new, well-deserved attention to information that many people had overlooked (including at least some of us who track such polling for our jobs).
What the poll found isn’t surprising, as such: Partisans view each other with hostility and skepticism. But when overlaid with other patterns in American politics — like the embrace of rhetoric about violence, particularly on the right — the potential repercussions become alarming.
Politics has by now become deeply intertwined with culture, and vice versa. We understand certain signifiers to overlap with political belief even without having to articulate them: pickup trucks, symphony tickets. But while about half of all Americans see shared taste in music and entertainment as important to establishing a new friendship, slightly more Americans — and more partisans, particularly Democrats — see shared political views in the same way.
That’s obviously linked to the extent of skepticism expressed by members of one party toward members of the other. The IOP poll (conducted by a pair of researchers who generally poll for one of the two major parties) found that about three-quarters of both Republicans and Democrats saw members of the other party as bullies. Similar percentages from each party viewed the opposite party as dishonest and advocating “disinformation.”
Notice, though, that independents are less stark in their views of the parties. About half see either party as bullies or dishonest, far lower than members of the opposing party. This is likely in part because the group “independents” is itself polarized by party allegiances, with most independents tending to align with one party or the other.
But independents do have distinctly different views of the political space. They are more likely to say they avoid political discussions altogether, less likely to say that political views are a useful guide to someone’s personality and more likely to say they agree with both sides of the spectrum.
They are also less likely to say they’re tracking current events — a finding that’s consistent with lots of other research.
The picture, then, is of two hostile partisan groups separated by a less-frustrated pool of independents in the middle. But other questions from the polling show that this isn’t universally true. On some questions of trust in government, independents express the same level of cynicism as Republicans.
For example, more than 6 in 10 independents and Republicans said they thought the government was “corrupt” and “rigged against” them, compared to less than half of Democrats.
Most independents and Republicans (but not Democrats) said they felt like a “stranger” in their own country.
Most independents said they had confidence in our election system, but that was far fewer than the three-quarters of Democrats who said they did. Among Republicans, only a third said they had that sort of trust, including only 1 in 10 who said they strongly agreed with that idea.
This, of course, is in part a reflection of the concerted effort by former president Donald Trump to elevate concerns about our election systems to downplay his loss in 2020. There’s no real debate that the election that brought Joe Biden to the White House wasn’t tainted with any significant fraud, but Republicans continue to insist that it was. (It’s worth noting that only a quarter of Republicans think national newspapers such as The Washington Post cover the news in good faith, while 4 in 10 think outlets like One America News and Newsmax do.)
On the question of “taking up arms” against the government, more than a third of both independents and Republicans say this might soon be necessary — including 13 percent of Republicans who strongly agree with the idea.
This isn’t simply a weird offshoot of one poll, of course. As The Post’s Dave Weigel reported over the weekend, rhetoric that flirts with or espouses armed conflict is common among Republicans on the campaign trail this year. That at times overlaps with commentary centered on how the country is devolving into something unrecognizable or particularly dangerous to conservatives.
The idea of taking up arms against the government is more common among Republicans, though, of course, it’s not unheard of among Democrats. But the most recent national General Social Survey, conducted last year, found that Republicans were twice as likely as Democrats to own firearms, a necessary predicate for taking them up.
What emerges, then, is some new color in a long-standing, bleak picture: American partisans deeply skeptical of one another and hostile to the other party. Most partisans saying that their friends mostly share their politics. And, most alarmingly, a recurring murmur of potential violence.
Analysis: What happened after Rep. Jacobs announced support for gun-control bills | 2022-07-25T15:28:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A new measure of the bleak, alarming partisan divide in America - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/25/alarming-us-partisan-divide/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/25/alarming-us-partisan-divide/ |
By Salwan Georges
Julie Vitkovskaya
To tour the spectacular Northern Range of Yellowstone National Park each summer, hundreds of thousands of tourists drive along this highway.
On the way to the park, the road snakes past mountains and vistas and rocky waters and through the gateway town of Gardiner, Mont.
Roads like these are the lifeblood of places like Gardiner, which depends on the seasonal rhythm of engines to keep their shops filled and hotels occupied.
The town itself escaped the worst of mudslides and flooding. But once tourists discovered they would be blocked from entering the park, they canceled their reservations — even those in December.
“This hidden underlying damage is economic," said Mike Skelton, president of Gardiner’s Chamber of Commerce and owner of Yellowstone Wonders, which conducts private tours of the park.
“In a normal summer, you really didn’t have to market Gardiner,” Skelton said. “The park was the draw.”
Now, Skelton says his focus is to spread the word that Gardiner is open for business — even if the nearby entrance to the park isn’t.
Currently, only visitors traveling with licensed tour operators can access the park using an old stage coach that has been revitalized in the last few weeks. The goal is to pave it, as a quick fix, before winter comes. But rebuilding Yellowstone’s roads may take 3 to 5 years and cost $1 billion.
The June floods at Yellowstone represent one more stark example of natural disasters made more common by climate change. National parks sit on the front lines of a warming planet, increasingly vulnerable to wildfires, drought, rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers, and more intense storms. One recent study found that 223 national parks, or more than half of all parks in the Lower 48 states, are at risk.
Canyon Village
Natl. Park
Sources: European Space Agency (base image), USGS (elevation)
Park entrances
At Acadia National Park, on the coast of Maine, severe rains shut down a portion of the park’s historic carriage roads, a favorite for both bicyclists and pedestrians. In Yosemite National Park, flames are threatening some of the tallest trees in the world.
“The road closure is such a dramatic thing for visitation there,” said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association. “Most people are missing out on the classic Denali experience, and going all the way to the mountain and enjoying the largest mountain in North America.”
The storm in Yellowstone initially shut down all five entrances into the park. Within three weeks, most reopened. The North Entrance in Gardiner remains closed, as noticed by the elk.
Within a few hours of reopening, most of the park’s attractions were already nearly overrun. Some visitors waited out the storm, traveling to other parks instead.
Justin Kohler and his children Boden, 7, and Quinny, 4, had come from Utah. Kohler said his family decided to go to Grand Teton National Park instead for a few days, and came back to Yellowstone when it reopened.
The bustle of crowds rerouted to West Yellowstone made Gardiner’s streets feel all the more empty.
Yellowstone's Grand Prismatic Spring, Lower Falls, and bison population attract millions of visitors every year. The floods in June closed Yellowstone down before some parts of the national park reopened earlier this month. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Dick McCumber, who runs the barbecue food truck Follow Yer’ Nose Smokewagon in Gardiner, said he hopes people return so he can salvage what’s left of the summer.
Days before the flood, McCumber didn’t have enough space in the smoker for meats.
Water contamination forced restaurants to shut down, leaving locals and tourists without many places to eat. The Smokewagon was spared from the contamination because the truck was located several miles away from the river and is connected to its own septic and well.
McCumber said he was the only place still running after the storm. He says he’s not planning to move his wheels anytime soon.
“I’d rather stick it out, personally," he said.
McCumber was a white-water guide for 15 years before moving to Gardiner. He began to smoke meat with the help of his friend more than a decade ago after winning his smoker in a raffle.
“It’s kind of a special little place," McCumber said. "It’s a white-water rafting community, so I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for all of those raft guides.”
“I’m not giving up on Gardiner. I love that little community.”
— Dick McCumber, operator of Follow Yer’ Nose Smokewagon
“We were set up for our best summer ever and now, we are barely surviving.”
— Sarah Ondrus, business owner in Gardiner
“The business will weather the storm, and we’ll be prepared when we can get into the park from Gardiner."
— Mike Skelton, president of Gardiner's Chamber of Commerce
Sarah Ondrus and her husband cater to adventurers, with vacation rentals, rafting tours and other businesses. Before the flood, they had more than 20 employees. Now, they’re down to 9.
“We do not blame anyone for leaving,” Ondrus said. “We did not have enough work for them.”
The couple had dealt with the pandemic and a fire that destroyed one of their rafting offices, she said, “but this flood is by far the worst that has happened” since Ondrus moved to Yellowstone in 2000.
“There is no way we could have prepared for this,” she said. “We were set up for our best summer ever and now, we are barely surviving. We are basically open … to issue refunds.”
A month before Barack Obama left office, then-National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis issued a directive ordering agency staff to take climate change into account when developing management plans for the lands and waters they steward. Trump administration officials revoked the policy in 2017, and the Biden administration has yet to restore it.
After the floods and Yellowstone shutdown, many tourists canceled their reservations to visit and stay nearby. Businesses in Gardiner, Mont., have lost income and seasonal workers. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
“People are not coming because they think Gardiner has been destroyed and they don’t want to come if they can’t drive into Yellowstone National Park,” Ondrus said. “We just have to remind people that Gardiner, Montana, is a beautiful and fun destination, and then hope for the best.”
Keeping business in Yellowstone and promoting the park’s access has been a priority for Dave McGlashan. McGlashan and his wife Amanda Fox run Adventure Treks, a company that operates summer camps for young adults across the country, including in Yellowstone.
But McGlashan says there’s one other major factor that is threatening access to national parks in Western states: heat.
Outdoor recreation generates billions in revenues for Montana and Wyoming, according to a 2020 analysis by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. But this income disappears if visitors cannot access these sites.
As climate impacts increase and temperatures swell, McGlashan says tour companies are rethinking their future operations. He said national park closures as a result of wildfires or even potential wildfires, particularly in California, are happening earlier and more often, making it harder to have a sustainable business.
“We don't know where we're going to operate in the next 10 to 15 years,” McGlashan said. “We're not going to be able to operate 100 students in California when it's 120 degrees.”
McGlashan remains optimistic that by introducing hundreds of young adults each year to the natural world, they would begin to think about “those incredible treasures we have in the country.”
“You only protect,” says McGlashan, “the things that you know about.”
An empty road that leads to the city of Gardiner, Mont., on June 20, 2022, days after the flooding of Yellowstone National Park. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Julie Vitkovskaya reported from Washington. Salwan Georges reported and photographed from Gardiner. Joshua Partlow reported from Olympia.
Maps by Dylan Moriarty. Editing by Ann Gerhart and Juliet Eilperin. Photo editing by Olivier Laurent. Copy editing by Anthony Chen. Design and development by Hailey Haymond. Design editing by Joe Moore.
Salwan Georges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist for The Washington Post. Before joining The Post, he was a staff photographer at the Detroit Free Press and studied journalism at Oakland University in Michigan. Twitter Twitter
By Julie Vitkovskaya
Julie Vitkovskaya is the assistant editor for visual enterprise at The Washington Post. She focuses on innovative, visual storytelling. She was previously a projects editor. She worked as a digital editor for foreign and national security. She joined The Post in 2015. Twitter Twitter
Joshua Partlow is a reporter on the The Washington Post’s national desk. He has served previously as the bureau chief in Mexico City, Kabul, Rio de Janeiro, and as a correspondent in Baghdad. Twitter Twitter | 2022-07-25T16:26:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Yellowstone, other national parks come face to face with climate change - Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2022/climate-change-national-parks-yelllowstone/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2022/climate-change-national-parks-yelllowstone/ |
People with disabilities weigh medication, pregnancy in post-Roe world
After the Supreme Court struck down federal abortion protections, people with disabilities are considering the risks of pregnancy while taking medications that could harm a fetus
Karen Kaiser had an abortion in 2008, in part because medication she was taking could have had serious side effects on the fetus. (Maansi Srivastava/The Washington Post)
Karen Kaiser will never forget her feelings of dread and sadness as she hurried past picket lines of protesters at two Maryland reproductive health clinics in 2008. “In the waiting room, I remember crying,” she said, recounting her harrowing trip to Planned Parenthood, where she ultimately had an abortion.
Kaiser had decided to have an abortion after getting pregnant, in part because she was taking an anti-seizure medication called Depakote to control her bipolar disorder. The medication is known to contribute to embryo malformation and have other harmful effects on a fetus, she said.
“I wouldn’t have been able to sustain [the pregnancy], but also we were worried about the side effects of the Depakote on the baby,” said Kaiser, now 47 and living in Lanham, Md. “That would have been my fourth child.”
Kaiser’s story reflects the worry that patients with disabilities — and the doctors who treat them — are having surrounding access to abortion services in the weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
People with disabilities — including psychiatric, chronic and physical — say they will be disproportionately affected by the loss of federal abortion protections and have been overlooked in the discussion surrounding abortion access. Studies have found that they experience higher rates of sexual violence — one situation that could lead to an abortion — in addition to higher rates of unplanned pregnancies and a higher risk of death during pregnancy compared to people without disabilities. They may also take medications known as teratogens that have harmful effects on pregnancy, including Depakote, which has the generic name valproate, in addition to topiramate and phenytoin, among other medications, according to neurology studies.
Doctors and patients worry that six-week abortion bans in states such as Texas would criminalize abortions before patients discover they are pregnant and after they are already exposed to teratogens. This is exacerbated by the fact that more than half of pregnancies in women with epilepsy are unplanned, said Jacqueline French, co-director of epilepsy clinical trials for NYU Langone Health’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center.
“By the time the woman knows she’s pregnant, the damage is essentially done,” she said, adding it is safer for epilepsy patients to continue taking their medication to protect their own health than to risk a seizure during pregnancy. “We’re really concerned about the life of the mother.”
Robyn Powell, an associate law professor at the University of Oklahoma, classified disabilities as any health conditions, including psychiatric ones, that “substantially limit a major life activity,” noting that they are covered under the Americans With Disabilities Act. She said some people with disabilities take medication that harms pregnancy.
“If it’s a planned pregnancy, someone would try to taper off their medication,” said Powell, who has arthrogryposis, a disability that restricts motion. “But if you have an unintended pregnancy for whatever reason, I think this disproportionately harms disabled people.”
The effects of valproate and other teratogens are evident “very early in pregnancy,” said Marlene Freeman, who runs the perinatal and reproductive psychiatry program at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“The exposures before women even know they’re pregnant can be very serious,” she said. Potential fetal impacts of anti-seizure drugs include spina bifida, cleft lip and autism, according to studies.
French, the epileptologist, added that the risk of death during pregnancy for a person with epilepsy is 10 times the risk for a person without epilepsy, partly because patients may stop taking their medication while pregnant without consulting a doctor. She practices in New York, where she does not expect abortion to be restricted, but French said she expects epileptologists across the country to have conversations with patients about the potential reduction in options if they have an unplanned pregnancy.
Lucy Hutner, a reproductive psychiatrist in New York City, said the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe could harm patients with “serious and persistent mental illness,” not only when it comes to medication but also as it relates to social factors such as homelessness or limited access to health care.
“This is a specific population who already has significant barriers to being able to access medical services,” she said.
Women who spoke to The Post reflected on the risks of taking medication while pregnant. Pam, of Siler City, N.C., has epilepsy. The 55-year-old, who spoke to The Post on the condition that it use only her first name because she feared harassment, took valproate during her pregnancies more than two decades ago and gave birth to three healthy sons. She said she was warned about the medication’s risks and took it anyway to control her seizures, which continued during her pregnancy.
Pam said she worries about the limited options epilepsy patients will have after Roe was overturned.
“What would be my concern is if they go in to have a checkup, and they find out that [the fetus has] got a serious birth defect but they want to get an abortion and aren’t able to,” Pam said.
Some states with abortion bans make exceptions if the mother’s life is at stake. But Powell, the legal scholar, said she expects this criterion to be “stringently defined,” and anticipates that physicians will be “very hesitant” to perform abortions where they are criminalized or restricted.
Some antiabortion groups have disputed whether people with disabilities should have abortion rights, with exceptions.
“Every state pro-life law in effect specifically prohibits actions which intentionally cause the death of an unborn child,” Stephen Billy, executive director of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an antiabortion research group, said in a statement. “Doctors who prescribe teratogenic medications for the treatment of mental health or chronic health conditions are not doing so for the purpose of causing an abortion.”
Matt Yonke, spokesman for the Pro-Life Action League, said the antiabortion group does not support intentionally ending a pregnancy, though it supports exceptions when the pregnant person’s life is at risk and the abortion occurs as an unintentional, “sad side effect” of a different intervention.
Some neurologists believe their epilepsy patients have been overlooked in the post-Roe discussion. Ima Ebong, an assistant neurology professor at the University of Kentucky, posted a Twitter thread that went viral after Roe was overturned.
Hoping as neurologists and epileptologists, we can have a dialogue about the implications of the reversal of #RoeVWade and how it will affect our #epilepsy patients who take anti-seizure meds that can cause birth defects.
This is not just an #obgyntwitter issue. #NeuroTwitter
— Ima Ebong, MD (@ImaEbongMD) June 24, 2022
She told The Post that some anti-seizure medications, such as phenytoin, can reduce the efficacy of hormonal contraception.
“When that happens, contraception fails, and then the patient can in fact potentially become pregnant,” Ebong said. In other cases, such as with the anti-seizure drug lamotrigine, Ebong said, the contraception can allow breakthrough seizures by lowering medication levels.
Back in Maryland, where Kaiser took that distressing trip to a Planned Parenthood clinic nearly 15 years ago, she worries abortion access will become more difficult for disabled people who become pregnant after Roe was overturned.
“I think forcing someone who wants and needs an abortion to continue a pregnancy is terrible,” Kaiser said. “I think it’s bad for any baby coming into the picture. I think that the decision is terrible for women who are on medication like Depakote and who may want to decide, ‘I have to keep taking this medicine, and so I’m not going to be able to continue with the pregnancy.’ ” | 2022-07-25T16:26:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | People with disabilities weigh medication, pregnancy in post-Roe world - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/25/disabled-people-abortion-restrictions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/25/disabled-people-abortion-restrictions/ |
Inside a gunmaker’s publicity stunt over a rejected Super Bowl ad
Sales soared in the past decade at Daniel Defense, the maker of the gun used in the Uvalde shooting, as the firm employed aggressive marketing tactics to sell AR-style rifles
By Shawn Boburg
Jon Swaine
AR-style rifles manufactured by Daniel Defense, seen in 2017 at its headquarters in Black Creek, Ga. (Lisa Marie Pane/AP)
A rapidly growing manufacturer of AR-15-style rifles tried to run an ad during the Super Bowl in 2014, knowing that the NFL typically does not allow gun commercials during its marquee event.
But Daniel Defense — the maker of the semiautomatic rifle used in the Uvalde school shooting — privately had in place a plan to generate publicity whether the ad aired or not, according to previously unreported court documents that shed light on the gunmaker’s marketing strategies.
If it aired, Daniel Defense’s top marketing executive planned to have people across the country complain about the company’s own ad to left-leaning media organizations, stirring controversy and generating coverage.
If the ad was rejected, records show, the executive had arranged for a prominent National Rifle Association commentator to release a prerecorded online video accusing the National Football League of censorship and hypocrisy.
“I had two plans, you know,” Daniel Defense’s former marketing director, Jordan Hunter, a former Marine, said during a May 2015 deposition in a trademark infringement case. “That’s from the Marine Corps days, two plans. If it goes bad, you have another.”
The eventual rejection of the proposed Super Bowl commercial resulted in “by far” the most successful marketing effort in the company’s history, Hunter said during the deposition. “Nothing’s even close,” he said.
The online commentator’s video fiercely criticizing the NFL went viral, and the story about the banned Super Bowl ad reached tens of millions of people after it was featured on Fox News’s signature programs, such as “The Sean Hannity Show” and “The Five,” Hunter recounted in the deposition.
An examination of Daniel Defense’s marketing, based on court filings, interviews, internal documents and other records, shows how the gunmaker devised publicity stunts, paid for favorable coverage in newsstand magazines and employed other aggressive tactics to entice Americans to buy its AR-style semiautomatic rifles.
Daniel Defense’s fortunes rose in parallel with the popularity of the guns known as AR-15s. The weapons, sometimes referred to as “America’s rifle,” are beloved by many gun enthusiasts but are seen by gun-control advocates as an instrument of carnage.
The marketing strategies of Daniel Defense and other gun manufacturers have come under increased scrutiny in recent months amid deadly mass shootings by gunmen using AR-style rifles in Buffalo, Uvalde, Tex., and Highland Park, Ill.
The CEOs of Daniel Defense, Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co. have been called to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, part of the panel’s investigation into the sales and marketing of AR-style semiautomatic rifles. And earlier this month, Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that promotes gun control, asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Daniel Defense’s marketing, arguing that federal and state laws prohibit advertising that promotes the unsafe or illegal use of dangerous products.
Daniel Defense did not respond to multiple requests from The Washington Post for comment. The company said in a statement shortly after the school shooting in Uvalde that it was “saddened by the tragic events” and intended to cooperate with investigators. The company has not commented on the FTC complaint.
Hunter, who worked at the firm from 2011 to 2015, did not respond to requests for comment.
Hunter’s deposition was taken as part of a lawsuit that Daniel Defense filed against competitor Remington Arms that was later withdrawn by agreement of the parties.
Within Daniel Defense, the publicity generated by the rejected Super Bowl ad was seen as a marketing coup that the owners sought to replicate, according to Thomas Carlson, who led the manufacturer’s marketing and communications from 2015 to 2017 and reported to Cindy Daniel, co-owner with her husband and CEO Marty Daniel.
“Cindy was always trying to figure out that kind of thing — what kind of PR stunt can we do to get a little more notoriety,” he told The Post.
Another key element of the company’s marketing strategy, he added, was to use images of military and tactical units holding Daniel Defense rifles. The AR-style rifles closely resemble their military counterparts, though the military version allows the shooter to fire more than one round with each pull of the trigger.
“A lot of people are like, ‘Our armed forces use that. That’s cool. I want that,’” Carlson said.
‘Two ways to go with this’
Formed in 2001 by Marty Daniel, a former garage-door salesman, Daniel Defense began as a military contractor using the bureaucratic slogan “small arms product solutions.” As recently as 2012, 80 percent of its sales were to the military, Hunter said in the deposition. The company sold the Department of Defense gun components, according to federal contracting records.
But Hunter said the company shifted its focus to civilians as America’s wars in the Middle East wound down. That period coincided with a backlash against the Obama administration’s gun-control plans after a 20-year-old man used an AR-style rifle in a December 2012 massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
“The rhetoric starts flying about, you know, guns and Second Amendment rights and things like that, that’s going to cause consumers to take action,” Hunter said in the deposition.
Using slogans such as “Protecting Your Freedom,” the firm shifted its marketing toward self-defense and personal liberty. It published “Torture Test” videos of its guns being hit with bullets, bombed and run over to prove their toughness in rugged combat conditions.
In what Hunter described in his deposition as the firm’s “most effective” ad campaign, troops were shown carrying rifles made with Daniel Defense components, under the heading “Use What They Use.”
“Use what operators are using,” Hunter said. “You have the right to own that kind of thing, too.”
More than 90 percent of the company’s sales were to civilians by the time Hunter sat for his deposition, he said.
By August 2013, the firm, already a major player in the AR-15 market, was projecting a massive surge in sales, according to internal documents obtained by The Post. An internal presentation that month showed the company projected its previous year’s sales revenue of $31.7 million would more than triple to $110 million by 2014.
Reflecting that confidence, the company decided it was prepared to spend up to $600,000 to promote its guns during what would become the most-watched television event in U.S. history, the 2014 Super Bowl, Hunter said during the deposition. It was a major step up from the company’s previous marketing efforts, which included running ads in magazines and on local television stations, as well as “online campaigns” and attendance at tradeshows, according to an internal document that described its 2012 marketing initiatives.
For the Super Bowl ad, Daniel Defense produced a commercial that featured a military veteran, the father of a newborn, looking over his family in a suburban home.
“I am responsible for their protection,” a narrator says in the ad. “And no one has the right to tell me how to defend them. So I’ve chosen the most effective tool for the job,” the narrator says, before the commercial flashes to the silhouette of a Daniel Defense rifle.
Daniel Defense wanted to run the ad in eight cities, including Atlanta, Dallas and Memphis, Hunter said. But he said he realized the NFL might not allow it.
“I had two ways to go with this,” he recalled.
“The A plan was to run this thing and then I had people in each one of these cities that were going to — I had 15 different media groups that were left-leaning — and they were going to notify … that this thing aired, and we were going to get some press out of it.”
Hunter did not identify the people or media groups.
Plan B, he said, involved getting the editor of a trade publication, Guns & Ammo magazine, to agree in advance to publish the commercial online if it was rejected for the Super Bowl. The editor, Eric Poole, did not respond to a request for comment.
Additionally, Hunter said, he “kind of manipulated the situation” by having “a guy named Colion Noir, who is an NRA commentator and internet guy, kind of put his spin on, or his take on, what he thought his opinion was on this thing.”
The NRA had recruited Noir, a gun enthusiast and internet personality, in 2013 to appear in NRA News videos. Noir also has a YouTube channel with more than 2 million subscribers.
Neither Noir nor the NRA responded to requests for comment.
It’s not clear whether the NRA, which is not mentioned in the video, was involved in the video’s production. But NRA News separately published an eight-minute video about the rejected ad featuring an interview with Marty Daniel and titled “NFL’s Bad Call.”
Even among gunmakers, Daniel Defense stands out for its strong support of the NRA. The company is frequently a headline sponsor of NRA events, and the NRA has described the relationship as a “united front.”
Daniel Defense bought NRA memberships for all of its employees, the NRA said in 2017, and chartered buses to take them all to the NRA’s annual convention. That year, the NRA awarded Daniel Defense’s V7 rifle its “gun of the year” title — a first for an AR-style rifle.
During the deposition, Hunter said he believed the decision to reject the commercial did not come from the NFL, but rather from Fox, the channel broadcasting the Super Bowl.
“I actually had the Fox sales rep saying, ‘You know … the NFL will not allow this to air.’ And, in fact, I think it was Fox that killed it.”
An NFL spokesman at the time said the league had no involvement in rejecting the commercial, although he acknowledged its policy prohibited gun ads. “This is a completely bogus story,” Brian McCarthy, the NFL’s vice president of communications, told CBS Sports, referring to the controversy over the rejected ad.
As soon as Hunter received an email formally rejecting the ad, he said he forwarded it to Poole.
“He went and ran with the story,” Hunter said. Noir, he added, “had his video already ready and prepped.”
Noir published the Daniel Defense commercial along with his prerecorded commentary about the NFL on his YouTube channel on Dec. 1, 2013.
“All because a couple of jackasses do something bad with a gun, and the NFL thinks it has a gun problem,” Noir says in the video.
Hunter said in the deposition that the video took off instantly.
“And the thing just went and spun out and then it’s — a couple of hours later it’s on Drudge,” he said, referring to the popular online news site Drudge Report.
Appearing on Fox News to discuss the rejected commercial on Dec. 3, 2013, Marty Daniel urged viewers: “Call the NFL and tell them, ‘C’mon man! Run my ad!’”
That same day, Daniel Defense filed applications to trademark “C’mon man!” and “C’mon man! Run my ad!” for use on T-shirts, baseball caps and other clothing, according to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records.
Videos of news segments about the supposed NFL ban ricocheted all over the internet, Hunter said during the deposition.
“It was the number one video on ‘The Five,’ the ‘Hannity Show’ and a couple other of those big-name Fox shows,” he said. Citing figures from Fox, he said videos about the ban were watched 20 million times in 10 days.
Hunter said he parted ways with Daniel Defense in March 2015, a few months after he said Cindy Daniel assumed control of the company’s marketing, because the firm determined he “wasn’t a good fit for her team any longer.” He went on to work for other gun manufacturers and now runs his own marketing firm, according to his LinkedIn page.
Boosting its profile
In the years since the Super Bowl stunt, Daniel Defense has rapidly expanded and increased production. It went from making 2,413 rifles in 2010 to 29,180 in 2020, according to annual data published by Shooting Industry magazine, climbing 23 places in the publication’s ranking of American long-gun producers to No. 18.
Hunter described the company’s target demographic as largely White, conservative men ages 35 to 55.
That audience is in line with the typical gun owner of today, according to a closely held 2020 study conducted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearm industry’s trade association, and shared with gun manufacturers. The Post obtained a copy.
“Protection for themselves and others at and away from home is the top motivation for purchasing a firearm,” the study said of the average buyer.
The study found that a demographic it termed “Urban Defenders” — the most likely to buy guns because they “do not trust others around them” — was the fastest growing segment and bought guns at a higher rate than any other in 2020.
Daniel Defense has appealed to such anxieties in its print marketing, using the image of a man in pajamas poised with a rifle and recommending its guns “whether you’re on the battlefield … or protecting your family in the middle of the night.”
The company stresses on its website that its sales comply with the law and that it does not ship specific weapons to states where they are banned.
In addition to placing traditional advertisements, the company has also cultivated favorable coverage in the gun press, using an array of tactics to boost the profile of its firearms and garner favorable reviews, according to a review of its marketing activities.
During his deposition, Hunter said the company paid to shape the content, design and even the paper quality of Daniel Defense-focused editions of a specialty AR-15 magazine published three or four times a year by InterMedia Outdoors, then the publisher of Guns & Ammo. There were at least three such editions, all in the years around the Super Bowl ad, each labeled “Daniel Defense edition” on its cover, according to images available online.
“I would then handpick the editor I wanted, handpick the writers that I wanted working with that editor, make a list of all the products I wanted covered,” Hunter said, adding that he had overseen the rewriting of articles and had a hand “in each and every part” of the publication.
A Daniel Defense marketing document said it used the AR-15 magazine, placed on newsstands, to reach “the Average Joe.”
A 108-page Daniel Defense edition of the magazine from 2014, a copy of which was reviewed by The Post, did not contain any explicit disclosure about the company’s involvement. The names of Hunter and other Daniel Defense staff members appeared beside the regular editorial staff on the magazine’s masthead, under a Daniel Defense logo.
Poole, the Guns & Ammo editor who, according to Hunter, was also engaged for the Super Bowl stunt, contributed a six-page feature to the magazine on Daniel Defense’s $3,000 integrally suppressed rifle (ISR). “If you’re engaging a violent intruder from across the room in your house, you’re not going to miss with the ISR for lack of performance,” he wrote.
InterMedia was bought by new owners in November 2014 and renamed Outdoor Sportsman Group, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Daniel Defense has also worked to generate excitement for new weapons by hosting select writers at special launch events. In 2018, it put on a waterborne assault course for writers, driving them around a lake at high speed while they fired a new Daniel Defense rifle at targets, according to accounts published by Guns magazine.
The next year, it unveiled its Delta 5 rifle at an event for writers that Guns magazine said was held at “a secret location” in Georgia. “Marty Daniel stood up in a lakeside cabin, sunlight illuminating him so perfectly I was sure a special-effects crew was stationed outside, and hoisted the Delta 5,” the magazine’s cover story said.
Brent Wheat, the editor of Guns, told The Post that the events did not secure favorable press for Daniel Defense. “Our general editorial philosophy is ‘good guns get coverage,’” Wheat said in an email.
In May 2018, Daniel Defense opened a new 300,000-square-foot headquarters and factory in Ellabell, Ga., more than doubling its previous space. Marty Daniel forecast that the new building would help the company triple its revenue.
While the company’s finances are private, the growth has been a boon for Daniel. In a 2018 video interview, he summarized his goal using a quote he attributed to the retail pioneer J.C. Penney. “I keep shoveling money toward God and he keeps shoveling it back, and his shovel’s a lot bigger than my shovel,” said Daniel. | 2022-07-25T16:26:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inside gunmaker Daniel Defense’s Super Bowl publicity stunt - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/07/25/daniel-defense-super-bowl-ad/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/07/25/daniel-defense-super-bowl-ad/ |
Former president Donald Trump walks on the stage before addressing attendees during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit on July 23 in Tampa. (Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP)
Near the end of last week’s Jan. 6 House committee hearing, former deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger, a perpetually cheerful former Marine, said the attack on the Capitol “emboldened our enemies by helping give them ammunition to feed a narrative that our system of government doesn’t work, that the United States is in decline. China, the Putin regime in Russia, Tehran, they’re fond of pushing those kinds of narratives — and by the way, they’re wrong.”
But are they wrong? They certainly have been to date; the United States has been defying predictions of doom for more than two centuries. But, as the ads for mutual funds say, past performance is no guarantee of future results. We need to take seriously the possibility that the United States could become a failed democracy, if only to avert that dire fate. There’s a good reason that 85 percent of respondents in a recent survey said the country is headed in the wrong direction.
A lot of the gloom and doom is due, of course, to the high rate of inflation, which will subside in time. But there are more intractable problems, too, such as the persistence of racism and income inequality. That we have more far more gun violence than other advanced democracies and yet can’t implement common-sense gun-safety regulations (such as a ban on military-style assault rifles and high-capacity magazines) is a damning indictment of our democracy. So, too, is our failure to do more to address climate change even as temperatures spike. When we do act, it often makes the situation worse, not better.
Unleashed by a right-wing Supreme Court, Republican legislatures around the country are repealing or restricting abortion rights. This is producing horror stories that I never thought I would see in the United States. A woman in Texas had to carry a dead fetus for two weeks because removing it would have required a procedure that is also used in abortions. A woman in Wisconsin bled for more than 10 days after an incomplete miscarriage because medical staff would not remove fetal tissue. A 10-year-old girl was raped in Ohio and had to travel to Indiana to get an abortion.
These are the kinds of human rights violations we would be protesting if they occurred in other countries. That they are happening in the United States is an ominous sign of what lies ahead, because other countries in recent years that have taken away abortion rights — Poland and Nicaragua — have also taken away political rights.
We already live in a “backsliding” democracy, where voting rights are being restricted and freedom is under siege. The most severe threat comes from an increasingly authoritarian Republican Party whose maximum leader is an unindicted and unrepentant coup plotter.
Despite the yeoman work of the Jan. 6 committee, former president Donald Trump remains the leading contender for the 2024 GOP nomination — and on the current trajectory he could defeat President Biden, whose unpopularity continues to plumb new depths. We need to be clear about what another Trump term would mean: It could be the death knell for our democracy.
Jonathan Swan of Axios has an alarming report on the preparations in Trump World for returning to power: “Sources close to the former president said that he will — as a matter of top priority – go after the national security apparatus, ‘clean house’ in the intelligence community and the State Department, target the ‘woke generals’ at the Defense Department, and remove the top layers of the Justice Department and FBI.”
I wish I could say that such a scenario is implausible, but it is all too realistic. I used to be an optimist about America’s future. Not anymore. There’s a good reason that so many people I know are acquiring foreign passports and talking about moving somewhere else: The prognosis is grim.
We seem to be sleepwalking to disaster. If we don’t wake up in time, we could lose our democracy. Just because we’ve avoided a breakdown in the past doesn’t mean we will stave it off in the future. | 2022-07-25T16:26:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | I used to be optimistic about America’s future. Not anymore. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/trump-second-term-threat-us-democracy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/trump-second-term-threat-us-democracy/ |
How Biden and Putin made it harder for Pelosi to visit Taiwan
Welcome to The Daily 202! Tell your friends to sign up here. On this day in 1972, the Associated Press revealed that the federal government had withheld treatment for syphilis from hundreds of Black men in Alabama in a decades-long study of the disease’s effects on the human body.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s potential visit next month to Taiwan — not formally announced but still the subject of major controversy in Washington and Beijing — would be the capstone to her decades as a hawkish critic of China in Congress.
If, and it’s a big “if,” it happens.
President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin have made it harder for Pelosi to travel to the democratically governed island, which Beijing considers a renegade province to be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Officially, Washington does not have formal diplomatic ties with Taipei and agrees on a policy of “one China” under Beijing’s rule — while selling arms to bolster Taiwan’s self-defense and nurturing a strong trade relationship. A Pelosi visit would send yet another high-level signal of U.S. support. Beijing has threatened unspecified but forceful retaliation.
Biden’s role
Biden made the trip harder in two ways. First, he seemingly confirmed the unannounced voyage was in the works while making it clear the Pentagon was against it.
“The military thinks it’s not a good idea right now, but I don't know what the status of it is,” he told reporters last Wednesday.
Second, Biden has changed the public face of U.S. policy toward Taiwan by saying — not once, not twice, but three times since August 2021 — that the U.S. military would come to the island’s rescue if it were under attack from Beijing.
In doing so, the president removed some of the ambiguity from the traditional U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” — an effort to leave purposefully vague whether, and how, and under what circumstances America would help defend Taiwan from an attack by Beijing.
“We made a sacred commitment to Article Five that if in fact anyone were to invade or take action against our NATO allies, we would respond. Same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with — Taiwan,” he told ABC News last August.
That comment seemed to elevate Taiwan, with which the United States does not have a formal mutual-defense treaty, to the same status as NATO allies bound by the alliance’s pact that an attack on one is an attack on all.
Two months later, at a CNN town hall, Biden was asked whether the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense if attacked. “Yes,” he said, “we have a commitment to do that.”
Finally, in late May 2022, Biden was asked during a news conference in Tokyo whether he was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if China invaded. “Yes,” he said again, “that’s the commitment we made.”
That rhetoric has raised the stakes for a visit by America’s third-ranking elected official.
Putin’s role
As for Putin, he made things harder in late February by expanding Russia’s war in Ukraine, triggering the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II, and effectively daring the United States and its allies to try to thwart his designs on a former Soviet republic.
A month earlier, the Biden administration had acknowledged the world was watching both the former KGB officer’s actions and the U.S.-led reaction — including officials in Beijing pondering what to do about Taiwan, and when, and how to do it. But nothing that raises the stakes over Taiwan makes the speaker’s travel there easier.
To be clear, Beijing was always going to object strenuously to Pelosi’s visit, which would make her the most senior American official to set foot on Taiwan since House Speaker Newt Gingrich went there in 1997. Her unrelenting criticisms of Beijing’s human rights record has made her a figure of particular loathing among Chinese leaders and in state-run media.
And the Chinese political calendar adds another layer of complication. The annual celebration of the People’s Liberation Army happens Aug. 1. Top officials from China’s Communist Party traditionally meet in the resort of Beidaihe in August. And Chinese President Xi Jinping is looking to minimize disruptions ahead of a twice-per-decade party Congress this fall that is expected to give him another term in office.
Biden’s evolution
Biden has denied that his remarks changed U.S. policy. But they certainly have highlighted his personal evolution on the issue.
In April 2001, President George W. Bush told ABC News the U.S. had an obligation to defend Taiwan, including militarily, and promised to do “whatever it took” to help fend off a Chinese invasion. (He quickly softened his position.)
That drew a rebuke from the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one Joseph R. Biden, Jr. “Words matter, in diplomacy and in law,” he scolded the new president.
“The president should not cede to Taiwan, much less to China, the ability automatically to draw us into a war across the Taiwan Strait.” Biden wrote in The Washington Post.
Biden said last week he’d speak to Xi before July is out. Pelosi’s possible travel and Taiwan may feature prominently in their discussion.
“A long-running push to provide $52 billion in subsidies to domestic semiconductor manufacturers faces a final vote in the Senate this week via a bill that also includes tens of billions of dollars for the National Science Foundation and regional tech start-ups,” Jeanne Whalen reports.
More: Pompeo seeks to rally GOP support for chips bill
Biden’s covid symptoms ‘almost completely resolved,’ doctor says.
"President Biden’s coronavirus symptoms have ‘almost completely resolved,’ White House physician Kevin C. O’Connor said in a memo released publicly Monday," John Wagner and Mariana Alfaro report.
“The Disney-backed streaming service Hulu is refusing to run political ads on central themes of Democratic midterm campaigns, including abortion, guns and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, prompting fury from the party’s candidates and leaders,” Michael Scherer reports.
Odessa attack will not impede grain exports, Russia says
“Russia said on Monday that its missile strikes on the Black Sea port of Odessa should not undermine the hoped-for export of grain following a recently inked deal between Moscow and Kyiv. Here’s the latest on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its ripple effects across the globe,” David Walker, Kendra Nichols and Grace Moon report.
In the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Tex. Rep. Chris Jacobs (R-N.Y.) gave a speech. He hadn't discussed it with anyone, but standing at a lectern in late May, the congressman said he would support a ban on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines. He would also push to raise the minimum age to purchase certain weapons to 21.
"Jacobs, a first-term member of Congress who represents a district near Buffalo, would become a cautionary tale about the politics of guns in the Republican Party. Officials who had endorsed Jacobs swiftly withdrew their support. Gun rights groups accused him of betrayal. Donald Trump Jr. said Jacobs had ‘caved to the gun-grabbers.’ A week after his news conference, Jacobs announced he would not seek reelection." Joanna Slater reports.
“Emerging market countries already faced mounting economic distress from the large amounts of spending required to fight the pandemic and, later, price spikes for food and fuel caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But tighter U.S. monetary policy will worsen those problems, because rising interest rates in the United States can push up the cost of financing debt for the dozens of low-income countries that borrow in dollars,” Jeff Stein reports.
“An influential network of conservative activists fixated on the idea that former President Donald J. Trump won the 2020 election is working to recruit county sheriffs to investigate elections based on the false notion that voter fraud is widespread,” the New York Times's Alexandra Berzon and Nick Corasaniti report.
“The push, which two right-wing sheriffs’ groups have already endorsed, seeks to lend law enforcement credibility to the false claims and has alarmed voting rights advocates."
“Hospitals are coping, as the most transmissible variant to date sweeps the country, by making compromises. They’re shifting staff between departments, handling longer emergency room waits, and even eliminating routine Covid testing. They’re seeking a new balance, recognizing that they cannot sustain the state of vigilance forever that marked the first two years of the pandemic,” Politico's Krista Mahr reports.
“Keeping his promises on the international stage has proved much more difficult than Biden might have expected. Domestic politics have routinely been a roadblock when it comes to taking action on climate change, taxes and pandemic relief, undermining hopes that Biden could swiftly restore the U.S. to its unquestioned role as a global leader,” the Associated Press's Chris Megerian, Fatima Hussein and Ellen Knickmeyer report.
“President Biden, who tested positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, probably has the BA.5 variant and continues to experience mild symptoms that are improving, the White House said Sunday,” Laura Reiley and Abha Bhattarai report.
“A first lady dipping in popularity alongside her husband is highly unusual. It also comes at a particularly bad time for Democrats and the Biden administration, who have relied on Jill Biden as one of their most powerful campaign surrogates and an uncontroversial bright spot for the White House. Last week, she spoke at three fundraisers over the course of five days, the final one on Monday, the day the CNN poll came out. The midterm elections that will determine whether President Biden gets a Congress that will support or torpedo his agenda are just four months away,” Jada Yuan reports.
How hot it is around the world, visualized
“This July, temperatures in London and Hamburg in northern Germany teetered over an edge that seemed unthinkable in previous centuries: 104 degrees (40 Celsius),” Naema Ahmed, John Muyskens, Kevin Schaul and Jason Samenow report.
“Ten years after making history as the first openly gay senator, Tammy Baldwin is blazing another trail," Politico's Burgess Everett reports.
“Donald Trump is coming back to Washington as Republican rivals maneuver for a possible primary challenge and lawmakers probe his culpability for the Jan. 6 insurrection,” Bloomberg News's Josh Wingrove and Mario Parker report.
At 12:30 p.m., Biden will deliver virtual remarks at the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) Conference.
The president will hold a virtual meeting with CEOs and labor leaders to discuss the Chips Act at 2:15 p.m.
At 3:10 p.m., White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and covid-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha will brief.
Tech tip of the day: Your boss might be reading your work messages. Here’s how to prevent that.
“The general rule of thumb is to assume that if your workplace is providing you a tool or device, they can and will see what you do on it, [Electronic Privacy Information Center executive director Alan] Butler said. In some cases, that might mean using administrative privileges to read direct messages or private channels on the company’s Slack workspace,” Danielle Abril explains.
This just in: Biden’s covid symptoms ‘almost completely resolved,’ doctor says | 2022-07-25T16:27:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Biden and Putin made it harder for Pelosi to visit Taiwan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/25/how-biden-putin-made-it-harder-pelosi-visit-taiwan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/25/how-biden-putin-made-it-harder-pelosi-visit-taiwan/ |
After Wis. Supreme Court absentee ballot decision, disabled people sue
Lawsuit says new rules for returning ballots violate the U.S. Constitution, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Absentee ballots in stacks during a recount of Milwaukee County's election results at the Wisconsin Center on Nov. 20, 2020. (Taylor Glascock for The Washington Post)
MADISON, Wis. — Four disabled people are asking a federal judge to ensure they can vote this fall after the Wisconsin Supreme Court limited how absentee ballots can be cast.
In a 4-3 ruling this month, the state’s high court ruled voters could not give their completed absentee ballots to someone else to turn in for them. That policy will make it impossible or extremely difficult for some voters to cast ballots, according to the lawsuit filed Friday in a federal court in Madison.
The lawsuit asks the federal court to allow disabled voters to give their ballots to others to return for them, arguing that the new regimen in Wisconsin violates the U.S. Constitution, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act.
The lawsuit reignites a dispute over how ballots are returned in a battleground state in the run-up to elections for governor and U.S. senator. Absentee ballots have already been sent to voters for the Aug. 9 primaries.
The state Supreme Court ruling from this month also banned the use of absentee ballot drop boxes. The new lawsuit does not seek to overturn that part of the decision.
Instead it focuses on part of the ruling that found voters could turn in only their own ballots when they visit an election clerk’s office.
Supporters of the decision said that part of the ruling would help prevent what they dismiss as “ballot harvesting,” where partisan groups pick up ballots from voters and turn them over to election officials. Critics argued the ruling went too far because it prevents someone from returning the ballots of their family members when they turn in their own.
Those who filed Friday’s lawsuit said the high court’s ruling is dire for them and will prevent them from voting.
Among those bringing the lawsuit is Timothy Carey, who is unable to move his body because he has Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Visiting the polls in-person is extremely difficult for him because he requires the use of a ventilator and other medical equipment. It’s also dangerous for him because his immune system would have difficulty fighting off the coronavirus.
Carey, who has voted absentee for more than three decades, can’t place his own ballot in the mail or turn it into a clerk because he doesn't have the use of his hands.
After the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a preliminary ruling in March limiting how absentee ballots could be returned, Carey said he was furious.
“Once again, the government treats adults to their own ends rather than [like] they’re people and they don’t think about the disabled at all and I don’t think they want to think of us,” he said in an interview at the time. “They haven’t even considered us.”
While the state Supreme Court ruling said voters could not give their ballots to someone else to turn in for them in-person, it did not address whether they could have someone else place them in the mail for them. But days after the ruling, the director of the state elections commission, Meagan Wolfe, told reporters “the voter is the one required to mail their ballot.”
The lawsuit argues that stance makes it impossible for Carey and the others who brought the lawsuit to vote.
“Now Plaintiffs are faced with an impossible, and unlawful, choice: Abstain from voting altogether or risk that their ballots will be invalidated, or that their only available method to vote absentee (ballot-return assistance) could subject them to prosecution,” their attorney, Scott Thompson, wrote in the lawsuit.
Carey and the others brought their lawsuit with the help of Law Forward, a liberal nonprofit law firm based in Madison focused on voting rights. The group represented Disability Rights Wisconsin and other groups in the lawsuit before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. | 2022-07-25T16:27:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After Wisconsin Supreme Court absentee ballot decision, disabled people sue - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/25/wisconsin-absentee-ballots-disabled/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/25/wisconsin-absentee-ballots-disabled/ |
FILE - British David Warner is photographed at the Duke of York’s Barracks in Chelsea, London, Jan. 19, 1967, where he was rehearsing for the film production “Work... is A Four Letter Word” with British singer Cilla Black. Warner, a versatile British actor whose roles ranged from Shakespeare to sci-fi cult classics, has died. He was 80. Warner’s family said he died from a cancer-related illness on Sunday, July 24, 2022 at Denville Hall, a retirement home for entertainers in London. (AP Photo, File) (Smith/AP) | 2022-07-25T16:27:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Titanic' and 'The Omen' actor David Warner dies at 80 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/titanic-and-the-omen-actor-david-warner-dies-at-80/2022/07/25/87fd8eee-0c2a-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/titanic-and-the-omen-actor-david-warner-dies-at-80/2022/07/25/87fd8eee-0c2a-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
The Biden administration’s preemptive pushback on ‘recession’
White House economic officials on June 19 stressed their belief that “a recession is not inevitable.” (Video: The Washington Post)
It’s quite possible that, by the end of this week, we could be having yet another hugely important political debate over the definition of a word: “recession.”
The Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday is set to release the second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) numbers. And if they’re negative, that will mark two consecutive quarters in which the economy has contracted — something that is generally understood to mean a recession.
How real and politically sensitive is that possibility? Real enough that the Biden administration is seeking to preempt it. Late last week, the White House issued a document stating that two straight quarters of negative GDP “is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle.” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen on Sunday went so far as to say she would be “amazed” if the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) — which determines whether we are officially in a recession — were to declare that. She also stated flatly that we’re not in a recession.
“Even if that [GDP] number is negative, we are not in a recession now,” Yellen said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And I would, you know, warn that we should be not characterizing that as a recession.”
The reasons for this preemptive pushback are obvious: There’s a very real possibility we’ll see a second straight negative quarter, according to various forecasts. And that would not only color the Biden administration’s handling of the economy — something about two-thirds of Americans already disapprove of — but it would come with just more than three months to go in the 2022 midterm elections. Imagine the tail end of that campaign taking place not just during a period of extremely high inflation, but during a recession, with Republicans having already been favored to retake both chambers of Congress.
Republicans and conservative media have taken note of the White House’s moves in recent days, with many suggesting the administration is seeking to redefine “recession” for its political purposes.
The first thing to note is that two straight quarters of negative GDP growth isn’t determinative; the official determination is up to the NBER, a nonpartisan, private organization which utilizes other factors in making such calls.
The NBER’s definition of a recession (which, notably, predates the Biden administration) states:
While gross domestic product (GDP) is the broadest measure of economic activity, the often-cited identification of a recession with two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth is not an official designation. … The NBER recession is a monthly concept that takes account of a number of monthly indicators — such as employment, personal income, and industrial production — as well as quarterly GDP growth. Therefore, while negative GDP growth and recessions closely track each other, the consideration by the NBER of the monthly indicators, especially employment, means that the identification of a recession with two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth does not always hold.
But GDP is the big one, as the NBER has said, including in 2008 when we were entering what would later be declared a recession.
“We view real GDP as the single best measure of aggregate economic activity,” the NBER said at the time. “In determining whether a recession has occurred and in identifying the approximate dates of the peak and the trough, we therefore place considerable weight on the estimates of real GDP issued by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the U.S. Department of Commerce.”
And it’s rare for there to be two consecutive quarters of negative GDP without a recession. In fact, George Washington University professor Tara Sinclair said the only time on record appears to have been 1947.
“But to be clear I don’t think that just because it hasn’t happened in recent history means if we see two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth then we’re clearly in a recession,” Sinclair said. “A recession is defined as a broad-based decline in economic activity and that should show up in lots of different measures, not just one, even one as important as GDP.”
Indeed, the current setup features some extraordinary dynamics related to the covid pandemic, with some of the other indicators the NBER’s definition isolates not in decline or at what are traditionally understood to be recession levels.
As The Washington Post’s Rachel Siegel wrote this weekend:
Roberto Perli, a former Federal Reserve economist and the head of global policy research at Piper Sandler, told The Post: “Even the NBER wouldn’t define this as a recession. You need more than two quarters of negative GDP growth. You need the labor market and so on.”
David Wessel, an economist at the Brookings Institution, cited the historically low unemployment rate as likely to give the NBER pause: “Right now the job market is the major factor stopping the NBER from declaring a recession even if we have two quarters of declining GDP.”
The NBER’s determination, based upon that definition, surely matters — particularly when it comes to how the potentially continued contraction is cast in the media (which is almost certainly the target of the White House’s missive).
At the same time, even without the determination having been made, a strong majority of Americans already believe we’re in a recession: 64 percent, in a CNN poll last week. That includes 56 percent of Democrats.
That’s not unusual. Polls will often show people think we’re in a recession even when we don’t even have the GDP numbers to back that up, including as recently as 2014. People seem to, quite understandably, perceive “recession” as meaning the “economy is bad.” And with inflation sky-high right now and the stock market struggling mightily, it’s perhaps not surprising that many people have reached that conclusion.
It’s also possible that, even if other indicators haven’t turned sufficiently negative for the NBER to declare a recession in the near future, these indicators could take a turn if we see a second consecutive negative quarter of GDP (perhaps combined with the Fed raising interest rates again, which could lead to higher unemployment) and the market adjusts accordingly. A recent CNBC survey found that 68 percent of chief financial officers expect a recession in the first half of 2023, so they might already being making decisions accordingly on things like hiring.
“The reality is the latest data tells us what we already knew: that inflation has persisted for way too long, and even when it cools, it may not cool enough,” Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, recently told The Post. “Words like ‘pain’ and ‘higher unemployment’ have seeped into the Fed’s messaging, which means they know they will likely have to raise the unemployment rate to a level that is consistent with a recession.”
But the timing of that determination would still be important; the first half of 2023 would put it after the midterm elections. Of course, in the interim would could see plenty on the right declare a recession themselves, with the Biden administration put in the position of arguing against it.
That debate has already begun, even as we await word Thursday about just how earnestly we must have it. | 2022-07-25T17:48:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Biden administration’s preemptive pushback on ‘recession’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/25/biden-administration-recession-pushback/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/25/biden-administration-recession-pushback/ |
Even on Jan. 7, Trump declined to say the rioters didn’t represent him
In a draft document, he also appeared to remove a reference to the rioters ‘not represent[ing] our movement’
Footage of President Donald Trump rehearsing a speech on Jan. 7, 2021, is played during a hearing of the House Jan. 6 committee on July 21. (Sarah Silbiger/Reuters)
In the immediate aftermath of the attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, there seemed to be broad consensus on at least one point: The supporters of President Donald Trump who had actually committed the acts of violence deserved criticism and punishment under the law. Discussions about Trump’s culpability and how to ensure an orderly transition of power were the focus on Jan. 7 in part because — beyond one particularly shoddy assertion — there was little interest in defending the rioters or downplaying their involvement.
In a video released Monday by Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), a member of the House select committee investigating the riot, we get a hint that this was not necessarily a universal sentiment. It includes an image of a draft of the speech that Trump recorded on that day — the one where he struck a reference to the election being over, we learned last week. The new image includes other omissions, like a strike-through of a line about prosecutions against the rioters.
And then, more tellingly, a crossed-out line in which Trump would have said that the rioters didn’t represent him or his movement.
We don’t know with certainty that the strike-throughs shown in the document (as below) came from Trump. But there is strong evidence to suggest they did. First, the lines crossing out proposed elements of his speech were done in what appears to be black Sharpie marker — long Trump’s preferred writing instrument. What’s more, the note added to the document appears to be in Trump’s own handwriting, as confirmed by his daughter Ivanka in Luria’s video.
Then, of course, there are the changes themselves.
As drafted, the beginning of Trump’s speech would have been as follows:
“Good afternoon. I would like to begin today by addressing the heinous attack yesterday on the United States Capitol. Like all Americans, I am outraged and sickened by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem. I immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders.
“America is, and must always be, a nation of law and order.
“The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American Democracy. I am directing the Department of Justice to ensure all lawbreakers are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We must send a clear message — not with mercy but with JUSTICE. Legal consequences must be swift and firm.
“To those who engaged in acts of violence and destruction, I want to be very clear: you do not represent me. You do not represent our movement. You do not represent our country. And if you broke the law, you belong in jail.
“We have just been through an intense election and emotions are high. But now, tempers must be cooled and calm restored.”
Instead, as delivered, the speech went like this:
“I would like to begin by addressing the heinous attack on the United States Capitol. Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem. I immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders.
“The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy.
“To those who engage in the acts of violence and destruction: you do not represent our country, and to those who broke the law: you will pay.
“We have just been through an intense election and emotions are high, but now tempers must be cooled and calm restored.”
No more “sickened” by the violence. No more “you do not represent me.” No more “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” If you were trying to rewrite the original draft to demonstrate as much sympathy as possible with the rioters, this gets you most of the way there. That the changes in the final version comport with the edits in the document published by Luria, of course, reinforces the likelihood that they reflect Trump’s intent. (That he kept a false claim about the National Guard does, as well.)
It’s not clear who wrote the original draft. In the video released by Luria, though, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, mentions working on such a speech.
“I spoke to Miller,” Kushner said — presumably referring to aide Stephen Miller, who wrote many of Trump’s speeches — “about trying to put together some draft remarks for Jan. 7 that we were going to present to the president to try to say. We felt like it was important to further call for de-escalation.” Trump had no changes for calls for “tempers to be cooled and calm restored” — perhaps because, as White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson suggests in Luria’s video, there was an unprecedented push for Trump to be removed from office.
While the changes to the draft document appear to have been made by Trump and certainly reflect what we might have expected from the president at that time, it’s worth thinking of them not as subtractive but as additive. What does Trump’s decision to make those specific changes add to our understanding of his state of mind less than 24 hours after the riot?
He didn’t want to say he was sickened, which is admittedly hard to parse given that he did admit to being “outraged.” But he also didn’t want to suggest that those who’d engaged in the violence would face retribution from law enforcement, a revision that comports with reporting that suggests Trump considered simply pardoning those involved. (In speeches given more recently, as opinion within his party toward the riot has softened, he’s said that he would offer pardons to some of those who entered the Capitol.)
Then those most significant changes: his decision not to distance himself from what the rioters represented. They were clearly there and engaged in the effort to disrupt the counting of electoral votes underway that day on his behalf. They clearly did represent at least some part of Trump’s political movement. In refusing to distance himself from them, Trump repeated the pattern he had begun the day before: treating the rioters with respect if not explicit appreciation. He knew why they were there as well as anybody and, on Jan. 7, didn’t want them to think that he was disowning them.
This comports with another theory of Trump’s response to the riot. Perhaps he wanted to keep the door open. Perhaps his efforts in the hours after the Capitol was cleared were meant to simply smooth out a political rough patch while maintaining his years-long focus in telling his base what it wanted to hear. Perhaps he thought there still might be a path to retaining office that demanded the assistance of his most fervent supporters. After all, there was no reason to think his plot on Jan. 6 would work, but he tried it anyway. Why wouldn’t he think something else might emerge?
Kushner’s point was that the moment called for de-escalation. As edited, Trump’s speech called for everyone to chill out — but he chose not to distance himself from the allies who most needed to hear that message. | 2022-07-25T17:48:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Even on Jan. 7, Trump declined to say the rioters didn't represent him or his movement - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/25/even-jan-7-trump-declined-say-rioters-didnt-represent-him/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/25/even-jan-7-trump-declined-say-rioters-didnt-represent-him/ |
Heavy storms probable in D.C. area Monday afternoon
Heavy rain and lightning are probable, while a few locations could see damaging wind gusts; most intense storms to probably come through between 2 and 5 p.m.
Today will probably mark the 8th in a row with highs in the 90s in Washington, but a cold front barging into the region will put an end to that streak. This front will set off widespread showers and storms as we transition to this less hot air mass.
The heaviest storms will sweep through swiftly, arriving in our western areas by 2-3 p.m., right around the Beltway close to 3-4 p.m. and pushing over the bay by 5 or 6 p.m. — although this timing could shift slightly. There could be a weaker, trailing line of showers and storms closer to sunset that exits by 10 or 11 p.m.
The afternoon round of storms could produce heavy downpours, lightning and a few bursts of damaging winds. The National Weather Service, which placed the area under a level 2 out of 5 risk for severe weather, issued a bulletin indicating it is “likely” (80 percent chance) to issue a severe thunderstorm watch.
A severe thunderstorm watch has already been issued for much of the Northeast from the New York City area through northern Maine until 8 p.m.
The storm potential this afternoon and evening is predicated on the arrival of a cold front from the northwest, intersecting an unstable and humid air mass along and ahead of it. The surface forecast chart below shows the position of the front at 8 p.m.:
Meanwhile, in the middle atmosphere, a belt of strong winds oriented from Pennsylvania to Maine, and, parallel to the front, will shift toward the northeast.
Storms have begun to develop along the crest of the Appalachians to our west; these storms will then drift toward Interstate 95 during the mid-late afternoon.
Given some sunshine and plentiful low-level moisture, we expect the atmosphere to destabilize to modest levels by midafternoon. This will energize and enlarge cloud updrafts. However, thick cloud drifting over the area from storms further northwest, may prevent the atmosphere from reaching full destabilization this afternoon.
With moderate instability, the degree of storm intensity and organization is determined by wind shear, which is the increase in wind speed with altitude. Wind shear levels as measured by weather balloon this morning at Dulles Airport did not reveal exceptional levels, only around 20 mph (18 knots). With the approaching ribbon of faster wind aloft, however, we expect these values to climb to closer to 40 mph (30-35 knots) through the afternoon.
The image below shows the forecast wind shear values at 5 p.m. The D.C. region will lie along the southern edge of higher wind shear values to the north; the core of strongest shear will be well to our north. Such strong wind shear values in an unstable atmosphere may trigger isolated supercell thunderstorms, with the best chance for damaging wind, tornadoes and large hail.
In the Washington region, we expect torrential rain, lightning and a few pockets of strong to damaging wind or downbursts. The activity will be progressive, so we don’t expect storm cells passing repeatedly over the same area or training. But due to the intense updrafts and abundant low level moisture, some spots may pick up a quick one to two inches of rain – enough to trigger isolated flash flooding in areas that have received large amounts of rain this month. | 2022-07-25T17:53:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Severe storms: D.C., Baltimore await downpours, lightning, strong winds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/07/25/dc-storms-severe-md-va/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/07/25/dc-storms-severe-md-va/ |
The SEC alleges the Indiana Republican exploited nonpublic information in his role as a corporate consultant to reap hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits
Former U.S. Rep. Stephen Buyer (R-Ind.) was charged with insider trading, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday. (Michael Heinz/AP)
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged former congressman Stephen Buyer with insider trading on Monday, accusing the Indiana Republican of abusing his role as a corporate consultant to exploit nonpublic information to reap hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits.
The SEC said Buyer engaged in two trading schemes, in 2018 and 2019. He allegedly used his position to purchase shares of companies ahead of significant announcements, then sold them after the information became public and pumped up the stock price.
“When insiders like Buyer — an attorney, a former prosecutor, and a retired Congressman — monetize their access to material, nonpublic information, as alleged in this case, they not only violate the federal securities laws, but also undermine public trust and confidence in the fairness of our markets,” said Gurbir S. Grewal, who oversees the SEC’s enforcement division. “We are committed to doing all we can to maintain and enhance public trust by leveling the playing field and holding Buyer accountable for illegally profiting from his access.”
The allegations stem from Buyer’s actions as a businesses consultant. He formed his own consulting and lobbying firm, the Steve Buyer Group, in 2011, after leaving Congress.
Buyer represented Indiana’s 4th and 5th congressional districts from 1993 to 2011.
The SEC wants Buyer to turn over any ill-gotten gains, plus interest and penalties, as well as ban him from serving as an officer and director of any company. Federal regulators also are seeking disgorgement from Buyer’s wife, Joni Lynn Buyer, who’s alleged to have profited when Buyer executed unlawful trades in her brokerage account.
The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York is also pursuing criminal charges in parallel to the SEC action. | 2022-07-25T17:57:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stephen Buyer, former GOP congressman from Indiana, accused of insider trading - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/25/stephen-buyer-insider-trading-sec/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/25/stephen-buyer-insider-trading-sec/ |
Sailfish can weigh up to 200 pounds and swim almost 70 mph, making them one of the fastest marine animals, according to the Ocean Conservancy. (iStock)
Katherine Perkins, 73, of Arnold, Md., was airlifted to a hospital after the boat returned to shore in Stuart, Fla., on Tuesday, according to an incident report from the Martin County Sheriff’s Office.
Perkins was on the boat with Louis Toth, 75, and Dominic Bellezza, 77, when Toth hooked the sailfish, which the two men estimated weighed 100 pounds, the report said. As Toth tried to reel it in, it “began to charge at the boat” and leaped out of the water, stabbing Perkins in the groin as she stood next to the boat’s center console.
According to police, Toth and Bellezza “immediately put pressure on the wound” and called for help as they returned to shore. Reached by phone, Toth declined to be interviewed.
Perkins told the responding officer that “the incident occurred so fast she did not have time to react,” police said.
The town of Stuart, where Perkins was stabbed, has proclaimed itself the “sailfish capital of the world” since 1957, according to Treasure Coast Newspapers, and a 19-foot sailfish statue is located downtown. | 2022-07-25T17:58:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland woman stabbed in groin by sailfish off Stuart, Florida, coast - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/07/25/sailfish-stabs-woman/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/07/25/sailfish-stabs-woman/ |
Lane Thomas attributes much of how he views competition, both winning and losing, to watching his father on the professional racing circuit. (Nick Wass/AP)
The first time Lane Thomas signed an autograph was more than two decades ago, before he got drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays, before he roamed the outfield for the Washington Nationals. He was 3 years old, with a mop of dirty blond hair.
The year was 1998, and Thomas’s father, Mike, had just won a National Hot Rod Association race in Chicago. When Mike was asked to sign autographs, Lane started doling his out as well.
“Now that I’m old enough, I’m like, ‘Well, I was just handing them out.’ They probably didn’t even want it,” Thomas, now 26, said. “They probably thought it was cute or something, but they didn’t even ask me.”
This year, the demand for that autograph has increased as Thomas’s profile has risen in his first full season with Washington. His hitting in June was a bright spot for the struggling Nationals. Thomas has rotated in and out of the lineup all season and spent a stretch in the leadoff spot. Thomas’s bat has cooled of late, but the outfielder has been working to regain the stride he hit earlier in the summer. With three more years of team control after this season, he is expected to be a part of the club’s immediate future, whether as an everyday player or a reserve outfielder.
Of course, there are ups and downs. But navigating those ups and downs — Thomas learned about that from his father, too. Thomas attributes much of how he views competition, both winning and losing, to watching his father on the professional racing circuit. He saw his dad work through slumps and emerge with thrilling wins, watched him make minor, split-second adjustments that could have major payoffs. It translates, he said, to baseball, where he takes diligent notes that help inform adjustments. He wants to be aggressive while still judicial in the batter’s box.
As much as he loved traveling to watch his dad race, baseball caught Thomas’s eye from a young age. He and his father would play catch on the road at any opportunity, memories that Mike looks back on fondly now.
“He could never get enough baseball,” Mike Thomas said. “You could say, ‘Want to go to the lake this weekend, son?’ He’d say, ‘No, I want to play baseball, Dad.’ That’s been his life desire, and he’s living it.”
Along the way, Mike Thomas has stayed involved as Lane has seen his dreams solidify into reality. Thomas was drafted in 2014 by the Blue Jays, but in 2017 was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals organization. He spent time with the Class AA Springfield Cardinals in Missouri and the Class AAA Memphis Redbirds in his home state of Tennessee, and his father would travel frequently to watch him play, taking advantage of the improved proximity.
Thomas received his first major league call-up in April 2019, beginning a two-year stretch that saw him split time between St. Louis and Class AAA Memphis.
When Thomas was traded to the Nationals in July 2021, Mike Thomas continued to travel to see him play, a combination of flights to Washington for homestands and strategically scheduled road trips. Mike Thomas tries to watch his son play at least once or twice a month; he made the trip to Atlanta for a recent road series against the Braves, and he’ll be in attendance for Washington’s series against the Dodgers in Los Angeles.
It’s a reversal of their situation two decades ago, when Lane tagged along for his father’s cross-country trips.
“He’s always telling me ‘You know what you can do,’ ” Lane Thomas said. “I think that’s the biggest part of it is just being my biggest fan.”
Thomas also appreciates that his father holds him to a high standard, even expecting more out of him than the outfielder does himself. The two talk frequently before and after games, often but not always about baseball. Drawing on parallels from his own career, the elder Thomas tries to provide guidance, sometimes waiting to chime in until he’s asked and other times sharing his thoughts more readily.
Mike Thomas said that balance has at times elicited a joke from his son, a reference to “Moneyball.”
“Sometimes he’ll say, ‘Dad, you just think you’re Billy Beane, don’t you?’ ” Mike Thomas said with a laugh.
There was a time when Mike did coach his son, when Lane was growing up in Knoxville. Mike Thomas served as an assistant coach, and his retirement from professional drag racing in 2008 allowed for even more time with his son’s team.
“He was just a workaholic,” Lane Thomas said of his father, who previously owned a chain of carwashes and now owns a metal fabrication company. “And then he got to do his hobby as a job for a little bit, too, like I do.”
Mike Thomas considers it heartwarming to know that his career helped shape what his son’s has turned into, and he laughs when he thinks back to playing catch on the road with Lane as a child. Other stalwarts of the drag-racing circuit would remark on Lane’s arm, a funny pattern to reflect on now.
“It’s so difficult to make Major League Baseball,” Mike Thomas said. “It’s just unbelievable sometimes.” | 2022-07-25T17:58:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Lane Thomas learned from his dad on the drag racing circuit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/lane-thomas-father/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/lane-thomas-father/ |
Capitals name Scott Allen to coaching staff, replacing Scott Arniel
The Washington Capitals on Monday added Scott Allen to Peter Laviolette’s coaching staff, where he will join assistant coaches Blaine Forsythe, Kevin McCarthy and goaltending coach Scott Murray.
Allen, who will mostly work with Washington’s forwards and the penalty kill, was the former head coach for the Hershey Bears in the American Hockey League. Allen spent the previous two seasons an assistant in Hershey before he was named head coach ahead of the 2021-22 season.
The 56-year-old replaced Scott Arniel, who left in early July to take an assistant coaching position with the Winnipeg Jets. Arniel, who led the penalty kill in Washington, was an assistant coach with the Capitals for four seasons.
The Capitals’ penalty kill went 18-for-18 in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Florida Panthers, but Washington lost the series. Washington’s penalty killing unit was ranked 13th in the regular season at 80.44 percent.
Capitals General Manager Brian MacLellan said in mid-July the team had narrowed down its assistant coach search to five candidates and wanted to hire someone with similar skill-sets as Arniel. MacLellan said Arniel’s replacement was the only coaching change expected ahead of the 2022-23 season.
Allen’s coaching career includes stints with multiple NHL teams, including assistant positions with the Panthers, the New York Islanders and the Arizona Coyotes. He ran the penalty kill in Arizona and during the 2018-19 season, the Coyotes were tied for first in the NHL in penalty kill percentage (85.0). Allen also coached in the AHL for 14 seasons. | 2022-07-25T17:58:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Capitals name Scott Allen assistant coach - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/washington-capitals-scott-allen-assistant-coach/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/washington-capitals-scott-allen-assistant-coach/ |
Arkansas Governor Hutchinson on abortion and the future of the Republican party
He’s a conservative governor wrestling with the impact of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade. Join Washington Post Live on Monday, August 1 at 10:00 a.m. ET to hear Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (R) explain one regret he has about an abortion law he signed three years ago, why he believes Donald Trump has been disqualified from a 2024 presidential run and whether the term-limited governor will make a run for the Oval Office himself.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) | 2022-07-25T17:58:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Arkansas Governor Hutchinson on abortion and the future of the Republican party - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/08/01/arkansas-governor-hutchinson-abortion-future-republican-party/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/08/01/arkansas-governor-hutchinson-abortion-future-republican-party/ |
In this photo provided by the Royal Bahamas Defense Force, survivors sit on a capsized boat as they are about to be rescued near New Providence in the Bahamas, early Sunday, July 24, 2022. Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis said in a statement that the dead included 15 women, one man and an infant. (Royal Bahamas Defense Force via AP) (Uncredited/Royal Bahamas Defense Force) | 2022-07-25T17:58:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bahamian officials search for survivors after boat sinks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/bahamian-officials-search-for-survivors-after-boat-sinks/2022/07/25/cd6a8024-0c3c-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/bahamian-officials-search-for-survivors-after-boat-sinks/2022/07/25/cd6a8024-0c3c-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Fire near Yosemite spreads into California’s largest of the season
Cal Fire firefighters extinguish hot spots after the Oak Fire moved through the area on July 25 near Jerseydale, Calif. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
A raging wildfire near Yosemite National Park continued to rapidly spread over the weekend, burning more than 16,700 acres as of Monday morning and growing into the state’s largest wildfire of the season. Thousands of structures are threatened and about 3,000 residents are under evacuation orders, authorities said.
The Oak Fire began Friday afternoon near the town of Midpines in rural Mariposa County — roughly 75 miles from Fresno — and by the end of that day, it covered more than 4,000 acres. By Monday morning, it had burned more than quadruple that amount — 16,791 acres — outside Yosemite, according to Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency.
Officials and experts have attributed the quick spread to hot and dry conditions, as well as vegetation that could have helped fuel the flames. Authorities say the blaze continues to be driven by dense vegetation and the area’s terrain.
Still, authorities said early Monday the fire activity “was not as extreme” as it had been in the previous two days, which allowed firefighters to “make good headway” and contain 10 percent of the fire overnight, according to a Cal Fire incident report.
Overnight, the fire perimeter had pushed toward the community of Mariposa Pines, where strike teams were able to hold the fire line, according to the report. Crews also continued working to hold the line on the northeast and south sides of the fire.
The wildfire had destroyed 10 structures and damaged five as of Sunday evening, according to the department’s website. On Monday, that figure was adjusted to no structures damaged and seven destroyed.
Cal Fire spokeswoman Natasha Fouts said Sunday that about 3,000 people were under evacuation orders and that nearly 2,000 were being warned they may need to leave soon.
Kelly Martin, a former chief of fire and aviation management at Yosemite National Park, said in an interview Monday that several elements aligned perfectly for the Oak Fire to burn: high temperatures, abundant vegetation and steep topography.
Martin added that the urban landscape in Mariposa County, where communities are “very spread out,” makes it difficult to do prescribed or “controlled” burning, which can reduce the amount of combustible vegetation. This material, including wood debris and branches, then becomes available for burns.
“Hotter and warmer summers and more vegetation growth on the landscape, minus any natural fire, means this fire was waiting to happen,” Martin said. “With these conditions, these fires will continue to burn and threaten communities, no matter what.”
How wildfires are threatening Yosemite’s giant sequoias
The steep topography of the Midpines area, along with the high temperatures, poses serious challenges for fire crews to go in and try to contain the blaze, she added.
Thousands of people were ordered to evacuate Mariposa County, Calif. on July 24 as the Oak Fire threatened homes and wildlife outside Yosemite National Park. (Video: The Washington Post) | 2022-07-25T19:24:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oak Fire near Yosemite National Park is California's largest of the season - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/25/yosemite-oak-wildfire-evacuations/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/25/yosemite-oak-wildfire-evacuations/ |
Nationwide, there have been efforts to lower youth incarceration rates and close youth prisons
By Claire Healy
When Mark Patterson took over as administrator of the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility in 2014, he inherited 500 acres of farm ranch — and the care of 26 boys and seven girls between 13 and 19 years old.
By 2016, his facility, in Kailua, Oahu, was only holding between five and six girls at a time. And in June, the last girl left the facility.
Patterson said this moment is “20 years in the making,” and the result of a systemwide effort to divert girls from the judicial system and into trauma-based care programs. The number of incarcerated boys has also lowered significantly in the past decade, he added.
Patterson said HYCF is a last resort — the kids there “have run away from programs 10 to 11 times” and are the most vulnerable of the high-risk youth. But various state officials have agreed that “we no longer want to keep sending our kids to prison,” Patterson said.
“What I’m trying to do is end the punitive model that we have so long used for our kids, and we replace it with a therapeutic model,” he added. “Do we really have to put a child in prison because she ran away? What kind of other environment is more conducive for her to heal and be successful in the community?”
Hawaii isn’t the only state to reach zero girls in long-term placement facilities.
According to Lindsay Rosenthal, director of the Vera Institute’s Initiative to End Girls’ Incarceration, Vermont has zero long-term placement facilities for girls, and for nine months in 2020, Maine had zero incarcerated girls statewide. Since February 2021, New York City hasn’t had more than two girls in the state’s juvenile placement facility at any given time.
After 35 years, a lawsuit over ‘inhumane’ juvenile detention in D.C. has led to major reforms
But just as women are the fastest-growing prison population, the proportion of girls in juvenile detention has increased even as overall numbers have gone down. Researchers also estimate a disproportionate number of incarcerated youth are nonbinary or transgender, although there is limited data on this. As advocates point out, the majority of incarcerated girls are in prison for low-level offenses, often influenced by a history of abuse — as noted in various research — or systemic challenges, such as poverty.
Rosenthal said juvenile justice reform has progressed dramatically in the past 10 to 15 years. But she emphasized that a state reaching zero doesn’t necessarily reflect progress — Vermont has sent some girls to facilities in New Hampshire, and placed at least one girl into an adult prison, for example — without the presence of community-based alternative programming. HYCF is an example of a facility that has seen such an investment pay off, she said.
Gender-focused programming is essential, Rosethal added, because of “the criminalization of sexual abuse.” This legacy, she said, reaches back to colonization and slavery in the United States and has resulted in the disproportionately high incarceration rates of Black and Indigenous women and girls.
“No matter what girls are charged with in the juvenile legal system today, the most common reason why they’re incarcerated, which most leaders openly talk about, is that they are not safe in the community,” she said. “That’s wrong, and it has incredibly deep historical roots.”
The history of HYCF has also been thrown into the spotlight this year: In May, the Interior Department released an investigative report that found thousands or tens of thousands of children died in the custody of federal boarding schools, which operated between 1819 and 1969 and separated Native American and Native Hawaiian children from their families. Among their list of schools implicated in Hawaii are the Kawailoa and Waialee Industrial and Reformatory Schools, HYCF’s direct predecessors that merged into the facility in 1961.
The facility also received attention in the early aughts, when a 2004 Justice Department investigation found that the facility was in a “state of chaos” with rampant abuse. The American Civil Liberties Union won a lawsuit against HYCF in 2006, in which three young people charged the facility and its staff with homophobic and transphobic abuse.
Patterson said the movement to replace punitive systems with trauma-informed care in Hawaii’s juvenile justice system reaches back to 2004, when Judge Karen Radius, a now-retired First Circuit Family Court judge, founded Girls Court. One of the first in the nation, the program aimed to address the specific crimes and trauma history of girls.
“News that there are currently no girls in the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility at this point in time is great news. But we know it doesn’t mean we have solved all the issues facing girls and young women,” Radius said, noting her concern that pandemic shutdowns and policy changes may have barred at-risk youth from receiving necessary support.
Many influential programs in the state followed the formation of Girls Court. In 2009, Project Kealahou launched as a six-year, federally funded program aimed at improving services for Hawaii’s at-risk female youth. And in 2013, Hawaii created the Juvenile Justice Reform Task Force to analyze the juvenile justice system in Hawaii and provide policy recommendations aimed at reducing the HYCF population.
Then, in 2018, Patterson partnered with the Initiative to End Girls’ Incarceration and drafted a “10-year strategy to get to zero.” The overarching goal was to focus on the underlying trauma the youth were suffering from, instead of the crimes they were charged with, Patterson said.
Before working with youths, Patterson was the warden of Hawaii’s only women’s prison, the Women’s Community Correctional Center (WCCC), across the street. He said his time there showed him how many of the women there could trace their trauma back to their home life as a child.
That same year, he set out transitioning HYCF into the Kawailoa Youth and Family Wellness Center, remodeling the program around trauma-informed care — a framework for care providers to understand and consider the impact an individual’s trauma history has on their life and health. Today’s campus has a homeless shelter, an assessment center, a vocational program serving youths ages 15 to 24, a farm managed by a nonprofit and a high school for high-risk youths.
Guiding this transformation was Patterson’s goal of creating a pu’uhonua — a place created within a traditional Hawaiian village for conflict resolution and forgiveness — for Hawaii’s most vulnerable youths.
As Patterson described it, a pu’uhonua acknowledges and identifies a wrong that has been committed in the village. But unlike a punitive system, “we’re going to teach you how to live with the village and manage the wrong,” he said. “So that you’re no longer an outcast, but you’re still welcome back.”
Patterson said that in his experience, a disproportionate amount of teenagers coming to him are Native Hawaiians — both the girls and boys at his facility.
For Toni Bissen, executive director of the Pu’a Foundation, an organization focused on healing and reconciliation efforts related to the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, it all comes back to trauma: personal, historical and intergenerational.
“The generational aspect of loss and power, poverty, violence that just kind of compounds,” she said. “That is what is happening in these households. And that’s why drugs, truancy and different kinds of things are outlets.”
The Pu’a Foundation ran a pre-transition class for the last four girls incarcerated at HYCF. But another important task in the transition was identifying programs that could provide them with specialty care. For some previously incarcerated girls, Pearl Haven was that place.
Created two years ago by the nonprofit Ho’ola Na Pua (HNP), Pearl Haven is the first live-in care center on Hawaii for survivors of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. Jessica Munoz, president of HNP, said she saw a need for Pearl Haven when she was working as a clinical nurse practitioner in Hawaii.
“When I first started, we were arresting kids,” she said. “We weren’t screening for sexual exploitation or trafficking among the court system, among the child welfare system.”
She was trafficked in the 1970s, she said, when “there was no word called trafficking.” Instead, she was seen as an underage prostitute. “I hid behind that,” she said. “So I never told anybody what I was doing while I was on the run for nine months from the system.”
Now, the system is providing young women with the chance to look at “what was done to them, instead of what they’ve done,” Bitanga said.
“This is not a zero … everybody’s finished, we can go home,” he said. “Now the question is sustaining zero.” | 2022-07-25T19:24:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hawaii has no girls in juvenile detention. Here’s how it got there. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/25/hawaii-zero-girls-youth-correctional-facility/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/25/hawaii-zero-girls-youth-correctional-facility/ |
How Italy’s Political Drama Forced an Election
Analysis by Chiara Albanese | Bloomberg
Mario Draghi, Italy’s prime minister, listens during a debate at the Senate in Rome, Italy, on Tuesday, June 21, 2022. Italy’s biggest party is set to splinter over the country’s support for Ukraine, just as Draghi defended in parliament his government’s stance on the conflict. (Bloomberg)
Italy is never far from a political crisis. But the elections set for Sept. 25 will be exceptional even by Italian standards, where 67 governments have taken turns since World War II. Europeans are grappling with an energy crunch and concern that higher interest rates could touch off a panic about heavily indebted countries -- like Italy. Then there’s the likely rise of Italy’s anti-immigration right-wing parties and the exit of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the former central banker who was seen as a steady hand, leaving investors fretting about what’s next.
1. What’s unusual about this election?
It’s the first held in the fall in the country’s history, a time when Parliament is busy drafting the budget law for the following year. The campaign is compressed into two months. It will also be the first time Italy will vote to elect a Parliament with a curtailed number of lawmakers, making competition to win a seat as aggressive as ever. Draghi stepped down after the broad coalition he had been leading since early 2021 dissolved and three of his key allies pulled their support. A skilled technocrat who was navigating the country through an inflationary crisis, Draghi is widely credited with saving the euro when he was head of the European Central Bank.
2. What led up to this?
The crisis was initially triggered by the Five Star Movement, the anti-establishment group that surged to power in 2018 and has been criticizing Rome’s military support for Ukraine. It snowballed into a spectacular set of political moves as Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia sensed political opportunity from fresh elections, pulling out of the coalition and leading Draghi to resign. Other issues driving the split have been how to allocate financial support for Italians hurt by rising prices, how to push through reforms to free up Italy from red tape and boost competition, and changes aimed at making the tax system more fair -- all topics likely to drive the campaign.
Though Draghi will remain in office until a new government takes over, his powers have been curtailed. His government will still have the ability to implement reforms essential for unlocking about 200 billion euros ($204 billion) in aid from the European Union and to represent Italy at international events, but his authority as a leading figure in Europe’s response in Russia’s war in Ukraine has been curbed. Draghi’s government won’t be able to pass new and non-essential legislation, and to make new appointments for state-controlled companies except for those strictly necessary. During the coming weeks, Italy’s political scene will be dominated by parties laying out their campaigns and deciding whom they’ll team up with for the vote.
4. Who’s likely to win?
Right-wing parties have the most to gain, and this is also the reason why they were quick to take advantage of the crisis triggered by Five Star. Based on current polls, a rightist coalition is expected to win the most seats, provided its members can stick together. The coalition includes Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, as well as the League and Forza Italia, which until recently were within Draghi’s government. Italy’s current electoral law, or legge Rosato, favors parties which are running together, and party leaders are working on which alliances to favor based on cross-vetoes. While the right-wing coalition is clearly defined, how the teams will shape up in the center where a myriad of small but antagonist groups has formed is harder to predict. The Democratic Party is currently against teaming up with Five Star, even though they shared a government.
The weakness and indebtedness of the euro-area’s third-largest economy risks becoming everyone else’s problem. Until early July, Draghi’s coalition had managed a balancing act of keeping the economy growing after the pandemic and reducing Italy’s mammoth debt, the biggest in the euro area at about one and a half times gross domestic product. Italy’s drama comes as the ECB is tightening monetary policy and raising interest rates, which is raising concern of a recession in the nations that use the common currency. Tensions were raised after the yield on 10-year Italian government bonds breached 4% in June, the highest since 2014. Higher interest rates raise questions about the long-term sustainability of Italy’s debt load amid a stagnant economy and shrinking population.
Most political analysts trace the current era to 1994, when following a series of scandals, Berlusconi rose to power and with him the a current system of political parties. The combination of weak parties associated with a single, charismatic leader and his success, plus electoral laws that force them into broad, uneasy alliances that often splinter is a recipe for political instability. That’s likely to happen again in the upcoming election.
• Here’s a guide to the election landscape as the campaign starts.
• Draghi saved the euro, but Italy’s politics beat him.
• A Bloomberg Economics report on the risks from Italy.
• Why a crisis in Italy brings turmoil for the euro.
• Related QuickTakes on Europe’s bond market fragmentation, Europe’s energy crisis and the 2012 euro crisis. A 2018 explainer on the rise of the Five Star Movement.
• Bloomberg Opinion’s Rachel Sanderson explains how Draghi has left his mark.
• Italy’s divisions are being exposed by the war in Ukraine.
• Here’s why Italy typically doesn’t holds elections in the summer or fall. | 2022-07-25T19:29:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Italy’s Political Drama Forced an Election - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-italys-political-drama-forced-an-election/2022/07/25/78250e72-0c46-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-italys-political-drama-forced-an-election/2022/07/25/78250e72-0c46-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
It also plans to name a national monkeypox coordinator
People demand more government action, including treatments and vaccines, to combat the spread of monkeypox during a July 21 rally in New York City. (Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)
White House and health agency leaders deliberated through the weekend about their next steps to fight the virus, after the World Health Organization on Saturday declared that monkeypox was a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the agency’s highest-level warning. About 17,000 cases have been confirmed outside of Africa since May — including nearly 2,900 in the United States — as infections continue to climb in countries where the virus is not historically found.
While the new cases have been overwhelmingly in the gay and bisexual community, experts warn the virus is likely to spread to other groups. The first two U.S. cases of monkeypox in children were confirmed Friday, likely the result of sharing a household with an infected adult. But federal health authorities said there was no evidence yet of sustained transmission among broader population groups.
While some health officials believe an emergency declaration is necessary to give the government authority to cut through red tape and collect data about the virus’ spread, others argued the move is mostly symbolic, and will not address vaccine shortages, treatment barriers and other challenges that have hindered the U.S. response, said three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.
Officials also have raised questions about whether such a declaration is warranted for a virus yet to be linked to a single confirmed U.S. death. The strain of monkeypox implicated in this outbreak is tied to fever, lesions and severe pain that may last for weeks, in addition to complications in pregnant women, children and other vulnerable people.
Officials are hoping to make a decision on the emergency declaration later this week, tied to a planned announcement that about 800,000 additional vaccine doses will be distributed following completion of a review by the Food and Drug Administration, said two of the people.
The decision also is complicated by domestic politics. Advocacy groups and health associations have called on the Biden administration to declare public health emergencies for abortion and gun violence, and the White House has said it is considering a broader emergency declaration for climate change, sparking debate about which issues to prioritize. The Biden administration has also continued to renew public health emergency declarations, which expire every 90 days, for opioids and coronavirus.
Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services have privately acknowledged that it is unclear an emergency declaration is needed.
A declaration is “a tool that could be used to both align with WHO and raise additional awareness, as well as provide significant justification for HHS to use (though limited) tools that would aid in the response,” according to a memo sent to President Biden on Sunday, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post.
White House officials say the decision rests with HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, and that they continue to be concerned about the slow pace of the response. Patients say they still face days-long delays in getting test results, physicians have complained about bureaucratic barriers when trying to prescribe treatment, and officials like New York Mayor Eric Adams have called for more vaccines as their existing supply is rapidly exhausted.
“Our focus is on getting HHS to move as quickly as possible … it’s about strengthening and accelerating the response, not just tacking on a different name,” said an official familiar with the response, saying Biden “is pushing HHS to get vaccine allocations out the door, and pushing FDA to get the vaccine cleared in the next few days, without cutting corners.”
Becerra told CNN on Monday that his department is still reviewing the merits of a declaration. “We want to get ahead of [monkeypox]. You don’t want it to become a part of life. But how many people have died compared to covid?” he said. “Zero … We declare public health emergencies based on the data and the science, not on our worries.”
“This could allow for all hands on deck to mobilize as big an effort as possible,” said Jennifer Kates, who leads global health policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank. “To prevent this from becoming endemic — and hopefully not being too late.”
Kates added that emergency declarations should be reserved for “truly unique events,” adding, “In the case of monkeypox, those criteria are being met. It’s crossing states, it’s spreading rapidly, it’s never happened here before and it has all these risks associated with it.”
The White House is also closing in on a national monkeypox coordinator, having concluded the role is necessary to manage an increasingly sprawling response that has drawn in Chief of Staff Ron Klain — who coordinated the U.S. response to Ebola during the Obama administration — as well as White House coronavirus coordinator Ashish Jha, infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci and dozens of other national security and health officials. Two people who were not authorized to discuss the plan said the administration is considering people with expertise in epidemic response and government operations.
Some worry that it may already be too late to stop the virus from gaining a permanent foothold in this country based on the rapid increase in cases and the difficulties in accessing tests.
“I think if we’ve allowed monkeypox to become endemic in the U.S. — and we may have already crossed that threshold — then it will be looked back on as among the biggest public health failures of recent times,” said Scott Gottlieb, who led the FDA during the Trump administration and has advised the Biden administration on covid.
Biden officials counter the virus can still be contained, pointing to the United States’ stockpile of treatments and vaccines, and the rapidly increasing availability of testing.
“There is no other place in the world where they have 300,000 doses of vaccines … distributed to the states, as we have here in America,” Becerra said on Monday.
While CDC estimates that more than 1.5 million men who have sex with men are eligible for the vaccine, “we at CDC currently have no data on who’s been vaccinated,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a Washington Post Live virtual event on Friday.
Meanwhile, those on the front lines say the response continues to be overly bureaucratic, leading to a byzantine maze for patients who test positive and can experience days of often-searing pain. One man in New York City told The Post about an eight-day saga to get treated that began last week, as he navigated among multiple providers that provided misleading or incorrect information, including being rebuffed by an urgent care clinic.
Slow access to testing, treatment and vaccines in the early U.S. monkeypox response have been a “bit of a debacle” that paralleled missteps in the early coronavirus response, said Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and academic dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
“I can’t help but wonder if part of the delay is that our public health workforce is so burned out,” Ranney added. “Everyone who’s available to work on epidemiology or contact tracing is already doing it for covid.”
Laurie McGinley and Lena H. Sun contributed to this report. | 2022-07-25T19:29:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden administration weighs declaring monkeypox a health emergency - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/25/biden-administration-monkeypox-public-health-emergency/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/25/biden-administration-monkeypox-public-health-emergency/ |
An aspiring Roman Catholic nun, 17, who says she was raped by a priest when she was 14, recites the rosary in Kinshasa last month. (Arlette Bashizi for The Washington Post)
For too long, the Catholic Church ignored and even hid the problem of sexual abuse by its clergy. Pope Francis, to his credit, has instituted reforms that are more far-reaching than his predecessors’. But a disturbing article in The Post by Chico Harlan and Alain Uaykani suggests that the church still has a long way to go in protecting children from predatory clerics and the bishops who enable them — particularly in less developed countries, far from the glare of effective judiciaries and unstinting journalism. There, as the authors write, “the scale of abuse remains both a mystery and a cause for trepidation.”
In one case they describe, a teenage nun-in-training said she had been raped by a priest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an incident that resulted in no serious discipline for the accused assailant owing to what an array of sources described to an elaborate coverup orchestrated by the local bishop, Nicolas Djomo. In the end, a so-called investigation, conducted under the bishop’s auspices and presented to the Vatican, concluded that the allegation was unsubstantiated. The investigators, incredibly, did not even bother to interview the young girl who said she had been raped.
The details of the allegation are chilling, but no less chilling than the successful efforts to sweep it under the rug and ensure that no real accountability was possible, according to The Post’s detailed reporting. In that respect, the pattern of impunity as practiced by the Catholic hierarchy, once so well entrenched in wealthy countries in North America and Europe before the Vatican’s reforms, seems little changed or improved in developing countries where the church remains all but untouchable — and often settles allegations of abuse by means of private payoffs.
Chief among the structural problems is the role played by bishops in so many aspects of church governance, including investigating and disciplining abusive priests. The reforms established by Francis leave accountability almost exclusively in the hands of bishops, who report directly to the pope. Oversight, to the extent it exists, rests in the hands of more senior, or metropolitan bishops, generally based in major urban areas.
That oversight has been exercised only sparingly in Western countries, and scarcely at all in developing nations, where the church is often beyond the law’s meager reach. Unchecked, bishops in those countries generally function as detectives, judges and juries in their dioceses — the same ineffective structure that allowed sexual predation to flourish elsewhere for decades.
In the absence of an effective mechanism to investigate abuse and protect victims, the Vatican must rethink its approach. If that involves establishing its own structure, in Rome, to intervene in fact-finding and discipline where no other credible means exist, then so be it. Without such further reforms, there will be no end to a scandal that has caused the Catholic Church such disrepute, cost it untold billions of dollars, and left so many innocent victims in its wake. | 2022-07-25T19:29:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The spotlight shifts in the clergy sex abuse scandal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/clergy-sex-abuse-scandal-congo/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/clergy-sex-abuse-scandal-congo/ |
By Hayden Dublois
Carpenters build new townhouses in May 2021 in Tampa. (Octavio Jones/Reuters)
Hayden Dublois is the data and analytics director at the Foundation for Government Accountability in Naples, Fla.
Rising interest rates aren’t the only thing holding back home buyers. So is a nationwide shortage of actual homes. America needs more than 5 million new houses to meet demand, according to a study last year by Realtor.com. With sales of existing homes slowing, the need for more new houses is only growing. Florida, my home state, might have found part of the solution: Reform the permitting process so that building houses is easier.
Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill that fundamentally changes the state’s permitting process for home building. It requires local jurisdictions to post online not only their permitting processes but also the status of permit applications. The transparency takes a good amount of mystery out of what can be an inscrutable branch of bureaucracy.
More important, the reforms also created a system that strongly incentivizes cities and counties to approve new home permits in a timely way. When a builder or property owner submits an application to build a new home, cities and counties have 30 business days to process it or request corrections.
If the government offices fail to respond in that time frame, the locality must refund 10 percent of the application fee for every additional business day of silence. Application fees can vary widely by locality, but the average cost in Florida is nearly $1,000, according to HomeAdvisor.com. If officials request corrections to the application, they have 10 business days to approve or disapprove of the resubmitted application. Blowing past that deadline leads to an automatic 20 percent refund, with a further 10 percent added for each additional missed day, up to a five-day cap.
The point of this policy is to put government on the hook for holding up new housing construction. A study of housing sales in southwest Florida between 2007 and 2017 by the James Madison Institute found that permitting delays added as much as $6,900 to the cost of a typical house. That’s a de facto tax on Florida families; now the Sunshine State is making cities and towns pay for their own delays.
My own recent research for the Foundation for Government Accountability indicates that the policy is already making a difference. This spring, we submitted public records requests to the state’s most populous jurisdictions. We asked how long it took them to process new home permits in the four months before and four months after the policy was enacted in October 2021.
Consider St. Cloud, a growing suburb in the Orlando metro area. In the four months before the law was passed, fewer than half of permit applications for new housing were processed within 30 business days. After the law was passed, roughly 80 percent of applications were processed within 30 days — or 182 out of the 227 permit applications over four months.
In Santa Rosa County, including much of the rapidly growing Pensacola region, before the law was passed, fewer than half of applications were handled within 30 days. In the four-month period after enactment, the rate rose to 100 percent of applications — for as many as 347 new homes.
While local governments don’t provide a breakdown of what percentage of applications are approved or denied, other evidence suggests that applications are generally approved.
In the years leading up to the new law, the rate of increase for new home construction in Florida was about the same as the national average. Though many factors can influence home building, and the law was in effect for only a portion of the year, Florida’s home building rate in 2021 was two-thirds higher than the national average. Over 30 percent more permits were issued in Florida last year compared with 2020. Reducing red tape surely aided the boom.
Today in Florida, thousands of new home permits are being processed faster under this law by bureaucracies faced with paying a penalty for foot-dragging. When officials ignore the deadline, Floridians are reaping the rewards. One Orange County resident received a 60 percent discount in his permit application fee because the county was egregiously late, with total savings of nearly $4,000 off the total permit cost of about $6,600.
The speedier approval process appears to be enhancing a Florida home building boom that was already in progress. Charlotte County has seen new permit applications grow by nearly half, to over 1,500 over the four-month window, compared with the same period last year. Volusia County, which includes Daytona Beach, has seen a 54 percent spike, to more than 250 applications in that time frame.
America needs more housing, fast. States can’t do much about rising interest rates, but as Florida has shown, they can certainly do something to lower the impediments to house building. | 2022-07-25T19:30:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Florida started penalizing bureaucratic delay. Housing permits spiked. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/desantis-florida-reform-home-building/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/desantis-florida-reform-home-building/ |
He went to reconcile with his ex-wife, then shot a man in her home
Gregory Washington is sentenced to 14 years in the 2019 killing of Alie Labay
A view of the D.C. Superior Court building in downtown Washington. (Keith L. Alexander/The Washington Post)
A D.C. man was sentenced to 14 years in prison Monday for fatally shooting another man he found at the home of his ex-wife, authorities said.
Prosecutors say that on the morning of Oct. 24, 2019, Gregory Washington, 32, of Temple Hills, Md., drove to his ex-wife’s apartment in the 900 block of 21st Street in Northeast Washington to seek a reconciliation. Prosecutors said that Washington and his ex-wife had divorced earlier that year and that Washington wanted to reconcile but his ex-wife did not. The couple had been married for less than a year when they got divorced.
According to prosecutors, when Washington arrived at the apartment about 5:10 a.m., he discovered the victim, Alie Labay, in his ex-wife’s home. The two men got into a scuffle, and Washington shot Labay three times, prosecutors said. Labay, who was unarmed, died of his injuries.
Washington fled the apartment and was arrested a month later and charged with premeditated first-degree murder while armed.
In April, Washington pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter while armed. The plea agreement, which called for a 14-year prison term, was approved by D.C. Superior Court Judge Rainey R. Brandt, who sentenced Washington on Monday. If found guilty of the original first-degree murder charge at trial, Washington could have faced 30 or more years in prison. | 2022-07-25T20:32:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | He went to reconcile with his ex-wife, then shot a man in her home. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/25/washington-labay-murder-ex-wife/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/25/washington-labay-murder-ex-wife/ |
Paul Sorvino arrives at the 2018 Producers Guild Awards in Beverly Hills. The actor died Monday at 83. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
Paul Sorvino, the cop and crook of stage and screen best known for his roles in projects such as “Goodfellas” and “Law & Order,” died Monday at age 83.
Sorvino died at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., according to his publicist, Roger Neal.
Sorvino had fallen ill Sunday night while in Jacksonville, Fla., with his wife, Dee Dee Sorvino. She took the actor to the nearby Mayo Clinic, where he died Monday morning. The cause of death was not disclosed. “We were all taken by surprise,” Neal said.
“Our hearts are broken,” Dee Dee Sorvino said in a statement. "There will never be another Paul Sorvino, he was the love of my life, and one of the greatest performers to ever grace the screen and stage.”
Throughout his career, Sorvino was an imposing presence on film and stage. He started on Broadway, where he received a Tony nomination for his role in “That Championship Season,” before taking the film industry by storm in the 1970s. He starred alongside Al Pacino in “The Panic in Needle Park,” James Caan in “The Gambler,” and worked with Carl Reiner on “Where’s Poppa” and “Oh, God!.” Working consistently through the ’80s, Sorvino once again hit stardom with his role as Henry Kissinger in “Nixon” in 1995 and Fulgencio Capulet in Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet.”
But his most iconic roles were Paulie Cicero in “Goodfellas” and NYPD sergeant Phil Cerreta on two seasons of “Law & Order.”
Sorvino has three children with his first wife, Lorraine Davis, including Academy Award-winning actress Mira Sorvino, who took to Twitter after her father’s death was announced.
“My heart is rent asunder- a life of love and joy and wisdom with him is over," she wrote Monday. "He was the most wonderful father. I love him so much. I’m sending you love in the stars Dad as you ascend.” | 2022-07-25T20:37:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Paul Sorvino of ‘Goodfellas’ dies at 83 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/07/25/paul-sorvino-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/07/25/paul-sorvino-dies/ |
‘Full Frontal with Samantha Bee’ is canceled by TBS after 7 seasons
The series was one of the few late-night shows hosted by a woman
Samantha Bee attends the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor ceremony at the Kennedy Center on April 24. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post)
After seven seasons of bold jokes and witty monologues, the Emmy-nominated late-night show “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” was canceled Monday by TBS.
The decision came as a result of a “new programming strategy,” according to a TBS spokesperson. “We are proud to have been the home to ‘Full Frontal with Samantha Bee’ and thank Sam, and the rest of the Emmy-nominated team, for their groundbreaking work.”
The Twitter account for “Full Frontal” confirmed the decision Monday afternoon.
“We’re so thankful for our loyal audience, our amazing team, and that we got to annoy the right people every week—that there wasn’t wrestling or baseball or a very special episode of Big Bang,” the tweet read, poking fun at the network events for which the show had been preempted throughout its run.
“Full Frontal,” which centered the voice of one of the few women in late-night comedy, was known for its incisive political commentary. When President Donald Trump did not attend the White House correspondents’ dinner in 2017, Bee created her own counterprogramming called “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner” that aired as a special the same night. She also made controversial news of her own in 2018, when she insulted Ivanka Trump using a charged expletive; the show remained in the news cycle for weeks afterward and both Bee and TBS eventually issued an apology. And throughout her series, Bee has also been a consistent advocate for abortion rights, using “Full Frontal” to draw attention to policies and politicians limiting access to the procedure.
Samantha Bee on Ivanka Trump comments: ‘I hate that this distracted from more important issues’
“It can be really difficult” to be an avid news consumer, Bee said in a 2019 phone interview with The Washington Post. But she viewed it as her job to “carve a comedic path through it.”
The cancellation of “Full Frontal” follows a trend of late-night show cutbacks: TBS and Conan O’Brien parted ways last year, NBC and Lilly Singh ended their partnership, and James Corden is leaving “The Late Late Show” in 2023.
Samantha Bee isn’t covering antiabortion laws because she’s a woman. It’s because laughter makes a statement.
“Bee made television history in the late night space, paving the way for female voices in what has traditionally been, and continues to be a male dominated landscape,” a representative for Bee told The Washington Post in a statement Monday. The show “consistently broke barriers with Sam and her team boldly using political satire to entertain, inform and empower viewers, while embracing critically underrepresented stories, particularly about women.”
But with just “The Amber Ruffin Show” as the sole female voice in the late-night show circulation, there’s a serious lack of gender diversity in the late-night circuit, and some of Bee’s work will be hard to replicate, especially as the United States reckons with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In that same 2019 interview with The Post, Bee said she’d spend hours defending abortion “regardless” of her gender.
“I don’t,” she said, “feel a different responsibility because I’m the last woman standing.” | 2022-07-25T21:11:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Full Frontal with Samantha Bee’ is canceled by TBS after 7 seasons - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/07/25/samantha-bee-full-frontal-canceled/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/07/25/samantha-bee-full-frontal-canceled/ |
In this 2022 provided by the Schmidt and Morehead families, Tyler Schmidt, left, and his wife Sarah pose with their son Arlo and daughter Lula, right, while hiking near Cedar Falls, Iowa. Police said Saturday, July 23, 2022, the Iowa couple and their 6-year-old daughter were fatally shot while camping in a state park by a man from Nebraska who later turned the gun on himself. The couple’s 9-year-old son survived. (Courtesy of the Schmidt and Morehead families) (Uncredited/Courtesy of the Schmidt and Morehead families) | 2022-07-25T21:13:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Suspected gunman's motive in Iowa park killings a mystery - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/suspected-gunmans-motive-in-iowa-park-killings-a-mystery/2022/07/25/bdfad470-0c5c-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/suspected-gunmans-motive-in-iowa-park-killings-a-mystery/2022/07/25/bdfad470-0c5c-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
A nurse checks on a patient in the intensive care unit of the covid-19 ward at NEA Baptist Memorial Hospital in Jonesboro, Ark., on Aug. 4, 2021. (Houston Cofield/Bloomberg)
A bright spot in public health, before the pandemic, was the progress that hospitals had made against antibiotic resistance, the tendency of bacteria and other pathogens to evolve so they fight or evade lifesaving drugs. But the crushing burden of the pandemic has undone this progress. It can and must be regained.
Antibiotic resistance is a global public health crisis, a shadow pandemic. It threatens the effectiveness of medicines that are vital for surgery, chemotherapy, organ transplants and other procedures. It has been known for decades that bacteria evolve to resist antibiotics, and that overuse in human health and animal agriculture have contributed to the worsening situation. Some bacteria have become “superbugs,” resistant to several types of antibiotics.
A 2019 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that deaths because of antimicrobial resistance in the United States had dropped 18 percent overall during the previous seven years, and nearly 30 percent in hospitals, thanks to improved infection control and antibiotic stewardship.
Now comes a new CDC report with the sober warning that antibiotic resistance is on the rise again where it had previously slowed.
Why? When the pandemic hit, the virus wasn’t fully understood, and many patients who suffered respiratory ailments were given antibiotics. From March to October 2020, almost 80 percent of patients hospitalized with covid-19 received an antibiotic. It was not effective against a virus, but the damage had been done by using antibiotics so often. According to the new CDC report, resistant hospital-onset infections and deaths both increased at least 15 percent in the first year of the pandemic. After a long period of reductions in health-care-associated infections, known as HAIs, U.S. hospitals saw significantly higher rates for four out of six types of HAIs in 2020, many of them resistant to antibiotics.
More and sicker patients during the pandemic required more frequent and longer use of catheters and ventilators, spreading pathogens and increasing risk. On top of that, many hospitals suffered shortages of personal protective equipment, critical to controlling infections, as well as pressure on laboratory work and staffing, and resources were stretched thin. The pandemic also delayed or canceled treatment for people with other illnesses, which might have helped antibiotic resistance to expand. According to the CDC, U.S. health-care facilities reported many outbreaks of Acinetobacter bacteria resistant to antibiotics. The infection often occurs in intensive care units and is common with respiratory ailments. Hospital-onset infections of Acinetobacter resistant to carbapenems, a class of effective antibiotics, jumped 78 percent in 2020 compared with the year before. Yet another setback was that the pandemic delayed collecting data about antibiotic resistance.
Importantly, the progress made in earlier years can be renewed. Hospitals have much better procedures to employ good stewardship of antibiotics than a decade ago. Rapid diagnostics for covid will help avert misuse of antibiotics. It is critical to distribute antibiotics judiciously, treating them as a valuable resource for all. Fighting antibiotic resistance is a long-term challenge, and the pandemic should not be allowed to reverse the progress that has been made — and can be made again. | 2022-07-25T21:13:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Antibiotic resistance must be reprioritized as superbugs rise - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/antibiotic-resistance-progress-superbugs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/antibiotic-resistance-progress-superbugs/ |
The court and public opinion
The U.S. Supreme Court on July 14. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)
Regarding the July 22 news article “Kagan warns of threat to democracy if Supreme Court ignores public opinion”:
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said the court should not stray too far from public sentiment, referring to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., however, wrote, “A right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.”
Perhaps he and others ought to look more closely into Justice Kagan’s concern, and specifically “history and traditions” vis-a-vis the 18th Amendment, ratified in January 1919, that prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. It was repealed with the passage of the 21st Amendment, ratified in December 1933.
These two amendments starkly reveal that the public weighs in heavily on some court decisions. Should one have the right to buy liquor and, in some cases, get stoned drunk or die of alcoholism, or should they be denied the right, even though a small minority will abuse that right? How do we legislate personal responsibility?
Justice Kagan is concerned that if the court loses all connection with the public, that would be a dangerous thing.
Sidney M. Levy, Cockeysville
Justice Elena Kagan holds that the legitimacy of the Supreme Court “is threatened when long-standing precedent is discarded and the court’s actions are seen as motivated by personnel changes among the justices.” But what about when those precedents were clearly wrong, as in Plessy v. Ferguson and Dred Scott v. Sandford, for example?
Legitimacy will be undermined when those in power and on both sides of the political divide argue that this or that ruling by the court was political. The listening public will be primed to embrace illegitimacy of the court.
From the article and quoting Justices Kagan, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor: “The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them.” That statement does not hint at Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s substantial unease with the foundation of Roe, an unease that, if had been cited, would have served to blunt the partisan impression of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Who then could be contributing to the court losing legitimacy? These three dissenting justices.
Steve Brown, Springfield | 2022-07-25T21:13:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The court and public opinion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/court-public-opinion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/court-public-opinion/ |
My marriage is threatened. That’s not a ‘nonissue’ to me.
Spencer Geiger, left, of Virginia Beach, and Carl Johanson, of Norfolk, hold signs as they demonstrate on Feb. 4, 2014, in Norfolk in support of same-sex marriage rights. (Steve Helber/Associated Press)
Regarding the July 21 news article: “Same-sex marriage vote gains traction”:
It is infuriating to my family and me to see comments such as those of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) calling the Respect for Marriage Act to protect same-sex and interracial marriage a “nonissue.” Though it might be a “nonissue” for straight, same-race couples, I can assure you that my family very much sees it as a pressing issue.
We live in Virginia, and despite our governor’s ridiculous assertion that same-sex marriage would be protected here if the Supreme Court were to overturn the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, it absolutely would not, given the constitutional amendment passed in 2006 that would be triggered by such a ruling.
If senators want to vote against protecting my marriage, have the courage to admit your homophobia and pandering to the religious right. Don’t hide behind nonsensical and political arguments. If there were even a slight chance your marriage would be annulled and you, your spouse and your children would be left without the legal protections of marriage, then I am sure you would not consider it a “nonissue.”
Julie M. Sibbing, Falls Church | 2022-07-25T21:14:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | My marriage is threatened. That’s not a ‘nonissue’ to me. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/my-marriage-is-threatened-thats-not-nonissue-me/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/my-marriage-is-threatened-thats-not-nonissue-me/ |
In this screenshot of a video posted on social media, people protest in the wake of executions, in Yangon, Myanmar, on Monday. (Lu Nge Khit via Reuters)
On June 10, the Myanmar military junta, known as the SAC, received a letter from the leader of a neighboring Southeast Asian nation, pleading with it to refrain from carrying out death sentences against four regime opponents. “With great concern and in an honest attempt to help Myanmar to achieve peace and national reconciliation, I frankly request that Your Excellency and the SAC reconsider this sentence and avoid the use of the death penalty for all SAC antagonists,” Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia wrote. He warned the Myanmar authorities that they risked an international backlash otherwise.
The plea was especially noteworthy coming from Hun Sen: Cambodia chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and Hun Sen is no critic or enemy of the junta, having visited the country in January — the first head of government to make such a legitimacy-conferring gesture since the generals seized power in a February 2021 coup. In addition, Hun Sen is not exactly known for indulging dissent in his own country, which he has ruled with an iron fist for 37 years.
And yet, so determined is the junta to crush all opposition that it brushed aside this fellow dictator’s counsel and vowed to follow through on the death sentences, which were carried out, probably over the weekend — an announcement Monday did not specify timing. Compounding the inherent cruelty is the fact that relatives of the four men had been told Friday that they would be able to speak to them over Zoom for the first time in months — only to hear three days later that they had been killed without any such conversations having taken place. Among those executed, the two most prominent were Phyo Zeya Thaw, a hip-hop artist long active in the democracy movement — he served in parliament as a member of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy — and longtime regime opponent Kyaw Min Yu, better known as Ko Jimmy. They were charged and tried by a military court under an anti-terrorism law. The other two put to death were Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, accused of murdering a woman they believed to be an informant for the regime. None of the four received a fair, public trial.
These are the first executions of any kind in Myanmar, also known as Burma, for more than 30 years. And the junta may only be getting started. Since the coup, 117 people have been sentenced to death, 76 of whom were in custody and 41 at large, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Myanmar nongovernmental organization. The military regime has faced a national uprising, both armed and civil, since the coup and has not hesitated to kill as part of its counterinsurgency campaign. Still, the latest executions add to the already high level of terror. With Hun Sen having been rebuffed, ASEAN members face a special responsibility to respond — with sanctions they have previously hesitated to impose. The United States and other democracies rightly condemned the executions; they have sanctions in place, but those can be toughened. Friendly persuasion, even from fellow autocrats, obviously does not work. | 2022-07-25T21:14:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The Myanmar junta's cruel executions add to terror in the region - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/myanmar-junta-cruel-executions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/myanmar-junta-cruel-executions/ |
Tunisia’s constitutional referendum represents a dark day for democracy
By Monica Marks
Tunisian President Kais Saied casts his vote at a polling station in Tunis, Tunisia, on JUly 25. (Slim Abid/Tunisian Presidency/AP)
Monica Marks is an assistant professor of Middle East Politics at New York University Abu Dhabi.
TUNIS, Tunisia — On Monday, Tunisians have been going to the polls to vote on a new constitution proposed by President Kais Saied. At stake is nothing less than the fate of the Arab world’s most promising experiment in democratic governance. If Saied gets his way, Tunisia could send an ominous signal to the rest of the Middle East and North Africa, where despotic rulers remain entrenched.
In 2011, a popular uprising in Tunisia sparked by a young fruit vendor’s suicide overthrew the dictatorship of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled for 23 years. The events in Tunisia triggered a wave of similar revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa, an upheaval that came to be known as the Arab Spring.
Tunisians embarked on a halting, yet remarkable, transition toward democracy. Thousands of grass-roots civil society organizations, hundreds of political parties, and dozens of fresh media outlets sprang up. In 2014, Tunisia’s democratically elected Constituent Assembly passed an inclusively drafted constitution, painstakingly debated over two years, that enshrined safeguards for human rights, checks and balances, and other fundamental pillars of representative governance. For a country whose dictator had once “won” staged elections with farcical 99 percent margins, the fact that Tunisia managed to hold multiple nationwide democratic elections was extraordinary.
It is true that Tunisia’s post-revolutionary governments never managed to create a better functioning economy, to reform the corrupt security state, or to create a Constitutional Court. But despite significant failures, Tunisia’s strides in free speech and democratic governance catapulted it to the highest marks in democracy-rating indexes such as Polity IV and Freedom House. The symbolic importance of this — namely that organic, grassroots-created democracy is possible in the Arab world — posed a crucial counterargument to regional autocracies and violent extremists. Tunisia’s example gave hope to an entire region.
Now, Saied — a little-known law professor who won office in 2019 as a dark-horse populist — appears determined to reverse that progress. On July 25, 2021, he staged a presidential coup that overthrew the country’s nascent democracy. Framing his takeover as a “correction” to jump-start urgently needed reforms, Saied painted the entire political class — including independent civil society organizations and media outlets — as corrupt intermediaries standing between him and “the people.”
Saied shut down the democratically elected parliament with tanks and seized the reins of all three governmental branches. He has ruled by fiat ever since. He has dragged his civilian critics in front of military courts. He has accused parliamentarians who convened virtually to condemn his power grab of “attempting a coup.” He has assaulted the judiciary’s independence and seized control of the country’s electoral commission.
For a man who built his reputation on his alleged expertise as a constitutional lawyer, his unconstitutional assault on Tunisia’s institutions has been tragically ironic. Undeterred by his critics, who now include nearly all political parties and a broad range of civil society groups, Saied is hurtling toward a style of authoritarian hyper-presidentialism that could be worse than the dictatorships that came before.
Saied released his draft constitution on June 30, just weeks before his vanity referendum. The draft, first issued with dozens of grammatical errors, bafflingly enshrined the Tunisian state as the sole and best interpreter of sharia law for all Muslims. More importantly, Saied’s constitution obliterated basic requirements for democratic governance, such as the separation of powers and oversight between branches.
Days after the draft’s release, Saied’s hand-picked constitutional committee vehemently disavowed it. This carelessly constructed, single-handedly-authored authoritarian constitution represents a massive insult to the dignity and hard-won democratic achievements of Tunisians.
Disgusted by the illegitimacy of Saied’s coup-launched process, many Tunisians vowed to boycott Monday’s referendum. The minority who do vote will likely vote yes, because Saied’s promises — however unreliable — still represent to them a preferable alternative to a decade of parliamentary bickering and dysfunction that failed to deliver tangible economic benefits. The last-minute nature of this crude plebiscite, the disorganization of Saied’s electoral commission, and the widespread perception that the vote will be rigged in favor of “yes” have stymied efforts to organize, observe and vote “no.”
Most Tunisians seem beaten down by economic hardship. “We’re sleepwalking back to the dark old days,” 39 year-old Zouhair Khlefi told me over coffee in Redeyef, a remote town near the Algerian border. “I want to shake people awake, but I can’t. They’re too hungry, they’re too tired, and they’re too forgetful of how precious our revolution was."
The absence of any minimum threshold for turnout — a striking departure from global standards in binding referenda — means Saied’s constitution will likely pass despite low engagement.
If it does, Tunisia’s democratic experiment could definitively end. It remains to be seen whether the same people who once rose up so inspiringly for inclusive government might again stand to topple another dictatorship — one that will, tragically, be largely of their own making. | 2022-07-25T21:14:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Tunisia’s constitutional referendum represents a dark day for democracy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/tunisia-constitutional-referendum-end-democracy-experiment-arab-world/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/tunisia-constitutional-referendum-end-democracy-experiment-arab-world/ |
NTSB: Pilot described ‘near death’ experience after wing hit the ground
A federal investigation faulted the pilot for the incident, which led to the plane being scrapped. No one was hurt.
A takeoff incident involving an American Airlines jet in April 2019 caused damage to the wingtip, seen here with part of the distance marker lodged in it. The plane was later scrapped. (American Airlines)
The pilots didn’t realize they had hit anything until they were back at the airport.
The American Airlines Airbus A321 jet had lurched to the left on takeoff, hitting the ground, but the plane carried on into the sky as the rattled pilots tried to figure out what was wrong, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report released Friday.
The board’s investigators concluded that the plane’s captain was responsible for the April 2019 incident, applying too much rudder as he tried to take off in a crosswind.
None of the 110 people onboard were hurt, and the Los Angeles-bound plane quickly returned to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. But the captain and a flight attendant later described the incident as a “near death” experience. The damaged plane was later scrapped.
American said in a statement that it was reviewing the findings.
“The safety of our customers and team members comes above all else at American,” the airline said. “It guides every decision we make and action we take.”
A transcript of conversations between the captain and his first officer shows how the two were confused and didn’t realize how badly damaged the plane was as they continued to climb out of New York.
“Are we continuing?” the first officer asked, according to a transcript released by the NTSB. “ … I thought we were gone.”
“Well she feels normal now,” the captain said a few minutes later.
The first officer again raised the idea of turning back.
“You know just, for the politics of it all it might not be a bad idea [to] go back,” he said, according to the transcript. “… I thought it was over. I thought we were goin down.”
The pilot eventually agreed and turned control over to the first officer, telling investigators later that he knew the first officer was thinking more clearly than he was.
A flight attendant shared the first hint of the extent of the damage, saying a business-class passenger had spotted something wrong with the wing. As soon as the plane was back on the ground, the extent of the damage was clear.
“Dude there’s extensive damage on that leading edge on that left hand side. Bad damage,” a member of the ramp crew said, according to the transcript. “I’m glad you guys made it.”
American Airlines later found a 323-foot scrape mark that the wing left on the runway and discovered it had also struck a distance marker. Images included in the NTSB report show the wingtip mangled, with part of the marker lodged in it.
In a statement afterward, one of the flight attendants on the plane called the pilots heroes.
“Our near death experience was terrifying and I am personally so grateful for our excellent pilots who were able to regain control of the aircraft, continue our take off, and land us safely once again,” the statement said. | 2022-07-25T21:15:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NTSB: Pilot described ‘near death’ experience after wing hit the ground - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/07/25/american-airlines-wing-investigation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/07/25/american-airlines-wing-investigation/ |
When Delta passengers in Detroit look at a ‘Parallel Reality’ screen, they see only their flight
New “Parallel Reality” technology at Detroit Metropolitan Airport lets up to 100 Delta Air Lines passengers at a time see personalized flight information on the same giant screen. (Delta Air Lines)
Inside a terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, thousands of passengers a week are finding their way to gates using technology that looks like something out of a futuristic sci-fi movie.
Delta Air Lines recently introduced a “Parallel Reality” system that lets travelers access individual flight information on a shared overhead screen based on a scan of their boarding pass — or their face. The twist is that 100 people can do this at a time, all using the same digital screen but only seeing their own personal details.
Unlike a regular TV or video wall, in which each pixel would emit the same color of light in every direction, the board sends different colors of light in different directions.
So what was wrong with the old system? The one where people gaze up at a giant screen with dozens of rows of flights — or down at a tiny screen on their phone?
Greg Forbes, Delta’s managing director of airport experience, said the big overhead screens can be misinterpreted, especially in busy airports with multiple daily flights to the same place. And phones can present a safety hazard.
“We’ve just got a real concern with people walking around full speed, staring at their phones rather than being aware of their environment,” he said. So the airline wanted the kind of individual messages that are delivered through an app, but in the form of a large display screen.
“That’s where the solution that we hadn’t even contemplated came to us,” Forbes said. Delta employees encountered the technology, developed by a company called Misapplied Sciences, more than three years ago. Then it partnered with the start-up and invested in the company.
Parallel Reality relies on display technology that enables multiple people to look at the same board simultaneously and see personalized information without using a tool like a camera or headset.
“You just look at the displays with your naked eye,” said Albert Ng, CEO of Misapplied Sciences.
In Detroit, an overhead motion sensor that tracks moving objects anonymously follows passengers after they scan their boarding pass or face to know where to direct flight information, Ng said. Travelers need to opt in to Delta’s facial recognition technology to use the face scan.
Delta’s plans for the technology were first announced in January of 2020 with plans for a rollout that year, but the pandemic delayed the introduction until late last month.
While the use of facial recognition technology is not necessary for the information boards, Delta has also been adding the option of “digital identity technology,” in partnership with the Transportation Security Administration, in multiple airports including Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles and New York’s LaGuardia. The airline said passengers will eventually be able to use facial recognition in all U.S. hubs.
Feedback on the display screens has been “great” so far, Forbes said. On busy days, about 1,500 or 1,600 people interact with the technology. He said he expects more installations in the future so the airline can do a “more robust evaluation” of future use.
“If everything keeps going as positively as it has so far, I would expect to see it in more airports and in more places in the airport,” he said. | 2022-07-25T21:15:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Delta's new airport tech shows personalized flight info on huge screen - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/07/25/delta-tech-flight-info-screen/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/07/25/delta-tech-flight-info-screen/ |
Monarch butterflies named endangered on species ‘red list’
The migrating butterfly is 2 steps from extinct on the International Union for Conservation of Nature list.
A monarch butterfly is pictured at the Sanctuary of El Rosario in Mexico. Monarchs, which migrate thousands of miles each year, were added last week to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's "red list" of threatened species. They were labeled "endangered," which is two steps from extinct. (Enrique Castro/AFP/Getty Images)
The monarch butterfly fluttered a step closer to extinction last week as scientists put the orange-and-black insect on the endangered list because of its dwindling numbers.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature on Thursday added the migrating monarch butterfly for the first time to its “red list” of threatened species and categorized it as “endangered” — two steps from extinct.
Create a pollinator garden in your backyard
A smaller group spends winters in coastal California, then disperses in spring and summer across several states west of the Rocky Mountains. This population has seen an even more steep decline than the Eastern monarchs, although there was a small bounce back last winter.
Emma Pelton of the nonprofit Xerces Society, which monitors the Western butterflies, said the butterflies are threatened by loss of habitat, climate change and increased use of weed-killing and insect-killing chemicals in agriculture.
Kids use their talents to help save bees, which are important polinators
“There are things people can do to help,” she said, including planting milkweed, a plant that monarch larvae, or caterpillars, depend upon.
Nonmigratory monarch butterflies in Central America and South America were not designated as endangered.
The United States has not listed monarch butterflies under the Endangered Species Act, but several environmental groups say it should be listed. | 2022-07-25T21:20:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Monarch butterflies named endangered on species ‘red list’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/25/monarch-butterflies-named-endangered-species-red-list/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/25/monarch-butterflies-named-endangered-species-red-list/ |
Baltimore waterfront developers hand out grants
Developers of the Port Covington waterfront community in South Baltimore have provided $2.5 million in grants and other funding to help revitalize neighborhoods near the site where offices, shops and apartments are under construction.
The distribution over the past year was announced Thursday and marks the latest round of investments through a community benefits agreement between the developers and neighborhoods of Brooklyn, Cherry Hill, Curtis Bay, Lakeland, Mount Winans and Westport. The money is designed to boost economic development, education and transportation.
The mix of macrogrants, microgrants and capacity-building funds from developers MAG Partners and MacFarlane Partners were selected and distributed by the South Baltimore 7 Coalition, made up of neighborhood representatives. The developers, each of which has worked on high-profile urban projects in major U.S. cities, joined Sagamore Ventures’ development efforts in May and will lead the next phase.
Five buildings have neared completion on the 235-acre site along Cromwell Street south of Interstate 95 that is planned for up to 14 million square feet of shops, restaurants, office space and housing, plus 40 acres of parks, across 45 new city blocks. The Baltimore Sun leases its office in the Port Covington development. Funds for nearby neighborhoods include $815,000 in macrogrants to 12 organizations, $262,000 in microgrants to 25 organizations, and $250,000 to each of the six surrounding communities, totaling $1.5 million.
MaryAnne Gilmartin, founder and CEO of MAG Partners, said in Thursday’s announcement that the money will help community groups provide services across South Baltimore.
A $125,000 grant went to the South Baltimore Community Land Trust and the Cherry Hill Development Corp. to develop 15 new or renovated affordable homes in Cherry Hill and Curtis Bay for residents who earn 50 percent of median income, said Meleny Thomas, the land trust’s executive director.
A grant of $170,000 went to City of Refuge Baltimore and two nonprofit partners to fund a workforce training and placement program for adults and youths, said Pastor Billy Humphrey, founder and CEO of Brooklyn-based City of Refuge. The partners, including Grow Home and Action Baybrook, have worked to create a database of employers and jobs in South Baltimore, train workers and assist with job placement.
“Our goal is to put people back to work,” said Humphrey, adding that the newly launched program has trained more than 111 adults and youths and placed 11 so far in living-wage jobs. The initiative, he said, aims to “address systemic poverty by getting people back to work in full-time, living-wage jobs.”
Developers already have provided $19 million through the community benefits agreement to city and South Baltimore neighborhoods. | 2022-07-25T22:21:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Baltimore waterfront developers hand out grants - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/baltimore-waterfront-developers-hand-out-grants/2022/07/25/7fdfa814-0ba3-11ed-bf3a-cdf532019c52_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/baltimore-waterfront-developers-hand-out-grants/2022/07/25/7fdfa814-0ba3-11ed-bf3a-cdf532019c52_story.html |
Thousands of D.C. government workers to get raises, bonuses
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser. (Craig Hudson/For the Washington Post)
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) on Monday signed a bill authorizing pay raises and bonuses for about 8,000 nonunion city employees.
The legislation, which the D.C. Council passed unanimously this month, includes a retroactive cost-of-living increase of 1.5 percent and a 3.5 percent bonus for fiscal 2022, as well as a cost-of-living increase of 2.5 percent scheduled to kick in Oct. 9.
The raises for nonunion employees come several months after the city signed on to a four-year collective-bargaining agreement with nearly 10,000 government employees who are represented by various local unions and labor organizations. That agreement, reached in March, has similar percentage cost-of-living increases and includes annual raises and a financial assistance fund for employees to purchase homes in the District.
D.C. government will send $10,000 checks to the city’s day-care workers
“Like the agreement we signed in March, these pay increases represent our gratitude to the thousands of public servants who serve our community with dedication and keep D.C. moving forward,” Bowser said in a news release.
The bill signing came jointly with the announcement of a summer virtual hiring event seeking candidates to fill “nearly 1,000 vacancies.”
E. Lindsey Maxwell II, interim director of D.C.’s human resources department, said it’s not unusual for the city to have this many open positions at one time, citing the recent completion of budgets for the upcoming fiscal year. “It’s more of looking at an increase in what we need to get done,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell expects the city to hire for myriad roles across sectors, including bank examiners, security guards and information technology workers. Maxwell said the city has not felt the effects of labor shortages seen in other industries.
“We haven’t noticed any decline,” he said about the city’s job retention. “Our job market has remained strong.”
David Connerty-Marin, a spokesman for D.C. Council member Elissa Silverman (I-At Large), who chairs the council’s committee on labor and workforce development, said in an email that there was little deliberation about the extent of raises for nonunion employees since “they are generally modeled after the union-won raises to ensure parity across [the] District workforce.” City officials echoed Connerty-Marin, saying that increases for nonunion workers are intertwined with union-covered-employee raises.
D.C. Council approves 2023 budget, takes first vote on ANC boundaries
There was one amendment to the act by Silverman to ensure that nonunion employees of the University of the District of Columbia would receive the full cost-of-living adjustment.
UDC employees affected under this act are paid semimonthly, while D.C. government employees are paid biweekly — resulting in two fewer paychecks per year for university employees. The cost-of-living increase as originally written would have gone into effect midway through the pay period for UDC employees since the adjustment was conceived with the biweekly pay schedule in mind. | 2022-07-25T22:43:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Thousands of D.C. government workers to get raises, bonuses - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/25/muriel-bowser-dc-raises/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/25/muriel-bowser-dc-raises/ |
Two New York state residents allege that the mango-and-pineapple smoothies they drank from frozen-food delivery service Revive Superfoods caused severe illness and led to hospital stays, according to separate lawsuits filed Monday against the company. Among the smoothie’s ingredients was tara protein, an additive that appears similar or related to the tara flour that vegan frozen-food service Daily Harvest has identified as the cause of sickness in hundreds of its customers. Daily Harvest, which is also facing lawsuits, issued a recall of its French lentil and leek crumbles, which contain tara flour, and the FDA is investigating the outbreak.
Nadia Eletribi, who said she received the smoothies as a gift from a friend after having a baby, alleges that she was hospitalized three times after suffering from sharp stomach pains, a high fever and other symptoms. Daniel Cohl, who alleges he experienced chest and abdominal pain and nausea, spent three days in the hospital, according to his filing. Both are seeking damages to be determined at trial, according to the filing with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
The Canada-based company, which markets its bowls, smoothies and soups as a convenient way for consumers to access nutritious foods, sold food that was “defective and unreasonably dangerous” and “contaminated by a substance injurious to human health,” the lawsuits allege.
Revive did not respond to emails seeking comment, and as of Monday afternoon, it had not issued any public communication on the matter. It no longer sells the mango-and-pineapple smoothies, according to its website.
After the Daily Harvest outbreak began drawing attention last month, Revive removed its mango-and-pineapple smoothie, which appears to be its only product containing tara. On Reddit and social media, people alleged that they had been hospitalized for pain and nausea and subsequently diagnosed with severe liver and gallbladder issues after consuming the fruit beverage.
Bill Marler, the food-safety attorney representing people claiming to have been sickened by both companies’ products and who filed the lawsuits on Monday, says he has about 300 clients with complaints against Daily Harvest and more than two dozen for Revive.
The ingredient at issue is derived from the seeds of the tara tree, which is native to South America. The Daily Harvest crumble listed merely “tara” as an ingredient on its label, but later described it as “tara flour.” Revive called its smoothie additive “tara protein.”
The FDA did not respond to The Washington Post’s specific query about whether it was investigating the alleged Revive outbreak in addition to the Daily Harvest one. “Generally speaking, during ongoing outbreak or adverse event investigations, the FDA names ingredients or ingredient suppliers only when there is enough evidence linking that ingredient to illness or injury,” an FDA spokesperson said in a statement. The statement noted that the agency is testing samples of multiple ingredients, and cautioned that any investigation could rule out an ingredient as the source of illness.
“Sharing preliminary information on the investigation may mislead consumers in believing that a specific ingredient was the cause of an illness or outbreak when in fact it was later ruled out of being linked to an adverse event,” the statement read.
Consumer Reports senior food scientist Michael Hansen said it isn’t clear how similar the tara flour and tara protein are or if they are the same ingredient going by different names. But what is evident, Hansen said, is that food regulators haven’t determined whether tara products are safe to eat. “It doesn’t seem that anybody has looked at this,” he said. Consumer Reports last week advised people to avoid tara flour until more is known about it.
It doesn’t appear to have gone through the FDA, either through the agency’s process for approving food additives or through a system in which companies attest that an ingredient is “generally recognized as safe,” he noted. And little is known about the category. “It hasn’t been widely used in the food system in the U.S.,” he said. And tara doesn’t seem to be widely consumed in its native South America, where it is commonly used for tanning leather or for medicinal purposes. Tara might appeal to Western consumers as an Indigenous, plant-based source of protein, Hansen said. “But that raises questions — here is this plant, but they’re not using it for food — maybe there’s a reason for that.” | 2022-07-25T22:44:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Revive Superfoods smoothies caused illness, lawsuits allege - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/07/25/revive-superfoods-smoothies-lawsuit-tara/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/07/25/revive-superfoods-smoothies-lawsuit-tara/ |
2 homeless men killed in Vancouver shooting
A man who targeted homeless people fatally shot two men in a Vancouver, B.C., suburb before being shot and killed by police, authorities said Monday. Two other people were injured.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said an emergency response team found the gunman not far from where a man was found with a gunshot to his leg. During an interaction with police, the gunman was shot and pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.
In addition to the man shot in the leg, a woman was shot and is in critical condition, police said.
Authorities said most of the shootings were in downtown Langley, a town of 26,000 about 30 miles southeast of Vancouver.
Mass shootings are less common in Canada than in the United States. The deadliest gun rampage in Canadian history occurred in 2020, with 22 killed.
IAEA cameras to be off until deal's restoration
Iran will keep the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s cameras turned off until a 2015 nuclear deal is restored, the head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization said Monday, state media reported.
Mohammad Eslami also said Iran would not address alleged unexplained uranium traces as demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In June, the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution criticizing
Iran for failing to explain uranium traces found at three undeclared sites.
Iran told the IAEA that it had removed the agency’s equipment, including 27 cameras installed under the 2015 pact with world powers.
The pact imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear activities in return for the easing of sanctions. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, reimposing sanctions.
Abe suspect to undergo mental evaluation
The suspect in former Japanese prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s assassination will be detained until late November for mental evaluation so prosecutors can determine whether to formally press murder charges and send him to trial, officials said Monday.
Abe was shot while making a campaign speech in western Japan on July 8.
The Nara District Court said it had granted permission for prosecutors to detain the suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, for psychiatric examination until Nov. 29, when they must decide whether to file charges. His current detention was to expire later this month.
Yamagami, 41, has told police he killed Abe because of his links to a religious group that he hated. The suspect’s reported statements and other evidence suggest he was distressed because his mother’s donations to Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church had bankrupted the family.
6 killed at Mexico drug rehab center: Gunmen killed five men and one woman at a private drug rehabilitation center in western Mexico, authorities said. The prosecutor's office in Jalisco state said the attack occurred in Tlaquepaque, a suburb of the state capital, Guadalajara. Jalisco is home to the drug cartel of the same name and has been plagued by violence between rival factions of the cartel.
Congolese protesters ransack U.N. peacekeepers' offices: Hundreds of protesters attacked a United Nations peacekeeping force's warehouse and looted offices in Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, demanding that the mission leave for failing to protect the population. Tensions are high in the region, where clashes between the army and the M23 rebel group have displaced thousands. Attacks by militants linked to the Islamic State also continue despite a year-long state of emergency. | 2022-07-25T22:44:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Digest: July 25, 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-july-25-2022/2022/07/25/6d118da2-0c24-11ed-9b03-dbb994d49c4e_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-july-25-2022/2022/07/25/6d118da2-0c24-11ed-9b03-dbb994d49c4e_story.html |
Clockwise from left, Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Betty White and Estelle Getty, cast members of “The Golden Girls,” pose for a photo. (AP/Associated Press)
Like you, I can watch anything I want to on television right now. Between cable, streaming and YouTube, I can experience any adventure, get involved in any romance or inhabit any world I feel like inhabiting, anytime I want.
But I have no idea why I pay for all these wonderful escape options when there are only two or three shows that I turn to at night. And I watch them over and over. I long ago memorized all the dialogue and every twist and turn that these shows and episodes will take.
That’s because I watch only what I call comfort shows. In the evening, as I sit on the couch searching for something to watch, I already know where I’ll wind up: I’ll be at “Bob’s Burgers” or in Miami with “The Golden Girls.” Or in D.C. with the cast of “227.” Or maybe I’ll choose to visit Canada by way of “Kim’s Convenience.”
The shows I watch are low-stakes. Shows where no one gets murdered or harmed in any way.
You most likely have a comfort show, too, though you might not admit it. Because admitting it would be admitting that you, like me, live with anxiety. I believe the comfort shows help, in small ways, to mitigate that anxiety. After you come home from a hard day of contending with this off-its-rocker country of ours, the last thing you want from your evening entertainment is more conflict.
We seek comfort shows because we live in a 24-hour news cycle that reminds us of how awful human beings can be to one another. So, even as you flip through the endless options on your remote or your streaming apps, I’m betting more often than not you settle on a show you’ve seen before. A show where the characters wrap up their problems at the end of each episode. A show where you know that nothing bad is going to happen. Maybe there’ll be a misunderstanding or a hilarious miscommunication or a joke at someone else’s expense. But that’s all.
You might even engage in this soothing ritual alone because you don’t want anyone else to think there’s something wrong with you for watching the same show 25 times. You do this because of the silent shame that comes with being an American who isn’t resilient, who sometimes just can’t deal with the outside world. I suppose this is a good time to note that, in America, we’re not supposed to have mental health problems. Mental health problems are considered a form of weakness. Only “bootstrapping” is applauded. We are supposed to ignore those nagging feelings of worry, angst and helplessness and just get on with it. It’s one of the things we pride ourselves on.
But there you sit, watching an episode of “The Brady Bunch” that you’ve seen countless times before.
When I was a child, older people often told me that they learned how to swim by having a parent or someone else throw them into a body of water.
“My father took me down to the lake and just threw me in,” they say. “I had to either sink or swim.”
These stories always horrified me when I was younger. And while many of the people who tell them puff their chests out about how they’re such good swimmers because of it, I’m sure most were more likely scarred by the experience. I could never work out why the person who supposedly did the throwing couldn’t just take the time to teach a kid how to swim. Because teaching a child to swim should be done carefully: You walk a child into the water slowly, then up to the knees. Then up to the chest; then very slowly, helping the child put his head underwater.
Today, I realize these tales were never about swimming. They are instead about a trial-by-fire philosophy about which some people are inexplicably proud. It stems from the idea that life is hard and you might as well learn that early. People tell this story to explain how resilient they are. How self-reliant. How strong.
But it’s mostly for show; most of us are not that tough. Some people escape the harsh realities by arming themselves to the teeth and joining forces with other scared people who want to tear the country apart. Others, including me, prefer to occasionally and sometimes frequently escape into a world where no such problems exist. Where the people are always funny and likable. Doing this doesn’t make you weak; it just makes you human.
So go ahead and watch your comfort shows. Watch them again and again if they help you maintain. Because it’s a crazy world and we all have a front-row seat to how relentlessly cruel it can be. | 2022-07-25T22:44:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How I escape reality through TV reruns - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/comfort-tv-golden-girls-escape/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/comfort-tv-golden-girls-escape/ |
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and first lady Yumi Hogan arrive to vote early in the gubernatorial primaries at Annapolis Middle School on July 7. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
Maryland voters cast their primary ballots on July 19 or, in the case of those who voted early in person or by mail, before then. Now, almost a week later, the victor in many close local races remains undetermined — both because of the exceptionally large number of mail-in ballots and because Gov. Larry Hogan (R) vetoed legislation that would have accelerated their processing.
It’s guesswork to say how many still-undecided races would have been resolved by now had Mr. Hogan not cast that veto. Still, Mr. Hogan’s veto was a gratuitous gesture that was little more than a sop to Republican voting fraud conspiracy theorists. What’s more, the glacially slow process by which Maryland’s votes are counted will likely be repeated in the general election. That’s not just an annoyance; it also undermines voters’ faith in elections and feeds unfounded conspiracy theories.
Maryland is the only state in the country where election officials are barred from opening, processing and counting mail-in ballots until two days after primary or general elections. Once, that made little difference, because the vast majority of voters went to the polls on Election Day. That began changing a few years ago, and, with the pandemic, mail-in voting became the norm for large numbers of voters — including in the 2020 primaries, when it was nearly the only voting method feasible and available. Recognizing that, Mr. Hogan used emergency powers that year to suspend Maryland’s antiquated law so that election officials could get an early start.
The logical thing would have been to codify that system. Legislation this year, sponsored by state Sen. Cheryl Kagan, would have done just that. But Mr. Hogan vetoed it after the General Assembly’s session ended, meaning that absent a special legislative session, lawmakers will not be able to override his action.
In his veto letter, Mr. Hogan acknowledged that the bill would provide election officials with a “much needed head start” on processing what he called the “deluge” of mail-in ballots. And he rightly said that mail-in ballots encourage voting by making it accessible and convenient, which he said is “vital to a healthy democracy.”
He then gave specious reasons for vetoing the bill, insisting that “abuse does happen more” with mail-in voting and that “even the appearance of impropriety or the opportunity for fraud can be enough to undermine citizens’ confidence in the electoral system.”
The trouble with Mr. Hogan’s argument is that the facts don’t support it. Voting fraud or abuse, in person or by mail, is insignificant in Maryland, as in other states, as both Republican and Democratic elections officials have made clear. Mr. Hogan surely knows this, since his own logic rests on the slippery slope of “appearance” and “opportunity” for fraud.
To his credit, Mr. Hogan has staked out a political stance in opposition to former president Donald Trump. In this instance, however, he appears to be pandering to Republicans under the influence of Mr. Trump’s demagoguery. Whatever his motives, the governor, by quashing reforms to an outdated voting system, has done a disservice to Marylanders. | 2022-07-25T22:45:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Hogan is to blame for slow results in Maryland's July 19 primaries - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/larry-hogan-veto-maryland-july-primaries/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/larry-hogan-veto-maryland-july-primaries/ |
How U.S. interest rates could fuel a global hunger crisis
While the U.S. government is scrambling to lower inflation for Americans, there’s a growing concern about what rising interest rates means for the rest of the world, especially poorer countries.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen (Chung Sung-Jun/Pool/AP)
It has been said that when America sneezes, the world catches a cold, and White House economic reporter Jeff Stein says in this case, it could be much worse than a cold.
“We're on the precipice of a tsunami of debt slamming into dozens, if not hundreds, of countries with rising interest rates in the U.S.,” Jeff said. “That could have tremendous consequences, tremendous humanitarian impacts, tremendous impacts for hunger across the globe.”
As the Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates again this week, Jeff explains how poorer nations could suffer from the U.S. efforts to slow inflation. Can economic policymakers prevent a crisis?
If you value the journalism you hear on this podcast, consider a subscription to The Washington Post. Go to washingtonpost.com/subscribe. | 2022-07-25T22:45:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How U.S. interest rates could fuel a global hunger crisis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/how-us-interest-rates-could-fuel-a-global-hunger-crisis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/how-us-interest-rates-could-fuel-a-global-hunger-crisis/ |
The international draft emerged as an issue during the MLB lockout. (Seth Wenig/AP Photo)
The Major League Baseball Players Association did not agree to MLB’s proposal for an international draft Monday, meaning the qualifying offer system so loathed by high-end free agents will remain in place — at least for now.
Had the players agreed to a draft to replace the free-for-all signing of young players that exists in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and elsewhere, teams would no longer be penalized a draft pick for signing a top free agent, a penalty players believe limits the number of suitors for big-name free agents each winter.
Representatives for the team owners and union leadership exchanged proposals for an international draft multiple times over the past few weeks, though the gap in the amount of money MLB proposed to commit to pay players in a would-be draft ($191 million in bonus pools) was far less than what the union had said it wanted ($260 million), according to people familiar with the proposals. On Sunday, MLB representatives sent the union what they described as a “final” proposal, a take-it-or-leave it offer entering Monday’s deadline. The players did not accept it.
“At their core, each of our proposals was focused on protecting against the scenario that all Players fear the most — the erosion of our game on the world stage, with international players becoming the latest victim in baseball’s prioritization of efficiency over fundamental fairness,” the MLBPA said in a statement. “The League’s responses fell well short of anything Players could consider a fair deal.”
Union leadership briefed its player representatives on that offer Sunday and informed them that it didn’t believe the proposal was anywhere close to acceptable, according to people familiar with the situation.
MLB officials argue their draft proposal, which would create new barriers to under-the-table deals and guarantee millions in signing bonuses in the new structure, is better than the status quo. They point to the $191 million in guaranteed bonuses in their proposal, more than is currently spent in the international system, as evidence of that.
The international draft emerged as a talking point this winter, as negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement dragged on, threatening the season. As the lockout continued, the question of whether to implement an international draft — which MLB argues will address rampant corruption in Latin American player procurement structures and some union members worry will limit choice and earning potential for young players — became a sticking point that threatened to extend it indefinitely.
So as a part of the final agreement, the sides agreed to postpone the question of a draft until Monday, at which time the union could agree to implement one and get rid of the qualifying offer system for the next five years. If a team makes a qualifying offer of one year at a set price to a top free agent, and that free agent signs elsewhere, the team that signs him loses a draft pick and the team that loses him gains one. For now, that system will remain in place until the new CBA expires after the 2026 season.
Union leadership felt the league’s proposal for a draft was not in the realm of the acceptable. And unlike lockout negotiations, which often wandered late into the night and blew through deadlines, this negotiation ended in a firm no by midafternoon.
Tony Clark, executive director of the players union, made clear when talking to reporters last week that his staff had gathered substantial amounts of player input on the question, and that he felt his players were well-informed about the nuances of the issue. He also said the players are open to other options to addressing the corruption besides a draft, though those options had not been talked about much in negotiations with the league.
“There hasn’t been much of an interest in having that conversation to this point. It has simply been draft, draft, draft without much focus on the other things that can be done,” Clark said. “ … we remain committed to addressing those things, but we don’t necessarily agree that draft, draft, draft is the best way or the only way to do it.”
Clark and MLB officials do seem to agree that corruption undermines the current signing system by fostering early deals for teenagers and allowing local trainers to funnel players to certain teams for financial gain. But the union remains suspicious of any owner-driven attempt to implement more structure to the player procurement process for fear that a slot-based bonus system will ultimately be used to limit earning potential, not expand it.
And some international-born players have expressed concern about a potential draft, arguing that it limits a young player’s ability to choose which team, and which people, will be responsible for his transition to a new country at a very young age. Other players have been more supportive of the concept to limit corruption, though the extent to which a new draft could do that remains to be seen.
Pitting the fates of top free agents against those of young Latino players was a negotiating tactic that MLB’s crew used to put the union in a unique bind: To some players, the fate of the international system is far more personal than others. To other players, the qualifying offer feels more pressing.
“[The qualifying offer] is still having an adverse effect on the market for those players. As I’m standing here, I would love to remove it, knowing that the benefit for the players that would otherwise have that qualifying offer would be improved,” Clark said in Los Angeles. “[That] does not mean we are going to mortgage the future of international players and the next generation that comes behind just to remove it. We want to move it. We’re committed to removing it. But we’re not going to do so at the expense of further damage to the international market.” | 2022-07-25T22:45:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | MLBPA rejects MLB's international draft proposal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/mlbpa-rejects-international-draft/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/mlbpa-rejects-international-draft/ |
Howard and Edgerton on new film about 2018 rescue of Thai soccer team
Academy Award winner Ron Howard’s latest film “Thirteen Lives” recounts the true story of the global effort in 2018 to rescue a Thai soccer team that was trapped in a flooded cave for 18 days. On Thursday, July 28 at 1:00 p.m. ET, Howard and actor Joel Edgerton join The Post’s Jacqueline Alemany to discuss the upcoming movie and the process of recreating the dramatic rescue that captivated the world.
Director, “Thirteen Lives”
Actor, “Thirteen Lives” | 2022-07-25T22:46:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Howard and Edgerton on new film about 2018 rescue of Thai soccer team - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/07/28/howard-edgerton-new-film-about-2018-rescue-thai-soccer-team/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/07/28/howard-edgerton-new-film-about-2018-rescue-thai-soccer-team/ |
PM Update: Cooler into Tuesday as clouds hang on and offer occasional showers
* Severe thunderstorm watch until 10 p.m. *
We snagged our eighth day in a row with temperatures at or above 90 before showers and storms crashed the party. That makes 20 for the year, which is about two below average to date. Storms that quickly dropped a slug of rain have since moved off to the east. There’s still a chance of more showers or storms into the evening, but the main show is likely behind us. As a cold front gets stuck in the region, clouds may linger through Tuesday. The bright side: somewhat cooler temperatures.
Through Tonight: With showers and storms pushing to our east, the main severe weather risk has waned. Some additional showers or rumbles are possible this evening, but it should be comparatively mild. Otherwise, it will be partly cloudy as lows range from around 70 to 75.
Tomorrow (Tuesday): Clouds rule, which will help keep temperatures down compared with recent days. Showers will be possible, especially in the afternoon or evening. Temperatures will rise to the low to mid-80s for highs most spots, and humidity will be more on the moderate side, with dew points in the mid-60s. Winds will be out of the north around 5 to 10 mph.
Pollen update: Mold spores and grass pollen are both low/moderate. Weed and tree pollens are low.
Wet July: With today’s rainfall of at least 0.26 inches, D.C. has moved into the top 20 wettest Julys on record, with a total of 6.91 inches to date. Given there are six more full days in the month, and at least a couple more rain chances to go, we should move up a bit more on the list by the end of the month. To get to top 10, the city would need to finish with 8.37 inches or more. The rainiest July on record occurred in 1945, when 11.06 inches was recorded. | 2022-07-25T22:46:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | PM Update: Cooler into Tuesday as clouds hang on and offer occasional showers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/07/25/dc-area-forecast-cooler-tuesday/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/07/25/dc-area-forecast-cooler-tuesday/ |
Bob Rafelson, a New Hollywood renegade, dies at 89
He directed Jack Nicholson in six movies, including ‘Five Easy Pieces,’ and produced acclaimed films including ‘Easy Rider’ and ‘The Last Picture Show’
Filmmaker Bob Rafelson in 1981. (AP)
Bob Rafelson, who co-created the made-for-TV band the Monkees in the 1960s and helped define the ambitious, boundary-breaking ethos of the New Hollywood, directing Jack Nicholson in “Five Easy Pieces” and producing generational touchstones such as “Easy Rider” and “The Last Picture Show,” died July 23 at his home in Aspen, Colo. He was 89.
He had lung cancer, said his wife, Gabrielle Taurek Rafelson.
Brash and cantankerous, with a self-deprecating sense of humor and an almost obsessive attention to detail, Mr. Rafelson helped forge a new era in American filmmaking, directing and producing movies that appealed to younger, disaffected moviegoers and reflected his interests in European and Japanese cinema.
While his films often lacked the typical ingredients of a Hollywood blockbuster — happy endings, established stars, morally upstanding heroes — they made millions of dollars at the box office and helped propel the careers of actors including Ellen Burstyn, Jeff Bridges, Bruce Dern, Sally Field and Nicholson, whom he directed six times.
“I may have thought I started his career,” Nicholson told Esquire in 2019, laughing, “but I think he started my career.”
Like fellow directors Robert Altman and Francis Ford Coppola, Mr. Rafelson was a Hollywood renegade, battling with studio executives and looking for new ways to work outside the system. He seemed “to approach a film with absolutely no compromise and no sense of personal danger,” Coppola said in an Esquire interview. Another admirer, Wes Anderson, described him as someone who “falls into the almost nonexistent category of the movie director who does whatever he wants.”
He did so in part by co-founding his own production company, Raybert, which evolved into an influential but short-lived company called BBS. He and co-founder Bert Schneider launched the business by creating “The Monkees,” a rock band sitcom that became a smash hit after premiering on NBC in 1966, earning the producers an Emmy Award the next year. They used the show’s proceeds to finance “Easy Rider,” director Dennis Hopper’s 1969 counterculture classic about a pair of hippie bikers and an alcoholic lawyer played by Nicholson.
Dennis Hopper dies; actor, director's 'Easy Rider' became a generational marker
The film channeled the alienation and discontent of a generation of young people — “You know, this used to be a hell of a good country,” Nicholson’s character says, “I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it” — and grossed $60 million on a budget of less than $400,000. It led to a six-movie deal between Columbia Pictures and BBS, which soon acquired a four-story office building that became a haven for Hollywood radicals and misfits.
The company went on to produce acclaimed movies including Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show” (1971), a black-and-white exploration of a fading Texas town, and “Hearts and Minds” (1974), an Oscar-winning documentary about the Vietnam War. It also made Mr. Rafelson’s “Five Easy Pieces” (1970) and “The King of Marvin Gardens” (1972), which both starred Nicholson and explored notions of personal freedom and disillusionment.
“In their engagement with the present moment, determination to break free of the movie-industry establishment, commitment to new forms of naturalism, and reckless, movie-intoxicated ambition,” BBS’s movies “embodied the spirit of a New Hollywood,” film critic J. Hoberman wrote in a 2010 essay.
Mr. Rafelson took his time between projects, making 10 theatrical feature films in 34 years, and acquired a reputation for being a volatile, at times prickly, figure on the set. When he felt that executives were stifling his vision or encroaching onto his territory, he could fall into a rage. He once responded to criticism from studio chief Lew Wasserman, the head of Universal Pictures parent company MCA, by trashing the mogul’s office, throwing an award, a family photo and other mementos across the room.
He was later fired from “Brubaker,” a 1980 prison drama, after allegedly assaulting a Twentieth Century-Fox executive. Mr. Rafelson said he grabbed the executive and let him go “a little forcefully,” but denied hitting him. He sued the studio for breach of contract and slander, and won, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“I am very uncomfortable in the world that I live in, and terribly displeased by it,” he told the Times in 1997. “I confront it in rather personal and arduous ways, and do combat with it every day of my life.” He added, “There’s nothing that I have done, there’s no day in my life I can remember, that has been spent entirely legally.”
Mr. Rafelson directed crime thrillers including “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1981), the second — and steamiest — Hollywood adaptation of a novel by James M. Cain; and shot on location in Kenya for his period adventure film “Mountains of the Moon” (1990), about a pair of British explorers searching for the source of the Nile.
But he remained best known for “Five Easy Pieces,” which starred Nicholson as rebellious oil rigger Bobby Dupea, a former concert pianist who has given up his artistic ambitions and rejected his privileged upbringing. The film stunned audiences when it premiered at the New York Film Festival, landing as “a revelation,” film critic Roger Ebert later recalled.
“This was the direction American movies should take,” he continued: “Into idiosyncratic characters, into dialogue with an ear for the vulgar and the literate, into a plot free to surprise us about the characters, into an existential ending not required to be happy.”
The film helped establish Nicholson’s angry but wounded screen persona — in one of the movie’s most famous scenes, he sends plates and glasses flying off a restaurant table after unsuccessfully trying to place an order for toast, which isn’t on the menu — and received four Academy Award nominations, including best actor for Nicholson and best supporting actress for Karen Black, who played his waitress girlfriend.
Mr. Rafelson co-wrote the movie with Carole Eastman (she used the pseudonym Adrien Joyce) and shared Oscar nominations for best picture and best original screenplay. He later acknowledged that the movie was drawn in part from his own life, a fact that was reflected in the name of Nicholson’s character (Bobby) and the clothes he wore on-screen, including a turtleneck sweater that came from Mr. Rafelson’s wardrobe.
Discussing the film with Esquire, Mr. Rafelson grew emotional while recounting the ending, in which Nicholson’s character confronts his dying father and then abandons his pregnant girlfriend, hitchhiking north to the unknown.
“He’s doomed to leave,” Mr. Rafelson said. “He’s doomed to disappear and keep going. He’s doomed to be unsatisfied.”
The younger of two sons, Robert Jay Rafelson was born in Manhattan on Feb. 21, 1933. His father was a hat-ribbon manufacturer, and his mother was a homemaker.
While his father wanted him to go into the family business, Mr. Rafelson saw a different future for himself, inspired by his cousin Samson Raphaelson, a playwright and screenwriter who wrote the source material for “The Jazz Singer,” the first Hollywood talkie, and later worked on “Trouble in Paradise,” “The Shop Around the Corner” and other Ernst Lubitsch comedies.
Mr. Rafelson left home as a teenager and worked as a rodeo rider — he said he broke his coccyx after being thrown from a bull, which he mounted in a brash attempt to win $5 in a bet — and played in a band in Mexico. He later studied philosophy at Dartmouth College, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1954. He managed to do consulting work for a Japanese film studio during a stint in Japan with the Army.
Returning to the United States in the late 1950s, he worked his way up in television as a story analyst and script editor to associate producer. He and Schneider, whose father was a longtime head of Columbia Pictures, then started Raybert Productions. In 1968, he made his feature-film debut with “Head,” a psychedelic comedy that starred the Monkees and was co-written by Nicholson. The film was savaged by critics, and the band splintered after its release.
Michael Nesmith, deadpan singer-songwriter with the Monkees, dies at 78
Mr. Rafelson moved on to make “Five Easy Pieces” and was also an uncredited producer of French director Jean Eustache’s acclaimed drama “The Mother and the Whore” (1973). He later directed movies including “Stay Hungry” (1976), a comic drama starring Bridges as the scion of a wealthy Southern family, and Black Widow” (1987), a crime thriller with Debra Winger and Theresa Russell.
After making “No Good Deed” (2002), an adaptation of a Dashiell Hammett story, he retired to Aspen to focus on raising his two young sons, E.O. and Harper, from his marriage to Taurek Rafelson.
His first marriage, to production designer and art director Toby Carr Rafelson, ended in divorce. In addition to his wife and their children, all of Aspen, survivors include a son from his first marriage, Peter of Los Angeles. A daughter from that marriage, Julie, died at age 10 in 1973, following injuries from a gas-stove explosion.
While working on his movies, Mr. Rafelson was often consumed by details of authenticity. He said he hitchhiked across the South to immerse himself in the region’s culture for “Stay Hungry,” and prepared for “Brubaker” by spending several nights in a Mississippi prison. For “Five Easy Pieces,” he wanted to determine the precise sound that an ashtray would make rattling in Nicholson’s car during the driving scenes — and recorded the sound of 400 rattling ashtrays before finding one that suited him.
Filmmaking “comes easier to some than it does to others,” he explained, “because most people don’t [care] about the sound of an ashtray.” | 2022-07-25T23:39:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bob Rafelson, a New Hollywood renegade, dies at 89 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/25/filmmaker-bob-rafelson-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/25/filmmaker-bob-rafelson-dead/ |
Sarah Matthews, Donald Trump's deputy White House press secretary, attends a hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, on Capitol Hill on July 21. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The New York Post and the Wall Street Journal on Friday published scorching editorials against former president Donald Trump in the aftermath of Thursday’s prime-time hearing of the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021. In the view of the Post, Trump has proved himself “unworthy” of returning to the presidency, and the Journal opined that he’d “utterly failed” the test posed by the Jan. 6 “crisis.”
Not exactly revolutionary thinking on display here, considering that the same conclusions follow from most crises that Trump brought upon himself while in office. But in this case, the editorials came from two outlets under the corporate umbrella of News Corp., a publisher controlled by the Murdoch family. And so the condemnations drew the sort of pickup over which editorial writers at U.S. newspapers commonly drool: NPR, CNN, CNN, CNN, the Hill, Insider, Axios, the Wrap. Yet they weren’t that surprising.
The newspapers’ editorials were strongly worded, with the New York Post writing of Trump, “His only focus was to find any means — damn the consequences — to block the peaceful transfer of power. There is no other explanation, just as there is no defense, for his refusal to stop the violence.” The Journal reached similar conclusions: “No matter your views of the Jan. 6 special committee, the facts it is laying out in hearings are sobering. The most horrifying to date came Thursday in a hearing on President Trump’s conduct as the riot raged and he sat watching TV, posting inflammatory tweets and refusing to send help.”
In a CNN opinion piece, Sirius XM host Dean Obeidallah writes, “The New York Post is a tabloid that reaches Trump voters where they are.”
Perhaps so. But another Murdoch-controlled property reaches Trump voters and many other Americans where they live — namely, their couches. That would be Fox News, the No. 1 cable news outlet for the past 20 years. Hours after the Post and the Journal published their condemnations, Fox News viewers caught a different perspective from prime-time host Sean Hannity: “In real time I was on the radio on January 6, I condemned what was happening. I condemned it that night on this show,” said Hannity, who put his well-honed deflection skills to work reciting a worn-out talking point about the racial-justice protests of 2020. Democrats, he said, “were either completely silent because it was their base that was involved in the looting, the rioting, the arson, the attacks on police, thousands of cops injured, dozens dead, billions in property damage, 574 riots, very few prosecutions in this case, even though we have a wealth of evidence.”
Fellow Fox host Tucker Carlson fashioned a more original slam on the Jan. 6 committee: “These are not hearings in any recognizable sense. This is a show trial. That is exactly what it is. That’s not overstatement,” Carlson said Friday night.
For a look at the media power of Hannity-Carlson v. New York Post-Wall Street Journal, please consult just about any authority on the media diet of conservatives. A 2014 study by Pew Research Center, for instance, found the following:
When it comes to choosing a media source for political news, conservatives orient strongly around Fox News. Nearly half of consistent conservatives (47%) name it as their main source for government and political news, as do almost a third (31%) of those with mostly conservative views. No other sources come close.
Among the other sources that don’t come close are the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Murdoch properties don’t always speak with one voice about the nation’s affairs, a wrinkle that emerged in the high-profile lawsuit of Dominion Voting Systems against Fox Corp. Voting-technology company Dominion, which in 2020 had contracts in 28 states, charged that anchors on Fox platforms had defamed it by alleging its complicity in an effort to steal the 2020 presidential election from Trump. The company’s complaint notes that just days after that election, the New York Post’s editorial board scolded Trump for his stolen-election rhetoric:
But the president’s aides have shown no evidence that the election was “stolen.” Where Trump won several key states by razor-thin margins to take the White House in 2016, Biden seems to have done the same this year. It undermines faith in democracy, and faith in the nation, to push baseless conspiracies. Get Rudy Giuliani off TV. Ask for the recounts you are entitled to, wish Biden well, and look to the future.
If Trump persists in wild talk to the contrary, he’ll lead his people into irrelevance and marginalize his own voice. His years in the White House have transformed the nation, but refusing to let go now will make it easier for his enemies to undo it all.
The Journal opined on Nov. 6, 2020: “Mr. Trump’s legacy will be diminished greatly if his final act is a bitter refusal to accept a legitimate defeat. Republican officials will turn away, and eventually so will the American public that wants to see the election resolved.” For context on these skeptical takes, consider that Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born media mogul who launched Fox News in 1996 with Roger Ailes, wasn’t enamored of Trump in the first place, as Politico’s Jack Shafer writes.
Such views ground against the conspiratorial reporting on some Fox News shows, where serious chatter about a stolen election — including the notion, still without evidence, of complicity by voting-tech companies — proceeded in serial fashion. In fairness, some Fox News programming steered away from the lies.
Newspaper editorials and cable television shows are dramatically different platforms, as the Murdochs have learned. Under the ineffable laws of media distribution, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal can write editorials zinging Trump without causing much, if any, harm to their respective business models. The same doesn’t hold true for the opinion hours on Fox News, where unleashing the sort of logic deployed in Friday’s editorials would likely spark viewer revolts and a scramble for competing channels willing to indulge Trump’s fantasies.
So yeah, when Hannity starts blasting away at Trump, we’ll know something’s up. | 2022-07-25T23:53:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Is anyone reading the Trump editorials in the WSJ and New York Post? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/trump-editorials-new-york-post-wall-street-journal-yawn/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/25/trump-editorials-new-york-post-wall-street-journal-yawn/ |
Requests for information from two state lawmakers were released under a state public records law
Yvonne Wingett Sanchez
Arizona state Sen. Kelly Townsend, pictured in 2019, and state Senate President Karen Fann received subpoenas seeking communications “relating to any effort, plan, or attempt to serve as an Elector” for Donald Trump after the 2020 election. (Bob Christie/AP)
Copies of two subpoenas issued to Republican state senators from Arizona were released Monday via a public-records request, confirming what has been previously reported about the June demands for records related “to the signing or mailing of any document purporting to be a Certificate certifying Elector votes in favor of Donald J. Trump and/or Michael R. Pence.”
Trump didn't want to call for Jan. 6 prosecutions, newly released video shows
Separately, a grand jury in Washington examining Jan. 6 heard testimony Friday from Marc Short, the former chief of staff to Pence, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. Short’s grand jury appearance was first reported by ABC News. He testified on the same day that a jury in the federal courthouse convicted longtime Trump confidant Stephen K. Bannon of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide information to the U.S. House committee investigating Jan. 6.
In the weeks after the 2020 election, Fann huddled with Arizona state lawmakers and Maricopa County officials to try to broker a deal to conduct a joint audit by an accredited firm of the county’s election results.
On Dec. 1, 2020, she attended a meeting with Giuliani and Ellis, both of whom worked as attorneys for Trump, as well as Kerik, state Republican lawmakers and retired Col. Phil Waldron. Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) also attended the meeting and later said Giuliani made various claims about election fraud that the former New York mayor could not back up.
“My recollection, he said, ‘We’ve got lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence,’ ” Bowers told the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
In the end, the GOP Senate that Fann presided over launched its own review of 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County for the presidential and U.S. Senate race, using a Florida-based firm with no experience in auditing elections. The review affirmed Biden’s win.
In late 2020, Townsend, as a state representative, sought to prevent the certification of Arizona’s electoral votes. On Dec. 31, she wrote a letter to Pence asking the vice president “to refrain from accepting the Biden electors” until state lawmakers could adequately investigate claims of voter fraud. It is unclear if Pence received the letter.
“We believe it is impossible to conclusively declare a winner in Arizona and pray that you would refrain from counting the electoral votes from our state, and consider the alternate slate should we be able to establish validity to the various claims of election fraud on such a scale that would change the outcome,” said the letter, obtained by the watchdog group American Oversight.
The subpoenas to Fann and Townsend seek all communications or documents exchanged with those who served as Arizona’s alternate electors, as well as communications with state Rep. Mark Finchem, a vocal “Stop the Steal” proponent now vying for the Republican nomination for secretary of state.
Finchem helped organize a Nov. 30, 2020, meeting in downtown Phoenix attended by Giuliani, Ellis, GOP congressmen, state lawmakers and others, where speakers claimed widespread fraud in the election. Finchem was in Washington on Jan. 6. The House committee probing the events of that day issued a subpoena to him in February seeking information about his activities after the election, including comments he made about delivering “an evidence book and letter to Vice President Pence showing key evidence of fraud” in the election “and asking him to consider postponing the award of electors.”
Townsend has previously said that as chair of the elections committee, she tried to conduct an investigation because legislators “have plenary authority and responsibility to send the correct slate, and because it was in question, we wanted to have an alternate slate in case fraud was discovered and found.”
“They asked me not to talk about it because of the investigation,” Townsend told The Washington Post in an interview. She said it was her impression that FBI agents were seeking information about one of Trump’s attorneys.
Some within Trump’s orbit, particularly Eastman, a law professor, had advocated offering new slates of “Trump electors” to challenge the electors in key states, such as Arizona, that Trump won in 2016 but lost in 2020. The scheme failed in part because even GOP-controlled state legislatures did not endorse the effort.
Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report. | 2022-07-26T00:01:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Subpoenas to Fann, Townsend of Arizona show specifics of DOJ probe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/25/fann-townsend-subpoenas-arizona-trump/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/25/fann-townsend-subpoenas-arizona-trump/ |
In providing more details about the scheme, which lasted about six years and resulted in no affordable housing units being built, authorities said Big Island attorneys Paul Joseph Sulla Jr. and Gary Charles Zamber, along with businessman Rajesh Budhabhatti, used Rudo’s position to defraud county residents of badly needed affordable homes and fraudulently obtain more than $10,980,000 in land and affordable housing credits.
Sulla and Zamber are charged with six counts of honest services wire fraud and one count of conspiracy. Sulla is also charged with one count of money laundering. Sulla’s defense attorney, Birney Bervar, declined to comment. It was unclear who represents Zamber.
The lawyers and businessmen used Rudo’s position to shepherd affordable housing deals between the county and companies they had ownership interests in, Clare Connors, U.S. attorney for Hawaii, said.
“He was a public official. He was employed by the county,” Connors said of Rudo. “And his role was to assist the county in solving its affordable housing crisis.”
They allegedly abused a program that required developers to include affordable housing in their projects. Developers who agree to construct new affordable housing units in addition to any required under county code can earn excess credits, which can be sold or transferred to other developers to satisfy affordable housing requirements for other projects, according to court documents. | 2022-07-26T01:49:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 3 others charged in Hawaii affordable housing scheme - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/3-others-charged-in-hawaii-affordable-housing-scheme/2022/07/25/80efca5c-0c81-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/3-others-charged-in-hawaii-affordable-housing-scheme/2022/07/25/80efca5c-0c81-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Pope Francis as he was welcomed in Edmonton, Canada, on July 25. (Cole Burston/Getty Images)
Pope Francis on Monday apologized to Canada’s Indigenous community for the role the Catholic Church played in overseeing decades of abuse at some of the nation’s residential schools. The schools, which were run by both churches and Canada’s federal government, removed about 150,000 Indigenous children from their families — and used hunger, sexual violence and religious indoctrination to forcibly assimilate the students.
But it wasn’t the first time Francis — or even his predecessors — has asked forgiveness for the church’s crimes and transgressions. In fact, his remarks were the latest in a string of papal apologies in recent years.
Francis is in Canada this week on the first papal visit since 2002. On Monday, clad in a headdress presented to him by Indigenous leaders, he described Canada’s residential school system as “catastrophic” and asked forgiveness for the “evil committed by so many Christians.”
“I am deeply sorry — sorry for the ways in which, regrettably, many Christians supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the Indigenous peoples,” Francis, who is from Argentina, said in his native Spanish.
Francis is the first Latin American pope and has offered several apologies since becoming the head of the Catholic Church in 2013, most notably for sexual abuse. In a letter to Chilean bishops in 2018, he admitted to “serious errors” in handling a sex abuse scandal. Later that year, he penned a lengthy letter to Catholics worldwide in which he expressed deep regret for the church’s role in the abuse of minors and the subsequent coverup, saying: “We showed no care for the little ones. We abandoned them.”
In 2015, on a trip to Bolivia, Francis apologized for the “many grave sins … committed against the native people of America in the name of God.”
“I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offense of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America,” he said, as the New York Times reported.
Benedict XVI served as pope from 2005 to 2013, when he resigned, citing health reasons. During his pontificate, the church’s sexual abuse crisis — and his alleged involvement in helping sweep it under the rug — drew an extraordinary amount of media attention, much of which focused on Benedict himself, according to the Pew Research Center.
In 2010, as sex abuse scandals swept the dioceses of Europe, Benedict XVI wrote a letter to the Catholics of Ireland apologizing for decades of “systemic” abuse against children. He criticized church authorities in Ireland but did not discipline any leaders.
This year, the former pope expressed “profound shame” after a German investigation commissioned by the church accused him of wrongdoing in his handling of sexual abuse cases during his time running the Archdiocese of Munich between 1977 and 1982.
“I can only express to all the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness,” Benedict said. “I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church. All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my mandate.”
Pope John Paul II’s papacy lasted 27 years, from 1978 to his death in 2005. The first email he ever sent, in November 2001, was an apology for “a string of injustices, including sexual abuse, committed by Roman Catholic clergy in the Pacific nations,” the BBC reported.
Before that, John Paul II offered his atonement for a number of the church’s sins. In the 1980s and 1990s, while visiting countries in Africa, he “consistently apologized for the church’s role in the slave trade,” the Associated Press reported.
He also wrote a sweeping apology to women, who “have often been relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitude,” he said, blaming “cultural conditioning” and some “members of the Church.”
Chico Harlan and Amanda Coletta in Maskwacis, Alberta, contributed to this report. | 2022-07-26T02:48:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Here are apologies popes have given for abuses at Catholic Church - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/pope-francis-apology-catholic-church-sexual-abuse-scandal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/25/pope-francis-apology-catholic-church-sexual-abuse-scandal/ |
‘Future Dodger?’ In his return to L.A., fans clear in desire for Juan Soto.
Juan Soto clutches his Home Run Derby hardware after winning the contest last week at Dodger Stadium. The Nationals returned to Chavez Ravine this week. (Mark J. Terrill/AP)
LOS ANGELES — Juan Soto slowly peeked over his shoulder Monday, perhaps unsure of how many people he’d find in the small visitors’ clubhouse at Dodger Stadium. When he saw a pack closing in — mostly unfamiliar reporters who cover the Dodgers — Soto grinned and told Josh Bell they were looking for him. Then he stood, put his red had on backward and nodded to the group, letting them know he was ready for questions.
Then he showed just how ready he was.
Just as during the all-star break here, the assembled media sought to get Soto to say something, anything, about potentially being traded to the Dodgers. But the 23-year-old had other plans before Monday’s series opener.
Did coming to Chavez Ravine make him think about playing for the first-place Dodgers? “Not at all. I think about my Home Run Derby championship, my award, I’m happy to have it here.”
Was he surprised fans chanted “Future Dodger” to him during the All-Star Game last week? “Obviously, I was really surprised. But I was more surprised to play center field that day.”
Have big moments in the past — his huge homer off Clayton Kershaw in Game 5 of the National League Division Series in 2019, his recent Home Run Derby win — made this feel like a second home? “Not at all. I enjoy the moments not only here. I enjoy it every time at every stadium I go.”
Does he like the West Coast? “It’s really far from home.”
Did Trea Turner attempt to recruit him during the all-star festivities? “I tried to recruit him!”
To Washington? “Yeah, why not? He’s happy where he’s at but I really tried to do my best to get him back.”
For real though, would Soto be excited to join the Dodgers? “I never think about it because I never see myself in any of that. I’ve always been loyal to the Nationals, I’ve always been there for them. Everywhere I’m going, they try to pull me out of my team.”
Indeed they do. That’s what happens when one of the sport’s best players apparently is on the trading block. Seeing that the Arizona Diamondbacks are not expected to pursue Soto, he did not receive this attention in Phoenix over the weekend. But in Los Angeles, where the local club dealt for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner last summer, Soto was the undisputed center of attention.
There was a big cheer — from the home crowd — when Soto was announced during pregame introductions. At the start of his first at-bat against Tony Gonsolin, those fans yelled “Future Dodger!” some more. The deadline is 6 p.m. on Aug. 2. By then, Soto will know if he’s heading elsewhere or sticking with the team he signed with at 16 out of the Dominican Republic. And in the thick of so much uncertainty, of the constant questions about his immediate future, he seems excited for that day.
“It’s been a tough week,” Soto said. “And to get to see if I’m going to stay there or if I’m going, it’s going to really flush my mind.” | 2022-07-26T03:14:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Juan Soto returns to L.A., and Dodger fans welcome him with clear wishes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/juan-soto-trade-dodgers-nationals/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/25/juan-soto-trade-dodgers-nationals/ |
Italy is on its way to being run by ‘post-fascists’
The Brothers of Italy is not a fascist movement, as the far-right Italian party’s charismatic leader Giorgia Meloni has repeatedly insisted. But they are not not fascist either. Like European neo-fascists elsewhere, the Brothers revile immigration and grandstand over a cloistered, narrow vision of national identity. And like neo-fascists elsewhere, the party draws its origins from a distinctly fascist past — in this instance, from the Italian Social Movement, which was founded out of the ashes of World War II defeat in 1946 by supporters of executed dictator Benito Mussolini.
Meloni counts some of Mussolini’s descendants as her direct allies and still uses the same emblem once adopted by the inheritors of his politics. A few years ago, such connections would have been merely part of the atmospherics of the political fringe, where the Brothers of Italy languished. But Meloni and her party are now polling ahead of all other rivals in Italian politics. When voters elect a new government on Sept. 25 — a consequence of last week’s dramatic collapse of the coalition led by technocratic Prime Minister Mario Draghi — they may confirm Meloni as the country’s first female prime minister.
This state of affairs is largely due to the dysfunction of the unwieldy coalition government that has held sway in Rome since 2018. Draghi, a former president of the European Central Bank and a deeply respected political independent who stands somewhat athwart Italy’s polarized scene, was invited to office 18 months ago amid various squabbles and crises. He presided over what was widely viewed as a competent, stabilizing administration, but chose to quit last week after a number of coalition members — including the far-right League led by former interior minister Matteo Salvini, the populist Five Star Movement, and Forza Italia led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi — withdrew their support.
This is, of course, par for the course in Italian politics.
“If Draghi’s resignation was abrupt and undesirable, it was nonetheless entirely consistent with political practice in Italy’s post-1945 democratic era,” noted Tony Barber in the Financial Times. “His national unity administration lasted 17 months, slightly longer than the average term for the 69 governments since the Second World War.”
Meloni’s Brothers, unlike the other major right-wing parties, remained in opposition throughout the past few years. They have capitalized on a morass of public discontent over Italy’s long-running problems, including entrenched youth unemployment. Like other far-right leaders in Europe, Meloni rages against the country’s perceived inexorable decline.
“Yes to secure borders! No to mass immigration!” she declared earlier this summer at a rally for Spain’s far-right Vox. “Yes to our civilization! And no to those who want to destroy it!”
Now, the prospect of the rabble-rousing Meloni taking power seems more likely than ever. The Brothers are polling narrowly ahead of the center-left Democrats, but may count on the support of Salvini’s and Berlusconi’s factions as part of a broader right-wing coalition. If she does emerge as the biggest standard-bearer of the Italian right, it’ll mark one of the most significant journeys of a far-right politician into the European mainstream, outpacing veteran campaigners like France’s Marine Le Pen.
“Meloni has been an activist in post-fascist politics since her youth,” said Piero Ignazi, a professor emeritus at the University of Bologna, to France24. “The party’s identity is, for the most part, linked to post-fascist traditions. But its platform mixes this tradition with some mainstream conservative ideas and neoliberal elements such as free enterprise.”
Italy has seen numerous cycles of establishment-breaking elections and waves of political fragmentation and is proving fertile ground for the migration of “post-fascists” into the corridors of power. The Brothers are “the beneficiary of a much wider breakdown of the barriers between the traditional center-right and the insurgent far right, playing out across Western Europe and America,” wrote David Broder in the New York Times. “Heavily indebted, socially polarized and politically unstable, Italy is just the country where the process is most advanced. If you want to know what the future may hold, it’s a good place to look.”
Questions loom over what sort of disruptive presence a far-right government in Italy would represent for Europe’s liberal establishment. The continent’s nationalist, illiberal, Euroskeptic right — so far only in power on its eastern periphery — would have a striking new regional leader. A Meloni government may be considerably less enthusiastic about supporting the Ukrainian war effort against Russia than Draghi was, though she has been at pains in recent weeks to stress her Atlanticist credentials. It may be regressive on gender and minority rights; Meloni is an outspoken critic of the “LGBT lobbies” in the West.
It also may be rather meek. “If you are hoping that she will lead the revolution — against ‘Europe’ or ‘the establishment’ — you are likely to be disappointed,” Italian journalist Francesco Borgonovo wrote for Unherd, a right-leaning online publication. “Might she vex the EU establishment like [Hungarian Prime Minister Victor] Orban does? Possibly. But will the center-right allies whose support she needs to get into government — first and foremost Berlusconi — allow her to go down that road?”
Meloni is “popular these days because opposing policy is easier than making tough choices in government. As often happens in politics, once you actually have to make policy, public support dissipates quickly,” wrote Maria Tadeo for Bloomberg Opinion. “Italy also has an extraordinary ability to build and burn politicians. In fact, for Meloni, becoming the next premier — if that were indeed to happen — may prove a poisoned chalice.” | 2022-07-26T04:20:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Italy is on its way to being run by ‘post-fascists’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/26/italy-meloni-post-fascists/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/26/italy-meloni-post-fascists/ |
Brittney Griner leaves a Russian court in Moscow on July 15. (Photo for The Washington Post)
RIGA, Latvia — WNBA star Brittney Griner faces another nerve-racking week in her Moscow trial on drug charges, with her testimony and cross-examination by the prosecution expected Wednesday.
The Phoenix Mercury player returns to court Tuesday, where her defense team will continue to present its case. She faces her greatest ordeal the next day, when she must answer questions from the judge and prosecutor, as she tries to make her case for leniency. The drug charge against her carries a potential sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Griner has been in custody since mid-February, after vape cartridges containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage at Sheremetyevo International Airport. She was arrested a week before the invasion of Ukraine, when relations between the United States and Russia were strained and icy. The Kremlin has rejected U.S. claims that she is being wrongfully held.
Griner pleaded guilty to the charges — meaning she faces certain conviction — but she has told the court she did not intend to break Russian law, explaining she was in a hurry when she packed her bags for Moscow.
The trial has widened the gulf between Washington and Moscow and intensified anti-American sentiment in Russia. State television spews out aggressive propaganda daily, claiming that the United States provoked Russia’s war against Ukraine as part of a plot to dismember the country and gobble up its resources.
UMMC Yekaterinburg’s 1000-member fan group on VKontakte, or VK, Russia’s version of Facebook, mostly supports Griner.
“I hope all ends well for Brittney and she can return to her family,” wrote a fan named Tatyana under a group post that quoted team Director Maksim Ryabkov’s character testimony at the trial earlier this month.
“A story that was blown out of proportion. Let the athlete go,” commented Nadezhda Maiga under a recent photo picturing Griner in a courtroom cage.
But some see the charge as justified given that marijuana is illegal in Russia.
“The fact that she was arrested is correct, but I think to give her five years for that is too harsh because she didn’t bring it to sell, but for herself,” wrote another VK user, Dmitry Butakov.
Last week, the defense presented medical certificates indicating that Griner suffers from chronic pain and was prescribed medical cannabis by an Arizona doctor.
After her testimony and cross-examination this week, the defense will rest its case. Since Griner pleaded guilty, her lawyers say they hope to convince the court to be lenient.
It is not clear when the verdict and sentence will be handed down. In the final stages of the case, the prosecutor and defense will sum up their cases, and the prosecutor will spell out what punishment the state is seeking. Griner will be given a “final word” — the defendant’s last chance to address the court about the charges.
Trevor Reed, a former Marine recently freed from a Russian prison in a prisoner exchange in April, said last month at a rally in Griner’s support that she is “in a lot of ways in a worse position” than he was “because Brittney is African American.”
With political and diplomatic ties between Washington and Moscow in a deep freeze, sports and cultural ties are also fraying, and it seems unlikely that WNBA players will continue to play in Russia. Griner’s American teammates in Yekaterinburg — Courtney Vandersloot, Allie Quigley and Jonquel Jone — flew home after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
The White House says that Griner is being held in “intolerable circumstances” and it will do all it can to have her released with other wrongfully detained prisoners, including Paul Whelan, an ex-Marine arrested in 2018, convicted of spying in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He denies the charges, saying he was set up.
Russian officials have condemned the public pressure in the United States for Griner’s release while hinting that Russia may be willing to hand her over in a prisoner swap — but only after the trial is completed.
However, Moscow’s terms may be difficult for Washington to accept: Media speculation is increasing about a possible exchange involving Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is currently serving a 25-year sentence in Illinois for conspiring to kill U.S. nationals and selling weapons to terrorists.
The White House and State Department have said that freeing Griner and other wrongfully held Americans is their highest priority.
Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report. | 2022-07-26T04:20:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | WNBA star Brittney Griner to testify this week in Russian trial - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/26/russia-brittney-griner-trial-prisoner/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/26/russia-brittney-griner-trial-prisoner/ |
I am the child of his first wife. He also had a child with his second wife, to whom he was married for 50 years. My half brother “Gerald” and I get along fine.
If “Gerald” wrote the notice, then he omitted your mother’s name purposely and incorrectly, as family members sometimes do (some family members of the deceased even write competing death notices, including different information about their loved one).
He might have done so to protect his mother’s feelings or reputation.
This Wikipedia entry should be revised. You could edit it yourself — and you should let your brother know that you are concerned that information concerning your father’s life is not only incorrect, but also hurtful to you because it erases your mother’s identity and creates a false impression regarding your identity.
Please don’t tell me my allergies are not real because you can’t see them. Please leave your pets at home when you stop in to see me. Please stop telling me that volunteering at the shelter would change my mind.
No Vet: I understand why people see their pets as “family members,” but some humans use this as an excuse for every single choice regarding their pets.
As an adult, I realized this TV dependency was the result of hearing my mother in the living room watch TV after I went to bed during my childhood. It was comforting.
Comforted: I appreciate the antecedent of your habit — and applaud your solution! | 2022-07-26T04:20:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: Should obituaries include ex-spouses? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/26/ask-amy-obituary-ex-dad/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/26/ask-amy-obituary-ex-dad/ |
Hypothetically, if I didn’t have to work and had enough money, then yes, I would want kids. I love the idea of introducing a new human being to the world and helping to shape them toward a successful future. What I don’t like is the fear of losing my own identity, failing as a parent and having the kid grow up to be a monster, and potentially having my once-great relationship crumble from the stress.
I have not talked to my girlfriend about this yet. I think a part of me is hoping she will agree with me that it’s hard as hell to get by as it is. But then again, I think if she surprised me by saying, “Yeah, I agree, I don’t want kids anymore,” I would be sad. I’m really confused about what I’m feeling right now.
This doesn’t have to be decided right now since she’s not looking to get pregnant for another six years, but I’m thinking it would be extremely selfish to just sit on this for that long and then say I don’t want kids after all. Should I raise the subject now or wait until I’m sure one way or another?
— Not Sure About Kids
Not Sure About Kids: Raise it now! Yes. You’re asking great questions. Figure it all out together. The process might break you apart, but that qualifies as a good outcome if it’s the result of your knowing yourselves better and being true to that understanding.
It could also send you down the road of different career choices, relocating to a less expensive or demanding area, etc., since maybe the child rearing isn’t the problem, but instead the amount of time you spend on the adult treadmill.
Or you could come to see that “the fear of losing my own identity, failing as a parent and having the kid grow up to be a monster, and potentially having my once great relationship crumble from the stress” is the second-guessing gantlet all pre-parents go through, if they’re even a little bit honest with themselves or even a little bit less than 100 percent on board with the idea of having kids. It may still be enough to talk you out of it, but not because it’s a set of doubts unique to you.
Seriously — imagining the life you have now and then imagining a child in that life is a responsible thing to do. You can’t truly anticipate the effects of being over the moon for your child, but that’s a good thing — because experiences vary, and no matter how parents feel, they still have to show up for their kids. | 2022-07-26T04:20:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Certainty about wanting kids turns into fears and doubts - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/26/carolyn-hax-wanting-kids-doubt/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/26/carolyn-hax-wanting-kids-doubt/ |
England's Beth Mead has been head over heels at the Women's Euro 2022, scoring five goals. (Alessandra Tarantino/AP)
The Women’s European Championship semifinals are Tuesday and Wednesday in England. Here’s what you need to know about the continent’s soccer championship.
Who is playing in the Women’s Euro 2022 semifinals?
How can I watch the Women’s Euro 2022 semifinals?
What are the odds for the Women’s Euro 2022 semifinal games?
How did the teams advance to the Women’s Euro 2022 semifinals?
Have any of the semifinalists won the Women’s European Championship before?
Who are the top players in the Women’s European Championship semifinals? | 2022-07-26T05:38:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Women's Euro TV schedule for England vs. Sweden, Germany vs. France - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/26/womens-euro/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/26/womens-euro/ |
U.K. parents lose battle to continue life support for 12-year-old in coma
Hollie Dance, the mother of Archie Battersbee, left, leaves court July 25 in London. (Dominic Lipinski/AP)
The parents of a 12-year-old British boy left in a coma after suffering a “catastrophic” brain injury three months ago have lost a court appeal to stop doctors from ending his life-support treatment.
Archie Battersbee was found unconscious at his home on April 7 with a “ligature” around his neck, according to court documents. His mother, Hollie Dance, has said she thinks he suffocated while attempting a viral online fad known as the “Blackout Challenge.”
Mother sues TikTok after 10-year-old died trying ‘Blackout Challenge’
Doctors at the Royal London Hospital, where the boy is being treated, believe that he is brain dead and that his body will eventually collapse even if life support continues.
An attorney for the boy’s parents told the court that his mother had seen her son breathe independently of a ventilator on Friday and Saturday, the Guardian newspaper reported.
According to court documents, Dance also reported feeling Archie squeeze her hand on one occasion. Medical staff said they had not witnessed “any sign of spontaneous life in him,” even during painful procedures.
Speaking to reporters Monday outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London — where three Court of Appeal judges upheld an earlier court ruling that continuing life-support treatment was not in Archie’s best interests — Dance vowed not to give up the fight.
“The system shouldn’t be allowed to do this to people,” she said. “All I’ve asked for from day one is time. … That’s my little boy, and I’ll fight as long as I possibly can.”
A number of children have died doing the Blackout Challenge after seeing it on TikTok, according to a U.S. lawsuit filed in May by the mother of Nylah Anderson, a 10-year-old girl from Chester, Pa. Her mother found her hanging in her closet and near-death in December. The girl — described by those who loved her as a precious, fun-loving “butterfly” — died at a hospital five days later.
Other deaths cited in the lawsuit include a 14-year-old Australian boy in April 2020, a 10-year-old Italian girl in January 2021, a 12-year-old Colorado boy in April of that year and a 12-year-old Oklahoma boy in July 2021.
A TikTok spokesperson told The Washington Post at the time that the “disturbing ‘challenge,’ which people seem to learn about from sources other than TikTok, long predates our platform and has never been a TikTok trend.”
Sir Andrew McFarlane, one of three judges in Monday’s U.K. court ruling, said Archie’s condition and the “awful predicament” he and his family are in had received widespread media attention, including a photograph taken before the incident.
However, the judge said Archie “is no longer the boy in the photograph.” He added that the 12-year-old is “someone whose every bodily function is now maintained by artificial means.”
The three Court of Appeal judges said they would delay ending Archie’s treatment for 48 hours — until 2 p.m. local time on Wednesday — to allow his parents to ask the European Court of Human Rights to consider the case.
The boy’s father, Paul Battersbee, was taken to a hospital before Monday’s hearing after suffering from a suspected heart attack.
Jonathan Edwards contributed to this report. | 2022-07-26T05:51:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Parents of Archie Battersbee, U.K. boy in coma, lose life-support battle - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/26/uk-archie-battersbee-brain-injury-blackout-challenge/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/26/uk-archie-battersbee-brain-injury-blackout-challenge/ |
The ECB’s Moves Make Sense, But Won’t Be Enough
Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), during a news conference in Frankfurt, Germany, on Thursday, July 21, 2022. The ECB raised its key interest rate by 50 basis points, the first increase in 11 years and the biggest since 2000 as it confronts surging inflation even as recession risks mount. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
If you think the Federal Reserve has problems in getting on top of inflation, spare a thought for the European Central Bank. On Thursday, President Christine Lagarde announced the ECB’s first interest-rate increase in 11 years — a bigger-than-expected rise of half a percentage point, bringing the policy rate from minus 0.5% to zero. She also introduced a forthcoming Transmission Protection Instrument, a debt-purchasing device meant to guard against “unwarranted, disorderly market dynamics.”
These measures, fine as far as they go, by no means guarantee an orderly return to economic stability.
Europe’s prices went up by nearly 9% in the year to June, about as fast as inflation in the US — but the causes differ in ways that make the ECB’s task a lot harder. Too much demand, something monetary policy can address, has played a leading role in the US. In the euro zone, not so much: The supply shock due to Russia’s war on Ukraine and interruptions to energy supplies is far stronger, narrowing the central bank’s scope for action.
Unemployment is higher in Europe than in the US as well, adding to the risks of tightening too much. Worst of all, conditions vary widely among the currency area’s members: Some are well-placed to cope with higher rates and some, burdened with heavy debts, aren’t.
That’s a lot for one central bank to handle — and it doesn’t help that Europe’s governments are in a state of disarray. In France, President Emmanuel Macron no longer commands a majority in parliament. Germany’s new leader, Olaf Scholz, has struggled to explain his policy on Ukraine and must now contend with new cuts in gas supplies from Russia. And Italy’s widely respected prime minister, Mario Draghi, has resigned in frustration over legislators’ refusal to work together.
Amid this vacuum of leadership, Lagarde and her colleagues are doing as much as they can. Given the circumstances, their reluctance to raise interest rates before now was justified. This first unexpectedly big increase makes sense because inflation has worsened and the ECB needs to show it’s on the job. And Lagarde is right to make no promises on where rates go from here, stressing that it will depend on how conditions evolve. (The Fed, by the way, would do well to adopt the same approach to its own forward guidance.)
Greater clarity, on the other hand, is going to be needed on the new “anti-fragmentation” instrument. The TPI will let the central bank buy the bonds of countries struggling to service their debts and facing high interest-rate spreads. Lagarde laid out general principles but wouldn’t be drawn on details. She declined to say whether Italian debt was on her list, insisting that the ECB would retain discretion within the framework of the euro area’s fiscal rules. Right now, it’s possible that even the ECB itself doesn’t know what that means, let alone the analysts studying its pronouncements.
They’ll soon find out, because the new instrument is likely to be tested. Financial markets were initially impressed by Lagarde’s announcements, but the mood didn’t last and the euro gave up its early gains. A heavily depreciated currency is still adding to inflation. The spreads on Italian and other debt haven’t narrowed. And the energy crunch is likely to get worse before it gets better.
In short, Europe’s half-built fiscal and monetary union is facing another brewing storm. It will struggle to meet this challenge unless member governments step up. Above all, they’ll have to cooperate more closely in managing their debts and sharing the burden of the energy squeeze — a job for elected politicians, not bureaucrats. If they expect to stand aside and let ECB do everything, they’ll shortly be disabused.
• Can Mario Draghi Emerge From the Political Rubble?: Rachel Sanderson | 2022-07-26T06:23:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The ECB’s Moves Make Sense, But Won’t Be Enough - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-ecbs-moves-make-sense-but-wont-be-enough/2022/07/26/f030238a-0c9f-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-ecbs-moves-make-sense-but-wont-be-enough/2022/07/26/f030238a-0c9f-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Actor David Warner, villain in ‘Titanic,’ ‘Tron’ and more, dies at 80
Actor David Warner, then with the Royal Shakespeare Company, tries on a crown in his dressing room on Jan. 11, 1964. (Fred Mott/Evening Standard/Getty Images)
David Warner, the veteran British actor who racked up more than 200 stage and screen credits, including films such as “Titanic,” “Tron” and “The Omen,” died Sunday of a cancer-related illness, his family said. He was 80 years old.
Warner’s career spanned six decades, from a star-making turn playing the title role in “Hamlet” with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1965, when he was just 24, to an array of villainous roles he depicted with characteristic aplomb. He was the Evil Genius in the 1981 film “Time Bandits,” and played a bad guy inside and outside a computer in “Tron” (1982), which pioneered the extensive use of computer animation. In “Titanic” (1997), he helps hunt down characters played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. (Warner had also appeared in a 1979 TV movie depicting the Titanic’s sinking — that time as a more innocuous science teacher.)
The range of his roles was as broad as his list of credits. In 1976, he played an ill-fated photographer in the horror film “The Omen,” and a year later was a German officer in “Cross of Iron.” Warner also appeared in the U.S. series “Twin Peaks,” and was well-known among Star Trek fans for portraying three different species in a three-year spell, across two films in the franchise and a TV series. His final film role was as a retired military officer in 2018’s “Mary Poppins Returns.”
‘Damien’: Bad Omen
Warner was born in 1941 in Manchester, England. His parents were not married, and he went from living with one to the other. His childhood was like “wading through glue and treacle,” Warner explained during one interview. His father changed jobs often, forcing Warner to attend eight different schools, and his mother disappeared from his life during his adolescence.
To his family, he was a loving husband and father. In a statement reported by the Associated Press, they said he would be remembered “as a kind-hearted, generous and compassionate man, partner and father whose legacy of extraordinary work has touched the lives of so many over the years.”
“We are heartbroken,” the family said, adding that Warner is survived by his partner Lisa Bowerman, his son Luke, daughter-in-law Sarah, “his good friend Jane Spencer Prior, his first wife Harriet Evans and his many gold dust friends.” | 2022-07-26T06:32:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | David Warner, who played villains in ‘Titanic’ and ‘Tron,’ dies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/26/david-warner-dead-villain-titanic-twin-peaks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/26/david-warner-dead-villain-titanic-twin-peaks/ |
Chinese artist Nut Brother plays a song about poisonous fumes from trash burned on the Qinghai Plateau. (Video: Nut Brother)
On a remote dirt road in northwest China’s Qinghai Plateau, a four-piece band dressed in hazmat suits and gas masks launches into a thrash metal number about the dangers of burning trash.
“A person’s life is but a single breath, a breath laced with garbage,” the singer death-growls through his mask in videos of the performance.
The unusual concert is part of a countrywide series conceived of and led by the Chinese artist known as Nut Brother, who stands in front of the band dressed in camouflage, gently nodding his head to the distorted eight-string guitars.
In recent years, the 41-year-old, who prefers not to reveal his real name to avoid additional scrutiny from authorities and online critics, has developed a knack for highlighting overlooked environmental and social issues in China using quirky, social media-ready performance art that can slip through the cracks in China’s tightly controlled media environment.
Designed to draw attention to water, air and soil pollution in remote areas of the country, the “heavy metal” tour — pun intended — was Nut Brother’s most ambitious project. Backed by a loose coalition of 30 people conducting research, writing lyrics and composing hardcore bangers, he set out to visit 11 sights across the country last year, but the tour was cut short as coronavirus restrictions were tightened.
In written responses to questions, Nut Brother called his work “emergency response” art featuring projects that tap into urgent social issues he considers chronically overlooked by mainstream Chinese society.
He added that the work is risky and takes place in a “rapidly changing and complex environment” where local governments and polluting companies often take offense at their failures being highlighted. His response is to be as open as possible, publishing all the pushback he faces, including bribes from polluters and letters from local governments demanding retractions.
“Our projects are not really radical; we don’t get things moving through confrontation, but rather we move things forward through imagination,” he said.
Nut Brother is an early social media username of the Shenzhen-based artist who became famous in 2015 when he wandered the streets of Beijing dragging a large vacuum cleaner, its nozzle held up toward the city’s smoggy skies, during a high point for public attention to China’s “airpocalypse” problem.
In 2014, Premier Li Keqiang declared “war on pollution” following years of mounting concern about off-the-charts levels of particulate matter in the air. A documentary by a Chinese state media journalist — called “Under the Dome” and released in February 2015 — directly implicated state-owned fossil fuel giants, drawing hundreds of millions of views before it was censored.
At the time, air pollution’s pervasiveness and official acknowledgment led to cultural attention on the issue. Some artists who tackled smog were mostly trying to convey a feeling of frustration, depression or hopelessness, but others, like Nut Brother, began to think about the social impact of their work, said Kathinka Fürst, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research, an environmental foundation.
This type of artwork still struggles to reach a large audience in China, but the ambiguity of art, where the intent is up to interpretation, gives people like Nut Brother greater leeway to publicly tackle sensitive topics that activists might shun for fear of official censure.
“They aren’t NGOs, they aren’t protesters, they’re not directly involved,” said Fürst, who interviewed many of the leading Chinese artists depicting air pollution about five years ago. That flexibility creates a small, if fragile, space to draw attention to local problems without being perceived to be directly challenging the top leadership.
In recent years, improvements in China’s air quality have been dramatic. From 2013 to 2020, pollution levels in Beijing dropped by over 50 percent. In 2021, the capital for the first time met China’s national air quality standards.
But environmentalists fear that problems of soil and water contamination are comparatively overlooked and may be harder to clean up than gray skies. In remote areas, poor industrial practices like burying copper-laced sludge, burning trash or spraying chemical fertilizers mean that about one-fifth of China’s arable land is contaminated with heavy metals.
One reason these problems aren’t addressed is because they are often invisible to wealthy urbanites. “Small places have no power to speak out,” Nut Brother said. “In the mainstream, their voice is so small it’s imperceptible.”
Nut Brother’s work often highlights this tendency to react with apathy to faraway environmental disasters. When he sucked particulate matter from the Beijing skies, passersby for the most part ignored the man dragging an industrial-sized vacuum on a cart.
Despite the seriousness of the topics confronted, Nut Brother’s work is tinged with irony and humor. When he turned a muddy canal into a giant “hot pot” soup of inflatable fish in the eastern city of Zibo, the installation quickly became an attraction on Chinese restaurant rating site Dianping.com thanks to a flood of positive reviews from fans.
Nut Brother turned a brown canal into a giant “hot pot” full of inflatable fish to raise awareness of water pollution in the eastern Chinese city of Zibo. (Video: Nut Brother)
Fürst said that this style creates a draw for observers to engage and make a human connection with the artist and the issue. “It gives an opportunity for other people to play with the idea,” she said.
Building an audience remains an uphill battle, however. The thumping drums and distorted guitar licks of the “heavy metal” tour drew attention from young music fans but didn’t always land well with locals. The bands played to empty fields or bemused villagers. In one instance, the concert had to take place in a hotel room after local authorities heard of the group’s arrival and shut down the performance.
“We met many villagers who basically have no channels to redress rights violations other than to petition or call the relevant authorities to complain,” Nut Brother said. “Villagers who suffer are the most voiceless group. It is hard to hear their voices in the outside world. In life, they don’t clasp to fantasies or miracles, otherwise they suffer more.”
The same is true of Nut Brother’s most recent project to draw attention to chemical waste in Huludao, a coastal town in northern Liaoning province. In a symbolic portrayal of local struggles to get the message out, Nut Brother commandeered one of the few remaining public pay phones in Beijing as a listening post for strangers to come hear about the health problems Huludao residents face.
“Nut Brother’s campaigns are great, and they make more people aware of the things happening in Huludao. But many domestic journalists are still under a lot of pressure and are afraid to report on this matter,” said a 39-year-old Huludao resident, who only gave his surname, Lei, out of concerns for repercussions for speaking to foreign media.
Lei said the smell of exhaust gas from chemical plants in Huludao’s Longgang district is noticeable almost every day. “Sometimes there isn’t a noticeable odor but it just chokes you and makes you want to cough,” he said.
In recent months, Lei and other residents had discussed arranging a protest, but their online discussion led to summons from the police. “They don’t solve the issue. They only ‘solve’ those who find and raise the issue,” he said. | 2022-07-26T07:31:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chinese artist Nut Brother fights pollution with rock music - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/26/china-pollution-climate-change-art-music/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/26/china-pollution-climate-change-art-music/ |
Czech police have turned a seized 2011 Ferrari F 142-458 Italia into a police car. (Policie CR)
One of the newest vehicles — and arguably the coolest — in the Czech national police force’s fleet can reach top speeds of more than 200 mph and is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But it cost them less than the price of a domestic station wagon.
The car was one of many that police seize from criminals each year, Vincalek said, most of which are sold, with the proceeds covering any damage inflicted by the criminal. The Ferrari was not even the most valuable or rarest among the vehicles seized by police, he added, although it is perhaps the “most luxurious” among the hundreds of seized cars that are transformed into police vehicles.
Other police forces around the world have also introduced more luxurious or speedy vehicles into their fleets. Dubai police, which were already notorious for driving Bugatti supercars, brought an Aston Martin Vantage into their fleet last year. The car had a custom “77” license plate, a reference to James Bond, who famously drove Aston Martins, and the seven Emirates of the United Arab Emirates, the Dubai government said in a statement. | 2022-07-26T07:39:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Czech police turn seized Ferrari 458 Italia into patrol car - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/26/czech-police-ferrari-458-italia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/26/czech-police-ferrari-458-italia/ |
Car struck a tree in Howard County, Md.
A 12-year-old girl was killed in a crash in Howard County early Sunday when the car she was driving went off the road, county police said. A man in the car was injured, they said.
The girl, Josseline Molina-Rivas of Columbia, Md., was driving south on Broken Land Parkway in Columbia when the car she was operating left the road and struck a tree, police said.
The crash occurred a few minutes after 2 a.m., just south of Cradlerock Way, police said. The girl died at the scene, according to police.
Mario Arturo-Artiga, 36, a passenger in the car, was taken to a hospital, where he remained in serious condition on Monday, police said.
Both the girl and the man lived in the same apartment in Columbia “with numerous family members and residents,” police said in a statement.
Police said the girl and the man were not related.
“It is unclear why they were out in the vehicle” police said. Also unclear, police said, was why the girl was driving.
Police said they did not know why the car left the road and said in their statement that they thought speed may have been a factor in the crash. | 2022-07-26T07:40:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 12-year-old girl killed while driving, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/26/girl-twelve-killed-driving-crash-/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/26/girl-twelve-killed-driving-crash-/ |
Montgomery man killed on resort-area road, police say
Victim was ordered out of ride-hailing vehicle, according to police
A man from Montgomery County, Md., was killed on a road in the Dewey Beach, Del., area over the weekend after being ordered out of a ride-hailing vehicle, Delaware state police said.
Sidney Wolf, 43, of Clarksburg, was hit by a car Sunday on the Coastal Highway after he and his friends were told to leave a Lyft vehicle following a disagreement with its operator, police said.
Wolf and five friends had hired a Lyft driver about 1:45 a.m. to take them from Dewey Beach to their residence in Bethany Beach, police said.
After the disagreement between the friends and the driver, police said, the driver stopped in the middle of the left southbound lane and demanded the passengers get out.
Wolf got out of the right rear side of the Lyft vehicle and was struck by a car that came up from behind, police said.
Its driver had swerved to avoid the stopped Lyft vehicle and did not see Wolf standing in the roadway, police said. Wolf died at the scene, police said.
The driver of the car that hit Wolf remained at the scene, police said. However, they said, the Lyft vehicle drove off immediately after Wolf was hit.
In a statement issued Sunday, police said they had not identified the Lyft driver. On Monday, they said the matter remained under investigation.
The nature of the disagreement between the Lyft driver and the passengers could not be immediately learned. The other Lyft passengers were not injured, police said. | 2022-07-26T07:40:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Montgomery man killed on Delaware road, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/26/montgomery-man-killed-delaware-lyft/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/26/montgomery-man-killed-delaware-lyft/ |
Joni Mitchell, seen in April, delivered her first full set in more than 20 years at the Newport Folk Festival alongside country star Brandi Carlile. (Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images)
The 78-year-old singer, who last year celebrated the 50th anniversary of her album “Blue,” played some of her biggest hits, including “Big Yellow Taxi” and “A Case of You.”
Seated in a pink wingback armchair, her blonde hair pulled into pigtails beneath a dark beret, Mitchell drew applause from the opening lines of “Both Sides Now.”
The set had been billed on the festival lineup simply as “Brandi Carlile and Friends.” Mitchell has mostly kept out of the limelight in recent years after suffering a brain aneurysm in 2015 that left her disabled but not defeated.
“Joni’s looked at life from so many sides and she came out of the storm singing like a prophet,” Carlile wrote on Twitter after the show. “After all she’s been through, she returned to the Newport Folk Fest stage after 53 years and I will never forget sitting next to her while she stopped this old world for a while,” she wrote, adding: “I can’t even watch it without the tears from coming back.”
The stage was set up like Mitchell’s California living room, where she has been hosting “Joni Jams” for the past few years, CBS reported.
At one stage during the set, Mitchell picked up an electric guitar and played “Just Like This Train,” as a beaming Carlile looked on, clapping and playing occasional air guitar. Mitchell told CBS she taught herself to play again after the aneurysm.
The many layers — and lovers — of Joni Mitchell
In January, Mitchell demanded her work be removed from music-streaming service Spotify in protest of coronavirus misinformation she said was being featured there. She said at the time that she stood in solidarity with fellow artist Neil Young, who posted a letter on his website demanding that his catalogue be removed from Spotify in response to “fake information about vaccines” on the platform.
Speaking to “CBS Mornings” after the show, Mitchell said she was nervous during pre-show rehearsals, “but I didn’t sound too bad tonight,” adding: “I’m feeling the love.” | 2022-07-26T07:57:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Joni Mitchell plays first full set in 20 years at Newport Folk Festival - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/07/26/joni-mitchell-folk-festival-concert/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/07/26/joni-mitchell-folk-festival-concert/ |
Musk’s rivals are trying to catch up. In April, Bezos’s Amazon.com Inc. struck the biggest launch deal ever, to send up more than 3,000 satellites for his Project Kuiper network. China is building a LEO constellation, and some European governments are eager to develop an independent capability of their own. French President Emmanuel Macron has said creating a satellite offering that could rival Musk is a “matter of sovereignty.” French satellite operator Eutelsat Communications SA took a step in that direction in July when it announced a merger with UK-based LEO network OneWeb Ltd. By the end of the decade, there could be more than 100,000 satellites zipping around the Earth, more than 20 times the number in operation in early 2022. Astronomers have already noticed the growing traffic, complaining that Starlink satellites are interfering with their view of space. | 2022-07-26T07:57:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Elon Musk Sparked a Race to Send Satellites into ‘LEO’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-elon-musk-sparked-a-race-to-send-satellites-into-leo/2022/07/26/a3291b3a-0cb0-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-elon-musk-sparked-a-race-to-send-satellites-into-leo/2022/07/26/a3291b3a-0cb0-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Juan Soto and Trea Turner shared Nationals Park in April 2021, months before Turner was traded to the Dodgers. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
On the second-to-last day of the 2018 season, Trea Turner hit second for the Washington Nationals in Colorado and rapped three hits, including a homer. Bryce Harper was in the three hole, and he singled twice and scored a pair of runs. Anthony Rendon was the cleanup man, and his lone hit was a triple. Juan Soto was the 19-year-old left fielder, hitting fifth, belting a double and a homer and driving in four runs.
Oh, and on the hill was Stephen Strasburg, finishing a frustrating, injury-interrupted season with six innings of two-run ball — some momentum for the winter. That’s quite a core to build a team around.
There are reasons why, when the Nationals took the field Monday night at Dodger Stadium, Turner was the starting shortstop for opposing Los Angeles; why Harper won the second of his two MVP awards with the Philadelphia Phillies; why Rendon is riding out the season on the injured list of the Los Angeles Angels; and why Soto’s uncertain future is the only storyline that matters for the shell-of-their-former-selves Nationals.
A trade of Soto by next Tuesday’s deadline remains a distinct possibility. As jarring as it would be, there are undeniable, justifiable reasons for the Nationals to move him. The specifics of why — failure to reach agreement on a long-term contract extension, an attempt to maximize the return of prospects who could help rebuild the franchise — have been broken down and analyzed even before we know whether a deal can be pulled off.
But Soto’s potential departure — be it over the next week, in the offseason or via free agency in 2½ years — gives oxygen to an inconvenient narrative: The Nationals cannot hold on to their own players.
“It’s the business that’s the part of baseball that’s — well, not unavoidable, because maybe you can avoid it a little bit,” Turner said last week at the All-Star Game, where he started for the National League with “Dodgers” emblazoned across his chest. “But it happens.”
It has happened, and is happening, to the Nationals. Each of these situations is unique and has its own dynamics, which we’ll get to. But the wide-angle view offers not-so-flattering concerns: The Nationals must be cheap. The Nationals lowball their own. What’s wrong with Washington?
Forget the accuracy of each and any of those conclusions, often made from afar. It is a fact that the Nationals developed and raised those players from kids to stars — and didn’t lock up any of them.
Well, they did lock up one. And that contract is strangling the franchise.
Part of me thinks there’s no point in re-litigating each of the other circumstances — except that the totality of them defines where the franchise once was and where it is now. So start with the star who stayed: Strasburg. He first signed a seven-year, $175 million extension in May 2016, when he was less than six months from free agency — a stunning development. After winning the World Series MVP award in 2019, he exercised an opt-out clause in that deal to become a free agent — only to sign a seven-year, $245 million deal with the team that drafted him first in 2009.
I’m not going to hide. At the time of that contract, I wrote: “This feels right. This is how it should have ended.”
There’s some “expert” analysis for you. In the three seasons since, Strasburg has made only eight starts. Following an aborted comeback from surgery to relieve thoracic outlet syndrome, there’s no telling if he’ll pitch again. Related: Since 2020, only Arizona and Pittsburgh have lost more games than the Nationals — who are charging fast from behind, trailing 198-196 heading into Monday night. Their play over that stretch translates to a 100-loss pace in a season. It’s quite a fall.
Strasburg didn’t come first in all of this, but his status — making $35 million per year to not pitch — has the most impact on the organization. There was drama and angst over Harper’s departure in free agency, but in the end he got the $330 million he wanted — with no deferrals, as the Nationals had offered — from the Phillies. The Nationals won the World Series the next year without him. I’ll never believe the Nats were better because he left, but they certainly could survive — and even thrive.
Rendon’s departure was almost telegraphed even as the Nationals came back from a 19-31 start in 2019 to reach the playoffs and blitz to the title. The third baseman — the Nats’ last real draft-and-develop success, the Game 7 hero who homered off Zack Greinke to set up Howie Kendrick — never seemed entirely enamored with Washington or the organization. He cared about his teammates, and he cared about winning. But while Harper always seemed to have one foot in the door, Rendon always seemed to have one out.
There are people in the organization who would have preferred to sign Rendon for the seven years and $245 million that went to Strasburg — and those were exactly the terms of Rendon’s deal with the Angels. But Rendon’s tenure in Orange County has been bumpy — his on-base-plus-slugging percentage in his last three seasons with the Nats was .953, and in his three seasons with the Angels it’s .780 — and he is out for the year with a wrist injury. Bullet dodged? In hindsight, maybe. But only in hindsight.
Turner is still the toughest one to take — so far. So much went into the Nationals’ decision to trade away everything that wasn’t nailed down last summer: their record at the time, Strasburg’s inability to pitch, the thin farm system, their prospects for 2023. It all contributed, and if there’s a day when Keibert Ruiz is the catcher for Josiah Gray in a postseason game — well, it’ll be some version of worth it, because those are the key pieces that came in return from the Dodgers for Turner and Max Scherzer.
But will that future, hard-to-see-from-here October game also feature Soto in right field?
“I’d love to see him play his whole career in Washington because he’s a franchise player and I don’t think guys like him should be let go or leave,” Turner said. “They should do whatever they can to keep them, in my opinion.”
He was speaking about Soto, whose future is in flux because he turned down a 15-year, $440 million extension — and the Nats don’t seem inclined to raise it. But Turner could have been speaking about any of those all-star Nationals who went before him — himself included. There are reasons Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon and Trea Turner aren’t in Washington anymore. There are rationalizations for exploring a trade of Juan Soto now. Stephen Strasburg’s contract and Stephen Strasburg’s injuries are woven into it all.
The snapshots are separate from one another, each with its own explanation. But the book, as a whole, is depressing. And it may well be adding another chapter — all while the losses mount. | 2022-07-26T09:29:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Juan Soto could be the next Nationals homegrown star to leave Washington - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/26/juan-soto-trea-turner-bryce-harper/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/26/juan-soto-trea-turner-bryce-harper/ |
“Everyone started thinking, ‘Holy cow – he’s really going to do it,’ ” Mark Jurgensen said.
Dominique Claseman spent a-year-and-a-half raising funds for a veterans memorial in Olivia, Minn. (Wendy Jurgensen)
High school senior Dominique Claseman grew up hearing the stories of his father and other family members who served in the U.S. military.
“I wanted them all to be honored,” said Claseman, 17. The teen said it began to bother him that his small town of Olivia, Minn., didn’t have a memorial to recognize veterans. Over the years, some people in town had put up a few rocks and signs in support of veterans, but for Claseman, it wasn’t enough.
When it was time for him to come up with an idea for his Eagle Scout project two years ago, he knew what he wanted to do for the town. Olivia is a farming community of about 2,500 people that is 90 miles from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and known as the “Corn Capital of the World.”
“I thought maybe I could raise $12,000 to $15,000 to get a memorial built in the park,” he said. He soon realized the project would be much bigger than that.
The project began when Claseman and his parents, Mark and Wendy Jurgensen, took him to war memorials in other towns to give him a sense of how they looked. Mark Jurgensen is Claseman’s scoutmaster and had served in Iraq with the Army National Guard.
Claseman let the town and nearby areas know about his idea by being interviewed at local radio stations and handing out brochures. He then went door-to-door to local businesses. People were receptive.
“When people realized I was serious about doing this, it started to take off,” Claseman said. Soon the donations began to pour in. People in Olivia and surrounding towns chipped in almost $77,000 — about six times his original goal.
Most of the money came from families that donated $250 for each stone paver they wanted to have inscribed with a veteran’s name. “Everyone started thinking, ‘Holy cow — he’s really going to do it,’ ” said Jurgensen, 43.
Claseman drew a rough sketch of what he envisioned for the memorial — a walkway with 21 boot steps, pavers with veterans’ names, flags and a memorial stone with the branches of military service. He combined some of the favorite designs he’d seen at other memorials, then took his sketch to his grandfather Jim Czech, who works as a contractor and architect in the area. Czech weighed in with some ideas.
“As more donations came in, the plans grew, too,” Claseman said. “After we reached $15,000, and more money kept coming, I thought, ‘Hey — I can make this a lot bigger.’ ”
By May, the finalized blueprint was made for a long walkway leading to a stone monument and four granite benches in a 21-foot circle representing the 21 boot steps the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns walks. The memorial also would include flagpoles and Army helmet sculptures in honor of two local men who died in Iraq.
A local crew volunteered to pour the concrete if Claseman would purchase the supplies. Then his dad walked across the wet cement in his Army boots to complete a walk of honor with 21 footprints, Claseman said. A granite company from Richmond, Minn., was hired to create the benches and the stone monument.
Then he and his family joined other members of his Scout troop to put in the landscaping and install 280 inscribed granite pavers along the walkway. It took them three weekends, he said. “There were about 10,000 pounds of rock, so, yeah, it was a lot of work,” Claseman said.
After two years of fundraising, designing and sweat equity, the monument was dedicated this year on Memorial Day. The community was impressed that a teenager had pulled off such a big achievement, said Jon Hawkinson, mayor of Olivia. “Dom’s project proved to us that when creativity meets ambition, wonderful things can happen,” he said.
On Memorial Day, several hundred people turned out to dedicate the monument and marvel at the names of all of the veterans with ties to Olivia.
“A lot of people were quite emotional,” Claseman said. “It was the right time for something like this. Because so many veterans are now deceased, this was a time for people to relive some memories and celebrate their relatives.”
Wendy Jurgensen said it was rewarding to see her son’s community project come together. “He definitely has his head set where he wants it,” said Jurgensen, 34. “He knows what he wants and sticks to it.”
Marjorie Barber, 91, came to remember her uncle — a World War I veteran who died at age 21 — and more than a dozen relatives who served during World War II, including her late husband, Leo Barber.
“We have 17 members of my family on the memorial — almost all are gone, a few are still living,” said Barber, who contributed $250 for her husband’s paver, with other family members chipping in for the rest of the family stones. “We never had a place to remember our veterans before, so what Dominique did is really wonderful and uplifting for our town.”
“To think that a young kid took on this responsibility is really remarkable,” she added. “On the day of the dedication, I gave him a hug and told him that I felt like I was his grandmother. I’m just so proud of him.”
Kim Wertish said her son, James Wertish, was killed in a mortar attack in Iraq while serving with the Army National Guard in 2009 when he was 20. Wertish, 60, contributed money to buy markers for her son and two comrades who were killed in the attack. “Seeing their names there — it’s just really beautiful,” she said. “My husband and I love to travel and have stopped at a lot of different memorials, but this one is extra special.”
“I’m really grateful to [Dominique] for stepping up to spearhead this,” Wertish added.
The memorial in Olivia is the largest project undertaken by a local Eagle Scout in recent memory, said Aaron Russell, district executive for the Northern Star Council, a Scouting organization that serves youths in Minnesota and western Wisconsin.
“I was truly amazed as Dom kept blasting through his goals,” Russell said. “It seemed like every week his mom would text me updates, with more and more donations coming in.”
Claseman’s project will be a tough one to follow, but his two brothers, Jayden Claseman, 15, and Ahren Jurgensen, 13, are waiting in the wings to try, he said.
“This is not the end of it — my brothers can add to the memorial for their own Eagle projects,” he said. “They’ll hopefully add more pavers and more statues. There’s a lot more we can do.”
On the Fourth of July, he said, he was thrilled to see his friends and neighbors enjoying the memorial and paying their respects. “Everyone came together for the veterans,” Claseman said. “That’s what this is all about.” | 2022-07-26T10:47:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Teen Dominique Claseman designed and built a town's veterans memorial - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/26/dominique-claseman-veterans-memorial-scout/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/26/dominique-claseman-veterans-memorial-scout/ |
By Gina Harkins
The Uvalde school board said July 25 that it will formally urge Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to raise the legal age to buy assault rifles from 18 to 21. (Video: Uvalde CISD Benson Board Room)
The school board in Uvalde, Tex., is urging Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to hold a special legislative session to raise the minimum age at which assault rifles can be purchased to 21, two months after a gunman who attacked an elementary classroom legally bought two semiautomatic rifles within days of turning 18.
The board voted unanimously Monday night to pass the resolution calling for Abbott to hold the special session, which would see lawmakers recalled to the state capital, Austin. Texas is among more than a dozen states where only the governor can call special sessions.
The age requirement should be raised from 18 to at least 21, Uvalde Schools Superintendent Hal Harrell said at the board meeting Monday. The gunman who entered a fourth-grade classroom at Robb Elementary School in May took “the lives of 19 students and two teachers with a rifle that an 18-year-old could walk in and purchase,” he said.
“There’s no reason for an 18-year-old to have something like that,” Harrell said, to applause.
The school board members are among a growing group of leaders at the local, state and federal levels calling for 21 to be the minimum age for purchasing powerful weapons. President Biden, in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, said raising the age at which assault weapons can legally be bought was the least Congress could do, if banning such weapons was politically impossible.
Uvalde County commissioners have also asked Abbott to call the special session, according to the Austin American-Statesman. The new restrictions would resemble those passed by Florida, which in 2018 raised the age limit for purchasing long guns to 21 after the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the school board’s vote. A spokesperson for the governor told the Texas Tribune that “all options remain on the table.”
“More announcements are expected in the coming days and weeks as the legislature deliberates proposed solutions,” the spokesperson said.
The board also voted Monday to postpone the start of Uvalde’s upcoming school year from Aug. 15 to Sept. 6 as officials work to tighten campus security in the wake of the May assault. A report released last week found some security protocols weren’t being followed, along with failures from every law enforcement agency that responded to the attack.
The nearly 400 local, state and federal officers at the scene that day have been criticized for their inaction. The report said it wasn’t clear whether swifter action could have saved lives, but didn’t rule out the possibility. | 2022-07-26T10:47:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Uvalde school board calls on Texas to raise minimum age for assault weapons - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/26/uvalde-school-board-gun-age-limits/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/26/uvalde-school-board-gun-age-limits/ |
How to create a low-maintenance water feature on your property
You can enhance your yard with a water feature such as a fountain, bird bath or fish pond. (Bryan Anselm/Redux for The Washington Post)
Before I got married, I was invited to lunch with my future wife and her parents at a restaurant on a floating barge tied up on the north shore of the Ohio River. At the time, in the early 1970s, I had no idea restaurants like this existed in Cincinnati. In fact, my future father-in-law had built this restaurant with a business partner and had subsequently sold it.
While we ate, I looked out the windows in awe as giant tows chugged by, pushing 15 or more barges loaded with coal. After lunch, we drove to a 240-acre piece of land my future father-in-law owned with that same partner. We parked next to a magnificent stone manor, got out of his car and walked a short distance to a breathtaking view of the mighty Ohio River.
I was spellbound. My future wife’s father then said, “Nothing enhances the value of real estate like a view of water.” Those words were seared into my brain from that moment forward.
You know you can’t magically summon a body of water to appear on your property, but you can enhance your yard, patio or deck with a water feature as small as a fountain or bird bath, or large enough to dunk a Volkswagen Beetle.
More Builder: How to prevent clogs in your plumbing
I’ve had small koi or fish ponds at my past three houses, and I have one at my current home in New Hampshire. The internet is full of advice on how to build a pond. I’ve tried all sorts of methods. I believe I’ve finally come up with a formula that creates a natural-looking pond and keeps pond maintenance to a minimum.
The first pond I built 45 years ago was made with concrete. I dug a depression in the backyard that was the size of a two-person Jacuzzi. Fortunately, I had enough fall that I could put a drain in the bottom to empty out the water. This allowed me to clean the pond.
The concrete was three inches thick, and I put chicken wire in it to strengthen it. The day after I poured the concrete I applied a ¾-inch-thick layer of cement stucco over the fresh concrete. I pressed thousands of pieces of rounded gravel into the stucco to make it look better.
This pond worked really well, but it was not easy to reach down to unscrew the drain plug. There was no electricity to the pond so I didn’t have a pump or waterfall. This pond would transform to a green swamp in no time. It was a maintenance nightmare, and the fish would die from lack of oxygen.
My next pond project involved a cheap plastic liner that had two different water levels in it. This is a good idea because, as you’ll discover, the key to having clear pond water is to have certain aquatic plants that work to keep the pond healthy and the water clear.
The house I currently live in has a magnificent pond that I didn’t build. The previous owner had it installed. The liner of the pond is a giant sheet of black commercial rubber roofing. It’s been installed now for 20 years and has never leaked.
Installing the rubber is simple. You just dig a hole that’s the size, depth and shape of the finished pond you desire. Be sure to incorporate different levels. You then unroll the rubber and set it in the depression with enough excess to lap up onto the ground surrounding the pond. I have about 16 inches of rubber ringing my pond. It’s covered with granite boulders, plants, moss and so forth to completely hide the rubber.
I also have a waterfall. This waterfall does three things. It adds oxygen to the pond water. The falling water makes a relaxing sound. And the splashing water makes the surface of the pond move ever so slightly, drawing your eye to it.
Frogs, chipmunks, squirrels, litter peeper frogs and who knows what else are attracted to this oasis. It’s very soothing to sit by the pond reading a book or just relaxing as a breeze blows by.
If you really want to go all out, you might want to build a small stream that has several small waterfalls within it. This stream eventually feeds into the pond. A recirculating pump in the pond sends water to the top of the stream.
Think about it. When you go on a hike and come to a moving stream, you almost always stop to watch the water move. Most humans are mesmerized by moving water. I have my own thoughts as to why, but it really doesn’t matter. You know that the babbling sounds of water moving through a stream fills you with happiness. That should be your goal: Create a water feature on your property that will bring a smile to your face every day.
To keep maintenance to a minimum, be sure to think about covering your pond with some sort of screening to capture fall leaves. You want to keep these out of the pond so you don’t end up with an overload of rotting organic material that could foul the water.
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©2022 Tim Carter. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency. | 2022-07-26T11:00:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to create a low-maintenance water feature on your property - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/26/how-create-low-maintenance-water-feature-your-property/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/26/how-create-low-maintenance-water-feature-your-property/ |
Elements, Bloomberg’s daily energy and commodities newsletter, is here. Sign up.Taking to the radio to announce the nationalization of Mexico’s oil and gas, on March 18 of 1938 President Lazaro Cardenas enumerated the risks Mexico faced if the foreigners that controlled this vital resource somehow curtailed its supply. “The very existence of government would be endangered” he intoned. “Political power would be lost, bringing about chaos.”
That oil and gas still exert such a totemic power over Mexican politics more than eight decades later explains the peculiar, Back-to-the-Future nature of the presidency of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Often seen as a left-wing populist, he is, rather, a staunch conservative, anchored to a decades-old vision of Mexico that encompasses everything from natural resources and the environment to the exercise of presidential power.
It shouldn’t be surprising that this mindset is giving foreign companies a hard time. What is most unfortunate is that it also endangers Mexico’s prosperity, putting at risk its ability to engage with the global economy.
Last week, the Biden administration initiated a trade dispute against Mexico for favoring the state-owned oil and power companies at the expense of American energy firms.
“Mexico has pursued an energy policy centered on reinstating the primacy of its state-owned electrical utility, CFE, and oil and gas company, [Petroleos Mexicanos],” the United States Trade Representative complained.
It accused Mexico of amending its power law to give priority to electricity produced by the CFE over the usually cheaper and cleaner power produced by private, often American, rivals. It griped that Pemex was exempted from some pollution rules. It complained that the Mexican government has been denying and delaying permits, and even revoking licenses already awarded to private energy firms.
The USTR argued that these actions represent a breach of the USMCA, the trade agreement signed in 2018 between the two countries and Canada. It also pointed out that the moves will complicate Mexico’s ability to meet the climate goals it set under the Paris Agreement.
AMLO, as the Mexican president is known, is outright messing with North America’s competitiveness, it said: “To reach our shared regional economic and development goals and climate goals, current and future supply chains need clean, reliable, and affordable energy.” Mexico is putting that objective at risk.
Canada agreed, immediately pursuing a complaint of its own. Yet even as lawyers and negotiators saddle up, their legal arguments will have a hard time overcoming Lopez Obrador’s belief that he is returning Mexico to the virtuous path that fulfills its manifest destiny – articulated by Cardenas almost a century ago.
Lopez Obrador was born 15 years after General Cárdenas’ speech, in the Macuspana region of the state of Tabasco, where British companies had been pumping oil since the early 1900s. By the time he entered politics in the mid-1970s Mexico was awash in oil and gas, producing ten times as much as in 1938. Almost 60% of it came from Lopez Obrador’s home state.
In Mexico, it’s always fun to poke gringos in the eye. During his regular press conference on July 20, Lopez Obrador took a dig at the USTR playing “Uy, Que Miedo,” roughly “Ooo I’m so scared,” by the 1970s tropical songster from Tabasco, Chico Che. “We are very worried,” the president noted, somewhat sarcastically. “Nothing is going to happen.”
But more seriously, Lopez Obrador stressed that he demanded the overhaul of the energy clause in the 2018 trade agreement negotiated by his predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto, forcing the US and Canada to acknowledge “the nation’s dominion over energy policy.”
He asked the gathered Mexican journalists: “How would we compromise our sovereignty?”
This is not capricious. Nor should it be discounted as a standard gambit of the old Latin American left, which has tended to view private capital, especially foreign private capital, as inherently corrupt.
The president is not some caricature of old Cold War tropes. His world view stems from a deeply idiosyncratic understanding of where Mexico went wrong, steeped in the logic of energy.
By his reckoning, that happened a half century ago.
In the mid-1970s Mexico’s hydrocarbon reserves were 12.5 times what they were in the day of Lazaro Cardenas – worth 30 years of production at the then-going rate. Mexico was self-sufficient not only in gasoline but also in most liquid fuels, as well as natural gas.
Mexico, in Lopez Obrador’s view, was also better back then in other ways. It was not yet polluted by the neoliberalism of the 1980s, which produced a morally dubious, “aspiracionalist” urban middle class in the president’s words: “very individualistic, very selfish, very focused or oriented toward material progress.”
It was a time when import-substitution anchored Mexico’s economic strategy, before technocrats embraced globalization and tried to hitch Mexico to multinational value chains. It was a time when The State – in the form of an all-powerful president – determined the nation’s development priorities.
Lopez Obrador’s draconian macroeconomics draw inspiration from 1976. (Despite being hammered by Covid-19, Mexico in 2022 had what the International Monetary Fund pegged as the world’s second tightest budget.) That was the year when fiscal profligacy brought about a mega-devaluation of the peso that ended 20 years of macro-stability, plunging the country into an economic and political crisis.
His project is to return Mexico to the moment before this day. The Fourth Transformation, as Lopez Obrador calls his political project, is in this sense not a progressive endeavor but perhaps the most conservative turn in Mexico’s history since the revolution in the early 20th century.
Gazing ahead, into those days when Mexico was self-sufficient in energy half a century ago, he does not flinch at raising Pemex’s budget to $32 billion in 2022 – or 17% more than last year – to try to halt the near two-decade fall in oil production and redouble the nation’s capacity to refine gasoline.
The real future, the one that lies in the days ahead, has a harder time drawing his attention.
A study published earlier this year by the United States’ National Renewable Energy Laboratory concluded that Mexico is within reach of its target of raising the share of power from clean sources to 35% in 2024, up from about 27% in 2021. It could do so while cutting Mexico’s power bill by $1.1 billion compared to a business-as-usual path.
Mexico is moving in a different direction, though. Another NREL report estimated that prioritizing power supplied by the CFE – dependent as it is on dirty gas-oil – could raise power prices by up to 52% and increase CO2 emissions by up to 73 million tons from current levels.
The leader of a country that long ago abandoned import substitution, relying on exports for 40% of its gross domestic product in 2021, might care about the consequences of forcing its companies to foot a higher energy bill for dirtier energy.
This Mexican president has his sights elsewhere. Mexico is one of the only economies in Latin America not to have recovered its level of output before the pandemic hit.
The nation is likely to be in worse shape when Lopez Obrador’s term ends – poorer; less connected to the world – than when it began “On present trends, average income per capital in 2024 will be lower than in 2019, and the number of people living in poverty higher,” noted Santiago Levy, a Mexican economist and former head of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association who declined Lopez Obrador’s invitation to become his first finance minister.
Chalk that up to searching for Mexico’s future in the past.
• Elements: Putin, Natural Gas and Democracy: Liam Denning | 2022-07-26T11:00:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | AMLO’s Oil Politics Reveal His Obsession with the Past - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/amlosoil-politics-revealhis-obsession-with-the-past/2022/07/26/b8597478-0cce-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/amlosoil-politics-revealhis-obsession-with-the-past/2022/07/26/b8597478-0cce-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
FILE - A General Motors sign is seen at its facility in Langhorne, Pa., on Oct. 16, 2019. General Motors’ second-quarter net income fell 40% from a year ago as computer chip and parts shortages hobbled factory output and drove the company’s U.S. sales down more than 15%. The Detroit automaker said it made $1.67 billion from April, 2022, through June, 2022, in part because it couldn’t deliver 95,000 vehicles during the quarter because they were built without one part or another. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) | 2022-07-26T11:00:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hobbled by chip shortages, GM net income slides 40% in Q2 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/gm-2q-net-income-falls-40percent-as-chip-shortage-slows-factories/2022/07/26/a6f263fe-0ccc-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/gm-2q-net-income-falls-40percent-as-chip-shortage-slows-factories/2022/07/26/a6f263fe-0ccc-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
They say church and state are already too separate
Aurora Robertson, 12, in her bedroom in Yukon, Okla. Led to Christianity by a third-grade public-school teacher, she is the only one in her nuclear, atheist family to attend church. (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post)
A Michigan superintendent is pondering whether coaches should lead students in pre-game prayer. A school board member in Florida wants her district to teach students about prayer and offer religious studies. In Hawaii, the leader of a faith- and family-focused activism group sees a path to altering state policy that says public-school employees cannot initiate prayer on campus.
A month has passed since the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Washington state football coach who knelt at midfield to pray and was joined by student-athletes. The court wrote, in a 6-3 decision, that Bremerton High School assistant coach Joseph Kennedy’s prayers were protected by the Constitution’s guarantees of free speech and religious exercise, and that the district was wrong to discipline him for what the majority saw as a private act.
In response, families, teachers and activists are preparing to push religious worship into public schools nationwide — working to blur the line dividing prayer and pedagogy and promising emotional, spiritual and educational benefits for students. Some school officials are listening: In at least three states, Illinois, Alabama and Oregon, school personnel have said they are reviewing their policies on employee prayer.
“Our nation has lost its way in having lost a belief of a higher power,” said Christi Fraga, a Miami-Dade school board member who in May successfully proposed establishing an annual day of prayer in her district. “So in my community, there has been a cry for help — a cry to allow prayer in our schools.” Fraga added of the court’s ruling: “I hope it brings back our country to its foundation.”
Those who say faith should play a role in public schools are thrilled with their gains and eager to push for more next school year. They cite not only the court’s decision for Kennedy but also a June ruling in which the court declared that Maine cannot prevent religious schools from receiving public tuition grants permitted for other private schools.
In other places, though, educators say not much will change — largely because coach-led prayer at games and invocations before school board meetings were already happening.
The fiercest advocates for church-state separation also concede they were fighting an uphill battle even before the court’s ruling. Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said many districts routinely ignore the string of 1960s and 1970s Supreme Court decisions establishing that public schools cannot require students to recite prayers, cannot allow teachers to lead students in prayer and generally cannot promote or inhibit religion at school.
Gaylor said her foundation, a nonprofit founded in the late 1970s, is constantly fighting back against coaches who lead prayers with students at school or school officials who schedule prayer into the school day. In an average year, school incidents make up 50 percent of the group’s caseload, she said.
“We were mopping up anyway; it was like whack-a-mole,” Gaylor said.
Some mothers and fathers also fear what the next school year may bring. Those who practice non-Christian religions warn that, in most of America, “prayer” will by default mean Christian prayer, leaving their children alienated and isolated — while those who do not practice any faith worry their children will be coerced into espousing values and beliefs their parents do not share.
Among them is Kristi Robertson, a 33-year-old atheist in Oklahoma whose daughter discovered God and Christianity when her third-grade public-school teacher led the class in daily prayer. Four years later, Aurora, alone in her family, still prays and goes to church.
“There is nothing I can do about that now; she has made her choices to be religious,” Robertson said. “And if she’s invited to pray at school, she’s going to. If I do hear about it, I would probably complain again — but for other students. It is too late for her.”
‘A little bit of a spirit helps you’
Bill DeFrance, superintendent of Eaton Rapids Public Schools in Michigan, has moonlighted for years as a high school soccer referee. When religious schools compete, he has listened as coaches intone team prayers before and after a game. Still, he has never seen a public-school coach lead a prayer.
But in light of the Supreme Court ruling, and pending guidance from state officials, DeFrance said he is open to the idea of coach-led prayer.
If the Michigan Department of Education or the Michigan High School Athletic Association “said they’d like to work … about how you can incorporate prayer into sports events for kids, I’d certainly take it to the [school] board to say, ‘We could help pilot this; we could try this,’ ” DeFrance said. (A spokesman for the state athletic association emailed The Washington Post, saying: “This is strictly an individual school district issue in Michigan. We have no part in this decision-making process.” A spokesman for the Education Department wrote in an email that his agency “has not sent any guidance to local school districts on this issue at this time. We have made a request of our state attorney general’s office for a review of the decision.”)
If done well, DeFrance added, coach-led prayer could yield advantages for his district’s 2,000 students, serving as a way to learn about other cultures.
“I could see some real interesting things like, ‘Okay, Bill, you’re Hindu, you lead the prayer this week,’ and give some background about why Hindus pray,” he said. Plus, “I do think sometimes having a little bit of a spirit helps you to play.”
In Hawaii, Eva Andrade, president and chief executive of faith-based activist group the Hawaii Family Forum, is also eyeing ways to introduce prayer into schools and school competitions. People of faith feel unsafe at school, Andrade said, threatened by a 1947 Hawaii Board of Education policy that prohibits “prayer and other religious observances … organized or sponsored by schools.” The Supreme Court ruling, she said, offers the first chance in decades to change that policy — and her group is determined to take advantage of the opportunity.
“I would like them to allow people to bring their faith into their position without any fear,” Andrade said.
State-level advocacy is afoot in other places, too: In Ohio, an hour after the Supreme Court’s ruling was published, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted urged school districts to review and update their policies on school prayer. And a few months before the ruling, in Kentucky, a Republican lawmaker and a Lexington rabbi teamed up on a bill requiring public-school students to silently pray, meditate or reflect in class.
Florida passed a similar law in June 2021 that requires a moment of silence each day. Although the law drew strong criticism from advocates of church-state separation, it thrilled Fraga, who persuaded her colleagues to hold a National Day of Prayer every May for the district’s roughly 330,000 students.
Fraga’s original proposal suggested school employees facilitate prayer-related events and programs. In an interview, she said she envisioned teachers taking the day to instruct students about the history of prayer and how different faiths worship.
Board vice chair Steve Gallon III, fearing violation of the Constitution, offered an amendment watering down the proposal. The version that passed in mid-April, Gallon said in an interview, simply “provides an opportunity for students to freely assemble and express themselves in honor of the National Day of Prayer. … Staff also has the right to do that, during non-duty times.”
Fraga still does not understand why it’s okay for the district to recognize LGBTQ History Month, with school-hosted events and celebrations, but not do something similar about prayer. Although she is running for mayor of the city of Doral and plans to leave the school board in November, she intends to continue her education advocacy — bolstered by the Supreme Court ruling, she says it may be possible to introduce more religion classes into public schools.
“I would love to see there be the ability to implement more religious teachings,” Fraga said. “There’s lessons that are taught right now in school that maybe certain families do not believe in, [and] students have to sit there and listen to what history has brought us to.”
Why not, she asked, also offer lessons on the Christianity, the “religion that has formed our nation”? As well as “the different types of religion,” she added.
‘I thought it was required’
In other places, educators are struggling to understand the fuss about the Supreme Court ruling, because prayer has long been part of sports events and school board meetings.
Amy Kruppe took over as superintendent in Hazel Park Schools, Mich., seven years ago. When she arrived from Illinois, she was surprised to find that school board members opened meetings with prayer — sometimes inviting “a man of the cloth” to lead proceedings.
“I said, ‘Wait a minute, this is not constitutional,’ ” Kruppe said. “But their feeling was it was important to them as an organization” — so to this day, the board opens its meetings with Christian prayer, Kruppe said.
Over the years, Kruppe has come around to the idea. There have never been complaints, apart from hers. She said coaches in Hazel Park also lead prayers at games, “and no one says anything about it.” She noted that Hazel Park, a district of about 3,200 students, is about 50 percent White, 50 percent Black and, as far as she can tell, nearly 100 percent Christian.
“I really think it’s the environment, the community you’re in,” Kruppe said. The ruling “just gives some individuals that might have already been doing it anyway the freedom to say, ‘It’s okay.’ ”
Steven Fogg, who sits on the school board of Clovis Unified School District in California, said coaches in his district of 43,000 encourage prayer in a wink-wink-nod-nod sort of way. For example, the coach of his son’s high school football team allowed players five minutes of pre-game “team time,” widely understood as time for student-led prayer.
Fogg said his school board used to open its meetings with prayer — until 2019, when they received a cease-and-desist letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
“So we just moved our prayer to have it before the school board meeting, in a setting where there are no students,” Fogg said. He added that although the Supreme Court ruling will probably make religious employees less fearful to be themselves at school, it “changes nothing” policy-wise “because we already have a strong faith-based school board and administration and many of our coaches.”
Others, though, are appalled by what they see as an erosion of the boundary between church and state.
In Salt Lake City, 50-year-old Thayne Warner is remembering his son’s struggles in high school, when his football coach called on players to pray before every game and at team dinners. The family lived in Aurora, Colo., at the time, and Warner — a former Mormon, now an atheist — grew angry when he saw how the tradition was affecting his boy.
“He had been called on to pray and had to decline and felt terrible afterwards, because he didn’t really know how to pray in the way that everyone else was praying — Mormon praying is somewhat different,” Warner said. “He felt like everyone was looking at him and judging him for not participating.”
Things got so bad, he said, that his son considered quitting the team. Incensed, Warner filed a complaint in 2016 with the help of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The prayer ceased, and the coach was later fired.
Warner’s three older children are past school-age, and his two youngest do not play sports. But the Supreme Court’s ruling has him worried for other students. He says it will be difficult — maybe impossible — for other parents to act like he did.
“I just think students like my son are just going to be further put in an uncomfortable position,” Warner said.
And in Oklahoma, Kristi Robertson is concerned that more families will undergo what hers did.
Robertson contacted the Freedom From Religion Foundation soon after her daughter told her about the third-grade teacher’s prayers, in which she was taught to thank Jesus for things like sunny days and good classroom behavior. The foundation submitted a complaint to the Mid-Del School District in May of 2019.
The family has since switched school districts, and Robertson is unsure what happened to the teacher, if anything. Rick Cobb, superintendent of the Mid-Del district, wrote in an email that he spoke “with school staff about the situation” but declined to share any more information, writing, “We do not discuss disciplinary issues involving students or employees.”
But she knows how the experience changed her daughter. On a video call, sitting beside her mother, Aurora said she enjoys praying and going to church with her best friend, a girl named Maria. She said that she believes in God and that she began believing in God when her third-grade teacher talked about God in class.
“The teacher, she said, ‘He is always watching you and offering forgiveness and stuff,’ ” Aurora said. At first, she thought praying “was a little weird, but I went along with it because I thought it was required.” | 2022-07-26T11:01:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Activists push for more school prayer after Supreme Court ruling - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/26/school-prayer-kennedy-church-state/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/26/school-prayer-kennedy-church-state/ |
The U.S. rate of C-section births continues to climb
Births by Caesarean section increased to about 32 percent of all U.S. births last year, continuing what has been a small but steady increase for much of the past 25 years, according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The center’s findings are based on data from birth certificates registered in all 50 states and D.C. through 2021. It found that the overall rise in C-section births was driven by an increase in the number of first-time (known as “primary”) Caesareans, across all ages and racial groups. Today, about 3 out of 5 women who have a Caesarean delivery have not given birth by Caesarean before. Yet the number of repeat C-sections has decreased somewhat over the past five years.
Rise in perinatal and postpartum depression needs to be tackled
In a Caesarean birth, the baby is delivered through incisions in the mother’s abdomen and uterus. Sometimes, C-sections are planned; other times, the procedure is used when problems develop during delivery that endanger the health of the mother, the baby or both. Having a C-section does not preclude having a vaginal birth in the future, but most women who give birth for the first time via C-section — more than 4 in 5, according to the CDC report — will also have Caesarean delivery for subsequent births. Because of this, the agency predicts that “the overall cesarean delivery rate is likely to continue to increase.” | 2022-07-26T11:01:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The U.S. rate of C-section births continues to climb - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/26/us-rate-c-section-births-continues-climb/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/26/us-rate-c-section-births-continues-climb/ |
The racist Tuskegee syphilis experiment was exposed 50 years ago
Aaron Wiener
A participant in the Tuskegee study has blood drawn, circa 1930s. The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male was an unethical experiment by the U.S. Public Health Service tracking the progression of the disease in a poor sharecropper population in rural Alabama. ( and National Archives)
In the fall of 1932, the fliers began appearing around Macon County, Ala., promising “colored people” special treatment for “bad blood.”
“Free Blood Test; Free Treatment, By County Health Department and Government Doctors,” the black-and-white signs said. “YOU MAY FEEL WELL AND STILL HAVE BAD BLOOD. COME AND BRING ALL YOUR FAMILY.”
Hundreds of men — all Black and many of them poor — signed up. Some of the men thought they were being treated for rheumatism or bad stomachs. They were promised free meals, free physicals and free burial insurance.
What the signs never told them was they would become part of the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male,” a secret experiment conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service to study the progression of the deadly venereal disease — without treatment.
On July 26, 1972 — 50 years ago Tuesday — the public learned of the gruesome Tuskegee experiment when a front-page New York Times story revealed that the men had deliberately been left untreated for 40 years. The revelation led to the end of the study, congressional hearings and a class-action lawsuit.
When Henrietta Lacks had cervical cancer, it was a ‘death sentence.’ Her cells would help change that.
The study recruited 600 Black men, of whom 399 were diagnosed with syphilis and 201 were a control group without the disease. The researchers never obtained informed consent from the men and never told the men with syphilis that they were not being treated but were simply being watched until they died and their bodies were examined for ravages of the disease.
Charles Pollard, one of the last survivors, recalled that he heard that men were receiving free physicals at a local one-room schoolhouse, according to James H. Jones’s book “Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.”
“So I went over, and they told me I had bad blood,” Pollard remembered. “And that’s what they’ve been telling me ever since. They come around from time to time and check me over and they say, ‘Charlie, you’ve got bad blood.’ ”
In the book, Herman Shaw, a farmer, recounted hearing about the study as a kind of health-care program. “People said you could get free medicine for yourself and things of that kind, and they would have a meeting at Salmon Chapel at a certain date.” So he went.
When the study began, treatment for syphilis was not effective; it was often dangerous and fatal. But even after penicillin was discovered and used as a treatment for the disease, the men in the Tuskegee study were not offered the antibiotic.
“All I knew was that they just kept saying I had the bad blood — they never mentioned syphilis to me. Not even once,” said Pollard, who added: “They been doctoring me off and on ever since then. And they gave me a blood tonic.”
Shaw explained: “We got three different types of medicine. A little round pill — sometime a capsule — sometime a little vial of medicine — everybody got the same thing.”
Although originally projected to last six months, the study extended for 40 years. “Local physicians asked to assist with study and not to treat men,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in a timeline of the experiment. “Decision was made to follow the men until death.”
Eunice Rivers, a local nurse, was brought on by doctors to serve as a recruiter and conduit between researchers and the men. Nurse Rivers, as she became known, kept records of the men and drove them to government doctors when they visited the community. She took them to doctor’s appointments in “a shiny station wagon with the government emblem on the front door,” according to “Bad Blood.” On one occasion, she followed a man to a private doctor to make sure he did not receive treatment.
In 1945, according to the CDC timeline, penicillin was “accepted as treatment of choice for syphilis.” The U.S. Public Health Service created what they called “rapid treatment centers” to help men afflicted with syphilis — except the men in the Tuskegee study.
In 1966, Peter Buxton, a public-health service investigator, raised concerns about the study. He wrote to the director of the U.S. division of venereal diseases about the ethics of the experiment. But the agency ignored Buxtun’s concerns.
Buxtun eventually leaked information about the study to an Associated Press reporter named Jean Heller, who years later called it “one of the grossest violations of human rights I can imagine.” On July 26, 1972, Heller’s story about the experiment appeared on the front page of the New York Times.
The study was finally brought to a halt, and the following year, a congressional subcommittee held hearings on the Tuskegee experiment.
In 1973, a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the men in the study by Fred Gray, the civil rights lawyer who had represented Rosa Parks. Pollard was among those he represented.
A $10 million out-of-court settlement was reached in the case. “The U.S. government promised to give lifetime medical benefits and burial services to all living participants,” the CDC reported.
In 1974, Congress passed the National Research Act, which was aimed at preventing the exploitation of human subjects by researchers.
On May 16, 1997, President Bill Clinton issued an apology to the eight remaining survivors of the experiment.
“The United States government did something that was wrong — deeply, profoundly, morally wrong,” Clinton said. “It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens. To the survivors, to the wives and family members, the children and the grandchildren, I say what you know: No power on earth can give you back the lives lost, the pain suffered, the years of internal torment and anguish. What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people, what the United States government did was shameful, and I am sorry.”
On July 7, Gray, the lawyer who filed the class-action suit, was among 17 people given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Biden.
“When I filed the various civil rights cases from 1955 to date, I was concerned about African Americans receiving the same constitutional rights as all other Americans,” Gray said in a statement. “We have made substantial progress but the struggle for the elimination of racism and for equal justice continues. I hope this award will encourage other Americans to do what they can to complete the task so that all American citizens will be treated the same, equally and fairly, in accordance with the Constitution.”
A version of this story originally ran on May 16, 2017. | 2022-07-26T11:01:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tuskegee syphilis experiment on Black men exposed 50 years ago - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/26/tuskegee-syphilis-experiment-50-years/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/26/tuskegee-syphilis-experiment-50-years/ |
The fundamental flaw in ‘Make America Great Again’
The America of the 1950s was great only for some Americans
Perspective by Leonard Steinhorn
Leonard Steinhorn is a professor of communication and affiliate professor of history at American University and a political analyst for CBS News.
A supporter listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the Pitt-Greenville Airport on Oct. 15, 2020, in Greenville, NC. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
When Donald Trump poached Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign catchphrase “Let’s Make America Great Again,” it was not just the slogan but the meaning behind it that bonded the two Republican campaigns. What it embodies is less an ideology or even a conservative worldview than a deep yearning and determination to restore an idealized version of 1950s America that many Republicans believe has been lost. For the last half-century, that idea has informed much of what the GOP has come to represent.
According to a 2021 survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), 70 percent of Republicans believe that American culture and way of life have changed for the worse since the 1950s. To them, it was in the 1960s — when liberation movements demanded social and institutional change, sexual mores began to shift, and intellectuals labeled us a sick society — that the American century began to unravel. They believe we haven’t recovered since. Reestablish the belief system of the 1950s, these Republicans say, and we can make America great again.
In reality, however, the 1950s were great only for some Americans. Restoring that America — as many Republicans are attempting to do in places where they wield political power — would hurt almost everyone else.
In the popular imagination embraced by many Republicans, America achieved unparalleled greatness in the 1950s — a time of prosperity, social cohesion and global preeminence. It was a decade of “Leave It to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” when suburban bliss and national pride revitalized an American Dream that had been tested during the Depression and World War II. In these happy days, Americans saluted the flag, revered the police, believed in God, trusted authority and honored both the businesses that brought abundance and the lunch pail heroes who built the nation’s prosperity without griping or government assistance.
To some extent, there’s a grain of truth to this roseate view of the 1950s. It was a time of extraordinary economic growth, with household income rising nearly 30 percent in the four years after World War II and nearly doubling during the decade. Families that suffered hardship and sacrifice during the previous two decades could now afford a home with appliances and a backyard — in safe neighborhoods where children could ride their Schwinn bicycles without worry. Instead of shelter, food and clothing eating up their paychecks, this newly empowered middle class could spend, and spend it did — on televisions, hi-fis, cameras, furniture, just about everything for their baby boom children, and especially cars.
As Dinah Shore sang in a 1950s Chevrolet ad, a tribute to the car as a symbol of freedom, “Drive your Chevrolet through the U.S.A., America’s the greatest land of all.”
To be sure, this bounty represented the byproduct of a unique moment in history when America’s economic competitors had been cratered by war and ideology, leaving them without the capacity to manufacture the goods we sold to them. America’s singular prosperity and “greatness” came, in large measure, because other countries weren’t yet ready to compete.
But to those who idealize the 1950s, how we achieved our prosperity is immaterial. What matters to them are the sepia-toned images of a time they remember as “great.” The problem is: That era was not so great for everyone.
The neighborhoods depicted in the TV shows “Leave It to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” did not include a single Black family — and these television portrayals were, unfortunately, accurate. Redlining and discrimination excluded African Americans from the booming suburbs, no matter how well-educated they were or whether they were World War II veterans who fought for freedom.
As William Levitt said of his suburban Levittown developments, “If we sell one house to a Negro family, then 90 or 95 percent of our White customers will not buy into the community.” When a middle class Black family managed to buy a home in the Levittown outside Philadelphia, they were met with violence, riots, Confederate flags and racial threats.
Not even celebrity could shield people of color from this treatment. When the New York Giants moved to San Francisco in 1957, it wasn’t until the mayor intervened that baseball great Willie Mays could buy the home he wanted.
Many labor unions and educational institutions also excluded Black Americans. And because of discrimination, the GI bill that helped launch the White middle class was of only limited value to Blacks. The ladder of opportunity that enabled White families to grasp their American Dream largely didn’t exist for Black families.
Religious minorities faced exclusion, as well. Pluralism was embraced in name only, and those who weren’t Christian faced overt and subtle discrimination. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court struck down restrictive housing covenants in 1948, communities continued to exclude Jews, as did country clubs, law firms, resorts and elite universities. So as not to stand out, many Jews celebrated Christmas, Anglicized their names and sat through Bible readings at their children’s schools. Even the play and film about Anne Frank deliberately de-emphasized her Judaism. Atheists fared even worse: A 1954 survey found that only 12 percent of Americans favored allowing an atheist to teach in a college or university.
These also weren’t happy days for many women, who were told that work was unbecoming and fulfillment could be found only by marrying a man, raising children, serving their husbands and massaging their egos. Only a third of women who attended college graduated, or, as many quipped, they went to receive their “Mrs. Degree,” or simply to find a husband. Society harshly judged women who deviated from this norm.
In 1956, Life magazine featured five male psychiatrists who attributed anxious husbands, troubled households and even homosexuality in boys to female assertiveness and ambition. In one survey, 80 percent of adults said that women must be sick, neurotic or immoral to remain unmarried. Newspaper want ads were segregated by sex, and women who sought work found few opportunities beyond typist, secretary, stenographer, receptionist or nurse — with ads describing the perfect “girl” as “young” or “attractive,” with one requiring applicants to be “5’ 5”-7” in heels.” As for sex, it was the classic double standard: a wink and a nod for men’s sexual adventures, shame for women.
Gay men and lesbians in the United States also faced unrelenting repression. “Perverts Called Government Peril,” blared a 1950 New York Times headline, and in 1953, the Miami Beach police chief proudly announced that his officers would “harass those men who affect female mannerisms in public places and let them know in no uncertain terms that they are unwelcome on Miami Beach.” Suspecting a “widespread homosexual underground,” as Time magazine put it, Boise police interrogated and investigated 1,500 men in 1955. To cope with the discrimination, many gay men and lesbians married or stayed in the closet — because exposure could bring imprisonment, social isolation and the loss of one’s livelihood.
Also under siege were core principles of American democracy: political diversity and the freedom to express unpopular opinions. Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) and his allies sowed fear, ruined lives and reputations, trafficked in insinuation and demagogued Hollywood, the media, academia, the State Department and even the Army.
McCarthy was not alone. In 1950, President Harry S. Truman vetoed the Subversive Activities Control Act, known as the McCarran Act, calling it “the greatest danger to freedom of speech, press and assembly since the Alien and Sedition laws.” Congress overrode his veto. States adopted their own versions of the law, which empowered authorities to investigate teachers and public employees, delving into their reading habits, magazine subscriptions, the rallies they attended and petitions they signed. Fearing accusations of disloyalty, readers abandoned magazines that had any association with the left. The New Republic’s circulation plummeted from 97,000 in 1948 to 24,000 in 1952.
Few Americans want to bring back the worst injustices and excesses of the 1950s. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that those who want to restore this bygone era — to “make America great again” — would re-create a society that resurrects some version of them. Talk as they may about the prosperity, respect and values of the 1950s, it’s the impact of their policies today that have the potential to reopen the wounds and inequities we have spent the following decades healing.
In fact, the 1950s echo through recent Supreme Court rulings and “red state” laws that promote Christianity, restrict women’s and LGBTQ rights, end affirmative action, limit voting, and criminalize books and ideas related to race and sexual orientation. While they won’t mirror the bigotry of the 1950s — they once again prioritize a society and culture in which some Americans dominate at a cost to everyone else. | 2022-07-26T11:02:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The fundamental flaw in ‘Make America Great Again’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/26/fundamental-flaw-make-america-great-again/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/26/fundamental-flaw-make-america-great-again/ |
Inside the personal and political life of Democratic strategist Lis Smith
In this Washington Post Live conversation from July 20, veteran Democratic political strategist Lis Smith discusses her new memoir, “Any Given Tuesday,” a behind-the-scenes look at the fine line between personal and professional life while working at the top of Democratic politics. | 2022-07-26T11:02:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inside the personal and political life of Democratic strategist Lis Smith - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/capehart/inside-the-personal-and-political-life-of-democratic-strategist-lis-smith/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/capehart/inside-the-personal-and-political-life-of-democratic-strategist-lis-smith/ |
Americans agree with their state and local officials on climate action
Although Congress seems unable to act, enough states, cities and counties are mobilizing to make a dent in U.S. carbon emissions
Analysis by Joshua A. Schwartz
Sabrina B. Arias
The sun sinks behind a smoky sky and burned forest at the Oak Fire on near Mariposa, Calif., on July 24. (David Mcnew/AFP/Getty Images)
In the next few weeks, California’s government is expected to issue regulations requiring that all new cars sold in the state be electric or zero-emission by 2035. The regulation would be the first of its kind in the United States. Gasoline-powered cars accounted for 41 percent of the state’s carbon emissions in 2019, so this rule would have a major effect. California state regulators project that the rule would reduce emissions by about 384 million metric tons of greenhouse gases by 2040. Meanwhile, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) announced in February that over 60 percent of the energy consumed by the city’s population now comes from carbon-free sources.
California’s efforts are part of a trend. Around the United States, local leaders are taking action on climate policy. Hundreds of mayors and county executives have committed to upholding the Paris climate agreement, finding ways to significantly reduce their town, city or county’s greenhouse gas emissions. For example, New York City and Boston have set themselves targets of zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Such local action may be particularly important, given the Supreme Court’s ruling limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority and the fact that Congress recently failed again to come to an agreement about passing laws that would combat climate change. As a result, the United States may not meet its Paris agreement commitments — unless state and local governments take action.
But would cities and towns outside these liberal bastions adopt ambitious enough policies to get closer to those targets? Our new research suggests it’s possible — and can make a real difference.
In April, May and December 2021, we fielded two survey experiments. Our first survey was of 573 local policymakers — mayors, county executives, and council members — from across the United States recruited through CivicPulse, a firm that specializes in surveying local policymakers. CivicPulse invited via email a random sample of all U.S. town, municipal and county officials serving populations of 1,000 or more. Our second survey was a sample of 1,029 Americans recruited online through Lucid, a global survey firm. Lucid uses quota sampling to match census population estimates for age, gender, ethnicity and region.
We had each respondent look at two hypothetical local climate plans at a time and randomly varied aspects of each plan. For example, we varied the types of tax policy and energy-efficiency standards in the plan; whether economic relief was provided to offset the plan’s cost; whether major political parties endorsed the plan; how many years it would take for the climate policies to take effect; and the plan’s cost-benefit projections.
We then asked respondents to rate each plan individually and which of the two they would prefer to adopt in their community. Each participant read up to four pairs of mock climate plans, with the factors above randomly varied. Known as a conjoint experiment, this strategy reveals how much each attribute of climate plans affects respondents’ relative support for it. By allowing us to vary numerous features at once, a conjoint design allows us to represent complex decision-making tasks. Additionally, because our policymaker and public surveys were identical to each other, we can directly compare their preferences and test how closely they match.
Local policymakers agree, across party lines, about some climate policies
Both Democratic and Republican policymakers are, on average, about 9 percentage points more likely to support plans that offer subsidies to encourage clean energy use rather than tax increases or penalties designed to achieve the same goal. Similarly, policymakers from both parties support economic relief to offset any climate plan’s costs. That’s consistent with Leigh Raymond’s findings, recently discussed here at TMC, showing that constituents are more likely to support climate policies that offer clear and tangible benefits.
Lastly, policymakers are about 8 percentage points more likely to support plans that increase energy efficiency standards for all new construction than those that only increase standards for government buildings. That’s significant, because residential energy usage accounts for about 20 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and local governments typically have control over building codes.
Local policymakers and the public favor similar climate policies
Policymakers and members of the public generally favored the same climate policies in our study. This suggests that policymakers should be able to design plans that their constituents support. It also helps explain why some research finds voters reward policymakers for supporting relatively bold climate action like the Green New Deal, and why some state and local governments have adopted robust climate plans.
Local policymakers were more likely to shy away from climate plans endorsed by only the Democratic Party, suggesting that in crafting proposals, advocates may wish to avoid seeming partisan. Republican policymakers are also much more likely than Democratic policymakers to support delaying implementation and to choose plans with fewer long-term benefits if that keeps short-term costs down.
How much will local action really matter?
Local and state government action on climate change offers a more patchwork array of climate policies, with different towns, cities and states having their own standards — which would be less effective than a unified federal policy. Nevertheless, local government actions can still make a major dent in greenhouse gas emissions.
Major urban areas account for about 30 percent of the U.S. carbon footprint. This means even relatively narrow efforts focused on those cities could still have a significant impact. For example, one analysis found that if 50 of the largest U.S. cities meet their climate goals, then that would be the equivalent of removing at least 80 million passenger vehicles from the road. To date, less than half of the largest U.S. cities have made serious climate pledges. Cities and local governments could do more.
However, the states, cities, counties and towns that have committed themselves to upholding the Paris agreement currently release a majority of U.S. carbon emissions. If they do manage to meet their targets, they can make a meaningful difference.
Joshua A. Schwartz (@JoshuaASchwartz) is a Grand Strategy, Security and Statecraft Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT and Harvard Kennedy School.
Sabrina B. Arias (@sabrinabarias) is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Pennsylvania. | 2022-07-26T11:02:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What can state and local officials do about climate change? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/26/local-climate-california-net-zero/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/26/local-climate-california-net-zero/ |
Post Politics Now Trump returns to Washington; Biden on cusp of some wins
On our radar: Trump returns to Washington for keynote speech
On our radar: Senate poised to advance chips bill, a possible Biden win
The latest: Biden administration weighs monkeypox health emergency declaration
The latest: Arizona fake-elector subpoenas show breadth of DOJ Jan. 6 probe
President Donald Trump is seen on the screen as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a prime-time hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Today, former president Donald Trump returns to Washington to deliver a keynote address at a gathering hosted by a think tank launched by his allies to advance his policies. It will be Trump’s first appearance in Washington since leaving the capital ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — and it could tell us more about what Trump is thinking regarding 2024.
Meanwhile, after a delay on Monday attributed to bad weather, the Senate is poised to advance legislation Tuesday that seeks to bolster the U.S. semiconductor industry. If the bill makes it to President Biden’s desk, it could be the first of several wins for him in quick succession, also including a health-care package and legislation protecting same-sex marriage.
9 a.m. Eastern: Former vice president Mike Pence addresses the Young America’s Foundation’s National Conservative Student Conference in Washington. Watch live here.
11 a.m. Eastern: The Senate holds a procedural vote on legislation benefiting the domestic semiconductor industry. Watch live here.
2 p.m. Eastern: Biden meets virtually with the chairman of the South Korean conglomerate SK Group.
3 p.m. Eastern: Trump speaks at the America First Policy Institute Summit. Watch live here.
3:15 p.m. Eastern: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese brief reporters. Watch live here.
5 p.m. Eastern: Biden virtually joins the House Bipartisan Disabilities Caucus’s celebration of the 32nd anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
President Biden, whose coronavirus symptoms have greatly improved, according to the White House physician, plans another couple of virtual events on Tuesday: a meeting with Chey Tae-won, chairman and principal owner of South Korean conglomerate SK Group, to discuss the company’s investments in American manufacturing and jobs; and an appearance at the House Bipartisan Disabilities Caucus’s celebration of the 32nd anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
According to the White House, SK Group will announce an additional $22 billion in investments in U.S. manufacturing on Tuesday — a commitment that Biden is eager to highlight as he seeks to make the case that his policies have been good for manufacturing.
“Because of the President’s leadership, the United States is a top destination for business investment to our partners around the world,” the White House said in a statement ahead of the event.
The statement also cited last year’s passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and legislation pending in the Senate that would bolster the U.S. semiconductor industry.
Former president Donald Trump is scheduled to be in Washington on Tuesday for the first time since departing on Jan. 20, 2021, ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration as his successor in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.
The occasion: a keynote speech at the America First Agenda Summit hosted by the America First Policy Institute, a think tank launch by Trump allies to advance his policies following his White House tenure.
Some allies are hoping Trump will use the address to lay out an agenda for a potential 2024 White House run rather than continue to re-litigate the 2020 election — but Trump speeches are hardly predictable.
The speech is scheduled for 3 p.m. Eastern time.
A preprogram, scheduled for 2:15 p.m. includes House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as well as several Trump administration alumni.
Meanwhile, former vice president Mike Pence, who has sought in recent months to distance himself from Trump, also plans to be in Washington on Tuesday for a different event.
Pence, who is also eyeing a potential 2024 White House bid, is scheduled to address the Young America’s Foundation’s National Conservative Student Conference at 9 a.m. Eastern time.
The Senate is teed up Tuesday to take a key procedural vote on legislation that would provide $52 billion in subsidies to domestic semiconductor manufacturers and other measures to boost American competitiveness with China.
The vote had been scheduled for Monday night but was delayed, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, because of “a number of severe thunderstorms on the East Coast” that have “disrupted the travel plans of a significant number of senators.”
The legislature still appears on track to reach President Biden’s desk, which would provide a much-sought-after legislative win for him. Others could also be on the horizon, including the first major prescription drug legislation in nearly 20 years and a bill that would enshrine protection for same-sex marriage.
Assessing the situation, The Post’s Yasmeen Abutaleb and Mike DeBonis write:
After a turbulent stretch in which much of Biden’s legislative agenda seemed to be foundering, the president and his party may be on the cusp of significant wins in Congress that the White House hopes will provide at least a modest political boost. …
The Post’s Dan Diamond reports that White House and health agency leaders deliberated through the weekend about their next steps to fight the virus, after the World Health Organization on Saturday declared monkeypox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the agency’s highest-level warning. Per Dan:
Almost 18,000 cases have been confirmed outside of Africa since May — including nearly 3,500 in the United States — as infections continue to climb in countries where the virus is not historically found.
While some health officials say an emergency declaration is necessary to give the government authority to cut through red tape and collect data about the virus’s spread, others argued that the move is mostly symbolic and will not address vaccine shortages, treatment barriers or other challenges that have hindered the U.S. response, said three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.
Grand jury subpoenas issued last month to two Arizona state lawmakers show the breadth of the criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington into efforts by supporters of President Donald Trump to use “false electors” to try to undo Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
The Post’s Devlin Barrett and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez report that copies of two subpoenas issued to Republican state senators from Arizona were released Monday via a public-records request, confirming what has been previously reported about the June demands for records related “to the signing or mailing of any document purporting to be a Certificate certifying Elector votes in favor of Donald J. Trump and/or Michael R. Pence.” | 2022-07-26T11:27:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump returns to Washington; Biden on the cusp of some wins - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/26/trump-washington-biden-wins-chips/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/26/trump-washington-biden-wins-chips/ |
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform took the next step Monday in preparing to potentially hear testimony from Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder this week, but it remains unclear whether a compromise will be reached to resolve the disagreement over the terms of such an interview.
As a procedural matter, the committee is required to post notice of a deposition three days in advance. Committee Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) took that step late Monday, filing with the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives a Deposition Notice of Daniel M. Snyder for 8 a.m. Thursday, via Zoom. | 2022-07-26T11:59:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Daniel Snyder, House oversight panel have not agreed on interview terms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/26/daniel-snyder-house-oversight-committee-notice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/26/daniel-snyder-house-oversight-committee-notice/ |
Pensions have become a rarity — and our old assumptions about the savings needed for retirement may no longer hold, a new study suggests. (iStock)
There are two schools of thought when it comes to how well Americans will fare in retirement. One says we are on the verge of a crisis, that the age of the 401(k) has left large numbers of us without sufficient money for our old age. A second group is more sanguine. They point out Americans spend less in retirement than when they worked, and claim the others are overreacting.
It’s increasingly looking like the chicken littles have it right. But all too many politicians and policy wonks remain in denial, offering “solutions” to the upcoming financial mess that don’t provide much help.
According to numbers that he and Siliciano crunched from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, someone born in 1945 has a better than half chance of living in a household where at least one person receives a pension. The number drops to about 25 percent for someone born a mere eight years later. By 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 1 in 7 private-sector workers worked at a firm with access to a defined benefit plan.
When the 401(k) debuted more than 40 years ago, it was meant as a supplement to pensions, not a replacement. But employers, under pressure from shareholders to cut costs, often jettisoned pensions entirely. They dumped responsibility for retirement planning on employees, without increasing wages to cover these new employee-borne costs. Without any extra income, and costs surging for everything — from housing to child care to education, our personal savings rate did not increase. Instead it fell from about 10 percent in the early 1980s to around 5 percent today.
The Secure Act 2.0 passed the House this year in a bipartisan vote, with barely a whisper of dissent. It increases the amount of money people over age 62 can set aside in tax-advantaged retirement accounts, and ups the age at which they need to begin taking mandatory distributions from 72 to 75 — two things that will generally benefit only the wealthiest seniors.
A provision to mandate auto-enrollment in plans is helpful — simply allowing companies to do so increased the number of people participating in workplace plans significantly — but that provision only applies to new plans, and is not in the Senate version of the bill. And no, it doesn’t actually require any company to offer retirement savings options or to match employee contributions.
It would be more helpful to buttress the Social Security Trust Fund and increase benefits, but there’s little action on that front. Sure, there are bills, including one sponsored by Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.) and another introduced by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). But neither bill has any Republican co-sponsors and no one is upbeat about their prospects.
Republicans, meanwhile, are pushing ideas that would make a bad situation worse. One would allow people — in practice, mainly women — to receive a Social Security stipend to cover family leave, at the cost of delaying when they could take money from the program in retirement. (Women, notably, are more dependent on the program to avoid poverty in old age.) Then there’s Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s demand that all government programs receive congressional renewal every five years — which would all but put a bull’s eye on Social Security.
Meanwhile, inflation is at a 40-year high, while the stock market — which holds so many of those 401(k) investments — is swooning. Seniors and those in late middle age are going to need more help than just another tax-advantaged investment option. Too bad Washington doesn’t appear capable of delivering it. | 2022-07-26T12:23:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Without pensions, future retirees face financial trouble. Where's Washington? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/26/retirement-savings-without-pension-trouble/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/26/retirement-savings-without-pension-trouble/ |
Nature preserve is pleasant surprise for some Broadlands, Va., buyers
Van Metre Homes offers townhouses and townhouse-style condos in the Demott & Silver neighborhood.
By Wendy A. Jordan
A model Demott & Silver townhouse has a rec room next to a patio under a deck. (Benjamin C Tankersley for The Washington Post)
Aissatou Ouedraogo and Supraja Modala had very different experiences when they bought townhouses in July 2021 in the first section of Demott & Silver, a new neighborhood of the Broadlands master-planned community near Ashburn, Va.
Having moved to Virginia in 2019, Ouedraogo’s family of four was renting an apartment across the street. “We liked the location of Broadlands, the school district, the easy commute and the sense of security,” she said. “We felt comfortable buying here.” As their townhouse was being built, “we came almost every other day to watch” the progress, she said.
By contrast, Modala and her husband were living in Dallas. With family in the Broadlands area, they were looking to buy a new home nearby and “jumped on it” when Demott & Silver opened for sales, Modala said. They monitored construction of their townhouse remotely, but visited the site for the first time in October 2021 before the drywall went up.
Modala and her husband were in for a surprise. “We didn’t realize Broadlands was so green,” Modala said. “There’s a nature preserve next to our neighborhood. We are really happy with that.” As Broadlands residents, Ouedraogo said, her family already counted “the greenery and access to nature” as assets when they made the decision to buy.
Opened in 1995, Broadlands, in Loudoun County, is certified as a community wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. The community, a Van Metre Homes development, encompasses the 150-acre Stream Valley Park, which contains trails, wetlands and wildlife preserves. Broadlands also has play areas, a fitness center, tennis and basketball courts and three pools.
Van Metre plans 89 townhouses and 172 townhouse-style condos in the Demott & Silver neighborhood. About 35 townhouses and almost 40 condos have been sold.
All the condos have three bedrooms and a one-car garage. Mike Hales, community sales manager, said Van Metre’s offerings include the Collier II and the Prescott II, updates of two of its four-story condo models with private roof terraces. A third updated model, the Bluemount III, is built in stacked two-story condos. A Bluemount III unit is expected to be ready for occupancy in December or January.
The two three-story townhouse models, Aldwych and Mayfair, have three or four bedrooms and a two-car garage.
Standard in every residence, townhouse or condo, are nine-foot-high ceilings throughout; seven-inch-wide luxury vinyl plank (LVP) flooring in living spaces; and wall-to-wall carpeting in bedrooms. Kitchens have granite countertops, 42-inch flat-panel birch cabinetry, stainless-steel GE appliances, an undermount stainless-steel sink and a Kohler pullout spray faucet. The bathrooms have ceramic tile flooring, Kohler faucets and back-saver-height vanities. Countertops in the owner’s bathroom are granite.
Drawn by the larger floor space, garage and yard, Ouedraogo and Modala bought townhouses. They chose the Mayfair model, which has a kitchen and dining area that open to the deck. Modala and her husband upgraded the kitchen with quartz counters and enhanced storage. Their $27,000 in upgrades raised the price to $792,000.
“We upgraded almost everywhere,” Ouedraogo said. Her family selected quartz kitchen countertops, floor-to-ceiling ceramic tile walls in the owner’s bathroom and a luxury fireplace, among other options. The upgrades pushed the price to more than $800,000, but Renter Rewards credits (a portion of the rent paid for a Van Metre apartment can be applied toward the purchase of a new Van Metre home) and other incentives brought it down by about $25,000. The builder also has a Homeowner Rewards program and a Heroes program for teachers, public safety officials, medical personnel and active or retired service members.
Schools: Hillside Elementary, Eagle Ridge Middle, Briar Woods High
Transit: Demott & Silver is about a mile from the Ashburn Metro station (not yet open) on the Silver Line. Loudoun County Transit provides transport from the Broadlands Park and Ride lot to the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station on the Silver Line; to Crystal City, the Pentagon and Rosslyn in Arlington, Va.; and to D.C. Demott & Silver is just off the Dulles Toll Road. It’s seven miles from Dulles International Airport and 10 miles from Leesburg. Convenient commuter routes include the Dulles Greenway, Route 7 and Route 50.
Nearby: Broadlands Marketplace is less than half a mile away, Shoppes at Ryan Park is a mile away and the Dulles 28 Shopping Centre is less than five miles away. Within five miles are movie theaters, shops, restaurants and golf courses.
Demott & Silver
43616 Farringdon Square, Broadlands, Va.
This Broadlands community is planned for 89 townhouses and 172 townhouse-style condos. Townhouses are currently priced from the mid-$800,000s, condos from the high $500,000s to the mid-$600,000s.
Builder: Van Metre Homes
Features: The units have nine-foot-high ceilings, granite kitchen countertops, flat-panel birch kitchen cabinetry and stainless-steel GE appliances.
Bedrooms/bathrooms: Condos: 3 / 3 or 4 (including a half-bath or half-baths); townhouses: 3 or 4 / 4 (including a half-bath or half-baths).
Square-footage: Condos, 2,031 to 2,621; townhouses, 2,708.
Association fee: Condos, $289 to $331; townhouses, $138.
View model: Appointments are available during the week; open houses are Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Sales: Mike Hales, community sales manager, mhales@vanmetrehomes.com, 703-231-4217 | 2022-07-26T12:31:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nature preserve is pleasant surprise for some Broadlands, Va., buyers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/26/nature-preserve-is-pleasant-surprise-some-broadlands-va-buyers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/26/nature-preserve-is-pleasant-surprise-some-broadlands-va-buyers/ |
Elder Millennials Have Less Time for Fun
Along with some less-welcome changes, the Covid-19 pandemic brought many Americans a respite from time pressures. Average time spent sleeping went up by about 10 minutes a day in 2020, and time devoted to leisure and sports activities went up by about 32 minutes, according to the American Time Use Survey conducted by the Census Bureau on behalf of US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Recently released data for 2021 show an apparent reversion toward (though not all the way) to pre-pandemic norms:
There are some comparability issues here because the 2020 survey was interrupted by the onset of the pandemic. There are seasonal differences in leisure activity and the BLS ended up publishing only the results from May through December. But they’re not big issues: The 2019-2020 comparisons in the first paragraph are based on May-December data from both years, and quarterly numbers available for TV-watching time show a big winter 2020-2021 peak and then a falloff that actually left TV time lower in the fourth quarter of 2021 than in any fourth quarter since 2007 — a shift that has left its mark on the stock prices of Netflix Inc., Walt Disney Co. and others.
A more serious problem with these time-series statistics, in particular the modest uptrend in leisure time they were showing even before the pandemic, is that the US population keeps getting older. Old people have a lot more leisure time than everybody else, which could be driving the rise in overall leisure time.
Sure enough, if you separate things out by age group it’s not clear that there has been any increase in leisure time since the first time-use survey in 2003. Of the smaller assortment of age groups for which the BLS offers historical data, half (those 25-34, 55-64 and 65 and older) have seen an increase in leisure time since then and half (15-24, 35-44 and 45-54) a decrease. Most of the changes have been so small that they could just be sampling error, which is why I’m not bothering with a chart. This is not the case, though, for the group that has seen the biggest decline in leisure time since 2003, and had the least to begin with.
I speak here of my fellow Americans ages 35 through 44, who are often parents of young children and at pivotal, high-stress stages in their careers. I was among this group in 2003 and remember feeling overwhelmed pretty much constantly. It gets better, I swear: Measures of subjective well-being indicate that, in the US and many other countries, it bottoms out when people are in their mid- to late-40s and then begins a long rise.In the meantime, though, the time pressures on Americans 35 to 44 seem to keep getting worse. They have lost more than 16 minutes in average daily leisure time since 2003, with the pandemic providing no real respite.
Where did that lost leisure time go? To work, sleep and child care, mainly. Here’s what has happened since 2003 with the 12 umbrella categories into which the BLS divides time use (the numbers should thus add up to zero, but don’t quite because of rounding).
The increase in time devoted to personal care sounds like a positive development, but there are caveats. It’s mostly increased sleeping time, which in the survey’s accounting includes “spells of sleeplessness,” and has been boosted since 2019 by a 4.8-minute increase in “health-related self care” that is clearly due to the pandemic and isn’t a positive development at all.
As for time devoted to work, it includes work-related travel time — mostly commuting — which fell 5.4 minutes from 2019 to 2021 thanks to the pandemic-induced shift to remote work. This means 35-to-44-year-olds’ non-travel-related work time is up nearly 25 minutes since 2003. Meanwhile, the increase in time spent caring for and helping household members was entirely about the kids, who took up 11.4 minutes a day more in 2021 than in 2003 while time spent caring for other household members fell.
On the other side of the time balance sheet there were 12 fewer minutes a day devoted to purchasing goods and services, surely a byproduct of the rise of e-commerce. This effect is apparent across all age groups, although the 35-44 group was tied with 55-64 for the biggest time savings. The decline in time spent on organizational, civic and religious activities, which doesn’t seem like such a great development, is apparent and statistically significant across all age groups except those 65 and older, but is biggest by far among the 35-44 group.
Then there’s leisure time, where this all started. Sixteen lost minutes may not sound like much, but that’s a daily average that works out to 98.6 hours a year. Multiply that times the estimated 43.4 million Americans in the age group as of mid-2021 and you get almost 4.3 billion lost leisure hours last year. Which sounds like a lot.
As is apparent if you eyeball the chart showing the age group’s leisure time through the years, the losses have come mainly since 2012. What could have caused this? My guess is that it’s been an after-effect of the nation’s economic woes during and immediately after the Great Recession, when most of those now aged 35 to 44 were in their 20s and just getting started on adult life. Trying to get started, that is: The terrible job market forced many to go back to school, move back in with their parents and/or delay buying homes and starting families. They’ve been playing catch-up ever since, which has wrought a certain amount of havoc with their daily routines.
On the positive side, this could portend a leisure-time recovery for future 35-to-44-year-olds who didn’t face such economic crosswinds in their 20s. For now, though, it means that those in that age group really are especially pressed for time. So be kind to your local 35-to-44-year-olds. Maybe even offer to babysit.
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Decisive People Aren’t Better Decision-Makers: Therese Raphael | 2022-07-26T12:31:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Elder Millennials Have Less Time for Fun - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/elder-millennials-have-less-time-for-fun/2022/07/26/1fce0ada-0cd7-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/elder-millennials-have-less-time-for-fun/2022/07/26/1fce0ada-0cd7-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Walmart Rings More Alarm Bells for the US Economy
HOUSTON, TEXAS - JULY 08: A customer shops for nutrition products in a Walmart Supercenter on July 08, 2022 in Houston, Texas. Consumer goods continue seeing shortages as the country grapples with ongoing supply chain issues stemming from the pandemic. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) (Photographer: Brandon Bell/Getty Images North America)
Walmart Inc. is the world’s biggest retailer, with stores that are a beacon of low prices and a corporate culture that is famously penny-pinching. If anyone was to thrive in the current economic environment, it should have been the big-box retailer. And yet, on Monday it warned on profit for a second time in just over two months. That is an ominous sign for the whole consumer sector and the broader US economy.
Walmart isn’t losing customers. In fact, its low-price mantra is attracting them. The company said earlier this year that during periods of inflation all customers — low-, middle- and higher-income families — become more price-conscious. That is encouraging them to shop at Walmart. It now expects second-quarter US same-store sales, excluding fuel, to increase by about 6%, slightly ahead of its previous guidance of a 4%-5% expansion.
The trouble is, as consumers are becoming more thrifty, they are changing their shopping habits in ways that are far less helpful for the retailer.
With US inflation at a 40-year high, and food-price inflation running at a double-digit percentage, Americans are spending more on the things they need, such as food and consumer goods, rather than on things they simply want, such as clothing and home furnishings. This is weighing on earnings, because general merchandise is more profitable than food, whose margin is as slim as a slice of wafer-thin ham.
Meanwhile, more markdowns are needed to shift the pile-up of products that cash-strapped shoppers aren’t buying. The situation hasn’t been helped by the fact that Walmart built up stocks amid the supply-chain snarl-ups of late last year.
Like rival Target Corp., Walmart is discounting its glut of inventory. While Walmart is making progress in clearing items such as home furnishings and electronics, more special offers are needed to entice shoppers to spend on clothing. Rather than the difficulties working themselves out relatively quickly — which Walmart predicted in May — the retailer is now expecting more pressure on its non-food business in the second half of the year. In one bright spot, however, the start of the back-to school spending season has been encouraging.
Nevertheless, all this is set to take its toll on second-quarter and full-year profit, with Walmart forecasting that adjusted earnings per share will fall as much as 13% in the current fiscal year. The shares fell as much as 10% in after-market trading.
The new wave of discounts could help counteract the effects of inflation. But any benefit to American consumers may have come too late. Amid higher prices for food and fuel, they are also missing those stimulus payments of 2021 and grappling with higher borrowing costs and the first signs that the jobs market is cooling.
If Walmart, with its low-price prowess and cost-cutting expertise, is suffering, the damage from more skittish shoppers will be even worse elsewhere. We’ve already seen Bath & Body Works Inc. cut forecasts. It is unlikely to be the last of Walmart’s less muscular rivals to do so this earnings season.
Walmart said in February that its customer base looked a lot like the US population. If that is the case, then its profit warning is a red flag not only for retail and hospitality companies, but for the engine of the US economy.
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• Primark Isn’t Living Up to Its Potential Yet: Andrea Felsted | 2022-07-26T12:33:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Walmart Rings More Alarm Bells for the US Economy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/walmart-rings-more-alarm-bells-for-the-us-economy/2022/07/26/36ec4010-0cd2-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/walmart-rings-more-alarm-bells-for-the-us-economy/2022/07/26/36ec4010-0cd2-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
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