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They lowered her casket into the ground. It wasn’t their mother inside.
After an open-casket funeral at their mother’s church, the children of Kyung Ja Kim gathered around a gravesite to see her laid to rest.
There had been a mix-up, the director explained. The funeral home had placed the body of another woman with the same last name into their mother’s casket, complete with their mother’s clothes and dentures, the family said in a $50 million lawsuit filed against the funeral home Monday.
Kim’s three children and son-in-law allege in the suit that Central Funeral Home of New Jersey, which operates the Blackley Funeral Home in Ridgefield, N.J., was negligent and careless in putting the wrong body into their mother’s casket last November, exacerbating their grief and emotional distress.
Man arrested for leaving flowers on fiancee’s grave found guilty of littering
Kummi Kim, one of her daughters, fainted on the spot when the casket was pulled out of the ground, said Michael Maggiano, the family’s attorney.
“Mrs. Kim was a very, very religious woman,” Maggiano said. “She wanted her passing to be celebrated at the Promise Church in Leonia, New Jersey, and that didn’t happen — in the casket was another woman who was represented by the funeral home to be Mother.”
Representatives at the Blackley and Central funeral homes told The Washington Post on Wednesday morning that they would pass on requests for comment to management, but there was no response by midafternoon. No attorney information for the companies is listed in court records.
When Kyung Ja Kim, 93, died at her daughter Kummi’s home in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Kummi Kim called the funeral home in nearby Ridgefield — where 30 percent of the population is of Korean descent, according to the Census Bureau — hoping to arrange a funeral and burial in accordance with Korean tradition, according to the lawsuit.
But when the casket arrived for the funeral two days later at Promise Church in Leonia — where Kim had long attended and asked for her funeral to be held — it contained the body of Whaja Kim, another woman who was being held at the funeral home, but was not related to the family, the lawsuit says.
‘Daddy, that’s not grandma’: Funeral home mix-up results in wrong woman being cremated
When Kummi Kim was given the chance to view her mother’s body shortly before the funeral, she told Chong that the body did not appear to be her mother’s, according to the suit. Chong responded with a “very clear expression of denial and dismay,” leading Kim to rationalize that the embalming and makeup process must have altered the body’s appearance.
“They made her up and led the family to believe, ‘This is Mother, she looks a little different while she’s passed,’” Maggiano said. “So the family thought, ‘Well, okay, we’re not sure this is Mom, but you’re the experts, so we’ll trust you.’”
The funeral went on as planned, and the casket was loaded into a hearse to travel to a cemetery in Valhalla, N.Y. The family later learned that during the funeral, Chong had called and texted Whaja Kim’s daughter about her mother’s “identifying features,” and the daughter sent back several photos, the suit said.
As the procession traveled to the cemetery, Chong called Kummi Kim and told her that if she was not sure the body was her mother’s, they should “turn all the cars around,” without explaining further, according to the suit. Confused, Kim told Chong that they should proceed with the burial.
Thirty minutes into the gravesite service, Chong pulled up a photo on her phone of a body that was at the funeral home and showed it to Kim. Kim said it was her mother’s.
Without explanation, Chong directed the cemetery workers to remove the casket from the grave “as family members looked on in astonishment,” the lawsuit said. Chong later met with the family and informed them that Whaja Kim’s body had been dressed in their mother’s clothing, then presented at the funeral and for the burial.
Chong later acknowledged to the family that the funeral home had placed their mother’s dentures under a pillow beneath Whaja Kim’s body, despite Whaja Kim having a full set of teeth, according to the suit.
Chong arranged an urgent funeral with the correct body the next day, but it could not be held at their mother’s church because it was being used for Sunday services. Several family members had already left because they could not change their travel plans, the suit said.
The mistake breached the family’s contract with the funeral home and failed to respect Korean burial tradition and their mother’s wishes of a funeral at her home church, the family said in the suit. They also said the funeral home had several opportunities to catch the error and instead disregarded “clear evidence of confusion of the body” until the wrong body was already in their mother’s grave.
Chong told the family that the two employees who picked up Kim’s body did not place an identifying tag on her, which goes against best practice in the industry, Maggiano said. The funeral home offered to refund the $9,000 that the family had paid in fees, but later cashed the check anyway, according to an amended complaint filed Wednesday.
“My mother lived a long life, and she wanted her funeral to be a celebration,” Kummi Kim, one of her daughters, said at a news conference Monday, according to NJ Advance Media. “Her last wish was that everything would be at the church, the proper way. So I feel very guilty that we couldn’t give her final wish.”
According to local news reports, families in Houston; Charlotte; Waco, Tex.; Columbus, Ohio; Pontiac, Mich.; Ahoskie, N.C.; and Fresno, Calif. have said in the past two years that they discovered the wrong bodies in their loved ones’ caskets. In November, CBS New York reported, a family sued a Long Island funeral home for $88 million after they said the funeral director ignored their suggestions that the wrong body was in their mother’s casket until three days after her burial.
“They do not want a dollar from this,” Maggiano said. “They’re doing it for their mother, and that’s what Mother would have wanted.” | 2022-07-27T22:05:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Funeral home put wrong body in woman's casket, New Jersey family says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/27/wrong-body-casket-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/27/wrong-body-casket-lawsuit/ |
FILE -- Demonstrators rallied at the Capitol to protest a plan announced by Gov. Jerry Brown to build a giant twin tunnel system to move water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to Southern California, Wednesday July 25, 2012. Gov. Gain Newsom’s administration has scaled the project back to a single tunnel, but the project still has many critics. The state Department of Water Resources released a report on July 27, 2022, outlining their preferred route for the giant water system, which will reroute water from the north to the south. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File) | 2022-07-27T22:05:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | California outlines plan for scaled back giant water tunnel - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/california-outlines-plan-for-scaled-back-giant-water-tunnel/2022/07/27/9486e8cc-0dd3-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/california-outlines-plan-for-scaled-back-giant-water-tunnel/2022/07/27/9486e8cc-0dd3-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Sadr's backers briefly occupy parliament
Hundreds of protesters breached the Iraqi parliament on Wednesday chanting anti-Iran slogans in a demonstration against a nominee for prime minister by Iran-backed parties.
The majority of the protesters were followers of influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The incident raised the stakes in the political struggle for Iraq nearly 10 months after federal elections.
No lawmakers were present in the building. Only security forces were inside and appeared to allow the protesters in with relative ease.
The demonstrators were protesting the recent selection of Mohammed al-Sudani as the official nominee of the Coordination Framework, a coalition led by Iran-backed Shiite parties and their allies.
It was the largest protest since elections in October and the second time this month that Sadr has used his ability to mobilize masses to send a message to his rivals. Earlier in July, thousands heeded his call for a mass prayer, an event that many feared would devolve into destabilizing protests.
Hours after his followers occupied parliament, Sadr issued a statement on Twitter telling them that their message had been received and “to return safely to your homes.” Shortly afterward, protesters began making their way out of the building.
The incident, and Sadr’s subsequent show of control over his followers, carried an implicit warning to the Framework alliance of a potential escalation if the government forms with Sudani at the helm.
Sadr recently stepped down from the political process despite having won the most seats in the October election. He exited government-formation talks after he was not able to corral enough lawmakers to get the majority required to elect Iraq’s next president.
Quake kills at least 5, injures dozens in north
A strong earthquake set off landslides and damaged buildings in the northern Philippines on Wednesday, killing at least five people and injuring dozens. In the capital, hospital patients were evacuated, and terrified people rushed outdoors.
The 7-magnitude quake was centered in a mountainous area of Abra province, said Renato Solidum, head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.
At least five people died, mostly in collapsed structures. Hundreds of houses and buildings had cracked walls. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who took office last month, plans to travel Thursday to Abra.
The quake’s strength was lowered from an initial 7.3 magnitude after further analysis. The temblor was set off by movement in a local fault at a depth of 10 miles, the seismology institute said, adding that it expected aftershocks.
The Philippines lies along the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s quakes occur. It is also lashed by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year.
British-U.S. environmentalist released on furlough in Iran: Morad Tahbaz, a British-born environmentalist who has been jailed in Iran for more than four years, has been released on furlough, Britain said. The 66-year-old wildlife conservationist is one of several people holding both Iranian and Western citizenship imprisoned by Iran over allegations of espionage. Two detainees, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, were released in March and returned to Britain. Tahbaz, who holds U.S., British and Iranian citizenship, was allowed out on furlough at the same time but later sent back to prison. Iran arrested him in January 2018.
11 reported killed in Somalia suicide bombing: At least 11 people are dead after a suicide bomber struck at the entrance to a government building in southern Somalia, according to witnesses. The extremist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred in the Lower Shabelle region.
Israeli army alleges Hamas is rebuilding capabilities in Gaza: The Israeli army said Hamas has rebuilt some of the capabilities that were damaged during last year's Gaza war, including three new tunnels and weapons manufacturing and storage sites. The army published aerial imagery and maps showing what it said are tunnels, weapons factories and arms depots. It said the installations were near Al-Azhar University in Gaza City, a Pepsi factory, mosques, United Nations facilities and hospitals elsewhere in Gaza. A Hamas spokesman called the claims "pure lies and fabrications."
4 killed during anti-U.N. rally in Congo: Four people participating in demonstrations against the United Nations peacekeeping mission in eastern Congo were killed after a high-voltage power line fell on them, officials said. At least 15 people, including three U.N. personnel, have died and more than 60 people have been injured during what is now three days of protests in eastern Congo, a government spokesman said. Protesters accuse the U.N. forces of failing to protect civilians amid rising violence and are calling for the peacekeepers to leave. | 2022-07-27T22:06:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Digest: July 27, 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-july-27-2022/2022/07/27/1b8dd074-0db6-11ed-ab50-5d9e73892397_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-july-27-2022/2022/07/27/1b8dd074-0db6-11ed-ab50-5d9e73892397_story.html |
The chips bill means the Era of Hands-Off Government is over
An integrated circuit microchip, manufactured by NXP Semiconductors NV, on a printed circuit board. (Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg)
Long ago and far away — actually, it was last year — President Biden and Democrats in Congress hoped they might change the focus of public debate from the divisive themes of the Trump years to an emphasis on practical measures to create a fairer and growing economy that could compete with the economic powerhouse that is China.
It has been a long, frustrating trip since then. Biden’s Build Back Better program blew up, largely because of resistance from two Democratic senators. Efforts to fortify the U.S. economy against the China challenge and the need to bring home certain industries — microchips especially — languished because of disagreements between House and Senate Democrats.
But on Wednesday, the Senate passed what Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) dubbed the “Chips and Science” bill, which was helped along by a microchip shortage that has fed inflation by wreaking havoc on U.S. supply chains. This pumped some life back into Biden’s vision, as did word that Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) may be willing to support a tax and climate bill that only recently seemed on life support.
The $280 billion technology measure, expected to pass the House later this week, is rooted in an earlier proposal by Schumer and Sen. Todd C. Young (R-Ind.). It includes $52 billion in subsidies to increase semiconductor production in the United States and investment tax credits — estimated to be worth $24 billion — to support advanced manufacturing in the industry. The bill also authorizes some $200 billion for various forms of scientific research and education.
Echoing the concerns about the state of American scientific and technological education after the Soviet Union took the lead in the space race with the launch of its Sputnik satellite in 1957, the legislation includes money for the National Science Foundation and other top research institutions. That includes funding for universities, fellowships, scholarships and training in technology fields.
“It’s an economic Sputnik launched by China,” Schumer said in an interview. The bill “says to Americans, we’re going to stay No. 1 in the world economy in the 21st century … not give up, sit on the sidelines, say we can’t compete.”
The fact that the bill passed on a bipartisan vote of 64-33, with the support of 17 Republicans, underscores two truths: It is a lot easier to get Republicans to vote for business subsidies than social programs, and — as Schumer’s to-the-barricades comments suggested — fear of China’s increasing internal authoritarianism and aggressive economic mercantilism spans both political parties.
The Post's View: The Chips Act has only gotten better. Now it’s the House’s turn to act.
The measure also marks an ideological turn away from the era ushered in by Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Britain, when free markets, lower taxes and deregulation were hailed as the keys to economic growth. Since the financial crisis of 2008 and a pandemic that required massive government spending to ward off economic collapse, market purism has been on the decline.
“The old laissez-faire theory is: Leave the companies alone, and they’ll do great,” Schumer said. “But now we have nation states in China and Europe that are heavily investing in both science and high-end manufacturing. And if we do nothing, we will become a second-rate economic power.”
Not everyone is convinced. The chips bill drew opposition from a majority of GOP senators, most of whom still embrace versions of the older creed. From the left, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) denounced the proposal as “billions and billions of dollars in corporate welfare.”
But Sanders was the lone opponent in the Democratic caucus, and the chips bill, like the infrastructure bill passed last year, marked a rare but timely victory for what might be called Bidenism.
The promise of Biden’s presidency held two objectives in tension: Ushering in a new era of bipartisanship while strengthening the Democratic Party by delivering tangible benefits (in jobs, health care, child benefits and other areas) to working-class voters who had moved to the Republican Party of Donald Trump. The hope was that some of them could be lured back by bread-and-butter politics.
It has been rough going for both ends of the strategy. Large parts of the Biden program failed because Republicans united in resistance to it. Nor could the president’s ambitious plans get the 50 votes in the Senate they needed to pass through what’s known as the reconciliation process, thanks to resistance from Manchin and, at times, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).
A booming economy might have compensated for some of the setbacks. But inflation and now fears of recession — they will likely be aggravated by the Federal Reserve’s 0.75 percentage point increase in interest rates on Wednesday — have taken some of the sheen off the large-scale job growth during Biden’s first year.
The chips bill provides Biden and his party a useful reprieve about three months before the midterm elections, and some of its provisions — aimed, for example, at creating technology hubs outside big and largely Democratic metro areas — are a direct response to the economic discontent that accelerated Trump’s rise.
And whatever its short-term political effect, its long-term message is that the Era of Hands-Off Government is over. | 2022-07-27T22:06:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | What the Chips and Science Act means for Biden - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/27/chips-funding-bill-big-government/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/27/chips-funding-bill-big-government/ |
President Biden during a virtual meeting with CEOs and labor leaders to discuss the Chips and Science Act in D.C. on July 25. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
From toasters to toys to tanks, the computer chips known as semiconductors are responsible for making things work. Now, on the cusp of passing a bill to fund the domestic manufacturing of these crucial components, Congress is proving it can work, too.
What’s now called the Chips and Science Act passed the Senate 64-33 on Wednesday and now heads to the House, after more than a year of back and forth over dueling versions of the legislation from the two chambers. This time, the odds look good the bill will end up at long last on President Biden’s desk: There’s some grumbling from those furthest to the right and some from those furthest to the left, but the congressional middle largely stands behind the proposal. After all, there’s a lot to like for states that would benefit from fabrication facilities built on their soil, or from regional technology hubs established in areas that don’t usually draw in Silicon Valley money.
These hubs weren’t included in the chips-only iteration of the legislation that lawmakers initially planned on passing this summer — but thankfully, they and a host of other research and innovation provisions have made their way in. Those $52 billion in subsidies to domestic semiconductor manufacturers may well help the United States compete with China, which has invested a whopping $150 billion of its own. Rules to prevent grant recipients from using the funds to construct facilities in countries that pose a national security threat, or to conduct stock buybacks, are welcome — though the bill would be more responsible, and less of a gift to industry, if they were strengthened.
E.J. Dionne Jr.: The chips bill means the Era of Hands-Off Government is over
Yet the innovation component has always been more important than the manufacturing subsidies, if less discussed. This country has a far better chance at taking the next technological leap before its adversaries get there than it does at outspending them. By authorizing the largest five-year investment in public research and development in the nation’s history (to the tune of $82.5 billion in new spending) to boost advances in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and more, the bill moves the country closer to that goal. The private sector perennially underinvests in basic research — which is why this area, more than chip-builders with plenty of cash in their pockets, needs the help the most.
The United States used to manufacture more than 40 percent of the world’s chips. Now it makes about 12 percent, little of that at the cutting-edge. Nearly four-fifths of global fabrication occurs in Asia — and the bulk of those cutting-edge semiconductors are crafted in vulnerable Taiwan. There’s no question an intervention is needed. Luckily, Congress is poised to make a smarter one than it previously contemplated. Now it’s up to the House to get us the rest of the way there. | 2022-07-27T22:07:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The Chips Act has gotten better as it heads to the House - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/27/semiconductor-legislation-improved/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/27/semiconductor-legislation-improved/ |
In a forthcoming memoir, the former presidential son-in-law and adviser portrays John F. Kelly as having a bullying, “Jekyll-and-Hyde” demeanor. Kelly denies the allegations.
WASHINGTON, DC — JANUARY 10: Ivanka Trump, Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner listen as President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2018. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Kushner, who served as senior presidential adviser, writes in “Breaking History: A White House Memoir” that he and his wife viewed Kelly as “consistently duplicitous” but “only once did Kelly let his mask fully slip.”
“One day he had just marched out of a contentious meeting in the Oval Office,” Kushner writes. “Ivanka was walking down the main hallway in the West Wing when she passed him. Unaware of his heated state of mind, she said, ‘Hello, chief.’ Kelly shoved her out of the way and stormed by. She wasn’t hurt, and didn’t make a big deal about the altercation, but in his rage Kelly had shown his true character.”
In his recounting, Kushner writes that, about an hour later, Kelly visited Ivanka’s second-floor West Wing office to offer what he describes as “a meek apology, which she accepted.”
In an email responding to Kushner’s depiction of the incident, Kelly wrote, “I don’t recall anything like you describe.”
Kushner, however, writes that Julie Radford, Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff, had been meeting with Trump and heard Kelly deliver an apology. “It was the first and only time that Ivanka’s staff saw Kelly visit their second-floor corner of the West Wing,” he writes.
Through a spokesperson, Trump said that her husband’s description of the incident is accurate. Radford also said she witnessed Kelly come to Ivanka’s office, and that she heard him offer her an apology.
Donald Trump himself has a well-earned reputation for bullying and dishonesty, and The Washington Post’s Fact Checker chronicled more than 30,000 false or misleading statements from him during his four years in office. Many of Trump’s staffers also were known for offering competing versions of the same event, often making it difficult to determine the truth of what happened.
The Washington Post obtained excerpts of Kushner’s memoir, which is set to be published on Aug. 23.
Kelly initially joined Trump’s administration as homeland security secretary, but became Trump’s chief of staff midway through his first year in office after Trump tired of Reince Priebus, his first chief of staff.
Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, viewed his mandate as bringing order and military-style discipline to Trump’s freewheeling and chaotic West Wing. But some in Trump’s orbit — including Kushner and Ivanka Trump — soon chafed under Kelly’s strict procedures, which included requiring the president’s family to alert Kelly to their work-related interactions with Trump.
Kelly also grew frustrated with the couple who, in his view, seemed determined to circumvent his authority and backchannel to the president.
In his memoir, Kushner depicts Kelly as privately dismissive of Ivanka while publicly showering her “with compliments to her face that she knew were insincere.”
Jared recounts another incident in Beijing in 2017 — a version of which was initially reported by Axios — in which Kelly got into a fight with Chinese officials after a Chinese security official tried to prevent Trump’s military aide from joining the president in a meeting with the “nuclear football,” the leather briefcase that contains the nuclear codes and accompanies the president everywhere.
The attempt by the Chinese to meddle with the nuclear football, Kushner writes, “was an alarming diplomatic breach.”
But he also describes Kelly as being overly aggressive, and using the moment to assert his authority over the Chinese.
“Kelly caught a glimpse of the scuffle and rushed toward the doorway, grabbing the Chinese officer by the neck and pinning him against the wall,” Kushner writes. "'You people are rude,' he screamed. ‘The Chinese people are rude! This is terrible! This is not how you treat your guests!’ A protocol official rushed in, realizing the security officer’s mistake, and apologized profusely. But Kelly stormed away, boycotting the meeting and leaving a chair next to the president conspicuously empty.”
Kushner said Kelly then joined the rest of the White House staff and “regaled us with the story of what had just unfolded,” before refusing an attempt by the head of Chinese protocol to personally apologize for the mistake.
In an email, Kelly, like Kushner, said the incident occurred when Chinese officials attempted to interfere with the diplomatic pouch, when they “know that they have no right to inspect it or send it through a magnetometer.”
“The situation was already confrontational when I heard the commotion a distance away, moved to the location, and in no uncertain terms reminded them that they would not have access,” Kelly wrote. “The Chinese officials on site elected to continue the confrontational approach until they were ‘convinced’ that we were correct. At that point the confrontation ended.”
Kelly added: “A few minutes later a Chinese (protocol I think) official came to our hold room and apologized to me. Issue over. Nothing after that.”
But in Kushner’s telling, when he saw Kelly and the head of Chinese protocol walking together after the incident, “chummy as could be,” he finally had a window into understanding Trump’s chief of staff.
“In that moment, I finally understood John Kelly,” Kushner writes. “To him, everything was a game of establishing dominance and control. He made people feel small and unimportant to establish the relationship from a place of power. Then, with his position firmly established, he would charm and disarm, leaving people relieved that they were on his good side, but fearful of what would happen if they crossed him.”
This just in: Manchin is a ‘yes’ on bill to fight inflation and invest in energy security | 2022-07-27T22:07:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jared Kushner alleges chief of staff shoved Ivanka Trump at White House - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/27/kushner-kelly-shove-ivanka-trump/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/27/kushner-kelly-shove-ivanka-trump/ |
Facebook revenue drops in second quarter of 2022
Facebook parent company Meta suffered its first quarterly revenue decline in a decade a publicly-traded company, foreshadowing a rocky economic chapter for the digital advertising behemoth.
The company said it earned $28.8 billion dollars during the second quarter of 2022, representing a 0.88 % drop from what it earned during the same time period last year. That revenue figure was also lower than the $28.9 billion Wall Street analysts were predicting, according to a Bloomberg compilation of their estimates. Facebook’s stock declined in after-market trading.
The results illustrate the intensifying financial challenges facing the social media giant as it grapples with both macro-economic challenges and specific threats to its business model. Facebook warned in a statement that it expects marketers to spend less money on advertising due to broader concerns about the economy.
“This outlook reflects a continuation of the weak advertising demand environment we experienced throughout the second quarter, which we believe is being driven by broader macroeconomic uncertainty,” the company said in a statement.
The company’s stock price has been slashed in half this year following a decision by Apple to impose new privacy rules designed to limit app makers’ ability to collect data on their users to power their targeted advertising business. The company is also facing unprecedented competition for young users, creators and advertiser dollars from newer social media platforms, such as TikTok and Snapchat.
Facebook also said Wednesday that it planned to reduce its expenses for the year to $85-88 billion, down from its previous outlook of $87-92 billion.
In recent weeks, Facebook executives have issued a dizzying number of directives, outlining a new era of higher performance expectations and slowed hiring as the company emerges from the pandemic with a growing list of economic challenges.
“We have reduced our hiring and overall expense growth plans this year to account for the more challenging operating environment while continuing to direct resources toward our company priorities,” the company said in statement.
In a bright spot for the company, Facebook reported daily active users on its core social network rose 3% to 1.97 billion in the second quarter. Monthly users also rose about 1% to 2.93 billion, the company said.
Facebook continues to stake its future on building out the so called metaverse, a term used to describe immersive digital worlds accessed by virtual reality-powered devices. The company envisions that people will want to work, play and shop in these new digital realms.
“We’re putting increased energy and focus around our key company priorities that unlock both near and long term opportunities for Meta and the people and businesses that use our services,” Mark Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.
Facebook also announced on Wednesday a shake up among its highest leaders. Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Wehner will assume a newly-created role as chief strategy officer. Susan Li, the company’s current vice president of finance, will become the new chief financial officer. Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg announcement last month that she would be stepping down after 14 years. | 2022-07-27T22:09:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Facebook suffered a revenue decline in its 2nd quarter earnings report - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/27/facebook-revenue-declines-2nd-quarter-earnings/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/27/facebook-revenue-declines-2nd-quarter-earnings/ |
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) announced Wednesday that he had reached agreement with Democrats on legislation to address the deficit, climate change and health-care costs. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
To pay for the package, Manchin and Schumer settled on a flurry of changes to tax law that would raise $739 billion over the next decade — enough to offset the cost of Democrats’ proposed spending while securing more than $300 billion for cutting the deficit. The funding comes from policies including a new minimum tax on corporations and new investments in the Internal Revenue Service that will help it pursue tax cheats.
Taken together, the package amounts to far more than Democrats thought they might win from Manchin, who repeatedly has raised fiscal concerns with his own party’s spending ambitions. But it still totals significantly less than the more sweeping, roughly $2 trillion overhaul to the country’s healthcare, education, climate, immigration and tax laws known as the Build Back Better Act — a package Manchin described in no uncertain terms as a relic of the past. | 2022-07-27T22:09:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Manchin says he has reached deal with Democrats on economy, climate bill - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/07/27/manchin-says-he-has-reached-deal-with-democrats-economy-climate-bill/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/07/27/manchin-says-he-has-reached-deal-with-democrats-economy-climate-bill/ |
Juju Chang on covering rising anti-Asian bias and violence
Juju Chang, co-anchor of ABC News’ “Nightline,” has covered breaking news for decades, reported on stories from violence against women to climate change and sat down for interviews with major global figures. On Thursday, Aug. 4 at 10:00 a.m. ET, join The Washington Post’s Michelle Ye Hee Lee for a conversation with the veteran journalist about covering the rising hate against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic and her trailblazing career.
Co-Anchor, ABC News’ “Nightline” | 2022-07-27T22:09:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Juju Chang on covering rising anti-Asian bias and violence - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/08/04/juju-chang-covering-rising-anti-asian-bias-violence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/08/04/juju-chang-covering-rising-anti-asian-bias-violence/ |
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at a gathering of NATO leaders in Madrid on June 30. (Valeria Mongelli/Bloomberg News)
Thank you, Viktor Orban, for showing us where the American right is heading.
The Hungarian strongman, who derailed his country’s nascent democracy, has been a darling of the MAGA crowd for his anti-immigrant policies. He has enjoyed a fawning interview and favorable broadcasts from Budapest by Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, and he has been invited as a featured speaker to next week’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas alongside a who’s who of Republican senators, governors and members of Congress, as well as former president Donald Trump himself. Several such luminaries addressed a CPAC gathering in Hungary in May, at which Trump described Orban as “a great leader, a great gentleman.”
But Orban made things awkward for his American friends a few days ago. During a July 23 address (in which he said immigration should be called “population replacement or inundation”), he gave voice to the belief underlying his nationalism: He opposes the mixing of races.
But not for the American right! CPAC’s organizer confirmed to me on Wednesday that Orban is still scheduled to address the group next week. “Let’s listen to the man speak,” Matt Schlapp, chairman of the Conservative Political Action Coalition, told Bloomberg News on Tuesday. Orban’s name remained on CPAC’s speakers list, along with Trump, some two dozen GOP House members, Sens. Ted Cruz (Tex.), Rick Scott (Fla.) and Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and former Trump aides including Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller.
These leaders shouldn’t say they’re surprised to be sharing a stage with a man leading the fight against “peoples of mixed race.” Last year, CPAC canceled an appearance by a speaker who had referred to Judaism as a “complete lie” that was “made up for political gain.” After the Guardian reported that the CPAC conference in Budapest featured a speaker who had previously called Jews “stinking excrement,” referred to the Roma population as “animals” and used racist epithets for Black people, CPAC issued a statement saying “anti-Semitism and racial intolerance are scourges that must be eradicated.” (The program for the Budapest CPAC, from which many media organizations were banned, included live or virtual addresses by Trump, Carlson, four Republican members of Congress and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows.)
Republicans have hailed Orban as “Trump before Trump” (Bannon), whose government is doing “so many positive things” (Sen. Ron Johnson). Among the things it has been doing: seizing control of the judiciary and media, banning the depiction of homosexuality, demonizing Jewish billionaire George Soros, expelling asylum seekers and erecting a wire fence on the border, forcing out the country’s top university, and halving the size of parliament and redrawing districts to keep itself in power.
At core, Orban’s rule has been about sustaining, and being sustained by, white nationalism. His July 23 speech was an extended articulation of the “great replacement” conspiracy idea — embraced by Carlson and House Republican Conference chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), among others — that non-White people are plotting to wipe out White people. He claimed: “Brussels, reinforced with Soros-affiliated troops, simply wants to force migrants on us.” Orban railed against a “mixed-race world” in which “European peoples are mixed together with those arriving from outside Europe.” He warned that “Islamic civilization” is “constantly moving toward Europe,” and is now “occupying and flooding the West.”
“This is why we stopped the Turks at Vienna,” he said, citing the 1683 battle between a European alliance and the Ottoman Empire. “This is why, in still older times, the French stopped the Arabs at Poitiers.” This was a reference to the Battle of Tours — in the year 732, when a Frankish Christian ruler defeated an army of Moors invading from Spain.
It was good of Orban to spell that out, because now we know what Hungary’s white nationalists — and their American fan boys at CPAC — have in mind when they rage against immigration and the “great replacement.” They want to take us back to the Dark Ages. | 2022-07-27T22:13:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Bringing Viktor Orban and his racism to CPAC exposes the right - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/27/viktor-orban-cpac-conservatives-welcome-racism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/27/viktor-orban-cpac-conservatives-welcome-racism/ |
She gave a man a computer. Police say her fiance hired him to kill her.
Bobby Joe Leonard, 54, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the 1998 strangling of Andrea Cincotta.
Andrea Cincotta, in an undated photo, was found slain in her Arlington, Virginia, apartment on Aug. 22, 1998. (Family photo)
The case of Andrea Cincotta, a librarian and single mother who was found dead in her Arlington apartment, remained an unsolved mystery for nearly 24 years.
Her body was cold to the touch when her live-in fiance, James Christopher Johnson, told police he discovered it in a bedroom closet in the early morning hours of Aug. 22, 1998, according to new court documents filed Wednesday.
Coins and bags were missing from the apartment, Johnson told police. Cincotta's hatchback Honda Civic was gone, the keys nowhere in sight. No signs of a forced entry or a struggle were apparent, police said.
But there was another detail: Johnson told police that Cincotta had given an old, unwanted computer to a man doing maintenance work around the apartment complex, about four weeks before her death.
On Wednesday, that man pleaded guilty to a first-degree murder charge, admitting that he strangled Cincotta to death more than two decades ago. And he claimed he did so hoping to be paid by a man he believed to be Cincotta’s boyfriend.
Bobby Joe Leonard, 54, stated as part of his plea in Arlington County Circuit Court that he agreed to kill Cincotta for $5,000 — which he never received. He did not name Johnson, though police have charged him in connection with what they have described as a murder-for-hire plot.
Johnson and Leonard were both suspects in the initial police investigation of Cincotta’s death in 1998. Then the case went cold with nobody being charged. After years of digging and prodding by Cincotta’s son, Kevin Cincotta, officials reopened the case in 2013.
Johnson and Leonard were charged with Andrea Cincotta’s murder in November. By that time, Leonard already had been sentenced to life in prison for raping and assaulting a 13-year-old girl in 1999.
Johnson’s guilty plea filled in another piece of a puzzle that remains incomplete.
In 2018, Leonard told an Arlington County detective that after he took Andrea Cincotta’s old computer, he spoke with her about it over the phone. Johnson told police in 1998 that the man was having difficulties with the computer, and Cincotta had asked him to call about it.
Leonard said that after speaking with her, he received a phone call from “a male who identified himself as an engineer.”
“Mr. Leonard believed this individual [to] be Ms. Cincotta's boyfriend based on the conversation,” according to documents filed with Leonard's plea.
The plea documents offer this description of what followed: “Mr. Leonard had a subsequent telephone conversation with the same male, who offered Mr. Leonard $5,000 to take care of something for him. The male told Mr. Leonard this had to be done the next day, because Ms. Cincotta would be home. The male told Mr. Leonard not to use a gun because that would be too loud, that he should wear gloves, that he should not be seen by anyone, and that he should wear a hat to cover up his face. The male told Mr. Leonard the money would be left in the closet for him to pick up, the same closet from where Mr. Leonard had picked up the computer.”
When Leonard showed up to Andrea Cincotta’s apartment, she invited him in and offered him a root beer, according to the documents.
Leonard admitted that “he strangled her until she was no longer breathing,” according to the plea documents, adding that the $5,000 was not in the closet.
Johnson, who has been detained since November in Arlington County jail, has maintained his innocence since Andrea Cincotta’s death in 1998.
“Mr. Johnson is innocent,” his attorneys, Manuel Leiva and Frank Salvato, said in a statement after Leonard’s plea hearing Wednesday. “In prosecuting him, the government is relying on the self-serving lies of a man serving a life sentence for the rape and attempted murder of a 13-year-old girl. Mr. Leonard has left a trail of victims during his three decades of violent criminal behavior. Regrettably, the Cincotta family and Mr. Johnson are yet other of his victims.”
In a 2002 interview with The Post, Leonard had denied any role in Cincotta’s death. “I’ve cooperated in every way that the Arlington police wanted me to,” Leonard said in a telephone interview from prison. “I submitted to a polygraph; the examiner told me I passed. I submitted DNA and fingerprints. They searched my apartment. I was totally cooperative, never asked for a lawyer. I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
Now, Leonard is expected to testify in Johnson's trial, which is scheduled to begin Sept. 7.
“Today is really about my mom, and we’ve been waiting 24 years,” Kevin Cincotta said after the hearing. “I’m 48, so I’ve lived as long without her as I lived with her. I do feel a spiritual connection with her, and I feel like she’s watching all of this, and this is for her.”
Kevin Cincotta said he was surprised when he learned that authorities had identified Johnson as the suspect in the most recent investigation. The family had supported Johnson — whom they knew as “Chris” — when he was first a suspect in 1998, Kevin Cincotta said.
“The information Chris had shared with me up to that point did not give me a reason to think he was involved — but all of that information was coming from Chris,” he said. | 2022-07-27T23:05:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | She gave a man an old computer. Police say he was hired to kill her. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/27/cold-case-computer-murder-hire/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/27/cold-case-computer-murder-hire/ |
Woman wounded in barrage of gunfire in Southeast D.C.
Police said at least 90 rounds were fired near an apartment complex on Birney Place
A woman was wounded Wednesday afternoon when her vehicle was caught in a barrage of gunfire with at least 90 bullets fired outside an apartment complex in Southeast Washington, according to D.C. police.
The victim, who police described as a property manger for the apartments, was struck multiple times and was rushed to a hospital with serious injuries. Police had received information the victim is pregnant, but later said they had not confirmed the report.
Police said the shooting occurred about 3 p.m. in a parking lot near the 2600 block of Birney Place SE, in a neighborhood off Suitland Parkway, south of the Anacostia community.
D.C. police Cmdr. John Branch, who runs the 7th District station, said investigators believe two vehicles other than the victim’s may have been involved in the shooting.
He said is it not yet clear whether the shooting came from people in one vehicle or if there was an exchange of gunfire between the vehicles.
The woman in the vehicle was the only person believed struck, police said. No arrest had been made as of Wednesday evening.
The city has struggled with shootings and homicides in the past several years, and killings over the first seven months of 2022 are up 9 percent over the the same period in 2021. | 2022-07-27T23:05:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Woman wounded in gunfire in Southeast D.C. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/27/woman-wounded-shooting-southeast-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/27/woman-wounded-shooting-southeast-dc/ |
Joe Burrow won’t ‘miss a step’ despite appendectomy, Bengals coach says
Joe Burrow set multiple franchise passing records last season while leading the Bengals to a Super Bowl appearance. (AP Photo/Jeff Dean, File)
The timetable for Joe Burrow to fully recover from surgery to remove his appendix is unclear, but the head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals did not sound concerned Wednesday that it might impair his star quarterback’s readiness for the regular season.
“The good news is he’s got two years in [the system],” Coach Zac Taylor said of Burrow, 25, who underwent the procedure on Tuesday. “He’ll still have his iPad, he’ll still follow whenever he’s in meetings. We don’t expect him to miss a step, mentally, that way. I’m sure he’d love to have all the physical reps he could possibly get, but he won’t be behind the eight ball at all, based on what’s happened.”
Wednesday marked the first full day of training camp workouts for the Bengals, who came agonizingly close to winning the Super Bowl in February after Burrow led them on a stunning run through the AFC playoffs. In his second season after Cincinnati made him the No. 1 pick in the 2020 draft, the former LSU quarterback led the NFL in completion percentage (70.4) and yards per attempt (8.9) last year, and set franchise records for single-season passing yards (4,611), passing touchdowns (34) and passer rating (108.3).
While veterans did not have to report to the Bengals’ facility for training camp until Tuesday, Burrow and other Cincinnati quarterbacks had turned up Saturday to work with rookie players. Burrow reportedly felt some discomfort and after being examined by team doctors, he was sent to a hospital for an appendectomy.
Taylor told reporters Wednesday that the procedure “went well” and that Burrow was set to be discharged that day.
“The timeline is obviously to be determined,” the coach told reporters. “But, again, everything went smoothly.”
Surgeries for appendectomies can incur different recovery times, often ranging from one to four weeks, according to Mount Sinai’s health library.
Other NFL players who have undergone appendectomies during the season and in training camp may provide an idea of a timetable for Burrow’s return. Then-Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger missed Pittsburgh’s 2006 season opener after an appendectomy four days earlier, but he was back on the field for the team’s next game. After then-Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel underwent an appendectomy in 2010, he played in a game 11 days later. Last year, Los Angeles Rams backup quarterback John Wolford had his appendix removed during training camp, at which point the team set his timetable to return at 10 to 14 days.
The upside to Burrow’s temporary absence, according to Taylor, was a greater opportunity for his backups, Brandon Allen and Jake Browning.
“It’s a good chance to really get a chance to see them, evaluate them, let them work with some other guys, and then we go from there,” the coach said of Allen and Browning. “And when Joe comes back, obviously, he jumps into those reps. But those guys have to maximize those opportunities they’re going to get.”
Cincinnati’s first preseason game is scheduled for Aug. 12, and its last is slotted for Aug. 27. The NFL’s regular season kicks off with a Thursday game on Sept. 8, and the Bengals get going three days later with a Week 1 matchup against the division rival Pittsburgh Steelers.
During training camp last year, Burrow was coming off a torn ACL suffered in November 2020, when he was a rookie. He will be eligible for a contract extension after the upcoming season. Bengals owner Mike Brown has already expressed clear intentions to keep Burrow in Cincinnati.
Burrow began his college career at Ohio State before transferring to LSU, where he led the Tigers to a national championship in January 2020 and won the Heisman Trophy. | 2022-07-27T23:05:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Joe Burrow won’t ‘miss a step’ for Bengals despite appendectomy, coach says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/27/joe-burrow-appendectomy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/27/joe-burrow-appendectomy/ |
Companies made more than $1B selling powerful guns to civilians, report says
House oversight committee accused gun manufacturers of “manipulative marketing campaigns” and profiting off violence.
Todd C. Frankel
Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., speaks during a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing to examine the practices and profits of gun manufacturers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Five gun companies made more than $1 billion over the last decade selling powerful “military-style assault weapons to civilians,” with their revenue surging amid an increase in firearm violence nationwide, a House committee reported on Wednesday.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform assailed the gun companies, saying they deployed “manipulative marketing campaigns” that sought to connect masculinity with purchasing rifles. Some of the gun manufacturers have seen revenue more than double or triple in recent years, the committee said.
“The gun industry has flooded our neighborhoods, our schools and even our churches and synagogues with these deadly weapons, and has gotten rich doing it,” House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) said during a hearing on the issue Wednesday.
The committee, which said it had studied manufacturers that sold AR-15-style weapons used in mass killings, released its findings after a string of such shootings, including this year in Highland Park, Ill.; Uvalde, Tex.; and Buffalo. Mass killings account for a small share of overall gun violence in the United States; both have increased in recent years.
Appearing before the committee on Capitol Hill, chief executives from two of the companies defended their products as well as ownership of such powerful rifles. The core issue, they said, was not the guns themselves, but the people who might use them to inflict mass carnage.
“Mass shootings were all but unheard of just a few decades ago,” said Marty Daniel, chief executive of Daniel Defense, the gunmaker that produced the weapons used in the Uvalde elementary school massacre, which killed 19 children and two teachers, and a deadly attack in Las Vegas in 2017 that killed 60 people. “So what changed? Not the firearms.”
“I believe our nation’s response needs to focus not on the type of gun, but on the type of persons who are likely to commit mass shootings,” Daniel said. He called the massacres in Uvalde, Buffalo and Highland Park “pure evil” and “unfathomable.”
The other companies named in the report were Bushmaster, Sig Sauer, Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. Christopher Killoy, president and chief executive of Ruger, also appeared at the hearing Wednesday, and he acknowledged “tension between our constitutional right to own firearms and the harm inflicted by criminals who acquire them.”
But, he said, the latter should not prevent people from exercising the former.
“We firmly believe that it is wrong to deprive citizens of their constitutional right to purchase the lawful firearm they desire because of the criminal acts of wicked people,” Killoy said. “A firearm, any firearm, can be used for good or for evil. The difference is in the intent of the individual possessing it, which we respectfully submit should be the focus of any investigation into the root causes of criminal violence involving firearms.”
Deadly gun violence has surged across the country, with fatal shootings nationwide spiking in 2020 and 2021 to the highest levels in a quarter-century. At the same time, Americans have bought a flood of new guns, with more than 43 million firearms purchased over those years, according to a Washington Post analysis.
Chicago homicides over July 4 weekend eclipsed the grim toll in Highland Park
Even as the testimony was unfolding in Washington, communities across the country were still confronting the aftermath of recent mass shootings. The gunman accused of opening fire in Highland Park earlier this month, killing seven people during an Independence Day parade, was indicted Wednesday on 117 counts by a grand jury, including charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder and aggravated battery.
And in South Florida, a jury continued to hear testimony in a trial meant to determine whether a gunman who killed 17 people in a Parkland, Fla., high school in 2018 should be sentenced to death.
The House committee launched its investigation into gun manufacturers in May, following the back-to-back killings in Uvalde and Buffalo, which galvanized enough public response to fuel the passage of modest gun-control legislation for the first time in decades.
How the Senate's gun deal came together after a 30-year logjam
Maloney pointed to the committee’s findings in criticizing the gun companies for how they promoted guns, which she said “includes marketing to children, preying on young men’s insecurities and even appealing to violent white supremacists.”
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the committee’s ranking Republican, spoke skeptically of laws that limit firearms ownership and pushed back on criticism of the gun companies.
“Gun manufacturers do not cause violent crime,” he said. “Criminals cause violent crime.”
Gun companies, he said, sell firearms to people “allowed to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for their protection and other lawful purposes.”
The committee had also asked the gunmakers to provide information about efforts to track deaths and injuries caused by their AR-15-style weapons. All five of the gunmakers told the committee they don’t do that.
But others have tried. In 2018, a group of investors in Ruger pushed the company to report on the violence associated with its guns. The board of directors objected. But a majority of shareholders — led by a group of nuns, and supported by Ruger’s largest investor at the time, the asset firm Blackrock — passed the proposal. The vote occurred just a few months after the Parkland massacre.
The following year, Ruger grudgingly produced the report, which was criticized by activists for failing to produce adequate details. The company said monitoring the criminal use of its products “is not feasible.” In June, a majority of shareholders approved a new resolution asking the company to study the deadliness of its products and impact on human rights.
Eugene Scott contributed to this report. | 2022-07-27T23:27:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Companies made more than $1B selling powerful guns to civilians, report says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/27/companies-made-more-than-1b-selling-powerful-guns-civilians-report-says/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/27/companies-made-more-than-1b-selling-powerful-guns-civilians-report-says/ |
Tell KidsPost what you appreciate most about the ocean
We may publish your thoughts and send you a prize.
The ocean is a great place to escape the summer heat. Playing in the sand and swimming in salty water is a perfect day for many. Earth’s oceans are more than just our summer playground, though. An ocean is a complex ecosystem that is home to many species. Its use for transporting goods makes it a critical part of the world economy. On top of that, many communities around the world rely on fishing for food.
KidsPost wants you to think about what you appreciate most about the ocean. Have you had an experience that made you love the ocean in a new way? The experience can be big or small. Tell us your thoughts in a few sentences, and we may publish it next month in KidsPost. If we do, we’ll send you a prize. We hope that this helps readers appreciate how important it is to protect the oceans.
The words must be yours, not copied from someone or something else. | 2022-07-27T23:36:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tell KidsPost what you appreciate most about the ocean - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/27/ocean-appreciation-last-call/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/27/ocean-appreciation-last-call/ |
After 37 Years, a Pipeline to Hollywood Ends Down Under
In the mid-1980s, in the time before Crocodile Dundee, about the only Australian cultural exports of any note were a handful of rock bands and a TV series set in a prison. But then along came a nightly half-hour drama series, Neighbours, that over the next four decades launched the careers of a raft of Hollywood A-listers and Oscar nominees. But in the end, the vintage soap opera struggled to keep up with a more diverse world.
Neighbours introduced the world to a host of famous names. Kylie Minogue, Russell Crowe, Margot Robbie, Luke, Chris and Liam Hemsworth, Guy Pearce, Jason Donovan, Delta Goodrem, Natalie Imbruglia, Steve Bastoni and Ben Mendelsohn are among the cast to have made their way to Ramsay Street during almost 9,000 episodes. This week, the show airs for the last time.
Eager to feed its audience, the BBC picked Neighbours up in its second year — one of the most significant deals in Australian film and TV history — before it moved to Britain’s Channel 5. Its creators took inspiration from Britain’s Coronation Street, but saw a gap for something a little more homely and youthful, so they cast a show with a mix of teens and adults to give it some cross-generational tension.
Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan were its first stars. Donovan’s blond hair and blue eyes made him the show’s stud, while Minogue played a car mechanic with the requisite khaki dungarees. Thick Aussie accents, mullet hair cuts, and perpetual sunshine became the kitsch hallmarks of Australian culture. Minogue went on to a career in music and film, becoming the first female artist to top the UK albums charts in five consecutive decades, and also won a Grammy in the US, cementing rare success on both continents. Donovan also did well, forging a career on the British stage.
Soon other castmates would follow their path to stardom. Countless writers, cinematographers, stunt actors and crew also cut their teeth on the set of Neighbours, with many heading off to successful careers in Hollywood or London. My father, a safety coordinator, was among them (he stayed in Melbourne). Running on British TV not only gave the show, and its cast, a much larger audience but ensured the entire production had financial security and longevity. In the unstable world of low-budget TV, Neighbours offered a regular salary and a training ground for generations of artists.
Like all long-running soap operas, characters cycled in and out while story lines twisted and turned. Yet for most of its life, Neighbours clung on to an array of largely white, straight characters at a time when Australian society was changing rapidly. It wasn’t until the end of its second decade that more racially diverse actors were regularly included. Prior to that, they were largely used as plot devices or to encapsulate racial cliches. Last year the show was hit by complaints of racism on set from cast members, which may have hastened its demise, or at the very least highlighted how out of touch it had become.
Finally in 2018 — 30 years after it premiered — the show featured a gay marriage. The first transgender cast member came the following year, played by Australian actor and trans rights advocate Georgie Stone, who approached the producers to add her character. Critics rightly argued that these moves to reflect the realities of modern society came way too late. That tardiness helped entrench both at home and abroad a stereotype of Australia as a racist and intolerant nation, instead of a place with a deep mix of cultures, religions and identities.
Unfortunately, time has run out to make amends. A decision by Channel 5 not to renew for another season, and dwindling audience in Australia, made the show financially nonviable. “It just doesn’t seem right that Neighbours would stop,” Imbruglia, who spent two years on the show before moving on to a successful singing career, told Graham Norton in February following news that it would all end.
In its wake are numerous successful careers like Imbruglia’s. Russell Crowe, who had a few episodes playing an ex-convict, went on to garner a series of Oscar and Golden Globe awards for films including A Beautiful Mind and Gladiator. Margot Robbie joined Neighbours 20 years later and stayed for three seasons, with her subsequent work including four Oscar and Golden Globe nominations and numerous blockbusters. Hemsworth brothers Luke and Liam appeared six years apart, and then went on to Hollywood to star in Westworld and The Hunger Games. Even brother Chris appeared in an episode, long before he became Thor.
For the millions of fans who grew up with Neighbours, and even those who hated it, what’s undeniable is its value as an anthropological artifact— and its many stars, who will continue to shine for years to come. So too will the Australian film and TV industry that it supported for almost four decades.
• At Last, a Sport Investing in Its Greatest Asset: Tim Culpan
• Will Stars Ever Make Money in This Town Again?: Tara Lachapelle
• What a Bollywood Megastar Means for Women in India: Ruth Pollard | 2022-07-27T23:36:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After 37 Years, a Pipeline to Hollywood Ends Down Under - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/after-37-years-a-pipeline-to-hollywood-ends-down-under/2022/07/27/45e2c1d0-0df8-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/after-37-years-a-pipeline-to-hollywood-ends-down-under/2022/07/27/45e2c1d0-0df8-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Republicans press D.C. Circuit nominee on age, pro bono work
The E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington. (Susan Walsh/AP)
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have questioned Justice Department official and federal appellate court nominee Bradley Garcia on his youth and past advocacy on cases involving abortion access, gun regulations and discrimination in religious schools.
Garcia, 36, a deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, was nominated last month by President Biden to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, an influential body that often serves as a path to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Republicans argued Wednesday that Garcia was too inexperienced and too political, echoing Democratic criticisms of Trump nominees to the same court. Garcia sought to differentiate himself, noting that he had clerked for a Republican appellate judge and had extensive experience with both state and federal appeals.
“I can’t speak to anyone else’s nomination,” Garcia said. “My career has been focused on the type of work that would prepare someone to be an effective appellate judge.”
Judge Justin Walker, confirmed under President Donald Trump, was a year older when Democratic senators criticized him as lacking experience as Walker was up for a spot on the same court. The two men both clerked on the D.C. Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said the difference was in court experience.
Walker had served as a district court judge for six months before his nomination to the D.C. Circuit; before that he was a law professor and commentator. He was briefly in appellate practice but was not chief counsel on any cases taken to judgment.
Before joining the Justice Department, Garcia spent eight years in appellate practice, where he made 13 arguments, including before the Supreme Court, and litigated more than 50 appeals.
“To suggest that this nominee is not better qualified — I saw it differently,” Durbin said.
If confirmed, Garcia will be the first Latino judge on the D.C. Circuit.
Republicans also pressed Garcia on pro bono work he did at the firm O’Melveny & Myers, including for an abortion clinic challenging regulations; teachers claiming employment discrimination at a Catholic school; and New York City in defending a limit on carrying handguns.
Garcia said that he agreed whenever he was asked by the firm to take on pro bono work and that his past advocacy had no bearing on his personal views or his future judicial rulings.
“The role of advocate and judge ... are very different,” he said.
Asked about the recent Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, Garcia said he would follow the precedent “fully and faithfully, both the specific holding and the methodology” of examining whether rights not explicit in the Constitution are “deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition.”
He declined to offer his personal view on abortion, saying it “would simply play no role in my job as a judge.” | 2022-07-27T23:36:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bradley Garcia, D.C. Circuit nominee, pressed on age and pro bono work - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/27/brad-garcia-senate-judiciary-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/27/brad-garcia-senate-judiciary-dc/ |
Amelia Earhart statue alights in Capitol after long journey
Lawmakers attend the unveiling of a statue to honor Amelia Earhart. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
After a tortuous journey, Amelia Earhart has at long last landed in a spot where anyone can find her.
Her statue now resides in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall, following a ceremony Wednesday that focused on her role as a trailblazer for women’s rights rather than the enduring mystery of her disappearance.
The 7-foot-tall bronze likeness of the famed Kansas-born aviator, in a flight jacket with flying cap and goggles in hand, represents only the 11th woman in Statuary Hall. (Ten are among the 100 chosen by the 50 states; a statue of Rosa Parks in the hall was commissioned by Congress and does not represent a particular state.) It only hints at Earhart’s various roles: adventurer, wife, nurse, truck driver, fashion designer, social worker, political advocate, writer, lecturer and professor.
“When I look at her, I see inspiration,” said Karen Seaberg, president of the Atchison Amelia Earhart Foundation, which paid for the sculpture and plans to open a museum dedicated to Earhart in the aviator’s hometown of Atchison, Kan. “She stands out as a female icon who stood up for women’s rights and lived in a man’s world and did what women weren’t supposed to do from the time she was a little girl.”
Wednesday’s live-streamed unveiling occurred two months after the nation marked 90 years since Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and it offered a vivid snapshot of some of the progress made possible by Earhart and other female pioneers in the fight for equality.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) presided over the ceremony, which featured several other women in roles that might have shocked Earhart’s contemporaries, including Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D), Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) and uniformed members of the Kansas Air National Guard’s color guard.
Yet, her great-nephew noted, women’s representation in Congress — either in Statuary Hall or in its legislative chambers — still has far to go to achieve the equality Earhart fought for. Earhart, who wasn’t shy about her thirst for adventure and fame, lobbied President Herbert Hoover for an Equal Rights Amendment that has yet to be ratified.
“If people know of her at all, people know she flew airplanes and she disappeared, and all of the really important work that she did on gender equity is not something people are aware of,” said the great-nephew, Bram Kleppner, 56, who grew up in Silver Spring and lives in Vermont. “And I think the real opportunity is to bring that part of her work and her legacy to a broader group of people. Hopefully, the statue in the Capitol will lead some people to explore that.”
Bones discovered on Pacific Island belong to Amelia Earhart, analysis claims
Earhart has been on a long glide path to the Capitol for more than two decades. The Kansas legislature voted in 1999 to replace its two statues in the hall with ones representing her and President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It took no time to raise the funds for Ike, whose statue was installed in 2003, but longer for Earhart.
The Atchison Amelia Earhart Foundation paid for Earhart’s statue, which rests on a three-foot pedestal of Kansas limestone and altogether weighs 1,500 pounds.
Seaberg, who launched the foundation, said the sculpture by Mark and George Lundeen cost $175,000. (A replica, which cost $100,000, was commissioned for the museum, whose construction and funding have also been undertaken by the foundation.)
Earhart’s statue replaced a 12,000-pound marble likeness of former Kansas senator John J. Ingalls, which will be hauled back to his home state on the foundation’s dime, too.
In July 1937, Earhart took off in her Lockheed Electra from New Guinea, heading for tiny Howland Island on perhaps the most difficult leg of what would have been the first around-the-world flight piloted by a woman. Instead, she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, vanished.
Her disappearance has inspired countless theories, ranging from the fanciful to the forensic.
In 1970, a book claimed that Earhart had not only survived the plane crash and Japanese capture but was later rescued by the U.S. military and repatriated to the United States, where she was living as a New Jersey housewife under the assumed name Irene Bolam. (The book was discredited and pulled from the market not long after the actual Bolam appeared and sued, which didn’t stop others from advancing the theory.)
In 2018, a study based on analysis of remains found in 1940 on the uninhabited atoll of Nikumaroro claimed to settle the matter, only to be disputed less than a week later by the appearance of a photograph from the National Archives purporting to show that Earhart and Noonan had been captured by Japanese forces.
To Kleppner and Seaberg, the simplest explanation is also the likeliest: her plane went off course, ran out of gas and plunged into the vast Pacific.
“Those people have all this stuff they found on the island, and they’re 95 percent sure,” Kleppner said. “And others are equally certain that the Japanese captured [her] and she died on Saipan either of cholera or having been executed as a spy, also 95 percent sure. No one’s 100 percent sure. But despite all the things these people have collected, there’s really not a single scrap of evidence. There’s not a single bit of the airplane. There’s not a single bit of human remains. There’s nothing.” | 2022-07-27T23:36:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amelia Earhart statue unveiled in U.S. Capitol, representing Kansas - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/27/amelia-earhart-statue-capitol/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/07/27/amelia-earhart-statue-capitol/ |
(The Washington Post; images by iStock)
If nothing is done, the United States will not reach its 300th birthday this century in recognizable form. That’s why we are coming together — Democrats, Republicans and independents — to build a new, unifying political party for the majority of Americans who want to move past divisiveness and reject extremism.
How do you remedy such a crisis? In a system torn apart by two increasingly divided extremes, you must reintroduce choice and competition.
The United States badly needs a new political party — one that reflects the moderate, common-sense majority. Today’s outdated parties have failed by catering to the fringes. As a result, most Americans feel they aren’t represented.
Most third parties in U.S. history failed to take off, either because they were ideologically too narrow or the population was uninterested. But voters are calling for a new party now more than ever.
Perry Bacon Jr.: The U.S. has four political parties stuffed into a two-party system. That’s a big problem.
As leaders and former elected officials, we’re tired of just talking about a third way. So this month, we’re merging our three national organizations — which represent the left, right, and center of the political spectrum — to build the launchpad for a new political party called Forward.
Without such systemic changes, Americans will be left with a closed system and fewer options on the ballot. These reforms go hand in hand with a new party.
Some call third parties “spoilers,” but the system is already spoiled. There are more than 500,000 elected positions in the United States, but a recent study found more than 70 percent of races on ballots in 2020 were unopposed or uncontested. A tiny sliver of U.S. congressional seats will have close races this November. The two major parties have shut out competition, and America is suffering as a result.
That’s why we’re proposing the first “open” party. Americans of all stripes — Democrats, Republicans and independents — are invited to be a part of the process, without abandoning their existing political affiliations, by joining us to discuss building an optimistic and inclusive home for the politically homeless majority. | 2022-07-27T23:37:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Most third parties have failed. Here's why our Forward Party won't. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/27/forward-party-new-centrist-third/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/27/forward-party-new-centrist-third/ |
Biden’s bout with covid was quick and mild, as it is for many Americans. But for those with fewer resources, it’s not always so easy.
Staffers clap as President Biden arrives to speak in the Rose Garden on Wednesday after testing negative for the coronavirus and ending his isolation. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
President Biden emerged from his covid-19 isolation on Wednesday saying his mild case was a testament to his administration’s progress on a pandemic that has killed more than 1 million Americans, and he urged people to take advantage of vaccine boosters, antivirals and at-home tests so they, too, could have mild infections.
After Biden’s coronavirus infection was identified early thanks to a regular testing regimen, he received the antiviral Paxlovid almost immediately and was able to isolate and work remotely — a management strategy that also highlighted the inequities that persist more than two years into the pandemic.
Biden, who tested negative Wednesday morning and returned to in-person work a short time later, conceded that the virus is here to stay but stressed that his administration has made booster shots, at-home tests and antivirals available free, and emphasized that he was able to continue his work remotely.
“I got through it with no fear — a very mild discomfort because of these essentials, lifesaving tools,” Biden said in a speech from the Rose Garden. “The entire time I was in isolation, I was able to work and carry out the duties of the office and without any interruption. It’s a real statement on where we are in the fight against covid-19.”
That account meshed with the broader message the White House has sent in recent months — that Americans can move on with their lives as long as they take reasonable precautions. For millions of Americans, though, the resources and flexibility that Biden touted remain out of reach.
The federal government allows each U.S. household to order eight free at-home tests, but that is not enough for most families to test regularly if they have been exposed to the virus. While private insurance is supposed to cover purchases of at-home tests, the process remains confusing and murky, making the cost of the tests prohibitive for some Americans.
Where to find at-home covid tests
Paxlovid, which has proved highly effective in preventing severe symptoms, is difficult to obtain in some parts of the country, particularly for those who lack access to regular medical care. Many people cannot afford to stay home because paid leave protections have lapsed and some employers have lost patience with employees who miss work because of coronavirus infections.
And while vaccinations, boosters and treatments have dramatically reduced deaths and hospitalizations, millions of immunocompromised Americans remain at high risk for severe illness, and there is still little understanding of why some people contract long-haul covid.
Biden’s experience mirrors that of more privileged Americans, who have learned to live with the coronavirus as part of their new normal and for whom an infection is more a nuisance than a devastating life event.
Biden has access to ample home tests and can test himself regularly. He has the best medical care in the world, and his doctor was able to prescribe him Paxlovid right away; studies show that Paxlovid is most effective when administered early, ideally within five days of the onset of symptoms. He was able to work remotely without losing pay and could isolate without exposing at-risk family members. He has been vaccinated and received two booster shots.
Double-boosted Biden was well-positioned to fight covid
And although Biden, who is 79, is at higher risk because of his age, he is otherwise healthy and does not have underlying medical conditions that could put him at increased risk of hospitalization or death.
“What President Biden was able to do is not a highlight of what all Americans can do — it’s a highlight of what most Americans can’t do,” said Abraar Karan, an infectious-disease physician and researcher at Stanford University. “It’s almost like a comedy of sorts. It’s like, ‘Well, if the president can do it, you can, too’ — which is exactly wrong.”
Biden’s infection comes as BA.5, an omicron subvariant that is the most transmissible version of the virus yet, has become dominant in the United States. The seven-day average of cases has hovered around 120,000 cases per day, but that is almost certainly an undercount given the widespread use of at-home tests that are not reported and the increasing number of people who no longer test. The true case count could be up to 1 million per day, experts say, while the seven-day average of deaths has hovered near 400 per day.
The president’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, confirmed last week that Biden was probably infected with BA.5, which along with BA.4 is responsible for about 80 percent of the coronavirus now circulating in the United States.
“The reality is that BA.5 means many of us are still going to get covid even if we take the precautions,” Biden said. “That doesn’t mean we were doing anything wrong.”
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said that of the 17 people identified as “close contacts” of Biden after he was infected but before he isolated, none has tested positive. As for the president, she added, “He certainly is looking forward to getting back on the road.”
The administration has struggled to contain the pandemic since Biden came into office, in part because it has faced increasingly transmissible variants with an extraordinary ability to escape immune protections afforded by vaccinations and prior infection.
Biden’s team has also run into more mundane or political problems. The White House sought to get more Americans vaccinated through a federal rule requiring businesses with at least 100 employees to mandate vaccinations or weekly testing, but the rule was struck down by the Supreme Court. Instead, the number of Americans who are vaccinated has hardly budged in more than a year, with about 67 percent vaccinated.
And although numerous studies show that booster shots significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization and death, only about a third of Americans have gotten at least one booster shot, despite the administration’s urging that people over 50 should get a second booster. Many Americans continue to insist, against overwhelming evidence, that the coronavirus is not a serious threat or that the vaccines are ineffective or even dangerous.
Many people have also lost whatever patience they had for coronavirus mitigation measures such as mask mandates and social distancing, reflected in the fact that no major city has reinstated mask mandates even as cases have surged. And Congress has so far failed to appropriate billions of dollars the White House requested for the coronavirus response.
In his speech Wednesday, Biden encouraged Congress to continue investing in “vaccinations, treatments, tests and more” to make them available to “the American people on a permanent basis.”
He also drew a contrast with the experience of President Donald Trump when he contracted the coronavirus before the advent of vaccines, noting that Trump had far more severe covid-19 and had to be hospitalized. “Here’s the bottom line: When my predecessor got covid, he had to get helicoptered to Walter Reed,” Biden said. “He was severely ill. Thankfully, he recovered. When I got covid, I worked from upstairs at the White House.”
Yet experts say many Americans now avoid testing altogether because of the disruption an infection could cause, whether it’s missed travel or an inability to get paid time off work.
“There are many people who would like to just decide to put a mask on and hope that things go well and continue on with their lives for various financial reasons,” said Mercedes Carnethon, professor and vice chair of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
Carnethon added that Biden’s early diagnosis and treatment with Paxlovid was crucial to his mild infection.
“If we can detect it early and treat it early, we can help ensure that more people have an experience like [Biden’s]. But there are many people who for structural reasons, access, financial barriers, aren’t going to be able to be diagnosed early as he was,” Carnethon said.
Biden on Wednesday nodded to the fact that the pandemic does not affect everyone equally, but he focused on those who are not vaccinated or boosted. He said deaths had dropped 90 percent since January 2021 and that most fatalities are among those who are not up to date on their vaccinations.
Karan said that while the administration is limited in what it can do, it should focus on reducing transmission, rather than attacking the symptoms, so that fewer people get infected in the first place.
“When the messaging is overly focused on having clinical tools when you get sick, it makes people feel like the government is no longer focused on preventing you from getting sick,” Karan said. “The problem is they’ve been pushing the narrative that ‘we have the tools.’ Many people are not included in the ‘we.’ ” | 2022-07-27T23:37:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden ends his covid isolation, urging Americans to get vaccinated - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/27/biden-covid-isolation-ends/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/27/biden-covid-isolation-ends/ |
Rebecca Kleefisch at a televised Wisconsin Republican gubernatorial debate on July 24 in Milwaukee. (Morry Gash/AP)
MADISON, Wis. — Former president Donald Trump and his vice president are again coming down on opposite sides in a Republican primary for governor, this time in Wisconsin.
The situation mirrors one playing out in Arizona, where Trump and Pence held public events Friday in support of rival candidates for governor. In the spring, the former president and former vice president lined up behind different candidates in Georgia’s race for governor.
“Rebecca Kleefisch is the only candidate that will deliver a stronger and more prosperous Wisconsin, and I am proud to support her,” Pence said in a written statement released by Kleefisch’s campaign.
Kleefisch, Michels and state Rep. Tim Ramthun face one another in Wisconsin’s Aug. 9 primary. The winner will face Gov. Tony Evers (D) in November.
Trump endorsed Michels last month, arguing that he would stop inflation, secure the border and crack down on voter fraud. Trump has remained fixated on his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, who beat him in Wisconsin by about 21,000 votes out of 3.3 million.
Kleefisch received Pence’s endorsement a day after getting one from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Both Kleefisch and Michels have said they would enact new voting rules if elected, but they have come short of backing efforts to try to decertify the 2020 results. Kleefisch has said undoing the 2020 election is impossible, citing the opinions of legal experts. Michels said during a Sunday debate that trying to decertify the election is “not a priority.”
Trump pressured Pence not to confirm the results of battleground states like Wisconsin. Pence declined to follow the request, saying he had no legal authority to do so. His decision enraged the Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to chants of “Hang Mike Pence.”
While Kleefisch welcomed Pence’s support Wednesday, she earlier declined to say whether she believed Pence was right to reject Trump’s entreaties.
“I wasn’t in the conversation between Trump or Pence, and I don’t think anyone in this Wisconsin gubernatorial election can say that they know what happened between those two men,” she said in February in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
When Trump met with Michels at his Mar-a-Lago resort ahead of his endorsement, he complained about tweets on Kleefisch’s teenage daughter going to homecoming with the son of a state Supreme Court justice who ruled against the former president, the Journal Sentinel reported over the weekend.
Justice Brian Hagedorn, who was elected with the support of conservatives in 2019, joined with liberals on the court in a 4-3 ruling in 2020 to reject a lawsuit from Trump that sought to throw out hundreds of thousands of ballots.
Noted: Senate fails to advance veterans’ care bill | 2022-07-27T23:37:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pence endorses Kleefisch for governor in Wisconsin, breaking with Trump - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/27/pence-rebecca-kleefisch-wisconsin/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/27/pence-rebecca-kleefisch-wisconsin/ |
A memorial for the seven people killed and others injured at the Fourth of July mass shooting in Highland Park, Ill. (Nam Y. Huh/AP/file)
An Illinois grand jury has indicted a 21-year-old man with more than 100 felony counts after he allegedly gunned down paradegoers in a Chicago suburb, killing seven and injuring more than 40, in a Fourth of July attack.
Robert E. Crimo III was indicted by the Lake County grand jury on every one of the 117 counts presented by the county’s State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart (D), a slew of charges for those killed in the Highland Park shooting as well as those who were struck by a bullet, bullet fragment or shrapnel. The charges are 21 counts of first-degree murder, three counts for each deceased victim; 48 counts of attempted murder; and 48 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.
Crimo, who faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, has been held without bail after he was charged with seven counts of first-degree murder a day after the massacre that rocked the quiet, close-knit community. His arraignment, the next time he will appear in court, is scheduled for Aug. 3. His public defender declined to comment.
Investigators said Crimo, who was arrested several hours after the shooting, confessed to the deadly rampage. Officials said he fired more than 80 rounds into a crowd gathered to celebrate America’s independence, sending families scrambling for safety and leaving seven adults dead, among them the parents of a toddler, a preschool teacher and a father of eight. He then fled, leading police on a brief chase. Investigators said that while on the run he considered carrying out an attack in Wisconsin.
In a statement, Rinehart thanked the law enforcement and prosecutors who presented evidence to the grand jury.
“Our investigation continues, and our victim specialists are working around the clock to support all those affected by this crime that led to 117 felony counts being filed today,” the state’s attorney said.
Authorities are investigating what led to the mass shooting, the latest in a spate to hit American communities in recent months, including Uvalde, Tex., and Buffalo.
Gun violence that has shocked the nation this summer contributed to congressional efforts to pass a bipartisan gun-violence measure that President Biden signed nine days before the Highland Park shooting.
The attack has raised questions about whether Crimo could have been stopped with stricter red-flag laws. He had at least two encounters with police before the shooting but was still able to legally buy five firearms, including the semiautomatic rifle police say he used in the attack.
Police came into contact with Crimo in April 2019 after a report that he had tried to die by suicide. In September, one of his family members called the police to report that he threatened to “kill everyone,” which led to authorities confiscating knives, a dagger and a sword but not arrest him.
Months later, his father sponsored his application to own a firearm. Crimo’s parents said they had not noticed warning signs before the shooting and don’t know what their son’s motive was. | 2022-07-27T23:44:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Highland Park shooting suspect indicted on felony 117 counts - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/27/highland-park-indictment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/27/highland-park-indictment/ |
Accused Honduran drug cartel matriarch appears in U.S. court
A woman accused of leading one of the largest drug cartels in Honduras appeared Wednesday in U.S. federal court to face charges of trafficking large quantities of cocaine into the United States from at least 2006 to 2015.
Federal prosecutors say Herlinda Bobadilla, 61, was the matriarch of the family-run Montes-Bobadilla cartel, which is based in the northeastern coast of Honduras on the Caribbean Sea. The seaside location allows the cartel to receive air and maritime drug shipments from Colombia and other South American countries, and then smuggle it into the United States, U.S. officials say.
Prosecutors said that in 2012, nearly 75 percent of cocaine-smuggling flights from South America first landed in Honduras. The Montes-Bobadilla cartel “uses airplanes, boats, and land motor vehicles” to ship cocaine, including semi-submersible vessels, according to court filings.
Authorities said the cartel trafficked multiple tons of cocaine destined for the United States and netted millions of dollars — sometimes using its fleet and knowledge of logistics to transport shipments for other drug traffickers for a 10 percent fee, paid in cocaine.
Bobadilla was indicted in 2015 along with three of her sons and two other cartel associates. She was captured in Honduras earlier this year and extradited Tuesday, U.S. officials said. The State Department earlier this year offered $5 million for information leading to her capture.
The cartel operated throughout Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, prosecutors said, keeping Honduran authorities in check with bribes, threats and violence. The Montes-Bobadilla organization in 2008 received a planeload of more than 3,300 pounds of cocaine on an island in Honduras, and in 2013, a U.S.-registered airplane arrived from Venezuela with more than 2,200 pounds of cocaine, according to the indictment.
“The cocaine was moved from the landing strip to a nearby property associated with” Bobadilla, the indictment says.
As the matriarch, Bobadilla “assists her sons in the importation, transportation and distribution of cocaine” and kept “assets and properties in her name to avoid detection and seizure by Honduran law enforcement,” according to the indictment.
One of her sons, Noe Montes-Bobadilla, previously was extradited on drug trafficking charges and was sentenced to 37 years in prison in 2019. Authorities said he was the leader of the Honduran cartel.
Bobadilla stood silently Wednesday for her initial appearance before Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis in federal court in Alexandria. Her bond hearing is scheduled for Friday. Her attorney, Manuel Leiva, declined to comment. | 2022-07-28T00:45:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Accused matriarch of Honduran Montes-Bobadilla cartel appears in court - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/27/herlinda-bobadilla-drug-cartel-court/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/27/herlinda-bobadilla-drug-cartel-court/ |
D.C. police union, city agree on new contract
Officers had been working without a new contract since the fall of 2020
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) speaks alongside Police Chief Robert J. Contee III during a news conference in 2021. (Michael Blackshire/The Washington Post )
Members of the union representing D.C. police officers, detectives and sergeants approved a new contract Wednesday night with raises totaling 10 percent over three years, according to the D.C. mayor’s office.
The contract after a nearly two-year impasse also gives members with five or more years on the force an additional 5 percent salary boost, which is meant to help retention.
Officers, who had been working without a new contract since the fall of 2020, approved the deal in a vote that was announced by the office of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D).
The new contract gives union members a 2.5 percent increase retroactive to fiscal 2021, a 3.5 percent increase retroactive to fiscal 2022 and a 4 percent raise for fiscal 2023, which starts Oct. 1 of this year.
“This new agreement represents our ongoing commitment to attracting and retaining the best officers in the nation,” Bowser said in a statement.
Police Chief Robert J. Contee III noted challenges over the past two years, including responding to an insurrection at the Capitol and rising homicides and shootings.
“I am very pleased with the outcome and believe this agreement is fair for all parties involved,” the chief said in a statement.
Starting annual salary for a D.C. police officer is just under $60,200. The Bowser administration has said raises will help keep salaries competitive as she works to increase the size of the force from about 3,500 officers to 4,000.
Last month, the mayor announced $20,000 hiring bonuses for recruits. | 2022-07-28T00:58:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. police union, city agree on new contract - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/27/dc-police-new-contract/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/27/dc-police-new-contract/ |
WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 27: U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference following a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) at the headquarters of the Federal Reserve, July 27, 2022 in Washington, DC. Powell announced that the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) (Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images North America)
One of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s unscripted remarks at his press conference on Wednesday — that interest rates have reached a “neutral level” after the just-announced 75-basis-point interest-rate increase — is sure to prompt much discussion among economists in the weeks and months ahead. Judging from how markets reacted the minute he made this remark, it is clear what conclusions the vast majority of investors want these economists to reach.
Neutral is shorthand for the crucially important notion that the level of interest rates is consistent with monetary policy being neither contractionary nor expansionary. When combined with the Fed’s dual mandate, it signals a monetary policy that is close to being set to deliver maximum employment and price stability.
In today’s world, this is translated by markets into the view that the Fed now believes that it has already done the bulk of what is needed to tighten monetary policy to deal with what Powell himself described as inflation that remains “much too high” and is inflicting “considerable hardship” on Americans.
Given this interpretation, it should come as no surprise that, immediately after Powell uttered the word “neutral,” stocks, bonds and the dollar all moved significantly and exactly as textbooks would suggest: Stocks surged, with the main indexes ending the session 1.4% to 4.1% higher; bond yields fell, with the two-year Treasury dipping below 3% and the curve inversion for the two-year and 10-year Treasuries moderating to 20 basis points; and the dollar weakened, with the DXY index falling to 106.4.
Each of these moves serves to ease financial conditions. No wonder markets set aside other unscripted remarks by Powell that are hard to immediately reconcile with his assertion that rates are at neutral. This included the likelihood of a higher natural rate of unemployment; the considerable amount of economic uncertainty; the need for the Fed to go “meeting by meeting” on its policy decisions; and the difficulty of providing clear forward policy guidance.
Count me among those hoping that Powell is entirely correct that rates are already at neutral. This would improve the chances of the Fed being able to soft-land the economy, thereby reducing inflation with limited damage to livelihoods and without triggering unsettling financial instability.
I have no precise estimate for neutral for the very reasons that Powell mentioned regarding the unusually high level of uncertainty and the changing structural parameters of the economy. As to the general neighborhood for that level, I have a hunch, but am far from certain, that we are still below it.
I hope I am wrong. If not, this will sadly end up amplifying my often-repeated concerns about the collateral damage to the economy and livelihoods, especially those of the more vulnerable segments of society, of a Fed that took way too long to understand and to respond properly to inflation. | 2022-07-28T01:07:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Are Interest Rates at Neutral? Markets Certainly Hope So - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/are-interest-rates-at-neutral-markets-certainly-hope-so/2022/07/27/569082c8-0e08-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/are-interest-rates-at-neutral-markets-certainly-hope-so/2022/07/27/569082c8-0e08-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
While research shows that possessing a gun raises the risk of violent death, some Black women are desperate for a way to feel safer
By Peter Jamison
Paul Lewis, left, instructs Lori McPherson on how to shoot a firearm at the Choppa Community, a gun range in Southern Maryland. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
WELCOME, Md. — A 16th week had passed with no arrest in the murder of Patrice Parker’s son, another week in which she had struggled through grief for him and fear for herself and her surviving daughters.
It wasn’t just that the person who had turned a gun on 24-year-old Markelle Morrow was still at large, but that so many other armed criminals were as well.
Shootings were ravaging the nation’s capital, on track for its highest number of homicides in two decades. In Prince George’s County, where Parker lives, carjackings had more than quadrupled since 2019.
But there was a place where she felt safe, and that was here, at a remote property amid thick woods an hour’s drive south of her home in District Heights, Md. And there was no time the 52-year-old felt safer than when holding a weapon like the one her friend Mark “Choppa” Manley now handed her: a 9mm pistol similar to those that regularly ring out in neighborhoods experiencing the worst of the region’s bloody summer.
“I’ve got some ammo for you,” Manley said, “when you’re ready.”
There was a time when Parker never would have been ready. During a long career as a nursing aide she had cared for countless shooting victims. Like many Black women in Southeast Washington or just across the D.C. border in Prince George’s County, she’d viewed guns for most of her life as the root of the violence that had wrecked countless lives in her community.
“I always felt like you needed to take the guns off the street. But the way things are now ...” Parker’s voice trailed off.
“I don’t feel safe anymore,” she said. “You can’t trust nobody.”
But Parker and others like her are part of a new chapter in the long-running story of America’s relationship with firearms. Scarred — sometimes literally — by the firsthand consequences of gun violence and disenchanted with decades of urban gun-control policies that they regard as largely ineffective, some Black women in D.C. and other cities are embracing a view long espoused by Second Amendment activists: that only guns will make them safer.
It is a development that could upend America’s gun-rights debate, traditionally seen as pitting largely White rural and suburban firearms owners against city residents, many of them Black, whose elected leaders have pursued some of the nation’s strictest gun-control policies.
Nearly 3 in 4 U.S. gun owners are still White, according to a study published by Harvard University researchers earlier this year. And while gun ownership has long been common in rural Black households, the surge of interest in firearms among urban Black women profoundly alarms experts on gun violence, who point to a large body of research demonstrating that gun possession is correlated with a greater — not lesser — risk of violent death. Rates of suicide, the cause of most gun deaths every year, go up when a weapon is in the house, as does the likelihood of accidental death and murder by another household member.
“There is no category of violence where we have evidence to show more firearms increase safety,” said Shani A.L. Buggs, an assistant professor with the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California at Davis.
“This phenomenon flies in the face of the scientific evidence that we have,” Buggs said. “But it all sadly, tragically, is a predictable outcome of all of these different factors that have been converging.”
“I feel a little bit better already,” she said.
‘I wasn’t into guns’
For most of America’s history, the Second Amendment was one of many Constitutional rights withheld from those who weren’t White. After the Civil War and emancipation, champions of racial equality encouraged gun ownership among Black citizens to protect themselves from violence perpetrated by Whites.
Those calls were reprised during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, most famously by the militant leaders of the Black Panther Party. In the 1980s, a seminal early victory for the NRA — the spread of state laws that eased restrictions on concealed-carry permits — was also a boon for Black gun enthusiasts, who had frequently had their permit applications denied by White officials.
“I wasn’t into guns at all,” Johnson said, “because we were told that guns were bad.”
Decades later, serving as the Democratic chairwoman of an Advisory Neighborhood Commission in Ward 8, Johnson began to wonder whether her faith in her party’s repeated promises of stricter gun control was misplaced. When her husband, originally from South Carolina, began talking about forming a Black men’s gun club in D.C., she went with him to a concealed-carry course.
Johnson, a 36-year-old mother of six, discovered that she was a good shot with a semiautomatic handgun. Soon she was hooked. She and her husband, Frenchie Johnson, took additional courses and became NRA-certified instructors last year. Now they teach classes, catering specifically to Black people from D.C. and Prince George’s, out of their home in White Plains, Md.
One of their first students was Janae Hammett, 37, who had gone to elementary school with Johnson in D.C. and whose children’s father was shot to death in 2010. Given that history, Hammett said she was initially “on eggshells” around guns. But her comfort level increased the more she shot, and eventually she joined Johnson in forming the Second Amendment Sista Society, a club for Black women in the Washington region who are interested in guns.
Hammett said her transformation was driven, fundamentally, by desperation. Illegal guns, it seemed, were everywhere. If she couldn’t count on anyone else to protect her, why shouldn’t she legally own a gun to protect herself?
“I don’t think the government, police or anybody will ever get a hold of the illegal guns,” she said.
“More and more African Americans are looking at themselves in the mirror after hearing for years and years that you shouldn’t get a gun for any reason, and saying, ‘You know what, I’m going to get a gun,’ ” Smith said. “This is a movement that has really swept the whole country.”
“It’s naive not to think that there are gun sellers who have a pecuniary interest in expanding their markets, and in a narrative that says that African Americans and women need guns now more than ever, whether or not that’s something true,” Azrael said.
‘The world we live in’
Manley, 32, built the gun range about a year ago with his best friend, Alonzo Stokes. It sits on a property, owned by Stokes’s uncle, off a lonely two-lane road deep in rural Charles County.
Manley grew up in Northeast D.C. and Prince George’s County and previously worked as a bodyguard and operated a security company in the District. One night in November 2018 he fatally shot a masked gunman who, along with three others, was trying to rob a vape shop Manley had been hired to protect. The shooting was ruled justified but his security business license in the District was revoked because the handgun he used wasn’t properly registered.
After a period of soul-searching, Manley decided to enter the budding world of Black Second Amendment influencers. With about 70,000 followers, his gun-heavy Instagram account — currently suspended for an alleged violation of community guidelines that Manley said he does not understand and is appealing — does not yet compare to a popular figure like “Black Rambo.” But Manley said his reach is still such that he has secured sponsorship and ad deals from firearm and ammo companies.
Just as important, he says, is the offline community he has created at the Choppa Community. (“Choppa” is a slang term for guns, often referring to AK-47s.) Nearly 100 people would come and go throughout the day on July 3, all Black and many from D.C. and Prince George’s. Many were women and children. In addition to its gun range, the Choppa Community offers courses in de-escalation strategies, hand-to-hand self-defense and basic firearms safety.
“It’s sad that this is what it’s come to, but this is the world we live in," Manley said. "Guns aren’t going anywhere.”
Some have criticized Guns Down Friday for organizing trips to a firing range, she said. But Hardy said those detractors don’t understand the likelihood that the boys she works with will pick up a gun one way or another, and the value in teaching them to responsibly handle the weapons. Beyond that, she said, the enjoyment of shooting and the sense of community at the Choppa range appeal to children whose neighborhoods offer few recreational opportunities.
“I was working with these kids, and I was taking them to program after program after program. Nothing worked,” Hardy said. “And then I took them here. They itch to be here.”
It wasn’t just the kindness shown to her by Manley and other instructors, the thrill that came from firing a deadly weapon or the fascinating minutiae — firearms’ caliber, model, accessories and ammunition — that enthusiasts discuss endlessly on range days. It was a new worldview that she believed offered her a glimmer of hope. Maybe guns weren’t just the problem. In the right hands, maybe they were also the solution.
As a woman in a dangerous place, she had always feared she would be unable to defend her family. Her son’s killers were still out there. But with a gun, Parker felt less vulnerable, especially with the knowledge she had gained at the Choppa Community.
“They took the fear out of me,” she said.
Deshonda, also 23, wasn’t so sure. She had never shot a gun before, and when she stepped to the firing line her hands were sweating so much she could barely hold onto a borrowed pistol.
“Oh my God,” she said, breathing rapidly as she pulled her hands from the gun and stepped back. “I’m going, like, crazy. I’m not used to that.”
“Let it rock, Boo,” Parker said.
Deshonda cupped the gun in her hands as she had been taught, doing her best to ignore the deafening bursts of gunfire that erupted around her. She squeezed off a round, and this time she didn’t flinch. | 2022-07-28T01:07:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Black women who hated guns are embracing them as crime soars - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/28/black-women-guns-crime/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/28/black-women-guns-crime/ |
National Digest: Two Democrats quit Senate primary in Wisconsin
Two Democrats quit Senate primary
Two Wisconsin Democrats have dropped out of the Senate primary ahead of the Aug. 9 election, allowing the party to coalesce behind Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes to take on Sen. Ron Johnson (R) in the fall.
Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, who was polling slightly behind Barnes and spent millions of his own money on the race, stepped aside Wednesday. Two days ago, Tom Nelson, county executive of Outagamie County, announced that he was suspending his campaign.
Barnes, 35, who is the first Black lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, would become its first Black U.S. senator if he wins the primary and goes on to defeat Johnson in the November general election.
Speaking outside the Fiserv Forum, a new basketball arena he spearheaded, with Barnes at his side, Lasry officially suspended his campaign and threw his support behind Barnes.
Democrats, facing a political climate in which they are expected to lose seats, view Wisconsin as one of their better chances to flip a GOP-held Senate seat. Republicans need to flip only one seat to take control of the Senate, which is split 50-50. Wisconsin narrowly chose Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, but in 2020 it picked Joe Biden.
— Colby Itkowitz
and Annie Linskey
An Illinois grand jury has indicted the 21-year-old suspect in the shooting of parade attendees in a Chicago suburb with more than 100 felony counts. Seven people were killed and more than 40 injured in the Fourth of July attack.
Robert E. Crimo III was indicted by the Lake County grand jury on every one of the 117 counts presented by county State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart (D), a slew of charges for those killed in the Highland Park shooting as well as those who were struck by a bullet, bullet fragment or shrapnel. The charges are 21 counts of first-degree murder, three counts for each deceased victim; 48 counts of attempted murder; and 48 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.
Crimo, who faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, has been held without bail after he was charged with seven counts of first-degree murder a day after the massacre. He is scheduled to appear for arraignment on Wednesday.
Investigators said Crimo, who was arrested several hours after the shooting, confessed to the deadly rampage. Officials said he fired more than 80 rounds into a crowd gathered to celebrate the Fourth. He then fled, leading police on a brief chase. Investigators said that while on the run he considered carrying out an attack in Wisconsin.
— Meryl Kornfield
2 dead, 10 hurt in SUV rollover near border
A 13th person also was in the Chevrolet Tahoe but it was unclear whether that person was injured, said Sunland Park Fire Chief Daniel Medrano. The crash occurred around 4:45 a.m. about 13 miles northwest of El Paso.
Federal officials said U.S. Border Patrol agents provided assistance at the crash scene, but declined to say whether agents were involved in a pursuit.
The Mexican Consulate in El Paso said nine of the injured people were Mexicans. | 2022-07-28T01:07:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | National Digest: Two Democrats quit Senate primary in Wisconsin - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2022/07/27/e1ce5314-0a30-11ed-911b-f04803b1891b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2022/07/27/e1ce5314-0a30-11ed-911b-f04803b1891b_story.html |
She was best known for her 1976 installation, ‘Rhapsody,’ a series of nearly 1,000 gleaming, gridded steel plates that she baked in enamel paint
Artist Jennifer Bartlett was best known for her installation “Rhapsody,” a collection of 987 painted steel plates that was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images)
Jennifer Bartlett, a painter who rose in the 1970s and ’80s to become a rare woman atop the American art world, using a host of styles, colors and materials — including hundreds of gleaming steel plates — to explore ideas about change, repetition and the limits of modern art, died July 25 at her home in Amagansett, N.Y., on Long Island. She was 81.
At the same time, she continued to make ambitious grand-scale art projects, including site-specific commissions for the lobby of a federal court building in Atlanta and the ceiling of a Buddhist temple in Japan. Her work has since been acquired by institutions including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Tate Modern in London. | 2022-07-28T01:08:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jennifer Bartlett, artist who made steel plates her canvas, dies at 81 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/27/artist-jennifer-bartlett-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/27/artist-jennifer-bartlett-dead/ |
House Democrats delay votes on police, guns after internal infighting
A push to increase police funding has infuriated liberals who would rather see such money redirected to community policing and police reform measures
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) outside a meeting with California lawmakers on Capitol Hill on July 27. (Tristen Rouse/The Washington Post)
House Democrats postponed the consideration of a package of bills that would address public safety and ban assault weapons, exposing the fracture lines that exist within the caucus and sinking the desire by many members to leave Washington with fresh legislative wins to motivate voter turnout as they hit the campaign trail.
Vulnerable members in swing districts, known as front-liners, who remain most at-risk of losing their seats during the midterm election have spent the last several weeks pushing leaders to vote on legislation that would help fund local law enforcement to counter GOP attacks that Democrats are soft on crime — an argument that probably cost the party seats in 2020 and created animosity between different factions of the party.
But the push to increase police funding has infuriated liberals who would rather see such money redirected to community policing, as well as Black lawmakers and civil rights groups who want accountability and transparency measures attached to police funding.
The recent string of mass shootings across the country — particularly after 19 children and two teachers were killed at a Uvalde, Tex., elementary school — motivated many Democrats to reignite a push to vote on an assault weapon ban for the first time in decades.
But there was uncertainty that an assault weapon ban has the votes in a chamber where Democrats only have a razor-thin four-member majority. Leaders had hoped to tack the ban onto the tranche of public safety bills, which included police funding as well as community policing measures and mental health response teams, to ensure it could pass this month. Members now hope to reconsider the package by mid-August, when they return from a break.
The episode is just the most recent headache for Democratic leaders as they try to appease different factions within their caucus who represent disparate groups of voters. It has remained a repeated struggle that has at times defined the caucus this term as they work to overcome differences at the last minute in an effort to salvage legislative priorities.
“This is the nature of the business. I mean, you know, the important thing is to get things done,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said. “We’re Democrats. We’d like to talk and, you know, go back and forth and continue to talk. That’s who we are.
Votes were never scheduled for this week, but the friction caused the House Rules Committee, which McGovern chairs, to pull back considering the legislation — the final step before bills can be officially scheduled for a floor vote.
At issue is a bipartisan bill led by Reps. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) and Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) that would double the existing amount of federal grant money to more than a billion dollars for an office within the Justice Department, which allots the funds to local police departments so that they can have the resources to adequately train officers and hire community policing professionals.
During a late Tuesday meeting, the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s executive board discussed the wide opposition among its membership to any legislation that sends additional funds to police departments. Members of the liberal wing have previously voted against bills that had funded law enforcement, a threat that remained ahead of any possible votes this week.
Their threat to sink the public safety package would hurt their chances to pass the assault weapon ban, which they support.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus also met Tuesday evening to discuss their support, expressing to leadership that any package including funds to police must have legislative language that holds law enforcement to account for cases of police brutality. There was concern that the package also skipped the committee process, giving some members the impression that it was rushed without much consideration over how it would be digested by Black lawmakers.
Liberals and some Black lawmakers and their voters have been highly critical of additional funding for law enforcement without new policies governing policing practices following the killings in recent years of Black Americans in high-profile cases involving allegations of and convictions for excessive force.
A person familiar with the CBC’s thinking said they are playing an active role to find a compromise, given that their caucus wants to help their front-line and liberal members.
“We just need a little bit more time to work all that out. We’re going to get there,” said Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), who is leading a bill that would invest in initiatives meant to reduce community-based violence.
Members of House leadership, CBC Chairwoman Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Spanberger all met Wednesday morning in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to try to find a compromise in hopes of scheduling a floor vote for this week. Instead, the meeting resulted in continuing to smooth out differences over the legislative break.
“This conversation is about responding to the public safety concerns of the American people — and it will and must continue,” Spanberger said in a statement.
“These are things I think are very important,” Gottheimer said. “I’m really optimistic that we’re making good process.”
But the delay has irritated front-liners who were hoping to immediately start campaigning on funding police departments even if some of the measures might not pass an evenly split Senate.
“I’m disappointed,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.) said. “I wish they would have happened.”
A majority of Democrats agree on several other bills that make up the legislative package, including dissolving a civil liability law protecting gunmakers.
But leadership’s decision to pull the public safety bills until there is a compromise has made it difficult to vote on just the assault weapon ban, since it relies on all but four Democrats to support it.
Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), who recently lost his primary bid to a liberal Democrat, has publicly said he would vote against the ban. Other front-line members representing rural districts also expressed hesitancy in backing it.
“I have no comment right now until I find out a little bit more. A lot more,” said Rep. Tom O’Halleran (Ariz.), who is considered one of the most endangered Democrats this cycle. “Some of it is very surprising.”
Majority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters Wednesday that it’s likely the House comes back into session in the second week of August to pass a Senate-approved climate, health and tax package and that it will probably consider the public safety bills then. The Democratic margin could shrink to three votes by then if Republicans fill a special election seat in Minnesota.
“If it was complete and we thought it could pass, I’d put it on the floor tomorrow or Friday,” Hoyer said. “But in any event, it’s a high priority for us.”
While many Democrats say it’s still likely the package will eventually pass the House, some members said heartburn could have been avoided if they had taken a breath rather than force bills ahead of a summer dash.
“I think if we would do the proper vetting process, which, you know, we haven’t been doing as well as we should, all those things get resolved at the right time and don’t all come to a peak. But again, I’m not surprised by anything this week,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said.
Mike DeBonis contributed to this report. | 2022-07-28T01:08:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | House Democrats delay votes on police, guns after internal infighting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/27/house-democrats-delay-police-assault-weapons/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/27/house-democrats-delay-police-assault-weapons/ |
What’s Driving US-China Spat Over Audits and Delisting
Executives of China’s leading e-commerce company said publicly a primary listing in Hong Kong -- in addition to the one it has in New York -- will broaden its investor base in Asia. The company pointed out that trading volumes in the Asian city had surged since their debut in 2019. The move is also a precursor to joining the so-called Stock Connect program, which allows millions of mainland Chinese investors to directly buy stocks in Hong Kong. That would free up a large new pool of capital that may become especially crucial if Alibaba delists in New York. A show of support for Hong Kong’s stock exchange -- and a main listing closer to Beijing -- aligns with the Chinese government’s intention of reviving the city’s reputation of an international finance hub, which waned during the harsh lockdown measures of the pandemic years. Such a switch also provides a ready alternative for Chinese companies that face expulsion from the US. | 2022-07-28T02:39:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What’s Driving US-China Spat Over Audits and Delisting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/whats-driving-us-china-spat-over-audits-and-delisting/2022/07/27/decb8870-0e14-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/whats-driving-us-china-spat-over-audits-and-delisting/2022/07/27/decb8870-0e14-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Greenbelt officers won’t be charged in shooting of man with knife
The two officers have returned to full duty after shooting and injuring a man who reportedly was suicidal
Greenbelt police cars are seen outside the department in Prince George's County on May 11. (Jasmine Hilton/The Washington Post)
Two police officers who shot and injured a man in May have returned to full duty and will not be charged for their actions, Greenbelt police said Wednesday.
The city’s police department closed its internal investigation Tuesday and found that the officers’ use of force was “within departmental policy” in the shooting of Kenneth Lee Littlefield, 46, police said in a statement. Littlefield was armed with a knife and reportedly suicidal, according to police.
The department received a letter June 21 from the Office of the State’s Attorney for Prince George’s County indicating that the office was declining to prosecute the officers, police said.
Acting sergeant Troy Arnold and Officer Eric Thomas had been placed on paid administration leave, police said. Prince George’s County police have arrested and charged Littlefield with assault, dangerous weapon with the intent to injure, and concealing a dangerous weapon.
Littlefield’s attorney, Peter Fayne, said in a statement Wednesday that the incident shows the need to address the lack of resources for individuals struggling with mental health issues.
“Diverting these individuals away from incarceration and toward more appropriate and competent community-based mental health care is an essential strategy providing people the support they need and to eliminate unnecessary involvement in the criminal justice system,” he said.
Body-cam footage shows Greenbelt police shooting man who had knife
The incident that led to the shooting began about 10:30 a.m. May 2, when police responded to a residence in the unit block of Plateau Place in Greenbelt for a report of a “suicidal adult male,” police said. Littlefield made the call.
The officers’ body-camera footage showed that Littlefield opened the door with a knife in his hand.
After repeated commands to drop the knife, Littlefield stepped out of the doorway holding it, and both officers fired, the footage showed. Each officer fired five shots, according to police. The incident, from the first knock on the door by police to the last shot fired, lasted 21 seconds.
Littlefield was taken to a hospital and later released.
Police have said that they do not plan to release the body-camera footage to the public.
“The officers reacted to a quickly unfolding set of events which left little time to talk to the subject in a meaningful way,” Greenbelt Police Chief Richard Bowers said in Wednesday’s police statement “As this incident unfolded, the officers were able to immediately shift to providing medical care, which likely saved Littlefield’s life.”
The State’s Attorney Office’s Public Integrity Unit, which handles cases involving police, also reviewed the incident. The office declined to prosecute the case because “the shooting was legally justified,” Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy (D) said in a statement.
An independent use-of-force expert also reviewed the case and found the force justified, she said.
Littlefield’s attorney says he is “getting the support he needs to deal with the issues that have brought him into the criminal justice system.”
“We are hopeful that in the end, this case can be resolved in a manner that addresses those underlying issues facing Mr. Littlefield,” Fayne said.
Efforts to reach Littlefield’s family were unsuccessful.
Since the shooting, a licensed clinician has been added to a newly created crisis intervention team at the Greenbelt Police Department. That person goes with officers to calls involving mental health issues, said police spokeswoman Hannah Glasgow. The clinician also follows up with additional resources. | 2022-07-28T04:01:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Greenbelt officers won't be charged in shooting of man with knife - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/27/greenbelt-police-officers-shooting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/27/greenbelt-police-officers-shooting/ |
Aaron Latham, ‘Urban Cowboy’ screenwriter, dies at 78
His dispatch for Esquire magazine from a Texas honky-tonk saloon inspired the 1980 movie starring John Travolta
Aaron Latham attends the New York City Ballet's spring gala in 2003. (Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)
Aaron Latham, a magazine writer whose stylish dispatch from the ringside of a mechanical bull at a Texas honky-tonk saloon inspired “Urban Cowboy,” the 1980 film that evoked the modern American West and became the most noted credit in his wide-ranging literary career, died July 23 at a hospital in Bryn Mawr, Pa. He was 78.
The cause was complications from Parkinson’s disease, said his wife, Lesley Stahl, the longtime correspondent for the CBS News program “60 Minutes.”
Mr. Latham was a strapping Texan who first made his name on the East Coast in the 1970s, embarking on his magazine career when the movement known as New Journalism was in florescence. He played softball with Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese — more senior practitioners of the form — and wrote for Clay S. Felker, the founder of New York Magazine, at both New York Magazine and Esquire.
It was Felker who sent Mr. Latham back home to Texas, to a bar called Gilley’s in the Houston suburb of Pasadena, to write the article published in Esquire in 1978 as “The Ballad of the Urban Cowboy: America’s Search for True Grit.” Mr. Latham delivered a vervy narrative — straight from the school of New Journalism — of petrochemical workers who traded their hard hats for cowboy hats and mounted a bucking mechanical bull, clinging not only to the beast but also to what Mr. Latham described as a vanishing “cowboy code.”
“According to this code,” he wrote, “a cowboy is independent, self-reliant, brave, strong, direct, and open. All of which he can demonstrate by dancing the cotton-eyed Joe with the cowgirls, punching the punching bag, and riding the bull at Gilley’s. In these anxious days, some Americans have turned for salvation to God, others have turned to fad prophets, but more and more people are turning to the cowboy hat.”
Mr. Latham — who read Homer and Cervantes, received a PhD in English from Princeton and wrote his first book about F. Scott Fitzgerald — remarked that he felt upon his arrival at Gilley’s not unlike the anthropologist Margaret Mead “stepping ashore in Samoa for the first time, discovering a whole new culture.” But there was also a piece of him, he said, that felt “right at home.”
Inundated with proposals for movies based on the article, Mr. Latham set out for Hollywood, “taking transcontinental flights to that cruel city that had abused the talents of Fitzgerald and Faulkner (but was nice to me),” he wrote two decades later in an account published in New York Magazine.
Mr. Latham co-wrote the script of “Urban Cowboy” with James Bridges, who was also the film’s director and who became his best friend. The film starred John Travolta and Debra Winger as the couple at the center of a modern Western romance. Forty years after its release, Rolling Stone cited the film as the cultural touchstone that “brought Western fashion and country music into the mainstream.”
Mr. Latham teamed again with Bridges and Travolta on “Perfect,” a 1985 movie loosely based on his article “Looking for Mr. Goodbody,” published two years earlier in Rolling Stone. Set largely in a Los Angeles health club, the article presented gyms as “the new singles’ bars,” where the unattached could survey prospective dates to the pulsating beat of a workout. In the movie version, Travolta played a reporter working on just such a story, with Jamie Lee Curtis as his aerobics-instructor love interest.
Mr. Latham endured what he described as a “rainy season” of his soul when several writing projects failed and he descended into depression that he said brought him nearly to the point of suicide. He emerged from his depression, he said, by writing “The Frozen Leopard: Hunting My Dark Heart in Africa” (1991), a travelogue of a safari during which he confronted existential questions of life and its meaning.
He later wrote a trilogy of Western novels, “Code of the West” (2001), “The Cowboy With the Tiffany Gun” (2003) and “Riding With John Wayne” (2006). In the first two, he transposed Arthurian legend on the landscape of Texas, basing the Guinevere character, he said, on his wife.
John Aaron Latham was born on Oct. 3, 1943, in Spur, not far from Lubbock, in what Mr. Latham described to Texas Monthly as “that godforsaken corner of West Texas which is the last stronghold of real cowboys, cattle ranches, rattlesnakes, and tarantula stampedes.”
Although “Urban Cowboy” was based largely on Mr. Latham’s reportage, it also drew from his life. Travolta’s character, Bud, at one point remarks that when he was born, his father sold a milk cow to pay the physician who delivered him. The same, Mr. Latham told Newsday, was true for him.
Both his parents were teachers. His father was also a high school football coach, and Mr. Latham entertained notions of becoming a football player until an abdominal injury on the field resulted in the removal of one of his kidneys. His mother wrote and illustrated children’s books.
“She raised me with the idea that writers were the great heroes of the world,” Mr. Latham told Texas Monthly, “and I wanted to be my mother’s hero.”
Mr. Latham graduated from high school in Tucson. He enrolled at Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he edited the school newspaper and where he received a bachelor’s degree in English in 1966. He received a PhD from Princeton in 1970. His dissertation was published the following year as the book “Crazy Sundays: F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood.”
Mr. Latham found his first job in journalism at The Washington Post, where he was an intern before becoming a staff writer. “He stood out for his sophistication and his easy manner,” said Leonard Downie Jr., who worked with him on the city desk and later became the newspaper’s executive editor, “not like the scruffy guys around him.”
Among other stories, Mr. Latham wrote a four-part exposé in 1971 of Junior Village, a home for impoverished children in Washington where, investigations later revealed, the young residents were drugged, raped and abused.
“It was a classic, independent, get-inside investigation of an institution,” longtime Post reporter Bob Woodward said in an interview, describing the report as “a real head-turner.” Woodward joined the newspaper months after the exposé was published and said he referred to the Junior Village story as one that “embodied the Ben Bradlee approach to journalism.” (Benjamin C. Bradlee was the executive editor who presided over The Post during the Watergate investigation, led by Woodward and fellow reporter Carl Bernstein, that helped precipitate the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon.)
Mr. Latham later moved to Esquire and New York Magazine. Stahl, at the time, was a young reporter for CBS. Both were covering Watergate. Mr. Latham called her one day, looking for leads, and was met with unceremonious rejection.
“Lesley was not thrilled at the request,” he later told People magazine. “ ‘How dare you call me at home? If you want to talk, call me tomorrow at the office,’ she barked, and then slammed down the phone.”
They later met and saw one another regularly, but their romance did not blossom, they said, until after Nixon left office and they were forced to discuss other matters. They were married in 1977.
Besides Stahl, of New York City, Mr. Latham’s survivors include their daughter, Taylor Latham of Los Angeles; and two granddaughters.
Mr. Latham’s books included “Orchids for Mother” (1977), a CIA novel, and “The Ballad of Gussie & Clyde” (1997), a memoir of Mr. Latham’s father finding love late in life. With David S. Ward, he co-wrote the script for a third film, “The Program” (1993), staring James Caan as an embattled college football coach.
Mr. Latham also wrote the book for a short-lived musical based on “Urban Cowboy,” which premiered on Broadway in 2003. He remained creatively active late into his life, even as he suffered increasingly from Parkinson’s disease. He made his directorial debut in 2016, overseeing a production of Clifford Odets’s boxing play “Golden Boy” that was staged at a New York gym with actors also afflicted by Parkinson’s.
“The cowboy is the only truly mythic figure that America had created so far,” Mr. Latham recalled himself saying after “Urban Cowboy” was released. “He comes to the fore in the culture, then he recedes for a time, but he always seems to reemerge when we’re uncertain about the future.”
After his own “personal disappointments,” Mr. Latham wrote in New York Magazine in 2000, “I was more than ready to welcome the cowboy back into my life.” | 2022-07-28T04:10:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Aaron Latham, ‘Urban Cowboy’ screenwriter, dies at 78 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/27/aaron-latham-urban-cowboy-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/07/27/aaron-latham-urban-cowboy-dead/ |
Dear Carolyn: My son is thinking he’s trans. He had never given a single sign of it up until his midteen years. I’ve found him a therapist, and I am trying to be accepting, but I’m having trouble understanding how this could be if he hasn’t “always felt this way.” Would love to talk to someone else who’s been here. Can I get in touch with someone else’s mom?
Mom: I’ll post comments from readers who want to help. PFLAG immediately comes to mind, too: pflag.org.
You also don’t need to understand to accept. Sometimes the most loving act is to accept upfront, then work on the understanding on your own time.
· My youngest sister is a trans woman. She realized it when she was 33. So your teenager doesn’t and can’t have everything figured out yet, and that is okay. It was hard for our mother initially to accept that the child she had loved all those years as a son was a daughter. But she got there pretty quickly, because the fact is, that is your child. The child you loved and read to and played with and should be cheering on for every step of their life, whatever that looks like. You don’t want your precious child to live a lie. The most loving, fiercely motherly thing to do in this whole world is to want to know who your children are, and to love them on that honest and genuine basis.
· I’m almost 40. Trans/nonbinary. Only realized it about, oh, five years ago. When you’re a kid/adolescent/young adult, it’s hard to know anything other than your experiences. It didn’t occur to me that not everyone felt uneasy when asked to split up “boys vs. girls” in class or to fill in their gender on a doctor’s form (because it felt like an untruth). Obvious in hindsight, sure, but when something has always been that way, it’s easy to overlook it — especially when you have no other experience to contrast it with. It was like never realizing I was wearing shoes that were too tight. Once you realize you can live in a way that’s not forced and uncomfortable, the difference is night and day.
· Want to enthusiastically second Carolyn’s suggestion to check out PFLAG. Our 22-year-old came out as a transgender woman two years ago. We never had an inkling — and she says she didn’t know at a young age. My husband and I both found it very hard to understand/accept at first and now can’t really even remember why. It gets much easier — especially as you see your kid grow much happier.
· I’ve been nonbinary all my life, but I didn’t have a name for it till the past year. (I’m 69.) The few years leading up to puberty were terrifying, and I would have given anything to have had access to hormone blockers to give me a few extra years to think about things. Of course, I would have also given anything to have had understanding parents as well as societal awareness of the vast gender spectrum. I’m just now coming to terms with the hell I went through.
· TransFamilies, transfamilies.org, is also great. My trans/nonbinary kiddo is 5 and has clearly always “felt that way,” but there are many parents of teenagers in the group who were totally surprised by their teen coming out. And hell yes to Carolyn’s support-first-understand-later point. Your kid gave you a huge gift by trusting you. You need to protect that trust. | 2022-07-28T04:10:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: A mom struggles to understand her trans teen - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/28/carolyn-hax-mom-understand-trans-teen/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/28/carolyn-hax-mom-understand-trans-teen/ |
What’s Driving the US-China Spat Over Audits and Delisting
Executives of China’s leading e-commerce company said publicly a primary listing in Hong Kong -- in addition to the one it has in New York -- will broaden its investor base in Asia. The company pointed out that trading volumes in the Asian city had surged since its debut in 2019. The move is also a precursor to joining the so-called Stock Connect program, which allows millions of mainland Chinese investors to directly buy stocks in Hong Kong. That would free up a large new pool of capital that may become especially crucial if Alibaba delists in New York. A show of support for Hong Kong’s stock exchange -- and a main listing closer to Beijing -- aligns with the Chinese government’s intention of reviving the city’s reputation of an international finance hub, which waned during the harsh lockdown measures of the pandemic years. Such a switch also provides a ready alternative for Chinese companies that face expulsion from the US. | 2022-07-28T04:10:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What’s Driving the US-China Spat Over Audits and Delisting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/whats-driving-the-us-china-spat-over-audits-and-delisting/2022/07/27/decb8870-0e14-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/whats-driving-the-us-china-spat-over-audits-and-delisting/2022/07/27/decb8870-0e14-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivers his speech during a ceremony to mark the 69th anniversary of the signing of the ceasefire armistice that ends the fighting in the Korean War, in Pyongyang, North Korea Wednesday, July 27, 2022. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: “KCNA” which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP) (Uncredited/KCNA via KNS) | 2022-07-28T04:11:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kim threatens to use nukes amid tensions with US, S. Korea - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kim-threatens-to-use-nukes-amid-tensions-with-us-s-korea/2022/07/27/0d395f30-0e1e-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kim-threatens-to-use-nukes-amid-tensions-with-us-s-korea/2022/07/27/0d395f30-0e1e-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
1 dead, 2 wounded in shooting outside Southeast D.C. apartment complex
One man died and two people were wounded in a shooting Wednesday night in the Washington Highlands neighborhood in Southeast D.C., police said.
Neighbors flagged down patrol officers who responded to the 4300 block of 4th Street SE about 10:30 p.m., said Cmdr. John Branch of the 7th District. Police found one man unconscious and not breathing, and authorities took a man and woman to a hospital for treatment, Branch said.
Police said they were unsure of their condition late Wednesday. They did not immediately identify the fatally wounded man.
Branch said that several residents were outside at the time of the shooting and investigators were trying to determine what led to the gunfire. Police found as many as 90 shell casings in the area, he said.
No further details were immediately released. | 2022-07-28T04:27:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Three shot, one critically, at Southeast D.C. apartment complex - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/28/three-shot-southeast-dc-apartment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/28/three-shot-southeast-dc-apartment/ |
The war in Ukraine is, let’s admit it, weird. Russian citizens can, at least theoretically, travel to Ukraine for business or pleasure, though now — only since June — they need visas. The belligerents are parties to a recent deal ensuring safe grain exports. Russian gas keeps flowing to Europe through Ukraine’s pipeline system, albeit in reduced volumes. Countries that supply weapons to Ukraine are also paying Russia for energy and fertilizer imports, thus also funding its war effort. It’s not easy to imagine any of this going on during, say, World War II.
If that tangle of relationships is not confusing enough, both Russia’s stated invasion goals and outsiders’ perceptions of them appear to be shifting shape on a monthly basis.
In one sense, Russia appears to have scaled back its goals. To achieve his stated objectives, the “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin attacked on a much broader front than Russia maintains today. When he then had to pull back from Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and parts of the Kharkiv Region, the objectives, which sounded like euphemisms for regime change, slid into the background. At this point, it is probably wrong to call them “goals”: Since they are not attainable in the foreseeable future with the resources the Kremlin — and Russians as a largely passive populace at war — have been willing to devote to the invasion, “dreams” is probably a better word.
In another sense, however, the goals appear to have expanded in reach. Initially, the only territorial ambitions Russia officially declared were confined to the administrative borders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which the respective puppet “People’s Republics” claimed as their land. Recently, however, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stated bluntly that “the geography has changed,” adding that Russia was now also interested in the Kherson Region in southern Ukraine and the Zaporozhzhia Region in the country’s center. Lavrov is the highest-placed Russian official to speak more or less openly of such plans. Coupled with the groundwork being laid by the occupying administrations for “referendums” that would call for the invaded areas to join Russia, his words are evidence that Russia intends to annex the territories outright rather than leave them in a gray zone as it did with the “People’s Republics” in 2015.
The easiest way to reconcile these diverging vectors is to assume that, having failed to secure a somewhat reduced Ukraine (minus Crimea and the two eastern regions) run by a pro-Kremlin government, Putin has decided to grab significantly more land instead, as a kind of compensation. But this weird war defies easy explanations. It’s far more likely that any Kremlin “planning” these days is reactive and ad hoc rather than strategic. Kremlin expectations appear to be shaped by battlefield events. Every shift in the military situation leads to a new “plan” that, if carried out, would allow Putin to declare victory.
When it turned out that the Russian military could not take Kyiv or the cities of northern Ukraine, the Kremlin concentrated its forces in the east, completing the invasion of Luhansk Region early this month.
This plan, however, ran into personnel issues. The draft-based armies of the “People’s Republics” have incurred enormous losses (just the admitted military casualties of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” approach 3,000 dead), and the poorer regions of Russia proper have already supplied most of the available recruits willing to sign military contracts — and their contingents account for a disproportionate amount of Russia’s military fatalities. A “hidden mobilization” echoing across Russian Telegram channels that offers able-bodied men, including prisoners, a chance to fight in Ukraine for attractive pay and their freedom is a slow and iffy process. Without more infantry, Russia cannot risk a frontal attack on Ukrainian fortifications around Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, the way it did in Mariupol and Severodonetsk, and there appears to be no other obvious way to complete the conquest of the Donetsk Region.
At the same time, increasingly powerful Western weapons have enabled Ukraine to hit military targets such as munitions warehouses and command centers deep in the occupied territory, killing more senior officers. In his interview with one of Russia’s top propagandists, Margarita Simonyan, Lavrov admitted that these weapons have changed the Kremlin’s calculus.
Putin’s attention appears to have shifted to defending Russia’s conquests in the south, where Ukraine has been threatening to launch a major counterattack to retake Kherson, and in the east, where the Ukrainian military has been shelling targets in and near Donetsk. The relatively weak Russian group of forces in the south has been beefed up and reinforced with more aviation and artillery support in recent days as it repelled Ukrainians’ probes.
Igor Girkin (Strelkov), who fought in Ukraine in 2014 and is one of the harshest nationalist critics of Russia’s conduct of the war today, has suggested on his Telegram channel that the current plan might be to defeat the Ukrainian military as it mounts an attack in the south and then push on against a weakened enemy in the east. If Strelkov is right, that would be at least the third major change of strategy in five months. And the annexation plans shaping up in the form of “referendums” indirectly support his argument. Making the land grab official before a negotiated end to the war can only mean one thing: A declaration by Russia that it will defend the new territories as its own.
It would be meant as a warning to Ukraine’s Western allies to be careful what weapons they supply — the U.S. administration already limits the range of the munitions it sends for fear of starting World War III — and it would, at least theoretically, spread Russia’s nuclear umbrella over parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. At the same time, it would reassure pro-Russian activists and Russia-backed administrations in the occupied territories that Russia would not abandon them — reassurance they sorely need in the face of Ukrainian guerilla action and threats to recover the lost territories.
In all these aspects, a formal annexation fits a defensive mindset. If Putin were still on the attack, he’d try to seize more territory, including a least another regional center — Kherson is the only one grabbed so far — then attempt to make a peace deal on his terms before claiming more land for Russia. In that case, a massive push in the Donetsk Region would already have started. The Institute for the Study of War reported that Russia’s “operational pause” was ending as early as July 15, but Russia has made no major moves in the region in the two weeks since.
As it is, holding on to what was grabbed in the first, chaotic weeks of the invasion appears to have become a priority for the Kremlin. Paradoxically, the seeming expansion of territorial ambitions comes as a sign of relative military weakness, not strength.
For that reason, any Western compromise-seeking at this point makes little sense. Why offer Putin anything if he’s increasingly willing to settle for less (even if “less” may sometimes look like “more,” at least in terms of occupied square miles)? As Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a keen observer of the Ukraine war, has argued, “The starting point to ending this war is by shaping the military balance of power so that Russia cannot make further advances.”
Any speculation that things are close to reaching that point is premature. The Russian military may be understaffed and poorly commanded, but it is adapting to new circumstances, new Western weapons in Ukraine’s hands and a shifting political vision in the Kremlin. It will fight a sound defensive battle, and in the end, whichever side shows more tenacity and fighting spirit will win in the south and, subsequently, in the east. If that side is Russia, Putin’s goals will shift again in the direction of February’s frustrated dreams. If it’s Ukraine, Putin will look for a way to claim even less and still portray himself as a winner.
The apparently planned annexation is a stop-loss move in this game of diminishing returns.
• Laughter Is a Weapon Putin Can’t Fire Back: Clara Ferreira Marques | 2022-07-28T05:41:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Have Putin’s Ukraine Goals Shrunk or Expanded? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/have-putins-ukraine-goals-shrunk-or-expanded/2022/07/28/f6ce8454-0e32-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/have-putins-ukraine-goals-shrunk-or-expanded/2022/07/28/f6ce8454-0e32-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Kais Saied, Tunisia’s president, ahead of a meeting with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, not pictured, in Brussels, Belgium, on Friday, June 4, 2021. Tunisia left its benchmark interest rate unchanged for another meeting as discussions continue with the International Monetary Fund on a new package to reform the ailing economy. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
On the day Tunisia’s democracy died, it fell to a State Department spokesperson to deliver the Biden administration’s mealy-mouthed pieties. Asked about the July 25 constitutional referendum that allowed President Kais Saied to institutionalize one-man rule in the North African nation, Ned Price offered the following observations (italics mine):
“Well, we note the outcome that has been reported by the Independent High Authority for Elections and civil society election observers. The referendum has been marked by low turnout. That is something we do note. A broad range of Tunisia’s civil society, media, and political parties have expressed deep concerns regarding the referendum. And in particular, we note the widespread concerns among many Tunisians regarding the lack of an inclusive and transparent process and limited scope for genuine public debate during the drafting of the new constitution. We also note concerns that the new constitution includes weakened checks and balances that could compromise the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
Note the absence of any direct criticism of the man who has garroted the Arab world’s most promising democracy. Instead of calling out Saied for his appropriation of near-absolute authority, the Biden administration once again failed to live up to its own billing as a defender of democracy.
There would have been plenty to criticize. Saied seized control of the election commission ahead of the vote, in addition to muzzling the media, jerry-rigging the judiciary, and jailing political opponents. And the overwhelming majority of Tunisians chose not to vote, undermining the autocrat’s attempt to legitimize his power grab by refusing to participate in the stage-managed exercise.
Even taking at face value the election commission’s claim of a 30.4% turnout, it was an abysmal showing for Saied. (In contrast, the Egyptian strongman Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi managed a 38.6% turnout for his 2014 constitutional referendum.) The president offered the lamest of excuses: More people would have voted if they had had two days, instead of one, Saied said.
In the days ahead, Saied’s opponents will make the most they can of the poor turnout to question the lawfulness of the new constitution — and by extension, the president’s right to rule. Like autocrats everywhere, Saied will seek alternative sources of legitimacy. Expect government-supported rallies celebrating the constitution in Tunis and expressions of fealty from the armed forces.
The president will also draw legitimacy from the willingness of foreign leaders — and especially leaders of democratic states — to do business with him. He will be reassured by reluctance of democracy’s defenders to even criticize, much less condemn, his sham of a referendum.
Saied will hope that the Biden administration does for him what the administration of President Barack Obama did for Sisi: Accept the new constitution as a fait accompli and look the other way as the Tunisian president uses it to tighten his grip over all levers of the state.
President Biden should deny Saied that satisfaction. Instead, the US president can start making up for his failure to protect Tunisia’s democracy by making it clear his administration has done more than “note” Saied’s attempt to institutionalize authoritarianism.
Biden is no slouch at using strong language in situations like this. Only last November, he condemned Nicaragua’s Manuel Noriega for staging a “pantomime” election. Saied should get similar treatment.
Presidential rhetoric aside, the official US position should be that the referendum was too flawed for the results to hold any validity. And any move by Saied to exercise the powers arrogated to the presidency in the new constitution should be met by full-throated condemnation and, where possible, economic sanctions.
Biden should demand that Saied restore the independence of Tunisia’s judiciary as well as the freedom of its press, and work with opposition parties toward a power-sharing arrangement and fresh elections.
If Saied refuses, the US should withhold all aid for Tunisia and encourage its European partners to do likewise. The Biden administration should also be prepared to exercise the US veto on any International Monetary Fund assistance for Tunisia.
That would hit Saied where it hurts the most. He desperately needs foreign funding and the IMF’s help to start repairing Tunisia’s crumbling economy. Failure to deliver on that front will swiftly remove even the limited support he enjoys, and put paid to any claims to legitimacy.
Biden has much to answer for his failure to live up to his professed values. In Tunisia, he has an opportunity to do something of note. | 2022-07-28T05:42:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tunisia’s Democracy Is Collapsing. Biden Shouldn’t Just Stand By. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/tunisias-democracy-is-collapsing-bidenshouldnt-just-stand-by/2022/07/28/f67efa88-0e32-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/tunisias-democracy-is-collapsing-bidenshouldnt-just-stand-by/2022/07/28/f67efa88-0e32-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Analysis by Therese Raphael and Sam Fazeli | Bloomberg
If we are blithely ignorant now of rates of Covid-19 infection, it’s largely thanks to vaccines, which kept most people free from serious illness. But the immune defenses we get from vaccines and from infection wane in time. Disease in circulation means the new variants and subvariants are likely, with no guarantee that they will be weaker or less transmissible than previous iterations.
The question for next winter and beyond is whether and how we’ll keep revaccinating the population. The White House convened scientists, doctors and researchers Tuesday to talk about next-generation vaccines. One option that has many excited are nasal spray vaccines, but there is also reason for caution.
Recent research by scientists at the University of Virginia and published in the journal Science Immunology indicates that people who have been infected with Covid-19 have a better immune response in their airways than those who have received messenger RNA vaccines. Jabs use a molecule synthesized in a lab to mimic an invader in order to help the body prepare its defenses. But the vaccines’ neutralizing antibody response in the nose/respiratory system is too weak. Scientists found that the omicron variant easily bypassed mucosal (nasal) antibodies in all but the unvaccinated patients who got seriously ill with Covid-19.
Serious illness is not how most of us want to get our defenses up. And nasal sprays are a cinch to administer. So what’s the problem? I spoke to Bloomberg Intelligence’s director of research Sam Fazeli on whether nasal sprays can help and where the gaps in our knowledge lie.
Therese Raphael: Existing vaccines are doing a very good job at protecting against serious illness. What can we get from nasal or oral vaccines that we’re not already getting?
Sam Fazeli: When vaccines are delivered intramuscularly, as all our current vaccines against Covid-19 are, they induce what is called a “humoral” response that is, represented by antibody production in the blood, as well as short- and long-lived immune B-cells and T-cells. But a SARS-CoV-2 infection takes hold in your respiratory tract by infecting cells which line your nose and lungs. So it would be better to have what is called “mucosal” immunity, made up of much the same types of responses: antibodies and B and T-cells.
With current vaccines, in the few weeks after a shot, there is so much antibody made in the blood that enough of it gets into the membranes of the nose and lungs so you get protected from infection. But as these levels inevitably fall, we find the risk of an initial infection starts to rise. A vaccine administered to the nose or lungs is expected to stimulate a mucosal immune reaction, with the potential to provide better protection for longer against that initial infection.
TR: How is it then, that those of us who have been infected by Covid-19 keep getting reinfections. If mucosal immunity is so good, surely it would protect us better.
SF: That is a very good question and one that hangs over the theory that intranasal or oral vaccines can provide better protection against a reinfection. However, let’s not forget that the situation is complicated by two issues. First, and most important, is the fact that the virus is changing and new variants escape prior immunity. So it may simply be that there is very good immune response in the mucosal surfaces, but that it’s just not able to prevent an infection by a variant that it does not recognize.
There is also another issue which is highlighted in a 2021 Nature Immunology paper: Fewer than 30% of people with moderate Covid had high levels of antibodies in their nasopharynx, even though about 80% of these same people had achieved what we call sero-conversion, or high levels of antibodies in their blood. A similar pattern was seen in patients with severe or critical Covid-19. So, based on this study, infection is not a guarantee for immune protection at the surface of the respiratory tracts.
TR: How often would we need those mucosal vaccines to limit “immune escape”? Do we want them in addition to mRNA vaccines or instead of them next winter?
SF: No one knows. It’s possible that a couple of boosters, perhaps containing some of the most troublesome variants, such as BA.4/5, may be enough to broaden the immune response enough so that future variants would have a tough time escaping from them. But, let’s be clear: We have very little data to support the notion that an intranasal vaccine will make a massive difference in terms of reducing transmission or reducing the risks of getting infected. Yes, you can theoretically get a much better immune response in the nose, but how long does this last? And will a vaccine be more effective than an infection, given what we discussed above?
TR: Which nasal spray vaccines are out there and what would convince both investors, and health authorities, that they are worth pursuing?
SF: The problem for investors are the uncertainties I already noted above, plus the fact that the only approved intranasal vaccine, Flumist (which is intended to fight common flu), has very little traction in the market. Some solid data is needed to convince people.
The other issue is that health authorities and governments seem to be on a mission to keep boosting people on a regular basis with a vaccine shot that was not designed for and is incapable of providing long-term protection against infection. This leaves investors wondering how anyone with an intranasal vaccine can get the data they need to prove they are better than the current shots.
TR: And yet new variants have been more highly transmissible and some countries, including the US, are still struggling to get people to get vaccinated and get boosters. That seems to boost the case for nasal vaccines. What kind of clinical trials should we be seeing and how long does that take? Should regulators be looking to accelerate this process?
SF: The biggest issue for developing these mucosal vaccines is this: You can’t use the relatively cheap “immuno-bridging” studies that Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are using for their infant shots and new variant-adapted booster shots. Basically, and by definition, the immune response induced by an intranasal or oral vaccine is not comparable to one induced by an intramuscular injection. So the only way to prove an intranasal shot works well is to do a head-to-head trial with a large enough number of people and during a wave of infections. And this is very expensive.
There is little regulators can do to speed up this basic need to prove the vaccines. The other issue is, of course, manufacturing. We have seen how tough this is for smaller companies by just looking at all the manufacturing problems that Novavax has had. Any company that wants to get an intranasal vaccine through to market has to deal with the major hurdle of producing large, consistent quantities of vaccine with a good shelf life.
More From These Writers and Others at Bloomberg Opinion:
How Worried Should You Be About Omicron BA.5?: Faye Flam
Monkeypox Treatments Aren’t Getting Enough Scrutiny: Lisa Jarvis | 2022-07-28T05:42:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why an Up-Your-Nose Covid Spray Will Be Costly - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-an-up-your-nose-covid-spray-will-be-costly/2022/07/28/f73ada00-0e32-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-an-up-your-nose-covid-spray-will-be-costly/2022/07/28/f73ada00-0e32-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Why Poor Nations Now Face a Pandemic Debt Crunch
Analysis by Sydney Maki | Bloomberg
A pedestrian passes in front of “For Sale” signs displayed outside a property in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Wednesday, Jan 30, 2019. Argentina’s capital typically witnesses a mass exodus when South American summer starts in late December. But with the economy in recession, a currency that lost half of its value since May, and salaries that can’t keep up with inflation, many have scrapped travel plans. (Bloomberg)
Some of the world’s poorest countries are in deep financial trouble. Indebted governments from Latin America to Africa spent money they didn’t have to shore up rickety health systems against the coronavirus pandemic and provide a safety net for citizens. Then Russia’s war in Ukraine sent grain and fuel prices surging and central banks began raising interest rates to quell inflation. Soaring living costs have triggered bouts of social and political instability and the odds are rising of a wave of bond defaults.
1. Which countries are most at risk?
Dollar-denominated bonds of 21 countries tracked by Bloomberg Economics, the most on record, were trading at yields at least 10 percentage points more than US Treasuries as of mid-July -- a sign of distress. El Salvador, Ghana, Egypt, Tunisia and Pakistan were among those seen as the most vulnerable. Others on the list include Argentina, Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador. Those under the most stress tend to be smaller countries with a shorter track record in international capital markets. Sri Lanka, which was wracked by months of protests over soaring inflation, became the first nation to default on its sovereign debt in 2022 when it stopped paying foreign bondholders in May. The following month, Russia reneged on its repayment commitments after getting caught up in a web of sanctions imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine, and its close ally Belarus followed suit in July.
2. Who has tried to help?
Led by the US, richer nations made an effort during the height of the pandemic to create trillions of dollars in new money through bond-buying programs and funnel a small portion of that to poorer countries through multilateral institutions. The Group of 20 major economies waived payments three times on official government-to-government borrowing for the world’s poorest nations, while the International Monetary Fund approved emergency financing for more than 80 countries. It offered the biggest resource injection in IMF history -- $650 billion in so-called special drawing rights, reserve assets that work like an overdraft and come with no conditions, unlike most of the fund’s other programs. While the funding packages did provide temporary reprieve, the recipients have been left with hefty bills that will need to be repaid even though their economies are still struggling.
3. Are we heading for a debt blowout?
Governments trying to pull their finances out of a deep hole have to maintain a delicate balance. They can be faced with the choice of either supporting their struggling populations or paying their creditors. While failure to meet their obligations can close off access to capital markets and make a comeback even harder, the risk of unrest looms large over countries that seek to curb spending or cut fuel subsidies -- as evidenced by the outbreak of protests from Panama to Mozambique. Rising US interest-rates have made their challenge even greater, boosting the dollar, weakening their currencies and raising the cost of servicing dollar-denominated debt. The cost to insure emerging-market debt against non-payment surged in mid-July to the highest since the pandemic struck in 2020, and World Bank Chief Economist Carmen Reinhart has warned that “debt risks and debt crises are not hypothetical.”
4. What are the chances of more debt relief?
Relatively slim. As of late July, the IMF was considering a range of options, including further SDR allocations as governments that took on extra debt in the past two years grapple with rising borrowing costs, but it hasn’t spelled out details. The United Nations has also called for the revival of a debt-relief program specifically for poor nations in Africa. World Bank President David Malpass warned in July that debt-reduction efforts have stalled for some years, and there was there was no process in place to address the issue. He’d previously estimated that the world’s poorest nations will need to pay about $35 billion to official bilateral and private-sector lenders this year, “way beyond” what they can afford.
5. What about China?
Forging debt relief agreements will increasingly hinge on China, which the World Bank said accounts for nearly 40% of the bilateral and private-creditor debt that the world’s poorest countries need to service this year. In May, China agreed to co-chair a creditors committee that’s looking at restructuring Zambia’s foreign debt following a 2020 default. The southern African nation’s external public liabilities topped $17.3 billion, with about one-third of the total owed to Chinese lenders. The outcome of those ongoing negotiations should give an indication of how the Asian nation will handle its other distressed creditors. | 2022-07-28T05:42:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Poor Nations Now Face a Pandemic Debt Crunch - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-poor-nations-now-face-a-pandemic-debt-crunch/2022/07/28/875a748c-0e2a-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-poor-nations-now-face-a-pandemic-debt-crunch/2022/07/28/875a748c-0e2a-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Leola One Feather, left, of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, observes as John Willis photographs Native American artifacts on July 19, 2022, at the Founders Museum in Barre, Massachusetts. The private museum, which is housed in the town library, is working to repatriate as many as 200 items believed to have been taken from Native Americans massacred by U.S. soldiers at Wounded Knee Creek in 1890. Willis is photographing the items for documentation, ahead of their expected return to the tribe. (AP Photo/Philip Marcelo) (Phil Marcelo/AP) | 2022-07-28T05:42:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wounded Knee artifacts highlight slow pace of repatriations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/wounded-knee-artifacts-highlight-slow-pace-of-repatriations/2022/07/28/8de95e72-0e33-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/wounded-knee-artifacts-highlight-slow-pace-of-repatriations/2022/07/28/8de95e72-0e33-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
In January, the Supreme Court denied Delphi retirees’ efforts review their case. The court effectively upheld a federal court's ruling that the law allows for distressed pension plans to be closed without court approval.
Another sponsor, Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, called it a case where “the federal government picked winners and losers here — and that’s not right.” | 2022-07-28T05:43:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rejected by courts, retirees take last shot to save pensions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rejected-by-courts-retirees-take-last-shot-to-save-pensions/2022/07/28/2d4b2080-0e2b-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rejected-by-courts-retirees-take-last-shot-to-save-pensions/2022/07/28/2d4b2080-0e2b-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Ukraine Live Briefing: U.S. makes Griner swap offer; widespread early-morni...
Ukraine Live Briefing: U.S. makes Griner swap offer; widespread early-morning strikes
Analysis from The Washington Post
The United States has made a “substantial proposal” to Moscow for the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner and security consultant Paul Whelan, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. In Ukraine, a series of air raid warnings rung out in the early morning, as strikes were reported outside of the capital, Kyiv, and in several other regions. Meanwhile, Kyiv’s efforts to retake Kherson gathered steam. Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Blinken’s announcement Wednesday about the prisoner-swap proposal furthered speculation that it may involve Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25-year sentence in Illinois for conspiring to kill U.S. nationals and selling weapons to terrorists.
Blinken’s announcement came hours after Griner took the stand, telling the court that her rights were not read to her when she was arrested in February. She also said the translation offered to her during the investigation was inadequate. Her trial is set to resume next week.
Russia is sustaining its offensive in eastern Ukraine but may otherwise be “unable to sustain a similar offensive operational tempo” elsewhere, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. Russia’s offensive “remains likely to culminate [in the east] before seizing any other major urban areas in Ukraine,” the analysts said.
Ukraine’s effort to recapture Kherson, in the south, is gathering momentum, according to the U.K. defense ministry. Ukraine bombed a key bridge early Wednesday for the third time in 10 days to stymie Russia there, ISW said, and the bridge is probably unusable. Ukraine’s defense ministry said the strikes on the bridge “create an impossible dilemma for Russian occupiers” there. “Retreat or be annihilated,” it said.
Russia struck an area north of the capital city Kyiv early Thursday, according to the Kyiv region’s governor, Oleksiy Kuleba. He said in a Telegram post that infrastructure in the area along the Dnipro River was hit and that information on victims was not yet clear. Local media reported there were no fatalities, citing a police official.
Ukraine’s second-largest power plant has been captured, in one of Moscow’s first significant gains in weeks. Russian-backed forces said Wednesday that they had taken the Vuhlehirsk power plant, and Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, confirmed the capture.
Moscow is focusing on establishing control of the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk and maintaining its hold on Kherson, Kharkiv and other regions, Ukraine’s armed forces said, saying that Russian forces are otherwise stagnant.
NASA officials are shrugging off Moscow’s announcement that it would depart the International Space Station partnership after 2024 and develop its own space station. Russia has not formally given the required one-year notice of departure to its ISS partners, and NASA officials said they would continue to operate as if nothing has changed.
Russian energy giant Gazprom cut the natural gas flowing to Germany by half, to about 20 percent capacity, on Wednesday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that it was “absolutely incorrect” that Russia is using gas as leverage to get the European Union to lift sanctions, Russian news agency Interfax reported.
Africa is being pushed to take sides in the Ukraine war, Post reporter Adam Taylor writes in Today’s WorldView.
When French President Emmanuel Macron visited Cameroon this week, he called out an entire continent for “hypocrisy.” Europe had decisively identified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a war, he said, but much of Africa had not. “I have seen too much hypocrisy, particularly on the African continent,” Macron continued, “and — I’m saying this very calmly — with some not calling it a war when it is one and saying they don’t know who started it because they have diplomatic pressures.”
The French leader’s remarks, which came on the second day of a three-nation tour of Africa, showed a sharp contrast with those from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who began his own four-nation tour of Africa on Saturday, singing praises for Africa and how the continent handled the fallout from the war in Ukraine.
The visits show a difficult reality for African nations facing a food crisis and soaring prices, Taylor writes. Many had sought to avoid taking a side on the war in Ukraine. But whether they like it or not, Africa has been dragged into the conflict. | 2022-07-28T08:14:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ |
Arrested last summer after arriving in Moscow with medical marijuana in his luggage, Marc Fogel’s case parallels the ordeal of WNBA star Brittney Griner. But his plight has mostly gone unnoticed.
At home in Oakmont, Pa., Jane Fogel now wears her wedding ring with husband Marc's wedding ring, as she reads the letters she has received from him since his imprisonment in Russia. (Jeff Swensen for The Washington Post)
OAKMONT, Pa. — The “other American” imprisoned in Russia has a name, too.
He was always just Mr. Fogel to the students he entranced with lectures about the Cold War. But he is Marc Hilliard Fogel on his well-worn passports, abundantly stamped from his many years of teaching International Baccalaureate history courses at schools attended by the children of U.S. diplomats and the global elite in Colombia, Venezuela, Oman, Malaysia and, for the past 10 years, in Russia.
Fogel’s charmed life has turned dark at the age of 60. He never sought notoriety. But he and his family slowly have come to the realization that telling the world his name could be his salvation.
For the past 11 months, Fogel has languished in Russian detention centers following his August 2021 arrest for trying to enter the country with about half an ounce of medical marijuana he’d been prescribed in the United States for chronic pain after numerous injuries and surgeries. First he endlessly awaited trial, often in crowded, smoke-choked cells. More recently, he has been serving the first weeks of an incomprehensible 14-year sentence handed down by a Russian judge in June.
Fogel’s plight parallels a similar case that has played big on news websites, led cable newscasts and prompted White House pronouncements: the trial of WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner, who also was arrested for attempting to enter Russia with a small amount of medical marijuana. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the United States has made a “substantial proposal” to Russia to secure the release of Griner and another jailed American, Paul Whelan, who is serving a 16-year Russian sentence on spy charges he has denied.
Marc Fogel’s wife, Jane Fogel, said in an interview after the news broke that she’s still hoping her husband can be included in a swap. But those hopes are fading, she said, speaking publicly for the first time about her husband’s case.
“There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that Marc will be left behind,” Jane Fogel said Wednesday after the announcement about the possible swap including Griner and Whelan. “It’s terrifying. I would hope that President Biden and especially first lady Jill Biden, who is an educator, realize the importance of including Marc in addition to Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.”
In suburban Pittsburgh, Jane Fogel has been watching the Griner case spool out and wondered whether her husband has been forgotten. Griner’s wife, Cherelle, received a call from the president. The Fogels have been stalled at the mid-functionary level of the U.S. State Department. Speculation about a possible prisoner swap before Blinken’s announcement on Wednesday had earlier trickled into his Russian prison cell, compounding his anxiety.
“That hurt,” Marc Fogel wrote in a letter home referencing the prisoner-exchange reports. “Teachers are at least as important as bballers.”
In an email reply to an inquiry from The Washington Post, a State Department official said the agency is aware of Fogel’s case but did not provide any further information, citing privacy reasons. The official did not respond to interview requests.
After Biden’s call with Griner’s wife, the White House issued a summary of the conversation saying he told her the U.S. government was working hard to secure the release of Griner and another American and Whelan. Biden added that his administration is pushing for the release of “other” U.S. nationals imprisoned in Russia and other countries. Marc Fogel’s name did not appear.
“It seems like the government is working really hard for Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan,” Jane Fogel, 60, said in an interview last week at her home, surrounded by mementos of the family’s world-wandering. “We want them to work for us, too.”
Jane Fogel was quick to point out that she’s hopeful Griner and Whelan will also be released. Griner herself has issued a statement pleading for the release of other Americans. It’s hard to escape the dread that her husband’s case will never become a priority. That she may never see him again. At times, she said, tearfully, she feels like a “widow.”
Encouraging students to ‘live life’
Marc Fogel was always the lucky one. No matter the tricky situation, he seemed to land on his feet, like a cat, his friends would say.
Personable, athletic, a little silly sometimes, the Pittsburgh-area native with that big radiant smile, the square jaw, the thick head of wavy hair, could chat up anyone. Things were forever falling into place for him. A madcap idea to hitchhike from Prince George’s County, where he was teaching at a public middle school, to see the 1994 Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Pittsburgh led to a chance encounter with his future wife, Jane, a high school friend he’d seen only occasionally since they graduated a decade-and-a-half earlier.
Marc Fogel had a kind of wanderlust that was irresistible. Lying on a beach in Thailand one New Year’s Eve in the mid-1990s, he and Jane came up with a plan — they’d get married, have children and teach abroad. Jane told her mother that she’d be back in eight months. It turned out to be 27 years.
They went to places that evoked fear and blank stares among their friends and family. And they gushed about them. The country house surrounded by flowers where they lived outside Medellín, Colombia; the home at the beach in Oman where their eldest son learned to snorkel. An exception was Caracas, Venezuela, where a neighbor was murdered and a student’s father was seriously injured in a shooting. Their movements became so limited because of safety concerns that their sons, Sam and Ethan, staged what they jokingly call “a coup” to get the family to move.
Former students remember Marc as an upbeat presence in their lives, who was always saying, “‘It’s a great day to be alive!’ He encouraged the students to also live life, not just ponder it,” said Jukka Haapakoski, a student of Marc’s in Kuala Lumpur in the 1990s who is now CEO of a Finnish organization that advocates on behalf of unemployed people.
In 2012, after leaving Caracas, the Fogels landed jobs at the Anglo-American School in Moscow, a prestigious $34,000-a-year, pre-K-12 institution that had been established by the U.S., Canadian and British embassies. Their salaries were far beyond anything they could make teaching in the United States. They had an apartment on a vibrant Moscow street. They loved the place. They bopped around Europe visiting friends on school breaks.
They mingled with the embassy crowd and taught their kids. Michael McFaul, a Stanford University professor who was U.S. ambassador to Russia for part of the Fogels’ tenure in Moscow, said his son was captivated by Marc’s infectious teaching style.
“Mr. Fogel, as he called him, made him excited about these issues in a way that he’d never been before, despite having met [President] Barack Obama and all kinds of fancy people,” McFaul said.
In the past few years, as tensions between the United States and Russia grew, it became harder for the Fogels to persuade family and friends that they were in some kind of schoolteacher paradise.
“I would say, ‘What are you doing there? Putin is a monster,’” Marc’s sister, Elise Hyland, said. Her brother always responded by saying Russians are “lovely people,” and that “you have to understand their culture to understand what’s happening now,” Hyland recalled.
Marc was careful to avoid any impression that he was taking political positions, said his friend and fellow teacher, Steve Coffey. Sometimes they would change lunch plans just to avoid neighborhoods where demonstrations might be happening.
All the while, Marc’s body was falling apart. He’d had surgeries on his back and shoulder, and a knee replacement. The pain was never-ending. He walked with a pronounced limp. Coffey remembers his friend’s signature farewell after a long day: “All right, buddy, I’m going to go hit the bath.”
Marc was adamant about not taking opioids. In 2021, a doctor recommended he try medical marijuana. It not only helped with the pain — he liked it in the same way someone else might like a glass of wine or a beer.
While home in Pennsylvania for the summer break in 2021, Marc and Jane had to decide whether they’d go back to Russia. Jane was hesitant to return, but her husband talked her into it. Just one more year. Then he would retire, and they could live in their snug Oakmont house with the big oak tree out back and the bay window overlooking the lawn. They could host barbecues. They could make new friends in their neighborhood.
After three decades abroad, a “normal” life, as she put it, sounded “exotic.”
‘I’m really in trouble’
On Aug. 14, 2021, the Fogels landed at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow after the long flight from New York on the Russian airline Aeroflot. When they deplaned, Jane noticed they were in a different terminal than usual with more security, a change from the lax environment they’d encountered in previous years. She stopped at the restroom and her husband went ahead to the security checkpoint.
When she caught up with him, she could tell something was wrong. His breath had quickened so much that his mask was inflating and deflating like a balloon.
“Jane,” he said, “I’m really in trouble.”
He’d packed 14 vape cartridges of medical marijuana into his suitcase, stuffing some in his shoes, and placed some cannabis buds in a contact lens case, his wife said. Jane said she had no idea he’d done it. But why take such a risk?
“It’s pretty simple,” his son Ethan said of his father’s plan to bring medical marijuana into Russia. “He thought he could get away with it.”
Still, this lucky man, this man who always seemed to have things go his way, assumed this would be a situation that wouldn’t end up so badly. Maybe he’d just get deported. Maybe he’d pay a fine or get a light punishment of some sort. Maybe.
Instead, the Russians charged him with drug possession and intent to sell marijuana to his students.
While waiting for his trial, Fogel kept a diary, pouring out his vacillating emotions, from optimism to despair and back again. On the first pages of a notebook with a blue cover, he scrawled 53 things that gave him hope or made him happy or that he looked forward to when — if — he won his freedom.
Number 1: “Jane is receiving 1,000s of supportive letters.”
Number 8: “Another person got out after paying a fine.”
Number 53: “I found a Frank Zappa picture in a Russian magazine.”
He writes about the confusion and upheaval of being transferred over and over among the network of notorious pretrial detention centers. In one, he encounters a “guardian angel” whose brother sends them boxes of food; he invents a cornhole-style game using “gruel bowls” and dried apricots. In another, he has to kneel to get nasty food passed through a small window in his cell, and he’s not allowed outside for days.
At one point he refers to his notebook as his “dark journal.” He suspects the Russians are trying to “break” him, employing a method of creating misery, “tried & true & right now I feel it in my bones, my soul, it teems throughout my body.” He senses a “lack of empathy from these heartless bastards.”
He chastises himself for ruining his life and that of his family. He dreams of scary bears. He wonders whether he’ll ever see his 93-year-old mother again. When he looks at his face in a mirror he thinks his “crying has carved new lines.”
‘He was stunned’
Marc Fogel did not deny trying to bring medical marijuana into Russia. What he asked for was leniency.
He promised the judge in his case that if he were released, he’d act almost like a tourism promoter, extolling the delights of Moscow and the affection he had for its residents — the same things he’d been telling his family and friends in the United States for years, according to Irina Pigman, a Russian-born business executive whose husband is from the United States.
Fogel thought he had a chance.
He probably didn’t.
U.S.-Russia relations were strained then, as they are now, by U.S. support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion in February 2022.
Russian prosecutors had painted him as a “large-scale” drug dealer intent on selling drugs to his students and falsely labeled him an employee of the U.S. Embassy, assertions that were repeated in some Western media accounts.
At The Post’s request, Jane Fogel provided documentation — payroll statements from two different years and an employee verification letter dated the month before his arrest — that shows her husband was employed by the Anglo-American School of Moscow. Additionally, McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia who befriended the Fogels in Moscow, said in an interview that Fogel was not an embassy employee or an American diplomat.
Jane Fogel also provided The Post with copies of her visas, which she said are the same type as those her husband received. At the time of his arrest, the school where they taught had sponsored their visa applications and they received a type of visa typically granted to professionals designated as “highly qualified specialists.”
In previous years, they’d received visas sponsored by the U.S. Embassy that labeled them “technical employees,” a term of art that allowed them to work in Russia at the invitation of the embassy and afforded them certain diplomatic protections, even though they were not employed by the U.S. government. The embassy was involved because the school had been chartered by the American, British and Canadian embassies but overseen by a separate school board. The change in the Fogels’ visa status took place in 2021 when the school transitioned to being a nonprofit institution.
On the June day that Fogel was sentenced, Pigman watched the former teacher’s face change as the Russian judge read a lengthy statement culminating in a 14-year sentence.
“It was like he grew old all of a sudden,” Pigman said in a telephone interview from her home in Moscow. “He was stunned.”
Three weeks later, Griner — the WNBA star who was detained in Russia on drug charges in February — pleaded guilty. She’s awaiting sentencing. The family of Whelan, the ex-Marine serving a long sentence on spying charges, has been critical of the attention given to Griner’s case by Biden. His sister said on CNN that she wished her brother was receiving similar treatment. Several days later Biden called her.
Jane Fogel remained quiet. She was following the guidance of U.S. officials and informal advisers who said public comments could make things worse for her husband. The tactic didn’t seem to be working, and she’s become increasingly impatient.
She has grown frustrated that she has not received more information from the State Department on her trips to Washington to discuss her husband’s case. The officials are polite and empathetic, but they tell her almost nothing, she said. One of the most nettlesome and baffling dilemmas she’s faced is that the State Department has not declared her husband “wrongfully detained,” a designation granted to Whelan and Griner that would shift the handling of his case to the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, which negotiates releases.
Richard Burt, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany who is now a powerhouse Washington lobbyist, is one of those pressing for the designation. Burt has told her that she’s only made it to the sixth floor at the State Department, but that they need to get her to the seventh floor where Blinken, the secretary of state, and the other highest ranking U.S. diplomats have offices.
Burt and McFaul have quietly been nudging the U.S. government on behalf of the Fogels. McFaul says his conversations through private channels with U.S. officials have led him to believe Marc Fogel is “definitely on their radar. It’s not just the other two Americans.”
Fogel is planning to appeal his conviction, but it’s highly unlikely that imprisoned Americans can win release by going through the Russian court system. (The Fogels draw some hope from the possible precedent of a case involving Audrey Lorber, an American teenager whose was released from prison in 2019, one month after being caught bringing marijuana into Russia.)
McFaul has come to the conclusion that the “only viable option” for Griner, Whelan and Fogel is a prisoner exchange. In April, retired U.S. Marine Trevor Reed, who had been sentenced to nine years in prison, was exchanged for a Russian pilot who had been in a U.S. jail since 2010.
At home, Jane Fogel listens to talk of a prisoner swap and fights the urge to get her hopes too high.
One recent evening, McFaul sent her a clip of him discussing prisoner swaps during a cable news segment. Fogel pulled it up on her phone at the dinner table.
Unprompted, McFaul mentioned his “friend” who’d taught in Russia and was now serving 14 years in a Russian prison. There was a pause. She leaned forward and heard the anchor say what she’d been longing to hear.
Her mouth curled into a wide smile and she let out a little yip of delight: “They said his name!” | 2022-07-28T09:32:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Marc Fogel is serving 14 years in Russia for a small amount of pot - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/28/marc-fogel-teacher-russia-prison/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/07/28/marc-fogel-teacher-russia-prison/ |
Motorcyclist dies a month after crash in Fairfax County
A motorcycle driver has died almost a month after he was involved in a crash in Fairfax County.
Police said the crash happened June 29 when the motorcyclist — who was later identified as Brian Perry, 63, of Sterling — was headed east on Braddock Road. He drove off the road onto asphalt and lost control and crashed, according to Fairfax County Police.
He was taken to a hospital and died on July 12. Officials said detectives believe “speed and alcohol were not factors in the crash,” according to a statement. | 2022-07-28T10:02:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Motorcyclist dies a month after crash in Fairfax County - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/28/driver-dies-after-crash-in-fairfax-county/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/28/driver-dies-after-crash-in-fairfax-county/ |
A driver who was involved in a Tuesday crash has died in Maryland
Police in Prince George's County said a driver has died after a crash in the District Heights area. (iStock) (Prince George's County Police)
A 61-year-old driver has died after he was involved in a crash on Tuesday in Prince George’s County.
Local police identified the driver as Anthony Beverly Sr. of Upper Marlboro. Officials said an initial investigation found that Beverly was driving around 8:25 p.m. in the 6300 block of Elmhurst Street near County Road in the District Heights area. He hit a curb and then a tree and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police. | 2022-07-28T10:07:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A driver who was involved in a Tuesday crash has died in Maryland - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/28/driver-who-was-involved-tuesday-crash-has-died-maryland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/28/driver-who-was-involved-tuesday-crash-has-died-maryland/ |
Student Frederic Pryor, second from left, with his parents and twin brother in New York on Feb. 11, 1962, a day after being released from an East German prison, where he was held on spying charges. (Matty Zimmerman/AP)
Washington’s “substantial proposal” to Moscow aimed at freeing WNBA star Brittney Griner and security consultant Paul Whelan from Russian detainment follows a long history of prisoner swaps between the adversaries.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby declined to elaborate on the details, but Kirby said the Biden administration is “pursuing every avenue” to bring Griner and Whelan home.
News of the U.S. proposal follows the April exchange of former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko in Turkey after months of negotiations. At the time, Bill Richardson, a retired lawmaker and diplomat who helped secure Reed’s release, told The Post that he hoped the exchange would pave the way for others and show that “both countries can, despite our enormous differences, achieve a humanitarian breakthrough.”
On July 27 National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed the offer of a prisoner swap with Russia in exchange for Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan. (Video: The Washington Post)
A swap with Griner and Whelan would be the latest in Washington’s decades-long history of trading captives with Moscow. The approach has cooled tensions and brought Americans and allies home, though critics have argued that exchanges incentivize taking Americans hostage.
“There’s a balance to be achieved with each and every arrangement,” Kirby told reporters at a news briefing. “The balance of getting folks home, but also making sure that our own national security is preserved and that … we’re not encouraging hostage-taking.”
The first major swap between the United States and the Soviet Union took place in February 1962, over the Glienicke Bridge linking East and West Germany. The Americans released convicted KGB spy Rudolf Abel in return for U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers, whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. An American student in East German custody, Frederic Pryor, was also released as part of the deal.
However, that swap almost never happened. U.S. authorities were seeking the death penalty for Abel after his arrest in 1957. His American lawyer, James Donovan broached the idea of a prisoner exchange in arguing that Abel not be given the death penalty.
“It is possible that in the foreseeable future,” Donovan said, “an American of equivalent rank will be captured by the Soviet Union or an ally. At such time, an exchange of prisoners could be considered to be in the best interest of the United States.”
In 1960, Powers’s plane was shot down over the Ural mountains in the Soviet Union, setting the scene for the swap.
The exchange was later depicted in the 2015 Hollywood film “Bridge of Spies” — the nickname given to the Glienicke Bridge, which hosted several more prisoner trades during the Cold War. Actor Tom Hanks played Donovan.
After more exchanges in the ensuing years, Washington and Moscow arranged the biggest East-West swap of its kind when they traded more than two dozen people over the Glienicke Bridge in June 1985. The United States released three convicted spies and one under indictment, including Polish spy Marian Zacharski, who was convicted of stealing top-secret military technology.
In return, 23 people held in East German and Polish jails were freed. Two more East Germans and their families were also allowed to leave for the West.
It took three years to reach a deal on the swap, The Washington Post reported at the time. Richard Burt, who would go on to serve as the U.S. ambassador to West Germany, expressed satisfaction, saying those released by the Russians were “very, very happy people.” A year later, another swap would see Russian Nobel laureate Anatoly Sharansky freed by Soviet authorities.
Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, prisoner exchanges have continued.
In 2010, American authorities released 10 Russian agents who had burrowed deep into American society by posing as citizens — later inspiring the TV show “The Americans.” In return, the Kremlin agreed to release four Russian officials it had jailed for illegal contacts with the West.
The expelled Russian spies included Anna Chapman, whose high-profile espionage case gained her international attention. After her return home, she appeared on Russian television and on the cover of the Russian edition of Maxim magazine, wearing lingerie and holding a gun.
Post celebrity columnist Liz Kelly at the time expressed tongue-in-cheek relief: “I sleep soundly knowing that this red(headed) menace is thousands of miles away from American shores, now limited to practicing her seduction on Russians.”
Although officials have not confirmed details of the Griner-Whelan proposal, Blinken’s comments intensify speculation about a possible prisoner swap involving Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year prison sentence in Illinois for conspiring to kill Americans and selling weapons to terrorist entities.
Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration, told The Post in April 2020 that swapping someone such as Bout for Whelan would put the United States in “a difficult place.”
“There’s a real asymmetry swapping an innocent American for a real convicted criminal who just happens to have Russian citizenship,” McFaul said. | 2022-07-28T10:16:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Proposal for Griner, Whelan follows history of U.S.-Russia prisoner swaps - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/griner-whelan-swap-cold-war/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/griner-whelan-swap-cold-war/ |
Morocco builds ‘ecosystem of repression’ to quash dissent, report says
Journalist and activist Omar Radi speaks after a hearing outside a courthouse in Casablanca, Morocco, in March 2020. Radi had been targeted in a defamation campaign by state-aligned media, surveilled through Pegasus spyware and convicted for a tweet. (Abdeljalil Bounhar/AP)
The Moroccan government has created an “ecosystem of repression” to stifle criticism, through smear campaigns against dissidents, intimidation of their relatives and digital surveillance, according to new findings by Human Rights Watch.
A report by the rights group based on two years of research, released Thursday, argues that in addition to the speech-related charges that the Moroccan government has long used to stifle critics, authorities increasingly accuse journalists and dissidents of more serious crimes, such as sexual assault, and sentence them to prison in unfair trials.
“Authorities use a playbook of underhanded tactics to repress dissenters while striving to keep intact Morocco’s image as a rights-respecting country,” Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement accompanying the report.
Morocco sought in recent decades to portray itself as a standout in the region on human rights, beginning in the 1990s when the late king Hassan II — known for his brutal repression of dissidents — began to soften his rule.
“Since then, Morocco has always played as one of its cards, ‘We are moving forward on human rights, we are increasingly democratizing,’ ” said Eric Goldstein, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division. But the Arab Spring, which began in Tunisia in late 2010, scared the monarchy, and “they decided to basically put the genie back in the bottle.”
“Now we’re in a situation where there isn’t really a Moroccan exception,” he said.
Still, Morocco has sought to maintain perceptions, Goldstein said — so authorities have turned to the subtler, more sophisticated methods of repression detailed in the report.
“These are insidious means that are used to take down some of the few remaining outspoken dissidents in the country,” Goldstein said. “All of them at first glance can appear to not have the fingerprints of authorities.”
The playbook described in the report consists of harassment campaigns in pro-government media, unfair trial proceedings and pretrial detentions, intimidation, suspicious street assaults that authorities do not investigate, the targeting of relatives of dissidents, financial repercussions and surveillance.
Surveillance tactics include the installation of hidden video cameras in dissidents’ homes and cars following targets in the streets, according to the report. Pegasus spyware, produced by the Israeli firm NSO Group, has also been used to hack the smartphones of journalists, Amnesty International found previously.
Morocco has denied using the spyware on journalists and politicians. NSO Group has said it only sells to government customers and pledged to investigate alleged abuses of its technology.
All told, the tactics represent “a comprehensive methodology to muzzle dissent,” the report says.
Among the most high-profile examples is the case of Omar Radi, a Moroccan investigative journalist who was arrested two years ago, who had become well known for exposing state corruption and defending protesters. Radi had been targeted in a defamation campaign by state-aligned media, surveilled through Pegasus spyware and convicted over a tweet.
In July 2020, Hafsa Boutahar, Radi’s former colleague at the news site Le Desk, accused Radi of indecent assault and rape. Radi said they had consensual sex. He was arrested July 29, 2020, and spent a year in pretrial detention without proper justification, the report says.
Spyware technology found on phone of Moroccan journalist, report says
Radi, 36, was convicted of both rape and espionage in a combined trial in July 2021 and sentenced to six years in prison. An appeals court upheld the sentence in March.
The espionage charge was “bogus,” Goldstein said. “On the rape case, all we say is, he did not have a fair trial.”
“Independent journalists in the country are repeatedly harassed and slapped with absurd charges, and Moroccan authorities are not fooling anyone with this retaliatory judicial sham,” Sherif Mansour, the Middle East and North Africa program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, a rights group, said in a statement at the time of his sentencing.
Authorities did not allow Radi to see his case file for almost a year after his arrest, denied him access to a Belgian lawyer who traveled to assist in his defense and rejected a defense witness, according to the report.
“In the past, dissidents in Morocco were faced with clear-cut political trials, which made them heroes and earned them public opinion support,” Maati Monjib, a historian and free speech activist, said in a video accompanying the report. “Nowadays, they are accused of rape, theft, treason. This is more efficient because they are cut off from public support.”
Monjib, whose smartphone was infected with Pegasus spyware, was jailed for three months last year on money-laundering charges. He was freed after the U.S. Congress’s human rights commission called for his release.
It’s difficult to prove that such charges are politically motivated, and their sensitive nature makes these cases radioactive in diplomatic circles — which is precisely the point, the report argues.
Accusations of sexual assault and other serious crimes must be taken seriously, the report says. But Moroccan authorities have “weaponized #MeToo,” Goldstein warned, referring to the global movement against sexual harassment. The report points out numerous violations of due process and other rights in these judicial proceedings, and calls for dissidents to be tried fairly.
In one instance, newspaper employee Afaf Bernani fled the country after she was convicted in 2018 for “defamation” of the police. She had accused the police of forging a statement saying that opposition newspaper publisher Taoufik Bouachrine, her former boss, had sexually assaulted her.
Journalists and activists have also been convicted of obtaining an illegal abortion or participating in consensual sexual activity that is prohibited under Moroccan law, including sex outside of marriage. Details of their private lives — true or not — have been aired widely in the courtroom and in Moroccan media, tarnishing their reputations in the largely conservative, Muslim society.
As a result of the persecution they have faced, some of the dissidents cited in the report who aren’t behind bars have fled the country. Two critical media institutions — the Moroccan Association for Investigative Journalism and Akhbar al-Youm, an independent newspaper shuttered under pressure last year — were also “relentlessly harassed” by police and judicial authorities, the report says.
Human Rights Watch called on the Moroccan government to uphold the right to privacy and to repeal laws criminalizing consensual same-sex relationships, sex between adults who are not married, abortion and adultery.
Researchers spent years delving into the details of the eight cases in the report with the aim of prompting Morocco’s democratic allies, including the United States and countries in the European Union, to put more pressure on the Moroccan government to respect human rights.
“The service we hope to provide is to give the evidence of why these charges are bogus” and constitute forms of state-sponsored repression, Goldstein said. | 2022-07-28T10:16:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Morocco builds ‘ecosystem of repression’ to quash dissent, HRW says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/morocco-repression-journalists-opposition-human-rights-watch-report/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/morocco-repression-journalists-opposition-human-rights-watch-report/ |
Environmentally friendly apartments coming to Hyattsville, Md.
The Six will include 316 apartments, more than 2,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and a parking garage for 276 vehicles. (BCT Design Group)
Construction has begun on the Six, a new apartment building that will be the first in Prince George’s County, Md., designed to meet the requirements of National Green Building Standard Gold certification.
The Six, at 6400 America Blvd. in Hyattsville, will be built with sustainable materials and construction processes. In addition, the apartments will have Energy Star appliances, the landscaping will include only native plants, and at least five percent of parking spaces will be allocated as electric vehicle charging stations.
The Six will include 316 apartments, more than 2,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and a parking garage for 276 vehicles. The apartments, a mix of efficiency and one- and two-bedroom units, are expected to be ready for occupancy in summer 2024.
The Six meets criteria established by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments to provide more affordable housing in designated areas. Seventy-five percent of the units will rent for less than $2,499.
The Six is one mile from the University of Maryland’s main campus and about a half mile from the Prince George’s Plaza Metro station. Residents at the Six will be close to the Hyattsville Arts District, which has galleries, parks, breweries, restaurants, shops and nightlife. The Six’s name pays tribute to Hyattsville’s original six neighborhoods. Murals will be commissioned from local artists to honor the community’s artistic vibe.
Amenities at the Six will include a rooftop pool, a two-level fitness center and yoga studio, co-working areas, courtyard and rooftop entertaining areas with fireplaces and grills, bike parking, a bike workshop, a pet spa and package areas.
The project was funded, designed and built by a team including Perseus TDC, Griffin Capital, Transwestern Development, Potomac Investment Properties, BTC Design Group, Studios Architecture, Parker Rodriguez, Bohler and CBG Builders Group. | 2022-07-28T10:16:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Environmentally friendly apartments coming to Hyattsville, Md. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/28/environmentally-friendly-apartments-coming-hyattsville-md/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/28/environmentally-friendly-apartments-coming-hyattsville-md/ |
Analysis by Shannon O'Neil | Bloomberg
Four decades later, Chile’s system hasn’t worked as promised or expected. The creators anticipated that the average worker would save enough to earn 70% of their salary in retirement; the reality has been closer to one-third. They thought the new system would expand the number of workers with retirement funds; instead nearly 40% of Chileans have nothing to fall back on. Rather than improve the lives of Chile’s elderly, most pensioners live on less than the minimum wage, with women hit harder than men.
Why did Chile’s experiment fail? The low private payouts to retirees reflect in part low contributions. Unlike in the US, Europe and other places, employers were not compelled to contribute. That was left to employees. At 10% of their salaries, the inflows often aren’t enough to retire on, even after compounding for years. Small sums in means small sums out.
Add to this the years many workers don’t contribute at all. With 1 in 4 jobs in Chile off the books, many workers will, at some or many points in their economically active lives, not contribute. The self-employed also could choose whether to join, and many didn’t. Sporadic contributions lowered retirement nest eggs too.
And particularly in the program’s early years, excessive fees cut the initial pot that could grow over workers’ lives. Chile’s pension funds charge on flows not assets. Many funds were initially taking 25 or even 30 pesos of every 100 off the top (rather than say 1 peso a year for 25-30 years). Commissions have fallen significantly since then. Still, many charge 10% or more of the initial payroll deposits as their fee. In contrast, the administrative fees for US Social Security are less than 2% (in part because there are no marketing costs). With fewer pesos invested and compounding over time, the non-wealthy have found it hard to accumulate enough for a decent pension, even with good returns.
Previous governments in Chile have tried to fix these problems. In 2008 Michelle Bachelet’s government created public pensions for those whose savings didn’t amount to enough for a minimum pension, as well as those outside of the private system, expanding to nearly 6 in 10 wage earners. In 2021, President Sebastian Pinera, whose brother was one of the private system’s designers, expanded the public component even more to cover the bottom 80% of retirees.
Chile’s new president and congress look to go further. President Gabriel Boric will put forward a bill in August to raise the minimum pension from just under US $200 to match Chile’s minimum wage of roughly US $300 a month and make it available to all retirees. He would all but end the current private system by making a public pay-as-you-go system the main pillar of social security. Private accounts would be relegated to a more 401K-style option for voluntary retirement contributions.
Shannon O’Neil is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a senior fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the upcoming “The Globalization Myth: Why Regions Matter.” | 2022-07-28T10:16:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chile’s Failed Pensions Are Neoliberalism’s Badge of Shame - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/chiles-failed-pensions-are-neoliberalisms-badge-of-shame/2022/07/28/dd9bc77e-0e5c-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/chiles-failed-pensions-are-neoliberalisms-badge-of-shame/2022/07/28/dd9bc77e-0e5c-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
History explains why the left is mad over Biden’s student loan relief
The left hoped to correct a century of half measures. Instead, they got another.
Perspective by Elizabeth Tandy Shermer
Elizabeth Tandy Shermer is an associate professor of history at Loyola University Chicago and the author of "Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning in College Debt," which Harvard University Press will publish in August 2021.
People gather near the White House to tell President Biden to cancel student debt. (Paul Morigi/Getty Images)
On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that President Biden is considering an extension of the moratorium on student loan payments, as well as forgiving $10,000 in student loan debt for some borrowers. This follows two months of silence on the issue after it leaked that Biden was considering $10,000 in relief for individuals making less than $150,000 a year, which student debt activists vocally denounced as insufficient — even as conservatives labeled it a regressive giveaway for high-earning professionals.
But Biden’s limited plan was made by history as much as by current fears about burdensome debts, spiraling prices and midterm elections. A little help, but not for everyone, has been a fundamental part of the federal government’s approach to helping Americans go to college since the 1930s. Why? Like most things in Washington, it has always come down to politics.
Top New Dealers, for example, urged President Franklin D. Roosevelt to use an executive order to create the National Youth Administration (NYA) in 1935. Journalists and activists had been pressuring the White House to do something big for the many Americans between the ages of 16 and 25, who disproportionately struggled to find work but often could not afford to stay in school. And a handful of college presidents had approached Roosevelt about a student loan program.
Democrats certainly seemed to have the congressional majorities to take action. White House officials nonetheless feared asking lawmakers to create another big program that summer when one or both houses of Congress had just passed some of the New Deal’s most iconic pieces of legislation — including the 1935 National Labor Relations, Social Security and multiple banking acts. These bills and measures already signed (like the 1934 National Housing Act) required Congress to approve a substantial increase in the federal government’s and executive branch’s size and power. No one could be sure Congress would approve more.
But Roosevelt stopped short of bold action. His late-June Executive Order 7086 allocated just $50 million for the new NYA, which ran the first federal work-study program. The president’s inner circle never considered experimenting with student loans, which seemed to epitomize the problems that were plaguing the banking system. After all, unlike the mortgage program in the National Housing Act, no one could repossess course credits or degrees for failure to pay.
But New Dealers liked the idea of young people working so that they could study. The funds for that and other NYA experiments came from money already allocated for the Works Progress Administration to avoid a conflict with Congress and established the precedent for future student aid. There were a few rules that mandated support for the neediest students as well as the maximum hourly wages and number of hours recipients could work, but campus officials basically got to decide which students would receive financial assistance.
In practice, most of this help went to White men. That bothered NYA director Aubrey Williams, but his staff generally ignored such concerns.
Moreover, reports indicated that there simply was not enough aid to help the many students in need. Even those chosen generally did not earn enough to avoid having to find another part-time job. They did, however, take home enough to stay in school — excelling far beyond the expectations of many faculty and administrators. Eighty percent of schools participating in the program reported that work-studiers outperformed their peers in the classroom. They also impressed faculty. The University of Colorado’s president said in 1937 that he had never found students, “so eager, so earnest, and so hard-working.”
But academic success and faculty praise were not enough to save the NYA during the bitter partisan fights over the 1943 budget or guarantee that the vaunted 1944 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act — the GI Bill — would help all soldiers go to college. Instead, concerns about costs and fears of a “government handout” shaped these bitter congressional battles.
Lawmakers especially fought over the educational benefits in Title II. They were far less generous than many remember. Many units, including the ones in which women served, were excluded on paper. There was also nothing to stop Jim Crow laws or quota systems from keeping Jews, Catholics or soldiers of color from using this tuition assistance: campus officials decided whom they would admit.
Congressional disagreements over how to administer this program ended up being far more beneficial to colleges and universities than soldiers. Schools generally received tuition payments from the Veterans Administration quickly, while GIs tended to wait a lot longer for what lawmakers called “subsistence” checks — when they were lucky enough to receive them at all. Lawmakers had kept these payments small to ensure GIs did not laze about in college on the taxpayers’ dime.
So veterans ended up dropping out since they could not afford to stay in school during a nationwide housing crisis and a period of rapid inflation after the government ended price controls in 1946.
The first federal student loan programs continued this pattern of offering a little help for some — not everyone — hoping to enroll and stay in school. Last-minute political wrangling over the 1958 National Defense Education Act turned a small scholarship option for undergraduates into a loan program. Colleges could award a limited number of $1,000 loans each year for studying subjects important for national defense, like math, science or foreign languages.
But far more colleges and universities applied to use this temporary program than the Eisenhower Administration predicted. So, once again, there was not enough assistance for those who needed it.
After the first GI Bill expired in 1956, the number of Americans applying to college continued to rise and costs soared. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy warned, fees had gone “up nearly 90 percent since 1950 and [were] still rising.” The roughly $7,000 then needed to pay for a four-year degree was prohibitively expensive when “one-half of all American families had incomes below $5,600.” Kennedy insisted that they could not “be expected to borrow $4,000 for each talented son or daughter that deserves to go to college.” But lawmakers ignored these concerns.
Instead, a fierce battle ensued over what became the celebrated 1965 Higher Education Act. Lawmakers managed to agree on giving money to colleges — but not enough to keep fees down. They once again had an easier time settling on tuition assistance to help students to pay those costs themselves. Options included work-study opportunities, small grants and another federal student loan option, the Guaranteed Student Loan Program. It — like its inspiration the federal mortgage program — promised bankers repayment on loans if students reneged.
Even that assurance did not ensure financiers would offer the low-interest, 10-year loans that many students needed. Many banks, in fact, lobbied against the provision and then hesitated to offer these loans, which did not cover the full costs of enrolling in (much less finishing) college.
So Congress enticed more lenders to participate by creating Sallie Mae in 1972 — a publicly traded government-backed corporation — that made profiting off student debt easier.
No one really objected to adding Sallie Mae to the 1972 law that also launched the Pell Grant program and Title IX. Those two additions, however, almost derailed the bill’s passage because Democrats and Republicans alike balked at guaranteeing direct support for low-income students and equal opportunities for women.
Even though liberal Democrats — like Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) and Rep. Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii) — pushing for these benefits prevailed, Congress continued the now-familiar pattern of offering a little help for a few. Only low-income families were eligible for Pell Grants. Lawmakers, including Pell, hoped this means-tested help would covertly aid the many applicants of color whom colleges had traditionally rejected.
But even Pell never intended grants to cover all college expenses. Recipients were always expected to borrow or work part-time. In recent decades, they’ve done both due to soaring costs — despite increases in aid.
Similarly, Title IX has done little to make sure women could afford college, nor tackled the many reasons that women, especially those of color, took longer to pay off the loans that a growing number of Americans had to take out.
This century of laws offering a little help for some explains why many on the left — who see access to higher education as a right — wants Biden to cancel a lot of debt without a means test.
What they and 43 million eligible borrowers may get instead is a new version of the limited, means-tested help that the government has offered since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt. | 2022-07-28T10:17:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | History explains why the left is mad over Biden’s student loan relief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/28/history-explains-why-left-is-mad-over-bidens-student-loan-relief/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/28/history-explains-why-left-is-mad-over-bidens-student-loan-relief/ |
The truth of what Biden can — and can’t — achieve with Saudi Arabia
Biden has limited leverage, but if he uses it properly, he can push Saudi Arabia to gradually improve on human rights
Perspective by Nicholas DeAntonis
Nicholas DeAntonis earned his Ph.D. in history from Fordham University. He is working on a book manuscript titled, "Freeing the 'Unfortunates': The Global Movement to Abolish Slavery in Saudi Arabia."
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman greets President Biden on his arrival at al-Salam palace in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, on July 15. (Bandar Aljaloud/Saudi Royal Palace/AP)
In an April 2022 interview with journalist Graeme Wood, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was asked whether President Biden misunderstands something about him. The de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia responded, “Simply, I do not care.” He suggested that Biden cannot alienate the Saudis because it would undermine the president’s position in the Middle East. Then Mohammed shrugged and seemed to move on.
To some extent, Mohammed is correct. Biden does lack significant geopolitical leverage over the Saudis. The president needs the crown prince to boost oil production to reduce gas prices at home and to ignore overtures from China and Russia. Yet Mohammed cannot completely shrug off Biden, because the protection offered by the U.S. military is still crucial to Saudi Arabia as it eyes threats from Tehran, such as the ongoing insurgency by Iran-backed Houthis out of Yemen, which has yet to be officially resolved.
Debates about whether Biden should take a hard line rhetorically against Saudi human rights violations or shun Mohammed altogether matter far less than how he uses the United States’ limited leverage. Nothing Biden does will improve the Saudi position on human rights immediately. But history indicates that wielding his leverage right will lead to progress on this front over time.
Nothing makes this clearer than the way President John F. Kennedy wielded Saudi security needs to push Crown Prince Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud to abolish slavery. The episode illustrated the difficulty of upholding natural rights throughout the kingdom. It also exposed that it is not charisma, charm or forthright language that produces change on this score, but rather the savvy use of America’s geopolitical leverage.
The situation that Kennedy faced escalated when a civil war broke out in Yemen in 1962. On Sept. 26, young nationalist revolutionary Col. Abdullah Sallal forced the Yemeni monarch, Imam Muhammad al-Badr, from the Dar al-Bashair palace. Many viewed the move as part of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s regional campaign to topple royalist regimes and spread Arab nationalism. Disturbing reports quickly reached Washington that Sallal and his allies had displayed “severed heads” of the deposed Iman’s family along the palace walls.
The fall of Yemen’s monarchy — combined with these grisly rumors — struck fear in the Saudi ruling family. The Saudi royals worried they were next. As luck would have it, only nine days after the Yemeni monarch fell, Faisal arrived at the White House for a previously scheduled meeting with Kennedy — the first meeting between the two leaders. The Saudi crown prince came hoping to secure military support for his regime.
This desire gave Kennedy leverage, and he came prepared to wield it. In their Oct. 5 meeting, Kennedy pushed for “modernization and reform.” Robert Komer, a member of the National Security Council, had impressed upon Kennedy that “deliberate, controlled internal reform is the best antidote to Nasserism,” a message the president underscored throughout the meeting with Faisal. Kennedy assumed that the cornerstone of this new phase of Washington and Riyadh’s strategic relationship would be contingent upon the Saudi government undertaking such efforts — particularly those related to ending slavery in the kingdom.
Regional and international actors had criticized and lampooned the Saudis since the early 1950s for their continued ties to slavery. The British Anti-Slavery Society had used several United Nations committees to garner international interest on this issue. And the Saud family’s continued enslavement of thousands was a convenient weapon deployed by its Arab Cold War adversaries — most notably Nasser, who gave sanctuary to Saudi dissidents who had spoken out against slavery, such as Nasir al-Said and Prince Talal. These developments empowered Kennedy to sell the abolition of slavery as not only something the United States wanted, but also as something good for Saudi security.
The pitch from Kennedy was simple: Reform your kingdom and mute the bad press, in addition to securing American aid.
After a luncheon, the two men retired to the White House residence to discuss improving U.S.-Saudi relations.
During their talk, Kennedy proposed several initiatives to strengthen ties and propel Saudi Arabia along the path of modernization, including a “civic action” program, economic assistance, the continuation of the U.S. Military Training Mission (USMTM) — and, most important, the abolition of slavery.
The civic action program would help foster “Saudi Arabian progress.” Earlier in the year, a U.S. economic survey team had concluded that the Saudi government did not need capital but rather technical assistance from private and public agencies to support a development program. Kennedy lobbied the crown prince for assistance in implementing this emerging development program, which he promised would help alleviate the kingdom’s economic woes.
The program also offered another benefit to the kingdom: a politically palatable way to retain an American military presence in the region. It would demonstrate Kennedy’s willingness to deploy troops to the kingdom at a “psychologically critical time,” when doing so would send an unmistakable message to potential opponents of the Saudi government.
But the Saudi government could argue that this presence was about building roads, not militarism or interfering in Saudi sovereignty. That was important because a year earlier, King Saud bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud had publicly criticized the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia to appease regional Arab nationalist demands.
But for the United States to offer up this support and build a closer relationship with Faisal, slavery had to go. Kennedy repeatedly expressed to Saudi leaders that internal changes were the best safeguard against external threats, particularly Nasserism, and that outlawing slavery was an essential first step.
Faisal promised Kennedy that he would work to improve the Saudi image at home and abroad. Likewise, upon concluding his private session with Kennedy, the crown prince expressed to his interpreter, Isa K. Sabbagh, “I started feeling my lungs again,” which meant the pressure had been relieved after better understanding U.S. global commitments. While Faisal did not get all the assurances he wished for, he left knowing he had a friend in Washington.
Likewise, according to Parker T. Hart, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia at the time, “Kennedy got something from Faisal which was very important. That was a program of changes in the government of his country, which were badly needed and, in particular, the outlawing of slavery.”
Less than a month later, Faisal announced the abolition of slavery. This proclamation appeased human rights activists from London to Lebanon (many of whom had worked for decades for this outcome).
Kennedy achieved this rare human rights victory in Saudi Arabia because of his geopolitical leverage. Faisal had to care about what Kennedy thought — the Saud family’s rule hung in the balance.
Biden does not have as much leverage as Kennedy did in 1962, but the Iran-backed Houthi rebels have created a fair amount of anxiety for the Saud family. While the seven-year conflict is on ice thanks to a U.N.-mediated truce, the current Saudi crown prince surely cannot forget that in March, Washington approved sales of “missiles and an anti-ballistic defense system … including 280 air-to-air missiles” to Saudi Arabia after Houthi drone strikes blasted six locations in the kingdom, including oil sites. Mohammed may not feel the same urgency and fear as Faisal did in 1962, but he still needs U.S. military assistance.
Human rights progress rarely moves swiftly in Saudi Arabia. But history shows that advancements can be made. Unlike many other presidents, Biden has been consistent on his human rights position toward the Saudis. However, one must remain realistic. The crown prince won’t accept blame for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Yet Biden can take a page from Kennedy by reminding the crown prince that the vital security aid the United States still supplies to the Saudis — coupled with increasing human rights and fundamental freedoms — “promotes stability and strengthens [Saudi] national security.” In other words, augmenting human rights will help achieve two of Saudi Arabia’s goals: more easily procuring U.S. aid and improving the worldwide image of the kingdom. | 2022-07-28T10:17:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The truth of what Biden can — and can’t — achieve with Saudi Arabia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/28/truth-what-biden-can-cant-achieve-with-saudi-arabia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/28/truth-what-biden-can-cant-achieve-with-saudi-arabia/ |
Loun-Loun is 45 and a project manager at a consulting firm. She is seeking someone who is smart, professional, athletic and has a “strong sense of understated humor.” Steve is 52 and is a freight logistics branch manager. He is looking for someone who is “thin, quirky, and artistic, but not dramatic, unstable, nor spacey.” (Daniele Seiss)
Editor’s note: Because of privacy and safety concerns, Date Lab allows participants to be identified only by their first names.
Between being contacted by The Post and meeting face-to-face, Loun-Loun messaged Steve, “Is it cheating to talk before Date Lab?” They had been copied on an email due to a clerical error but had also matched coincidentally through Facebook Dating, where they messaged each other. If their pre-date interaction qualified as cheating, well, it was a light cheating; they only exchanged a few messages about why they signed up for Date Lab and where they live before trailing off to save some discussion for later.
That they were simultaneously taking advantage of both The Post’s and Meta’s services speaks to their romantic determination. Loun-Loun is 45 and has been divorced for five years; Steve is 52 and has been divorced for 19. Both describe themselves as hopeful, but finding love hasn’t been easy. “I’m sure that I get filtered out by men that would potentially be in my dating pool, say from age 40 to 50-something, who may prefer to date 30-year-olds,” said Loun-Loun. She’s a project manager at a consulting firm, and the client who recommended Date Lab also filled out the first draft of her application.
On dating in his 50s, Steve struck an earnest tone: “I don’t want to end up alone. It’s what happened to my dad and my mom, and I don’t want that.” He’s not even above what some might describe as “settling.” “Settling is a deal you make with yourself to not be alone, at least to me,” he explained.
Time is of the essence, in that they’re more than ready to find love. But in another more concrete sense, time was rendered irrelevant the night of their date: Steve was 45 minutes late meeting Loun-Loun at Centrolina in CityCenterDC. It had rained that evening, and “probably seven or eight” car accidents held up his drive down from Columbia, Md. Steve said he felt bad about this: “I’m very much a try-to-be-on-time person. I work in logistics.” The branch manager said that Loun-Loun handled his tardiness with grace. She appreciated that he had let Date Lab’s photographer know he was running late. It did not color the tone of the date.
In the flesh, Steve looked as Loun-Loun expected, and she was happy that he hadn’t lied about his height — 6-foot-1 — as many men do. Steve called Loun-Loun “a fine-looking lady,” but added that he tries not to be too “look-ist,” preferring to let attraction build as he gets to know someone.
Over appetizers — tuna sashimi for her and egg custard with mushrooms for him — and entrees (hers: duck breast, his: lamb chops) and drinks (he went with chardonnay and then cognac; she had a cocktail) it became clear that they were on the same page on multiple topics. They both agree that Steve is loquacious. Loun-Loun described him as “definitely a talker,” “a very enthusiastic talker” and “very much a talker.” Steve explained that he’s actually an introvert who taught himself extroversion. “I overcompensate when I meet people by being super energetic,” he said. Loun-Loun, meanwhile, tends to listen, though she was hardly a passive audience: “There were definitely times when I redirected the conversation.” At a certain point she noticed they were talking about work a lot and suggested discussing their interests and other aspects of their personalities.
On that note, they also agreed that Steve is quirky — that’s the adjective that best describes him, per his Date Lab application, and it’s an adjective that Loun-Loun used in her interview. She recounted Steve informing her that he had just bought his burial plot. “After having to take care of his mom he wanted to be prepared so in the future nobody would have to buy a burial plot for him. He’s being financially responsible and preparing for the future,” she said.
Finally, they saw eye to eye on perhaps the most important thing: They were not a good fit. “When you hit your 50s, you just want to talk about the good old days. And in that regard, she and I had a very, very different background and upbringing,” said Steve, who described his childhood self as “feral.” Loun-Loun described her childhood as “very sheltered” and her parents as “very strict.” They both grew up in the area, but their lives were worlds away.
“The gift of having someone who’s so open is that I learned a lot about him,” said Loun-Loun. “And the more I learned about his personality and own level of self-awareness, it just didn’t seem like it was going to be a good match.”
After about two hours, they parted ways with a hug but no exchange of numbers. Rounding out the night with yet more unfortunate timing, Loun-Loun got on the Metro going in the wrong direction and arrived home to Falls Church much later than expected — around 11:30. She did follow up with Steve on Facebook saying that she hoped he got home okay.
Loun-Loun: 3 [out of 5].
Steve: 4.
Rich Juzwiak is a writer in New York. | 2022-07-28T10:17:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Date Lab: They both agree that he is ‘definitely a talker’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/07/28/date-lab-they-both-agree-that-he-is-definitely-talker/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/07/28/date-lab-they-both-agree-that-he-is-definitely-talker/ |
Robberies and larcenies were up sharply in certain cities from the first half of last year, while homicides slowed slightly
Homicide rates in nearly two dozen cities with readily available crime numbers are still nearly 40 percent higher than they were before the pandemic began, but dipped slightly so far this year compared with the number of killings recorded through June 2021, according to a think tank report released Thursday.
Research analyzed by the Council on Criminal Justice and made public in its “Pandemic, Social Unrest, and Crime in U.S. Cities” mid-year update shows a 2 percent reduction in homicides — representing a total of 54 deaths — from the first half of 2021 through the same time period this year.
While in recent months mass shootings in Uvalde, Tex.; Highland Park, Ill.; and Buffalo involving high-powered semiautomatic rifles have occupied national attention, the vast majority of gun violence in the United States still involves handguns.
Cities reviewed for the study ranged in population from Norfolk, home to about 245,000, to New York City, which has more than 8 million residents. Other cities included Minneapolis, Omaha, Buffalo, Detroit and D.C.
We don’t know why violent crime is up. But we know there’s more than one cause.
In cities reviewed by the study’s authors, robberies were up 19 percent and larcenies increased by 20 percent for the first half of this year, compared with the same time period last year. In New York and other cities, muggings and violent crime have drawn renewed attention in recent years, with politicians, government officials and public opinion polls increasingly focused on public safety. | 2022-07-28T10:17:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Council on Criminal Justice: robberies up, homicides dip so far in 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/27/crime-2022-first-half/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/27/crime-2022-first-half/ |
Mike Trout said his understanding was that his condition is “rare for a baseball player” but expressed optimism that he could “stay on top of it.” (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
Mike Trout addressed reactions of alarm about his ailing back by declaring Wednesday that his injury issues do not spell the end of his playing days.
“I appreciate all the prayers,” the Los Angeles Angels superstar outfielder said, “but my career isn’t over.”
Speaking to reporters following Los Angeles’s 4-0 win over the Kansas City Royals — Trout’s 10th straight missed game since he left a July 12 contest with what were described as upper back spasms — he sought to clarify comments made earlier in the day by Angels head athletic trainer Mike Frostad.
Before Wednesday’s game, Frostad revealed that Trout had been diagnosed with what the trainer termed a “rare” condition, costovertebral dysfunction.
“I think we have to have some concern on that,” Frostad said. “He’s a little more upbeat today and starting to feel like he’s getting the benefits [of treatment]. But long-term, we do have to look at this as something he has to manage, not just through the rest of this season but also through the rest of his career probably.”
Trout said that in the wake of Frostad’s comments, his “phone was blowing up.”
“It said my career’s over. That’s news to me,” Trout asserted.
“I think [Frostad] meant that I have to stay on top of the routine I do on a daily basis to keep it from coming back,” added the 10-time all-star, who turns 31 in August. “I feel good where it’s at right now. Every day it’s improving. And I feel really good.”
Trout has seen a back specialist and reportedly received a cortisone injection that has yet to reach its full effect. After being sidelined with his back issue earlier this month, Trout was expected to return after a few days and participate in last week’s All-Star Game, but he was scratched from the American League lineup shortly before the game began. The Angels then placed him on the 10-day injured list with what they described as left rib cage inflammation.
Costovertebral dysfunction occurs at joints where ribs meet vertebrae and can be caused or exacerbated by rotating the torso.
“This is a pretty rare condition that he has right now in his back,” Frostad said. “The doctor, who is one of the most well-known spine surgeons in the country, if not the world, doesn’t see a lot of these. And for it to happen in a baseball player, we just have to take into consideration what he puts himself through with hitting, swinging on a daily basis, just getting prepared. And then also playing in the outfield. … There’s so many things that can aggravate it.”
There is no clear timetable for Trout to return. Regarding the possibility that he might have to sit out the rest of 2022, a year after a calf injury limited Trout to 36 games, Frostad said: “We hope not. I don’t think we’re at that point where we’re going to make that decision.”
Analysis: The Orioles, with moxie and magic, are in an unfamiliar spot: On the rise
Trout said his understanding was that the condition is “rare for a baseball player,” but he expressed optimism that he could “stay on top of it.”
“I don’t even know how I got it,” he said. “I can’t pinpoint exactly what happened. It just started aching, and it got to a point where it was bothering my swing. But like I said, the last two or three days, the progress has been great.”
As for concern about his long-term outlook, the three-time MVP described that as “a little exaggeration.”
“No, I’m not worried about it,” Trout said. “It’s just one [of] them things — you play, you swing a lot, and things pop up. And I’ve been playing through it for a little bit, and it just got to a point where it just was time to figure it out, and we figured it out. It’s going in the right direction.” | 2022-07-28T10:18:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Angels' Mike Trout on back condition: 'My career isn't over' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/28/mike-trout-angels-back-condition-injured/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/28/mike-trout-angels-back-condition-injured/ |
“Optimism is high,” Coach Ron Rivera said Wednesday, “and you just feed off that kind of energy.” (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
It’s just so hard in Ashburn, where the local professional football franchise resides, to keep the focus on professional football. But take the pulse as that franchise gathered for the first day of its first training camp as the Washington Commanders, and there’s a way to see through all the smoke to something that’s — can we say it out loud? — kinda, sorta, maybe … promising?
“Optimism is high,” Coach Ron Rivera said Wednesday, “and you just feed off that kind of energy.”
Wait. Should this column have a dateline of FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — ? Or maybe GREEN BAY, Wis. — ?
No, this is Ashburn. And for a few moments Wednesday, the attention could be on the football. Carson Wentz is the new quarterback, and there is much to learn about him. Terry McLaurin is the established wide receiver smiling ear-to-ear about his new contract extension. Chase Young is the prize defensive end who may not be back from injury for a bit, and there are questions about when and why.
Those are football storylines about football players, such a respite in these parts. And they lead Rivera to new territory in his Washington tenure: all but promising a winning season. He’s not issuing a number. He’s not promising the playoffs. But he is selling his team’s fan base — or, perhaps, what remains of his team’s fan base — on the idea that the infrastructure and the culture have been installed. Now it’s time to expect results.
“The pressure, more so than anything else, is just winning, is being successful,” Rivera said. “And if it comes to a number, so be it.”
Here’s a number: 10. It says here that’s not an unreasonable win total for 2022. The schedule includes non-division home games against Jacksonville (to start the season), Minnesota, Atlanta and Cleveland, and non-division trips to Detroit, Chicago and Houston. Combined record of those teams in 2021: 39-79-1, for a .332 winning percentage. Add in two games against the perennially rebuilding New York Giants, who were 4-13 a year ago, and it’s not hard to find at least six wins in those nine games, right? Go 4-4 in the other eight — two against Dallas, two against Philadelphia, home to Tennessee and Green Bay and at Indianapolis and San Francisco — and there’s your total of 10.
History would tell us there have been no easy wins for Washington this century, whether the team went by the outdated old name or the Football Team replacement. That’s not likely to change as the Commanders. History would also tell us that predicting a 10-win season for this franchise borders on foolish, given that it has won 10 games in the 2000s just twice — 2005, in the second year of Joe Gibbs 2.0, and 2012, when Robert Griffin III was a comet of a rookie.
So even with a 17th game making the path to 10 wins slightly easier, it’s a risky notion. But combine the pillowy softness of the schedule with an upgrade at the sport’s most important position — and whatever you think of Wentz and the price paid to obtain him, he’s an upgrade over Taylor Heinicke — and it’s far from lunacy to think an outfit that went 7-10 during a 2021 season in which it was ravaged by the coronavirus, injuries and personal tragedies could win three more games a year later.
Yeah, it’s the first day of training camp. July isn’t a month in which the word “playoffs” should necessarily be uttered. But don’t hide from optimism. Embrace it. It’s a rare commodity here.
“I mean, we all know what we’re working for,” defensive tackle Jonathan Allen said. “We’re not going to act like we don’t think about it. We understand that the goal is to win the division and move on through the playoffs.”
That’s not a prediction many would make. But the fact that it doesn’t sound downright ludicrous as an aspiration is a measure of progress. On Tuesday, Rivera snapped at a question about whether this season was “playoffs-or-bust” by saying: “Why put pressure on ourselves? Why don’t we just leave it at winning?”
We’re into semantics already. But the point is this: The coach has peddled the idea that the time for a significant step forward is now. Go for it.
See how far we have gotten into a Commanders column without mentioning investigations by the NFL or Congress? Or the owner, who’s still in some version of exile? Rivera’s chief job upon his arrival in January 2020 was to instill professionalism and dignity to a franchise that lacked both. In Ashburn, where wildfires break out constantly in every corner of the building, that’s nearly impossible, and it was refreshing to hear Rivera address that honestly this week.
“Being in the news and people putting it in the news makes it hard for what we do,” he said.
That’s a reality: Coaching and playing in Washington is harder than in most other places. The owner and the environment he created over so many years have made it that way.
Which makes getting to a day such as Wednesday — not too hot, the new quarterback under center, the focus on football, of all things — a tough road because so much superfluous stuff has to be pushed aside to make football the centerpiece. But here it is. The resulting playoff possibilities can build or wane over the course of the season. For now, they underpin everything.
“You have goals, high expectations,” Wentz said. “You have a lot of that. But then you come out here, and it’s like, ‘Okay, how do I get better today?’ You have these long-term goals, but then you can’t look too much at the future or look too much ahead because you’ve got to do what’s required of you at that moment — within each play, within each practice, within each day.
“So I try not to think too big-picture like that because you can overlook some things that are right in front of you.”
Wise strategy, New Guy. Because the big picture hasn’t been great for a long, long time. It’s naive to say it will change in one training camp or one season. But Rivera has assembled a decent group and sent out a clear message that the nonsense that dogs this franchise must be irrelevant in meeting rooms and at team meals. Maybe it could even be replaced in conversations among fans.
“The important thing is: It’s football,” Rivera said. “I’m here to be judged on that, okay? The judgment starts with winning or losing.”
In the cancer-and-coronavirus-ravaged seasons of 2020 and ’21, judging Rivera and his staff on the football seemed almost secondary. Now that time has arrived. Enjoy it. Who knows what distraction awaits next month or next week — or five minutes from now?
Carson Wentz, Commanders’ new starting QB, settles in as camp begins | 2022-07-28T10:18:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ron Rivera and the Commanders are ready to be judged on wins and losses - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/28/ron-rivera-commanders-optimism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/28/ron-rivera-commanders-optimism/ |
One woman sharing workplace bathrooms with 50 men
I’m uncomfortable with using the unisex bathrooms at work, and I’m avoiding surgery because of it
( iStock)
Reader: I’m a woman working with about 50 men. Our workplace has three bathrooms: one disability-accessible bathroom that all of us can use, one men-only single toilet with a private stall and a urinal, and a small bathroom with a sink and toilet that used to be women-only but is now unisex. I was told a year ago that a new women’s bathroom had been approved, but there’s been no information since on the construction.
I recently learned I need my gallbladder removed, and I’m worried about going to the bathroom at work after the surgery. I currently “hover” when I use the bathrooms, and it’s a difficult balancing act. I’ve decided not to have the surgery until after the women’s bathroom is built, and I let my manager know. I told him it is now a safety and health concern.
The bathroom issue is a real problem for me, but the company knows I don’t fight or cause problems. The word is that if one more woman worked in our area, the employer would build the new women’s bathroom. What can I do? I’ve grown tired of this struggle.
Karla: At first glance, this might seem like a gender discrimination issue. If the lack of a ladies’ room means you can’t take bathroom breaks as readily as your male co-workers can, that could be considered a “disparate impact” on women under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, regardless of how many women actually work there, says Tom Spiggle of Spiggle Law Firm. You could file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and request an investigation.
But since you have access to two of the three bathrooms, I can see your employer making an argument that the current distribution of bathrooms, though not equal in number, is equitable in light of the 50:1 gender ratio. (More inclusive recruiting and hiring practices could eventually weaken that argument, but that’s another column.)
But there are other issues besides gender. Spiggle notes that the Occupational Safety and Health Act requires employers to provide adequate bathroom facilities that are (1) sanitary and (2) available when needed. If the bathrooms are unsanitary to the point where you can’t safely use the toilets in the customary manner, you could file a complaint at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (osha.gov). However, that seems like overkill if your problem could be resolved by asking your employer to provide seat wipes and covers.
Finally, there’s the not-so-small matter of your needing surgery and having concerns about using the facilities when you return to work. “No question in my mind that’s covered under the ADA,” says Spiggle. Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, when you have a condition that significantly limits a major life activity or function, your employer is obligated to discuss with you what reasonable accommodations may allow you to do your job.
Title IX became law 50 years ago. Here’s why it still matters.
Your doctor should be able to write a letter explaining your need for this surgery and what restrictions or accommodations will be necessary when you return to work. If it’s likely you’ll need more frequent or lengthy restroom breaks, and working from home is not an option, your employer is going to need to figure out how to ensure you have access to a safe, sanitary bathroom without inconveniencing others. Maybe that means expediting construction on the promised women’s bathroom, or renting a portable restroom unit.
In short, while you could petition under-resourced EEOC or OSHA enforcers to investigate your employer, having your doctor request an accommodation for your health seems like the fastest and least confrontational option.
I understand your reluctance to make waves. But jeopardizing your health by putting off needed surgery is not the “safe” option here. | 2022-07-28T11:47:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Unisex bathrooms when you're the only woman in the workplace - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/28/shared-bathrooms-at-work/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/28/shared-bathrooms-at-work/ |
Israel Can’t Afford to Criticize Putin Too Loudly
Yair Lapid, leader of the Yesh Atid party, pauses during a news conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Thursday, May 6, 2021. Former Finance Minister Lapid was tasked with trying to build Israels next government but hell have to overcome deep ideological differences between possible partners to avoid the country being plunged into yet another election. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
Lapid has been in crisis mode since Russia declared last week that it would dissolve the Russian branch of the Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental organization representing Israeli interests abroad. “This is a grave development that could negatively affect diplomatic ties between Jerusalem and Moscow,” Lapid warned the Russian government.
She was referring mostly to a particular statement. In early April, in the wake of a televised report of the massacre of Ukrainian civilians by Russian troops in a suburb of Kyiv, Lapid — at the time Israel’s foreign minister — delivered a ringing denunciation of “Russian barbarity” and its commission of war crimes. This indictment was sincere, heartfelt and in character. It was also self-indulgent and potentially politically ruinous.
Israel is fighting a prolonged war in the skies above Syria, the aim of which is to prevent Iran from arming its proxy, Hezbollah. Putin controls these skies. Israel’s tacit alliance with the Russian president is a major part of Israel’s national security doctrine. The first rule in such partnerships is that spitting in the face of one’s partner is bad form and can have consequences.
Not long afterward, Israel attacked the runway of the Damascus airport as part of its interdiction campaign. Russia condemned the mission and actually spoke of bringing Israel to account before the United Nations Security Council. This initiative was followed by Putin’s highly publicized trip to Iran, where he met with President Ebrahim Raisi as well as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Putin might be planning to sustain the chill until Nov. 1, when a new Israeli election is scheduled. Putin is known for sometimes interfering in other people’s politics. Lapid has already told the world what he thinks of Putin’s Russia. Lapid is also too close to the administration of US President Joe Biden and the Western consensus for Putin’s comfort.
In contrast, Netanyahu, the former prime minister who is hoping to regain his old job, is a reliable longtime partner. He and Putin share an understanding of the world unclouded by sentiment. Netanyahu would never let moral qualms about Ukraine, if he has any, interfere with what he perceives to be Israel’s national interests.
On Tuesday night, Netanyahu told reporters that “the measured, balanced and responsible relationship” he forged with Putin and maintained for years is now in a crisis that could endanger Israel’s security. However opportunistic, Netanyahu isn’t wrong. Lapid’s denunciations of Russia reflect “a combination of amateurism, irresponsibility and arrogance,” Bibi said. Translate that into Hebrew and you have the right-wing Likud party’s talking points for the upcoming election.
• Lagarde, Putin, Biden and the Trouble With Drawing Red Lines: Andreas Kluth | 2022-07-28T11:47:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Israel Can’t Afford to Criticize Putin Too Loudly - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/israel-cant-afford-to-criticizeputin-too-loudly/2022/07/28/6e1514a2-0e69-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/israel-cant-afford-to-criticizeputin-too-loudly/2022/07/28/6e1514a2-0e69-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
The largest Audubon chapter yet is changing its name, rebuking an enslaver
Seattle Audubon said John James Audubon’s troubling legacy is ‘antithetical’ to the chapter’s values
American naturalist John James Audubon, pictured in an undated painting, was an enslaver. The National Audubon Society has considered a name change for more than a year, with the Seattle chapter voting to change its own this week. (Bettmann/Getty Images)
One of the largest chapters in the National Audubon Society network is changing its name to distance itself from John James Audubon, the famed naturalist who was also an enslaver and a strong critic of those who sought to free African Americans from bondage.
In a virtual meeting with members Tuesday, Seattle Audubon leaders described the action as a bold move to be among the first to change its name to promote “anti-racism,” diversity and inclusion — and perhaps set an example for the 117-year-old society’s more than 450 chapters to follow. The chapter’s resolution to make the change was approved weeks ago by a 9-0 vote.
In a statement, Claire Catania, the Seattle chapter’s executive director, said: “The shameful legacy of the real John James Audubon, not the mythologized version, is antithetical to the mission of this organization and its values.”
The move is part of a reckoning in ornithology, birding and the broader American conservation movement to address historic racism in its organizations and practices. Seattle Audubon said it will probably take six months to find a new name.
In recent months, conservation groups such as Audubon, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists and Environmental Defense Fund have grappled with national parks and monuments composed of land stolen from Native people and honorary bird names bestowed to men who were Indian grave robbers, enslavers and racists who in some instances compared Black people to orangutans.
Audubon, an accomplished illustrator of American birds, stands out as one of the most recognized names in conservation. He had been dead for about 45 years when in 1896, two Massachusetts women named a society started to protect endangered egrets in his honor, with little attention given to his more troubling past. Now, the organizations it spawned are weighing his entire history.
Both the Seattle organization and the national group have considered a name change for more than a year. Last year, Elizabeth Gray, then the interim chief executive of the National Audubon Society, said she was “deeply troubled” by the racist actions of Audubon but that the group had a lot to unpack when considering what to do about it.
The society is still unpacking. “The National Audubon Society is still in the process of a comprehensive exploration of John James Audubon and has not yet made a decision about our name,” Gray said in a statement Wednesday.
Gray acknowledged Seattle Audubon’s actions, describing the chapter as an independent organization whose work “we respect … as … they represent themselves to the community that they serve.”
But Seattle Audubon is not alone, said Glenn Nelson, the chapter’s community director. When its board drafted a resolution to change its name in the interest of diversity and inclusion within its ranks and throughout conservation, three other chapters in Wisconsin, New York City and San Francisco signed on.
Another group, the Audubon Naturalist Society in Chevy Chase, is expected to complete its renaming process in October. Its executive director, Lisa Alexander, said last year that the society has considered a name change since 2010. In 2020, the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer pushed the issue to the top of the group’s agenda.
The Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol made the change an even bigger priority. “Did that accelerate the conversation?” Alexander said. “You betcha.”
Although Seattle Audubon’s resolution was unanimously approved, it came with a price, some of its leaders say. After the resolution was announced, one board member quit and asked that her biography be erased from the website. The official remains unnamed.
As the national organization weighs a name change, it has to consider potential blowback from chapters in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and California where conservative members and donors are likely to be hostile to Seattle Audubon’s rationale for change.
Even in liberal Seattle, there was resistance during this week’s virtual call. While most members praised the move, saying they were proud to be a part of an organization that was taking such a bold step, a few strongly took issue with it.
“Do you have empirical evidence that … keeping the name of Audubon does substantial harm to the society? Are people of color boycotting us?” one member wrote in the chat.
Other than Glenn, who is Japanese American, there were no people of color on the call. It was essentially White people talking to other White people, Glenn said.
“I’m concerned about the dropping of Audubon’s name because historical figures should not be held to today’s standards,” another person wrote. “I think it’s tragic for the natural world.”
Audubon was an unabashed enslaver. When Britain emancipated enslaved people in the West Indies, he wrote to his wife in 1834 that the government “acted imprudently and too precipitously,” Gregory Nobles wrote in Audubon Magazine. It was not out of character for a man who 15 years earlier “took two enslaved men with him down the Mississippi to New Orleans on a skiff, and when he got there, he put the boat and the men up for sale.”
Nine enslaved people worked for the Audubons in Henderson, Ky. When he needed money, he sold them.
Audubon was condemned during his own era by the movement of abolitionists who worked to free the enslaved. In return, he dismissed abolitionists “on both sides of the Atlantic,” Gordon wrote.
Beyond Audubon, racism and colonialism are in conservation’s DNA. Everything including mountains and the types of grass and parks have had offensive and racist names that cannot be repeated.
In the archives of the American Ornithological Society, the Wallace’s owlet and five other birds honor Alfred Russel Wallace, a British naturalist who helped Charles Darwin conceive the theory of evolution.
Wallace frequently used the n-word in his writings, including when he referred to a “little brown hairy baby” he boasted about caring for after fatally shooting its mother in 1855. He was talking about an orangutan.
Mount Rushmore was carved into native land that tribes continue to claim. At least six native tribes existed in what is now Yellowstone National Park. Everglades National Park was once the dominion of Seminoles, who were forcibly removed.
“The assumption when you say you’re going to remove the name,” Nelson said, “is that you’re trying to cancel Audubon. We’re not trying to cancel John James Audubon altogether. Most of his art … was important in that era and continues to resonate.
“We’re just saying the things he did during his lifetime doesn’t reflect our values and doesn’t fit our view of what the present is and what the future should be.” | 2022-07-28T11:48:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Audubon's Seattle chapter will change its name, rebuking an enslaver - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/28/audubon-birds-enslaver-seattle-name-change/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/28/audubon-birds-enslaver-seattle-name-change/ |
Perspective by Mikkael A. Sekeres
My patient, a 30-year-old woman in her second trimester of pregnancy, was undergoing a routine fetal ultrasound when the radiology technician saw something unexpected — a mass growing out of her kidney, near the uterus. She underwent a biopsy, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and was sent immediately to my hospital’s leukemia service to be treated.
I can only imagine the roller coaster of emotions she must have gone through, from excitement at a glimpse of her future baby to a devastating diagnosis of cancer.
Acute leukemia is considered a medical emergency — it’s a cancer that grows fast. If left untreated, patients die within weeks, and sometimes within days or even hours. When a person has acute leukemia, the bone marrow cannot produce the normal components of blood. With low red blood cells, people can become profoundly anemic; with fewer platelets, people are prone to excessive bleeding; and with dysfunctional white blood cells, people can suffer life-threatening infections.
By definition, people with leukemia have compromised immune systems. Pregnancy also affects the immune system, and the combination of the two can make people even more vulnerable to infections.
When undergoing chemo or radiation, cancer patients need to avoid diseases. CDC provides vital tips.
Soon after she arrived, I sat at the edge of her hospital bed and had the conversation that both patients and oncologists dread. Should she try to keep the fetus, knowing the risks, or should she undergo an abortion?
Certain chemotherapy drugs, including the ones needed to treat her leukemia, could cross the placenta and cause irreparable harm or death to the fetus. The drugs also could cause infection or bleeding in my patient, lowering her blood counts further, which would lead to similar side effects in the fetus. My patient also would be at a higher risk of death herself.
When I met her, almost two decades ago, before Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization upended the abortion rights guaranteed through Roe v. Wade, this was a hard discussion. Now, in some states, we can add this complexity — opting for an abortion could be illegal.
She was quiet after I posed the question, and so poised as she answered, “This is my first baby. I know the risks of trying to keep it. But I still want to try.”
And try we did.
Daily ultrasounds
We started chemotherapy the next day and asked the obstetrics team to perform daily ultrasounds on the fetus. For the first few days, my patient looked great, even teasing us and telling jokes. The fetus was doing wonderfully, too. She taped the ultrasound photos on her hospital wall, which buoyed our spirits and reminded us of what was at stake.
Then she spiked a fever. That morning, she looked worried for the first time since we had met.
“Something’s wrong,” she told me. “Something’s really wrong.”
Her blood pressure had started to falter, and we suspected that she had started to develop sepsis — the body’s extreme response to infection that can lead to death.
“We’ll take care of you,” I told her, trying to reassure her as much as myself. But I was worried.
We gave her antibiotics immediately, but within two hours she had to be transferred to the intensive care unit because her blood pressure had dropped further. Within eight hours, she had been placed on a ventilator. Twelve hours after the fever started, the fetus died. By hour 18, my patient died, too.
Is pregnancy safe after breast cancer? Here’s what the latest data shows.
Cancer is unusual in pregnant people, affecting approximately 1 in 1,000 pregnancies. This is estimated to translate to about 6,000 cases each year in the United States, and accounts for about 0.1 percent of all malignant tumors. Pregnancy in and of itself is not thought to be a risk factor for developing cancer, although theories abound regarding whether the hormonal changes or suppressed immune system during pregnancy could encourage tumor growth. The co-occurrence is probably just a rotten happenstance. The most common malignancies that occur in pregnant people include cervical cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, lymphoma and leukemia.
Every oncologist I know has at least one story of treating a patient who was pregnant. I have a few.
My patient chose not to undergo an abortion, and both she and her fetus died. Others have made the same decision, and both mother and baby survived — I have the snapshots of those babies with yearly updates. They had a better outcome because they had a different type of leukemia, or were treated at a different stage of fetal development, or were just lucky and did not have an infection or bleeding complication.
Some of my patients chose to undergo an abortion and went into remission from their cancers. Others, with slower-growing cancers, were able to delay chemotherapy just long enough to deliver their child.
Independent choices
In all of these scenarios, my patients could make independent choices, weighing the risks and benefits of maintaining or terminating a pregnancy.
But the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe has introduced complications for future cases.
Thirteen states have “trigger bans” on abortion that have gone into effect, with exceptions for protecting the life of the mother that are too vague to know when they can be invoked. My own state of Florida bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with a similar exception. (This was blocked temporarily by a Florida judge and reinstated July 5.)
As physicians who have taken an oath to provide the best care to our patients, my colleagues and I need guidance on what constitutes an immediate threat to the life of a pregnant person. A patient who is bleeding profusely from the pregnancy certainly is in grave danger. And I would argue that a pregnant patient with cancer who is about to receive chemotherapy also has an immediate health threat that would be greatly raised because of side effects.
This guidance would help us engage in a better informed consent process with particularly vulnerable patients for receiving chemotherapy that includes risks, benefits and possible legal consequences.
My patient’s story still haunts me. Would she be alive today if she had undergone an abortion? Perhaps. But I take some comfort in knowing she had the freedom to make that choice.
Mikkael A. Sekeres is chief of the hematology division and professor of medicine at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami, and author of “When Blood Breaks Down: Life Lessons From Leukemia” and of the forthcoming book “Drugs and the FDA: Safety, Efficacy, and the Public’s Trust.” Follow him on Twitter @MikkaelSekeres. | 2022-07-28T11:48:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Abortion ruling may restrict options for pregnant cancer patients - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/28/cancer-pregnancy-abortion-treatment-choice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/28/cancer-pregnancy-abortion-treatment-choice/ |
From left, Indianapolis Star health and medicine reporter Shari Rudavsky, Executive Editor Bro Krift and general assignment reporter Rachel Fradette on July 25 in Indianapolis. (Max Gersh/Indianapolis Star)
Bethany Bruner paid that all little mind. Instead, she went looking.
The Columbus Dispatch public safety reporter and her colleagues spent days studying public records and calling sources, painstakingly narrowing their search for the girl’s attacker to central Ohio. Then Bruner spotted an entry on the July 13 local court docket and learned a man would be arraigned that morning for the rape of a 10-year-old. She quickly hoofed the half-mile from her office to the courthouse.
Inside the courtroom, Bruner kept glancing at the door, expecting to see another reporter enter. None did as the judge called up the case. “I guess it’s going to be me,” Bruner thought. “I guess I’m going to be the one.”
Within hours, the Dispatch and its sister paper, the Star, had locked down one the first major stories of the post-Roe v. Wade era: Contra the talking heads, police had indeed investigated and charged an Ohio man with impregnating a 10-year-old girl, who had to cross state lines for an abortion after the Supreme Court’s ruling allowed new Ohio restrictions to take effect. Their reporting demonstrated that the girl’s horrifying situation was not as rare as many had assumed. It also showed why the public rarely hears of such abortion stories — and why they will need local journalists to inform them of the impacts of Roe’s demise.
“We weren’t thinking of it as a political football that people like to toss back and forth,” said Bro Krift, executive editor of the Star. “We were just trying to tell a story to make people understand. To report the news, to make people understand the consequences.”
Soon after the Supreme Court’s June 24 ruling that overturned Roe and revoked the constitutional right to abortion, Krift directed his staff to find stories that showed the immediate impact on people in Indiana, which was considering new restrictions.
“We have to make this real,” Krift thought. “This just can’t be a number.”
Their first story — by Shari Rudavsky, a Star health reporter of 17 years, and Rachel Fradette — included an anecdote from a trusted source: Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist Caitlin Bernard said she had just performed an abortion for a 10-year-old girl who had to travel from Ohio, where a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy became law soon after the Roe decision. The girl was a few days over that limit.
Eight days after the story was published, President Biden highlighted the girl’s situation as he decried state abortion restrictions. “This isn’t some imagined horror,” he said from the White House. “Imagine being that little girl.”
Others went much further. On Fox News, Tucker Carlson said the “story was not true.” Jesse Watters devoted an entire segment to whether it was a hoax, saying his staff had found no evidence of the case’s existence. “Shame on the Indianapolis paper that ran this thing on a single source who has an obvious ax to grind,” Dave Yost, the Ohio attorney general, told USA Today. The Wall Street Journal published an editorial titled “An Abortion Story Too Good to Confirm.” Ohio Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, tweeting a skeptical article, wrote, “Another lie. Anyone surprised?”
Meanwhile, local journalists kept digging.
The weekend after Biden’s Friday speech, Star investigations editor Tim Evans started searching Ohio’s public records to see if he could find the related assault case. Evans had experience on stories like this — in 2016, he helped expose Larry Nassar’s abuse of young gymnasts — and he quickly turned up five Ohio cases involving sexual assault of children.
The Star didn’t doubt the veracity of their initial story — Bernard had spoken on the record — but they wanted to learn more. By Monday, journalists there had turned to their sister paper in Ohio, the Dispatch. Both newsrooms belong to Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the country, which has more than 100 daily publications, including USA Today. Gannett papers often collaborate because the news doesn’t always abide by strict geographic boundaries, said Amalie Nash, the company’s senior vice president of local news. “We’re configured that way,” she said. “It was very easy for our newsrooms who already know each other to mobilize quickly.”
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As the team dug in, they experienced firsthand the difficulty of reporting on abortion. By definition, such stories involve a medical procedure, and physicians are bound by the law to protect patient privacy. Moreover, this one involved a child victim, meaning agencies such as child services have restrictions on what they can share publicly. “It’s going to be a very sensitive case where not a lot of people are going to have access to it, including people in the police department,” Krift said.
The Star’s journalists nevertheless managed to find public documents showing that 50 reports of sex abuse involving girls under 15 had been filed to Columbus police since May 9. They didn’t find the 10-year-old victim among them, but suspected there were more out there because confidentiality restrictions keep certain complaints off public databases. After a long process of scouring files, they started to zero in on central Ohio.
That’s when Bruner was asked to start making calls.
The 32-year-old had learned to navigate court systems during a decade reporting on police and crime. She starts every day by checking the Franklin County Municipal Court docket around 7:30 a.m. “You want to talk about shoe-leather journalism,” Krift said. “That girl is hooked up, and has relationships, and knows how to work [sparse] documents to figure out things.”
Bruner tried her law enforcement contacts all over Franklin County as she searched for which agency might be investigating the rape. “And what I was getting was a lot of is, ‘It’s not us,’” she said. “That process of elimination, we were getting down to just a few that I hadn’t heard back from when I saw the arraignment list on Wednesday morning.”
That list was 49 pages long. About halfway down, Bruner spotted an entry for an arrestee — Gerson Fuentes, 27, of Ohio. And a charge: “Rape — under 13.”
Bruner called the court clerk, who scanned the affidavit and emailed it to her. The victim was 10. Bruner figured, this might be it.
She wasn’t entirely surprised that Ohio’s attorney general didn’t know about this investigation, knowing that Columbus has its own crime lab and doesn’t rely on the state’s. And Bruner would soon learn that even within the Columbus Police department, many didn’t know about the investigation until the suspect’s arrest.
“From my experience, these cases, detectives like to play them very close to the vest,” Bruner said. “They want to protect these children just as much as anybody else does in terms of making sure their identity is kept private.”
“And she’s 10, you know,” Bruner added. “I think that gets lost sometimes in the shuffle, that she’s 10.”
On July 13 — the same morning the Journal published its “too good to confirm” editorial — Bruner arrived at the Franklin County courtroom a few minutes before the doors opened. The judge was running late.
She found the courtroom partially filled with attorneys, detectives and spectators for the long list of cases that day. Bruner was shocked she was the only reporter in the room. She sat through an hour of arraignments before the one that brought her there was called.
With spotty wireless service, she sent updates to her team’s group chat as she listened to Columbus police detective Jeffrey Huhn’s stunning testimony: On June 22, Franklin County Children’s Services had notified Columbus police of a pregnant 10-year-old. On June 30, the girl had a medical abortion in Indianapolis. She identified her attacker in an interview with police. Police arrested that man July 12 — the same day Yost told Gannett’s Ohio bureau, “I know the cops and prosecutors in this state” and “there is not a damn scintilla of evidence” the investigation existed.
While talking heads and politicians continued to question the case’s existence, Bruner listened as police confirmed everything. Back in the newsroom, Krift took about 30 seconds to mentally process her messages.
“Holy crap,” he thought. “She’s got it.”
The subsequent story, which Bruner wrote with the Dispatch’s Monroe Trombly and the Star’s Tony Cook, was viewed 1.5 million times within 24 hours, Nash said. It was a major scoop. But few apologies followed.
Yost said he was “grateful” to police for “getting a rapist off the street.” Watters wondered whether the girl actually needed to cross state lines for an abortion. Jordan quietly deleted his “another lie” tweet.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board and The Post’s Fact Checker updated their pieces with the details of the investigation, confirming its existence.
For Krift, it was textbook local journalism. Reporters methodically tracked down the facts while tuning out the national noise. “This whole story is an example of something happening too fast in terms of reaction,” he said.
Still, he’s left with concerns. Krift worries that doctors will become more reluctant to speak to journalists in light of what happened to Bernard, the Indianapolis doctor who first brought the girl’s story to the public. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is investigating whether Bernard failed to report the abortion to state officials, as required, despite public records showing she notified relevant state agencies and her employer concluding she did not violate privacy laws. The physician has taken a legal step toward suing Rokita for defamation.
Meanwhile, the nation’s local press corps is dwindling. “People only know this happened and that this is one of the outcomes of what the Supreme Court decision was because of the reporting and the fact that someone was on the ground,” said Nash, the Gannett head of local news. But one-third of American newspapers that existed two decades ago will be out of business by 2025, one study found. Many remaining papers have a fraction of the staff they once did.
Newspapers keep eliminating print days. They say it’s for the best.
Gannett itself has gone through cutbacks, layoffs and furloughs, including after its merger with GateHouse in 2019 and after the coronavirus pandemic began. By the end of 2021, the company employed 4,300 fewer people than a year prior, though it’s unclear how many of those were journalism jobs and how much of the reduction came from layoffs vs. attrition or other causes. Nash said staff reductions are “indicative of what’s happening in the industry as a whole,” and her company is subject to the same forces plaguing all newspapers.
The company says it remains committed to covering the aftermath of Roe’s fall. It has reporters in nearly half of the country’s statehouses, which are expected to be ground zero for many abortion policy fights in the coming months and years.
As for Bruner, she’s still on the public safety beat, writing about house fires, car crashes and homicides while keeping up with the rape case. She reported this week that Fuentes pleaded not guilty on two counts of rape — which she noted is standard practice at arraignments so defense attorneys can get more materials.
“To me, it’s just an everyday story. This is the kind of stuff I report on day in and day out,” she said. “So I was just doing my job.” | 2022-07-28T11:48:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How local journalists proved a 10-year-old’s abortion wasn’t a hoax - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/07/28/ohio-abortion-journalism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/07/28/ohio-abortion-journalism/ |
In viral ad, doctor calls Texas governor to get permission for abortion
The ad by Mothers Against Greg Abbott criticizes the state’s abortion law
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
A new political ad targeting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) starts with a scene that could unfold in any hospital across the country — a doctor delivering gutting news to an expectant couple: “Your baby has a catastrophic brain abnormality.”
If she were to make it to full term, he continues, the baby girl would die just hours after birth.
“She will suffer,” the doctor adds, before telling the tearful parents that a decision will have to be made on terminating the pregnancy — a choice that “only one person can make.”
“And that person is Greg,” the doctor explains, revealing a portrait of Abbott.
The ad released Monday by political action committee Mothers Against Greg Abbott criticizes Texas abortion laws. Even before the reversal of Roe v. Wade, Texas’s “heartbeat act” — which banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy — was among the most restrictive in the country, relying on ordinary citizens to report suspected violations. A “trigger law” banning abortions, with few exceptions, is set to take effect next month. As a result, clinics in the state have shut down, health providers are wary of providing certain medical interventions and some mothers have been left feeling “like a walking coffin” after suffering miscarriages, The Washington Post has reported.
The group’s video struck a chord nationally and quickly went viral, garnering about 7 million views across Twitter, Instagram and YouTube within three days of its release.
A spokesperson for Abbott didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post early Thursday. The Mothers Against Greg Abbott political action committee released another ad earlier this month blasting Texas policies on guns, the pandemic and education. The group says it includes mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts and grandparents “ready to fight” for change in their state.
The abortion ad mixes distress with dark humor, positing that reproductive health choices in Texas are now up to the state, leaving the parents-to-be utterly confused.
“Greg?” the woman in the ad says. Who’s Greg?! her partner asks, using a slightly more profane turn of phrase when the physician tells them only Greg can decide next steps.
Then the doctor, wielding a red phone with a direct line to Abbott, has a brief conversation with the governor. With a shrug, the doctor proceeds to tell the parents, “Yeah, that’s going to be a no. Best of luck to you.”
The ad ends with a close-up of the stunned couple and a question splashed on the screen: “Whose choice should it be?”
Though sardonic in essence, the close to two-minute scene portrayed in the ad has resounded with some doctors. Jennifer Gunter, an OB/GYN and New York Times contributor, posted when sharing the video that she once called a state legislator for permission to perform an abortion in the 1990s.
“This is not a hypothetical people,” she added.
Since it was released, some candidates have cited the ad to persuade Texans to vote for Democrats who support abortion rights. Beto O’Rourke, who’s running against Abbott in what polls suggest is a tightening gubernatorial race, says he’ll “fight for Texas women to have the freedom to decide what is best for their health, family, and future.”
Still, others have called the video “poorly executed,” including one woman who received a terminal diagnosis when pregnant but chose to carry to term. “I’m left wondering if whoever wrote it has ever experienced a fatal diagnosis. And if they did, was their doctor this callous?” the woman shared on Twitter.
In response, Chelsea Aldrich, the video’s director, said the clip was based on the “real story about another real mother who chose to terminate.”
“This is not a judgment on any woman’s choice. It’s a referendum on lack of choice,” Aldrich wrote. | 2022-07-28T11:48:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Texas ad shows doctor call Gov. Greg Abbott for permission for abortion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/28/texas-abortion-ad-greg-abbott/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/28/texas-abortion-ad-greg-abbott/ |
By Thomas Irwin
A house for sale in on June 14 in Crockett, Calif. (Bloomberg/Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomber)
Thomas Irwin works for a nonprofit in Los Angeles focused on economic development and is a member of the Southern California Association of Government’s Housing Leadership Academy.
At this point, few people would dispute the idea that California has a severe housing crisis. With more buyers than available supply, the median home price is $898,000. Rent for a three-bedroom house is more than $3,000 a month. Many families like mine — hoping to stop renting and buy our first home — are feeling desperate.
It was tempting to celebrate news late last month that the state legislature had passed a budget that included half a billion dollars for a program providing down-payment assistance for first-time home buyers. But the well-intentioned legislation, as is so often the case with policies throwing money at problems, may end up doing more harm than good.
The “California Dream for All Program” would lend qualified middle-class Californians up to 17 percent of a home’s value for their down payment. Sounds good. If my family were lucky enough to be one of those funded through the program, it theoretically could provide just enough assistance to help us break into the housing market.
The more likely scenario: With more money in the real estate market but not enough houses, prices will rise. The down-payment help would enable my family bid on a house, but we’d be in no position to compete with anyone who wants to outbid us. And that’s exactly what happens when there aren’t enough houses available.
The big winners of subsidies will ultimately be existing homeowners, who will naturally seek the best price.
That’s a crushing realization for my wife and me. We live in East Los Angeles and have spent the past four years saving as much as possible to enter the housing market. We’re both college-educated and work nonprofit jobs that, while not highly lucrative, would have provided enough for a modest home just a decade ago. But it seems no matter how much we save, prices steadily climb beyond our budget.
In March, the California Department of Housing and Community Development said 2.5 million new homes would need to be built by 2030 to address a housing shortfall that has been half a century in the making.
Over that span, ever-tightening zoning regulations have choked off housing options for countless middle-class families. Townhouses, duplexes and small apartment buildings are widely banned — including on 75 percent of residential land in Los Angeles and 94 percent in San Jose.
State lawmakers periodically try to attack the problem at its root, but ambitious bills that would address the supply problem have repeatedly died in Sacramento at the hands of politicians fearing retribution from not-in-my-backyard voters. Hence the politically safer but financially dubious move to subsidize down-payments for first-time home buyers.
To assess the prospects of success for the California Dream for All fund consider the effect of a homeowner subsidy already in effect. Research on the mortgage interest deduction shows that subsidizing homeowner’s mortgages pushes up the cost of housing because buyers can afford to pay more for their houses.
The deduction does not make homeownership more accessible; it often prices lower-income buyers out of the market, while better-off homeowners disproportionately use the benefit simply to buy larger homes.
If government is going to subsidize anyone’s housing, it should be those most urgently in need. In California right now, 160,000 people are living without a home, and an additional 1.5 million low-income renters spend over half their income on rent. Renters stretched to paying 50 percent of their income on rent are unlikely ever to afford to buy a home, even with homeownership subsidies.
As much as I’d enjoy government assistance in buying a house, I’m under no illusion that my predicament is as dire as that of someone struggling to keep a roof over their head.
Instead of inviting higher housing prices by subsidizing first-time home buyers in California, lawmakers could steel themselves against NIMBY (not in my backyard) resistance and reform at least some zoning laws. A California bill now under consideration would remove parking minimums across the state (requiring a certain number of parking spots is a common way for localities to block construction of denser housing). In 2019, San Diego dropped its parking requirements in areas near transit stops, and saw housing construction more than quadruple.
Another bill would legalize housing in commercial corridors. Evidence from Minneapolis shows that such a move produces more housing and helps bring down prices.
I would love to buy a house, but I would prefer to do it without taking resources that could go to those truly in need. Providing financial assistance to first-time home buyers does nothing to produce more new houses — and building more houses, not just making existing ones more expensive, is the only way California can solve its housing problem. | 2022-07-28T11:48:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | California wants to help me buy a house. Here’s why that’s a bad idea. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/california-home-buying-assistance-counterproductive/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/california-home-buying-assistance-counterproductive/ |
Here’s how states can empower citizens to help combat gun violence
By Ian Ayres
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) speaks during a news conference held on the campus of Santa Monica College on July 22 in Santa Monica, Calif. (Jae C. Hong/AP)
California has copied Texas in deputizing its residents to enforce controversial laws. Texas passed a law allowing private citizens to sue anyone who aids or abets an abortion, and now California has done the same for guns, permitting private lawsuits against those who deal in certain kinds of illegal firearms.
Both laws are misguided because they insulate potentially unconstitutional restrictions from judicial review. But California is correct in saying that ordinary citizens can and should play a bigger role in reducing gun deaths. Here’s how we think that might work.
Instead of allowing private citizens to sue other private citizens, we propose that California and other states should authorize “unlawful possession petitions” and incentivize private citizens to file them before state trial judges. This would give the courts the ability to order the removal of firearms if there is probable cause to believe that someone possesses them illegally.
We’ve estimated that more than a quarter of the U.S. population cannot legally purchase or own firearms. Common disqualifiers include current drug use (including marijuana, even in states that have legalized it for medical or recreational purposes), involuntary commitment for mental illness and a felony conviction. And there are hundreds of thousands of Americans who illegally possess firearms. California, the state that does the best job at tracking this problem, has identified more than 24,000 prohibited persons who have failed to surrender their guns.
Most states are lackadaisical about disarming people who have been convicted of felonies. The majority use a kind of honor system, expecting illegal gun owners to identify themselves and voluntarily relinquish their weapons. When a resident is convicted of a felony, most states do not even ask whether they own firearms. And even when the state can identify prohibited persons, officials rarely seek to remove the guns.
Take the case of Courtney and Joseph Irby. On June 14, 2019, Joseph was arrested and jailed on domestic violence charges for allegedly trying to hit Courtney, his estranged wife, with a car. Though Courtney obtained a restraining order against her husband, she reported to police that she was still “in fear for her life” because Joseph owned two guns and she believed “he wasn’t going to turn them in.”
Even though the protective order against him meant that Joseph could no longer legally own firearms, Courtney’s report did not prompt the police to remove his guns. When Courtney retrieved the guns and brought them to the police herself, the department caused a national stir by arresting her for stealing her husband’s property.
Unlawful possession petitions would give people such as Courtney Irby another way to protect themselves, on top of the right to petition for temporary restraining orders in cases of domestic violence that many states grant their residents. Many states have also passed red- flag statutes that likewise give citizens the right to petition for court-ordered disarmament of people who meet various statutory standards of dangerousness.
An authorizing statute for unlawful possession petitions could allow the petitioner to choose to remain anonymous and give the subject of the petition the option to turn in their weapons and avoid criminal prosecution.
Beyond unlawful possession petitions, states should give individuals more incentive to come forward with information about illegal possession. Private individuals are sometimes better informed than the state. The state might know that someone is a felon, but not that they possess a gun. Or the state might know that someone owns a weapon, but not that they are a drug user.
The new California law, which awards individuals $10,000 for information about illegal gun sales — including sales to underage buyers — is on the right track. Gun bounties are more effective than gun buy-back programs. A number of Florida cities pay cash rewards for anonymous tips about illegal weapons, and many of these programs have been successful at more than just removing unlawful guns.
The problem with the California law is that it doesn’t sufficiently involve state actors. Including courts and police provides two crucial benefits. First, it avoids the shenanigans that Texas began by making the law judicially reviewable. Under the Texas abortion law, federal courts have no state official they can enjoin to block the private suits from continuing — even if the underlying abortion prohibition is unconstitutional. It’s the same with the California law.
Second, including state actors helps guard against private overreach. Gun-seizure orders would be issued only if a judge determined that there is probable cause to believe that an individual is in unlawful possession of a firearm. The respondent would be given an opportunity after the seizure to contest its validity in court and potentially have their firearms returned to them. And our proposal would subject petitioners to sanctions if a court determined that they intentionally provided false information.
Unlawful firearm possession is a substantial cause of gun violence in this country. Harnessing information from private individuals to take guns away from illegal owners should be a public policy that a broad spectrum of Americans can support. | 2022-07-28T11:48:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Unlawful gun possession is a problem. Here's a way to reduce it -- and gun violence. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/guns-california-abortion-texas/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/guns-california-abortion-texas/ |
If he can amass enough interest in his candidacy, the Democrat from California would upend a race that was considered largely set, challenging a variety of Democrats gunning for the top spot.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) on Capitol Hill on July 27. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The shadow campaign to lead House Democrats next year has been underway for months — and in many ways years — as a new generation of leaders quietly makes a play for the top positions. But an eleventh-hour push by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) in recent weeks has taken Democrats by surprise and raised questions about how the caucus wants to mirror the diversity that makes up its party’s base.
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The jockeying for leadership roles comes as House Democrats are eager to take the party into the next generation, satisfying an increasingly restless progressive base while pushing back against a more conservative, but divided, opposition intent on payback for the treatment of President Donald Trump.
The debate inside the caucus mirrors the sentiment of many Democratic voters who are demanding a younger and more diverse leadership structure in the party — a tension that flared during the 2020 Democratic primaries and is resurfacing as President Biden’s poll numbers slide. Schiff, 62, represents the kind of leader many Democrats have urged the party to move beyond: older, White and in politics nearly three decades. Both Jeffries and Clyburn are Black and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, though Clyburn is older than Schiff.
House Democrats continue to say privately that they believe a new generation of leadership should come to the forefront. Jeffries, 51; Assistant Speaker Katherine M. Clark (D-Mass.), 59; and Democratic caucus vice chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), 43, are considered the leadership trio in waiting, given they are all young, have served in Congress for less than a decade and all belong to minority caucuses. (Jeffries is Black, Clark is a woman, and Aguilar is Hispanic and previously represented a battleground district).
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The CBC is well aware that for the first time in its history it can elevate the first Black leader of any party in either chamber of Congress. Members have received the signal that Jeffries would want the top spot, but the CBC also would honor and equally support Clyburn in whatever position he may seek, according to people familiar with the group’s thinking.
In an interview with The Washington Post earlier this year, Clyburn said that while becoming speaker “was not on his radar,” he was not necessarily going to step away from seeking a higher position and dismissed accusations of ageism, noting that leadership needs to have “a healthy balance of strength and experience.”
There is an acknowledgment, however, that a Clyburn run for the top spot could divide caucus allegiances. But the CBC does “not believe we’ll lose to Adam Schiff,” one person familiar with the group’s thinking said.
Schiff’s strategy to ascend to leadership is based on the assumption that Pelosi would step down as speaker at the end of the year, a promise she made members when she ran for the top job two years ago. Yet she has spent this term deflecting questions about when she would retire, with those closest to her often reminding that she has never declared a decision before an election takes place.
“The speaker is not on a shift, she’s on a mission,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said, refusing to weigh in on Schiff’s exploration.
Hoyer has long aspired to replace Pelosi and is not deterred by members once again calling for younger, more diverse leadership, according to people close to him. He told The Washington Post in February he hopes colleagues recognize his service to the caucus over the decades and would reelect him to leadership.
Hoyer and Clyburn are in their 80s and have been in the top three positions since 2006. By testing the waters of support among his colleagues, Schiff is skirting what has been broadly viewed as the order of succession.
“I think it’s very, very difficult to go from outside the leadership position to jumping everybody,” said a person familiar with the inner workings of the caucus. “That is a dynamic that would be hard for any politician. But I think there’s no question that if Schiff thinks he can take the top spot or even the top two or three, I don’t think there’s any question his math is complicated, if not impossible.”
Several members and aides also expressed hesitation that in running for the top spot, Schiff is jumping over another Californian, Aguilar, who has worked to amass support for a potential leadership bid with Jeffries and Clark. Aguilar also has the support of many within the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, a group that would like to elevate him and potentially a Latina into the leadership ranks.
Schiff is a prolific fundraiser, which is a necessary requirement for the leader of the party. He has hired political fundraiser Bruce Kieloch, whom Pelosi uses for the House Majority PAC. He has $19 million cash on hand in his personal campaign account and his leadership PAC has raised $7 million this year for candidates and the DCCC, according to FEC filings.
Schiff is battleground chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, but members have been seeing an uptick in Schiff’s activity on the fundraising circuit, where he has visited vulnerable incumbents’ districts and helped the challengers in the group’s program for candidates trying to unseat Republicans.
In one recent campaign swing, Schiff rapped for Rep. Daniel Kildee and Hillary Scholten in Michigan, Rep. Angie Craig in Minnesota, and Rep. Cindy Axne plus two Democratic challengers in Iowa, according to his Facebook page. He’s heading to Nevada next week, multiple lawmakers said.
House Democrats are noticing. One House Democrat said his fundraising numbers are “pretty impressive.”
Schiff, they say, believes he is more experienced than other colleagues who are seeking leadership positions, having served in the House since 2001. And they note he is extremely close with Pelosi, a fellow Californian who has repeatedly placed Schiff in prominent positions, a sign that she trusts him.
And Schiff is looking for a place to go as the end of his term as House Intelligence chairman approaches. Not only is he term-limited as chair, but a Republican would lead the committee if they win back the majority. Furthermore, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has promised to remove Schiff from his committees as payback for Democrats’ stripping two of his own from their assignments.
Lawmakers also said Schiff has mused about one day running for Senate, which has made some skeptical that he would stay in the House long term if he were to land somewhere in the leadership hierarchy.
People who have spoken to Schiff about his ambitions acknowledge he has done a tremendous amount for the party, including leading the Russia investigation, impeachment and the Jan. 6, 2021, investigation, and note he is battle-tested against Trump and his allies. He is a constant presence on cable news, serving as an effective attack dog defending the party.
Several Democratic members said they are thankful for the intense work he’s put in over the years, but note a leadership position takes a different type of work: years of visiting member districts, fundraising on their behalf, countless dinners with colleagues, getting to know the names of spouses and children, and learning a member’s struggles and strengths.
While voters have no direct say in who will make up House leadership, members said they are taking into consideration the demands of their constituents and a desire to move beyond the typical top-down legislating style that has become commonplace over the past several decades.
But Schiff’s high profile that has garnered him support among the progressive base has also worried Democrats that he can drag the party down as an easily recognizable face for Republicans to target.
“We are all very grateful for what he has done and what he continues to do,” one Democratic lawmaker said, “but it’s been more of a high-profile political role than what we may need to knit the caucus together.” | 2022-07-28T11:49:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Adam Schiff is trying to be House Democratic leader - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/28/adam-schiff-democratic-leadership/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/28/adam-schiff-democratic-leadership/ |
Daniel Snyder will face House committee questions under oath Thursday
Commanders owner Daniel Snyder did not participate in a June 22 hearing on Capitol Hill. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The committee announced the agreement early Thursday morning after negotiations involving attorneys on both sides continued late Wednesday night. Snyder is scheduled to give a voluntary deposition under oath on issues related to the team’s workplace at 8 a.m. Thursday without accepting service of a subpoena.
Thursday’s deposition will not be public. The proceedings will be transcribed. It is not clear whether the transcript will be released publicly at any point; that is at the committee’s discretion. The deposition will be conducted by committee staffers, most of them lawyers, and is expected to last longer than the 2½-hour public hearing last month at which NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was questioned by lawmakers rather than by lawyers.
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), the committee’s chairwoman, fulfilled a procedural requirement by filing a deposition notice Monday with the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. But it was not certain that the deposition actually would take place until the sides resolved their differences over the terms.
Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), a member of the committee, said in a phone interview Tuesday that while committee members are invited to attend depositions, the questioning is typically done by the professional staff steeped in the pertinent issues.
Under voluntary testimony, Snyder potentially can choose which questions he will answer. Under a subpoena, he would not have the ability to avoid answering a question without citing a constitutionally protected privilege.
In April, the committee detailed allegations of financial improprieties by Snyder and the team in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission. The attorneys general for D.C., Democrat Karl A. Racine, and Virginia, Republican Jason S. Miyares, announced they would investigate. The team denied committing any financial improprieties. | 2022-07-28T11:50:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Daniel Snyder will face House committee questions under oath Thursday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/28/dan-snyder-house-oversight-committee-interview/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/28/dan-snyder-house-oversight-committee-interview/ |
Thursday briefing: U.S. on recession watch; Manchin makes a deal on climate, health care; Spirit merger; ‘Jeopardy!’; and more
Key data on the U.S. economy will publish this morning.
What to know: Many experts expect the GDP report will show that the U.S. economy continued to shrink over the past three months.
Would that mean a recession? A recession is technically six months of negative economic growth, but these economists would make the official call. Parts of the economy (like the job market) remain strong, which complicates things.
What else? The U.S. central bank increased interest rates aggressively again yesterday because prices are still rising rapidly.
Congress had a breakthrough on health-care and climate legislation.
What happened? A key Democratic senator stalling negotiations, Joe Manchin, agreed to support a $433 billion deal yesterday.
What’s in it? Proposals to increase clean energy production and cut carbon emissions; a plan to keep health insurance costs for about 13 million Americans from rising; and more.
What else to know: The Senate passed a bill to boost U.S. production of semiconductor chips. It’s expected to pass the House.
President Biden has recovered from covid-19.
After testing negative for the coronavirus, President Biden warned about taking "precautions" against the BA.5 subvariant during July 27 remarks. (Video: The Washington Post)
The latest: He tested negative for the coronavirus yesterday and is out of isolation. The 79-year-old tested positive a week ago but had only mild symptoms.
Why? Biden credited vaccines — he’s had two booster shots — which weren’t available when President Donald Trump had to be hospitalized with covid in 2020.
The U.S. has offered Russia a deal to free WNBA star Brittney Griner.
What’s in it? We don’t know, but it may include a prisoner swap and would also free American Paul Whelan. Griner is on trial in Moscow on drug charges, with a guilty verdict all but certain.
The latest from the war: Ukraine is trying to retake the southern city of Kherson from Russia, bombing a key bridge again this morning.
JetBlue has decided to buy Spirit Airlines.
This was fast: A merger deal between Spirit (known for cheap fares and not-so-great service) and Frontier Airlines officially fell apart just yesterday.
What this does: JetBlue and Spirit would create the fifth-largest airline in the U.S., but the deal still needs to be approved by U.S. regulators.
Tony Dow, who played Wally on “Leave It to Beaver,” has died.
What to know: The 77-year-old actor died of complications from liver cancer yesterday, a day after his team incorrectly announced his death.
What he’s most known for: His role on the wholesome sitcom, which aired from 1957 to 1963 and became a cultural touchstone of the baby-boom generation.
The search for the next “Jeopardy!” host is officially over.
The details: Actress Mayim Bialik and former champion Ken Jennings, who split hosting duties this past season, have signed on permanently, the show announced yesterday.
They’ve got big shoes to fill: Alex Trebek, who died in November 2020, was the show’s quizmaster for over three decades, and it’s been a saga to replace him.
And now … if you’re worrying about the economy and your finances: Take this quiz for some expert advice. | 2022-07-28T11:50:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Thursday, July 28 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/07/28/what-to-know-for-july-28/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/07/28/what-to-know-for-july-28/ |
If you could be a pro athlete, which sport would you choose?
Would you be a major leaguer or play in the WNBA? It’s fun to consider on long summer evenings.
If you could play in the Women's National Basketball Association, you would face fierce competition to keep your roster spot from world-class players, including, from left, Sabrina Ionescu, Sylvia Fowles, Candace Parker and A'ja Wilson. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)
Summertime and the living is easy. No school. No homework. Just long evenings when you can lie back and wonder about the great questions of life.
For example, if you could be a professional athlete at any sport, which sport would you choose? I remember wondering about that question with my best buddy, Benny, many summers ago.
Lots of kids love football, but that may not be a good choice. The average player’s career in the National Football League (NFL) is a little more than three years. For some players, such as running backs, it’s shorter. Chances are you will get hurt. I would pass on football.
It’s the same with hockey. I love the speed of the game, but hockey is rough. With playoffs, the National Hockey League (NHL) season can stretch to more than 100 games. I don’t know how anyone makes it through an entire season.
Benny and I played on a baseball team called the Pirates, so we thought being a major leaguer would be the best. You can get hurt playing baseball, but it’s not as rough as football or hockey. Now the average player in Major League Baseball (MLB) makes more than $4 million a season.
The average player in the National Basketball Association (NBA) makes about twice as much as the average MLB player. Maybe being a player in the NBA is the way to go. I mean who wouldn’t want to be Stephen Curry?
Let’s also discuss women’s professional sports. Unlike years ago, there are now professional leagues for women’s ice hockey, fast-pitch softball and even women’s tackle football. Unfortunately, these leagues are small and don’t pay anywhere near as much as the men’s sports.
The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) has competed since 1997. With 12 teams, the competition for players to keep a roster spot is fierce. Anyone who makes it the WNBA has to be very good.
Men and women compete in golf and tennis. Some golfers travel around the world playing on the professional tour for more than 20 years. That sounds great, but if the golfer does not play well, they don’t make any money. There are no guaranteed contracts in golf as there are in other sports.
Tennis pros are also world travelers. The truth is, however, that while stars such as Rafael Nadal and Naomi Osaka make big money, most pro tennis players do not.
Most sports are tough, and we haven’t even mentioned soccer yet. Although the most popular sport has professional leagues — men’s and women’s — around the world, just about every kid gives the game a try. That means the competition to be a pro is intense.
So which sport will you pick? Basketball? Baseball? Golf? Or something else?
Give it some thought. But remember to enjoy the summer, and be sure to always play the sports you love. | 2022-07-28T12:22:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | If you could be a pro athlete, which sport would you choose? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/28/which-pro-sport-would-you-play/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/07/28/which-pro-sport-would-you-play/ |
At least two women say they were raped during the hours-long assault at an Indiana jail, which the lawsuit calls ‘a night of terror’
The female inmates expected a guard on a routine check when a door opened at the Clark County jail in Jeffersonville, Ind., late one night last October.
Instead, two male inmates burst in, a new federal lawsuit alleges. The men — masked with towels and blankets — threatened to kill the women if they alerted the guards.
It was the start of what the women would later describe as “a night of terror.” The two male inmates left, only to return with more men who exposed their genitals, yelled obscenities and groped the women, according to the lawsuit.
Two female inmates were raped, the lawsuit claims.
Now, at least 28 women are suing Clark County Sheriff Jamey Noel and then-corrections officer David Lowe in a pair of federal lawsuits recently filed in the U.S. District Court of Southern Indiana. In both, the women allege the sheriff and the jail guards working for him violated the women’s civil rights by either intentionally or negligently allowing the male inmates to gain access to their pods and not helping as the men attacked them for more than two hours early on Oct. 24.
“A sheriff at the jail — they have one job, and that’s to keep inmates safe and secure. And it’s just a complete, utter failure that allowed this to happen,” Steve Wagner, a lawyer representing eight women, told The Washington Post. “And so we want answers as to how it happened.”
Larry Wilder, an attorney representing the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, blamed the inmate-on-inmate attack on “the unforeseeable criminal actions of a rogue corrections officer” who abandoned his training and forsook his morals when he gave inmates access to the jail keys.
That corrections officer, Lowe, told The Post he made a mistake that allowed male inmates to steal the keys that gave them access to the female pod. Lowe, 29, claimed it was an accident — the result of being overworked in the weeks leading up to the attack, which he said he learned about only in the days after it happened because he had been working elsewhere in the jail. Lowe, who worked at the sheriff’s office for about a year, claimed he was then “coerced and assaulted into making a false confession” about selling the keys to the inmates.
Lowe, who was fired within days of the attack, has since been charged with felony official misconduct, helping an inmate escape and trafficking with an inmate. He faces up to 9½ years in prison if convicted of all three charges.
Wilder, the attorney representing the sheriff’s office, challenged the female inmates’ claims implicating the agency.
“The Sheriff’s Detective Division has continued to interview female inmates who were present in the pod that evening and these interviews have yielded information that is in direct opposition to the allegations made in the civil lawsuit,” Wilder said in an email. “Further, the investigation seems to indicate that there was a systematic plan by individuals who were incarcerated that evening to develop the narrative that makes up the crux of the claims in the civil case.”
The sheriff, Noel, is “committed to defending those untruths that have been alleged by those who are attempting to reap financial gain from the crimes of David Lowe,” he added.
According to one of the federal lawsuits, which was filed this week, Lowe took $1,000 on Oct. 23 in exchange for giving two male inmates access to keys that would allow them to roam freely through several restricted areas inside the jail. In his interview with The Post, Lowe denied taking any money.
Early the following morning, those two inmates, joined by several other men, roved three pods where women were locked up, the suit alleges. Unable to flee, the women hid under blankets, in the bathroom and in dark corners.
“That was terrifying to them. There’s just nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” Wagner said.
The men attacked dozens of women, according to the suit. They groped women’s breasts and thighs, exposed themselves and threatened sexual assault.
Several men shoved one of the women, identified in documents as Jane Doe 1, against the side of a locker and pinned her there as they groped her breasts, the lawsuit states. Then, one of them raped her as the others threatened her to keep quiet, the inmates allege. The woman contracted genital herpes as a result of the rape, according to the lawsuit.
Another woman who was raped became pregnant and later miscarried, William McCall, a lawyer representing 20 of the women, told The Post.
Even though the attack went on for more than two hours, no jail guards came to stop it, the suit alleges. Surveillance cameras were positioned in spots that would have captured the men entering the pod and their ensuing attack, but “not a single jail officer on duty that night came to the aid of the Plaintiffs and the other victims,” according to the lawsuit.
“They just kept wondering: ‘When is somebody going to come help us? Isn’t anybody watching on the security cameras? Where are the guards that are supposed to be patrolling the jail?’ ” Wagner told The Post.
After the attack, jail officials punished the women, according to the lawsuit. They allegedly revoked the female inmates’ “dark privileges” by leaving the lights on for 72 hours straight; put the pods on lockdown, which restricted where they could go; and confiscated pillows, blankets and personal hygiene items.
Jail officials also didn’t change the locks to the pod, even though the keys were still missing, the suit alleges.
Wilder, the attorney representing the sheriff’s office, said the jail’s command staff learned of the attack the day after it happened from an inmate’s lawyer. That sparked an investigation that included a review of security footage, as well as interviews of corrections officers and inmates. Officials made immediate changes to “the physical structure” of the jail and reviewed its policies and procedures.
That work continues, Wilder said.
“This investigation is not over and the Sheriff is committed to [ensuring] that nothing of this magnitude or scope [ever] occurs again,” he added.
Nine months after the attack, many of the women are still reeling, Wagner told The Post. They struggle to fall asleep and suffer from flashback nightmares when they do, he said. They don’t feel safe. Those who are still locked up fear another attack.
“They have trouble sleeping at night, wondering, you know, ‘Is somebody going to come through that door? Am I truly safe?’ ” he added.
Wagner said that none of the male inmates have been charged in the attack, something he described as “a continuing insult to the women.” He hopes the legal process allows the women to pry answers from the sheriff’s office about how the attack was possible.
“Did people intentionally look the other way? Were they just not doing their jobs?” Wagner said. “What happened that night to allow this to happen?” | 2022-07-28T12:44:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lawsuit: Female inmates raped inside Clark County, Indiana, jail - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/28/indiana-jail-inmate-rape-attack/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/28/indiana-jail-inmate-rape-attack/ |
Liz Sequeira and Butch Jackson dance to the sounds of Clan Salsa DC during the 2015 Fort Dupont Summer Concert Series. This year marks the event’s 50th anniversary. (Amanda Voisard for The Washington Post)
Music on the Lawn at the National Building Museum: Shakespeare is front and center at the National Building Museum this summer, with performances of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” onstage in the Great Hall and Shakespeare-related tours and family activities throughout the museum. But not every event involves the Bard: This week marks the return of Music on the Lawn, an outdoor concert series held in the grassy area at Fifth and F streets NW. First up is Sol y Rumba, a D.C. fixture specializing in salsa, merengue and other Latin styles. Grab a takeout dinner from a Penn Quarter restaurant — say, Indian from Bindaas Bowls and Rolls or fried chicken from Bantam King — and enjoy a picnic along with the music. 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Free.
Singalong ‘Mary Poppins’ at the Library of Congress: The next-to-last installment of the Library of Congress’s outdoor film series invites audience participation, as if librarians would be able to shush kids and kids at heart from singing along to “A Spoonful of Sugar” or “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” Settle in at sunset for the 1964 version of “Mary Poppins,” starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. The large screen is set up near the corner of Second Street and Independence Avenue SE, and viewers spread out on blankets and in low chairs on the lawn and the adjacent parking lot. No tickets are required, but show up early for the best seats. 8 p.m. Free.
Loudoun County Fair: Some people try to paint the D.C. area as out of touch with the rest of America, but we love a demolition derby, livestock show, pie-eating contest or carnival midway as much as anywhere else. Get an early start on county fair season at the Loudoun County Fair, a traditional 4-H fair in Leesburg. Entertainment includes livestock shows and tours, competitions including canning and needlepoint, live music, and carnival rides. Thursday’s headline attraction is the True Grit rodeo, with bull riding and barrel racing, while Saturday brings a demolition derby — and if you want to race, registration begins at 4 p.m. Through Saturday. $15 adults, $5 ages 6 to 12. Children 5 and under admitted free.
Kennedy Center Culture Caucus Summer Festival: This week’s installment of the Kennedy Center’s multidisciplinary summer events kicks off Thursday with an outdoor screening of “Elder’s Corner,” a documentary about pioneering Nigerian musicians, and a set by DJ Ausar. Friday brings an outdoor marketplace; a discussion about the economy of culture with local Black creatives; a performance by Siji, whose music fuses Afrobeat and R&B; and a set by DJ Stylus. Thursday from 7 to 11 p.m., Friday from 5 to 8:30 p.m. Free.
Otakon at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center: For fans of anime, manga, cosplay and video games, there’s no bigger weekend than Otakon, an annual celebration of Asian art and pop culture at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. The 28-year-old event, run as a nonprofit “for fans, by fans,” drew more than 28,000 attendees pre-pandemic. It’s known for elaborate and incredibly detailed costumes inspired by anime and manga characters — the schedule includes both costume contests and live-action role play, or LARPing — but the weekend is packed full of events. Attend a formal ball or masquerade, play free arcade or VR games, browse original artwork in the Artist Alley, watch dance groups perform, try hands-on crafting or participate in a Pokémon battle. Panels and workshops feature big names and die-hard fans. Special guests include voice actor Steve Blum, who has lent his talents to “Cowboy Bebop,” “Star Wars: Rebels” and more than 400 video games, and Friday night’s concert features K-pop band Pixy, making its North American debut. Friday through Sunday. $40-$65 per day; $95 weekend passes.
Anees at the Howard Theatre: You may recognize 29-year-old Anees from his TikTok or Instagram videos performing or freestyling from his car, particularly when Justin Bieber crashed one of his live streams. Or, more recently, you might have seen him performing his hit song “Sun and Moon” on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” The Arab American artist is known for his genre-defying, uplifting sound and mood-lifting, soulful lyrics about love and self-care — a breath of fresh air in a world that can be hard on us. The former lawyer turned singer-songwriter from Northern Virginia just embarked on his first tour, with a closing date at the Howard Theatre on July 29. 10:30 p.m. $27.
Interview: Anees wants to bring everyone back to summer camp for his debut tour
Final Friday at Wheatland Spring Farm and Brewery: Wheatland Spring is one of the best farm breweries in the area — a relaxing place to sip German-style lagers in a barn or around a firepit. On the last Friday of the month, it’s also a hub of activity, with family art projects, a paper-airplane-making workshop, live surf rock from the Flying Faders, a gourmet ice cream truck and plenty of fresh beer, including Köln Calling kolsch and Merville, an oak-aged farmhouse ale. 3 to 9 p.m., though family events are on the early side; see this Instagram post for a schedule. Free.
‘The Lego Movie’ at Virginia Highlands Park: The National Landing Business Improvement District’s Movies in the Park is one of several outdoor film series kicking off this week. Head to the softball fields at Virginia Highlands Park — just across 15th Street South from the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City — for a family screening of “The Lego Movie” with dinner or snacks available from food trucks. Coming attractions include the original versions of “Tron” (Aug. 5) and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (Aug. 12), and the series runs every Friday through Sept. 16. Gates open at 6 p.m.; films begin at 7. Free.
Fort Dupont Summer Concert Series: Fort Dupont, known for its ice arena and bike trails, began offering Saturday night concerts in 1972, and over the years, crowds of thousands have welcomed Gil Scott-Heron, Roy Ayers and Jill Scott, among other jazz and R&B notables. More recently, classic hip-hop and go-go have joined the mix, as seen during last year’s virtual concerts. This year’s 50th anniversary series begins Saturday with a lineup packed with R&B-flavored go-go: Sirius Company, Be’la Dona and the Soul Searchers, plus DJ Rico. Picnics, lawn chairs and blankets are welcome. Note that there’s no concert Aug. 6, but the shows — featuring artists yet to be confirmed — run every Saturday from Aug. 13 through Labor Day weekend. Gates open at 5:30 p.m.; concerts begin at 7. Free.
SAAM Arcade at the Smithsonian American Art Museum: The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s annual SAAM Arcade, which returns to an in-person format at the museum’s Kogod Courtyard this weekend, celebrates the art of the video game. This year’s theme is “Color, Line and Form,” and the museum describes the event as part of “the study and interpretation of video games as part of the national visual culture.” Really, though, it’s about turning the Kogod into a giant free arcade. Older gamers can wax nostalgic about vintage arcade cabinets — previous years have featured multiplayer X-Men and the original Mario Brothers — or explore the row of different console systems. The event also offers a spotlight to independent game developers, with eight new titles available to play at the museum Saturday, and the online Game Jam, which allows anyone to create a video or tabletop game and post it on the museum’s itch.io page for the public to play, beginning Monday. (Full details are on the event’s website.) 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Free.
Citi Open at Rock Creek Tennis Center: The Women’s Tennis Association returns to Citi Open this year, making the D.C. tournament one of only five combined tour events in the U.S. featuring both WTA and ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) matches. On the women’s side, seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams makes her debut in the competition, alongside defending U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu, who’s also appearing for the first time. Sloane Stephens, Victoria Azarenka and Simona Halep are also scheduled to appear. The men’s tour brings stars including former No. 1 Andy Murray, 2022 Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios, top-ranked American Taylor Fritz and Hyattsville native Frances Tiafoe. Through Aug. 7. $25-$350.
Nada Surf at Arrowbrook Centre Park: Casual music fans will remember Nada Surf for “Popular,” a maddeningly catchy, grunge-adjacent song that felt inescapable back in the summer of 1996, thanks to a combination of incessant radio play and its MTV Buzz Bin video. In the ensuing decades, however, the band has built a solid fan base on both sides of the Atlantic, thanks to a catalogue of smart, tuneful power-pop in the vein of Teenage Fanclub or early Weezer — singalong indie rock songs in which introspective lyrics share space with jangling guitars and massive hooks. After spending the summer touring and performing at festivals in Europe in support of its ninth album, “Never Not Together,” the band visits Herndon to perform a free, outdoor concert as part of the Music at Arrowbrook Park series — the last of only four American shows the band will play in 2022. 7:30 p.m. Free.
The Weeknd at FedEx Field: Yes, “After Hours” was the Weeknd’s emblematic departure from his grittier pop plays to sleek stadium anthems intended for Grammy nods (which didn’t quite pan out as planned). But it wasn’t a sudden shift. Slowly but astutely, he has prodded his ascension into international fame with each record. “Starboy,” while still homing in on darker themes, produced lighter, more radio-friendly hits such as “I Feel It Coming,” which felt like a playful foreshadowing both in name and sonically of what was to come. “After Hours” took that small glimmer of ’80s synth-pop seen in 2016’s “Starboy” and ran the entire field with it. By the time “Dawn FM” was released earlier this year, the Weeknd had completed his pop metamorphosis. Did you ever think you’d see the day when Jim Carrey had a feature on a Weeknd album? I don’t think the “Starboy” Weeknd could have predicted that, either. 6:30 p.m. $196-$286.
Plant swap at Hellbender Brewing: The monthly plant swap at 3 Stars Brewing drew hundreds of plant lovers, who spent Sunday afternoons ogling each other’s plants, talking trades, and giving away surplus cuttings and potted houseplants. It was a friendly, organically grown crowd, which faced an uncertain future when 3 Stars closed suddenly earlier this month. The swap is popping up at the nearby Hellbender Brewing this weekend, and inviting everyone — regulars and plant-curious alike — to bring something to trade or give away. Food comes from Cinder BBQ and the meat-free Nomad Dumplings. 1 p.m. Free.
Women’s European Championship Final: Old foes England and Germany go head to head at London’s Wembley Stadium in the last match of the successful Euro 2022 soccer tournament. The Lionesses find themselves the favorites, though soccer fans know never to count out the Germans, who have won eight of the last 10 women’s championships, including beating England in the 2009 final. NoMa’s Wunder Garten, the site of World Cup viewing parties hosted by both the German and U.K. embassies, has partnered with Atlas Brew Works for beer specials throughout the match. Other mainstays include the Queen Vic for England fans and Across the Pond for neutral viewers. Kickoff at noon. Free.
Dark Star Park Day at Dark Star Park: Nancy Holt’s “Dark Star Park” is one of the more unusual public art displays in the D.C. area. Five giant gunite orbs, looking like the brutalist cores of extinguished stars, lie in a Rosslyn park — one divided by busy Fairfax Drive and surrounded by anonymous modern buildings. Part of the installation features tall metal poles and long metal grooves lying flat on the ground. At one moment each year — 9:32 a.m. on Aug. 1 — the shadows of poles and orbs align with tracks on the ground. Aug. 1 was chosen to commemorate the day in 1860 when William Henry Ross purchased the land that became Rosslyn; Holt selected the time. Whether you consider this to be “Rosslyn’s answer to Stonehenge” or just a cool curiosity, it might make you think about the nature of time and our ephemeral relationship to our environment. There’s a party beginning at 9:15 with free cake pops and sunglasses, perhaps to encourage sunny, shadow-generating light. If you can’t be in Rosslyn on Monday morning, the Rosslyn Business Improvement District live-streams the event on Facebook. 9:15 to 9:45 a.m. Free.
From 2020: Once a year, the shadows in Arlington’s Dark Star Park align. This year, it feels especially profound.
Georgetown Sunset Cinema: Georgetown’s Sunset Cinema is the rare outdoor movie series that launches at the end of summer instead of in June or July. The setting in Waterfront Park, with views of the Key Bridge, Kennedy Center and, uh, Rosslyn high-rises, is one of the most atmospheric in town. “The Goonies” gets the six-film series underway, followed by “Encanto” and “Bridesmaids.” Nearby restaurants offer picnic deals, including 15 percent discounts at Pizzeria Paradiso and Chaia. Films begin at sunset, through Sept. 6. Free.
‘Put It This Way’ at the Hirshhorn: The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden reaches into its permanent collection to showcase work from nearly 50 women and nonbinary artists this summer. “Put It This Way: (Re)Visions of the Hirshhorn Collection” fills an entire floor, celebrating the accomplishments of artists and investigating gender issues. Alongside masterworks and newly acquired pieces, see art that has never before been displayed at the Hirshhorn, such as Diana Thater’s installation “Oo Fifi, Five Days in Claude Monet’s Garden, Parts 1 and 2.” Through fall 2023. Free.
Martin Courtney at Songbyrd: As the world wiped the sleep from its eyes and began easing back into normal life earlier this year, Real Estate frontman Martin Courtney released his breezy sophomore solo effort, “Magic Sign.” The record is imbued with sunny psychedelic tones as Courtney harks back to simpler times, pre-covid, as a teenager growing up in New Jersey. “In the basement of my mind / I’m on a bike in 1999 / In the basement of my mind / We’re on the phone for the very first time,” he reminisces on “Merlin.” But amid the moments of bliss, Courtney brings his trip down memory lane down to earth on songs such as “Time To Go”: “Every other house is empty / And the streets are full of sand / Why are we the last to know / When it’s time to go, time to go.” 7 p.m. $18-$20.
Scarface at the Howard Theatre: In a 2019 interview with The Washington Post, Scarface made a shocking announcement: “Scarface is dead,” the rapper (real name: Brad Jordan) proclaimed, vowing to become a politician instead. It was just a few months after that conversation that he almost died, contracting covid-19 at the start of the pandemic and suffering from kidney failure afterward. The life-altering series of events didn’t change Scarface’s mind about continuing his music career, though, and once shows ramped up again, the rapper set sail on his farewell tour in early July. The tour marks the end of a long, storied career in hip-hop that pioneered and paved the way for his Southern rap contemporaries. 8 p.m. $40. | 2022-07-28T13:19:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Outdoor concerts, festivals, fairs and events in the Washington, D.C., area. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/28/best-things-do-dc-area-week-july-28-aug-3/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/07/28/best-things-do-dc-area-week-july-28-aug-3/ |
By Sahaj Kaur Kohli
Sahaj Kaur Kohli, creator of Brown Girl Therapy and a mental health professional, is answering questions about identity, relationships, mental health, work-life balance, family dynamics and more. If you have a question for her, please submit it here.
Dear Sahaj: I’m a first-generation Latina woman, and I recently experienced a racist event while on a beach vacation with my husband’s White, liberal family. They were not the aggressor. I was shaken, and my husband was able to be there for me the way I needed.
However, I realized that except for him, his family isn’t a place for me to land and be heard. Even when the world is on fire with discrimination, they discuss the issues but don’t actually actively engage with me about how I walk through life and experience these things … even on vacation. They have also unknowingly made several microaggressions.
I feel weary and discouraged and don’t know if I can broach the issue and be understood. How should I approach this?
— To broach or not
To broach or not: First, I want to say: I am sorry that you experienced that on vacation, and whatever you are feeling is valid.
I also want to remind you that microaggressions, despite having the word “micro” in them, are not small experiences. In fact, they have the potential to significantly and negatively impact a person’s self-concept and chip away at their self-worth. I can imagine how isolating this experience was, and how arduous it may feel to have to help guide and teach your in-laws.
At the same time, your in-laws may not recognize they are perpetuating harm. And if you want to be in a safer, more secure relationship with them, then it may be worth broaching this conversation with them. However, it’ll be important for you to consider if these are relationships worth investing in — and if you think they have the capacity to change or really hear you.
If having this conversation head-on feels too uncomfortable, consider watching a movie together or sharing a news article or book that includes racial identity as a prominent theme. Even if it’s a less heavy movie or a novel, you can ask open-ended questions as a way to broach the topic without it being about you just yet.
If you want to take it one step further, you could consider sharing a separate personal experience of a microaggression or racism not involving your family and see how they react and respond to that.
But remember: It’s not your job to do the work for them. You get to decide how much you want to engage them in this.
Also consider how involved you’d like your husband to be in these conversations. Would it be useful for you to discuss ways he can approach this conversation with his family without you, or ways he can step up when they perpetuate a microaggression? While I appreciate that he is able to be there for you in ways you need, I wonder if there is more he can do with his own privilege as both a White man and as a member of his family system.
Remember that people don’t change overnight. And having realistic expectations of what may come from this dialogue, both in the short-term and in the long-term, is important. No matter how you decide to broach this topic, “I” statements will allow you to share your experience and may keep your in-laws from getting defensive.
Finally, it’s critical that you find ways to take care of yourself through this process: making sure you have outside support to rely on, or setting stricter boundaries around the time you spend with your in-laws. You deserve to protect your energy, always. | 2022-07-28T13:19:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Sahaj: My White in-laws don’t recognize their microaggressions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/28/ask-sahaj-white-in-laws-microaggressions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/07/28/ask-sahaj-white-in-laws-microaggressions/ |
The latest GDP reading comes at a time of mounting worries about the economy’s resilience
Businesses and households, which are already struggling to deal with soaring prices, say looming economic uncertainty has made it difficult to make long-term plans. (Scott Suchman for The Washington Post)
The U.S. economy shrank again for a second straight quarter, at a 0.9 percent annual rate, which has often signaled a recession.
The second quarter slowdown reflected shifting consumer and business behaviors. Retailers bought fewer items, including cars, as consumers shifted their spending away from goods to services such as restaurants and hotels. Declines in residential investments and government spending also contributed to the negative reading.
In the meantime, inflation has been at 40-year highs for several months, home sales are weakening and even the-red hot labor market is beginning to show cracks. Broader worries about war in Ukraine, the global financial outlook and aggressive interest-rate hikes have prompted many economists to predict a recession in the next year.
“The numbers are baffling right now — we just don’t normally see declining GDP and rising employment,” said Betsey Stevenson, an economics professor at the University of Michigan and research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. “Employment is still growing. Consumer spending has not taken much of a hit. Households have stronger balance sheets than we normally have. Even with a negative number in the second quarter, it’s going to take some serious thought to figure out whether that’s really enough to say that we’re in a recession."
The U.S. economy unexpectedly slowed by an annualized rate of 1.6 percent in the first three months of the year, largely because of a mismatch in trade — with the United States importing far more than it was exporting — and a drop in inventory purchases by businesses that were still flush with leftover goods from the holidays.
Some of the signs of a slow down in economic growth are by design, thanks to interest rate hikes aimed at cooling down the economy. The Federal Reserve again raised interest rates on Wednesday, this time by three-quarters of a percentage point — an unusually aggressive hike — in hopes of curbing inflation, which is up 9.1 percent in the past year.
The Fed’s interest rate hikes, which began in March, are already beginning to cool demand in certain parts of the economy. On Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell pointed to a number of data points — including slower growth in consumer spending, weakening demand for housing and lower business investments — as signs that the central bank’s efforts are working.
But, he added, it’s getting tougher to calm the economy without sending it into a tailspin.
“Our goal is to bring inflation down and have a so-called soft landing, by which I mean a landing that doesn’t require a significant increase in unemployment,” Powell said in a Wednesday news conference. “We understand that’s going to be quite challenging. It’s gotten more challenging in recent months.”
Still, most economists expect the U.S. economy will end the year with growth — albeit at a much slower pace than the 5.7 percent gain it notched last year. Lydia Boussour, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, for example, expects economic growth to slow to 1.9 percent this year and 1.1 percent in 2023.
“We are expecting the economy to slow quite sharply,” she said. “The key question is: What happens in the second half of the year and where does that leave the economy?”
The White House has pushed back against concerns that the economy may be slowing, with senior officials pointing to a strong labor market as a sign that the recovery remains on track.
“My hope is we go from this rapid growth to steady growth, so we’ll see some coming down,” President Biden said Monday after a virtual meeting on semiconductor chips. “But ...God willing, I don’t think we’re going to see a recession.”
Walmart this week slashed its profit expectations for the year, causing its stock price to drop nearly 9 percent. The country’s largest retailer, considered a bellwether for the industry, said it will have to mark down products more heavily than expected because higher gas and grocery costs are forcing many consumers to rethink buying patterns.
General Motors, meanwhile, reported a 40 percent drop in quarterly profits and announced plans to curb hiring. Other major employers — including Ford Motor, 7-Eleven and Shopify — are going even further, announcing hundreds, even thousands, of layoffs.
But he says he isn’t panicking yet. Beneke is still hiring new employees, though he says he may cut back on his marketing budget and start buying fewer cars — perhaps 12 a week instead of 15 — if the slump continues.
“We’re being cautious, but we’re not necessarily scared to the point where we’re freezing,” said Beneke of Westland Auto Sales. “Things don’t seem overly concerning yet.” | 2022-07-28T13:19:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. economy shrinks again in 2nd quarter, reviving recession fears - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/28/gdp-q2-2022-economy-recession/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/28/gdp-q2-2022-economy-recession/ |
To Fight Climate Change, Change Your Bank
Analysis by Tanja Hester | Bloomberg
Come for the hundreds of ATMs, stay for greenhouse gases. (Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America)
It’s a sweltering summer of cognitive dissonance. The northern hemisphere is experiencing record-setting, even life-threatening, heat waves, droughts and fires; yet more attention has been given to rising gas prices than to measures that would prevent future summers from getting hotter, drier and more flammable. People who want to mitigate the climate crisis are desperate for actions they can take that don’t feel like drops in an increasingly empty bucket.
One of the best things the average person can do for the climate: change banks.
Responsible investing gets a lot of attention because there’s big money to be made convincing do-gooder investors to buy a new investment product, even though ample evidence shows that ESG and other responsible investing approaches don’t deliver on their promises to drain money from the extraction economy. What doesn’t get enough attention is responsible banking, which has far more potential to force the economy away from fossil fuels, the leading driver of carbon emissions that cause climate change — and to force that change quickly. We haven’t heard much about responsible banking because essentially none of the big banks engage in the practice, and they aren’t eager for customers to know how their money is being used.
The oil and gas industry can only operate because of big investments that fund exploration and the creation of infrastructure necessary to keep the oil flowing and coal burning. That funding, which totaled $742 billion in 2021, comes from the world’s biggest banks, according to the Banking on Climate Chaos report, released by a consortium including Sierra Club and Rainforest Action Network. US banks continue to be the single worst grouping, with the top four fossil fuel funders in the world (JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America) all headquartered in the US, joined by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs in the top 14. Together, these six banks provided 29% of fossil fuel financing identified in 2021. (Royal Bank of Canada, UnionBank, Barclays and Mizuho are right behind them.) While some of the big banks have made commitments to invest in renewable energy and regenerative projects, few have actually divested from fossil fuels or lived up to the pledges they’ve touted, and many have actually increased their funding of oil and gas projects since the Paris Agreement in 2016.
Customers don’t seem to have connected the dots that their own money is what’s funding these banks’ investments in fossil fuels. If you bank with one of the big banks, the money sitting in your deposit accounts is available for the banks to use however they wish, and many of them send it to the worst offenders in the climate crisis.
And the banks are paying almost no price. While some shareholder activists have been pushing the big banks to divest from fossil fuels, these efforts have not succeeded. And while bank customers seem to be paying little attention, right-wing special interests have certainly noticed.
Conservative states like Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Indiana and West Virginia are enacting laws to punish banks for divesting from fossil fuels, even though none of the banks they’re targeting have actually divested or even come close. We should expect more attempts like these to strong-arm the banks into continuing to fund the leading driver of climate change.
If enough customers leave banks that fund fossil fuels — and make it clear why they are leaving — it will show bank CEOs that there is a price to pay for funding climate change. Banks might not even need the prodding of shareholders to divest because the business case would be clear.
Several websites can help customers find banks that don’t prop up the fossil-fuel industry. Green America’s Break Up with Your Mega-Bank campaign has tools for finding a community development bank or credit union that avoids fossil fuels. Bank for Good allows users to search for greener banks based on a broad range of features and services. The Stop the Money Pipeline campaign provides a checklist for changing banks. And BankTrack offers information on a wide range of big banks’ activities around climate, human rights and more.
We may soon see SEC rules requiring banks to disclose the climate impact of all their investments, and can then expect to see more comprehensive tools to help consumers find out where their money is really going.
If you bank with a big bank, the best thing you can do for the climate is withdraw your funds as soon as possible and close your accounts, and let them know why you’re doing so. Changing banks is a pain, but this one-time act, done now, is more powerful than any other single act the average investor can take to address the climate crisis.
Tanja Hester is the author of “Wallet Activism” and “Work Optional,” and host of the podcast “Wallet Activism.” | 2022-07-28T13:19:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | To Fight Climate Change, Change Your Bank - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/to-fight-climate-change-change-your-bank/2022/07/28/9f878278-0e6d-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/to-fight-climate-change-change-your-bank/2022/07/28/9f878278-0e6d-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
The new guidance represents a shift in messaging for the public health body.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Brussels, on Feb. 18, 2022. (Johanna Geron/Reuters)
The head of the World Health Organization has suggested that men who have sex with men temporarily limit their number of sexual partners while monkeypox cases increase within their community — a shift in messaging from the global health agency, days after it raised its threat alert level for the monkeypox outbreak.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the comments Wednesday during a news briefing in which he said 98 percent of monkeypox cases have been reported in men who have sex with men.
Tedros said “this is an outbreak that can be stopped,” as long as governments take the appropriate measures and individuals stay informed and protect themselves from the virus.
“For men who have sex with men, this includes, for the moment, reducing your number of sexual partners, reconsidering sex with new partners, and exchanging contact details with any new partners to enable follow-up if needed,” Tedros said.
Since the monkeypox outbreak was first reported by the WHO in May, public health officials have sought to balance the need for outreach to the community experiencing the bulk of transmission — men who have sex with men, including gay and bisexual men — and the desire not to stigmatize members of that community, or give the impression that monkeypox exclusively affects men who have sex with men.
“Anyone exposed can get monkeypox,” Tedros said Wednesday, as he urged countries to “reduce the risk of transmission to other vulnerable groups,” including children, pregnant people and those with weak immune systems.
Still, as it has become clear that monkeypox is, for now, mostly spreading among men who have sex with men, calls have grown for health agencies and governments to do more specific outreach to members of that community.
Monkeypox mainly spreads through close physical contact between humans, though it can also be spread by a pregnant person to their fetus through the placenta, and when a person touches contaminated clothes and other items, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Symptoms of monkeypox infection include fever, muscle pain and a rash or pox-like blisters.
To date, more than 18,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported to the WHO from 78 countries, though the bulk of the cases are in Europe, the epicenter of the outbreak. Five of those cases have resulted in death.
More than 4,600 monkeypox infections have been reported in the United States, where President Biden is weighing whether to declare the outbreak a public health emergency.
For its part, the WHO declared monkeypox a “public health emergency of international concern” — its highest level of threat — over the weekend, after an emergency committee convened by the global health body declined once last month to recommend the WHO take that step.
Tedros, the WHO chief, said Saturday he made the final call after members of the committee remained split on whether the high-alert declaration was warranted. One of the reasons for the hesitation was a lack of evidence that monkeypox is spreading among the wider population.
Although monkeypox has spread mostly among men who have sex with men in this outbreak, it has been endemic for decades outside that community in West and Central African countries. As The Washington Post has reported, experts believe the latest outbreak could have spread first through gay social networks and at locations frequented by men who have sex with men, including European saunas and festivals.
The outbreak has highlighted disparities in access to health care for gay and bisexual men in the United States, where there are not enough vaccines and providers able to administer anti-viral treatments to help all those seeking to protect themselves from infection.
As the country’s health system scrambles to respond, many experts have in mind the public health response to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, when gay men were scapegoated and died of the disease in large numbers when effective treatments were not yet available.
“Experience shows that stigmatizing rhetoric can quickly disable evidence-based response by stoking cycles of fear, driving people away from health services, impeding efforts to identify cases, and encouraging ineffective, punitive measures,” Matthew Kavanagh, the deputy executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, said in May as he called for caution in monkeypox messaging.
In its guidance for public health messaging on monkeypox for gay and bisexual men, the CDC said, “It’s important to reach any disproportionately affected community with non-alarmist, fact-based messaging about monkeypox that provides people with tools they can use to protect themselves and others.”
Tedros — whose Wednesday recommendations appear to be more specific than past WHO guidance — said any effective response to the outbreak must empower “communities of men who have sex with men to reduce the risk of infection and onward transmission.” But the response must be shaped, he said, in ways that “safeguard human rights and dignity.”
“Stigma and discrimination can be as dangerous as any virus, and can fuel the outbreak,” he added. | 2022-07-28T13:20:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New WHO monkeypox advice urges men who have sex with men to limit partners - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/28/who-monkeypox-advice-men-sex/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/28/who-monkeypox-advice-men-sex/ |
FILE - Tyler Perry arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, Calif., Sunday, March 27, 2022. AARP announced Thursday, July 28, 2022, that Perry will receive the honorary AARP Purpose Prize award during a virtual ceremony on Oct. 25. The famed filmmaker-actor-philanthropist will be recognized for his work through The Perry Foundation. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-07-28T13:20:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tyler Perry to receive honorary AARP Purpose Prize award - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/tyler-perry-to-receive-honorary-aarp-purpose-prize-award/2022/07/28/fd1326d6-0e6d-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/tyler-perry-to-receive-honorary-aarp-purpose-prize-award/2022/07/28/fd1326d6-0e6d-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
(Nicole Rifkin for The Washington Post; based on photos by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images and Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool/AFP via Getty)
On a cold spring evening in April, Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza was parking outside his Moscow apartment building when five uniformed police officers surrounded his car. The officers yanked him from the vehicle and hustled him into a waiting van. Next thing he knew, he was occupying a 6-by-9-foot cell in Moscow’s notorious Khamovniki police station.
Initially, he was detained on a spurious charge: disobeying the police. But on April 22, 11 days after his arrest, Kara-Murza was indicted on a charge of “spreading deliberately false information” under a law passed in the wake of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. It’s a charge that could bring 10 years in prison.
The charging document cited a speech that Kara-Murza, a Washington Post contributing columnist, had given weeks earlier to the Arizona House of Representatives. His remarks accused Russian forces of dropping cluster bombs on residential areas in Ukraine and staging airstrikes on maternity wards, hospitals and schools. He did not mince words: “These are war crimes that are being committed by the dictatorial regime in the Kremlin against a nation in the middle of Europe.”
The atrocities Kara-Murza described have been verified by news organizations around the world and have led to international war crimes investigations. But Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin couldn’t bear the spectacle of a Russian citizen airing these uncomfortable facts — so it locked him up for telling the truth.
Read this essay in Russian: Кремль отправил Владимира Кара-Мурзу в тюрьму за правду об Украине
If telling the truth qualifies as a “crime,” it is one that the 40-year-old Kara-Murza has committed proudly and consistently. For two decades, he has been an outspoken opponent of the Putin regime. His efforts have come at a huge price: He was poisoned in 2015 and again in 2017, narrowly surviving both attempts on his life. Over the years, associates and friends have been attacked, jailed or killed — experiences that have hardened his ideological rejection of Putin’s Kremlin.
Yet he’s not afraid to say so. The day before his latest arrest, he told CNN in an April 10 interview that Russia’s current government “is a regime of murderers.”
Even when it’s been clear that pursuing his ideals might put his life at risk, Kara-Murza — a historian and documentary filmmaker as well as a journalist and activist — has continued to campaign for human rights and liberal democracy. Meanwhile, many politicians in the West have abandoned these values, whether by appeasing dictators such as Putin or by eroding democratic principles in their own societies.
Kara-Murza didn’t have to take this path. Years ago, he settled his family — his wife, Evgenia, and three children, now ages 16, 13 and 10 — in a Northern Virginia suburb. He holds a British passport as well as a Russian one; he easily could have embraced a full-time life in the West. His friends often express dismay over his insistence on returning to Russia — but Kara-Murza insisted that he could not advocate for the rights and freedoms of the Russian people without enduring the same travails they face.
Kara-Murza recently described his imprisonment as a kind of badge of honor worn by an illustrious line of Russian oppositionists before him. In a letter sent from prison, he cited the example of dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who proudly recalled being charged with “anti-Soviet activity”: “I wear these convictions like medals!”
“He’s one of the very few people of the new generation who could be called an heir of the [Soviet-era] dissident movement, of its ideals and its critiques,” says 68-year-old Aleksandr Podrabinek, who was a political prisoner for five and a half years in Soviet times. “He knows its history; he understands its meaning. He’s one of our dissident family.”
As Putin’s Russia backslides into a state resembling its Soviet past, Kara-Murza finds himself in a role that he knows well from his study of history. In the 20th century, dissidents such as Podrabinek used the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan to illuminate the communist regime’s brutality. Now, Kara-Murza has become a prisoner of conscience in his own right for daring to oppose yet another cynical war.
The Russian opposition has produced many talented leaders over the years. The most prominent today is Alexei Navalny, a rousing populist who made a name for himself with highly effective online campaigns against the corruption of officialdom. Navalny, who was successfully building a national grass-roots organization until he was poisoned in 2020, is serving a nine-year sentence in a maximum-security penal colony.
Yet few can make the case with the same depth and rigor as Kara-Murza. And that makes him dangerous. Since Putin invaded Ukraine in February, Kara-Murza has argued that the war enjoys far less support among ordinary Russians than the Kremlin claims. Saying that out loud strikes at one of the regime’s most vulnerable points. “The regime is so afraid of the people,” his wife, Evgenia, told me. “It wants to create this image for the international community that everyone supports Putin’s actions in Ukraine, that Russia is a strong country, and that Putin’s leadership is approved by his population who stand behind him in everything that he does. None of that is true.” That’s why the Kremlin is cracking down, she says, on anyone who challenges the official narrative.
If Kara-Murza were free to speak, he’d scold me for making him the center of attention. I have edited his columns for The Post for five years — exactly 101 columns so far — and over those years I’ve been honored to call him a friend. He shies away from attempts to single him out, instead redirecting attention to the plight of other democratic activists. Fluent in English and French as well as Russian, Kara-Murza often comes across as soft-spoken and cerebral — an image somewhat belied by his fondness for 1970s British TV comedy and a natural ease with people.
But there can be no mistaking the intensity of his quarrel with Russia’s regime. For 20 years, Kara-Murza has battled against Putin and everything he stands for — a conflict fueled by the two men’s radically divergent biographies. Putin chose a career in the KGB as a devoted servant of the Soviet system. The Kara-Murza family has long defined itself by its opposition to that system. Two of Kara-Murza’s ancestors — a great-grandfather and a great-great uncle — were shot by Stalin’s secret police.
Kara-Murza was born in September 1981 at the nadir of the Cold War. His first political mentor was his father, also named Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Soviet-era dissident who became a nationally known journalist during the 1990s. His parents divorced early in his childhood. Later, his mother, Elena Gordon, married a British citizen and took her teenage son with her to live in Britain.
At 16, while studying at British schools, Kara-Murza started working as a correspondent for a Moscow newspaper, and other Russian media outlets, too. His work brought him into contact with a man who would become his political mentor: Boris Nemtsov, a liberal member of the Russian parliament who had served as a deputy prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin. Soon Kara-Murza was helping Nemtsov organize visits to Britain; in 2000, he became one of Nemtsov’s parliamentary aides.
In 2003, Kara-Murza completed his undergraduate degree in history at Cambridge. Then he returned to Moscow, where he threw himself into the work of the liberal opposition. Officially a member of Nemtsov’s party, he campaigned for a seat in the national parliament. Just a few years into Putin’s rule, it was already clear that democrats faced an uphill battle, even if the tactics used against them were relatively benign. His opponents unplugged lights illuminating one of his campaign billboards, blocked distribution of his election pamphlets and turned off his microphone during a televised debate. Little surprise, Kara-Murza lost to a Putin-backed candidate.
In many respects, Russia’s fledgling democracy in the 1990s — complete with private property, elected government, freedom of assembly and of the press — was a remarkable achievement. It lasted more than a decade, longer than any such experiment in the previous thousand years.
But it also brought chaos. Many Russians came to identify post-Soviet democracy with runaway inflation, unpaid wages and social turmoil; organized criminals ran amok and a tiny coterie of oligarchs seized control of much of the economy.
Vladimir Kara-Murza from jail: The worst nightmare for political prisoners
In the 2000s, the disillusioned initially welcomed Putin’s reassertion of state power even as he maintained some popular achievements of the Yeltsin era, such as the right to open a business or travel abroad. For Putin’s supporters, his dismantling of press freedom and representative government seemed an acceptable price to pay for stability. As Putin settled into office, however, the pro-democracy parties, riven by factionalism and private feuds, could do little to counter the Kremlin’s gradual restoration of the police state.
Over time, Russians — especially younger ones — began to see signs of deepening stagnation. That sentiment exploded into mass protests in 2011, when Putin announced — without even a nod at consulting the voters — that he would return to the presidency after four years as prime minister (and showed what a sham it had been when he stepped down to comply with term limits). Russians in major cities took to the streets by the tens of thousands, at a moment when the Arab Spring was elsewhere reminding the world that sclerotic dictatorships are never as stable as they appear. The Kremlin, palpably unnerved, crushed the protests, with some demonstrators sentenced to long prison terms.
One source of the discontent stood out: the rampant corruption of the ruling elite. Those Yeltsin-era oligarchs who had accepted Putin’s rise to power had been joined at the top by a new class of ex-KGB billionaires, who used their proximity to the president to seize control of lucrative assets. Despite their nationalist rhetoric, they tended to park their ill-gotten gains overseas; economists recently estimated that some 50 percent of Russian wealth is stashed abroad. In 2009, the machinations of a coterie of corrupt police officials had led to the death in prison of an idealistic young Russian lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky. The ensuing quest for justice by one of his clients, the investor Bill Browder, would have far-reaching consequences — for Russian human rights abusers and for Kara-Murza, who soon joined the cause.
Until this time, sanctions on authoritarian regimes usually targeted entire industries or economic sectors — and ordinary people often ended up bearing the brunt. But when Browder sought justice for Magnitsky, he lobbied for legislation in the United States and elsewhere that would impose personal sanctions on individual Russian human rights abusers, banning them from travel to the West and allowing the seizure of their assets. In other words, the measure would hit them in their pocketbooks.
The law, named the Magnitsky Act, was passed by the U.S. Congress in 2012. Browder and his allies then lobbied for similar legislation in Canada, Britain and the European Union. Kara-Murza, helped by his status as one of the very few leading members of the Russian opposition who spoke fluent English, played a key role. “Vladimir was indispensable,” says David J. Kramer, a George W. Bush administration State Department official who assisted in the Magnitsky Act campaign. “No one can question his bona fides to speak personally directly about the abuses, if not the outright atrocities committed by the Putin regime.”
Putin saw the Magnitsky law as a threat to himself and his cronies. Browder, a U.S.-born British citizen, soon found himself fending off death threats, lawsuits and eight Interpol arrest warrants filed by the Russian government. But for Putin’s Russian critics, the risks were worse. In February 2015, Nemtsov was gunned down crossing a Moscow bridge just a few hundred feet from the Kremlin. Hours before the late-night attack, Nemtsov had given an interview in which he denounced Putin’s “mad, aggressive and deadly policy of war against Ukraine,” referring to Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and deployment of Russian troops.
The Russian government tried and convicted five Chechen men for Nemtsov’s murder — while suppressing evidence that suggested the killers had ties to the Kremlin. “This is personal for me,” Kara-Murza said in 2017. “Boris Nemtsov was my closest friend. He’s godfather to my younger daughter; that’s family in Russia. I know that for so many people, this is personal.”
Despite entreaties from many friends and allies, Kara-Murza insisted on staying in Russia. A few months later, on May 26, 2015, soon after visiting a Moscow restaurant with a colleague, he began to feel violently ill. Suddenly, he was sweating and vomiting, his heart racing: “Within the space of 10 to 15 minutes I went from feeling completely normal to being a really sick man,” he later told an interviewer.
Kara-Murza passed out before arriving at a Moscow hospital, where doctors discerned that his kidneys were shutting down. Other major organs followed. When his wife, Evgenia, arrived from the United States a day and a half later, doctors estimated his chances of survival at 5 percent.
Yet survive he did. Recovery was a long, slow process — rebuilding his strength involved relearning such basics as how to hold a spoon. A few months after the poisoning, Kara-Murza was invited to a reception at the British ambassador’s residence in Moscow, where one British lawmaker declared that he opposed passage of a Magnitsky Act-style law, saying he thought it would be bad for British business. As Browder tells the story, Kara-Murza, still relying on the aid of a cane, responded: “They tried to kill me over this thing, and you’re worried about doing a bit of business with Russia?”
As he recovered, Kara-Murza continued his opposition work. He traveled, organizing grass-roots activists for Open Russia, a pro-democracy group funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oligarch who was imprisoned for 10 years for defying Putin. Kara-Murza made a film about Nemtsov that celebrated his mentor’s achievements as a defender of democracy, screening it to audiences inside Russia and abroad. And he continued lobbying foreign governments to pass Magnitsky Act-style personal sanctions.
Then, on Feb. 1, 2017, he was attacked again. After eating in a Moscow cafe with a fellow activist, Kara-Murza suddenly began experiencing familiar symptoms: difficulty breathing, plummeting blood pressure, a racing heart rate. Before he lost consciousness, he managed to call Evgenia, who swiftly boarded a flight for Moscow. Before she arrived, doctors placed Kara-Murza in an artificial coma to aid their treatment of his failing lungs and kidney. Their diagnosis: “acute intoxication with an unknown substance.”
Kara-Murza fought his way back to health after the 2017 poisoning and again rejoined opposition efforts. In public appearances in Russia and elsewhere, he persisted in calling out the Putin regime for falsifying election results and other distortions of the truth — despite the obvious risk. He also began to write regularly for The Post. His opinion columns vividly portrayed Russia’s real political life, with all its complexity and turmoil, and its contradictions with the official image of a people seamlessly united behind a strong leader.
In a 2018 column about Putin’s suppression of political opponents, for example, Kara-Murza wrote: “A leader with real popular support would not be afraid of real competition at the ballot box.”
An impressive array of U.S. legislators has called for Kara-Murza’s release, as have politicians and human rights organizations around the world. “As I said at the time of Vladimir Kara-Murza’s arrest, the Kremlin’s charges against him are a cynical attempt to silence him,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this month. “Vladimir should be released, as should all of those who have been detained for doing nothing more than speaking the truth.” Fred Ryan, publisher of The Post, said: “The Biden administration and Congress must use all the levers at their disposal — including tougher sanctions on those closest to Putin — to secure Kara-Murza’s freedom immediately.”
Putin, however, shows little sign of relenting. On June 8, a Moscow court extended Kara-Murza’s pretrial detention by two months. His lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, just announced that investigators in Moscow have opened another criminal case against Kara-Murza this month based on his alleged membership “in an undesirable organization."
All this has tragically vindicated Kara-Murza’s two decades of warnings about Putin. Meanwhile, the Magnitsky Act-style sanctions he has long advocated are serving as the model for a host of international measures punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. An unprecedented wave of internal repression has put more than 16,000 Russians behind bars. And it has put Kara-Murza on a collision course with a ruthless dictator who acts like he has little left to lose.
Yet Kara-Murza remains upbeat. In a recent letter from prison, he characteristically noted others who have dared to speak out against tyranny. “Each of the thousands of Russian antiwar protesters is standing up not only for the people of Ukraine and for the international rule of law but also for the future of our own country,” he wrote. “Each one is giving another reason to hope that a renewed, reformed post-Putin Russia can one day take its place in the community of democratic nations — and in a Europe that would finally become whole, free and at peace.”
Such optimism might sound misplaced at a moment when Russia is once again reverting to despotism. Knowing Vladimir Kara-Murza, though, I know how he would respond to my skepticism: The night, he would say, is always darkest before the dawn.
Christian Caryl: Russia locked up Vladimir Kara-Murza for telling the truth about Ukraine | 2022-07-28T13:20:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why Putin jailed Vladimir Kara-Murza - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/vladimir-kara-murza-jailed-putin-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/vladimir-kara-murza-jailed-putin-russia/ |
David Farnsworth, his opponent, accuses him of standing by while Trump lost
Jae Chin holds a "fair election" sign outside the State Capitol Executive Tower on Dec. 14, 2020, in Phoenix. The protest occurred at the same time Arizona's presidential electors met to cast their ballots for president and vice president. (Courtney Pedroza/For The Washington Post)
MESA, Ariz. — On paper, there’s not a lot that separates the two Republicans running for an open state Senate seat in the sprawling desert east of Phoenix.
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers and former state senator David Farnsworth went to the same high school, where they both sang in choir. They have many of the same friends and once attended the same congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They came of age politically around the same time as they both raised their families in this tightknit community.
At one point in the mid-1990s, they found themselves sitting next to each other at desks on the floor of the Arizona House of Representatives. They would exchange pleasantries from time to time, but they rarely partnered on legislation of consequence. Bowers, an artist, slipped a doodle to Farnsworth, a small-business owner.
Both voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 — then, they diverged.
Bowers is convinced Trump lost the election. Farnsworth is convinced he did not.
Bowers traveled to Capitol Hill in June to testify about extensive efforts by Trump and his allies to pressure him to undo a narrow loss in Arizona. Farnsworth, who aided Trump’s efforts to challenge the results, traveled to Prescott Valley on Friday to rally with the former president, who called Bowers a “RINO coward.”
Although there’s no public polling, Farnsworth, 71, is thought to be gaining momentum ahead of Tuesday’s Republican primary, likely thanks to Trump’s support.
Alone in Washington, Rusty Bowers tells world what happened in Arizona
The former president has endorsed dozens of election deniers running for office, not just at the federal and statewide level but also in local races like this one, the outcomes of which could have great influence on the day-to-day lives of many Americans. This is especially true in Arizona, where the GOP-controlled legislature has exerted its enormous power to reshape a wide variety of laws, including those governing future elections and the state’s water supply in the drought-stricken region.
As House Speaker, Bowers, 69, has played a leading role in blocking fringe ideas from overrunning the chamber, such as preventing efforts to reverse Trump’s loss and, this year, killing a measure pushed by former Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn to abolish the 2020 election results in three Arizona counties. Because of term limits, Bowers cannot run for his House seat again.
Days after Bowers testified, Farnsworth said he spoke with Trump for seven minutes and learned the former president would endorse him. Trump released a statement that slammed Bowers as “far worse than the Democrats” and praised Farnsworth for fighting “tirelessly on the 2020 Presidential Election Scandal.”
Bowers has raised more than $323,000 for the race, drawing on decades-long relationships in the community and with Capitol influencers, state campaign finance records show. Farnsworth, by comparison, has loaned his campaign $40,000 and has raised nearly $30,000, including donations from four Republicans who were part of a fake-electors strategy intended to deny certification of Joe Biden’s win on Jan. 6, 2021.
Farnsworth quickly added “Endorsed by Trump” to his roadside campaign signs. If he loses on Tuesday, he’s left open the possibility of challenging the results.
Bowers drives past the giant signs nearly every day, lugging around a blue plastic bin filled with reams of legislation and notes on the steps he took to address concerns about the election process. He’s bracing himself for a loss even as he tries to make the case to voters that he’s done the right thing.
It will take a miracle to win, he said one night, about an hour before the executive committee of the state Republican Party — run by Trump supporters — censured him.
“There’s a slow movement towards what is seemingly the inevitable,” he told The Post. Days later, he was more hopeful and said party leaders’ “desire to put the nail in my coffin with that thing” has generated new support.
“This has made them so mad,” he said, “the unfairness of it all.”
More than 100 GOP primary winners back Trump’s false fraud claims
Many of the 151,000 registered voters in the district are White, Republican and older. The district, which was redrawn after the 2020 Census, has a mix of fixed-income, working-class and upper-middle-class residents, many of whom live in retirement communities or gated neighborhoods, complicating efforts for candidates to go door-to-door.
Had the district’s new boundaries been in place during the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, Republican voters would have voted for Trump by a double-digit margin, according to a data analysis by the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission.
Several voters say they see this primary as a choice between litigating the past or moving on.
Carol Margetich and her husband, Brad, voted for Bowers in years past but lost faith in him. They want more done to stop illegal immigration and investigate the 2020 election.
Carol, 62, who worked in corporate human resources before retiring, is convinced Trump won because everyone she’s talked to in her neighborhood voted for him.
“We don’t know anybody that voted for Biden, and I just find it very hard to believe,” she said, sitting outdoors, drinking coffee. Either way, she said, they’re following Trump’s lead in the state Senate race and are voting for Farnsworth.
“Rusty Bowers needs to go. … It’s time for a change,” Brad Margetich said.
Michele Larson, 60, a lifelong Republican, now automatically disqualifies any candidate who challenges the legitimacy of the 2020 election. She’s voting for Bowers.
“At the risk of losing the election, he went out and said, ‘This is the truth, Donald Trump didn’t win this election,’” said Larson, while grocery shopping one evening in the heart of the district.
“We have to move forward.”
Larry Norris, an independent voter who planned on requesting a GOP primary ballot, isn’t sure which way to turn. He voted for Bowers previously and was sure the election was stolen from Trump but changed his mind after the evidence never emerged.
“I can’t really tell which way to go with these guys,” the 61-year-old said while fixing a bike tire outside of a hardware store. “They don’t really have a whole lot of differences, and that’s the trouble I always have with these elections.”
Bowers and Farnsworth both began their political careers in the mid-1990s. Although they’re both longtime Republicans who have agreed on a lot of the same issues, these days, they are at opposite ends of the party.
Farnsworth — who has worked in home improvement, real estate, auto sales and as a diesel mechanic in an underground copper mine — developed an interest in the legislature as a way to advocate for his vision of freedom and good government. Bowers was looking for a way to pay the bills at a time when commissions he earned as an artist didn’t always cover his family’s expenses.
Arizona State University had just rejected Bowers’s art portfolios for its master’s program, a disappointment that ended his hopes of teaching at Brigham Young University. He was first elected in 1992, and his profile quickly rose at the state Capitol, where he soon chaired the powerful appropriations committee for a time and tackled issues including transportation and natural resources.
In 1994, Farnsworth won a race for the state House of Representatives, then ran for the state Senate and lost. About a decade later, Farnsworth was appointed to a seat in the Senate, where he represented a Mesa-based district, sat on government and finance committees, and was known as an ultraconservative Republican.
He delved into powers held by homeowners associations and rebelled against the federal government’s reach. He frequently told colleagues seeking his support on bills that he couldn’t do so because he hadn’t read them. In more recent years, he clashed with colleagues over his claims that hundreds of children in the state’s foster care system had disappeared and might have been victims of a global trafficking operation, a claim even he said he had no proof of.
In 2019, with Trump in the White House, Bowers fended off a challenge from the far right to serve as speaker. He led with a firm hand but watched warily as critics sought to undermine his leadership through a pandemic, a failed attempt to oust him from office, and an election that narrowly saw Trump’s loss.
In the days after the 2020 election, Bowers found himself at the center of the “Stop the Steal” storm. He took two calls from Trump, met with the president’s attorneys, and fielded constant requests from his own members who demanded he do more to help overturn Trump’s defeat. Bowers refused, viewing the requests as immoral, unconstitutional and a violation of his oath of office.
Farnsworth, meanwhile, said he asked Senate President Karen Fann (R) “multiple times” to let him hold a hearing as chair of the Committee on Government to look into allegations of widespread voter fraud. That hearing never happened, but Fann would eventually hold a meeting in another committee and go on to launch a ballot review of 2.1 million votes cast in Maricopa County.
In mid-December, before he left office, Farnsworth signed his name to a resolution coordinated by a fellow GOP lawmaker, then Sen.-elect Kelly Townsend (R), that asked Congress to accept alternate electors for Arizona more favorable to Trump “or to have electoral votes nullified completely until a full forensic audit can be conducted,” according to records obtained by watchdog group American Oversight. The Justice Department has issued subpoenas to Fann and Townsend as part of its criminal investigation into the events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Farnsworth wants voters to know he wanted to “find the truth” about 2020. State and county elections officials said they do not recall him reaching out with any substantive questions.
“That’s really the crux of the race between Rusty and I is the fact that, in my opinion, he had the authority and responsibility and obligation to look into the election, whether he believed it was legitimate or not,” Farnsworth told The Washington Post.
He thinks Bowers, who talked extensively with elections officials, scholars, attorneys and other elected officials in the weeks after the election to assess the assertions of improprieties, should have held a formal legislative hearing in the state House “to seek the truth.” Bowers and congressional investigators have said efforts to hold such a meeting were part of an effort by Trump and his allies to try to overturn the state’s election results.
“The big question everybody’s asked me is, ‘What happened to Rusty?” Farnsworth said. “I presume that he didn’t want to rock the boat.”
The way he sees it, Bowers fully fulfilled his constitutional duties, no more, no less.
“Anybody that gets in their way, anybody that says no, anybody that questions whether or not it’s true, those people are traitors,” Bowers said of some Trump supporters.
At one recent campaign event, Bowers touted his work on a bipartisan $18 billion state budget, a massive water conservation bill and an expansive school-choice law.
But much of the conversation centered on the 2020 election. Voters asked him broadly about “suspicious things” that happened last cycle. Bowers, laughing, said he hadn’t seen evidence of one theory that included “piles of unopened ballots.” Passing around fliers from his blue bin, he recounted new laws he helped advance that tighten up election procedures and are intended to strengthen voter confidence in the system.
“I’m sufficiently convinced that I feel safe voting and that my vote will be counted,” he said.
For his stance, Bowers was ostracized from the state Republican Party.
Kelli Ward, the chair of the Arizona Republican Party, which traditionally stays neutral in primary races, ridiculed him as “Rusty Bowels” and endorsed Farnsworth.
So did U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a Trump ally who has promoted false claims of fraud. Shortly before rioters overtook the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Biggs called Bowers to ask if he would support decertification of Arizona’s electors. Bowers told him he would not.
“I know that a lot of the majority of the support that’s coming to me is not because they’re so much in love with me, as they are very frustrated with Speaker Bowers because of his lack of action,” Farnsworth told The Post.
Both said they want the race, which has caused tensions in each of their families, to be over, even as they ponder what 2024 might bring.
Farnsworth wants Trump back in the White House.
Bowers, who thinks Trump did good things for the country, told The Post, “I don’t want Donald Trump to be the next president.”
At a recent debate, the candidates broadly agreed on issues like school choice and rejoiced in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. But they disagreed on nearly everything else. Reflecting back on the 2020 election, both spoke in biblical terms.
“This is much larger than just the 2020 election,” Farnsworth said. “This is a real conspiracy headed up by the Devil himself, and this may sound crazy, I realize, to some people, but when I used to talk about it 25 years ago, people would shake their head and they thought I was crazy. But nowadays people are saying, ‘Wow, we’re talking about the swamp.’ It’s deep and it’s wide, and it’s been going on for a long time.”
Bowers took a different approach and referenced the parable of the good Samaritan who helped those in need: “If I have to live with the Samaritans and hang out with the Samaritans while the priest and the Levite go on the other side of the road, I’m happy to do it, and I just hope I’m a good one.” | 2022-07-28T13:21:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rusty Bowers testified in D.C. Now he might lose his primary in Arizona. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/28/rusty-bowers-david-farnsworth-primary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/28/rusty-bowers-david-farnsworth-primary/ |
What's in and what's out of Manchin's surprise climate deal
Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! Congrats to Shannon Osaka, who is joining The Washington Post as the Climate Zeitgeist Reporter, a.k.a. the coolest title ever. 🎉 But first:
Sen. Manchin announced a surprise climate deal. Here's what's in and what's out.
After weeks of on-again, off-again negotiations, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) shocked much of Washington on Wednesday by announcing he had reached a long-sought agreement with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on significant new spending to combat climate change and bolster clean energy production, Maxine reports with our colleagues Tony Romm, Jeff Stein and Rachel Roubein.
While the new agreement, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, would make some concessions to Manchin on fossil fuel production, it still represents the largest piece of climate legislation in the nation's history.
“This is the most significant action we’ve taken on climate, that we will take on climate and clean energy, ever,” said Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), one of Congress's most vocal climate hawks.
But the new agreement falls short of the $555 billion in climate spending that Democrats had initially hoped to enact through the budget reconciliation package, formerly known as the Build Back Better Act. And it would mandate new oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska — an apparent concession to Manchin, who has championed an “all-of-the-above” approach to energy policy that includes fossil fuels.
Still, the package would cut America's greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030, according to a one-page summary.
That would bring the nation substantially closer to President Biden's goals of cutting emissions in half by 2030 and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.
However, the 40 percent reduction is less than the 45 percent cut that Schumer had previously touted in August 2021.
In case you don't have time to read the entire 725-page agreement, which is expected to reach the Senate floor next week, here's a summary of what's in the package and what's out when it comes to climate and clean energy:
In: Tax credits for electric vehicles
In recent months, Manchin has repeatedly voiced concerns about providing tax credits for Americans who purchase electric vehicles, saying the subsidies could benefit foreign adversaries like China that dominate the supply chain for EV batteries.
In light of these comments, it's notable that the package includes EV tax credits at all. The agreement would provide a $4,000 tax credit for consumers to buy used EVs and up to a $7,500 tax credit for consumers to buy new EVs.
Still, the agreement would limit the incentives to lower- and middle-income individuals in an effort to satisfy Manchin's additional concerns about the credits benefitting wealthy Americans.
For new EVs, the income threshold would be $300,000 “in the case of a joint return or a surviving spouse,” $225,000 for a head of the household and $150,000 for single filers.
In: Tax credits for clean energy
The agreement also contains many of the tax credits for clean energy championed by Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), including:
$30 billion production tax credits to bolster U.S. manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and critical minerals processing.
$10 billion investment tax credit to build clean technology manufacturing facilities, such as factories that make electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels.
In: Methane reduction program, green bank
The package includes a Methane Emissions Reduction Program to reward oil and gas companies that slash their emissions of methane and penalize those that don't.
The program, which was crafted by Senate Environment and Public Works Chair Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), originally would have provided $775 million upfront to oil and gas companies to cut their methane emissions. The agreement doubles that money to $1.5 billion, according to a Senate Democratic aide.
The agreement also retains a Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator, commonly referred to as a green bank, which would leverage public and private funds to invest in clean energy technologies and infrastructure. However, the total funding of the green bank was lowered from roughly $30 billion to $27 billion.
Out (for now): Permitting reform
The deal came in part because Biden, Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) agreed to seek and pass new legislation easing the federal permitting rules for pipelines and other infrastructure in the coming months.
The permitting legislation would run afoul of the rules governing budget reconciliation, the process Democrats are using to advance their party-line spending bill. That means the measure would need to attract at least 10 Republican votes.
Out: clean electricity program
Of course, Democrats already abandoned a pivotal program last year that would have punished electric utilities that didn't deploy more clean energy.
The initiative, known as the Clean Electricity Performance Program, would have accounted for nearly 42 percent of the original bill's emissions cuts, according to a chart released by Schumer's office last year.
But Smith, who led Democrats on the clean electricity program before Manchin blocked it, said Wednesday that the agreement is still a “big deal” for efforts to slow the Earth's catastrophic warming.
“I have always said what matters less to me is now how we get there," she said, "but whether we’re getting on the right path.”
House set to pass wildfire and drought resiliency package
The House on Thursday is expected to pass the Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act, a package of 48 bills that could have sweeping implications for communities hit hard by drought and wildfires, particularly in the American West.
The legislation comes as much of the West faces soaring temperatures, historically low water levels linked to prolonged extreme drought, and large wildfire seasons exacerbated by human-caused global warming.
“If we’re going to be able to respond to climate change and the impacts that are already happening, we really need crucial tools,” Rep. Melanie Ann Stansbury (D-N.M.), who introduced much of the water-related legislation included in the package, told The Climate 202.
“We are not prepared for the change that is coming our way, and that’s why we have to put into place meaningful legislation, tools, resources and science to help our communities get ready for what’s about to head our way,” she added.
Stansbury introduced the following bills included in the package:
The Rio Grande Water Security Act, which would help develop a long-term, community-based resilience plan for the Rio Grande, which recently ran dry for the first time in 40 years, shrinking the amount of clean water available to residents and farmers.
The Water Data Act, which is meant to help standardize the way water is managed across the West, making it easier to share resources, plan ahead for dry, hot weather, and mitigate risks.
The WaterSMART Access for Tribes Act, which seeks to eliminate barriers for Native American tribes to receive funding for water infrastructure projects.
The package would also establish minimum pay for firefighters combating wildfires. And it contains the National Wildland Fire Risk Reduction Program Act, which would provide $2 billion to federal agencies over five years to support better understanding and prediction of wildfires.
After passing the House, the package still has to clear the Senate, where it faces an uncertain future. A Senate Democratic aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, said it appears unlikely that the package will pass the Senate in its current form, despite bipartisan interest in addressing the drought parching the West.
House Natural Resources Committee passes environmental justice bill
The House Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday passed the Environmental Justice for All Act by a vote of 26-21. The legislation from Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Rep. A. Donald McEachin (D-Va.) marks the most comprehensive environmental justice bill in U.S. history.
The measure seeks to ensure that environmental justice communities — including communities of color, tribal and Indigenous communities, and low-income communities — have access to clean air and water. It would require federal agencies to consider the cumulative effects of pollution in an area when making permitting decisions under the Clean Water Act or Clean Air Act, among other things.
“Today was a historic day — not just for Congress, but for the millions of Americans who have been demanding and fighting tirelessly for environmental justice for decades,” Grijalva said in a statement Wednesday. “Environmental justice communities wrote this bill, they crafted these solutions, and after today, we finally have a chance to bring their voices to the House floor and pass this bill into law.”
Biden unveils program to reduce utility bills for low-income homes
The Biden administration on Wednesday launched a program aimed at connecting low-income homes to solar power, a move that it says can save families about 10 percent per year on their electric bills while advancing President Biden’s goal of reaching a zero-emissions grid by 2035, Zack Colman reports for Politico.
The Community Solar Subscription Program is meant to help bring the reliable, low-cost energy source to communities that have otherwise been shut out of the clean energy market. According to the Energy Department, the program could help spur the development of 134 gigawatts of new solar capacity nationwide through local projects.
Energy Department gives major loan to critical mineral processing plant
The Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office on Wednesday announced that it is providing a $102 million loan to expand a mineral processing facility in Louisiana, Rachel Frazin reports for the Hill. The move is meant to help bolster the domestic supply of critical minerals, such as those found in lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles and other clean energy technologies.
The agency said the expansion of the facility owned by Syrah Technologies could process enough of the minerals to support about 2.5 million electric vehicles by 2040, saving roughly 970 million gallons of gasoline.
“Securing critical materials, such as lithium and graphite, is essential to increasing domestic production of batteries to power the growing number of EVs on our roadways,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement, noting that this announcement builds on the Biden administration’s March invocation of the Defense Production Act to secure a reliable critical mineral supply chain nationwide.
This investment marks the first that the agency has issued via the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program since 2011.
The largest Audubon chapter yet is changing its name, rebuking an enslaver — Darryl Fears for The Post
The fight to save energy by controlling your thermostat (and pool pump) — Evan Halper for The Post
The Barbados rebellion: an island nation’s fight for climate justice — Abraham Lustgarten for the New York Times Magazine
Leaked: U.S. power companies secretly spending millions to protect profits and fight clean energy — Mario Alejandro Ariza for the Guardian, Miranda Green for Floodlight and Annie Martin for the Orlando Sentinel | 2022-07-28T13:21:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What's in and what's out of Manchin's surprise climate deal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/28/what-what-out-manchin-surprise-climate-deal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/28/what-what-out-manchin-surprise-climate-deal/ |
Transcript: Hollywood: The New Entrepreneurial Era A Conversation with Ryan Reynolds
MR. PALETTA: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m deputy business editor, Damian Paletta, and I’m so honored to be joined today by actor and entrepreneur, Ryan Reynolds, to discuss gin, philanthropy, the changing movie business, and his growing business empire.
Ryan, thank you so much for joining me.
MR. REYNOLDS: Thank you, Damian, that's a hell of an intro. Thank you.
MR. PALETTA: I got so pumped up by the intro, I forgot all my questions, so I have to wing it. So, we also want to ask viewers to join the conversation, too. You can tweet us your questions at #PostLive.
Ryan, I'm wondering if I could start, obviously, you've been--you've had success in film for many years, but you really burst onto the scene with marketing and investing in the past few years. How have you been able to find success across multiple platforms like this, in a space many people would not?
MR. REYNOLDS: Well, you know, I look at it, along with my partners and my team at Maximum Effort, my company, we all kind of look at it all as storytelling, really.
I mean, you know, whether you're talking about the unexpected nature of sports, low-cost wireless, gin, connected TV marketing, ad tech, those kinds of things. You know, the connective tissue between each one of those things is, ironically, storytelling, the same way it is with movies. That's the thing I love about these businesses and the variety of them. So...
MR. PALETTA: And then, one of the things I found really interesting about these businesses is they do have something similar. I mean, there is a communal aspect to them: You know, gin is enjoyed in a group; the soccer team is investment is something--it's a community; obviously, with Mint Mobile is something that brings people together.
So, do you find that's something--obviously, with your film career, too, that's something that brings people together, as well. Is that something that has attracted you to these different investments the way that it is something that can connect people? These aren't widgets that you're selling; these are things that people can share in common.
MR. REYNOLDS: Wholeheartedly. In fact, you've actually quite literally touched on the sort of north star of my company, Maximum Effort, which is to bring people together in unexpected ways, through joy, really.
You know, it's kind of--as corny as that might sound, it's sort of--it's always been our motto. And you can do things joyfully and ways that connect people and bring people together, yet still sort of maintain a subversive nature and do things where you're kind of coming 90 degrees to expectation. And that's been really the wind at our back and the driving force of everything that we do, and everything that I love to do, as well.
MR. PALETTA: So, with, you know, "Deadpool" was a real labor of love for you. It took ten years, and I mean, I've watched interviews where you said it wasn't--you finished filming, but the hard work had only just begun. You had to get out there and really sell the film yourself. Was it that experience, the kind of unconventional marketing, you know, getting into social media and using the internet, that allowed you to kind of fall in love with marketing in a much different way, to realize that maybe there's a part of your career that you could expand beyond just film but into marketing and advertising and that sort of thing?
MR. REYNOLDS: You know, hugely. Almost every--I think every great lesson that I've ever learned in moving into the world beyond just showbusiness, and into a variety of businesses, is that the thing that's always been the quote/unquote "murderer" of creativity, it's always been too much time and too much money. And showbusiness and Hollywood is certainly guilty of that over and over and over again. It seems sort of like a lesson that Hollywood has not been able to really internalize in huge ways. But I love constraint. I love doing more with less. It forces your imagination to expand. It forces you to tell stories in different ways. It's one of the reasons I love working with small- and medium-sized businesses, not my own, necessarily, but through Mountain, my connected TV company is because it's--there's so much more story to tell there when you're sort of forced to kind of do more with so much less.
You know, and really "Deadpool" was that story. We made--I was trying to get the movie made for ten years. They finally reluctantly agreed to make the movie at a budget that was just kind of almost impossible to do a proper, modern-day comic book film. So, we had to think outside the box. We had to really kind of find ways to make each dollar look like ten, and that extended right through to marketing, which is sort of how I fell in love with marketing. Once we made this movie where we kind of replaced spectacle with character, and I think audiences and consumers remember character a little bit more thoughtfully than they might remember spectacle, you know, particularly in the CGI era that we all live in. The spectacle becomes--you know, you can become a little bit skeptical of spectacle, which is a hard sentence to say.
So, I--you know, I really--that sort of ported over into the marketing part of it, as well. We had very little--we had so few resources at our disposal to market "Deadpool." So, I stole the suit from set and just started shooting stuff with my partner, George Dewey, who is my partner at Maximum Effort. And lo and behold, the movie ended up becoming the biggest rated R film of all time at that period, and it was a pretty magical and amazing moment for all of us and a huge lesson learned, as well.
MR. PALETTA: But you could have--after you were able to pull that off, you could have said, whew, we pulled off a fast one. I'm just going to go back to my film career and sit in my plush leather couch or whatever.
But no, you're like, wow, I'm onto something here. You go into Aviation Gin. You know, Aviation Gin, you're competing against companies that have been making gin for 200 years, okay, so a lot of people would say you're crazy. What made you decide to kind of get into that business and bring that same sort of "Deadpool" approach to the marketing of that?
MR. REYNOLDS: Well, I'm not an innovator in that way. You know, I don't invent gin. I didn't invent low-cost wireless. These are companies that had tremendous potential and really just needed awareness. They were already perfect when I got there. So, Aviation Gin, I was just a fan of. I would have negroni after work when I was shooting "Deadpool II" in Vancouver, and it turns out that it was called an "Aviation Negroni," and I asked the bartender why it's called an Aviation Negroni. He said, well, it's because it's made with Aviation gin, which this particular bartender really loved. And I learned a little bit about the company. I ordered a bottle. Kind of hard to find. It was a very small-batch company, and I thought maybe there was something more to this. Maybe I could use some of that sweet, sweet "Deadpool" money in a different way and maybe buy into this company, which I did.
And then, you know, Mint Mobile was really kind of a similar track, a similar story. It was already perfect when I got there. It just needed awareness. It needed a voice.
MR. PALETTA: So, a lot of celebrities, I think, would lend their name to something, you know, just kind of sell their brand and then never have anything to do with the product, but you've really attached your face and your reputation to these things.
Was that something that you were nervous about, or how--can you explain your approach and your strategy, there?
MR. REYNOLDS: Well, look, I have skin in the game for these. You know, I'm obviously using my own currency, however you want to call it, but also, you know, a part of these companies--using my own money.
And I think audiences and consumers can sort of see through when you're just an ambassadorial role or when you're just kind of cashing a check, but they can see that I genuinely believe in these products, in these companies, in what they can do. And you know, I love marketing Aviation Gin because the spirits business, there's a little bit of mischief, there, which is, I think, a lot of fun--certainly a lot of fun for me to tell that story. And then, I love the hyper practicality of low-cost wireless. I love the fact that Mint Mobile--at Mint Mobile, efficiency is everything. It really sort of speaks to everything that we believe in at Maximum Effort, everything I believe in as Maximum Effort's founder, that there needs to be alignment in both purpose and process, and that's what these companies all sort of have in common. There's a real alignment there in how we tell these stories and the way in which we get them out to the public. So...
MR. PALETTA: Ryan, one of the things we've been focusing on a lot at The Post this year has been the economy and the pandemic and obviously income inequality and how economic mobility--how it's hard for some people to get from one part of this economy to the other.
And I think I read that out of high school you worked as a--stocking grocery stores in Canada. And now, you're obviously in a much different place in your life and your career. But you and your wife, Blake Lively, recently launched this Group Effort Initiative that sounds really interesting and it aims to bring more people in, maybe people who had a hard time finding a doorway into the entertainment industry.
Can you explain how that's going and what your approach is to that?
MR. REYNOLDS: Yeah, Group Effort Initiative was--you know, look, I've been working in show business for 30 years. I've been telling stories for 30 years. I love it. I recognize how lucky I am to be there.
And I think, you know, the privilege of being able to do this job and be there is a resource, and I think how we spend that privilege is important, and it certainly is important to me; it's important to my wife. So, we wanted to do something that felt not just beneficial to the industry, but also just beneficial to so many folks who have been historically excluded from that industry, and there are so many.
I mean, having worked in the business, like I said, for 30 years, you know, everybody looks the same behind the camera. And I feel like that's a--the folks that are behind the camera are a huge engine, a huge part of storytelling and how we tell stories. And the more diverse the perspective is, the more complicated and interesting and the more variety we have in that wellspring of talent we have behind the camera, the better stories we tell. So, you know, in a certain context, it's a selfish pursuit. Creating Group Effort Initiative was to tell better stories. We all want to tell better stories.
And I think if you're only drawing from one particular segment of the population, you're going to stagnate. There's going to be a stasis there and it's not--you're not going to have as rich and diverse storytelling. So, really, we wanted it for that reason primarily.
But also, I love looking at making movies in a responsible way. And when I say "responsible," I mean, I like making movies that have--they can still have larger budgets, but I like that they are responsible. You know, I don't--like, I personally in the movies I--particularly the movies I produce: "Deadpool I," "Deadpool II," "Free Guy," and "The Adam Project," each one I feel like--I feel like those films were each made quite responsibly. And that comes down to budgets. The budgets are very responsible for what we're putting on the screen, but also that comes down to me as a producer being accountable to a crew and really kind of putting the kind of talent behind the scenes that also feels responsible.
And that's another reason that the Group Effort Initiative was created, because I wanted to be responsible to not just the story we tell, but how we tell that story.
MR. PALETTA: And actually, can we talk about "The Adam Project" and "Free Guy." I mean, I watched both of them recently, and I think they both--they fall into this category that I love called what-if movies. You know, with "The Adam Project," it's like, what if there was time travel and we could go back and see a loved one. With "Free Guy," it's what if artificial intelligence really did kind of change everything. You know, is this a genre that you're kind of drawn to, kind of a sub category of movies that is multilayered. You know, there's love stories, there's heroes, but also kind of makes you think about what's possible?
MR. REYNOLDS: A little bit. Like, I grew up--I'm a product of the era I grew up in. I grew up an intense fan of the Amblin era, the "E.T." style of moviemaking. You know, I would even include or encompass "Indiana Jones" in that, you know, "Back to the Future," "The Last Starfighter," you know, these big, giant, like you said, what-if movies. And I love making those films that not only, like, kind of take us out of our reality for a moment, but they're also infused with joy and empathy, but not at the cost of entertainment or hilarity in some instances.
You know, and "Free Guy" is another movie that was really just an answer--to a certain degree, it was a reflection of the world we were living in at that time. I wanted to make a movie--and so did Shawn Levy, my partner and director on the film and fellow producer. We want to make a movie about joy. We want to make a movie that sort of felt like we get to experience joy during a very--pretty dark time in our world. And I think that's what storytelling is all about really. At the end of the day, it's a brief but wonderful respite from our lives and a chance to have a moment where a story carries us away to a different place. And I love that. I've always loved that. It's the greatest legal drug on earth.
MR. PALETTA: Well, and "Free Guy" is so interesting. I watched it with my daughter, Megan, who's 12, and she was watching it as this joyful, you know, hero/love story. And I'm, as deputy business editor, watching it as that, but also the slight panic because there's so much talk about artificial intelligence and whether sentient bots--I mean, obviously, the one in this story is a great one, but whether they could be used for evil or whether they could go in the other direction.
You know, is that the kind of thing that you think we should be exploring more, artificial intelligence in film, or is it a kind of a sci-fi zone that has always been a sub category?
MR. REYNOLDS: I can tell you right now, Damian, I'm wholesale unqualified to answer that question. I don't know--I'm the one who--generally, like, you know, I put on a brave face, but everything scares me.
So, artificial intelligence is certainly one of the many items on my white board that terrify the ever-living crap out of me. So...
MR. PALETTA: Can you talk about "Welcome to Wrexham." So, I mean, as I was doing research for this interview, I just couldn't--I had to keep adding things that you're involved in and that--not you're just--like I said, not a passive investor, but you're actively involved in.
"Welcome to Wrexham" is on a whole different level because it's a real thing. This is a docuseries that's coming out in August. It's about a lower-tier professional soccer team in Wales that you are co-investor in and play a big role in. Can you talk about not just the project or the docuseries, but also your decision to become involved in something that's going to be this personal and that you're going to have so much on the line for?
MR. REYNOLDS: Yeah, Wrexham --yeah, you really want to gird the old loins, there. Wrexham is a project that I've been involved with for a little while, now. My partner in Wrexham is Rob McElhenney, who you may know from--he's the creator and star of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "Mythic Quest" and several other wonderful projects. Great guy. He and I just kind of, you know, linked arms and drove off the cliff, like Thelma and Louise did together on this one. It was a really unique and interesting idea.
It was Rob's idea. He brought it to me, actually. And you know, we had started looking at different clubs throughout the UK, and we stumbled upon this club called Wrexham. And at the time, I hadn't heard of a football club. I call it football because if I call it soccer, over there, I'll be murdered. So, anyway, this club, Wrexham, had--it's the third-oldest football club on earth. They play in the oldest international football stadium on earth. And the community and the club, which are inextricably linked, which is a huge part of this project have fallen on hard times over the last couple of decades.
You know, this is very much a working-class town. I think the American equivalent--I might get in trouble for saying this, but the American equivalent is kind of like a Scranton--it's a core values, hardworking folks, who really work hard for what they have. And I love that part of the story. I love that Wrexham is a club that is not--no one at Wrexham has million-dollar contracts. These guys are playing for their life. You know, they're incredibly invested in winning and growing this club and bringing it back to the glory it's had in years past. I mean, it's been known as a giant-killer. It's beaten huge clubs like Arsenal in the past.
So, I just love that both the community and the club are so linked in everything that they do. And as we build it, we're building the community at the same time we're working with the club, and it's really just been a labor of love. I've loved every second of it. And you know, we came within a point of being promoted last season. And hopefully, this season, luck will go our way.
MR. PALETTA: Well, we have a clip, actually, of this show that's coming up. I'd love to play it for our viewers.
MR. REYNOLDS: Please, yeah.
MR. PALETTA: It looks like an amazing story. Can you tell me--I mean, I'm an avid sports fan, myself, so I can imagine how it was hard to just look at that as a business investment and not--I was going back through your Twitter history and see that you were kind of on the edge of your seat during some of those matches and down the stretch, and it looked like a really intense experience.
MR. REYNOLDS: No, it's an emotional investment so much more than a business investment. I mean, that's not a business you get into if you're looking to create insane EBITDA or something. You know, like, it's much more emotional than that. And it's been an incredible ride.
I mean, I got to say, I was not--I wasn't as invested as one might think when we got into it. I just sort of was like kind of a wait-and-see posture. And man, now I quite literally live and breathe and die each match that we have. It's been intense. I mean, Saturday, my family sort of scatters. My kids sort of scatter because they know dad's going to be in a pretty intense mode. I remember that one of the matches that I watched at the racecourse ground, I got 8,500 steps on my--just during the match, just packing like a caged lion back and forth. So, I get pretty into it. My wife, Blake, is very into it, as well. And we're sort of living for it, now.
MR. PALETTA: Did you grow up as a soccer fan, playing soccer as a kid, or did you just fall in love with it as an adult?
MR. REYNOLDS: No, I played it. I played all the sports as a kid. I loved it, but I never got it. I never understood sort of why it was such a global force until now.
You know, now that I'm at these matches and I'm watching, I see--you know, there's not--there aren't NBA scores up on the scoreboard. This is--you may score one goal, two goals--you may see three or four goals in a match, and that is every one of them is so precious. That's why these--the fans and the supporters that are sitting at these matches, they explode when the team scores, because it's such a precious commodity that's happening. And I really understand.
Also, the idea that in European football, this idea of promotion and relegation is--there's so much more on the line for a club than there is in even pretty much American sports across the board. I mean, they all play in one league. There's no going up to another league. There's no threat that you may be relegated to a lower league if you don't finish in the top percentage of the league. So, there's so much on the line and it's really intense.
MR. PALETTA: Ryan, can you tell me a little bit about how you decide what initiatives to become involved in and whether they're philanthropic or investments or even film projects. Like, how do you evaluate--there's only 24 hours in the day. How do you evaluate what you can give your all to and what things you need to set aside, because it seems like you have so much going on at once.
MR. REYNOLDS: Yeah, I think everything that I'm involved in, I could not--I'm red-lining the engine in terms of passion. I mean, every part of me is invested. Every cell in my body is invested in Mint Mobile and Aviation and the film business that I get so lucky to work in.
You know, so, how I decide, though, it's really just born of that. Do I have the passion, the drive to kind of tell this story, and how much of it resonates with me personally, and really that's how I choose it. There isn't, like, some crystal ball I look into or magic 8-ball and figure out whether I'm going to do something or not. It's usually if there's a real story there to tell, I'm game to tell it.
You know, and I can certainly give you specific examples of why each one of these projects I fell in love with and decided to tell the story and invest in. But at the end of the day, really, it just comes down to that. You will find time. If you're fired up about something, you'll find time. You'll just do it. You know, everyone I know that is really truly great at what they do, they do it.
When I talk to young people all the time, I want to break into the entertainment industry; I really want to be a director. And I usually say, are you doing it? I mean, do you have a phone? They'll say, yes. I'm like, does your phone have a camera? Yes. Well, you should be doing it. I mean, I think that Steven Spielberg, you know, before he became Steven Spielberg, he was doing it round the clock, that's all he did. And all the best things that I've ever been a part of, all the best things I ever did, they were driven by passion and love and this sort of quote/unquote success or money was something that came afterwards as a result of that. So, I think if you reverse engineer that, that's where you're going to get into trouble.
MR. PALETTA: And do you think that's where your--you know, these nonprofits that you've helped found, do they help with that process for people who may be, as we discussed earlier, have a harder time getting that door open, whether it's in the marketing business or in the film business? You know, just giving them a chance to be in the game so they can go ahead and pursue their careers and be the next Ryan Reynolds, potentially.
MR. REYNOLDS: Yeah. Yeah, like, do I want to be the best at what I do? Absolutely. I won't know if I'm the best at what I do unless everybody is allowed to play. You know, I mean, at the end of the day, that's where that comes from. And the fact is I'm--I'm whatever you want to call it, I'm an actor, I'm a movie star, whatever you--however you want to title it, but that's not something that lasts forever.
So, while I'm in this position and while I have this capital and this power to spend, I'm going to spend it. I'm going to use it and do some things that I'm going to be really proud of in the future and things that hopefully my own kids will be proud of, as well. So, I'm not here to wag my finger at people or, you know, but I am here to never waste my own mistakes and use my own failures and my own blind spots and my own everything for something that might be a positive change. So, yeah, I want to make the marketing industry better. I want to make it more diverse with creatives. There are so many young people out there who come from overlooked, marginalized, or historically discriminated against communities that haven't been offered, or even knew, that there was a chance to work in marketing or showbiz or a path--much less a path to get there.
So, a huge part of these initiatives is reaching out not just to folks who are already ready to jump into the space, but a big part of our job, certainly with Creative Ladder, my marketing initiative, as well, and through Group Effort Initiative is reaching into high schools and talking to kids and say, hey, this is out there for you. This is a possibility for you, and it's just going to become more and more accessible. Because one thing that really sticks with me is there is not a dearth of talent out there. What's lacking is opportunity for a lot of people. And the more opportunity we create, just the better everything is going to get in terms of storytelling, in terms of how we tell stories and why we tell stories.
MR. PALETTA: We have an audience question, Ryan. What's the oddest pitch that you've ever received?
MR. REYNOLDS: The oddest pitch that I ever received. Oh, that's a tough one. I don't know. Usually, we're doing the pitches, so I don't get a lot of--I don't get a ton of pitches. One was the--one pitch that I'd heard that I loved and they ended up making it, was the Nicolas Cage movie that recently came out, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, I think it's called. I remember hearing that as a pitch and I just thought, that's just fantastic. That was weird and wonderful and actually--I really love that movie, as well.
MR. PALETTA: Right, because it's multiple levels and it doesn't take itself too seriously. I remember just seeing the trailer for that and thinking, wow, this is a brilliant concept.
MR. REYNOLDS: Yeah, it was like the first time I saw, "Being John Malkovich." I was just like, that's just amazing. Amazing that we live in a world where this kind of thing happens.
MR. PALETTA: So, one of the things that struck me as a lot of the ads that come out of Maximum Effort and Mountain are that there's a shock value to them. You know, whether its Hugh Jackman pouring a bottle of gin on a beautiful table and the goody two-shoes in me is, like, freaking out about the poor table. Or what Steve O did with the Carolina pepper.
Actually, I think we have a clip of that. We could play that really quickly.
MR. REYNOLDS: Oh, God.
MR. PALETTA: So, you're not just holding the little product. You're there--the viewers are engaged in what you're doing. I mean, is that kind of behind a lot of your marketing? This is going to be fun; this is going to kind of make you get on the edge of your seat. Is that part of your strategy, that you're really going to bring kind of the fun and charisma that you have on film into this marketing material?
MR. REYNOLDS: Well, doing--creating--showing people a demo of a revolutionary ad tech software is not going to be the most exciting thing in the world. So, we had to find a way to do that. And I'd actually pitched this earlier on, maybe a couple of months before, I though, oh, you know, maybe I'll eat one of these peppers. And I just thought it was so much funnier if I played the sort of, you know, big shot movie star who's unwilling to put his own ass on the line, which is really actually quite true. So, I thought, Steve-O, "Jackass." So, I reached out to Steve O, who was very happy to jump in and do this.
But most of what we do is--really is necessity being the mother of invention. It's a lot of times we're working really quickly, working with limited budgets, but we're also acknowledging and playing with the cultural landscape. So, that's a huge part of what we do. We try to create marketing that's moving at the exact same speed as culture is. You know, if you look at some of these big kind of enterprise brands that have existed for decades, a lot of times, their marketing sort of go-to is nine, ten months in advance. So, they're plotting the messaging, they're plotting the stories that they're going to tell nine, ten months in advance. And I don't know that you are going to be as effective as when you're moving at the exact same speed as culture.
So, if we all look at, like, something that's happening in the world, something that becomes the talk of a community or talk of the internet, something that breaks the internet, there's always that one person, or several people, who put out a tweet that is, you know, liked by ten million people, that becomes--sort of encapsulates what everyone is feeling about this moment that's happening. But now, if you can add production to that and do that at relatively the same speed as someone, say, tweeting, your brand becomes the conversation. So, that's something that we've kind of hacked into and that's something that we try to play with as much as possible.
I'm not saying that every brand needs to be turning around ads in 24 hours, from ideation to shooting to release. That's a difficult thing and we've had some sleepless nights doing that, but it certainly is something that we love and it's something that's sort of a big part of the ethos at Maximum Effort.
MR. PALETTA: Well, that's all the time we have. Ryan, I can't thank you enough for this amazing conversation with Washington Post Live. Thanks for sharing your story and your insights. Really means a lot to me.
MR. REYNOLDS: I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me, and I appreciate it.
MR. PALETTA: I would like to thank our viewers, as well. You can join us for the next conversation, WashingtonPostLive.com, for future guests. Thank you so much. | 2022-07-28T13:21:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Hollywood: The New Entrepreneurial Era A Conversation with Ryan Reynolds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/07/28/transcript-hollywood-new-entrepreneurial-era-conversation-with-ryan-reynolds/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/07/28/transcript-hollywood-new-entrepreneurial-era-conversation-with-ryan-reynolds/ |
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis greets Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Athens on July 26. (Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images)
PARIS — As Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman prepared to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron for a working dinner in Paris Thursday, a group founded by slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi said it had filed a criminal complaint in France against Mohammed that called him an “accomplice” in the journalist’s torture and disappearance.
“As a party to the UN Conventions against Torture and Enforced Disappearances, France is obliged to investigate a suspect such as Bin Salman if he is present on French territory,” said a statement from the group, Democracy for the Arab World Now, or DAWN, which filed the legal action along with two other organizations.
Mohammed has been in Western Europe since Tuesday, visiting Greece, and now France, in his first official visit since the 2018 killing of Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul Consulate. The murder — carried out by Saudi agents and ordered, ordered, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded, by the crown prince — sparked global outrage and made the young prince a pariah.
Mohammed’s return to the world stage has been aided in part by public relations campaign promoting changes underway in Saudi Arabia, and more recently the war in Ukraine, which has reaffirmed the kingdom’s status as a critical source of global energy amid shortages.
In a sign of how drastically global perceptions of Mohammed have changed, last month, the crown prince visited Turkey, which had led the charge to hold Saudi Arabia responsible for Khashoggi’s killing.
Turkey’s Erdogan hosts Saudi crown prince, ending rift over Khashoggi murder
And President Biden paved the way for further rehabilitation, fist-bumping Mohammed in Saudi Arabia this month — a trip that human rights groups and Saudi dissidents denounced as a “betrayal” that violated Biden’s campaign pledges.
Mohammed’s time in Western Europe has so far lacked the lingering awkwardness of the Biden meeting.
Officials in Greece, where he stopped on the first leg, heaped praise on the crown prince. In an interview with Arab News, the Greek Development Minister, Adonis Georgiadis, said “we honor and admire his leadership, his vision for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the way the Kingdom is progressing.”
But reactions to his scheduled visit to France suggested that Western leaders willing to meet him may still face criticism.
French officials defended Thursday’s scheduled dinner in Paris, saying that Macron plans to discuss Khashoggi’s murder and human rights concerns.
Macron and Mohammed have met several times since the Khashoggi killing, including last December, when the French president became the first major Western leader to visit the crown prince in Saudi Arabia since Khashoggi’s killing.
French officials said dialogue is “necessary,” especially amid rising energy prices in Europe. “Given the crisis, we must speak with the oil-producing countries,” French television station BFM quoted an anonymous French official as saying on Thursday.
DAWN said its complaint alleged that Mohammed “is an accomplice to the torture and enforced disappearance of Khashoggi from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018 and that these are crimes subject to domestic prosecution in France.” The legal action was filed with support from the Open Society Justice Initiative and TRIAL International, DAWN said.
While similar legal efforts have so far been largely symbolic, Mohammed’s presence in France could give the case more weight than some previous attempts to seek accountability.
The complaint “could pave the way for a lengthy criminal investigation which would be run by an investigative judge of the Paris courts,” said Henri Thulliez, a French lawyer who represents the groups that filed the complaint. But Thulliez suggested that the groups do not expect French authorities to take action on Thursday.
“We are looking at the long term here,” he said.
The crown prince, who is widely regarded as Saudi Arabia’s day-to-day ruler, “does not have immunity from prosecution because as crown prince he is not the head of state,” the groups contended in their statement.
Mohammed has previously denied ordering Khashoggi’s killing, and Saudi officials have blamed “rogue agents” for the journalist’s death.
Khashoggi was a U.S. resident and columnist for The Washington Post.
The issue remains contentious for the White House. After Biden met with Mohammed this month, Saudi Arabia and the United States released differing accounts of what was discussed.
The Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, Adel al-Jubeir, said he “didn’t hear” Biden tell Mohammed that he holds him personally responsible for Khashoggi’s murder. When a journalist later asked Biden if the Saudi official was telling the truth, Biden answered, “No.” | 2022-07-28T13:21:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Saudi Crown Prince MBS to meet with Macron on European rehabilitation tour - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/mbs-macron-france-khashoggi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/mbs-macron-france-khashoggi/ |
Elephants at Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya walk against the backdrop of Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro in 2012. (Ben Curtis/AP)
Illegal ivory poaching once posed a significant threat to Kenya’s elephants. But now the giants of the animal kingdom are facing an even bigger risk: climate change.
As Kenya battles its worst drought in four decades, the crisis is killing 20 times more elephants than poaching, according to officials. They cite desiccated carcasses found in Tsavo National Park, where much wildlife has fled in recent years in search of water.
To survive, elephants require vast landscapes for foraging. Adults can consume up to 300 pounds of food and more than 50 gallons of water a day. But rivers, soil and grassland are drying up, resulting in a barren and deadly environment.
In the last year, at least 179 elephants have died of thirst, whereas poaching has claimed the lives of fewer than 10, Kenyan Tourism and Wildlife Secretary Najib Balala told the BBC. “It is a red alarm,” he said of the crisis.
Balala suggested that so much time and effort has been spent tackling the issue of poaching that environmental issues have been neglected.
“We have forgotten to invest into biodiversity management and ecosystems,” he said. “We have invested only in illegal wildlife trade and poaching.”
In recent years, Kenyan officials have clamped down on poaching, which has targeted giraffes for their meat, bones and hair and elephants for their ivory tusks.
Heftier penalties for poachers, traders and financiers were introduced under an updated wildlife and conservation management act that took effect in 2014. It was hailed for deterring criminals as wildlife populations rebounded.
In September, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta declared the drought sweeping parts of the country a national disaster, with millions facing food instability and malnutrition.
Last week, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said it would provide almost $255 million in aid to Kenya, including emergency food and support for farmers. They say they have lost up to the 70 percent of their crops, along with their livestock.
The agency said it would assist communities in Kenya’s arid and semiarid counties, which are experiencing the “worst effects” of the drought.
More than 4 million people in Kenya are facing acute food shortages. In recent months, child malnutrition cases have surged by half to 942,000, Reuters reported.
And it’s not just elephants that are dying as a result of human-caused climate change.
Seven million livestock in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, have died since last fall, according to a recent report by USAID’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network.
The carcasses of giraffes, goats, camels and droves of cattle have also been found in villages after starving to death in northern Kenya. Such losses can be ruinous for families, which face food insecurity as a result, The Washington Post reported last year.
Rangers and hunters have tried to help the animals by supplying water and planting drought-resistant trees, but the dry spell has been relentless. Exacerbating the food crisis has been Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has driven up the prices of wheat and maize.
And while Kenya continues to face a punishing drought, the United States and the United Kingdom are also battling rising temperatures and scorched landscapes amid record heat.
In the United States, several states including California, which is enduring its third consecutive year of drought, have introduced water restrictions. In Britain, officials have warned of a drought and more wildfires in August following the hottest temperatures ever recorded in the country this month. | 2022-07-28T13:58:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kenya officials say elephants are being killed by climate change and drought - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/kenya-elephants-drought-climate-change/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/kenya-elephants-drought-climate-change/ |
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with his wife, Ginni Thomas, in Washington in 2021. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The 65 Project, a bipartisan group dedicated to disbarring lawyers who filed frivolous cases related to the 2020 election, or who otherwise participated in the coup attempt, has been very busy in recent months. It filed a series of complaints against advisers of defeated former president Donald Trump, including Jenna Ellis, Boris Epshteyn, Cleta Mitchell, John Eastman and Joseph diGenova, as well as two lawyers who signed on to be fake electors and two lawyers who participated in the events of Jan. 6, 2o21.
Now, the group is making its most ambitious move yet: It is filing a specific demand with the Supreme Court to kick Eastman, the chief architect of the coup plot, out of the elite Supreme Court Bar (lawyers eligible to argue in the highest court). And it has requested that Justice Clarence Thomas recuse himself from the disciplinary proceeding because of the role that Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, played in the 2020 scheme.
The complaint, made available to me before it was filed, states that Eastman “bolstered and amplified” claims not backed by evidence or the law. It also alleges that Eastman “actively participated in an effort to undermine our elections – a scheme that led to the gravest attack on American democracy since the Civil War.”
The complaint describes five “spokes” in the coup plot, all of which included Eastman. They include litigating the 65 bogus lawsuits; arranging slates of phony electors in seven states; pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes; pressuring state lawmakers to overturn votes or rescind electors; and summoning “Trump’s supporters to Washington, D.C. and, having spent months lying to them about fraud and a stolen election, sending them to the Capitol, agitated and armed, to stop the electoral vote count.”
After a detailed review of facts revealed in the Jan. 6 hearings and in reporting, the group argues that Eastman’s conduct warrants expulsion from the Supreme Court Bar as well as the loss of his California legal license. The complaint amounts to a handy guide not only to Eastman’s professional violations, but also to facts that might be the basis for criminal charges in state and federal court.
Michael Teter, the 65 Project’s managing director, tells me, “If Mr. Eastman is allowed to continue to remain a member of the highest court in the United States despite the undisputed facts regarding his actions, the American public’s quickly eroding confidence in the Supreme Court will deteriorate even faster.”
But that’s not even the most intriguing part. Citing the obligation for federal judges to recuse themselves from proceedings in which their impartiality “might reasonably be questioned” or in which the judge has personal bias or knowledge of the facts (including spouses with an interest), the complaint asks the Supreme Court — specifically Justice Thomas — to adhere to the rules (which is not mandatory for justices to follow), since the disciplinary matter concerns “public confidence in the judicial system’s integrity.”
The complaint argues that Ginni Thomas “played a significant role in pursuing many of the same post-election strategies as Mr. Eastman.” It recites her text exchanges with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and her effort to pressure Arizona lawmakers, including a former Thomas clerk, to overturn the presidential vote. The complaint also notes that Ginni Thomas attended the “Stop the Steal” rally in D.C. on Jan. 6 and later wrote to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) denigrating the House select committee’s investigation of the attack on the Capitol. (Thomas previously stated she only briefly attended the rally.)
The recusal request concludes:
In short, Ms. Thomas participated in the concerted effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. She supported Mr. Eastman’s efforts and conferred with him as Mr. Eastman engaged in scheme described by a federal court as a likely criminal conspiracy. She used her relationships with several other of Justice Thomas’s former clerks to further push the effort to subvert American democracy.
At a moment when the Jan. 6 committee is considering issuing a subpoena for Ginni Thomas based on exactly the same set of facts, the complaint raises questions as to why she has not cooperated and why her husband did not recuse himself from Jan. 6-related cases. (Justice Thomas has been roundly criticized for failing to do so when the court ordered the National Archives produce documents to the committee. He was the lone dissenter.)
Teter argues his complaint is an opportunity for the court to improve its image. A decision by Justice Thomas to recuse himself from the matter, he says, would be “an important first step toward the Court’s regaining some of its legitimacy.”
The court might not entertain the complaint or the recusal request. But if it chooses to ignore them, new questions about its integrity inevitably will arise. As for Ginni Thomas, both the Justice Department and Jan. 6 select committee should hear from her. Her refusal to talk to the committee is as egregious as her husband’s failure to recuse himself. It’s time to test whether a Supreme Court justice and his wife are above the law. | 2022-07-28T14:11:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas above the law? Here's a test to find out. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/request-disbar-john-eastman-recusal-clarence-ginni-thomas-a-test-for-the-supreme-court/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/request-disbar-john-eastman-recusal-clarence-ginni-thomas-a-test-for-the-supreme-court/ |
At the Hirshhorn, Sam Gilliam’s last works grab the spotlight, quietly
‘Full Circle’ features recent works by the Washington artist, who died last month, along with a piece from 1977
Review by Kelsey Ables
Installation view of “Sam Gilliam: Full Circle” at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, which includes a 1977 work, “Rail,” right, and several recent paintings on round wood panels, or “tondos.” (Ron Blunt/Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden)
If you’re familiar with the abstract painter Sam Gilliam — who died June 25 at his home in D.C. — you’ve probably seen his iconic drape paintings. Swooping across museum walls, gracing high-ceilinged halls, some stretching over 70 feet in length, they are the kind of dramatic artworks that inspire you to stand back with awe, even half a century after they first propelled Gilliam onto the international art scene. But Gilliam’s most recent body of work — a series of smaller round paintings on wood panels (or “tondos”) created between 2021 and 2022, on view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden — asks something different of us: to get up close. Like, really close.
Sam Gilliam, abstract artist who went beyond the frame, dies at 88
At the Hirshhorn, 17 of Gilliam’s tondos are on view along with an early canvas, “Rail” (1977). The show, which opened a month before the artist’s death, is fittingly called “Full Circle.”
Consider the exhibition a way of paying respects to the artist — a way to give these final works a little more attention than you might ordinarily do. Here, it’s the details that create the drama. Up close, contrasting colors flood your field of vision. Paint cascades down the panels. Their surfaces appear so textured that you have to fight the urge to touch them. Looking carefully at the piece “Exciting,” you can perceive flecks of wood chips, shiny metal bits and studio debris buried in the paint like it’s an archaeological site. You can see the spots on the panel where it looks like Gilliam grabbed the thick paint with his bare hands and sculpted it to his liking.
During a recent visit, more than one visitor could be heard to comment that all the paintings look the same. And on some level, they do. But that’s one of the misleading qualities of abstract art: the illusion that it can be absorbed in a glance and summarized in a sentence. It’s a blue square, a white blob, a smattering of red. What else is there to see or say?
The answer, of course, is plenty — but only with patience. And the instinct to stop at our first impressions might say more about us than the work. In a 2020 interview, Gilliam said he believes abstract art is political because it asks you to open up to a world that is fundamentally different from your own. At a time when stereotypes cloud political discourse, when social media has become a narcissistic hall of mirrors and when relatability has become a lazy metric by which to assess art, abstraction’s tall order — to look outside ourselves and beyond our assumptions — feels particularly imperative.
Whether Gilliam’s work is political in a more conventional sense has long been debated. Working in an era during which many Black artists sought to make direct references to social justice and advocated for art as activism, Gilliam remained almost singularly focused on abstraction, positioning himself in the second wave of the Washington Color School. Arts institutions don’t seem to know how to grapple with this. In wall texts and bios, they awkwardly name-check “April 4,” one of Gilliam’s few political artworks (an oblique reference to the date of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination), as if in disbelief that a Black artist might not have been interested in representing political strife.
If other artists engage racism and inequality directly, Gilliam’s work has a way of alluding to the structures beneath the surface. Through abstraction, he challenges the shorthand we rely on to read a painting, the crutches of our own biased thinking. You can see this even in interpretations of Gilliam’s signature drape paintings, which some have likened to hanging laundry or African American quilts — descriptions Gilliam rejected. What if his intention is subtler than our eye can immediately discern?
The works at the Hirshhorn can’t be reduced to first impressions. Take, for example, “Something Is Going On!” — a work whose title seems to cry out, almost desperately. It draws your attention to its thick paint, spilling over the edges, and a burst of heart-shaped red that seems to pulse like a wound.
Look closely, and you can see a slight contrast in tonality between the pinker “Cerebral” and the bluer “Ceremony,” a subtle shift that almost soothes the eye. You can sense the rising feeling of moving from the undulating, shimmering “You Blue Moon” to the cloudy “A Sketch at Morn” hung beside it. And if you take the time to read such poetic titles as “A Sunday Heart” and “Pretty Baby,” you’ll be primed to feel the parallel warmth and joy the paintings stir.
In much of Gilliam’s work, it seems like he is testing the medium itself: He breaks down the surface, piles on the paint. “Rail,” which is thick with black impasto and bright colors fighting to be seen, has been cut apart and stitched back together.
Many of the recent round panels follow this same line of experimentation. Several have been sliced into quarters, which give the ones that are left intact — like the sweetly titled, side-by-side pairing “Keep” and “You” — a feeling of expansiveness. In two paintings, Gilliam left the crevices between the slices filled with paint, preserving a trace of connection.
Gilliam has sometimes been called the artist who, with his drape paintings, liberated the canvas from its stretchers. With this, his final show, it really is as if he has come full circle, returning to paint on a flat surface. And yet, even within those confines, Gilliam’s art seems to stretch outward, reaching into the gallery around it and expanding our sightlines. His brush may have been laid down for good, but here, his work knows no bounds.
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Independence Avenue and Seventh Street SW. hirshhorn.si.edu.
Dates: Through Sept. 11.
Where to find more Sam Gilliam
Gilliam, who lived in D.C. for 60 years, has left his mark on the city — from prestigious museums to a pedestrian Metro underpass.
In museums on the Mall
At opposite ends of the National Mall, you can see bookends of Gilliam’s artistic endeavors: an early abstract work and a major 2016 commission, regarded as a capstone of his career. At the National Gallery of Art, in a gallery showcasing such Washington Color School artists as Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, you’ll find Gilliam’s bright 1965 abstraction “Shoot Six,” in which six shades of color seem to stretch out from the canvas like rays of light. At the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gilliam’s large-scale, five-panel installation “Yet Do I Marvel (Countee Cullen)” greets visitors with jagged lines and a jazzy energy.
At arts venues around town
The Reach at the Kennedy Center: To get a glimpse of the signature drape style that vaulted Gilliam onto the international stage in 1969, check out “Carousel Light Depth” (1969) — a suspended canvas covered in hot pinks, bubbly blues and scintillating silvers that stretches along the wall of the Reach’s Studio K, where you can see the asymmetrical, lunging piece from two viewing levels.
Phillips Collection: Gilliam’s first museum exhibition was at the Phillips, which has recently rehung “Red Petals” in its first-floor lobby. Created specifically for the 1967 show, the work is a swirl of poppy reds and fiery oranges, which Gilliam made by staining the canvas and folding it in on itself — a precursor to his drape-painting technique. A new show, “Lou Stovall: The Museum Workshop,” also features work by Gilliam, reflecting a decades-long collaboration between the two artists. On view: “Big Red Piece,” a beveled-edge painting that Stovall built the stretcher for, and two 1972 prints by Gilliam made in Stovall’s workshop.
Kreeger Museum: Gilliam had a significant role at the Kreeger, as the first contemporary artist to have an exhibition there. Today you can find “Cape,” a 1969 stained canvas that is part of his beveled-edge, or “Slice,” series. (His Cubism-infused, acrylic-on-birchwood sculpture “Graining” will go on view later this summer.)
Howard University Gallery of Art: “Tulip Series: Petal” is a good example of Gilliam’s work in the 1980s. It’s a puzzlelike sculpture that looks like what you’d get if you sampled drip paintings like jazz tunes.
From the outside, there’s nothing remarkable about the John A. Wilson Building, which houses the Executive Office of the Mayor and the Council of the District of Columbia. It’s a quiet government building with stained walls and dingy lighting. But stroll around the first floor and you’ll notice that the space doubles as a gallery for some of D.C.’s finest artists, including Gilliam. At the southwest corner hangs the artist’s “Steps and Folds.” An accordion-shaped mishmash of images, it evokes a picture perpetually coming into focus, or a sentence uttered underwater. Gilliam’s work can also be found — between your tech-conference sessions or comic con events — at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, which boasts Gilliam’s “Many Things” (2003) and “Chevrons” (1984). And later this summer, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library plans to install Gilliam’s 1967 acrylic-stained canvas “Ship.”
There’s something exciting about unexpectedly bumping into art on the street, like running into a friend. That’s the effect of seeing Gilliam’s “From Model to Rainbow” at the Takoma Metro station. It’s the kind of street art that doesn’t interrupt the space — I’m looking at you, murals in gentrifying neighborhoods — but respects it, offering a counterpoint to the subway system’s characteristic concrete with abstract, colorful tiles that create an illusion of three-dimensional fabric. At the Shepherd Park/Juanita E. Thornton Neighborhood Library, there’s another hidden-but-striking Gilliam: a copper piece called “Library Stars/Library Obelisk,” which climbs up the front of the demure brick structure, reaching skyward. | 2022-07-28T14:50:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sam Gilliam's last body of work is on view at the Hirshhorn - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/07/28/hirshhorn-full-circle-sam-gilliam/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/07/28/hirshhorn-full-circle-sam-gilliam/ |
Mortgage rates are brought down by recession fears
The 30-year fixed average tumbled to 5.3 percent, its lowest level in three weeks
Mortgage demand continues to plummet, falling for the fourth week in a row. It is at its lowest level since February 2000. (Lila Ash for The Washington Post/For The Washington Post)
Mortgage rates took a step back this week as concerns about a recession outweighed worries about inflation.
According to the latest data released Thursday by Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed-rate average fell to 5.3 percent with an average 0.8 point. (A point is a fee paid to a lender equal to 1 percent of the loan amount. It is in addition to the interest rate.) It was 5.54 percent a week ago and 2.8 percent a year ago.
Freddie Mac, the federally chartered mortgage investor, aggregates rates from around 80 lenders across the country to come up with weekly national averages. The survey is based on home purchase mortgages. Rates for refinances may be different. It uses rates for high-quality borrowers with strong credit scores and large down payments. Because of the criteria, these rates are not available to every borrower.
The 15-year fixed-rate average dropped to 4.58 percent with an average 0.8 point. It was 4.75 percent a week ago and 2.1 percent a year ago. The five-year adjustable rate average slipped to 4.29 percent with an average 0.3 point. It was 4.31 percent a week ago and 2.45 percent a year ago.
“The economy is starting to show signs of weakness,” said Melissa Cohn, regional vice president of William Raveis Mortgage. “While no one wants a weaker economy, lower rates are just what the real estate market needs in the middle of summer.”
The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate by another three-quarters of a percentage point this week, marking the fourth increase this year. It started with a 25-basis point hike in March, followed by 50 basis points in May and now back-to-back 75 basis points. (A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.) Although the news came too late to be factored into Freddie Mac’s survey, investors had been anticipating the move.
“The Fed raising rates has been a bit like yelling into a cave and listening to your voice echo,” said Kate Wood, a home expert at NerdWallet. “The first time the funds rate went up, back in March, the effect on mortgage rates was loud and clear. In May, it was fainter, and in June, following a brief spike, rates rebounded so quickly it was as if there’d been no sound at all. But with the current level of economic uncertainty both globally and in the U.S., we can’t take interest rate stability for granted.”
The Fed has been raising the federal funds rate to lower inflation, which has been hovering at 40-year highs. Prices rose 9.1 percent in June, compared with prices the year before. But the hikes have caused mortgage rates to skyrocket. Although the Fed doesn’t set mortgage rates, its actions often influence them. From January to June this year, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate average rose more than 2.5 percentage points, going from 3.22 percent in January to 5.81 percent in June.
Although economists expect mortgage rates to continue trending higher, they are unlikely to rise as rapidly as they did the first six months of the year. Concerns about an impending recession are having a dampening effect on rates.
“Mortgage rates have dropped about half a percentage point in recent weeks, heading closer to 5.5 percent than the 6 percent rates we saw in June,” said Mike Fratantoni, chief economist at Mortgage Bankers Association. “There is a tug-of-war in market expectations, between the persistently high inflation numbers and resulting rapid Fed hikes, and the increasing risk of a sharp slowdown and possible recession. As a result, mortgage rates may have already peaked and could stay between 5 percent and 5.5 percent through the remainder of 2022.”
When investors are worried about inflation, they lose interest in buying bonds because the return on their investment is less when inflation is high. Inflation erodes the value of a bond’s future payments. Less demand causes bond prices to drop and yields to rise. Since mortgage rates tend to follow the same path as the 10-year Treasury yield, they also go up.
But in a recession, bonds are seen as a safe investment. More demand for bonds causes prices to rise and yields to fall, which usually sends mortgage rates down. After peaking at 3.09 percent earlier this month, the yield on the 10-year Treasury closed at 2.78 percent on Wednesday.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis released the latest GDP reading on Thursday, showing the economy shrank for the second quarter in a row. The report prompted concerns about an impending recession.
Bankrate.com, which puts out a weekly mortgage rate trend index, found the experts split on where rates are headed in the coming week. Half said rates will go up, the other half said they will go down.
“Looks like we are in for a settling of mortgage rates for a while,” Johnson said. “It seems that for now, more folks are afraid of a recession and are running for cover in 10-year T-notes versus the Fed trimming its balance sheet by selling their stock of 10-year T-notes. Until this trend settles, rates will slowly decline.”
Meanwhile, mortgage demand continues to plummet, falling for the fourth week in a row. It is at its lowest level since February 2000. The market composite index — a measure of total loan application volume — decreased 1.8 percent from a week earlier, according to Mortgage Bankers Association data.
The refinance index dropped 4 percent from the previous week and was 83 percent lower than a year ago. The purchase index was down 1 percent. The refinance share of mortgage activity accounted for 30.7 percent of applications.
“The summer slowdown in mortgage applications continued,” Bob Broeksmit, MBA’s president and chief executive, wrote in an email. “Higher mortgage rates and weakening consumer confidence are impacting homebuyer demand, especially at the lower end of the market. The typical new FHA borrower’s mortgage payment in June was $452 higher than a year ago. Despite the recent decline in activity, MBA still anticipates purchase origination volume to close the year slightly ahead of last year’s total.” | 2022-07-28T14:50:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mortgage rates for July 28 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/28/mortgage-rates-are-brought-down-by-recession-fears/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/28/mortgage-rates-are-brought-down-by-recession-fears/ |
When you make a mistake, it’s best to come clean and fix it as quickly as you can. That’s what Barclays Plc appears to be doing with its embarrassing error selling investment products in the US for which it didn’t have permission. It’s still going to be costly, but if things turn out as the UK bank now expects, then the whole episode could ultimately reflect well on C.S. Venkatakrishnan in his first year as chief executive officer.
The problem came to light in the first quarter when Barclays spotted it had forgotten to file a simple approval request with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to issue structured notes. Unfortunately, it noticed it a year after the filing should have gone in. It was a black mark on an otherwise strong first three months.
The second quarter hasn’t been so kind in the underlying business, and the bank increased the expected costs of fixing the structured-note debacle in its results on Thursday. Barclays took a charge of £1.3 billion ($1.6 billion) in the first half of 2022, most of which is to cover the expected costs of buying back the securities that it shouldn’t have sold. About $200 million of the charge is to cover an expected SEC fine.
This is much higher than the bank’s earlier £540 million estimate for the costs of sorting out the error. But here’s what it has done well: On the regulatory side, engaging with the SEC early has meant Barclays can already be reasonably sure about the penalty it will pay. At the same time, it quickly put in place hedges to protect against swings in the value of the notes between now and when investors elect whether to sell them back to Barclays. Those trades generated profits of £758 million in the second quarter, cutting the current cost of the whole affair in half.
It is still a painful and embarrassing hit – and there’s always a danger that the hedges and final costs of buying back the notes won’t line up perfectly. But as an exercise in owning up and cleaning up, Venkat, as the CEO is widely known, appears to have made the right calls.
The job of dealing with this mess belongs to the equities-trading business, which did poorly in the second quarter compared with rivals. Revenue was down 25% in dollar terms versus the same three-month period last year. Every other US and European bank to report so far had revenue gains. The bank says that the business is still progressing well from its modest base of a few years ago and that fixing the structured-note problem wasn’t a distraction to its traders.
Elsewhere, the bank’s bond and currency trading business was the highlight. Revenue growth in dollar terms of 52% year-on-year was behind only Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and was much better than its main European rival, Deutsche Bank AG, where bond-trading revenue rose about 16% calculated in dollars.
The fees Barclays earned from advising on deals and capital raising appeared to fall by less than any rival in the US or Europe. But there’s a wrinkle: Barclays books markdowns on leveraged loans arranged for private equity takeovers in its corporate lending income rather than subtracting the loss from advisory fees as other banks do. Barclays wouldn’t give an exact number for these markdowns, but based on the change in corporate lending profits the losses were likely about $180 million to $200 million. That would mean Barclays investment banking fees fell by more than US peers and were closer to the declines at UBS and Deutsche Bank.
In its consumer businesses, the story was similar to that of US peers. People are spending healthily – helping to drive up Barclays’s revenue from payments services by 35% – and signs of repayment problems are few in spite of worries about slowing economies. Like Deutsche Bank, Barclays also saw good corporate loan growth as companies look more to banks for finance while bond markets have suffered a collapse in demand. Few people expect financial markets to roar back to life this year, but expanding loan books and rising interest rates should help banks’ revenue in general unless a real recession hits.
Barclays could increase its existing £1 billion buyback program by another £500 million helped by its swift actions on its structured note snafu. What matters now is that it keeps managing that well and can put the problem behind it this year.
• Real Change at Credit Suisse? Don’t Hold Your Breath: Paul J. Davies
• Powell Smartly Swears Off Guidance But Then Doles Some Out: Jonathan Levin | 2022-07-28T14:50:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Barclays Shows How to Get Out of a Blunder - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/barclays-shows-how-to-get-out-of-a-blunder/2022/07/28/7d13f6dc-0e80-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/barclays-shows-how-to-get-out-of-a-blunder/2022/07/28/7d13f6dc-0e80-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 15: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) (L) talks with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) before the ceremony where U.S. President Joe Biden signed the “Consolidated Appropriations Act” in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on March 15, 2022 in Washington, DC. Averting a looming government shutdown, the $1.5 trillion budget -- which includes $14 billion in humanitarian, military and economic assistance to Ukraine -- will fund the federal government through September 2022. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) (Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America)
Rather unexpectedly, the 117th Congress is shaping up to be one of the most productive in recent memory. A new compromise reached by Senator Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could prove to be its most significant achievement yet.
Promisingly, the proposed spending is well focused. A summary of the deal Democrats put out on Wednesday says it would offer fully $369 billion for climate and energy proposals, the most urgent parts of Biden’s original $3.5 trillion proposal. That should turbocharge the administration’s plans to reduce carbon emissions and lay the groundwork for a clean-energy economy, while avoiding some of its less defensible outlays. The new bargain would also put $64 billion toward extending Covid-era subsidies for Obamacare health insurance, thus helping millions of Americans avoid significant premium increases.
More or less true to its grandiose name — the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — the proposal also takes budgetary restraint more seriously than its predecessors in this Congress. To raise revenue, it would establish a 15% corporate minimum tax for large companies, allot $124 billion to the IRS for enhanced tax enforcement, and close the so-called carried-interest loophole, which allows investment-fund managers to pay income taxes at a preferential rate. Realistically, such reforms will be subject to plenty of gamesmanship and gimmickry going forward. But this is a sober attempt at fiscal responsibility.
Perhaps more consequentially, the plan would remove a legal prohibition that has long prevented Medicare from bargaining with pharmaceutical companies on behalf of the 49 million Americans in its drug-insurance program. This barrier has kept US drug prices the highest in the world — $1,300 per person per year, on average. A previous proposal along these lines was expected to save taxpayers almost $290 billion through 2031, with greater savings in subsequent years as more drugs become eligible for negotiation. Advancing this reform alone would’ve been a momentous achievement.
Plenty of details remain to be ironed out, of course, and serious pitfalls still lie ahead. But all told, this compromise would be big win for Democrats, for the White House and — not least — for the US taxpayer. As America’s loquacious president once said in another context, it’s a big effing deal.
• Here’s One Good Way to Lower the Cost of Insulin: Lisa Jarvis
• Skyrocketing Drug Prices Are in Nobody’s Interest: Editorial
• Can Mark Cuban Help You Play Less for Medicines?: Lisa Jarvis | 2022-07-28T14:50:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New Budget Deal Would Be a Big Win for Congress — and the Country - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/new-budget-deal-would-be-a-big-win-for-congress-and-the-country/2022/07/28/4b4bc23c-0e7c-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/new-budget-deal-would-be-a-big-win-for-congress-and-the-country/2022/07/28/4b4bc23c-0e7c-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Jack Ma may be blunt — his harsh criticism of China’s state-dominated banking system cost him a $34 billion blockbuster initial public offering in 2020. But he is not stupid.
The billionaire plans to cede control of Ant Group Co., a fintech affiliate of his e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the Wall Street Journal reported. He currently controls 50.52% of Ant, which would have been valued at more than $300 billion had it gone public.
Bankers hoping for a revival of Ant’s listing will be disappointed. A change in control means the fintech will have to wait a while before attempting to list again. China’s securities watchdog requires a timeout for companies that go through such big ownership changes.
Ma had previously held back from giving up control because he didn’t want to delay Ant’s plan for an IPO, according to the Journal. So it’s interesting to contemplate why he is changing his mind.
First of all, how much is Ant worth now? With its most profitable businesses gone — such as arranging consumer loans without putting in any capital itself — the unicorn has become a shadow of its past self. A year ago, Fidelity Investments cut the value of its Ant stake, reducing the company’s valuation to only $78 billion.
That might even be a generous estimate. If Ant was to go public on Shanghai’s main board as a financial holding company, it would be valued as a bank. In that case, Ant could be worth as little as $29 billion, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
Granted, Ma’s Ant stake still amounts to a lot of money. But it’s simply not worth all the scrutiny for a tycoon who’s already got billions — $37 billion according to the latest figure from Bloomberg Billionaire Index. Try as he might, Ma simply can’t move beyond his past.
President Xi Jinping’s mantra of “common prosperity” — replete with warnings against “excessively high income” — has sparked sharp questions about privilege and access. One reason Xi quashed Ant’s IPO, according to the Journal, was the government’s growing unease over the company’s complex ownership — and the people who stood to gain the most from the blockbuster listing.
Ma has given away those prized Ant shares as tokens of friendship. For instance, through Yunfeng Capital, founded by Ma and Target Media’s David Yu, the billionaire had allowed his friends to invest in Ant early. One pal, nicknamed “a lot of money,” famously paid HK$42.2 million ($5.4 million) for Ma’s debut painting, a collaboration with a well-known Chinese artist. “A lot of money” would have been many times richer had Ant’s IPO gone ahead.
Even scarier for a Chinese billionaire these days is the involvement of the anti-graft watchdog. Earlier this year, the feared Central Commission for Discipline Inspection was seeking to understand the influence of Ma’s fintech empire and the extent of its transactions with state banks and enterprises, Bloomberg News reported. Inevitably, Ant has a lot of business dealings with state-linked companies. It has arranged consumer loans for SOE banks, and may also count SOE asset managers as buyers of its sizable asset-backed securities.
These days, anyone who handles state money needs to be extra careful, because punishments are severe. Lai Xiaomin, former head of China Huarong Asset Management Co., was executed for receiving 1.8 billion yuan ($280 million) in bribes. Hu Huaibang, former boss at China Development Bank, is serving a life sentence for bribery.
Meanwhile, with extended Covid-related lockdowns denting household balance sheets, Chinese consumers may no longer be stellar borrowers. Some are staging mortgage boycotts. So what if they start to default on their personal loans? Will Ant be held liable for bad debt on SOE banks’ books?
Seen in that light, who wants to be the public face of Ant now? Ma has left the building. He is much better off holidaying in his mega-yacht.
• Jack Ma’s Famous Friends Will Cost Him Billions More: Shuli Ren
• Jack Ma’s Ant Is More MasterCard Than PayPal: Ren and Trivedi | 2022-07-28T14:51:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jack Ma Surrenders on Ant Financial. Smart Move. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/jack-ma-surrenders-on-ant-financial-smart-move/2022/07/28/464eb7c4-0e83-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/jack-ma-surrenders-on-ant-financial-smart-move/2022/07/28/464eb7c4-0e83-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html |
Six things kids need in school in today’s politicized world
A new school year is starting in many districts next month and the media is flooded with stories about teacher shortages, low educator morale, restrictions on what teachers can address in classrooms about race, gender and identity, banned books, and other troubling issues facing public education. Add to that new outbreaks of a coronavirus variant, portending more health-related disruptions to school, and it is clear that students and teachers will return to do their work in a highly politicized and tense environment.
What ingredients will it take for schools to be successful under these conditions? That’s the subject of this post, written by Raechel Barone, a kindergarten teacher at Orchard School in South Burlington, Vt., and Karen Engels, a fourth-grade teacher at Graham and Parks School in Cambridge, Mass.
By Raechel Barone and Karen Engels
It’s not hyperbole to suggest that public education is at a crisis point. We’re seeing record numbers of children experiencing anxiety and depression. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tracked increasing rates of depression and anxiety among children ages 6 to 17, from 5.4 percent in 2003 to 8 percent in 2007 to 8.4 percent in 2011-2012. Over the last decade, rates again climbed. By 2018, suicide was the second leading cause of death for youths ages 10 to 24. The pandemic exacerbated this already troubling trend, prompting the U.S. surgeon general to sound the alarm on child and adolescent mental health in December 2021.
At the same time, educator morale across the country is extremely low, as fatigued educators continue to navigate the constantly shifting seas of pandemic schooling. Earlier this year, the National Education Association reported that 55 percent of educators are considering leaving the profession earlier than expected. As we enter a new school year, staff shortages are threatening the stability of our public education system.
School environments can be toxic. Why and how they must change.
From our vantage point as veteran elementary school teachers, we believe that many of the factors contributing to declining well-being in children are the very same factors crushing teacher morale.
In addition to the larger national trends such as political polarization and incivility, gun violence, and technologically induced isolation, there are clear trends within public education that have contributed to declining student and teacher morale.
Ask teachers around the country about their experiences, and most sound eerily similar. There’s simply a big gap between what we’re being asked to do — relentlessly push students to “catch up” from “learning loss” — and what we feel we should do for our students. The education policy context we operate within often seems woefully out of step with the actual children in our classrooms. And teachers across the country feel excluded from the policy decisions that directly impact their day-to-day instruction.
The current moment requires us to reconsider the fundamental question of what we want from our public schools, and to ask ourselves honestly whether the strategies we’ve been using to “recover and thrive” will truly meet the urgent needs of our students.
When we think about what every student deserves, the ingredients are really quite simple. We believe there are six key pillars for successful classrooms.
Love, trust, and belonging
At the end of the day, what each of us really wants is for our children to be cherished, to be seen, understood, and supported fully through mistakes, successes, and quirky individuality. The unconditional love that teachers bestow on students is the ingredient that makes the rest possible. When students feel loved, they experience safety, warmth, and connection, which enables them to take on the hard work of learning.
Love is also the ingredient that allows families to develop trust in educators. Once families see educators deeply invested in their child’s success, partnerships between teachers and caregivers to support the child take on depth and purpose.
In a classroom community, we want our children not only to be safe from physical or emotional harm, but to be appreciated, valued, and cared for by others. We want their classroom to feel like an extended family, and we want children’s families at home to be equally embraced in the community that’s created by our classroom.
Is the common school in America dying?
Emotional safety and well being
One of the most crucial roles we play in elementary schools is helping children to notice, navigate, and express their feelings. Teaching these skills is time-intensive and requires a combination of intentional skill building and in-the moment coaching. It cannot be “checked-off” by teaching a weekly social-emotional learning lesson. When we skimp on this instruction, we pay the price as a society. When we accept that children cannot make academic gains or form social connections if their emotional needs are not adequately met, then we see how critical it is that we address children’s mental health.
In misguided attempts to accelerate math and literacy gains, many districts are skimping on the parts of the day where this learning happens: play time, recess, lunch, snack. Far from being “off-task” time or “time off learning,” this is where students learn the core skills of interacting with one another. When we reduce the time children have to employ relational skill-building, we are doing more harm than good.
Our misguided effort to close the achievement gap is creating a new inequality: the ‘play’ gap
Affirmation of full identity
In order for children to feel a sense of belonging, their entire identity must be welcomed, not just the parts they believe they are safe to carry through the door. The curriculum needs to be meaningful, purposeful, and relevant to each and every child. Students need to learn about the joy, beauty, and power of their individual cultures and identities.
The cultural and linguistic knowledge as well as breadth of experiences that children bring with them enhance classroom learning exponentially and cannot be underestimated. We know that it is relationships with people whose world views and experiences are different from our own that lead to empathy and understanding. This has to move beyond shallow efforts to celebrate multiculturalism and must incorporate the far more meaningful work of illuminating the historical and sociocultural forces that shape the experiences of different students’ lives in the United States today as well as the experiences of their families over generations.
While the attacks on “critical race theory” claim that such illumination causes White students to feel shame and discomfort, the truth is that when we teach about race and racism sensitively, honestly, and reflectively, we are allowing all students to make sense of the world we live in. This learning is the first step toward helping students claim their own agency and power to make our world more perfect — feelings which are the polar opposite of shame and discomfort.
Sense of agency and power
A stunning number of teenagers feel persistently hopeless about the future — the CDC estimates nearly half. Given these figures, it’s no wonder that some families and politicians are interested in protecting students from discomfort around the hard history that has brought us to the current moment of polarized violence.
However, we’d argue that hopelessness is about feeling powerless. Sheltering our children from the realities of our world actually increases their sense of powerlessness, because we’re sending them the tacit message that we don’t believe in their abilities to wrestle with complex issues. We need our children to grow up with the skills to tackle the daunting challenges their generation faces, from racism and economic inequality to mass shootings to climate change.
But most importantly, they need to learn about the problems our society faces in a way that allows them to believe in their power to make positive changes. This belief comes from the lived experience of engaging in projects that have a direct, meaningfully positive impact on their local community, whether it’s planting vegetables for the school garden, starting a “kindness club,” creating public-service announcements about ways families can reduce their carbon footprint, or singing for elders at a local nursing home. Empowering students to feel hope about the future is a radical act during times that can feel hopeless.
Unstoppable curiosity
School-age children love to learn, and they enter school with boundless enthusiasm for the world around them. Making space for their endless questions can feel impossible given the hectic pace of the school day, but honoring their curiosity is an essential means of inculcating a lifelong love of learning.
Recognizing that curiosity shows up in ways that may look like testing the limits is a hallmark of good teaching. Truly encouraging children’s curiosity requires allowing time for discoveries that could have been “taught” and accepting unexpected outcomes. It requires the flexibility to spend more time on a particular topic that captivates a class’s passion, and to deviate from the pacing guides that tend to march from one idea to the next without sufficient time for learning that’s “sticky.”
For inspired learning to occur, teachers must be trusted to make timely curricular decisions about breadth vs. depth, whole class vs, small group learning, and assessing through different modalities. It is classroom teachers who know their students best, not policymakers or curriculum designers.
Opportunity to master core skills
Of course any successful school must ensure that students master rigorous skills. The skills an elementary school student must acquire over six years is mind boggling: from learning basic letter sound and simple visual addition to composing multi-paragraph literary essays and unpacking complex multi-operation math problems. We know that children who struggle to master these skills in elementary school are at great risk for poor academic achievement in later years. The stakes are high.
The 2022 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act rightly called out the “soft bigotry of low expectations” (which former President George W. Bush warned against) and decried the stark contrast between the academic test scores of students of different races. But the solution — a relentless focus on math and reading to be measured annually in high stakes assessments — was the wrong solution. Why?
Because the solution only addressed one of the six pillars of a classroom where kids can thrive. And in focusing the spotlight on this pillar of foundational skills, NCLB effectively knocked the other pillars loose, unwittingly risking the stability of the whole enterprise of public education.
Are states really trying to overcome the harmful legacy of No Child Left Behind?
When we look around at our colleagues in districts across the country, the reality is that districts are singularly focused on the sixth pillar, academic proficiency, without sufficient attention to the prerequisite conditions that allow children and teachers to succeed.
Strategies that revolve around endless quantitative metrics, “teacher proof” curriculum rollouts, computer programs in lieu of rich and robust collaborative learning, and top-down decision-making have landed us in the current quagmire of stagnant student achievement and educator attrition. But it’s not too late to expand our focus.
The good news is that educators already know intuitively what’s necessary to create classrooms where students, and teachers themselves, can experience the magic of learning and community. Shifting strategies need not be costly. In fact, reducing our reliance on expensive curriculums, adaptive learning platforms, data systems, and corporate professional development programs would ultimately lower the tab.
But the change that’s needed is in fact radical. It requires change processes that extend far beyond lip service to “SEL” (social-emotional learning). We need to loosen our worship of quantitative metrics, which may (or may not) accurately capture a child’s phonemic awareness or computation fluency, but can never capture the equally important pillars. Does a child feel loved? Connected? Safe? Affirmed? Curious? Children will not grow their academic skills if we don’t give equal attention to the safety, joy, and care that ultimately determine whether they will thrive or disengage.
As veteran teachers who have seen educational trends come and go, we believe that teachers, like children, need access to the exact same six pillars. We need to be part of a professional community where we are respected, valued, and trusted. The enormous emotional toll of pandemic teaching needs to be acknowledged and honored.
We need emotional safety to take risks, to make mistakes, and to receive supportive rather than punitive approaches to our growth. We need our full identities to be embraced, not just as teachers, but also as people who are often caregivers at home as well as in school, and who are sometimes struggling with their own mental health and well-being as a result of primary or secondary trauma.
We need to feel that we have agency to shape the countless decisions that impact our daily work but are rarely made with our input. We need our curiosity to remain stimulated with opportunities to continue growing and learning as we progress through the phases of novice to veteran. And finally, we need access to research-based professional development that helps us hone our pedagogical knowledge skills.
Teachers and children know what it’s like to be in a classroom where learning is magical. We have both experienced these classrooms throughout our career. Districts and state education boards need to look to the expertise of its ground-level practitioners to move us forward. We know what it takes. | 2022-07-28T14:51:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Six things kids need in school today - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/28/six-things-students-need-today/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/07/28/six-things-students-need-today/ |
New movies to stream this week: ‘Not Okay’ and more
Watch these new movies from home
Zoey Deutch in “Not Okay.” (Nicole Rivelli/Searchlight Pictures/Hulu)
There’s a content advisory at the start of “Not Okay,” a mildly amusing satire of influencer culture and, as articulated by its young protagonist, the desire “to be noticed so badly that it doesn’t matter how”: “This film contains flashing lights, themes of trauma and an unlikable female protagonist.” And all that is true. But the unlikability of Zoey Deutch’s Danni Sanders — a shallow, aspiring New York writer who gets a comeuppance after pretending to have witnessed and survived a terrorist bombing in Paris simply to garner social media “likes” — is not so severe as to require the (presumably tongue-in-cheek) warning. Yes, Danni is a massive jerk, but Deutch (“The Outfit”) allows us to imagine what might have driven her character to such an extreme. (She’s 27 and virtually invisible at the magazine she works for, called, appropriately enough, Depravity). Trivializing the real trauma suffered by the members of a support group Danni joins — including Mia Isaac’s Rowan, a high-schooler who lost her sister to a school shooting — makes Danni an unlikable person, to be sure. But she’s still less annoying than, say, her co-worker Colin (a deliciously vapid and superficial Dylan O’Brien, with a bleach-blond buzz cut). The movie, which is organized into chapters, ends with one titled, “I don’t get a redemption arc.” It’s a disclaimer that I must say put a smile on my face. R. Available on Hulu. Contains strong language throughout, drug use and some sexuality. 102 minutes.
Katie Holmes and Jim Sturgess play strangers who are thrown together when they each discover that they have accidentally double-booked the same Airbnb rental as a pandemic getaway in “Alone Together.” The New York Times calls the film — set during March 2020 and written and directed by Holmes — a “quiet achievement: a film that isn’t running from reality.” R. Available on demand. Contains strong language. 98 minutes.
When a 58-year-old man (Brett Cullen) is diagnosed with early-onset dementia in “It Snows All the Time,” his wife (Lesley Ann Warren) and children (Erich Hover, Sterling Knight and filmmaker Jay Giannone) come together to decide what to do. Unrated. Available on demand. 90 minutes.
The final screen appearance of Danny Aiello, “One Moment” tells the story of middle-aged siblings (Frankie Ingrassia, Sal Rendino and Adria Tennor) who are struggling to manage their lives while taking care of their stubborn, aging father (Aiello). Unrated. Available on Apple TV Plus, Amazon, Vudu, Google Play, DirecTV and other on-demand platforms. 113 minutes.
In the human-trafficking thriller “Paradise Highway,” Juliette Binoche plays a truck driver who agrees to transport a little girl (Hala Finley) to save her brother (Frank Grillo) from a deadly prison gang. Morgan Freeman is the dogged FBI agent on her trail. R. Available on demand. Contains strong language throughout and some violence. 115 minutes.
In the romantic drama “Purple Hearts,” after a third-generation Marine (Nicholas Galitzine) and an aspiring singer (Sofia Carson) enter into a marriage of convenience, his wartime injury causes the transactional nature of the union to become something deeper. TV-14. Available on Netflix. 122 minutes. | 2022-07-28T14:51:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New movies to stream from home this week: 'Not Okay' and more - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/07/28/july-29-new-streaming-movie-roundup/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/07/28/july-29-new-streaming-movie-roundup/ |
Addison Gardner, 12, spoke out on Wednesday against the abortion law proposed by West Virginia lawmakers that would restrict abortion in almost all cases. (YouTube/West Virginia House of Delegates)
In a public hearing for a West Virginia abortion bill that would ban the procedure in almost all cases, a 12-year-old girl supporting abortion rights took to the lectern on Wednesday and asked Republican lawmakers whether they care about her or young people like her: “What about my life?”
After West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) asked lawmakers to “clarify and modernize” the state’s abortion laws to reflect the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, the Republican-controlled legislature is considering an abortion bill that would not just prohibit the procedure in most cases but also allow for the prosecution of physicians who perform abortions.
So when dozens of people spoke out against the bill at the West Virginia House of Delegates, Addison Gardner was among the speakers given 45 seconds each to plead their case to lawmakers.
“My education is very important to me, and I plan on doing great things in life,” she said, noting that she plays varsity volleyball and runs track at Buffalo Middle School in Kenova, W.Va. She then asked a series of questions to the much older lawmakers regarding the lack of protections in House Bill 302: “If a man decides that I’m an object and does unspeakable and tragic things to me, am I, a child, supposed to birth and carry another child? Am I to put my body through the physical trauma of pregnancy? Am I to suffer the mental implications, a child who had no say in what was being done with my body?”
She added, “Some here say they are pro-life. What about my life? Does my life not matter to you?”
Dear #AddisonGardner thank you for your courage. We too are asking that question of @Sen_JoeManchin @SenatorSinema @SenatorCollins @lisamurkowski @POTUS and the entire #gop. Sadly they’re okay with little girls having a rapist child. #Fight pic.twitter.com/j9cTgQnqWz
— ThePowerofOne (@ThePowerofOne98) July 27, 2022
Despite the impassioned plea from Gardner and other abortions rights supporters in and outside of the chamber, the West Virginia House overwhelmingly passed the bill by a vote of 69 to 23.
Hours after Gardner spoke, the state House narrowly adopted an amendment to the bill to allow abortions in cases of rape or incest. But the exception in amendment, which passed 46 to 43, is allowed only up to 14 weeks of pregnancy and only if the rape or incest is reported to police. The amendment adopted by the Republican-led legislature was narrower than one proposed by Democrats regarding abortion exceptions for rape or incest, which was soundly defeated in the chamber.
The bill now heads to the state Senate on Thursday and could be passed as soon as the end of the week.
West Virginia is among the states that do not have “trigger bans” that would ban abortion within 30 days of Roe being struck down. Instead, the state has a pre-Roe abortion ban dating back to the 1800s that — in the absence of Roe — would come back into effect. The Republican-led state never repealed its pre-Roe abortion ban, and voters approved a constitutional amendment specifying that West Virginians do not have a right to abortion.
A judge’s ruling last week blocked enforcement of the state’s 150-year-old abortion ban and allowed for the procedure to resume in the state for the time being. Kanawha County Circuit Court Judge Tera L. Salango granted the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, the state’s only abortion clinic, a preliminary injunction, saying that “those who are impregnated as a result of a rape or incest, are suffering irreparable harm,” according to the Associated Press. The ruling was decried by Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R) as “a dark day for West Virginia.”
On Monday, Justice issued a proclamation calling for a special session in the legislature “to clarify and modernize the abortion-related laws currently existing as part of the West Virginia Code.” The governor’s office said in a news release that the special session this week would also “ensure a coherent, comprehensive framework governing abortions and attendant family services and support to expecting mothers to provide the citizens of this State more certainty in the application of such laws.”
At Wednesday’s public hearing, more than 90 people, including medical professionals, clergy members and abortion rights activists, spoke about their concerns related to the state’s restrictive bill. Many of them described the bill as “disgusting,” “delusional” and “inhumane.” Katie Quiñonez, executive director of the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, was escorted out after she exceeded her 45-second limit.
“This ban has nothing to do with life. It has nothing to do with health. It has nothing to do with family,” she said. “This is about control.”
Others, like Ash Orr, a transgender activist whose pronouns are they/he, specifically talked about the experience of being raped. Orr said they were raped at ages 9 and 10.
“I want you to explain to me why it would have been okay for me as a child to have carried my rapist’s child,” they told lawmakers. “Explain it to me like I’m one of the children that y’all are willing to traumatize.”
When Gardner took the lectern on Wednesday, she found support from Rita Ray, 80, who had an abortion in 1959, before the procedure was legalized by Roe. A photo from Kyle Vass, a journalist with the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia, shows Ray smiling as Gardner makes her plea to lawmakers.
As the chamber passed the bill, video of the vote shows that protesters outside the chamber were chanting expletives at the lawmakers. Even though Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the amendment addressing rape and incest, some lawmakers stressed that the exception was too narrow.
“Guys, I’m struggling with this amendment, big-time,” said Democratic delegate Kayla Young, who ended up voting for the amendment, according to West Virginia MetroNews. “I’d rather have something than nothing. Honestly, I want to protect people. I’m struggling. That’s all I’ve got.”
Before the state Senate began its hearing for the bill Thursday, state Sen. Mike Azinger (R) said in an opening prayer that he was thankful that he and his colleagues were not aborted.
“We’re just grateful for that, Lord,” he said.
On July 9, abortion rights activists gathered in Washington D.C. on Saturday to speak out against the recent Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. (Video: Reuters) | 2022-07-28T14:51:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 12-year-old girl Addison Gardner slams West Virginia Republicans on abortion bill: ‘What about my life?’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/28/abortion-west-virginia-girl-addison-gardner/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/28/abortion-west-virginia-girl-addison-gardner/ |
Semiconductors are imprinted onto silicone wafers at a GlobalFoundries facility in Malta, N.Y., in 2021. (Cindy Schultz for The Washington Post)
The House is expected Thursday to vote on the $280 billion “Chips and Science Act,” a bill that would subsidize domestic semiconductor manufacturing and invest billions in science and technology innovation, in a bid to strengthen the United States’ competitiveness and self-reliance in what is seen as a keystone industry for economic and national security.
The Senate passed the bill Wednesday in a 64-33 vote. Days earlier, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had said there would also be bipartisan support for the bill’s passage in the House and vowed to send it to President Biden’s desk as soon as possible. At the time, House Republican leaders had planned to let their rank and file vote their conscience on the bill.
However, after the stunning news Wednesday night of a deal between Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Democratic leaders on a separate climate, health-care and taxes bill, House GOP leaders are now urging members to oppose the chips bill as retribution, potentially denying Biden and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) a legislative win.
Before the House GOP decided to whip against the chips bill, proponents of the legislation thought they could garner a sizable amount of Republican support — perhaps as many as 20 votes, according to two people familiar with the vote counts who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss the matter. Some members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have also been squeamish on the bill — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has been publicly critical and voted against it Wednesday — and there is fear that its passage could be threatened if supporting lawmakers dwindle.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the caucus chair, told Punchbowl News that she has had reassuring discussions with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo about guardrails in the chips bill that prohibit companies that receive federal funding from using the money on stock buybacks.
Biden has said the legislation is one of the top priorities on his agenda and called for Congress to get the bill to his desk as soon as possible. On Wednesday, he praised the bill as one answer to Americans’ worry about the state of the economy and cost of living.
If the bill passes, about $52 billion would go to microchip manufacturers to incentivize construction of domestic semiconductor fabrication plants — or “fabs” — to make the chips, which are used in a wide variety of products, including motor vehicles, cellphones, medical equipment and military weapons. A shortage of semiconductor chips during the coronavirus pandemic has caused price hikes and supply-chain disruptions in several industries.
In a White House meeting with business and labor leaders Monday, Raimondo noted that the United States used to make 40 percent of the world’s chips but now makes about 12 percent — and “essentially none of the leading-edge chips,” which come almost entirely from Taiwan.
The United States has invested “nearly nothing” in semiconductor manufacturing, while China has invested $150 billion to build its domestic capacity, Raimondo said. She also said it was critical for the United States to be able to compete with countries around the world that have been providing subsidies to semiconductor companies to build factories.
Marianna Sotomayor and Jeanne Whalen contributed to this report. | 2022-07-28T14:51:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | House to vote on bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/28/house-vote-semiconductor-chips-bill/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/28/house-vote-semiconductor-chips-bill/ |
The Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., part of the new LIV Golf Invitational Series. (Justin Lane/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
When he first ran for president in 2016, Donald Trump invoked the 9/11 terrorist attacks regularly. The destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 offered a lot of points of political utility for Trump, from his claims about having helped clear rubble at Ground Zero (which appears to be false) to repeatedly using it as an example of the dangers of terrorism. At times, he cast himself as something of a victim, saying he saw people jumping from the building or describing the “hundreds” of friends he lost that day. At others, he touted his generosity in response.
The attacks also offered him another useful political tool. Facing former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Trump repeatedly disparaged the war in Iraq, launched in response to 9/11 by Bush’s brother President George W. Bush. To that end, he highlighted the role of Saudi Arabian actors in the attack, drawing the (accurate) distinction between the involvement of Saudis with the lack of connections to Iraq.
During an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity in May 2016, Trump was asked if he would advocate for the release of material from the official report on the terrorist attacks that were believed to implicate Saudi officials in the attack.
“The answer is yes,” Trump replied. “ … And, you know, we got into a war in Iraq that I was totally opposed to. But Iraq did not knock down the World Trade Center, Sean.”
Hannity had also asked if the families of victims should have the right to sue Saudi Arabia. Trump said they should.
“We have to get to the bottom of it,” he said. “And everybody wants to keep it quiet. Everybody wants to keep it secret. I don’t — I think most people know pretty much what’s on those papers, but people do have the right to sue and they should have the right to sue. They lost their loved ones.”
Trump won — and his relationship with and rhetoric around Saudi Arabia quickly changed. The country was the focus of his first foreign trip; he enjoyed a fawning, over-the-top reception. Saudi officials understood that Trump responded positively to lavish praise and excessive spending, something they demonstrated wherever possible. It worked.
By the time killers believed to have been working on behalf of the Saudi crown prince dismembered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, Trump’s willingness to wave away concerns about the kingdom was well established. He couldn’t take a heavy hand in response to Khashoggi’s killing, he said, because the country bought so many weapons and armaments from the U.S. (The dollar figure he commonly offered was wildly overstated.) The Saudis were customers, and businessman Trump knew the customer was always right.
For a while, the Khashoggi killing made Saudi Arabia’s government a global pariah. Apparently as part of an effort to reintroduce themselves into polite society, the Saudis backed an upstart golf league, LIV, that would compete with the U.S.-based PGA. In short order, they found a club willing to buck public opprobrium and host a tournament in the U.S.: Trump’s facility in Bedminster, N.J.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump discussed his willingness to host LIV. Part of it, obviously, is money, the grease that’s allowed the LIV to rapidly build up a stable of competitors and advocates. Trump figured the LIV and PGA would merge at some point, with those who had agreed to work with LIV being no different from those who hadn’t, except that they would “have $200 million in their pocket.”
But there’s also an element of revenge. The PGA had scheduled a tournament at Bedminster this year, pulling the tournament in the days after the Capitol riot last year. In a post on Truth Social making the point about a possible merger, Trump lamented golfers who would “remain ‘loyal’ to the very disloyal PGA.” Welcoming the LIV allowed Trump not only to generate lost revenue for his club, it allowed him to stick a finger in the eye of one of his perceived enemies. To Trump, that’s as much of a win-win as you’ll get.
Not everyone viewed the decision with such enthusiasm. A group of people who had lost family members in the 9/11 attacks were outraged at Trump’s willingness to play along with the Saudi government so explicitly. They petitioned Trump not to host the tournament, even releasing an ad targeting him (and his base of support).
“I’m never going to forget, never going to forgive the golfers for taking this blood money,” one man says. Another woman asks, “how much money to turn your back on your own country?”
Through an aide, Trump reached out to the families, Politico reported this week. A family member recalled that the aide said that “9/11 is really near and dear to [Trump] and it’s so important to him he is going to remember everyone who signed the letter and he personally told this individual to reach out.”
This did not smooth things over.
To the Journal Trump expressed somewhat less robust sympathy to the families of those killed.
“I don’t know much about the 9/11 families,” he told the paper. “I don’t know what is the relationship to this, and their very strong feelings, and I can understand their feelings. I can’t really comment on that because I don’t know exactly what they’re saying, and what they’re saying who did what.”
(He also marveled at a question about Khashoggi, saying that the controversy “really seems to have totally died down” and that “nobody has asked me that question in months.”)
Waving away the concerns of families of those killed on 9/11 — including first responders whom Trump has often invoked at political events — in favor of taking money from a regime he once criticized would seem fraught for a normal politician considering a potential presidential run. Trump, though, is unlikely to pay any political price.
Consider: On Thursday, Trump will participate in the LIV tournament’s pro-am (that is, foursomes made up of professionals and amateurs), alongside two professional golfers who had joined the upstart league. During a brief segment on “Fox and Friends” Thursday morning, a show Trump had blasted only days prior, the hosts marveled not at his flip on Saudi Arabia’s culpability but, instead, at his prowess with the sport and his athleticism. | 2022-07-28T14:51:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump picks cash and revenge over the politics of 9/11 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/28/trump-picks-cash-revenge-over-politics-911/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/28/trump-picks-cash-revenge-over-politics-911/ |
Goalkeeper David Ochoa, playing against Los Angeles FC last summer, started 25 matches for Real Salt Lake in 2021 but none this year. (Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press)
D.C. United has reached an agreement to acquire David Ochoa, a highly regarded goalkeeper who has been locked in a dispute with Real Salt Lake and hasn’t played this season, two people familiar with the trade said Thursday.
The sides were awaiting MLS approval before announcing the trade, which would send allocation money to Salt Lake.
Ochoa is making $103,500 this season, MLS Players Association data shows. If he does not sign with United, Ochoa seems likely to pursue opportunities abroad. Some major clubs in Europe and Mexico have reportedly shown interest.
United officials declined to comment. RSL officials could not immediately be reached.
Ochoa would challenge Rafael Romo for the starting job. Romo (eight starts) has received mixed reviews after replacing veteran Bill Hamid, who underwent hand surgery June 30.
Hamid, who was expected to miss two to three months after the procedure, is in the final year of his contract, and people close to the organization said United seems unlikely to extend an offer this fall. Jon Kempin (two starts) is the other keeper on the roster.
Ochoa, 21, turned pro in 2019 and started 25 matches last season but lost the starting job to Zac MacMath this year. After being sidelined early in the season with quadriceps and hand injuries, Ochoa has been absent for what the team said were personal reasons, the coach’s decision and fitness issues.
On July 12, Ochoa wrote on Instagram that he’s “still an RSL player.”
“I’m just not allowed to train with the team … and can’t leave,” he wrote.
His only appearances have come in the U.S. Open Cup tournament (one start) and with RSL’s third-division squad, Real Monarchs (two starts).
Ochoa’s immense talent, though, made him the center of a struggle between the U.S. and Mexican national teams for his services. A dual national from Southern California, Ochoa played for U.S. youth national teams and started for the under-23 squad at the 2020 Olympic qualifying tournament.
Gregg Berhalter, coach of the U.S. senior squad, named him to the 2021 Concacaf Nations League roster. He didn’t play but seemed to be in Berhalter’s long-term plans. Later that summer, though, Ochoa received FIFA approval for a one-time switch to the Mexican program. He was called up for the first time in April but has yet to play.
D.C. United acquires Victor Palsson from Germany’s Schalke | 2022-07-28T14:52:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. United acquiring goalkeeper David Ochoa - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/28/dc-united-david-ochoa-trade/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/28/dc-united-david-ochoa-trade/ |
The MTV VMAs debut category for best virtual and video game concerts
(Washington Post illustration; Evan Agostini/Invision/AP; iStock)
A new kind of concert has been making waves in the music industry — one that trades the tour bus for “Fortnite’s” Battle Bus. MTV announced a new award category Tuesday for the growing number of headlining musicians who have been staging interactive concerts inside video games: Best Metaverse Performance.
The 2022 MTV Video Music Awards will be the first show in the company’s history to feature the category. The six nominees are Ariana Grande, Blackpink, BTS, Charli XCX, Justin Bieber and Twenty One Pilots, all of whom have done virtual concerts in the past year.
While some music lovers might write off virtual concerts as a fad, their popularity is undeniable. Over 12.3 million concurrent players attended Travis Scott’s Astronomical tour in “Fortnite.” (The YouTube recording of the concert has over 190 million views). Experts say this new wave of virtual performances won’t usurp in-person concerts any time soon, but will reshape the future of touring in some way.
“I don’t believe in-person concerts will ever be replaced,” wrote Matthew Ball, author of “The Metaverse,” a new book on the nascent tech, in an email to The Washington Post. “But virtual ones will continue to grow in popularity, capability and creativity. And eventually we will see the two blend into something altogether new.”
Q&A: In ‘The Metaverse,’ a leading evangelist for the tech shies away from prediction
The metaverse is still a vague concept, with several competing definitions championed by the companies attempting to implement the technology. One common point of reference is the idea of the metaverse as a 3D version of the internet, or a comprehensively virtual version of real life. Some technologists envision the tech as heralding a future where real-life and virtual experiences are integrated seamlessly.
Bits and pieces of this vision exist already in the form of video games. Think “Pokémon Go,” the augmented reality game which uses real-life as a backdrop for its virtual world. There are also massively multiplayer games such as “World of Warcraft,” where players constantly communicate with each other, barter for goods, exchange money for services and own items.
MTV’s latest VMA category appears to define a metaverse performance as any concert set in a digital space (sometimes interactive) that is “performed” by digital artists and attended by a digital audience. (Most virtual concerts feature unique mixes of recorded — not live — music). “Interactive” and “space” are the keywords here, because without either of those things, the result would simply be a pre-rendered CGI concert akin to an animated movie.
If this is sounding a lot like a video game to you, then you’re right on the money. Five of the six 2022 Best Metaverse Performance nominees staged their concerts in wildly popular video games. BTS held their nominated performance in “Minecraft,” where the phenomenally successful boy band “sang” and “danced” as blocky avatars. Ariana Grande’s Rift Tour in “Fortnite,” which players attended live in the popular battle royale game, was a surreal roller coaster that had concertgoers fighting a giant demon on biplanes, dancing alongside a digital Ariana Grande on a bubbly ocean and dashing up the logic-defying stairs of a Grecian Escher dreamscape.
Silicon Valley is racing to build the next version of the Internet. Fortnite might get there first.
The appeal of virtual concerts is in convenience and merchandising. For example, Travis Scott’s “Fortnite” concert was free, so all players had to do was show up on time (“Fortnite” itself is also free to play). Even still, for him and Epic Games, the event was a lucrative merchandising opportunity to sell in-game items such as character skins, emotes and more.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, who has been investing heavily in the metaverse, has described the technology as the internet’s great salvation from users being barraged with ads and content creators being caged by social media companies. Sweeney is not alone in that view. As more video game companies make investments in the metaverse and adjacent technologies, expect to see more virtual concerts in the future.
The 2022 MTV Video Music Awards will take place on Aug. 28, 8 p.m. Eastern time at the Prudential Center in Newark. | 2022-07-28T14:52:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | MTV debuts Best Metaverse Performance category for video game concerts - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/07/28/mtv-vmas-best-metaverse-category/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/07/28/mtv-vmas-best-metaverse-category/ |
Record highs roast Northwest; heat wave looms for rest of Lower 48
Record-breaking highs over 110 degrees are predicted in interior Oregon and Washington state, while a sprawling heat dome may spread over the central and eastern U.S. next week
High temperatures on Friday, as predicted by the National Weather Service. (Pivotal Weather) (Pivotal Weather)
Fifteen million people in the western U.S. and Pacific Northwest will see highs hit the century mark over the coming days. By the middle of next week, an even bigger heat wave may build in across the central and eastern Lower 48.
Seattle and Portland have been setting daily records, and triple-digit temperatures is bleeding south into the highly populous Willamette Valley. Concern is growing for vulnerable populations too, since only 44 percent of homes in Seattle and 78 percent of residences in Portland have air conditioning.
Extreme heat in the Pacific Northwest
“Extreme heat will significantly increase the potential for heat-related illnesses, particularly for those working or participating in outdoor activities and for those that do not have access to air conditioning,” warned the National Weather Service on Thursday.
Also a factor is poor air quality stemming from ground-level ozone building as pollutants are baked by the intense sunshine. In other areas, smoke wafting north from explosive California wildfires is bringing hazy conditions and complicating high temperature forecasts.
“We’re going to be experiencing a couple of days of really hot temperatures across parts of our inland areas,” said Scott Carroll, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Eureka, Calif. He explained that the northern reaches of the San Joaquin Valley are in line for brutal heat. “Some of the interior valleys could see temperatures getting up to 110 to 115 degrees this afternoon and tomorrow.”
He noted that average late July high temperatures are “closer to 90 or the lower 90s,” but instead a few record highs may be in jeopardy. While Northern California has a comparatively sparse network of weather stations, readings 20 to 25 degrees above normal are at least “close to records,” said Carroll.
Similar temperatures will scorch the Columbia River Basin, with highs around Kennewick, Wash., peaking near or at 110 degrees each day through Saturday. Overnight lows will be in the upper 60s or lower 70s — exacerbating the heat risk.
Large parts of interior Oregon and Washington state will see highs above 100 degrees Thursday and Friday, challenging records; some locations could eclipse 110. AccuWeather predicts record highs Thursday of 109 degrees in Yakima, Wash.; 102 (tied) in Spokane, Wash.; and 112 in Medford, Ore. Temperatures will be comparably high on Friday before pulling back slightly over the weekend and more noticeably early next week.
As a heat wave builds in the northwestern United States, temperatures will push toward levels not experienced since all-time record highs were set in June 2021: https://t.co/Om5t06eeHy pic.twitter.com/86zuHMS1ym
Records falling in Seattle, Portland
Record temperatures have occurred at both Seattle and Portland — the former hitting 94 degrees on Tuesday and the latter getting up to 102 degrees. Wednesday was a little bit cooler, but Thursday and Friday will be hot once again.
Seattle should peak around 90 degrees at the airport each day through Friday or Saturday; upper 80s are more likely at the University of Washington. Since Wednesday underachieved slightly and only hit 89, it’s unlikely Seattle will be able to string together three consecutive days at or above 90 degrees to nab an official heat wave.
In Portland, upper 90s to near 100 degrees are essentially a guarantee through Saturday. Considering Portland hit 99 on Monday, 102 on Tuesday and 96 on Wednesday, Portland may tie for its longest streak of 95 degree temperatures on record — 6 days. The current forecast for Sunday his a high of 94 degrees, but it wouldn’t take much to get a seventh day and establish a record.
“It is unusual to have multiple days with hot temperatures, and by Portland’s standards, 90 is hot,” said Jon Bonk, a meteorologist at the Weather Service in Portland. “It’s rare that we spend a decent amount of time with temperatures above 90. Usually we’ll see two or three days in the 90s or higher, and then the afternoon sea breeze will start kicking in — we colloquially call it nature’s air conditioning. Generally that’s where we end our streak.”
That hasn’t been a case this time around, however. The cause of the heat is a ridge of high pressure — colloquially known as a “heat dome” — languishing in the extreme northeast Pacific just offshore of British Columbia. That’s yielding a broad region of subsidence, or sinking air. Air parcels warm up and dry out as they subside through a process known as “adiabatic compression,” yielding toasty temperatures and unrelenting sunshine. Heat domes also act as magic force fields of sorts, deflecting inclement weather and storminess to the north into Canada.
The Portland Airport has had 13 calendar days since 1940 with a low temperature of 70°F or warmer. 5 of those were last Summer (2 in Aug & 3 in June). There's a 30-40% chance the low temperature only dips to 70°F Thursday & Friday nights. #NoRelief #pdxtst #orwx #wawx
Bonk explained that this isn’t a classic setup for hot weather in Portland, which would ordinarily entail the heat dome parking directly over the Willamette Valley.
“To get to 100 or higher, we usually end up with a surface heat low, or a thermal low — an area where you get the intense heating from the [sinking] of the high pressure,” he explained. “That intense heat creates a low pressure area.”
That ordinarily invokes an easterly flow, causing air to subside and “downslope” down the Cascades, which results in compressional warming. But Bonk said that thermal low is instead straddling the Cascades. That means no downsloping, or extra warming — but the thermal low’s position also fends off the sea breeze. In other words, it could easily be hotter and it could easily be cooler; Portland is in the sweet spot to hover around 100 degrees.
There's no question the heat in central WA has been a bit more taxing than over eastern WA or north ID due to very mild overnight temps. Here's a look at locations that were 70°F or warmer around 6 AM. These readings are several degrees warmer than 24 hour ago. #wawx #idwx pic.twitter.com/nGyk4aclgn
Because of the lack of downsloping, the air won’t be as dry as it otherwise could be. That means slightly higher humidity, which will maintain overnight low temperatures in the upper 60s to lower 70s.
“That’s a major contributing factor to the heat risk,” said Bonk. “Even when we get hot temperatures, we usually get the sea breeze. [This time] we haven’t seen that much of it.”
It’s well established that the intensity and duration of extreme heat events is increasing in response to the effects of human-induced climate change. Seattle hit 108 degrees and Portland jumped to 109 on June 27 last year amid a thousand-year heat event.
An even bigger heat wave looms
While it’s too early to offer any specifics, there are signs that an exceptional heat dome — perhaps the most expansive and dominant of the summer — could take hold of the contiguous United States in a coast-to-coast clean sweep. It looks like the ridge of high pressure will begin to come together as the calendar flips toward August, and will peak in intensity by Aug. 6 or 7.
At the time range of eight to 10 days or more in advance, it’s impossible to provide exact estimates of city by city temperatures, but confidence is growing in highs 15 to 20 degrees above average. A few locations may see temperature departures from average up to 30 degrees, but pinpointing where is a challenge.
By the middle of next week, highs at or above 100 degrees could reach all the way to the Dakotas, the Corn Belt and the Upper Midwest. There are signs the heat will shift east thereafter. | 2022-07-28T15:42:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Record temperatures bake Northwest, while larger heat wave looms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/28/heatwave-seattle-portland-northwest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/28/heatwave-seattle-portland-northwest/ |
A worker watches as a Russian tank destroyed in fighting with the Ukrainian army is lifted in Mykhailivskyi Square on the Day of Ukrainian Statehood, July 28, in Kyiv. (Roman Pilipey/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
KYIV — Russian advances in Ukraine have slowed almost to a standstill as newly delivered Western weapons help Ukrainian forces reclaim much of the advantage they had lost in recent months, opening a window of opportunity to turn the tide of the war in their favor again.
Russian troops have made no significant territorial gains since the Ukrainian retreat on July 2 from the eastern city of Lysyschank under withering artillery fire. The retreat gave Russia full control over Luhansk, one of the two oblasts, or provinces, making up the eastern Donbas region, and marked Russia’s only meaningful strategic success since its retreat from the area around Kyiv in April.
The lack of progress may be explained at least in part by the “operational pause” declared by Russia’s Defense Ministry after the seizure of Lysyschank — to allow Russian troops a chance to “rest and develop their combat capabilities,” in the words of President Vladimir Putin.
Rather, Barros and many Western officials and analysts suspect that the Russians are close to exhausting their capacity to make further territorial gains as their depleted army confronts Ukrainian forces with newly acquired capabilities. Already forced to abandon their hopes of capturing the capital, Russia may soon have to reckon with their inability to conquer the entirety of the Donbas region — the only publicly declared goal of the initial invasion and the focus of its current offensive ambitions.
Russia may succeed in capturing one or two more of the Donbas towns in its immediate line of fire, such as Siversk and the nearby town of Bakhmut, said Barros, but it is hard to see its existing army press much farther than that.
“It does seem the Russians ability for forward movement is petering out,” said Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “I don’t see them being able to advance much more in the Donbas.”
It is still too early to dismiss the Russian force, analysts say. A massive recruitment campaign is underway across Russia that may yet generate the manpower it desperately needs to compensate for its enormous losses. Russia adapted its goals and tactics after stumbling in Kyiv and may adapt them again, said a Western official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. He noted that Russia also has capabilities it has not yet utilized that could take the war in a different and alarming direction, an ominous reference to Russia’s chemical and nuclear stockpiles.
In the meantime, the Ukrainian army has the chance to seize back the initiative, taking advantage of the extra range and precision offered by the higher caliber artillery systems provided by Western allies in recent weeks, notably the U.S. High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) that Ukraine had long sought.
“Right now, the Russians are losing the initiative, and the Ukrainians either have it or are about to have it,” Barros said. “The HIMARS are key to that.”
The HIMARS give the Ukrainians the ability to strike almost 50 miles behind Russian lines with a high degree of accuracy, and Ukrainians have used them to destroy more than 100 high-value Russian targets, including command and control centers, ammunition storage sites and logistics and support facilities, according to a senior U.S. defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge the information.
Most recently, Ukrainian forces have been utilizing the HIMARS to press a fledgling counteroffensive toward the strategically vital southern city of Kherson, which was occupied by Russia in the first days of the war.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive is “gathering momentum,” Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in a tweet on Thursday, after a third HIMARS attack Tuesday against the Antonivskyi bridge across the Dnipro river severely damaged a vital road link.
The bridge, almost a mile long, provides the main supply route between Russia’s 49th Army stationed on the west bank of the river and the rest of the Russian force, and the attack leaves the troops there “highly vulnerable,” the tweet added.
It remains unclear whether strikes had permanently rendered the bridge unusable, but videos posted on social media showed significant damage and signs indicating the bridge is at least temporarily closed.
“The Ukrainians have changed the character of the conflict with their ability to attack behind Russian lines,” O’Brien said. “What we will see in the next few months is the initiative swing back to the Ukrainians, and then we will have to see if the Ukrainians can push the Russians back.”
The biggest effect of the HIMARS so far has been to erode the Russians’ overwhelming artillery advantage, both in terms of the number of guns and also the number of rounds they can fire, said Rob Lee of the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute.
After Russia pivoted to the eastern front and began slowly taking territory from the Ukrainians, the artillery edge “was probably a deciding factor,” he said. “They were firing by an enormous magnitude more rounds a day than Ukraine was, and over time it becomes really hard. Soldiers can’t withstand that.”
By using the HIMARS to destroy ammunition stocks, Ukraine has forced the Russians to move ammunition depots farther away from the front, lengthening their supply lines and complicating the logistics of getting artillery shells to the units that need them. “Russia doesn’t have a good automated logistical system; it requires a lot of manual labor, and that means it’s not very efficient,” Lee said.
By striking command and control centers, Ukraine is taking out the officers and commanders who would issue the orders to mitigate the impact of the HIMARS. “We know from the way that the Russians fight that they need someone to tell them what to do. And when you are able to kill the people that tell them what to do, you’re able to stop those folks from moving forward,” the U.S. official explained.
But while the HIMARS have blunted Russia’s ability to advance, they won’t help Ukraine make territorial gains, said Lee, a former infantry officer in the U.S. Marines. That will depend more on Ukraine’s ability to field sufficient manpower, conventional artillery and ammunition to roll back Russian troops, and Russia still maintains an overall numerical edge, he said.
There are particular concerns about whether the West will be able to continue to supply the Ukrainians with the amount of ammunition they need for their artillery, including for the HIMARS, Lee added.
That concern was echoed last week by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, in a briefing with reporters. Although the Ukrainians have sought a bigger number of systems, “the issue will become ammunition and the consumption rates,” he said. “We think we’re okay right now.”
But looking beyond the next three months will require careful study by the Pentagon to ensure that U.S. military readiness isn’t compromised, as well as an effort to ramp up U.S. ammunition production, Milley said.
“One reason the Russians are not advancing is the HIMARS, but that doesn’t mean Ukraine is able to retake territory, either. We could see a stalemate-ish situation with not much advancing on either side,” Lee said.
“It comes down to sustainability, and it’s not clear which side has the better angle there.” | 2022-07-28T15:51:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ukraine could be turning the tide of war again as Russian advances stall - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/ukraine-russia-war-himars-missiles/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/28/ukraine-russia-war-himars-missiles/ |
Massive flooding engulfs eastern Kentucky, at least one dead
Deluge submerged homes, swept away cars and heavily damaged roads and other infrastructure
Flooding by the Buckhorn Log Cathedral in Buckhorn, Ky., on July 28, 2022. Heavy rains have caused flash flooding and mudslides as storms pound parts of central Appalachia. (Marlene Abner Stokely/AP)
A new round of catastrophic flooding has struck the central United States, this time in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Kentucky, swamping communities and leaving people missing or trapped — with at least one person dead.
Images shared on social media show houses submerged to their roofs, cars swept away, and serious damage to roadways and other infrastructure. Since the worst of the rain and flooding came at night, there is some concern that people were not able to evacuate before water entered their homes.
Flooding was reported in numerous counties in southeastern Kentucky early Thursday, including Breathitt, Floyd, Perry, Knott, Leslie, Pike and Magoffin.
Scott Sandlin, answering phones for Perry County Emergency Management, confirmed one death, but did not have any details about the victim or circumstances.
“Our county has been devastated. We’ve just washed away," Scott said. "It’s been the highest level of water I’ve ever seen.”
Scott, who has lived in the county for 57 years, said it’s been raining the last two to three days. They have received 11 to 14 inches in the past 48 hours and are expecting 2 more inches of rain Thursday. People are being evacuated. He said the office has received about 200 calls from people trapped in their home and in the mountains. Bridges have washed away.
“What we’re going to see coming out of this is massive property damage,” said Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D), who declared a state of emergency speaking at a news conference Thursday. “We expect a loss of life. Hundreds will lose their homes, and this is going to be yet another event that it’s going to take not months but likely years for many families to rebuild and recover from.”
Beshear activated the National Guard to assist victims and the overall recovery effort. In a new conference Thursday morning, he called the event “one of the worst, most devastating flooding events in Kentucky’s history.”
The heavy rainfall was spawned by the same stalled weather front that caused historic flooding in St. Louis on Tuesday. Both the deluge in St. Louis and eastern Kentucky were so extreme that they are considered 1-in-1,000 year events or having a 0.1 percent chance of happening in any given year.
The city of Hazard, Ky., was among the hardest-hit, with at least 9 inches of rain falling in 12 hours Wednesday night into Thursday morning. Similar amounts fell around Jackson. High water also was widespread near the Virginia-West Virginia borders, where homes have been flooded and local media reports that people are missing.
“There are a lot of people in eastern Kentucky on top of roofs waiting to be rescued,” Deshear said, while reporting two faculty members were stranded at a school. “There are a number of people that are unaccounted for. I am nearly sure this is a situation in which we’re going to lose some of them.”
Flash flooding began Wednesday night after afternoon storms that evolved into a raging deluge. Like train cars along a track, storms passed over the same areas repeatedly. The front along which the storms erupted developed along the northern periphery of a tropical heat dome sprawled over much of the southern United States.
Extreme levels of atmospheric moisture fed rainfall totals, which were “more than double (!) the 1-in-100 average annual chance threshold, and a couple inches beyond even the 1-in-1000 threshold,” tweeted National Weather Service meteorologist Alex Lamers.
Wednesday became Jackson’s second-wettest day on record with 4.11 inches; additional rain fell into Thursday morning.
Some of the top rainfall totals reported include:
Hazard, Ky: 8.55 inches.
Buckhorn, Ky.: 8.00 inches.
Oneida, Ky.: 7.20 inches.
Wiscoal, Ky.: 6.50 inches.
Higher amounts probably occurred, with radar estimates as high as 11 inches. It’s even possible that the 24-hour state record for Kentucky of 10.48 inches was challenged or surpassed.
The North Fork of the Kentucky River shattered its all-time record crest.
Rising to over 20 feet on Thursday morning, it easily moved past the record mark of 14.7 feet from 1957. The river level shot up 17 feet in less than 12 hours. River crests may not yet have occurred in some locations as water continues to move out of the mountains and downstream.
The extreme rainfall triggered three flash flood emergencies, each issued by the Weather Service office in Jackson. Reserved for the worst flooding situations, these emergencies are sparingly issued. They indicate that life-threatening flash flooding is occurring.
Multiple flash flood emergency warnings have been issued for parts of eastern Kentucky (highlighted in pink) this morning Serious flooding is ongoing. pic.twitter.com/mvZGrxtDj0
Tied to human-induced climate change, extreme precipitation events have increased dramatically over the past 100 years. The U.S. government’s National Climate Assessment shows heavy rainfall is now about 20 to 40 percent more likely in and around eastern Kentucky than it was around 1900.
New rounds of heavy rain are probable through Friday. The Weather Service has placed eastern Kentucky and western West Virginia under a Level 3 of 4 moderate risk for excessive rainfall.
Forecasters were expecting 1 to 3 additional inches Thursday and rainfall rates as high as 2 to 3 inches per hour on Friday. In addition to ongoing flood warnings, a flood watch remains in effect until late Friday for much of eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia and southern West Virginia.
By Saturday, the front responsible for the flooding is likely to drop south of the region, which should lower the threat of flooding significantly.
Andrea Sachs and Jason Samenow contributed to this report. | 2022-07-28T16:13:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Massive flooding engulfs eastern Kentucky, at least one dead - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/28/kentucky-flooding-jackson-hazard/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/28/kentucky-flooding-jackson-hazard/ |
Reactions to the Pope’s apology show Canadians are over symbolism
Pope France wears a headdress during a July 25 visit to Canada, where he apologized to the nation's Indigenous residents. (Adam Scotti/Reuters)
When it comes to symbolism, Canadians can’t seem to make up their minds.
The apology delivered by Pope Francis in Alberta this week for the Catholic Church’s role in Canada’s notorious Indian Residential Schools program was an arch example; on the one hand, the news media and political class treated the visit as an event of extreme importance — the federal government spent $35 million on it, and it was front-page news, day after day. On the other hand, high-level reactions were colored by palatable indifference, even hostility.
The Pope’s apology to victims of the ultra-assimilationist education regime once imposed on Native Canadians was the latest in a long string of public atonements for a program now cast as the darkest sin of Canada’s past. In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for the schools and settled a $3 billion deal with 79,309 former students and their families. The terms of the settlement required the creation of a fact-finding Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the historic treatment of Indigenous Canadians, which released its final report in late 2015.
The report contained 94 “calls to action.” While some proposed government policy, a great many were largely symbolic in nature, and it’s these that the administration of Harper’s successor, Justin Trudeau (who has pledged to implement “all” the calls to action), has made the most progress on.
His government has created a new national holiday to honor the memory of residential schools victims (call #80), announced plans to build a Residential Schools National Monument in Ottawa (#81), and changed the Canadian oath of citizenship to make reference to Indigenous Canadians (#94), among other things.
Getting the pope to issue “an apology to Survivors, their families, and communities” for the abuse of children in “Catholic-run residential schools” was call #58. Earlier this year, the Pope accordingly apologized to a delegation of Canadian Indigenous leaders at the Vatican, but this was deemed unacceptable, because the report said the apology should be “delivered by the Pope in Canada.” So on July 26, the Pope issued a second apology on Canadian soil.
The reviews ran the gamut from tepid (“only the start”) to “blistering,” with a number of the country’s top Indigenous leaders, including Murray Sinclair, former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, declaring the apology insultingly insufficient. It was common to complain that the Pope’s apology was not an institutional apology from the Church as a whole, or that he did not specifically recant the so-called “doctrine of discovery” that Catholics once cited to justify European conquest of the Americas.
Some Indigenous leaders were said to be offended by the decision to put a feathered headdress on the Pope, while many ordinary aboriginal Canadians were reported as just being fairly blasé or conflicted about the whole visit — “I’m still so hurt, it seems like that apology didn’t mean anything to me,” said Susan Caribou, an Indigenous woman from Manitoba who traveled to Alberta to hear it.
As the years go on, it really feels as though one of the core flaws of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and its ambition to prescribe as many solutions as possible to improve the often bleak lives of Indigenous Canadians, was dramatically overestimating how much anyone cares about symbolic things these days.
One of the great observations of late 20th-century philosophers was that Western society had become so thoroughly engulfed by Hollywood razzle-dazzle, advertising spin, political propaganda and public relations stunts that it was becoming increasingly difficult to find genuine expressions of sincerity anymore. Instead, we were said to be living in a “society of the spectacle” (Guy Debord) dominated by “pseudo events” (Daniel J. Boorstin) and “pure simulacra” (Jean Baudrillard). The end result is a public that’s not only more numb to this endless barrage of superficially showy pomp and performance, but also more cynical, skeptical and simply aware of the ways in which showy things often mean very little.
Reaction to the pope’s apology (which even Trudeau only gave route acknowledgment) suggests that at some level, everyone associated with the Canadian Native rights movement understands this, and that even the grandest symbolic acts of atonement will be, at best, net neutral in the pursuit of improving even the emotional well-being of Indigenous Canadians. Yet for all the time, money and effort it takes, symbolism still remains quicker and easier than anything in the public policy realm, and in the coming years Canadians will doubtless witness many more spectacles just as grand as the papal visit (say, a “mainly symbolic” Royal Proclamation of Reconciliation from the Queen — call #45).
It’s fashionable to say Indigenous Canadians need “action, not words,” but after this week, it’s clear what is truly needed is a higher standard of what constitutes “action” in the first place. | 2022-07-28T16:22:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Reactions to the Pope’s apology show Canadians are over symbolism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/canada-pope-apology-bad-reviews-symbolism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/canada-pope-apology-bad-reviews-symbolism/ |
Despite evidence of innocence, officials leave Alabama man on death row
By Radley Balko
Toforest Johnson, center, with his sons Maurice Myers, left, and Tremaine Perry. (Family photo)
It has now been nearly three years since I first wrote about Toforest Johnson, a 49-year-old man who has sat on Alabama’s death row for 24 years, despite strong evidence that he is innocent. That report persuaded former Alabama attorney general Bill Baxley to take a deeper look at the case. He later signed an amicus brief and wrote his own op-ed here at The Post, both calling for Johnson’s conviction to be overturned.
At least 14 former judges and prosecutors have also called for Johnson’s conviction to be overturned, including two former state supreme court justices, a former president of the Alabama state bar, the current district attorney from the county where Johnson was convicted and, remarkably, even the man who prosecuted Johnson. Three of the jurors who convicted Johnson have also now said they believe they were wrong. Yet, as of now, Johnson is still on Alabama’s death row.
Johnson was convicted in 1998 for the 1995 murder of Jefferson County deputy William Hardy. The investigation of Hardy’s murder was a mess. Police and prosecutors meandered from suspect to suspect, pressured and threatened witnesses, and dangled reward money for incriminating testimony.
In the end, prosecutors focused on Johnson and his friend Ardragus Ford, even though both had alibis. Both men were promised leniency if they’d implicate the other. Both refused, insisting that neither had anything to do with the murder.
The two were arrested because of statements from a teenage girl who was with them on the night of the murder. But that girl continually changed her story, often after threats from police, as their theories about the crime continued to evolve. At Ford’s trial, prosecutors conceded she had lied at least 300 times. Another witness who implicated Ford said the police had threatened to take away her children. Yet another witness, who refused to implicate the men, was locked up in juvenile detention for nearly a year because the police didn’t believe her.
Johnson and Ford were tried separately, and at each trial prosecutors offered a theory of the crime that directly contradicted what they argued at the other. Only Johnson was convicted. He was sentenced to death.
The only real evidence against Johnson came from a woman who claimed to overhear a phone conversation in which she said a man identifying himself as Johnson confessed to the crime. But in 2003, Johnson’s attorneys learned that this witness had been paid $5,000 for her testimony. That was never disclosed to the defense, and prosecutors wouldn’t turn over a copy of the check for another 16 years.
In May of this year, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruled against Johnson. Under Alabama law, it isn’t enough that the key witness against Johnson was paid and that this was never disclosed. The burden is on Johnson to prove that the witness testified only because of the reward. The court ruled Johnson had failed to do so.
There were other problems with Johnson’s trial. His attorney had no death penalty experience and expressed reservations to the trial judge about taking the case. Due to a lack of funds, that attorney could afford only a down-on-his-luck, unlicensed investigator whom Johnson’s current attorneys describe as an “alcoholic, racist, suicidal” man who was homeless at the time and had recently been fired from a previous capital case for incompetence.
That investigator failed to investigate Johnson’s alibi that he was at a club on the other side of Birmingham at the time of the murder. Johnson’s attorneys have since found 10 eyewitnesses who placed him at the club.
Despite all of this, and despite the growing list of former Alabama officials speaking out on Johnson’s behalf, there’s a notable lack of urgency among the current state officials — those who have the power to do anything about it.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has yet to show any interest in Johnson’s case. When a local TV station recently asked Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall about Johnson’s case, he replied: “We’ve seen the appeal most recently be upheld by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.” He added, “Much of the narrative that we see those that are advocating on behalf of this defendant were disproven in court.”
That isn’t true. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals didn’t rule on Johnson’s innocence. It ruled on the narrow question of whether the trial court erred in finding the state’s failure to turn over evidence of the payment to one witness was a violation of Johnson’s constitutional rights. But the public is often ignorant of the details of any complex case. That gives politicians such as Marshall cover to brush aside the very real possibility that the state is preparing to execute an innocent man.
Both federal and state appeals courts have ruled that once a case progresses as far as Johnson’s, the courts’ obligation is to protect the finality of jury verdicts. Prisoners must show overwhelming evidence of innocence to get relief. Lesser claims, they argue, are better handled by the political process — by appealing to attorneys general to drop charges, or to governors to grant clemency.
So the courts pass the buck to the politicians, while politicians like Marshall claim that if prisoners like Johnson were really innocent, the courts would have freed them.
Meanwhile, every month of delay is a month Johnson could have lived outside of prison, reclaiming the time and freedom unjustly taken from him. | 2022-07-28T16:22:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Despite evidence of innocence, Alabama officials leave Toforest Johnson on death row - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/toforest-johnson-alabama-death-row-innocent/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/toforest-johnson-alabama-death-row-innocent/ |
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a joint news conference with Lithuania's president in Kyiv on July 28. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images)
It’s hard to imagine a more foolish reason to reject support for Ukraine than the fact that the nation’s desperate leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, was photographed by Annie Leibovitz for Vogue.
And yet, the internet being the internet, this is precisely what happened. Apparently, taking time for a portrait session in between combating brutal Russian efforts to dismember his country and destroy its people is an argument for wrapping up American support for the Ukrainian war effort.
The supposed unseriousness of Zelensky — who defied predictions that he would flee when Russian tanks rolled in — has been an undercurrent of the arguments made by Russian-friendly apparatchiks.
How are we supposed to take this guy seriously when he’s doing photo shoots with Ben Stiller? How can he possibly lead his country when he’s addressing the Grammys? Why are world leaders doing photo ops with him when there are more pressing concerns, such as inflation in their own countries or rising energy prices?
Set aside the absolutely lunatic idea that a world leader cannot meet with celebrities in the midst of a global crisis — a notion the ghosts of Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt would, in all likelihood, dispute. Let’s get real: Zelensky is meeting with Western celebrities and appearing in celebrity-focused magazines because that is the only way to keep the crisis in his country at the forefront of the American public’s mind.
That’s because if the American public is not presented with a celebrity or an influencer or a model of some renown in conjunction with a story, it is likely to stop paying attention.
We have remarkably poor attention spans. And, honestly, the news out of Ukraine is a little stale. The plot has gone on a hair too long. Needed some second act trims, really: You can’t expect us to care about yet another Russian atrocity, can you? Felt like the whole thing was treading water there for a while. What is this, a Netflix show? Cut the bloat.
That’s the cold, calculated truth. Without support from the West, Ukraine will fall; its borders will be redistributed at the whim of a Russian tyrant; and its people will suffer horrors they’ve not seen since the height of the Holodomor, when the Soviet Union embarked on a campaign of forced starvation in Ukraine.
Accusing Zelensky of unseriousness is merely projection on the behalf of the American people: If anyone is to be considered unserious, it’s us. That he is taking advantage of our unseriousness is not a strike against him but a reminder that Zelensky understands the power of optics in modern war.
I’m almost less offended by the Russian stooges who simply hate Ukrainian independence and hope to see the country torn asunder in order to demonstrate that the Russian bear should not be trifled with. Their ugly opinions are to be expected.
What is more worrisome are those, particularly those on the right, who have at least nominally supported Ukraine — or, at least, haven’t actively opposed American aid being sent to the beleaguered nation and its people — but are so turned off by the fact that Zelensky would appear in Vogue, a known habitat of the celebritum liberalis, that, well, it makes them reconsider the whole endeavor.
If your support for Western democracy is so decrepit that it collapses the moment one of its leaders steps in front of Leibovitz’s Hasselblad, then it really doesn’t matter what happens in Ukraine: The West is already lost.
Instead of getting mad at a desperate politician trying to save his country from destruction, perhaps you can redirect your agita toward the country that is reducing Ukrainian cities to rubble and forcibly relocating its people to all corners of the Russian landmass. There are villains in this conflict. Volodymyr Zelensky isn’t among them. | 2022-07-28T16:22:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The Zelenskys are in Vogue. That makes them smart, not silly. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/zelensky-vogue-annie-leibovitz-smart/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/28/zelensky-vogue-annie-leibovitz-smart/ |
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