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Playing her first match since falling in the Wimbledon semifinals, Simona Halep beat Cristina Bucsa in straight sets at the Citi Open on Monday. (Maansi Srivastava/The Washington Post)
Patrick Mouratoglou, the coach Simona Halep has placed complete trust in since she hired him in April, was not on hand Monday when the former world No. 1 opened play at the Citi Open.
It was Halep’s first match since her semifinal loss at Wimbledon to eventual champion Elena Rybakina on July 7. It also was the Romanian’s first match on a hard court since March, as well as a matchup with a Spanish qualifier, 24-year-old Cristina Bucsa, she had never faced.
So after frittering away a 5-2 lead in the second set as her energy dipped and her focus strayed, the third-seeded Halep channeled Mouratoglou’s voice.
“At 5-all, I told myself what actually he was telling me when I have panic moments during the matches,” Halep explained after overcoming the rocky patch to advance, 6-3, 7-5. “Calm down and just do what I have to do. Just focus on what I have to do and be brave to do it — even if sometimes I miss.”
Halep, 30, is one of three former top-ranked players who launched their bids for a Citi Open title Monday, hoping to use Washington’s late-summer classic to reclaim their hard-court form and acclimate to the East Coast heat and humidity in the run-up to the U.S. Open, which begins Aug. 29 in New York.
Andy Murray, the 35-year-old who was ranked No. 1 for 41 weeks in 2016 and 2017, also chose the Citi Open for his return after a second-round loss to big-serving American John Isner at Wimbledon.
A three-time Grand Slam champion, Murray faced 23-year-old Mikael Ymer of Sweden in a first-round match that started when Monday’s temperatures were at their highest, the sun beating directly on Stadium Court at Rock Creek Park Tennis Center. After failing to convert four set points in the opening set, Murray flung his racket into the net in frustration and proceeded to lose the tiebreaker that settled it. After nearly three hours of hard slugging, the 115th-ranked Ymer pulled off a 7-6 (10-8), 4-6, 6-1 upset.
And seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams, 42, was scheduled Monday night to play her first singles match in nearly a year.
For all three former No. 1 players, who boast 12 Grand Slam titles among them, the battle to stay relevant in big tournaments is a process of continual improvement. Tennis evolves — and champions can’t afford to stand still as their challengers get younger, taller, stronger and able to dish out and absorb more pace.
Sometimes, that means tearing down once-reliable strokes and retooling them. Other times, it means rethinking strategy and tossing out predictable patterns.
In Halep’s case, nearly every facet of her life — on the court or off — has changed in the past 10 months.
She got married in September. The next week, she and longtime coach Darren Cahill, with whom she won the 2018 French Open and 2019 Wimbledon titles, parted ways.
After competing for a stretch without a coach, Halep announced on social media in April that she had hired Mouratoglou, known primarily as the coach of Serena Williams, who was in the midst of an extended break from competition.
“I’m excited about it,” Halep said after Monday’s victory, enumerating the flurry of changes in her life. “But it’s not easy. That’s why I always try to be nice to myself, to give time to get used to everything. … I always thought inside myself that I have to be more aggressive. But now with someone that really believes that, with Patrick, gives me more confidence that I’m able to do it.”
Halep has been gushing in her praise of Mouratoglou, who also has served as a consultant to Stefanos Tsitsipas and Coco Gauff, crediting him with rejuvenating her passion for tennis during their collaboration.
“He gives me time,” she said earlier this year. “He’s patient. He’s supporting me in everything I do. He tries to understand me because I think this is the main thing that I want from a coach — to understand me — because I am pretty emotional most of the time.”
That said, her French Open result — a second-round loss to unseeded Qinwen Zheng — wasn’t what she had hoped for.
Mouratoglou was quick to shoulder the blame, posting on social media that he needed to be better. Halep rallied to his defense.
“It was not on him,” she told reporters at Wimbledon. “It was me — that I was not able to do better and to actually calm down myself when I panicked. But it was new for me as well, and I was not good enough.”
On Monday, back on the court after a four-week hiatus from competition, Halep looked rested and fit as she stepped onto Stadium Court in a periwinkle crop top and skirt.
But she and Bucsa, 24, struggled to find the range on their groundstrokes and traded service breaks on a slew of unforced errors early. Bucsa dug in after conceding the first set and falling behind 5-2 in the second.
That’s when the voice of Mouratoglou, who plans to join Halep for the North American hard-court swing later this month at the Western & Southern Open outside Cincinnati, came into play.
“I’m in touch with him nonstop,” Halep said. “He’s kind of here, but just not here. … We talk a lot about what I have to do. But I know now what I have to do. … I don’t feel lonely here.” | 2022-08-01T23:59:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At Citi Open, Simona Halep wins first match after Wimbledon - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/01/citi-open-top-ranked-venus-williams/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/01/citi-open-top-ranked-venus-williams/ |
Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson gives autographs to fans at training camp Monday. (Nick Cammett/AP)
Deshaun Watson won. Sadly, he won. Disturbingly, he won.
When an independent disciplinary officer released her ruling Monday morning, it was as sickening as it was predictable. In the NFL’s incoherent system of punishment, two dozen accusations of sexual misconduct are worth a puny six-game suspension.
Perhaps Watson is so afflicted with entitlement that he might think privately that he deserved no ban, but Sue L. Robinson, a former U.S. district judge, just pulled out a feather and tickled his wrist. After more than a year of avalanching allegations that he’s an unabating and remorseless creep when alone with female massage therapists, the Cleveland Browns quarterback is a step closer to emerging from a mess he created better off than he was before the claims of his misdeeds came to light.
He won, which means the integrity of the NFL — what’s left of it — lost.
He won, which means Aug. 1, 2022, must go down as a dreadful moment in the history of pro football.
He won, which means the league failed women. Again.
The reason you have a personal conduct policy is to be able to drop the hammer in a situation like this. But now that the NFL and its players union have shifted from the old model of Commissioner Roger Goodell’s omnipotent kangaroo court to third-party judgment, it’s not as easy to make arbitrary rules in anticipation of public opinion. And that’s how Watson got away with a light punishment. Robinson’s 16-page ruling makes clear she relied on Goodell’s inconsistent record as a disciplinarian and could find no precedent or pattern to justify the league’s argument that Watson should be suspended for at least a year.
In essence, Robinson’s decision can be taken as an indictment of the NFL’s random, optics-influenced practices over the years, dating from the shameful and wishy-washy manner in which Goodell handled Ray Rice’s domestic violence case eight years ago. It’s never a good thing when a judge goes searching for fairness in muddled methodology.
Her odd ruling is the result of too much fixation on the league’s entangled logic. NFL weeds are exasperating yet fascinating, and the attempt to systemize the insanity led Robinson to be soft on Watson despite conceding that the NFL proved the three most important aspects of its case.
She said the league argued successfully that Watson had violated its broad personal conduct policy by engaging in acts of sexual assault, undermining the integrity of the NFL and endangering the safety and well-being of others. However, she resorted to using the cumbersome and objectionable term “nonviolent sexual assault” to put Watson’s offenses in this awkward bubble of mild misconduct, which enabled her to reason that his sins weren’t on par with past domestic violence incidents in which the league levied suspensions of eight and 10 games.
That rationale was bizarre, and it sent the worst possible message to Watson’s alleged victims, who have shared stories of the quarterback’s nonconsensual ejaculation during massage sessions and other inappropriate, aggressive behavior that left them traumatized. To minimize the way in which they were violated — and in her ruling, Robinson clearly states she deemed the NFL had met the burden of proof for sexual assault — is an infuriating misrepresentation of this kind of sexual violence.
Robinson, who specialized in antitrust law and trademark infringement during her career, seemed to be a peculiar choice for this case, but the league and the NFL Players Association agreed on her appointment. Now, the language of “nonviolent sexual assault” will stand as a callous and inglorious reminder of the day Watson avoided significant punishment.
Watson, a marquee player at the most celebrated position in team sports, has settled 23 of 24 civil cases against him, all of which accused him of sexual assault or harassment. Although a criminal investigation against him didn’t lead to charges, there is an implication of culpability with those settlements. The NFL did its own investigation, and it presented evidence and testimony from just four of the victims to Robinson. She referenced the other cases, but they did not factor into her ruling. Still, even the small sample size should have been enough to warrant a longer suspension.
Robinson leaned on precedent without fully considering the NFL’s argument that the Watson case is unprecedented because of the volume of allegations. She lumped him in with players who were punished for single incidents that violated the personal conduct policy. Robinson should have considered a multiplier because the NFL proved its case using four women.
For now, Watson can circle an Oct. 23 road game against the Baltimore Ravens as his return date. He didn’t play a snap last season, but that wasn’t punishment. He had demanded a trade from Houston, and the Texans felt it best to protect his trade value by having him sit out amid the chaos. He still made the $10.5 million Houston owed him last season, and when the trade to Cleveland went through in March, he signed a new contract with a historic full guarantee of $230 million even though his civil cases were unresolved at the time. For those who think Watson suffered, stop with the celebrity brown-nosing, please. When it’s all over, he will come out ahead.
During the six-game suspension, Watson will lose about $350,000. The Browns structured his contract in anticipation of punishment, so he would lose less money than if the deal had been front-loaded. It was all an incentive to get him to agree to be traded to Cleveland. Watson is on a better team. He’s making record money. And now he’s poised to escape what threatened to be career-ruining trouble before Halloween.
He won, unless the NFL chooses to engage in a prolonged legal battle.
The league or NFLPA can still appeal the decision. Before the punishment was announced, the NFLPA indicated it was fine with what was coming. Goodell has the final say. League lawyers can toss the case and go directly to the commissioner or someone he designates. Given Goodell’s history of agitation with public outcry, he might just drop the hammer himself, which would undermine the new punishment process and probably trigger lawsuit hell.
No matter the outcome, the stain can’t be erased. The NFL is so backward that it just proved to a judge that it employs a quarterback with an “egregious” record of sexual assault, yet after considering the league’s confusing disciplinary practices, she decided it most fair to make him sit for six weeks and simply remind him that, oh yeah, your days of perusing Instagram for women to rub on your body are over, buddy.
It’s impossible to trust Watson in a room with a massage therapist, but he’ll be a front-facing NFL star again in no time. | 2022-08-01T23:59:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Deshaun Watson, suspended six games, beat the NFL’s broken system - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/01/deshaun-watson-browns-suspension-women/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/01/deshaun-watson-browns-suspension-women/ |
Juan Soto acknowledges the Mets' dugout before his first-inning at-bat Monday at Nationals Park. (Alex Brandon/AP)
When Juan Soto came to the plate in the first inning Monday night, most of those in the lower bowl at Nationals Park stood and clapped. Last first at-bat as a Washington National? As he slid headfirst across the plate a few moments later, the thought was unavoidable. Last run as a Nat? All the while, the clock ticked toward Tuesday’s trade deadline — one Soto has been the fulcrum of for more than two weeks.
This is tough stuff, and on an unusually pleasant August evening, you could almost feel it strangling the franchise and its fan base. There is a chance — a chance — that when dawn breaks Tuesday, Soto will face a future in which he never puts on a Nationals uniform again. Put the evaluation of whatever comes back in return on the back burner for a moment. It’s a lot to stomach.
“You’re not going to give away these players and not get something in return that we feel like, ‘Hey, this is what our future’s going to be and this is going to be really good for us,’ ” Manager Dave Martinez said. “Those guys up there [in the front office] are working diligently to get those players that we need, if we can get it. If not, we have arguably one of the youngest best players in the game, and I love the kid.”
Until 6 p.m. Tuesday, the situation is incredibly fluid. By the time you read this on newsprint, Soto could have been traded. Refresh your Twitter feed frequently. It’s the only way to keep up.
But here’s an undying truth about any potential Soto deal: The Nationals have to be asking for an unprecedented return. That’s their responsibility, given a player of his ability and his age has never been traded with two years and two months of control left before free agency. To a contending team, that’s not just three pennant races and three Octobers. It’s also two full 162-game seasons, which can’t be ignored.
But the flip side of asking for such a haul — completely appropriately — is that it just might be too much for an opposing general manager, not to mention an opposing ownership group, to swallow. Any club that trades for Soto and expects to be able to sign him to a contract extension hasn’t listened closely to the player — who has spoken repeatedly about his curiosity about having 30 teams bidding on his services in free agency — or met his agent, Scott Boras.
A potential deal has to be based in its baseball sense, and it will be framed as such. But it’s undeniable that there’s a public relations element to it, too. And it would be hard for General Manager Mike Rizzo to stand in front of the fan base and argue that what he got for a generational talent will transform the franchise if the rest of the industry reacts with some version of “That’s all they got?”
This must be a wow of a return, one that gives the fan base more reasons to come to the ballpark — not just in two or three years but immediately. That’s a hard package for any team to part with.
Plus, it would be completely reasonable for Rizzo to say some version of: “Why is this a bad outcome? We still have one of the game’s best young players. There will be a new ownership group in place in the offseason. Maybe they’ll be able to go further than the 15-year, $440 million deal Soto turned down from the Lerner family.”
I’ve become pessimistic about whether a deal can be pulled off — and it’s more a 65-35 gut feel against such a possibility than 90-10 — so Soto probably will be traded five minutes after these words are published. There’s no certainty to any of this. Hang onto your hat.
Well, wait. There’s certainty about this much: October 2019 and the parade that followed — man, they feel way more than two years and nine months ago.
“It seems like a very long time ago,” Martinez said. “It does.”
MLB trade deadline tracker: Orioles send star Trey Mancini to Astros
As if to twist that particular knife, the New York Mets started Max Scherzer on Monday night in what could have been Soto’s last game in the uniform they each wore during that wild run to a World Series title. In an unusually expansive and poignant pregame meeting with reporters, Martinez teared up a couple of times while thinking about what was and what remains. Since trading Scherzer and Trea Turner — not to mention Daniel Hudson and Yan Gomes and others — at last year’s deadline, the Nationals were 53-110 heading into Monday night — numbers that make sense if you watch this team play regularly yet still seem staggering in black and white.
Martinez said Monday that he has a room in his house in which he stores the most meaningful memorabilia he has collected over the years. So much is from 2019. In these dark days, he often heads down there to reminisce with old photos.
“It kind of says, ‘Hey, no matter what happens, the goal is to get back there, right?’ ” Martinez said. “So every day, I’ll go down there, I’ll pick myself up and say, ‘Hey, one day we’ll be back there.’ Just keep those memories intact.”
But it’s not just the swirl around Soto that makes those days seem more distant. It’s the deteriorating of professionalism in some corners of his own clubhouse. On Monday afternoon, Victor Robles — once the unquestioned starting center fielder on a World Series champion, now a spare part with an unclear future — had a box of T-shirts in front of his locker, distributing them to any interested teammates. On the front: a picture of Robles wearing a clown nose — a nod to his dugout antics last month after Arizona’s Madison Bumgarner called him a “clown” for pimping a solo home run when the Nats were down six runs in the eighth.
On a winning team, an amusing, even self-deprecating T-shirt could be unifying. But for a group that has the worst record in baseball — and may have an even surer hold on that status by September — it’s comical. Who are the clowns, Victor? The effort put into designing and ordering those shirts might have been better used figuring out how not to get thrown out on the base paths.
But I digress. That, of course, is not close to the most important part of this week. The most important part of this week isn’t even about this week. It’s about the direction of the franchise. And we’ll know something about that direction based on whether Juan Soto gets another ovation in home whites Tuesday night — or if he has gathered his belongings and departed the home clubhouse for the final time. | 2022-08-02T00:41:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Juan Soto trade watch is emotional for Nationals and their fans - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/01/juan-soto-final-games-washington-nationals/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/01/juan-soto-final-games-washington-nationals/ |
Arizona attorney general: No evidence of widespread dead voters in 2020
Cyber Ninjas owner Doug Logan, left, talks about overseeing a 2020 election ballot audit ordered by the Republican leaders in Arizona Senate at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, during a news conference in Phoenix on April 22, 2021. (Ross D. Franklin/AP)
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) told state Senate President Karen Fann (R) in a letter Monday that his office had closed its criminal investigation into allegations of widespread instances of dead people voting in the 2020 election.
Brnovich and his office had been investigating numerous assertions of dead voters during the election, including some handed over to state prosecutors last September after the Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas completed its review of 2.1 million ballots in Maricopa County. Fann and members of the GOP-controlled Senate launched the ballot review after President Donald Trump narrowly lost the 2020 election.
Brnovich’s office spent months examining allegations that 282 people who were dead before Oct. 5, 2020, voted in the Nov. 3 general election, his letter said. Only one was deceased, he wrote.
“After spending hundreds of hours reviewing these allegations, our investigators were able to determine that only one of the 282 individuals on the list was deceased at the time of the election,” he wrote.
The others were alive and were determined to be current voters.
Spokespeople for Cyber Ninjas and Fann did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Brnovich wrote that his election integrity unit also received reports of hundreds more dead voters from other sources. A separate report submitted to the attorney general’s office did not distinguish between dead voters and dead registrants.
“Once again, these claims were thoroughly investigated and resulted in only a handful of potential cases,” the letter said. “Some were so absurd the names and birthdates didn’t even match the deceased, and others included dates of death after the election.”
Though he supported the state Senate’s authority to conduct the ballot review, the allegations of “widespread deceased voters from the Senate Audit and other complaints … are insufficient and not corroborated.”
Brnovich’s letter comes a day before Arizona’s primary election, where he is vying for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. Trump, who did not endorse him, has blasted him for not doing enough to get to the bottom of his unfounded allegations of widespread fraud he claims led to his loss.
Brnovich served as a witness in certifying the 2020 election results and later blamed Trump’s loss on unpopularity. Brnovich’s GOP rivals have accused him of dragging out his inquiry in an attempt to curry favor with Trump supporters. Brnovich has maintained that he would take as much time as his office needed to investigate. | 2022-08-02T01:20:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Arizona attorney general: No evidence of widespread dead voters in 2020 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/01/arizona-attorney-general-no-evidence-widespread-dead-voters-2020/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/01/arizona-attorney-general-no-evidence-widespread-dead-voters-2020/ |
HSBC’s Promises Won’t Satisfy Ping An for Long
Noel Quinn, chief executive officer of HSBC Holdings Plc, speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview on the sidelines of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, on Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021. The New Economy Forum is being organized by Bloomberg Media Group, a division of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. (Bloomberg)
HSBC Holdings Plc is hoping to buy off dissenting investors with a boost to dividends and a forecast for higher returns. The promises made at Monday’s half-year results sent the bank’s stock sharply higher, but the shareholders agitating for big changes are likely to want more — and soon.
The London- and Hong Kong-based bank is facing breakup calls driven by its largest shareholder, Ping An Insurance Group of China, with the aim of freeing the faster-growing Asian businesses from HSBC’s more heavily taxed and regulated Western parts.
To counter these calls, Chief Executive Officer Noel Quinn gave new details about how its international, globe-straddling setup generates revenue that a broken up HSBC wouldn’t capture. More than $1 billion of its global banking and markets business in the first half was Asia-based activity from clients in the US and Europe. Nearly half of all this division’s nearly $8 billion in first-half revenue was from cross-border business. And in wealth and personal banking, international clients — those who have assets in more than one country — provide twice the revenue of domestic clients. A split of the group would likely sacrifice significant chunks of this activity.
Quinn also detailed more of the costs that a breakup would create: Extra capital and funding needs; duplication of technology and administrative expenses; a potential credit-rating downgrade and likely higher taxes.
Good news on current performance and the revenue boost from rising interest rates helped Quinn make his case. It comfortably beat revenue and profit forecasts and said that rising rates would lift net interest income by more than 16% this year and next year, which was also much better than expectations. He improved his pledge for return on tangible equity to 12% or more from 2023 onwards, up from the previous pledge of 10% for next year.
The stock rose 6% on this and the promise of a more certain dividend payout, which was one of Ping An’s main complaints. But nothing stands still in markets. For HSBC, the next question is: What’s next?
Most of its revenue gains this year and next are from rising interest rates. But that’s not an ongoing source of growth because rates won’t keep rising. Also, in terms of profitability, the 12%-plus return target looks great to European investors versus the 10%-plus promised by Barclays Plc or Deutsche Bank AG, for example, but investors in Asia are more likely to compare it to higher returns available locally.
HSBC management believes it can compete for more market share in commercial and retail business in places like the UK and China, but not Hong Kong where it already dominates. In global trade finance, it is already a leader but reckons it can win more share and in asset management and insurance it could do more deals to move closer to being a leading wealth manager in Asia.
It is steadily moving more of its capital into higher-returning businesses. Wealth and personal banking accounted for just over one-quarter of its equity at the end of 2021, and that will rise to more than one-third in the medium term. That’s a business that provides returns in the mid-teens, versus closer to 10% for commercial banking and global banking and markets. It is also still rebalancing toward Asia, which should see its share of group capital rise from 42% to 50% over the medium term. That region offers high-teens returns that are easily double North America and Europe, partly due to lower tax rates.
These arguments are well known to European and Asian investors – and can still be read as much as to justify a breakup as to maintain the status quo. There is also the bigger geopolitical question about how more polarized East-West relations in global politics might affect the future of international trade and capital flows. The simplistic answer is that growth rates will likely be lower than in the past.
To be fair to HSBC, it wants to focus on hitting its 12% return target first, which would be its highest profitability in more than a decade. Ping An and other investors have been waiting a long time for even this improvement. HSBC will have to start putting some firmer numbers on where it goes next to really end the debate on its structure. Although if Ping An really wants to force change, it will have to be much more public about how and why, which, given questions about China Inc.’s involvement, could prove as uncomfortable for the activist as the target.
• As One Evergrande Falls, Another Rises in the Saudi Desert: David Fickling
• New HSBC Breakup Plan Is Still Deeply Unconvincing: Paul J. Davies | 2022-08-02T01:28:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | HSBC’s Promises Won’t Satisfy Ping An for Long - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/hsbcs-promises-wont-satisfy-ping-an-for-long/2022/08/01/df3c81d4-11f6-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/hsbcs-promises-wont-satisfy-ping-an-for-long/2022/08/01/df3c81d4-11f6-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
Several people shot in Northeast D.C., authorities say
Gunfire broke out around 8:30 p.m., according to a fire department spokesman
Several people were shot Monday night in an outbreak of gunfire in Northeast Washington, not far from Capitol Hill, authorities said.
The shooting was reported about 8:30 p.m. in the 1500 block of F Street NE, said Vito Maggiolo, a spokesman for the D.C. fire department. The site is near the northeastern edge of Capitol Hill.
Multiple victims were found at the scene, said Officer Sean Hickman, a police spokesman.
The exact number of victims and their condition was not immediately known. | 2022-08-02T01:28:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Several shot in Northeast D.C. authorities say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/01/shooting-f-street-northeast-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/01/shooting-f-street-northeast-dc/ |
Visa could be liable in lawsuit alleging it profited from child sexual abuse material on MindGeek sites, including Pornhub
Visa Inc. headquarters in Foster City, Calif. A federal judge in California has ruled that the credit card giant will remain a defendant in a lawsuit against Pornhub and its parent company, MindGeek. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/file)
In an application seeking to dismiss the charges, Visa said that the people who posted the victims’ underage images and those who distributed and earned money from the material caused the alleged harm — not Visa. Furthermore, the company argued, it has nothing to do with the daily operations of MindGeek’s sites, of which Pornhub is the most notable.
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney wrote that “Visa lent to MindGeek a much-needed tool — its payment network — with the alleged knowledge that there was a wealth of monetized child porn on MindGeek’s websites.”
In a statement to The Washington Post, Visa said it condemns sex trafficking, exploitation and child sexual abuse materials as “repugnant” to its values and purpose as a company.
“This pretrial ruling is disappointing and mischaracterizes Visa’s role and its policies and practices,” the company said in a statement. “Visa will not tolerate the use of our network for illegal activity. We continue to believe that Visa is an improper defendant in this case.”
MindGeek told The Post in a statement that it is confident the court will dismiss the plaintiff’s claims for lack of merit once it considers all the facts.
“MindGeek has zero tolerance for the posting of illegal content on its platforms, and has instituted the most comprehensive safeguards in user-generated platform history,” the company said. “Any insinuation that MindGeek does not take the elimination of illegal material seriously is categorically false.”
The company noted that it has beefed up its securities measures by banning uploads from anyone who has not submitted government-issued ID that passes third-party verification and by implementing technology that spots videos that are in violation of its policies against nonconsensual and child sexual abuse material.
A MindGeek spokesperson noted that the case hasn’t yet been tried and that the most recent ruling isn’t one on the merits of the allegations made.
Michael Bowe, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, told The Post in an interview that MindGeek has “no credible denial.”
“They did it, got caught, can’t explain it” he said. “It’s like telling your wife the naked woman in your bed is there because she lost her earring changing sheets.”
The judge’s ruling in the civil case is a seismic decision for the companies involved, Bowe said.
“What this means is that a prosecutor could take this complaint and charge Visa the company and individuals,” he said, noting that the harm caused doesn’t have to be as direct as Visa has been arguing.
Bowe noted that his 170-page complaint filed last year on behalf of his clients who are survivors of rape, porn revenge and child trafficking took more than a year’s worth of investigating facts on how MindGeek operates. Part of the investigation included hard-to-miss, high-profile cases of abuse that were uploaded on MindGeek sites, earning a profit for the company and nabbing media attention.
“Visa likes to pretend they’re in a different universe,” he said. “Our claim alleges they were co-conspirators.”
Carney’s statement noted that Visa is not without responsibility in the case.
“It bears repeating that after the New York Times published an article specifically addressing child porn on Pornhub, Visa suspended MindGeek’s merchant privileges, and MindGeek responded by removing 80 percent of its content,” the judge said. “It does not strike the Court as fatally speculative to say that Visa — with knowledge of what was being monetized and authority to withhold the means of monetization — bears direct responsibility (along with MindGeek) for MindGeek’s monetization of child porn, and in turn the monetization of Plaintiff’s videos.”
The judge’s mention of MindGeek’s removal of content after Visa’s actions shows the judge is examining the importance that Visa has to MindGeek, said Will Thomas, assistant professor of business law at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
The plaintiffs have a high bar to meet in demonstrating Visa’s role in distributing illicit material, Thomas said, but added that it is not a very hard hurdle to cross, especially given that the case has survived a motion to dismiss.
“[Surviving a motion to dismiss] doesn’t tell us how it’s going to end but it says that the case has more legs than other cases,” Thomas said.
Visa told the court that if the plaintiff’s theory was accepted, it would “upend the financial and payment industries,” a notion the judge also waved away, saying “Visa is being kept in this case because it is alleged to have continued to recognize as a merchant an immense, well known, and highly visible business that it knew used its websites to host and monetize child porn.”
It’s also challenging to know how the court of public opinion will affect the business moves of Visa and other payment processors, he said.
“The single most valuable intangible asset of a company is their brand,” he said. “Reputation really matters. Never have we lived in a world where a consumer has such power to impact a brand.” | 2022-08-02T03:00:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Visa could be liable in lawsuit alleging it profited from child sexual abuse material on MindGeek sites, including Pornhub - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/01/visa-mindgeek-liable-payment-processors/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/01/visa-mindgeek-liable-payment-processors/ |
White House to name FEMA’s Fenton as monkeypox coordinator
CDC’s Demetre Daskalakis to serve as deputy
Robert J. Fenton Jr. of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. (MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA-EFE)
The White House is planning to name Robert J. Fenton Jr. as coordinator of the nation’s monkeypox response amid a surging epidemic that has prompted three states to declare health emergencies, according to four people with direct knowledge of the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment about the pending announcement.
Fenton is a regional administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where he has worked since 1996. He previously served as acting administrator of the agency. Fenton helped oversee the Biden administration’s efforts to set up coronavirus vaccination sites, which led to him being named a finalist this year for the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals awarded by the Partnership for Public Service, a good-government group that celebrates federal employees and agencies.
“We simply wouldn’t be where we are today in our nation’s fight against COVID-19 without the expertise and leadership of Bob Fenton,” Jeff Zients, the former White House coronavirus response coordinator, said as part of Fenton’s recognition. “He became an indispensable leader in the whole-of-government response — contributing to a historic, nationwide vaccination program.”
The White House also plans to name Demetre Daskalakis, a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as a top deputy for Fenton. Daskalakis, a physician who previously served as a New York City health official, had helped lead the CDC’s HIV/AIDS work and has been involved in the federal response to monkeypox. Once profiled by the Atlantic magazine as “New York City’s ‘Gay Health Warrior’,” Daskalakis has also spent weeks publicly warning about the risks of monkeypox to men who have sex with men, as the virus predominantly spreads in that community.
“Fenton and Daskalakis will lead the Administration’s strategy and operations to combat the current monkeypox outbreak, including equitably increasing the availability of tests, vaccinations and treatments,” according to the planned announcement, obtained by The Washington Post.
The White House announcement is expected Tuesday. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
More than 5,800 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in the United States, mostly in the gay and bisexual community, as public health experts fear that it may spill over to other populations and become permanently entrenched in the United States. While federal officials have touted the availability of tests and treatments to combat the virus, patients and physicians have complained of bureaucratic barriers and lack of vaccine supply. Meanwhile, Illinois and California on Monday declared states of emergency, with officials saying that the moves would help cut red tape and raise awareness of the virus spread. New York state also declared a public health emergency on monkeypox last week.
“California is working urgently across all levels of government to slow the spread of monkeypox, leveraging our robust testing, contact tracing and community partnerships strengthened during the pandemic to ensure that those most at risk are our focus for vaccines, treatment and outreach,” Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said in a statement.
In his role as national coordinator, Fenton would steer a response that has previously been led by agencies like the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services, said an administration official who spoke on the condition on anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.
Asked at a Senate appropriations hearing in April 2021 about the Trump administration’s struggles coordinating the coronavirus response in 2020, Fenton touted FEMA’s ability to subsequently help organize the federal response.
“I think emergency management at all levels of government has a responsibility to be a coordinating function,” Fenton said. “I think that is something that FEMA does really well … to ensure that everyone is working toward a common set of goals and unity of effort.” | 2022-08-02T03:00:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | FEMA's Fenton to be named monkeypox response coordinator - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/01/white-house-name-femas-fenton-monkeypox-coordinator/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/01/white-house-name-femas-fenton-monkeypox-coordinator/ |
Zawahiri was in ‘downtown Kabul’ because of Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal
President Biden is shown on screen delivering remarks regarding the death of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri from outside the White House on Aug. 1. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
President Biden’s announcement on Monday that al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had been killed is great news. A murderous terrorist with the blood of thousands of Americans on his hands has been removed from the face of the earth. Biden deserves credit for authorizing the operation this past weekend that took out Zawahiri, who, Biden said, had been living in “downtown Kabul.”
Here is a question: What was Zawahiri doing in “downtown Kabul”?
Following the United States’ catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer, Biden assured us that al-Qaeda was “gone” from that country. “Look, let’s put this thing in perspective,” Biden said last August. “What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with al-Qaeda gone? We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. … And we did.” That same month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken dismissed al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan as “remnants” posing no serious danger to the U.S. homeland.
Nearly a year later, even as we celebrate the strike against Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man and successor, questions abound: Zawahiri showed up not in some remote cave in the Hindu Kush mountains but in the very heart of Afghanistan’s Taliban-controlled capital. What was he doing in Kabul? Who invited him? With whom was he meeting? And what does his presence signal about al-Qaeda’s return to the country from which the terrorist group planned the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001?
During his address to the nation on Monday night, Biden said that Zawahiri had been tracked to the Afghan capital “earlier this year” after he had “moved to downtown Kabul to reunite with members of his immediate family.” U.S. officials told Politico that he was known to be in the Afghan capital in May. Think about what that means. Within months of Biden’s disastrous retreat from Afghanistan, Zawahiri’s family and the al-Qaeda leader himself had relocated to Kabul.
On Monday, Biden said that Zawahiri had “made videos, including in recent weeks, calling for his followers to attack the United States and our allies.” If he was known to be in Kabul in May, and made videos urging his followers to kill Americans in “recent weeks,” that means Zawahiri was planning and inciting external operations against the United States from Afghanistan, possibly under the protection of the Taliban. That might not have been possible if Biden had listened to his military commanders and left a residual U.S. force in Afghanistan, preventing the Taliban’s return to power.
A critical question now is what operations was Zawahiri planning? Unfortunately, we might never know. Unlike the 2011 raid that killed bin Laden, the operation that killed Zawahiri was not carried out by a team of U.S. Special Operations forces. That’s because, thanks to Biden, the United States no longer has boots on the ground. Zawahiri had to be taken out by drone strike, which means we had no ability to exploit the site where Zawahiri was killed by collecting pocket litter, computers, hard drives, cellphones, documents or other material intelligence. The bin Laden raid produced a trove of information on al-Qaeda’s operations, ongoing plots, the identities and locations of al-Qaeda personnel and other vital actionable intelligence. The drone strike that vaporized Zawahiri destroyed all the actionable intelligence he possessed along with him.
Some lessons of this incident are clear: Al-Qaeda is back in Afghanistan. Yes, it is good that we killed Zawahiri — and Biden deserves credit for the strike. But he also deserves blame for creating the conditions that allowed the world’s most-wanted terrorist to move to downtown Kabul and set up operations in a city that had been liberated from al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies with the blood of courageous American service members. If the president had listened to his military advisers last year, Zawahiri might never have been in Kabul this year. Killing Zawahiri is Biden’s greatest foreign policy triumph. The fact that al-Qaeda’s leader was in Kabul is Biden’s greatest foreign policy disgrace. | 2022-08-02T03:00:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Zawahiri was in ‘downtown Kabul’ because of Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/01/killing-alqaeda-leader-zawahiri-doesnt-erase-biden-failure-afghanistan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/01/killing-alqaeda-leader-zawahiri-doesnt-erase-biden-failure-afghanistan/ |
Juan Soto hit a solo shot off former teammate Max Scherzer in the fourth inning; he walked in his three other plate appearances Monday. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Juan Soto’s final at-bat Monday night wasn’t unusual: He walked to open the bottom of the eighth inning for his third free pass of the game.
What happened afterward wasn’t so typical: As Soto took off his equipment along the first base line, he received a standing ovation from the fans at Nationals Park. They were acknowledging the possibility that they had just watched his last at-bat in a Washington Nationals uniform. The same went for Josh Bell, who lined out in the ensuing at-bat.
Neither plate appearance meant much in Monday’s 7-3 loss to the New York Mets, but they could mean much more by Tuesday’s 6 p.m. trade deadline. Soto knew it, too — during a pitching change later in the inning, he tipped his helmet to the fans before heading into the dugout.
Back in the fourth, Soto had hit his 21st home run of the season — off former teammate Max Scherzer. He took his time rounding the bases and touching home plate. He walked to the dugout as the fans behind it stood and clapped a bit longer to savor the memory.
Scherzer surely understood Soto’s situation all too well: He spent six-plus years with Washington before being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers with Trea Turner at last year’s deadline, a move that sent the 2019 World Series champions into a rebuilding phase.
Scherzer’s presence on the mound was another reminder of how much an organization can change this time of year. Nine more innings passed Monday night, and Soto and Bell were still with the Nationals. But a lot could change in the coming hours.
At the trade deadline last year, the Nationals were 47-55. After Monday’s loss, they are 35-69 — the worst record in the majors. They’re 31 games behind the first-place Mets in the National League East.
Soto and Bell got to Scherzer in the first inning — with the help of some poor defense. Soto worked a full count, two-out walk, then Bell doubled down the right field line. Initially, it appeared that would put runners on second and third, but right fielder Starling Marte threw the ball to second — where no teammate was present. Soto dashed home and Bell advanced to third — there was no Met covering that base, either — as Washington grabbed the lead.
Soto flashed his arm when he threw out Tomás Nido at the plate to end a second inning that could’ve been worse for starter Patrick Corbin, who was laboring. Despite Soto’s contribution, New York still led 3-1.
Washington finished with just six hits. Following Soto’s home run in the fourth, Luis García singled home Yadiel Hernandez to make it 4-3. Bell, a pending free agent, finished 1 for 4, but Soto’s final line was fitting if it was his last game as a National: 1 for 1 with three walks, two runs and that 421-foot blast.
Is anyone used to seeing Scherzer pitch for the Mets? The Nationals and Mets have faced off 11 times this season, but this was only Washington’s second glimpse of Scherzer. The sight of their former ace playing for a division rival still doesn’t feel normal to Manager Dave Martinez.
“It still is weird,” he said before the game. “When you see him, you kind of reminisce in your head. But then I say: ‘Okay, we got to go out there and try to beat this guy. Let’s figure out how to do that.’ ”
How did Corbin fare? He threw 90 pitches and allowed four runs in 4⅓ innings. He was coming off his worst outing of the season — he didn’t make it out of the first inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday — but he was able to retire the side in order to start Monday’s game.
But his next two innings looked a lot like what Nationals fans have become accustomed over the past two-plus seasons. In the second, the Mets scored three runs on five hits and a walk, with Soto’s assist finally stopping the bleeding.
Pete Alonso hit a 110.9-mph bullet off Corbin in the next inning that just cleared the wall in left-center for his 27th home run. It took him 24 pitches to get out of a scoreless fourth and, after he retired Francisco Lindor for the first out of the fifth, his night was complete. His ERA rose slightly to 6.57, and his record fell to 4-15.
Lindor’s three-run homer off Steve Cishek in the sixth put the game away. | 2022-08-02T03:00:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Juan Soto homers in loss to Mets as trade deadline nears - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/01/nationals-mets-juan-soto/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/01/nationals-mets-juan-soto/ |
Regime resists foreign demands for women’s rights, a key to international aid for hungry populace
Afghan women work in a garment factory in Kandahar on July 30. (Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP/Getty Images)
KABUL — Millions of Afghans are expected to experience “extreme levels of hunger” in the coming months, while foreign aid agencies here face a significant decrease in food and emergency provisions because of shortfalls in funding, according to a report released Monday night by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
The watchdog agency said Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis remains “dire,” with 18.9 million people facing “potentially life-threatening” hunger and up to 6 million facing “near-famine conditions.” But it said that emergency aid is likely to fall sharply through November, reaching only 8 percent of the population, because insufficient foreign funds have been donated to relief agencies including UNICEF and the World Food Program.
The report, which comes nearly a year after U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan, also warned that the plight of Afghan women is continuing to worsen since Taliban extremists returned to power last August. The quarterly inspector general’s assessment, which has previously focused on fraud, waste and other problems with U.S. military and civilian involvement in Afghanistan, this time singled out Taliban suppression of women as a major concern.
This warning echoed new alarms being raised over deteriorating conditions for Afghan women by other international agencies. Last month, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan sharply condemned an array of Taliban policies that it said “make women effectively invisible.”
In another report last week, the rights group Amnesty International said Afghan women and girls are enduring a “suffocating” crackdown by Taliban authorities, restricting their rights to free movement and education and leading to rising rates of forced marriage of girls.
The inspector general’s report opened with a lengthy section headlined “Taliban Repression of Women and Girls Grows.” It criticized Taliban officials for backtracking on pledges to restore female freedoms — in particular the regime’s “abrupt” reversal in March of its announced plan to reopen girls’ shuttered high schools.
More than half of Afghanistan’s population faces ‘acute’ food crisis this winter, U.N. finds
That turnaround, which some analysts have attributed to internal disagreements among Taliban leaders, further dashed international hopes for serious change in Taliban attitudes. Since then, the report noted, Taliban authorities have issued numerous rules that further restrict women’s rights to engage in activities outside their homes.
In May, a decree from the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — a once-feared entity during the first period of Taliban rule — said that women should wear a burqa or cover their faces when in public, and that it would be “best” for them not to leave home at all. Another decree banned women from long-distance road and air travel unless chaperoned by a male relative. A third required female TV presenters to cover their faces on air.
So far, these rules have not been regularly enforced by physical punishments, as was common during the previous Taliban era in the late 1990s. Taliban officials have described them as “guidance” rather than mandatory orders. They have also repeatedly stated that they will ensure all rights for women according to Islamic sharia law, and that foreigners do not have the right to intervene in Afghan religious and social traditions.
Faced with disappearances, beatings and intimidation, Afghanistan’s women’s rights activists go quiet on the streets
The issues of continued humanitarian suffering and restrictions on women’s rights in Afghanistan are closely intertwined. The impoverished country of 39 million has suffered a devastating economic decline since August of last year, when Taliban forces took power, prompting the withdrawal of most foreign aid and the U.S. seizure of more than $9 billion in Afghan assets.
Legal exemptions have allowed some funds to reach foreign aid groups, but they have met only a small fraction of the need. According to the inspector general’s report, Afghans will face a nearly 60 percent increase in food insecurity this fall compared with the same period last year. It said that the United Nations is seeking to raise $4.4 billion for humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, and that nearly half has been pledged, but only $601 million has been confirmed.
Wahidullah Amani, a spokesman for the World Food Program in Kabul, said the agency needs to raise $900 million to keep operating for the next six months, before winter snows block the roads to poor rural provinces. The group holds frequent distributions of wheat, beans and cooking oil in Kabul and other cities, where long lines form early and last all day.
A major demand of foreign donors and governments is that the Taliban, which is desperately seeking international recognition and restored aid, must prove it will respect women’s rights, as well as human rights in general. While some colleges are open to women under strict gender segregation, and girls may study up to sixth grade, the continued lack of access to jobs, education and public activities has been especially frustrating to Afghan women who studied, worked and participated in public life during two decades of civilian rule.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking Thursday in Washington at the launch of a consultative program with Afghan women’s groups, said the Taliban had “reversed a great deal of the openness and progress” made in recent years, stifling civil society and the press. “Perhaps most notably, they failed to respect the human rights of women and girls,” he said. “Instead, under the Taliban, women and girls have largely been erased from public life.”
Blinken said the Taliban’s decision in March to ban girls from secondary schools — even as some were “literally walking to school and others were already sitting at their desks” — was a “reversal of commitments they made to the Afghan people and the world. … It’s a terrible, terrible waste.” He said U.S. officials will “continue to urge the Taliban to reverse their decision.”
In Kabul and other cities, female activists have tried to fight back, holding numerous protests against new restrictions, but some rallies have been suppressed by police and none have made concrete gains. On the streets of the capital, women are able to shop with only their heads covered and there is no sign of armed Taliban morality enforcers. But in rural areas, rights groups have reported Taliban officials carrying out severe punishments — including lashings and stonings — for girls or women who elope, flee abusive homes, defy forced marriages or have illicit sex.
The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, in a June report, described incidents of “cruel and degrading” Taliban punishments for moral offenses in rural provinces, similar to those meted out in the past. In one case, a man and a woman were reportedly stoned to death in Badakhshan province for having an extramarital affair.
Another blow to hopes for women’s rights came in June, when Taliban officials held a consultation on national issues with 4,500 religious clerics and tribal leaders. They did not allow women to participate, saying they would be represented by male delegates. The inspector general’s report said that while some participants supported girls returning to school, there was no formal discussion or recommendation on the subject.
Deborah Lyons, the U.N. special representative to Afghanistan until June, made a departing plea to the international community to pursue an “engagement strategy” with the Taliban to persuade its authorities that a system that excludes women and minorities “will not endure.” But the inspector general’s report said recent Taliban actions hold out little chance that an international carrot-and-stick effort will have any success.
“Sadly,” the report concluded, “neither increasing international isolation, nor worsening economic and health crises, nor the growing desperation of ordinary Afghans, seem to have deterred the Taliban from reinstating many of their repressive policies of the 1990s.” | 2022-08-02T04:27:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Report on Afghanistan cites food shortages, oppression of women - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/afghanistan-women-food-taliban-inspector-general/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/afghanistan-women-food-taliban-inspector-general/ |
Dear Amy: My husband of just under two years does things behind my back that he knows would hurt me. While we were dating we promised exclusivity to each other.
I was true to him, and he continued to date approximately 30 women for a year and a half. I stumbled on his “rating” spreadsheet after we were living together. He recently made arrangements to meet up with his former spouse while I was safely away at work.
We have done counseling before. He participates only until he is bored. He told me that he is going to do what he wants to do, and he does not care how I feel about that.
End: My intention is not to alarm you, but you’ve asked for help, and I want to make sure that you have clarity about my opinion concerning the future of your marriage. It needs to end.
Do not enter counseling with your husband. Don’t bargain, set limits or agree to attempts at reconciliation. Leave this relationship.
The way you present things, in addition to never being honest with you, this man seems quite dangerous. Furthermore, his aggression seems to be escalating. People who kill small and truly defenseless animals (not for food) sometimes accelerate their violence.
He kisses us on the lips, grabs us, hugs us, etc., all in front of Mary and our own partners. We gently try to divert him or squirm away but have never forcefully said, “That’s not appropriate.”
Recently we all spent a weekend away together, and he was terrible! Mary either chooses not to see what is happening or is truly clueless. She also seems to be a little insecure in some ways in her marriage.
We imagine that she would support her husband and tell us that we are overreacting. At this point we don’t want to spend any future weekends with them.
Hands Off: It’s vital that you remember that “Mary” is not causing or creating this problem. “Steve” is the problem, and so you should deal directly with him.
You encouraged her, telling her that “he’s out there.” What about telling her that she already has “her person,” and that is: herself?!
Disappointed: A wonderful answer, and absolutely true. Thank you. | 2022-08-02T04:31:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: I don’t know what to do about my lying, cheating husband - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/02/ask-amy-lie-cheat-husband/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/02/ask-amy-lie-cheat-husband/ |
Dear Carolyn: One of my kids has a best friend who lives in another country. They met when we lived there for a while for my husband’s job and just instantly bonded. We visit about once a year and the friend comes to visit us once a year. The friend is great and just slots in with the rest of our kids, so it is really easy to have him stay with us.
The problem is that his parents don’t have much money. Our family makes more in a month than they make in a year. We are completely fine paying for everything when we go out, but when we are in their country, they always want to pay. We have no problem accepting invitations to their house to eat and trying to mostly do cheap things, such as taking the kids to the park or to swim in a lake, but sometimes, money will be spent. We will watch them count out their change and offer to buy one ice cream for the four boys to split. Or tell the hungry kids that they can eat in two hours after we make it back to their house.
When we offer to pay or just go buy food, drinks or tickets, they are hurt. The parents are lovely people, and it is so sweet that they want to treat us to everything. They are spending much more of their money on us than we are on them, relatively speaking.
On the one hand I feel overwhelmed by their generosity. On the other hand, and I know I’m going to sound like a glassbowl, but it would be so much easier for us to just pay. Sometimes we want to see a popular tourist attraction and they can’t afford it. They don’t want us to pay for them OR ourselves. I have to plan our day carefully and get food and drinks to carry around with me because at some point, the kids will actually be hungry, and instead of stopping to buy food, I have to already have it. I mean, it’s good for the kids to know we can walk an hour and a half to save ourselves $1 in bus fare, but I would so much rather just take the bus. I would be fine if just the kids went off together (they’re old enough) then I could just give them money, but the parents always want to come and want us to come.
Is there anything I can do or say to make them not feel bad with us paying? Or is there another way to handle the situation?
— Please Just Let Us Pay!
Please Just Let Us Pay!: Once a year, live their way, on their turf.
Isn’t that the best thing any of us can get out of a close relationship with people who live in a very different way from ours?
Resist the urge to control, know better, make things easier, skip the long walk, satisfy all the hungers. Even with good intentions, it’s missing the point at best, and at worst embarrassing or insulting your hosts. Use that long $1 walk to look around, breathe, absorb.
Think what a profound education you’re all getting about culture; about the generosity of people who have little (material) to give; about adaptability; about not taking things for granted; about how the first bites of ice cream are always the best ones anyway.
What a profound education you’re getting. Please don’t grit your teeth through it.
Wanna sightsee? Go early to do your own thing. | 2022-08-02T04:31:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Friends with (much) less refuse to just let them treat - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/02/carolyn-hax-friends-pay-visit-treat/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/02/carolyn-hax-friends-pay-visit-treat/ |
As you point out, a parent’s job is to enable the child to operate successfully on his own. If you have done this, your child will have written these people an effusive letter and given some thought to how else to please them.
Dear Miss Manners: My sister wants me to use her married name on all mail — and she doesn’t even want me to use her first name. It has to be “Mrs. Husband’s Last Name.”
Didn’t you just state that this is how your sister wants you to address her? Who is it, then, who is ignoring her wishes with the unpleasant effect of cutting her off from relations?
© 2022 by Judith Martin | 2022-08-02T04:31:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: How do I thank them for looking out for my son? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/02/miss-manners-son-college-thank/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/02/miss-manners-son-college-thank/ |
Tents for a monkeypox vaccination clinic at the Balboa Sports Center in the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles on July 27. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) declared a state of emergency Monday in an effort to bolster the state’s response to the monkeypox outbreak, saying the measure will help with vaccinations.
California, the most populous state in the United States, had recorded 827 monkeypox cases as of Monday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — second to New York, which recorded 1,390 cases and declared a public health emergency last week. The nationwide tally is more than 5,800.
“We’ll continue to work with the federal government to secure more vaccines, raise awareness about reducing risk, and stand with the LGBTQ community fighting stigmatization,” Newsom said. Outbreaks have so far been overwhelmingly concentrated in men who have sex with men, though anyone can contract the virus. Advocates have urged officials to avoid repeating the mistakes of the AIDS crisis, when the virus’s devastating effects on the gay community were minimized.
There are increasing concerns about the federal supply of monkeypox vaccines. The United States recently received hundreds of thousands of additional doses, but is not expected to receive another shipment until October at the earliest — with cases expected to continue multiplying until then amid a dwindling supply of shots.
In a signal that the Biden administration is ramping up its response to the outbreak, the White House is expected to name Robert J. Fenton Jr., an official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as the national monkeypox coordinator, along with a deputy coordinator, Demetre Daskalakis of the CDC, The Washington Post reported Monday.
Most of California’s monkeypox cases are concentrated in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Last week, San Francisco declared a public health emergency over the outbreak. Mayor London Breed (D) said Thursday that monkeypox cases there had doubled to 261 in just a week. As of Monday, there were 310 cases reported in the city.
The Biden administration has weighed whether to declare the outbreak a public health emergency, with the World Health Organization last month labeling the rising cases worldwide a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” — its highest level of alert.
“In short, we have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission about which we understand too little,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement at the time.
Monkeypox mainly spreads through direct contact with infectious rashes, scabs or bodily fluids. It can also be transmitted from respiratory secretions during prolonged face-to-face contact, or during intimate physical contact, such as kissing, cuddling or sex — though monkeypox is not considered a traditional sexually transmitted disease like syphilis or gonorrhea. | 2022-08-02T04:31:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | California Gov. Gavin Newsom declares monkeypox state of emergency - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/01/california-monkeypox-state-of-emergency-newsom/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/01/california-monkeypox-state-of-emergency-newsom/ |
Jerry Ceppos, former top editor of San Jose Mercury News, dies at 75
He led the publication as it became Silicon Valley’s newspaper of record during the technology boom of the 1990s
Jerry Ceppos spent 18 years with the San Jose Mercury News, serving as executive editor from 1995 to 1999. (Karen T. Borchers/Bay Area News Group Archive)
Jerry Ceppos, who as a top editor of the San Jose Mercury News led the publication as it became Silicon Valley’s newspaper of record during the technology boom of the 1990s, distinguishing himself with his ethical clarity when the paper excelled as well as when it fell short, died July 29 at his home in Baton Rouge. He was 75.
The cause of death was sepsis, said his wife, Karen Ceppos.
Mr. Ceppos devoted half a century to the practice and teaching of journalism, spending most of his career with Knight Ridder when it was the second-largest newspaper chain in the United States. He was an editor at the Miami Herald before joining the Mercury News in 1981, rising to the position of managing editor and then executive editor from 1995 to 1999.
“He was a really excellent editor who transformed the San Jose Mercury News from what I’ll call a respectable newspaper to, during his editorship, one of the 10 best newspapers in the country,” Bill Marimow, a former editor in chief of the Baltimore Sun and the Philadelphia Inquirer, said in an interview.
Mr. Ceppos later served as Knight Ridder’s corporate vice president for news, with a portfolio that included oversight of news operations at all the chain’s newspapers as well as its Washington bureau, from 1999 to 2005.
Mr. Ceppos’s tenure at the Mercury News coincided with the phenomenal early growth of the technology industry in Silicon Valley. He considered “the story of Silicon Valley … nothing less than Florence in the time of the Medicis,” journalist Michael Shapiro wrote in an article about the Mercury News published in the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) in 2011.
“When Jerry became Executive Editor, he understood how important covering the tech story was to the paper, including what was then the very beginning of Washington’s interest in tech,” Rory O’Connor, who served at the time as Washington correspondent for the Mercury News, wrote in an email. “Look at what’s happening today to see just how well he could see how important that story would become.”
Under Mr. Ceppos’s leadership, the Mercury News produced significant coverage in other areas as well, winning two Pulitzer Prizes during his time as managing editor.
Three Mercury News reporters — Lewis M. Simons, Pete Carey and Katherine Ellison — received the 1986 Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for a series on the autocratic Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and his massive transfers of wealth abroad. The series was widely considered to have helped precipitate his ouster shortly thereafter.
The Mercury News staff later received a Pulitzer Prize for general news reporting recognizing its coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake on Oct. 17, 1989, which killed 63 people in the San Francisco Bay area.
He “really helped guide that coverage,” Susan Goldberg, the acting city editor at the time and later a successor to Mr. Ceppos as executive editor at the Mercury News, said in an interview. In a high-pressure, deadline-driven business that “sometimes isn’t known for the kindest people,” she added, he was a supportive presence who “helped people feel confident in themselves and in their own abilities.”
Mr. Ceppos later guided the Mercury News through an embarrassing episode following the publication in 1996 of a three-part investigative series dubbed “Dark Alliance,” which sought to link the CIA to the crack cocaine epidemic in the United States. The articles, written by reporter Gary Webb, implied the CIA knew that a drug ring with ties to anti-communist Nicaraguan rebels was peddling crack in Los Angeles in the 1980s and that the ring was directing millions of dollars in profits to the U.S.-backed “contras.”
Cocaine “was virtually unobtainable in black neighborhoods before members of the CIA’s army brought it into South-Central in the 1980s at bargain-basement prices,” the report alleged. The online version of the story included a graphic in which the CIA insignia was superimposed over the image of a person smoking crack.
Years later, The Washington Post described the series as “the first major journalism cause celebre on the newly emerging Internet.” Some Black leaders pointed to the Mercury News reports to accuse the CIA of intentionally distributing crack cocaine in African American communities. Multiple government investigations ensued.
Amid the furor, The Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times published reports that cast doubt on elements of the Mercury News’s reporting. Reporters for The Post wrote that “the available information does not support the conclusion that the CIA-backed contras — or Nicaraguans in general — played a major role in the emergence of crack as a narcotic in widespread use across the United States.”
Mr. Ceppos, who the CJR reported had been on medical leave, ultimately assigned an internal team of journalists to review the newspaper’s handling of the story.
“We oversimplified the complex issue of how the crack epidemic in America grew,” he wrote in an open letter to readers in 1997. “Through imprecise language and graphics, we created impressions that were open to misinterpretation.”
“I believe that we fell short at every step of our process in the writing, editing and production of our work,” he further wrote. “Several people here share that burden. … But ultimately, the responsibility was, and is, mine.”
Doyle McManus, the Washington bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times, told The Post at the time that Mr. Ceppos’s column was “an extraordinarily difficult thing to do.”
“I give him high marks for openness and candor,” McManus said, “which is something newspapers don’t have a very good record of doing. We tend to bury our corrections in small type on page 2.”
“He was a deeply ethical person,” said Carey, an investigative reporter who worked under Mr. Ceppos on both Pulitzer-winning projects as well as on the internal review of Dark Alliance. Mr. Ceppos’s conduct, he said, was “characteristic of the way he was.”
Jerome Merle Ceppos was born in Washington on Oct. 14, 1946. His mother was a homemaker and later a real estate agent. His father had a bachelor’s degree in journalism but was unable to find a job in newspapering and made a living as the owner of a Jewish deli.
An uncle on Mr. Ceppos’s maternal side was Sidney Epstein, a journalist who became editor and associate publisher of the old Washington Star, the city’s afternoon newspaper.
Mr. Ceppos grew up in Silver Spring, Md., where he started a newspaper in elementary school and edited the newspaper at Northwood High. After his graduation in 1964, he enrolled at the University of Maryland. He edited the newspaper there as well and received a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1969.
After three years as a reporter at the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, N.Y., Mr. Ceppos moved to the Miami Herald in 1972. There he did a stint as wire editor, with the task of monitoring the barrage of incoming national and international reports from wire services.
Clark Hoyt, a former public editor of the New York Times and vice president of news for Knight Ridder, recalled an encounter with Mr. Ceppos during those early years of their career. Hoyt, then working as Washington correspondent for the Herald, happened to be in the newsroom in Miami attending the story conference where editors hashed out which stories to place on the front page. On the front of an early edition of the paper was an article about an accident near Lake Okeechobee involving a bus that overturned, resulting in the drowning deaths of some of the migrant workers on board.
An editor with what Hoyt described as a “volcanic temper” dismissed the account as a traffic incident of little interest to readers in Miami. It should not run on the front page, the editor said.
Mr. Ceppos, then in his 20s, learned of the deliberations and walked in on the meeting. In a “quiet,” almost “hesitant” manner, Hoyt recalled, Mr. Ceppos asked the senior editor, “Have you read this story?” It ultimately ran on the front page.
Here was a “young, junior guy in the place,” Hoyt said, who “knows that a mistake is about to be made and just does the right thing. … I always thought he had great judgment and great courage.”
Mr. Ceppos spent nine years at the Miami Herald before moving to San Jose. At the Mercury News as well as in his corporate role at Knight Ridder, he took significant steps to increase the diversity of the editorial staff.
“To Jerry, diversity in the newsroom wasn’t just for show,” recalled Lori Aratani, a reporter who covers transportation for The Post and who earlier worked at the Mercury News under Mr. Ceppos. “He truly believed that building a newsroom that reflected the communities it covered helped build trust and credibility.”
A year after Mr. Ceppos left Knight Ridder, the chain was sold to the McClatchy newspaper company. The Mercury News was later sold to MediaNews Group Inc.
Mr. Ceppos served as dean of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada in Reno and then, from 2011 to 2018, as dean of the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. He helped start a student news wire that served both to train aspiring journalists as well as to supplement local news coverage with reports on stories including unsolved Ku Klux Klan killings from the civil rights era.
Survivors include his wife of 40 years, the former Karen Feingold of Baton Rouge, and two children, Matthew Ceppos of Reno and Robin Ceppos of Washington.
Mr. Ceppos was the editor of the 2021 book “Covering Politics in the Age of Trump.” His final published newspaper article was a reminiscence of his high school newspaper adviser, Mary Lee Ruddle, who died weeks before he did at 95. She was the person, he wrote, who, when he was a “geeky teenage boy,” gave him the confidence to send him on his way. | 2022-08-02T04:32:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jerry Ceppos, former top editor of San Jose Mercury News, dies at 75 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/01/jerry-ceppos-mercury-news-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/01/jerry-ceppos-mercury-news-dead/ |
FILE - PEN literary service award recipient Stephen King attends the 2018 PEN Literary Gala at the American Museum of Natural History on May 22, 2018, in New York. King is expected to take the stand at a federal antitrust trial in Washington. King is scheduled to be a witness for the Justice Department as it attempts to block the proposed merger of two of the world’s biggest publishers, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-08-02T04:33:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stephen King set to testify for govt in books merger trial - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/stephen-king-set-to-testify-for-govt-in-books-merger-trial/2022/08/02/5c72a79c-1219-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/stephen-king-set-to-testify-for-govt-in-books-merger-trial/2022/08/02/5c72a79c-1219-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
Now that I am back with graphics, let me explain the dilemma of the stock market. The last month saw quite a rally, followed by a relaxingly dull day to start August. Markets never move in a perfect straight line, and protracted selloffs include plenty of invigorating rallies. The following chart maps the S&P 500 after its recent high in January, and after the peaks before the great bear markets that started in 2000 and 2007. Even after the hot July, this selloff is still somewhat more intense than either of those:
That said, the July rebound was truly something to behold. My colleague Cameron Crise had a great Macro Man column on the Bloomberg terminal today in which he looked at all incidents in which the S&P dropped 7.5% in one calendar month and regained at least that much in the following month. It doesn’t happen often. In fact, this is only the sixth such occurrence since World War II. The others came in October 1974, October 2002, March 2009, January 2019 and April 2020. Regular readers will recognize those as famous buying opportunities when the market was at or near a major bottom. The S&P 500’s average return 12 months after these turnarounds: 30%.
False all-clears do happen during long bear markets, then, but this rebound is quite something. Cameron also notes that there were five such incidents between 1931 and 1940, and most of them were terrible times to buy. By comparison with the Depression era, all of the five turnarounds since 1974 came once the Federal Reserve had already slashed rates very aggressively. That hasn’t happened yet, and surely can’t happen for a while. So this bounce involves great, indeed unprecedented, confidence that the Fed will soon execute a dramatic pivot.
Is this premature? Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s Lisa Shalett certainly thinks so, and comes up with a great Wayne’s World reference to make her point in a Monday note:
“With another 75-basis-point hike in the fed funds rate, inflation metrics rolling over and recession indicators flashing red, both stocks and bonds have rallied on the prospect of a policy pivot. Mission accomplished? Not!”
She is sticking to the view that we’ve just witnessed a big bear-market rally, driven by investors who “seem to believe that inflation is defeated and expect the Fed will start cutting the fed funds rate as soon as next March.”
Concern that rising interest rates will drive the economy into a recession has been escalating as the Fed tightens monetary policy aggressively to bring down the steepest inflation in four decades. Chair Jerome Powell has said that failing to restore price stability would be a “bigger mistake” than pushing the US into a recession, which he has continued to maintain the nation can avoid.
Shalett offered three reasons why she sees more volatility for US equities:
• First, policy operates with a lag, which investors seem to be ignoring. “The implications of tighter financial conditions, higher interest rates and balance sheet reduction are still ahead of us. They are also moving up on the premise that inflation is tamed and that real yields will fall, supporting rich valuations for stocks and credit.”
• Second, policy uncertainty rises with the Fed abandoning forward guidance. This demands higher risk premiums. “A data-dependent Fed suggests more market volatility and surprises in both directions. With the full impact of policy still ahead, and with unknowns on inflation, liquidity, jobs and geopolitics, we prefer to wait for wider risk premiums that more appropriately value the uncertainty.”
• Third, stocks are at best only fairly valued, Shalett added. Shalett estimates that the equity risk premium is some 300 basis points versus an average 350 basis points for the past 13 years. As such, she expects weak growth in the near term and “higher-for-longer inflation.”
“The forward price/earnings ratio on earnings that are still likely to be downgraded is 17.8,” she said. “During periods of aggressive Fed policy and going into recessions, history shows that the preferred entry point for stocks is when the ERP is above 450 basis points.”
As I covered yesterday, forward earnings estimates tend to have come down a lot from their peak by the time the market can make a navigable low. That absolutely hasn’t happened yet, and the process of downgrading appears only to have just started. These charts from Societe Generale’s chief quantitative strategist Andrew Lapthorne tell the story. Nasdaq profit forecasts for every quarter out to the second quarter of next year have been cut, and suffered a particularly sharp cut in the last few days, while the buoyancy of the energy sector hides the fact that for the rest of the S&P 500, the earnings growth forecast for this year is teetering close to zero. As it would be unusual to suffer an economic recession or equity bear market without an outright fall in profits, this suggests more to come:
Given the magnitude of the unknowns, Shalett said she is “surprised at the power of the ‘risk-on’ sentiment... If valuations were truly washed out and compelling, we might understand the willingness to make some wagers. But they are not.”
To illustrate, here is how the Bloomberg measure of the S&P 500’s prospective price/earnings multiple has moved over the last 25 years, compared to the S&P’s relative performance to Bloomberg’s Treasury index. Lows for the p/e ratio tend to align nicely with good opportunities to buy stocks relative to bonds. But in all previous cases, the buying opportunity came with the p/e ratio below 15; this time it stopped at 16 and rallied, even though the prospective earnings on which that p/e is based look too high to many people. Further, it’s not as though stocks have done very badly relative to bonds this time. I’ve circled the four buying opportunities signaled by Cameron Crise’s hunt for months of big stock turnarounds that I mentioned earlier, and this looks nothing like any of them:
It’s important to keep an open mind. No previous stock market selloff of the last 100 years was preceded by a global pandemic, or the desperate fiscal and monetary measures that accompanied it, so these waters are uncharted. But on balance, it’s best to work on the assumption that the bottom is not yet in.
Inflation Indicators
There is at least one very promising item in the regular data download that accompanies the beginning of the month. The ISM Manufacturing survey for the US regularly asks purchasing managers about prices paid. That number topped 90 at one point last year. Now, after a sharp and unexpected fall last month, it’s back to 60. That’s encouraging for inflationistas because over time it’s been a pretty good leading indicator of producer price inflation. The following chart shows the Prices Paid index, with the year-on-year producer price index lagged by six months:
Flukes happen, but this looks encouraging from the point of view of anyone who wants inflation to come down. Whether because demand is being destroyed, or (more likely) supply chain pressures are easing, it looks like there is a reduction in pressure in the pipeline.
That might help to reconcile some of the more contradictory signs coming out of the bond market. Looking at the yield curve, it suggests growing conviction that a recession is imminent (and also by extension belief that inflation will soon be licked). The most-watched version of the yield curve, the gap between two- and 10-year yields, is now as deeply inverted as it has been in 16 years. In other words, shorter-dated yields exceed longer-dated yields, a stance that only makes sense if you expect the economy to slow down shortly.
Less closely watched, but a more fail-safe recession indicator because it tends only to invert once short-term rates are being hiked and an economic slowdown is truly imminent, is the three-month/10-year yield curve. (Note that it somehow briefly inverted on the eve of the Covid lockdowns in February 2020.) The two have moved in different directions for much of the last 12 months, but now the three-month curve has flattened dramatically. It’s within 21 basis points of inverting:
Then there is the strange behavior of inflation breakevens. The five-year/five-year breakeven, much beloved of the Fed and measuring the market’s judgment of the likely average inflation rate for the five years that start five years hence, has risen sharply in the US in the last few days. It’s still below its peak from earlier in the year, but it’s heading in a direction that suggests the Fed will be outright lenient. And judging by the equivalent breakeven for Germany, where the possibility of a return of inflation suddenly took hold of the imagination a few months ago and receded as soon as forecasts managed to exceed those for the US, it looks as though this is an American phenomenon. While much of the market is positioned for a hawkish mistake by the Fed, breakevens suggest there’s more of a risk of a dovish one:
To be clear, the markets from which breakevens are derived aren’t the most liquid corner of the fixed-income market, and it’s possible this is a false indicator driven by quirks of liquidity. But it’s mighty strange.
To contradict the bond market, it’s now time to pour gasoline on the fire. The generic gasoline future contract moved over to a new month today, so the sharpness of Monday’s fall could be overstated — but somehow the futures price of gasoline is back where it was on the eve of the Ukraine invasion. Prices at the pump tend to follow with not much lag:
All of this might conceivably change the American political calculus. Gas prices matter a lot. They’re visible, they move quickly, and they can really hurt. Ahead of the latest fall in the futures price, the American Automobile Association’s estimate of the average price at the pump was showing a year-on-year inflation rate that was its lowest since early 2021, barring a few days just before the Ukraine invasion. True, year-on-year inflation is still at a nosebleed 32%, but the direction of travel is unmistakable:
Plenty of geopolitical factors will help to determine whether the gasoline price stays so low, and cheaper gas will do nothing to deal with the issues of rising rents and rising sticky prices elsewhere in the economy. It’s conceivable, however, that they could change psychology. That’s very far from a certainty, but for stock market bulls and US Democrats alike, it’s a ray of hope.
OK, this could be a life-changing one for anyone who subscribes to the Bloomberg terminal and needs a B-unit (the little credit card-size gizmo that can take your fingerprint and converse with a computer to allow you remote access to the terminal). As I admitted yesterday, I left my B-unit behind in a cabin in New Hampshire, closing myself off from remotely accessing the system.
Several readers, and several colleagues, told me today that there is now a B-unit app available for iPhone and Android. Download it, and spend a few seconds letting it look at your face, and you no longer need a B-unit. The downside is that you become even more dependent on your phone, but that Rubicon was passed a long time ago. It’s worth doing. (And if you’d like to listen to something, I’ve had some complaints about refusing to link to “Ice, Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice, which I will continue not to do. If that’s too frustrating, try this version of Under Pressure, from the memorial concert for Freddie Mercury, with David Bowie accompanied by Annie Lennox in the role of Mercury.)
— With assistance by Isabelle LeeMore From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion: | 2022-08-02T06:03:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | It’s Far Too Risky to Assume That the Bottom Is In - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/its-far-too-riskyto-assume-that-the-bottom-is-in/2022/08/02/c98749c6-1220-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/its-far-too-riskyto-assume-that-the-bottom-is-in/2022/08/02/c98749c6-1220-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
Thatcher Wasn’t Always Anti-Union. Tories Shouldn’t Be Either
But if she wins the race to be prime minister, she’ll need more in her toolbox. She’ll need to find a way to deliver both better public services and real wage growth for those working in the public sector. That will take deep reforms to public services, something Johnson talked about (when Dominic Cummings was his advisor) but never managed. A change in how services are structured and managed will be more likely to succeed if it involves deep consultation with unions who will need to accept that trade-offs are necessary. | 2022-08-02T06:03:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Thatcher Wasn’t Always Anti-Union. Tories Shouldn’t Be Either - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/thatcher-wasnt-always-anti-union-tories-shouldnt-be-either/2022/08/02/ca181898-1220-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/thatcher-wasnt-always-anti-union-tories-shouldnt-be-either/2022/08/02/ca181898-1220-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
What Will Be Different About Italy’s Snap Elections
Analysis by Marco Bertacche | Bloomberg
The national flag of Italy, center left, flies alongside the European Union (EU) flag from the Palazzo Chigi, the headquarters of the Italian government, in Rome, Italy, on Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. Giuseppe Conte, 55, has been tasked by Italy’s president with forming a government supported by the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party, or PD, two long-time rivals who have little more in common than the desire to avoid snap elections. Photographer: Alessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)
Italy has become synonymous with political turbulence, with the collapse of Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s ruling alliance the latest example of how tenuous a hold its leaders have on power. Elections are scheduled for Sept. 25 -- the first to be held since constitutional changes were adopted that shrank the size of the two parliamentary chambers. A right-wing coalition appears on track for a landslide victory in the vote, which comes as the euro area’s third-largest economy -- and one of its most indebted -- is contending with the fallout of soaring energy prices, rising interest rates and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
1. Why has Italian politics been so unstable?
The country has been highly fragmented, with allegiances split between a multitude of parties -- more than 20 of which are represented in the outgoing legislature. Several have similar ideologies but have been at odds over who gets key leadership posts. Coalitions have often comprised three or more parties and are notoriously unstable. Party hopping is also commonplace, with more than 400 deputies and senators having switched allegiances since 2018. The Five Star movement, once the country’s largest single political force, has seen its number of deputies in the lower house more than halve since the previous vote.
2. What do the opinions polls show?
Early indications are that an alliance led by Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy could win close to two-thirds of the seats in both houses of parliament. The bloc includes Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, which brought down Draghi’s government. It agreed that the party with the most votes will pick the candidate for premier, boosting Meloni’s odds of becoming Italy’s first female prime minister. Her party looks set to win 23.3% support, while the League should win 13.5% and Forza Italia 9%, according to a poll published in July by Corriere della Sera. Other polls show a similar outcome. An alliance between the anti-establishment Five Star and the Democrats has unraveled and the center-left are still working on forming coalitions.
3. What’s different about this election?
Constitutional reforms approved in a 2020 referendum cut the number of senators to 200 from 315, and deputies to 400 from 630. As a result, constituencies have been remapped and enlarged. About 37% of seats will be allocated to party candidates that win the most support in constituencies, while the rest will be allocated in proportion to the number of votes they receive nationally. The system encourages parties to form coalitions because that increases their chances of winning the first-past-the-post seats. Parties need to reach 3% of the vote to qualify for proportional representation seats, and coalitions 10%. The campaign will coincide with the summer holiday season -- scheduling that’s been avoided for the past century, mainly due to the steps laid out in the Italian constitution to form a government and the need to have the annual budget passed by mid-fall. That could influence the turnout and final results.
4. What’s the difference between the lower house and the Senate?
Under the Italian constitution, the two chambers have equal powers and the appointment of the prime minister and all legislation has to be approved by both of them. Party leaders typically run for a seat in the Senate, whose speaker is the country’s second-highest ranking official. A recent constitutional change lowered the minimum age to vote for members of the Senate to 18 from 25, to bring it in line with the Lower House, adding about 4 million citizens to the roll. Candidates must be at least 40 years old to be elected as a senator and at least 25 to be chosen as a deputy.
5. How is the prime minister chosen?
The prime minister is appointed by the president following consultations with political parties. He or she then forms a government, which requires a vote of confidence from parliament within 10 days of its formation. The coalition that wins the election designates who should become premier. If there’s no outright winner, the president can give a conditional mandate to a premier-designate who can muster the most support to form a unity government or a broad coalition. Should no-one manage to cobble together a majority, the president can dissolve parliament and call fresh elections as a final option -- although that’s unprecedented. | 2022-08-02T06:03:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Will Be Different About Italy’s Snap Elections - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-will-be-different-about-italys-snap-elections/2022/08/02/8756dd2a-1223-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-will-be-different-about-italys-snap-elections/2022/08/02/8756dd2a-1223-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
Nancy Pelosi's impending visit to Taiwan has prompted dire warnings from Beijing of severe retaliation. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg)
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan’s military bolstered combat readiness Tuesday and braced for a show of force from China, as the island prepared to host House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for a visit that has triggered dire warnings from the Chinese leadership and sharply escalated tensions between Beijing and Washington.
Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reported that the island’s military forces had reinforced their preparations Tuesday morning and said they would remain at a “strengthened” state of readiness through midday Thursday.
Pelosi is expected to arrive in Taiwan on Tuesday night, local time, according to a person familiar with arrangements for the visit. Taiwanese media reported that Pelosi was expected to meet with President Tsai Ing-wen and lawmakers on Wednesday.
Pelosi’s impending visit has enraged China, which for years has sought to diplomatically isolate Taiwan and views such exchanges with high-level foreign dignitaries as support for the island’s formal independence. The ruling Communist Party claims Taiwan as its territory despite never having governed there. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pledged to “reunify” Taiwan with China by force if necessary.
On Tuesday, Chinese maritime authorities announced additional military exercises in South China Sea and live-fire drills in the Bohai Sea, near the Korean Peninsula, this week. Reuters reported, citing an unnamed source, that Chinese fighter jets Tuesday flew close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait, the unofficial military boundary. Chinese carrier Xiamen Airlines, meanwhile, announced disruptions to 30 flights on Tuesday as a result of air traffic controls in Fujian, the Chinese province directly across the strait from Taiwan.
Earlier, the White House warned that China may fire missiles into the Taiwan Strait or near Taiwan or send military jets across the median line.
The situation poses a test for Xi, who faces a balancing act in responding forcefully but in a way that does not trigger an all-out conflict as he prepares for a crucial leadership meeting in the fall.
“Xi must show resolve. He has to shore up Chinese red lines and prevent further drift toward an unacceptable outcome: U.S. support for Taiwan independence,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund.
Pelosi began her trip to Asia on Sunday and did not include Taiwan on her official itinerary. Beijing has repeatedly warned that it would retaliate against what it sees as interference in an internal matter.
“The Chinese side is fully prepared for any eventuality and the People’s Liberation Army of China will never sit idly by,” Zhao Lijian, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said Monday in a press briefing. “Those who play with fire will perish by it,” he said.
China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun, speaking at a news conference Monday, called the visit "dangerous and provocative.”
Joanne Ou, spokesperson for Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a briefing Tuesday that the ministry had no information about Pelosi’s visit but that the House Speaker would be welcome.
“Our government always welcomes the international friends to visit Taiwan, enhance their understanding of Taiwan, and demonstrate their support,” she said.
Regardless of the intensifying tensions over Pelosi’s expected visit, residents say that Taiwan has benefited from the attention.
“Taiwan will be the biggest winner. When did Taiwan become a major focus of U.S. politics and midterm elections?” said Fan Shih-ping, professor at the Graduate Institute of Political Science of National Taiwan Normal University. "The Taiwan issue has become completely internationalized, which is the last thing China and Xi Jinping want to see.”
Pelosi has been a longtime critic of China’s human rights record and has spoken out in support of demonstrators in Hong Kong protesting against Beijing’s crackdown on the city. Reuters reported that Pelosi would meet with a group of human rights activists in Taiwan.
“She knows what had happened in Hong Kong, and she knows that many Hong Kong protesters who are fleeing from the Communist Party will come to Taiwan,” said Lam Wing-kee, a former Hong Kong bookseller who was detained in China and is now living in Taipei.
Lam said he was invited to attend an event Wednesday with the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto U.S. embassy, but was not told if Pelosi would attend. "This would be a show of support to the resistance of the Hong Kong people,” he said of the speaker’s looming visit.
Vic Chiang and Pei-Lin Wu in Taipei contributed to this report. | 2022-08-02T06:33:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | With Pelosi set to visit, Taiwan braces for Chinese show of force - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/nancy-pelosi-visit-taiwan-china-military/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/nancy-pelosi-visit-taiwan-china-military/ |
RENTON, Wash. — Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll has tested positive for COVID-19.
ATLANTA — All-Star third baseman Austin Riley and the Atlanta Braves agreed to a $212 million, 10-year contract that starts in 2023, the most lucrative deal in team history and a surprise given he had three additional seasons under club control.
NEW YORK — Aaron Judge hit his major league-leading 43rd home run, Jose Trevino had his first multihomer game and the New York Yankees beat the Seattle Mariners 7-2 in a series opener between teams bulking up for the postseason.
NEW YORK — Tiger Woods turned down an offer that Greg Norman says was “somewhere in that neighborhood” of $700 million to $800 million to take part in the Saudi-funded LIV Golf series. | 2022-08-02T07:34:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Monday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mondays-sports-in-brief/2022/08/02/960ffce4-1231-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mondays-sports-in-brief/2022/08/02/960ffce4-1231-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
WNBA star Brittney Griner speaks to her lawyers in a courtroom cage late last month. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool/AP)
RIGA, Latvia — WNBA star Brittney Griner appeared in a Moscow court Tuesday for the first time since news broke of the Biden administration’s proposed prisoner exchange that would bring her and another American prisoner, former Marine Paul Whelan, home.
The court questioned an expert witness called by Griner’s legal team at Tuesday’s hearing.
The basketball player was escorted into a cramped court on the outskirts of Moscow by a team of masked SWAT police, underscoring how seriously Russian law enforcement views her case.
Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington had made a “substantial proposal” to Moscow for a prisoner exchange involving Griner and Whelan, who is serving a 16-year sentence after being convicted on spy charges. He says he was framed.
Russian officials said Thursday that no deal had been reached. The Foreign Ministry has accused the United States of trying to use public pressure to secure Griner’s release, warning that it will not help her cause. Russian officials have hinted there may be willingness to negotiate a prisoner exchange, but only after her trial is complete.
Griner earlier pleaded guilty to carrying two vape cartridges containing cannabis oil into the country in mid-February. She was arrested at a time when relations between Washington and Moscow were strained, with President Vladimir Putin preparing to invade Ukraine.
Her lawyers made their case for leniency last week, arguing that she did not intend to break Russian law. Griner testified that she had packed in a hurry and did not know how the vape cartridges ended up in her baggage. The basketball star said she used cannabis to relieve chronic pain from injuries. She said law enforcement officials did not read her legal rights to her before the arrest.
President Biden and Putin opened a channel for negotiations on prisoner exchanges after they met last year, according to Russia’s Foreign Ministry. Former Marine Trevor Reed, convicted of assaulting police, was exchanged in April for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was serving a 20-year sentence in the United States for drug smuggling.
U.S. and Russian officials have not confirmed media reports that Washington offered to exchange arms dealer Viktor Bout, 55, dubbed the “merchant of death,” for Griner and Whelan. Russia has sought Bout’s release for years, calling his imprisonment “unlawful.” He is serving a 25-year sentence in Illinois for conspiring to kill U.S. nationals and selling weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Another American, schoolteacher Marc Fogel, 61, who like Griner was arrested on drug charges after bringing cannabis into the country for treatment of chronic pain, is serving a 14-year sentence in a Russian high-security prison.
Fogel has not been classified by the U.S. State Department as wrongfully detained, meaning he is excluded from negotiations on any exchange. He brought 17 grams of cannabis into the country, while Griner pleaded guilty to importing 0.702 grams. Like Griner, he pleaded guilty, hoping for leniency.
Both were detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, and Fogel’s trial took place at the same Khimki court on the edge of Moscow, where Griner’s trial reconvened Tuesday.
Fogel’s wife, Jane Fogel, told The Washington Post last week that she hoped her husband could be included in any prisoner swap but worried he would be forgotten.
“There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that Marc will be left behind,” Jane Fogel said. One of his sisters, Anne Fogel, called the 14-year jail term an effective death sentence in comments to CNN.
The State Department has not commented on Fogel’s case or why he is not classified as wrongfully detained.
In 2019, Israeli American Naama Issachar was sentenced to seven years in prison after nearly 10 grams of cannabis was found in her backpack during a layover in Moscow as she flew from India to Israel. She was freed when she was Putin pardoned her, after he met her mother, Yaffa Issachar, during a January 2020 trip to Israel marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. | 2022-08-02T08:09:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brittney Griner hearing comes amid hope of Russia prisoner exchange - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/brittney-griner-whelan-russia-prisoner-exchange/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/brittney-griner-whelan-russia-prisoner-exchange/ |
Abortion rights supporters protest at the Kentucky Capitol in April. (Bruce Schreiner/AP)
A Kentucky judge reinstituted the state’s near-total abortion ban Monday, reversing a lower court’s order from less than two weeks ago that temporarily allowed the procedures to continue in the state.
The decision by Kentucky Court of Appeals Judge Larry E. Thompson means that abortions are again illegal in the state, unless the mother is at risk of death or serious permanent injury, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Health-care workers who provide abortion services can face up to five years in prison, though mothers are not subject to criminal liability.
The order came in response to a request by Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) that the appellate court overturn a July 22 decision by Jefferson Circuit Judge Mitch Perry, who had sided with abortion providers.
Last month, Perry had granted an injunction preventing Kentucky’s abortion ban from taking effect after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June. Perry sided with two abortion clinics that said the bans were unconstitutional because they went against the rights to privacy and self-determination enshrined in the state constitution.
In his ruling, Perry reasoned there was a “substantial likelihood” that the bans were unconstitutional in Kentucky and blocked the abortion restrictions from taking effect until a final decision on their constitutionality could be made by state courts.
But Thompson overruled Perry, on grounds that allowing abortions to proceed — even temporarily — is unfair because the procedures would be irreversible, should state courts later rule the abortion restrictions to be constitutional. “The Court emphasizes, however, that it expresses no opinion whatsoever as to the merits of the underlying dispute,” he added.
Ky. Republicans override veto, impose sweeping abortion restrictions
Cameron welcomed Thompson’s ruling. “I appreciate the court’s decision to allow Kentucky’s pro-life laws to take effect while we continue to vigorously defend the constitutionality of these important protections for women and unborn children,” Kentucky’s attorney general said.
Cameron is ultimately seeking the state Supreme Court’s permission to let the Human Life Protection Act — which bans abortions with almost no exceptions — and the Heartbeat Law — which bans abortions after about six weeks into pregnancy — be enforced as he litigates against abortion rights advocates who say the bans go against Kentucky’s constitution.
Cameron is running for governor and has been endorsed by former president Donald Trump.
Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky — one of the two reproductive health clinics that are petitioning courts to rescind Kentucky’s abortion bans — said it will help residents find abortion options outside the state.
Outside of Kentucky, court battles over abortion are proceeding in Michigan, Louisiana, North Dakota and Wyoming, among other states, according to The Washington Post’s tracker. | 2022-08-02T08:57:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kentucky court of appeals reinstates near-total abortion ban - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/02/kentucky-abortion-ban-cameron/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/02/kentucky-abortion-ban-cameron/ |
Union Bashing Won’t Win It for the Tories
But if she wins the race to be prime minister, she’ll need more in her toolbox. Her plan to pay civil servants differently depending on where they live (and extending that potentially to public sector pay more widely) has been mooted in the past. It’s a debate worth having, but it will put her on a collision course with unions. It also won’t deliver the scale of change she needs.
Ultimately, Truss will need to find a way to deliver both better public services and real wage growth for those working in the public sector. That will take deep reforms to public services, something Johnson talked about (when Dominic Cummings was his advisor) but never managed. A change in how services are structured and managed will be more likely to succeed if it involves deep consultation with unions who will need to accept that trade-offs are necessary.
(Updates 11th paragraph with details of Truss plan.) | 2022-08-02T09:05:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Union Bashing Won’t Win It for the Tories - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/union-bashing-wont-win-it-for-the-tories/2022/08/02/ca181898-1220-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/union-bashing-wont-win-it-for-the-tories/2022/08/02/ca181898-1220-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson was given a six-game suspension Monday. (Nick Cammett/AP)
Deshaun Watson’s inadequate six-game penalty for sexual misconduct is nevertheless the NFL’s cleanest judicial process yet under Roger Goodell — and that’s a terrible thing to say. You know you’re in a snarl-up when the NFL may decide to appeal to itself over the actions of the judge it helped appoint. The skeins of illogic in this matter will only create even greater knots in Goodell’s necktie. But maybe an injustice in this instance will help prevent future extreme swings of the NFL injustice pendulum.
Watson’s punishment, levied by former judge Sue L. Robinson, is shockingly light, but at least it was issued by a neutral and independent arbiter, and that made her ruling worthy of more respect than the previous commissariat proceedings conducted by the self-interested Goodell. It’s a terrible choice, isn’t it? What’s better: to let Goodell have full, heavy-handed dominion or to seek some restraint on his power and wind up with a semi-walkaway like Watson’s? It sticks in the throat to say it, but the latter version of imperfect justice is better.
The only reason Robinson was even in position to hand down a penalty to Watson was because NFL players had come to so distrust Goodell’s motives that they insisted on some form of independent adjudication in the 2020 collective bargaining agreement. The appointment of Robinson, formerly of the U.S. District Court, was mutually agreed on by the NFL and the NFLPA, and now the league can live with her. Or, if Goodell wants to exercise his lingering role as appellant overlord to unilaterally impose a stricter penalty, he can deal with the vehement legal response — and explain in open court the difference between his treatment of Watson and Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder for overseeing a franchise rife with serial sexual harassment.
Robinson’s reasoning in her 16-page decision is fascinating for the fact that she finds not one but two guilty parties: In the first half she finds Watson guilty of unwanted sexual contact, and in the second half she finds the league guilty of capricious standards. What is proportional punishment? That should not have been so difficult of a question in Watson’s case — except that it was because of the league’s history of handing out six-game love taps to even its most violent offenders against women.
As Robinson pointed out, in the NFL “by far the most commonly-imposed discipline for domestic or gendered violence and sexual acts is a 6-game suspension. Only two players have been suspended for 8 games, one for multiple incidents of domestic violence and the second for the assault of multiple victims.”
Let’s be clear: The NFL proved its case that Watson had imposed unwanted sexual contact on multiple massage therapists, and he has settled 23 civil complaints. But the judge could see no precedent — as a fundamental matter of legal fairness — by which she could give Watson the full year’s suspension that the league sought, thanks to the whole lousy walk-up to this case, dating from Goodell’s decision to give Ray Rice just two games for slugging his future wife in 2014. She found the NFL’s seeking of a year-long suspension against Watson was more a response to “public outcry” than in keeping with its policy.
“Here, the NFL is attempting to impose a more dramatic shift in its culture without the benefit of fair notice to — and consistency of consequence for — those in the NFL subject to the Policy,” Robinson wrote.
Why do precedent and proportionality matter? Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, answered the question better than anyone in his book “Doing Justice.”
“People will regard a result as just if they regard the process leading to it as fair and if they believe the people responsible for it are fair-minded,” he wrote. “It is often said that justice not only must be done but also must be seen to be done.”
Nothing in the NFL’s player penalties in recent years has seemed fair in process or fair-minded. Goodell’s imposition of “discipline” — an infantilizing word for adult workplace conduct — has veered between politically calculating and choleric. He either issues puffs of air or decisions with the nuance of a press gang. Mostly he seems to care about shifting public opinion.
The NFL is the victim of its own terrible mistakes in previous highly charged cases. It wound up with a judge who treated the question of Watson’s penalty as she would a case in court and refused to exercise too much latitude. That is to be expected when you hire a retired federal judge. Good judges try not to wilt or bend with popular outrage — that’s not a system, frankly, any of us would want to live in. As the NFL demonstrates, it’s one that swiftly devolves into incoherence, with penalties alternately cruel and toothless.
What you want in a judge, or an arbiter of anything, is someone evenhanded, with a decent sense of previous context. Whatever you may feel about the wisdom of Robinson’s decision, she was at least operating in a context. “I am bound by standards of fairness and consistency of treatment among players similarly situated,” she wrote.
No one can feel good about the lightness of the penalty. But you might feel a great deal worse if you had to work in a world without consistency-seeking judgments. | 2022-08-02T09:05:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Deshaun Watson's flawed punishment is a lesson for Roger Goodell's NFL - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/02/deshaun-watson-roger-goodell-sue-robinson/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/02/deshaun-watson-roger-goodell-sue-robinson/ |
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda and one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, has been killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul.
The 71-year-old was largely considered the brains behind the notorious terrorist group and its vision for attacking the West — including the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which catapulted al-Qaeda from relative obscurity to a household name in the United States.
President Biden said in an address to the nation Monday that Zawahiri’s death — after he evaded capture for decades — sent a clear message: “No matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”
The strike is the latest in a string of successful U.S. operations against al-Qaeda and Islamic State leaders. Biden said Zawahiri’s death should help ensure Afghanistan can no longer “become a terrorist safe haven” and a “launching pad” for attacks against the United States.
Security experts say the operation demonstrates that the United States is still able to carry out precision strikes in Afghanistan after last year’s withdrawal of troops on the ground. On the other hand, it also highlights the Taliban’s apparent willingness to accommodate al-Qaeda operatives in the region.
Here’s a look at what Zawahiri’s death means for al-Qaeda.
When was al-Qaeda founded?
Al-Qaeda grew out of battlefield bonds forged in the Afghan insurgency against the Soviet Union, which was redirected toward fighting the West.
The group, founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, attracted disaffected recruits who opposed American support for Israel and Middle Eastern dictatorships.
When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 1996, it gave al-Qaeda the sanctuary that enabled it to run training camps and plot attacks, including 9/11.
The world 9/11 created: A weakened, yet enduring, al-Qaeda menace
What was Ayman al-Zawahiri’s role in al-Qaeda?
Americans knew him as al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, the bespectacled, bushy-bearded deputy to bin Laden. In reality, longtime observers say, he provided the ideological direction, while bin Laden was the public face of the terrorist group.
Zawahiri merged his own Egyptian militant group with al-Qaeda in the 1990s. For decades, he served as “the mastermind behind attacks against Americans,” Biden said Monday — including the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 American sailors and wounded dozens more, and the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed hundreds and injured scores.
“To kill Americans and their allies — civilian and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in every country in which it is possible to do it,” Zawahiri wrote in a 1998 manifesto.
After the group’s forced retreat from its base in Afghanistan in early 2002, it was largely Zawahiri who led al-Qaeda’s resurgence in the lawless tribal region across the border in Pakistan, The Washington Post wrote in an obituary Monday.
What happened to al-Qaeda after bin Laden was killed?
When bin Laden was killed in 2011, his No. 2, Zawahiri, took over as leader.
Although he was the intellectual force behind the terrorist movement, some experts say Zawahiri lacked bin Laden’s charisma. He remained as a figurehead but failed to prevent the splintering of the Islamist movement in Syria and other conflict zones after 2011.
His grip over a sprawling network of affiliates across Africa, Asia and the Middle East was weakened. The Islamic State terrorist group, which grew out of al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate, sought to position itself as a more ruthless alternative.
In his later years, Zawahiri largely shied from public view, presiding over al-Qaeda at a time of decline, with most of the group’s founding figures dead or in hiding.
At the time of the U.S. withdrawal last August, analysts described al-Qaeda in Afghanistan as “a skeleton of its former self,” after two decades of conflict and counterterrorism operations. A United Nations report in July estimated there were up to 400 al-Qaeda fighters remaining in Afghanistan.
Some security experts feared an al-Qaeda reboot under the Taliban. At the time of his death, U.S. intelligence indicated that Zawahiri, rather than hiding, was living with his family in downtown Kabul in a high-security residential district where many senior Taliban figures reside.
What will happen to al-Qaeda now?
Analysts say that in the past, al-Qaeda has adjusted to the loss of leaders, with new figures emerging in their place. Today, though, the group is splintered, with branches and affiliates spanning the globe from West Africa to India. The question remains whether those groups will focus on local conflicts or coalesce for more global ambitions.
Charles Lister, a terrorism expert at the Middle East Institute, said al-Qaeda “now faces an acute succession crisis.” Senior leader Saif al-Adel is technically the next in line to take the helm, but he is based in Iran, which has caused affiliates to question his credibility in the past, he wrote Monday. His potential ascension could be the “death knell” for al-Qaeda’s aspirations as a global organization as affiliates deepen their independence from the group, Lister said.
Al-Qaeda hasn’t carried out any major terrorist attacks in the United States or Europe in recent years, following bombings that killed 52 people in London in 2005. Some attackers were inspired by al-Qaeda, such as a Saudi military trainee who killed three American sailors at a U.S. base in Florida in December 2019. A knife-wielding assailant who fatally stabbed a man and a woman in an attack near London Bridge that same year had previously been a member of an al-Qaeda-inspired cell.
Claire Parker and Joby Warrick contributed to this report. | 2022-08-02T09:06:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Ayman al-Zawahiri’s killing means for al-Qaeda terrorist group - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/zawahiri-al-qaeda-leader-killed/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/zawahiri-al-qaeda-leader-killed/ |
News that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, was killed in Kabul in a CIA drone operation over the weekend drew celebration from Democrats and Republicans in the United States as well as from foreign governments.
President Biden announced the death of one of the world’s most-wanted terrorists in a televised address Monday from a White House balcony, reminiscent of the speech given by President Barack Obama in 2011 when U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in a raid of the al-Qaeda founder’s compound in Pakistan.
The killing of Zawahiri in Afghanistan is widely seen as a political win for the Biden administration almost a year after a heavily criticized U.S. withdrawal from the country, which left it under Taliban control and sparked fears that al-Qaeda could reassert itself there.
Obama called the news “proof that it’s possible to root out terrorism without being at war in Afghanistan,” adding that he hoped Zawahiri’s death would provide “a small measure of peace to the 9/11 families and everyone else who has suffered at the hands of al-Qaeda.”
The Taliban government “strongly condemned the attack,” chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, calling the strike a violation of international norms and the agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, by the United States and the Taliban in 2020.
But a senior Biden administration official said that the terrorist leader’s presence in Kabul constitutes a violation of the Doha deal and that senior members of the Haqqani Taliban faction were aware that Zawahiri was living in the Afghan capital and took steps after the strike to conceal his presence.
Messages of support poured in from lawmakers shortly after Biden’s address. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the mission “a major accomplishment” for Biden that brought justice to one of the people “who helped orchestrate the cold-blooded murder of thousands of my fellow New Yorkers on 9/11.”
Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in a statement posted on Twitter on Monday evening, similarly credited Biden for approving the drone operation, saying “the world is a better, safer place” without Zawahiri. But McConnell urged the administration to come up with a comprehensive security plan in Afghanistan in light of the fact that Zawahiri appeared to have been living in central Kabul.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of first two Muslim women elected to Congress, wrote on social media that Zawahiri was “a monster responsible for the deaths of thousands around the world.” Two Senate Republicans — Joni Ernst (Iowa) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) — also issued statements late Monday, commending the U.S. military and intelligence community for taking down the terrorist leader.
Who was Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda leader and Osama bin Laden successor?
But Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has promoted conspiracy theories including one suggesting 9/11 was a hoax, slammed Biden for trying to “act tough on TV.” Greene tweeted that while Zawahiri plotted 9/11 and the bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole in 2000, “no one in America has been sweating an attack from Al Qaeda lately or even heard a thing about them.”
The group 9/11 Families United issued a statement expressing gratitude to U.S. intelligence agencies and the military for the “sacrifices that have been made in removing such evil from our lives.” But the news is also a reminder, said Chair Terry Strada, that for full accountability, “President Biden must also hold the Saudi paymasters accountable for killing our loved ones,” referring to allegations that agents of the Saudi Arabian government provided support for the 9/11 plot. Saudi authorities have repeatedly denied such a link. The 9/11 Commission noted in 2004 that it found no evidence that “the Saudi government as an institution or senior officials within the Saudi government funded al Qaeda.”
Following Biden’s address, Saudi Arabia swiftly released a statement welcoming the death of Zawahiri, who it said “led the planning and execution of heinous terrorist operations” that killed innocent people, including Saudi citizens.” The Persian Gulf kingdom became the target of al-Qaeda bombings after 9/11, most notably a 2003 attack in its capital, Riyadh, that killed 11 people and injured more than 120.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a close U.S. ally, later called Zawahiri’s death “a step toward a safer world.” | 2022-08-02T09:44:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri elicits global praise - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/ayman-al-zawahiri-death-global-reactions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/ayman-al-zawahiri-death-global-reactions/ |
Judge dismisses discrimination suit over Montgomery’s magnet schools
A federal lawsuit alleging discrimination against Asian American students in Montgomery County Schools magnet program admissions has been dismissed. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
A lawsuit alleging Maryland’s largest school district discriminated against its Asian American students after it changed its magnet program admissions process has been dismissed by a federal judge.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis concluded in the dismissal last week that the complaint failed to show that Montgomery County Public Schools’ revision to its admissions process at the start of the pandemic “disparately impacts Asian American students or had been implemented with discriminatory intent.”
Two years ago, the Association for Education Fairness, a parent group, filed complaints against the school system arguing that it unlawfully used race as a factor in admissions in its efforts to increase racial diversity in magnet programs with revisions made before the 2018 school year.
The school system revised its policies again during the pandemic, before the 2021-2022 school year, to shift to an admissions model that could be done virtually to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
The parent group updated its legal complaints against the system and argued the new model continued to disadvantage Asian American students. They pointed to data that showed 35 percent of Asian American students countywide achieved the “highest level” on the Maryland’s state assessment, yet only 24 percent of those students were placed in the magnet programs, according to the legal filings.
U.S. officials probe alleged discrimination against Asian American students in Md.
As part of the dismissal the judge noted that Asian American students maintained a “strong representation in the magnet programs relative to their composition in the applicant pool.” The judge also noted there was little evidence the latest admissions process was designed to favor one racial group over the other.
“We are disappointed in the outcome and we will be discussing next steps with our client in the coming days,” said Christopher Kieser, one of the attorneys for the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is representing the group of Asian American parents who filed complaints.
Montgomery County Public Schools spokesman Chris Cram said the school system was pleased with the federal district court’s decision to uphold the current admissions process and it “correctly found” the school system followed the law.
Hear from four TJ freshmen admitted under controversial circumstances
The school system changed its admissions process following a 2016 report that found stark disparities in enrollment and acceptance rates, with White and Asian students faring better than their Black and Hispanic classmates.
The school system stopped relying on parent-initiated applications for magnet schools and instead universally screened its fifth-graders. It reviewed each students’ report card grades and standardized test scores, and invited half of the students to take a cognitive abilities test — an in-person written assessment that measured students’ skills.
The revised process also took into consideration applicants’ peer groups at their home schools. The idea is that students who have a large number of other gifted classmates at their home schools could come together for advanced classes there, but gifted students without a large gifted peer group at their home school may need to be placed in a magnet program.
Parents who filed the legal complaints argued the home school peer group consideration disadvantaged Asian students from receiving magnet school seats since they were clustered in a “relatively small number” of Montgomery’s elementary schools.
At the time, the 2018 enrollment figures for Black and Hispanic/Latino students remained the same, according to the opinion. In the next year, schools were designated as “low-poverty, moderate-poverty, or high-poverty”; their scores were compared to other students that reflected the same socioeconomic status, a move that hurt Asian American students, parents alleged.
Asian American student enrollment did decline over those years, but the number of Asian American students participating in magnet programs “always outpaced the percentage representation of Asian Americans in MCPS countywide,” the judge wrote in last week’s ruling.
Supreme Court lets Thomas Jefferson High School admissions policy stand
After the pandemic began in 2020, the school system began using a lottery selection system instead because in-person testing was unable to be conducted. Any student who received an “A” in relevant courses, read above a fourth-grade level and received above a certain score on state reading and math assessments was placed in the lottery pool. Students are picked from the pool until the magnet class reaches its capacity.
Montgomery County Public Schools announced in 2021 that process would be used for the foreseeable future.
In the ruling dismissing the suit, Xinis wrote that the admissions plan rolled out after the pandemic began was a “facially neutral admissions process that MCPS has applied evenhandedly.”
The ruling follows another high-profile admissions case in the Washington area that reached the Supreme Court. In that case, Fairfax County Schools officials were sued after revising admissions policies for prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology that administrators said opened the magnet program to a wider socioeconomic range of students. Opponents claimed the new policy discriminated against Asian American applicants. In April, the Supreme Court ruled the admissions process could stay in place as a legal battle continues. | 2022-08-02T10:28:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lawsuit dismissed in Montgomery magnet school admissions discrimination case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/02/montgomery-county-magnet-school-admissions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/02/montgomery-county-magnet-school-admissions/ |
A nurse checks on a patient in the ICU Covid-19 ward at NEA Baptist Memorial Hospital in Jonesboro, Arkansas, U.S., on Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021. Mississippi and Arkansas face shortages of available intensive care beds as the delta variant sparks yet another surge in coronavirus cases around the country, reports NBC News. Photographer: Houston Cofield/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)
Most people who suffer from Covid-19 fully recover. Millions of others find complete healing to be frustratingly elusive, in what’s often referred to as long Covid. Symptoms range from pulmonary, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal or neurological problems to cognitive issues such as so-called brain fog. No single explanation, diagnosis or treatment can be applied to them. Colloquially known as long-haulers, these patients reflect the pandemic’s lasting burden on society and the economy.
There’s no universally accepted definition yet. According to the World Health Organization, people with what it calls “post Covid-19 condition” have symptoms usually three months after an initial bout of Covid that last for at least two months and can’t be explained by an alternative diagnosis. Symptoms may persist from the acute phase of the illness or appear after -- even in a person who displayed no symptoms initially. They may also fluctuate. Other groups have proposed alternative definitions. The UK’s National Health Service, for example, suggests referring to symptoms that last more than four weeks as “ongoing symptomatic Covid,” and “post-Covid syndrome” if they persist for longer than 12 weeks and can’t be otherwise explained. Another definition may be needed for children.
2. How often does it occur?
It’s too soon to say. The lack of a standard definition variables such as what group is being studied and when the data were collected can lead to widely different results. For example:
• A report in May from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found about 1 in 5 adults between 18 and 64 years old had a health problem that might be attributable to a previous Covid infection.
• A study in July that accounted for pre-infection symptoms in a nationally representative sample of Americans in the first year of the pandemic found that 23% experience at least one symptom that emerges around the time of infection and lasts for more than 12 weeks.
• Another large study published last year, using data from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, estimated that about 7% of people had at least one symptom of long Covid six months after their infection. The incidence beyond the first 12 weeks of illness was 4.1% among those never hospitalized for Covid, 16% among those who were hospitalized and 23% among patients who were admitted to intensive care. The study also found differences in symptoms by age, race, sex and baseline health status.
Other studies have found the likelihood of long Covid is greater among women, the middle-aged and the obese.
3. What are the post-Covid symptoms?
Tiredness and shortness of breath are commonly reported as well as brain fog — difficulty with concentration or memory. Other prolonged symptoms include fever, cough, palpitations or pain in the chest, joints, muscles or abdomen. Neurological symptoms include headaches, disturbed sleep, tingling or numbness, or dizziness. Digestive issues can cover nausea, diarrhea or reduced appetite. Some people report a diminution of the sense of taste or smell, tinnitus, earaches or a sore throat. Depression or anxiety also can occur.
4. Do variants carry different long Covid risks?
It appears so, though identifying them is complicated by other factors, such as prior Covid immunizations and infections. For example, the UK’s Office for National Statistics found in May that the odds of reporting fatigue, shortness of breath, difficulty concentrating and other persistent symptoms were 50% lower following infections likely caused by the omicron BA.1 variant than those likely caused by the delta strain. The difference was only found among adults who were double-vaccinated when infected. Among those who’d had three shots, the difference wasn’t statistically significant. Among triple-vaccinated adults, however, the odds of reporting long Covid were higher following infection with the omicron BA.2 variant than the BA.1 variant, the analysis found.
5. What causes it?
Some health problems are well understood, others aren’t. For instance, survivors can experience problems as a result of:
• the direct effect of the virus on organs and tissues
• the propensity of Covid to cause bleeding and clots that can restrict or block blood vessels including in the lung, which can cause a pulmonary embolism
• excessive inflammation by the immune system
• the body’s failure to properly repair injured lungs and other organs, leading to the formation of scar tissue
• a lack of oxygen in the blood that injures the brain, lungs and other organs
• an imbalance in the microorganisms inhabiting the gastrointestinal tract
• life-saving treatment, including the use of mechanical ventilation, corticosteroids, sedatives and painkillers administered in intensive care.
In a study published in January, scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington in Seattle found the risk of long Covid is increased by multiple early factors, including antibodies directed against their own tissues or organs known as autoantibodies, and a resurgence of the Epstein-Barr virus. Based on what’s been observed with other viral diseases and research so far, other scientists speculate that different biological and genetic factors may be driving symptoms, none of which are mutually exclusive. These may include:
• chronic, systemic inflammation
• immune dysregulation, such as when the body’s immune system overreacts or underreacts to a foreign invader
• interactions with the host microbiome, or microorganisms living in the body
• problems with the autonomic nervous system
• the persistence of viral particles or remnants in the body.
6. Is Covid-19 definitely to blame for these symptoms?
Not necessarily. Some symptoms might occur by chance or be triggered by stress or environmental factors such as allergens, while some pre-existing conditions, such as diabetes, might have gone undiagnosed until Covid prompted medical attention. Social restrictions, lockdowns, school and business closures, loss of livelihood, decreases in economic activity and shifting priorities of governments all have the potential to substantially affect mental health, according to a study that appeared Oct. 8 in the Lancet. It found the pandemic has resulted in an extra 53.2 million cases of major depressive disorder and an extra 76.2 million cases of anxiety disorders globally. Diagnostic uncertainties have sometimes led to what patients describe as “medical gaslighting” by health professionals who don’t take their complaints seriously, especially if the patient is a woman.
7. Do vaccines help prevent it?
In a way, in that vaccination is the most effective tool to reduce the risk of getting infected by SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid, in the first place and it mitigates the likelihood of becoming severely ill. A UK study found receiving a second dose of a coronavirus vaccine at least two weeks before an infection was associated with a 41% decrease in the odds of self-reported long Covid at least 12 weeks later. Data from Israel support the finding, though a larger study of some 13 million users of the US Veterans Health Administration system in May found vaccination is associated with only a 15.7% reduction in the risk of long Covid.
8. How serious is it?
Most long Covid symptoms don’t seem to be life-threatening, but things like shortness of breath or fatigue can be disabling. For some Covid survivors, the infection may damage vital organs and exacerbate other diseases, the effects of which may not become apparent for months, like a ticking time bomb. Some of the conditions that may manifest later include cardiac arrest, stroke, heart failure, pulmonary embolism, myocarditis and chronic kidney disease. Doctors have also noted an uptick in cases of diabetes linked to Covid. A study in February based on the veterans database in the US found the virus may significantly increase a person’s risk of heart disease for at least a year after recovery -- even if the person wasn’t hospitalized. Other studies from the US, UK and Germany showed that people who were hospitalized for Covid have an increased risk of being readmitted or dying 6 to 12 months later.
9. Do people recover from long Covid?
The health trajectories of Covid survivors vary widely -- from a complete resolution and a return to previous level of health in most people, to needing lung transplants in a small minority. A UK study of hospitalized patients published in January found that a year after discharge, fewer than 3 in 10 patients reported feeling fully recovered. It’s possible the use of treatments for Covid, including monoclonal antibody therapies and antiviral medications, reduces the likelihood of long Covid, though this hasn’t been demonstrated. There is emerging evidence that multidisciplinary rehabilitation services can improve a patient’s prospects of recovery.
10. What are the broader implications?
The disability attributable to long Covid could account for as much as 30% of the pandemic’s health burden, researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine estimated. An uptick in treatments for depression, anxiety and pain has stoked concern of a spike in suicides and opioid overdoses. Surveys of long Covid sufferers indicate the condition is leading to reduced work schedules and absenteeism, which has implications for labor productivity. With more than 560 million confirmed infections worldwide as of mid-2022, even a small share with long-term disability could have enormous social and economic consequences. The US Government Accountability Office said in a March 2 report that long Covid could affect the broader US economy through decreased labor participation and an increased need for use of Social Security disability insurance or other publicly subsidized insurance.
11. Do other pathogens cause prolonged illness?
Yes, scientists say it’s actually an expected phenomenon. For example, post-viral syndromes can occur after the common cold, influenza, HIV, infectious mononucleosis, measles, Ebola and hepatitis B. Diabetes and other long-term consequences were observed in survivors of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which is caused by a related coronavirus. A Canadian study identified 21 health-care workers from Toronto who had post-viral symptoms for as long as three years after catching SARS in 2003 and were unable to return to their usual work. Some people who were hospitalized with SARS in Hong Kong had impaired lung function two years later, a study of 55 patients published in 2010 found. Still, it’s not known yet whether the lessons of SARS are applicable to Covid-19. Long Covid shares characteristics with many other long-term health conditions, including chronic fatigue syndrome and a blood-circulation disorder known as POTS. Studies into the drivers of long Covid could improve understanding of the causes of these conditions also.
12. What is being done?
In the US, the National Institutes of Health was allocated $1.15 billion in funding to support research into the long-term effects of Covid. The studies hopes to get at issues such as the underlying biological causes and how they might be treated and prevented. Some researchers are pressing governments to focus attention on potential long-term organ damage. For example, researchers have shown the virus can infect insulin-producing pancreatic tissue, potentially triggering diabetes that in some cases persists beyond the acute infection. That’s prompted Australia’s Monash University and King’s College London to create a global registry for studying “new onset” diabetes. Some long haulers have reported feeling better after receiving a Covid vaccination, prompting researchers to examine the phenomenon and whether vaccines can offer clues to treatment. Avindra Nath, clinical director of the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said vaccines, including for flu, have been known to help patients with chronic fatigue, but relief has almost always been temporary. | 2022-08-02T10:37:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Experts Know About ‘Long Covid’ and Who Gets It - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-experts-know-about-long-covid-and-who-gets-it/2022/08/02/0c6009d8-124c-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-experts-know-about-long-covid-and-who-gets-it/2022/08/02/0c6009d8-124c-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
Black female firefighters sue D.C., alleging racial and gender bias
The lawsuit comes almost a year after a similar case was filed by current and former Black female police officers in the District
A D.C. fire house. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)
Four Black female firefighters in the District sued the city Monday, saying they have been “systematically and continuously discriminated against on the basis of their race and gender,” including being denied salary increases and overtime pay and being subjected to unfair disciplinary action.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, comes almost a year after a similar case was filed by 10 current and former Black female police officers in the District who complained of “repeated, coordinated and relentless retaliation” against Black women on the police force who complained about discrimination and other misconduct. That case is pending in U.S. district court.
The fire department case “is about systemic characteristics of [the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services] that turn it into a ‘boys club,’ in which Black women are tolerated, but not embraced or treated as equals, and in which Black women always have to beg, scrape and fight just to be treated fairly,” one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Pamela Keith, said in a statement.
The D.C. attorney general’s office, which represents the city in civil litigation, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jennifer Donelan, a spokeswoman for the fire department, said the department would not comment on a pending lawsuit. The police department also has declined to discuss the specific allegations in the lawsuit it faces.
Ten current, former Black female D.C. police officers sue the city, claiming discrimination
The plaintiffs in the fire department case are identified in the complaint as Jadonna Sanders, an arson investigator; Takeva Thomas and Bolatito Ajose, both fire inspectors; and Shalonda Smith, a technician inspector who works with health-care facilities.
The women, who are seeking $10 million in damages and an injunction barring future discrimination by the department, say they have been unfairly denied pay increases and opportunities to work overtime hours, based on race and sex, and have been subjected to “disparate and retaliatory disciplinary practices.” They also accuse the department of “ignoring and marginalizing” complaints from Black women.
The lawsuit says that while the department has written policies for how specific jobs should be performed, firefighters often “learn the methods of conduct in the field … from working with more senior and seasoned firefighters. These common norms become so widely practiced that they become the standard of operations.”
However, the women say, the department “occasionally chooses to hold some firefighters to the letter of the rule and to discipline them, while looking the other way with respect to all firefighters.” The lawsuit says Ajose, Smith and Thomas were forced to appear before disciplinary review boards “for actions that were either not violations or were technical violations” of job performance rules, while other firefighters were not held to the same standards.
The four plaintiffs work in the department’s fire prevention division, which handles fire inspections, fire investigations and fire-safety education programs for the public, according to the lawsuit. Although overtime opportunities are supposed to be offered to firefighters on an equitable basis, favoring those who have accumulated the fewest overtime hours, the women allege that a lieutenant in the division controlled and abused the process.
“While there were overtime assignment policies in place,” the complaint says, the lieutenant “had the authority and the discretion to override policies and hand out overtime opportunities to his preferred employees.” For several years, the lieutenant “manipulated the overtime assignment system to give himself excessive overtime hours, and consistently denied overtime opportunities to plaintiffs.” All of the “preferred employees” were men, the lawsuit says.
While vowing police reform, a majority-Black county has spent $17.6 million fighting officers who allege racism
Sanders and Ajose have been firefighters since 2001. Smith joined the department in 2006 and Thomas in 2012.
“Plaintiffs are all long-tenured firefighters … and have proven their worth to the organization,” the lawsuit says. “Despite that fact, when they raised concerns about the way they were paid, and despite [their labor union] assisting them in pursuing those claims, their complaints were ignored and marginalized.”
The women have “observed their non-Black colleagues raise concerns and be responded to with haste and alacrity, or at a minimum be responded to in a timely fashion,” the lawsuit says.
The department “holds African American women to harsher standards and forces them to endure years of investigation and disciplinary action for thing that not disciplined at all in other firefighters,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys said in a statement. | 2022-08-02T10:37:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Black female firefighters sue D.C., alleging racial and gender bias - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/02/black-women-dc-lawsuit-discrimination-fire-department/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/02/black-women-dc-lawsuit-discrimination-fire-department/ |
Among women who know they are pregnant, up to 25 percent of those pregnancies will end in a miscarriage, according to the National Library of Medicine.
That percentage is at the top of the institution’s estimated number of knowingly pregnant women who will have a miscarriage (10 to 25 percent), but health experts say the total number of miscarriages is probably much higher because many — perhaps most — miscarriages occur early in pregnancy, usually before a person knows they are pregnant.
Confusion post-Roe spurs delays, denials for some lifesaving pregnancy care
As many as 50 percent of all pregnancies may end in miscarriage, according to the March of Dimes, an Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit group focused on improving the health of mothers and babies. The term “miscarriage” refers to the unexpected loss of a fetus before the 20th week of pregnancy and is considered a naturally occurring event. From the 20th week on, loss of the baby is identified as a stillbirth. Most miscarriages occur because the fetus is not developing normally. This can be the result of the fetus having too many or too few chromosomes, which are the cell structures that hold genes, the National Institutes of Health says.
Chromosomal abnormality is usually a chance occurrence, happening as the embryo divides and grows, rather than something that is passed from parent to child through genetics. About 50 percent of miscarriages are linked to extra or missing chromosomes, according to the Mayo Clinic. | 2022-08-02T10:38:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Up to 1 in 4 known pregnancies may end in miscarriage - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/02/miscarriage-risk-pregnancy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/02/miscarriage-risk-pregnancy/ |
Biden’s big win came from embracing a long policymaking tradition
Incrementalism doesn’t excite activists — but it’s how health-care systems are built
Perspective by Guian McKee
Guian McKee is an associate professor of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. He is the author of “Hospital City, Health Care Nation: Race, Capital, and the Costs of American Health Care,” which will be published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in April 2023.
President Biden. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
President Joe Biden is finally on a winning streak.
He and his congressional allies have either passed or are on the verge of passing several major pieces of legislation. Along with an important domestic semiconductor production bill, Biden could soon secure a budget reconciliation bill that includes significant climate action, a three-year extension of expanded Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance premium subsidies and several provisions designed to lower prescription drug prices, all while reducing the deficit through a new corporate minimum tax, increased IRS enforcement and cost savings built into the health-care provisions.
The reconciliation bill is still a downsized remnant of Biden’s once ambitious “Build Back Better” proposal, leaving the question of whether this limited — but still real — achievement excites voters enough to improve Biden’s approval rating.
The health-care provisions are a case in point. The prescription drug measures and insurance subsidies will make a difference in the lives of many Americans, but they do not fundamentally change a health-care system that is inefficient, expensive and inequitable. They are also more limited than the proposals in the original Build Back Better bill, which included new Medicare benefits, increased Medicaid coverage for postpartum care and premium subsidies for those whose states did not expand Medicaid as allowed under the ACA. The bill also subjected a wider range of prescription drugs to price negotiations.
The history of health-care policy, however, suggests that this is how change usually happens in this area — not only in the United States but around the world.
Not that liberal leaders haven’t tried for sweeping reforms.
For decades, U.S. presidents have labored to transform the health-care system. Franklin D. Roosevelt did not include national health insurance in the 1935 Social Security Act because he feared that opposition from doctors might defeat the entire bill. But Harry S. Truman picked up the baton, twice proposing such legislation, only to see the leading physicians’ organization, the American Medical Association, mobilize in exactly the manner Roosevelt had feared.
And yet, despite Truman’s legislative defeats, Congress did pass the Hill-Burton Act, which funded hospital construction in underserved areas, and the National Heart Act, which expanded the National Institutes of Health (NIH) into multiple interrelated institutes focused on specific disease areas. While not the sweeping transformations that Truman and his allies had envisioned, this did increase health-care access across the country, and the expanded NIH provided the foundation for much of modern medical research.
Lyndon B. Johnson is often lauded as a president who got big things done — with nothing seemingly more emblematic of his legislative skill than passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. In fact, however, Medicare represented a strategic retreat after the defeat of Truman’s proposals by those who dreamed of national health insurance. Recognizing that the elderly were a sympathetic and vulnerable population whom private insurers had little interest in covering, they succeeded in achieving health-care coverage for seniors.
During the 1970s, presidents Richard M. Nixon and Jimmy Carter and Sen Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) all pursued various forms of national health insurance and, in Carter’s case, serious hospital cost control. None passed, and Kennedy later regretted not compromising on one of the universal coverage proposals. One limited measure that did become law was the Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO) Act of 1973, which required employers to offer HMOs as an insurance option, even while imposing restrictive regulations that effectively limited their early growth. For good and bad, this legislation was consequential: It laid the groundwork for the “managed care” revolution of the 1980s and 1990s, which transformed health care by requiring insurer preapproval of medical services to limit excessive spending.
Even during the 1980s — commonly thought of as an era of social policy retrenchment — congressional Democrats managed to expand eligibility for Medicaid and began the process of de-stigmatizing the program and making it a central pillar of American health care. These achievements didn’t generate widespread celebration — but they continued the pattern of slowly expanding affordable coverage.
Bill Clinton’s presidency epitomized more than a half-century of health-care policy struggles — in 1994, his signature universal coverage plan crashed and burned. Yet Clinton regrouped politically and worked with the bipartisan duo of Kennedy and Sen. Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kan.) to pass legislation that provided a basis for federal regulation of private insurance, allowed workers to keep employer coverage after leaving a job and increased patient privacy. During his second term, Clinton secured passage of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, a major expansion of state-federal health coverage for lower-income children.
None of these measures introduced a single payer health-care system, as activists might have wished. All of them, however, made limited improvements to the existing system, addressed problems and established a starting point for later rounds of legislation.
That set the stage for Barack Obama, who achieved the most comprehensive reimagining of our system yet accomplished. Yet the ACA relied almost entirely on the regulation, reorganization and subsidy of existing private insurance structures. Its use of individual and employer mandates reflected earlier Republican proposals going back to Nixon, suggesting that with greater readiness to cut a deal, Kennedy or Clinton might have accomplished something similar decades before. The ACA also vastly expanded Medicaid and completed a 30-year process of bringing what had once been a poorly-funded, stigmatized program of “welfare medicine” into the core of the U.S. system.
The ACA did, however, leave much undone. Perhaps its most notable gaps were the sudden drop-off of insurance subsidies at a level where many middle-income Americans still cannot afford private coverage, and not addressing the price of prescription drugs.
This set the stage for Biden’s presidency and hopes that Biden would usher in big legislation, like Roosevelt and Johnson before him. But the realities of a 50-50 Senate, a deeply divided party with unresolved ideological conflicts, and, of course, the unpredictability of national and global events (specifically, a stubborn pandemic, raging inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) have interfered.
Sweeping change won’t happen, once again. Yet Congress is on the verge of passing health-care legislation that fits into the now familiar pattern: It may not excite activists, but it will make crucial changes to the health-care system that will make many Americans’ medications cheaper and their insurance premiums more affordable.
The challenge for the Biden administration is ensuring that voters understand that this kind of incremental change, whether in health care or on climate and technology policy, is exactly the kind of technical, politically messy, but ultimately substantive and sustainable progress that Biden promised during the 2020 election.
This pattern also fits with the global history of health-care policy. In most other countries, the health-care system also developed incrementally over time. That includes the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, which evolved out of programs for workers’ insurance implemented in 1911 and expanded to include emergency medical care provisions during World War II. Likewise, the systems in Canada, France and Germany also developed gradually and built on preexisting structures and institutions.
Just like presidents and legislators before him, Biden is now teeing up the next set of changes that will make health care more achievable for more Americans.
The reconciliation bill, therefore, may not transform health care overnight, but it is still a huge win. | 2022-08-02T10:38:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden’s big win came from embracing a long policymaking tradition - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/02/bidens-big-win-came-embracing-long-policymaking-tradition/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/02/bidens-big-win-came-embracing-long-policymaking-tradition/ |
The Supreme Court wasn’t always the final arbiter of the Constitution
How liberals came to love the courts — and why they must get over it to achieve their goals
Perspective by Joseph Fishkin
William E. Forbath
Abortion rights activists carry cutouts of members of the Supreme Court while people gather outside the court in Washington as justices prepare to hear a case on Dec. 1, 2021. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
A right-wing political party, with the support of only a minority of Americans, controls the federal courts. Through the courts, it imposes its policy vision on the nation, usurping much of the power of the elected branches. The question is how a liberal majority will respond. It all sounds painfully familiar. But we are talking about 1935, not 2022.
There are differences, to be sure. The sheer audacity and sweep of the agenda of today’s radical Supreme Court is unique in U.S. history. Only the modern Supreme Court, built in the mid-20th century, has had the kind of power it now asserts across so many important areas of American life, including elections, abortion, LGBTQ rights and gun and climate change regulations. In the 1930s, though, the Supreme Court was just as radical and right-wing as today’s court when it came to the issues most salient in that era’s constitutional politics. That is why it’s so important to understand how and why President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his party pushed back successfully against it.
Roosevelt and the Democrats had several potential checks on the court’s power: constitutional amendments; removing the court’s jurisdiction from certain cases; or adding additional pro-New Deal justices to the court (“court-packing”). They chose court-packing. Faced with this threat, the court backed off. It stepped back from striking down New Deal social and economic reforms. It flipped and upheld central pillars of the New Deal including the National Labor Relations Act, the Social Security Act and the regulatory work of the new administrative agencies these New Deal statutes created.
In one way, liberals today face a harder road than Roosevelt’s party in fighting back against the court. Today’s liberals are in the thrall of a mid-20th century vision of judicial supremacy. They generally despise — and can pick apart the reasoning of — the rulings of the current crop of right-wing justices. But they view the court as the final, perhaps even the only, arbiter of what the Constitution means. This devotion makes today’s liberals uncertain, anxious and ambivalent about using the many available checks and balances against the judicial branch. The history of how liberals became so attached to the court’s authority is instructive for those who hope to constrain the power of right-wing justices today.
This all-powerful court is a glaring anomaly. For generations, reform-minded presidents and lawmakers of all parties — from Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson and their party to Abraham Lincoln and his, from Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressives to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Dealers — held that the final constitutional arbiter was not the court, but the people themselves. Constitutional arguments were part of politics. If the court struck down measures that were constitutionally essential, the political party that disagreed would fight back by electing leaders to enact new laws. From the campaign trails to the halls of Congress, politicians engaged in what scholars call “popular constitutionalism.”
For most of American history, all sides did this. Indeed, when the Supreme Court flipped and upheld New Deal legislation and the new agencies of the administrative state, conservatives began their own campaign of popular constitutionalism. They assailed these new laws as “despotic” and “lawless” violations of the old order of capitalist property rights and business free from regulation. The New Dealers responded by drawing on a rival tradition of constitutional argument as old as the Constitution itself: They argued that ensuring working people’s safety and economic security — and safeguarding their rights to organize and exercise collective economic and political clout — were constitutionally essential. They were necessary to prevent the republic from sliding into oligarchy. All sides made their constitutional arguments on the floor of Congress, in state legislatures, in election campaigns and sometimes also in court.
But in the mid-20th century, American constitutional politics changed. Americans in general — and liberals in particular — came to view constitutional arguments as almost exclusively the domain of the courts.
This shift began after World War II, when the court — now full of New Deal liberals appointed by Roosevelt — carved out a different role in American constitutional life. It began to stand up for civil liberties, and then civil rights. Under Chief Justice Earl Warren, the court began dismantling Jim Crow segregation in the South.
For once, the court was channeling liberal constitutional values. When the Warren court ordered the South to desegregate its public schools in Brown v. Board of Education, White Southern leaders launched a campaign of massive resistance. White Southern senators and congressmen signed the “Southern Manifesto,” which cast Brown as a decision “contrary to the Constitution” and “a clear abuse of judicial power.” Soon conservatives outside the South joined Southern calls to “impeach Earl Warren,” as the Supreme Court held that prayer in public schools violated the separation of church and state (a decision some called “communist”).
In response, liberals doubled-down on the view that the Supreme Court — rather than politicians — was in charge of how to interpret the Constitution. A prominent group of liberal lawyers and legal scholars declared, “[t]he Constitution is our supreme law” and “in cases of disagreement we have established the judiciary to interpret the Constitution for us.” Many of the same lawmakers who had, as young New Dealers in the 1930s, joined Roosevelt in lambasting the right-wing Supreme Court, now decided, in the 1950s and ’60s, that Roosevelt’s court-packing plan had been a dangerous overreach, contrary to the rule of law. For politicians to challenge the justices as Roosevelt had done now seemed to invite segregationist defiance and lawlessness.
Liberal reformers and their allies began to fight court-centered battles not only for racial justice, but also for women, consumers and the environment. In the process, they embraced a legalist outlook and tool-kit earlier generations had shunned that emphasized individual-rights claims, strong judicial oversight of public authorities and legalistic, procedural conceptions of fairness and equality. These liberal reformers won some great victories — not only Brown v. Board but Roe v. Wade and many others. And in the process, liberals learned to love the courts and to imagine that constitutional law was separate from politics — an outlook that would have flabbergasted Madison, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt.
Liberals drew the wrong lessons from the mid-20th century federal judiciary’s fleeting embrace of social reform, and forgot that over the long arc of U.S. history, the minority rights the court has most consistently safeguarded have been those of the wealthy and powerful, the corporate, landed and enslaver elites.
Decades have passed since the court was the friend of racial minorities and women’s rights; its substantive constitutional outlook has grown ever more reactionary over the past half-century. Despite this, liberals have clung to the historically peculiar notion that only the court has the authority to interpret the Constitution. Liberals managed to win a few high-profile victories, notably on LGBT rights. But beginning in the late 1970s, conservatives began to organize politically against Roe v. Wade. Liberals focused on defending it — in the judicial, not legislative, branch. This fueled a liberal emphasis on the importance of “stare decisis,” or leaving settled law in place. Liberals clung to stare decisis and judicial supremacy in the hope of protecting the court’s past decisions from the vicissitudes of today’s politics.
Conservatives, meanwhile, never fetishized judicial constitutional authority. They spent decades refining arguments in the political arena against the constitutional decisions of the Warren court. These arguments brought together a new electoral coalition — one organized around not only Southern White resistance to desegregation but also religious conservatism and opposition to the New Deal regulatory state. This coalition articulated its vision of the Constitution contrary to the Supreme Court’s; it passed laws in defiance of the court. And it focused heavily on the project of appointing like-minded judges, from state courts all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
This coalition has now installed a lopsided right-wing majority on the Supreme Court — a majority that consistently, across an enormous range of issues, finds ways to turn right-wing policy preferences into constitutional law.
If the broad American left can build a governing legislative majority, the question will be how much longer it takes them to recover the democratic spirit of popular constitutionalism and its legislative tool-kit. To unravel the right-wing court’s rulings, they need to enact laws to push back, rather than continuing to defer to the court, as their 20th-century liberal forebears did. But to do this, they need to recover the outlook that conservatives never abandoned: that the court is one actor in a larger legislative and constitutional drama, a powerful one, but far from the only branch with the authority to interpret the Constitution, a document that belongs to us all. | 2022-08-02T10:38:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Supreme Court wasn’t always the final arbiter of the Constitution - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/02/supreme-court-wasnt-always-final-arbiter-constitution/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/02/supreme-court-wasnt-always-final-arbiter-constitution/ |
Inside the personal and political life of Democratic strategist Lis Smith
In this Washington Post Live conversation from July 20, veteran Democratic political strategist Lis Smith discusses her new memoir, “Any Given Tuesday,” a behind-the-scenes look at the fine line between personal and professional life while working at the top of Democratic politics. | 2022-08-02T10:38:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Heather McGhee on how to move past racist ‘zero sum politics’ and prosper together - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/capehart/heather-mcghee-on-how-to-move-past-racist-zero-sum-politics-and-prosper-together/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/capehart/heather-mcghee-on-how-to-move-past-racist-zero-sum-politics-and-prosper-together/ |
The subpoena comes after Smith & Wesson did not provide documents and testimony to the House Oversight Committee
A Smith & Wesson semiautomatic firearm seen on-screen during a House Oversight Committee hearing examining the practices and profits of gun manufacturers on July 27. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)
The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed the firearms manufacturer Smith & Wesson for key documents related to the company’s sale and marketing of AR-15-style firearms after it failed to produce sufficient documents and information requested by the committee and the company’s CEO refused to appear before Congress last month.
The letter transmitting notice of the subpoena to Smith, and reviewed by The Washington Post, highlighted the incomplete figures provided to the Oversight Committee by Smith & Wesson so far — and key gaps in the company’s metrics.
“While your company refused to provide information specific to AR-15-style rifles, the limited information provided shows that your company brought in at least $125 million from AR-15 style rifles in 2021 alone,” the committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), writes about the need for a subpoena for the company that manufactured the assault rifle used by the gunman who opened fire on a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill., killing seven and injuring 46 people.
Overall, the committee found that the five leading gun manufacturers under investigation raked in over “$1 billion in revenue over the past decades” through sales of AR-15-style rifles, according to Maloney, and that Smith & Wesson reported a record $1.1 billion in overall sales in the company’s latest annual earnings report — the highest in its 170-year history.
Maloney writes that Smith & Wesson informed the committee that it “makes no effort to track or monitor injury, deaths, or crimes associated with AR-15-style rifles you manufacture, even though this data is included in a tracing process run by the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.”
[Gunmaker’s Super Bowl stunt sheds light on marketing of ‘America’s rifle’]
President and chief executive Mark P. Smith initially agreed to appear before the committee, according to Maloney, but reversed course over concerns that he would be “the only industry CEO to appear.” Despite assurances from his counsel that Smith would be “willing” to appear in a future hearing featuring representation from the industry, he ultimately declined to appear at the July 27 hearing where executives from Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Daniel Defense appeared.
“Your counsel stated for the first time that you would be ‘out of town’ and ‘unavailable to testify’ every day until Congress went out of session for the month-long district work period in August,” Maloney writes.
The committee, which launched its investigation in May, released a report ahead of the hearing that criticized the gun companies for the ways they promoted guns, including “marketing to children, preying on young men’s insecurities and even appealing to violent white supremacists,” Maloney said during the hearing. | 2022-08-02T10:38:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | House panel subpoenas gun manufacturer of weapon used in Highland Park - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/house-panel-subpoenas-gun-manufacturer-ar-15-style-weapon-used-highland-park/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/house-panel-subpoenas-gun-manufacturer-ar-15-style-weapon-used-highland-park/ |
Today's primaries are a test for progressives — and for Trump
Good morning, Early Birds. Choose your fighter. Tips? earlytips@washpost.com. Thanks for waking up with us.
In today’s edition … Abortion is on the ballot for the first time since Dobbs … U. S. kills al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in drone strike in Kabul … What we're watching: Any movement on the burn pits veterans bill … but first …
Voters will cast primary ballots in five states today — and in several of those races progressives are on defense.
Two progressive members of the “Squad” are facing challengers who lean toward the ideological center: Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) is facing off against a Democratic state senator who’s running to her right, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) is confronting a trio of primary challengers. And Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, could lose his seat to Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), who belongs to the more centrist New Democrat Coalition, in a suburban district reshaped by redistricting.
“You're seeing super PACs funded by billionaires going into war against young progressives, often women of color,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who flew to Michigan on Friday to hold a last-minute rally for Levin. “I think that's outrageous. I think it's counterproductive to long term interests of the Democratic Party.”
Sanders criticized the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which started a super PAC earlier this year that’s spent more than $4.2 million supporting Stevens and attacking Levin in the primary.
“What we're seeing is big money interest [sic] trying to delete progressive candidates,” he said.
A trying summer for progressives
Progressives have suffered several losses this summer already.
Rep. Marie Newman (D-Ill.) lost her primary in June to Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) in another member-on-member battle. Kina Collins, an activist who challenged Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) with the backing of Justice Democrats — the group that helped propel Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset primary win over a top House Democrat in New York in 2018 — came up short. And Jessica Cisneros, another Justice Democrats-endorsed candidate, lost a primary runoff against Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) — one of the most conservative House Democrats — by fewer than 300 votes.
Progressives have had victories, too. Two other candidates endorsed by Justice Democrats won the Democratic primaries for open House seats in Pennsylvania and Texas — both of them solidly Democratic.
“It has been a tough, uphill fight,” said Faiz Shakir, who managed Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, citing races in which progressives had been outspent. “But thankfully it hasn’t been a full-on massacre.”
Progressives are also excited about Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who won the Democratic nomination for an open Senate seat, and Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who’s on track to win the nomination to challenge Sen. Ron Johnson (R) after his two chief rivals dropped out last week. Fetterman backed Sanders’ presidential campaign in 2016.
“We’ve got some of the strongest contenders in general election Senate races that we’ve had in some time, and it’s because the progressive movement brought them to us,” Shakir said.
Senate Republicans know which Eric they're backing
Former president Donald Trump has endorsed 25 candidates in Tuesday’s primary. Or maybe 26, since he endorsed “ERIC” in the Missouri Senate race on Monday evening. Two competitive candidates are named Eric: Eric Greitens, the scandal-plagued former governor who is accused of assaulting his ex-wife, and Eric Schmitt, Missouri’s attorney general. Reps. Vicky Hartzler and Billy Long are also seeking the Republican nomination. But they are not named Eric.
Greitens and Schmitt both immediately claimed the endorsement.
But Senate Republicans are clear about which Eric they don’t want to win: Greitens.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said he’s “hopeful” Greitens will lose.
“I think if he were the nominee it would cost millions and millions and millions of dollars, because I think he's got a brand that's going to be very hard to defend in a general election,” Thune said.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) was even more blunt, saying it would be a “good thing” if he loses.
“Obviously he's a very damaged individual as a political figure, and him being a candidate for Senate would be a real problem,” Romney said.
Can Republicans who voted to impeach Trump hang on?
Three of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last year are facing primaries today — Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.), Dan Newhouse (Wash.) and Peter Meijer (Mich.) — have had to beat back Trump-endorsed candidates.
Trump has endorsed challengers to each of them, and Democrats have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars running ads supporting John Gibbs, Trump’s pick to oust Meijer, because they think he’ll be easier to defeat in the general election.
(BTW Sanders is not pleased with Democrats' strategy. “I think it speaks to the weakness of the Democratic Party,” he said. “The Democratic Party has to a large degree turned its back on working families, forfeiting them, giving them over to a right-wing Republican Party, which could care less about them, and therefore you're left with trying to decide who your opponents are going to be.”)
The only Republican who faced a Trump-endorsed challenger after voting to impeach Trump, Rep. Tom Rice (S.C.), lost in a blowout in June. But Washington state’s top-two primary system could help Newhouse and Herrera Beutler hang on, as our colleague Dave Weigel reported last month.
Rep. David G. Valadao (R-Calif.) is so far the only Republican who voted for impeachment who has managed to survive his primary, which was in June. But Valadao, who's close with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), was lucky: Trump never endorsed the Republican running against him.
Election deniers poised to win key election positions
Two Trump-endorsed candidates for secretary of state, running on the false claim that Trump won the 2020 election, are likely to advance to the general election, potentially putting them in a position of overseeing elections in two swing states.
In Michigan, Kristina Karamo, whose victory was sealed in a state Republican convention in April, is set to advance to the general election. And in Arizona, state Rep. Mark Finchem is the leading candidate for secretary of state.
“Finchem has sought to upend Arizona’s popular and well-established mail voting system and was photographed near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the building to disrupt certification of the 2020 election,” as our colleagues Hannah Knowles and Colby Itkowitz report. “He recently embraced the support of Andrew Torba, the founder of a far-right social media site, who has said non-Christians are not real conservatives.”
Trump and former vice president Mike Pence Arizona gubernatorial candidates are battling on Tuesday with Trump-backed election denier Kari Lake up against Pence-supported Karrin Taylor Robson.
Term-limited Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican who has been critical of Trump because of Jan. 6, said he is “thinking about” a run for the White House in 2024 but won't make a decision until after the midterm elections. “I think the test in 2024 (is) can a conservative that has a more optimistic view of America, that doesn't resort to personal grievances, can that person win? And that's what I want to be able to support in the fight for 2024,” Hutchinson told Leigh Ann in an interview on Washington Post Live.
Abortion is on the ballot for the first time since Dobbs
Voters in Kansas heading to the polls today will decide whether the state's constitutional protections for the a right to an abortion should be upheld. It's the first time voters will vote on an abortion related measure since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
The outcome will be the first indicator of where voters stand on the issue. Kansas is a conservative state that backed Trump by 15 points over Joe Biden. But the state has a Democratic governor, and one of its four congressional seats is represented by a Democrat.
“If the ballot measure passes, it would allow the Republican legislature to pass laws banning abortion. That’s a realistic outcome, given that Kansas Republicans have tried for years to do just that: They attempted to ban abortion in 2013, and in 2015 Kansas became the first state to ban a common procedure for second-trimester abortions. The state’s Supreme Court knocked that down, affirming Kansas’s constitutional right to an abortion in the process,” our colleague Amber Phillips writes in The Fix.
Bipartisan abortion access bill unlikely to pass the Senate
Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled compromise legislation to guarantee federal access to abortion, an effort to codify abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The legislation, co-authored by Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine (Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), ensures federal abortion rights up to viability, and allows post-viability abortion when the health of the mother is in jeopardy.
But it's highly unlikely to gain the support of the additional eight Republicans needed to break a filibuster, and it's unclear if it would even gain the support of all Democrats.
Kaine admitted that many Democrats prefer the Democratic version of the bill to codify Roe, the Women's Health Protection Act, which the Senate has already voted on twice this year. It failed both times.
Reproductive rights groups slammed the measure Monday night.
“Regrettably, the bill introduced [Monday] does not address the abortion access crisis," a coalition of abortion rights' groups, including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NARAL Pro-Choice America and the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. “This bill has been written for a world that does not exist and would provide little solace in the nightmare we are living.”
🚨: “The United States has killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda and one of the world’s most-wanted terrorists, who, alongside the group’s founder, Osama bin Laden, oversaw the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,” our colleagues Shane Harris, Dan Lamothe, Karen DeYoung, Souad Mekhennet and Pamela Constable report. Zawahiri, 71, “was killed in a CIA drone strike in Kabul over the weekend.”
In an address to the nation, Biden confirmed the death and called the attack a “precision strike” that did not cause civilian casualties. “Justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said.
The world’s most-wanted: “Americans knew him as al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, the bespectacled, bushy-bearded deputy to bin Laden,” our colleague Joby Warrick writes. “Though lacking bin Laden’s personal charisma, Zawahiri became the intellectual force behind many of al-Qaeda’s grandest ambitions, including its apparently unsuccessful efforts to acquire nuclear and biological weapons.”
More: Here are the al-Qaeda and ISIS leaders killed in U.S. strikes or raids. By The Post’s Claire Parker and Rachel Pannett.
Happening … today? “Several Taiwan media outlets reported late on Monday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will visit Taiwan on Tuesday and spend the night in Taipei,” per Reuters.
“The prospect of the third-most senior figure in U.S. government visiting the world’s only Chinese-speaking democracy has roiled Asia’s already choppy geopolitical waters,” our colleague Ishaan Tharoor writes.
Will the Senate work out an agreement to move forward with the PACT Act, the legislation that would provide additional benefits and care for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits?
Democrats want to vote again on the bill this week. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), co-author of the bill, told The Early Monday night that they offered Republicans a vote on an amendment by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) at a 60-vote threshold and they are waiting for Republicans to respond. Thune said Republicans want a 50-vote threshold for the amendment.
Democrats’s risky business, visualized: “There’s a growing reckoning in the Democratic Party over a strategy that isn’t entirely new but is rather risky and at least somewhat unseemly: spending money in Republican primaries to try to nominate more extreme — and potentially more beatable — candidates,” our colleagues Aadit Tambe and Aaron Blake report. “One objection is that, if the November midterm elections don’t go to plan, Democrats could unintentionally help put candidates like Doug Mastriano and John Gibbs in office … The other is that it’s just a bad look, period.”
Democrats race to ready Inflation Reduction Act for vote this week. By The Post’s Tony Romm.
House panel subpoenas gun manufacturer of AR-15-style weapon used in Highland Park. By The Post’s Jacqueline Alemany.
Memo shows Wis. GOP lawyer privately opposed decertifying Biden’s 2020 win. By The Post’s Patrick Marley.
GOP eyes 2024 payback for Manchin's Dems-only deal. By The Politico's Burgess Everett.
Top Democrats, alleging cover-up, seek testimony on Secret Service texts. By the New York Times’s Luke Broadwater.
U.S. agency warns of Afghan famine, more suppression of women’s rights. By The Post’s Pamela Constable.
White House to name FEMA’s Fenton as monkeypox coordinator. By The Post’s Dan Diamond.
Arizona attorney general: No evidence of widespread dead voters in 2020. By The Post’s Yvonne Wingett Sanchez.
Using race in college admissions protected by First Amendment, groups say. By The Post’s Nick Anderson.
*spider-man pointing meme*
#MOSen pic.twitter.com/W3jSmvANIp
— Eli Yokley (@eyokley) August 1, 2022 | 2022-08-02T10:38:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Today's primaries are a test for progressives — and for Trump - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/today-primaries-are-test-progressives-trump/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/today-primaries-are-test-progressives-trump/ |
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres speaks in New York on Aug. 1 at global meeting on nuclear weapons. (Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images)
The world is just “one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation."
That was the dire warning from U.N. Secretary General António Guterres at a global meeting Monday on nuclear weapons.
Officials underscored the geopolitical risks from Russia’s war in Ukraine and simmering tensions in Asia and the Middle East — as they review a 52-year-old landmark treaty that sought to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
“Crises with nuclear undertones are festering, from the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula. To the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and to many other factors around the world,” the U.N. chief told officials and diplomats at the General Assembly Hall in New York.
"Nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War” showed the need for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, he said.
Nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons are now held in arsenals worldwide, according to Guterres. He said states were “seeking false security in stockpiling and spending hundreds of billions of dollars on doomsday weapons that have no place on our planet,” he said.
Echoing his warnings, a Stockholm-based arms research group said in June that it saw a “very worrying trend” of all nuclear-armed states upgrading their stockpiles and that the post-Cold War era of declining nuclear arsenals may be ending.
Global nuclear arsenal expected to grow for first time since Cold War
Russia’s war in Ukraine is also laying bare the risks of waging combat in a battlefield scattered with nuclear sites.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Moscow of “reckless, dangerous nuclear saber rattling,” and referred to past comments from Russian President Vladimir Putin that countries interfering in Ukraine risked consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history."
In a more conciliatory message, Putin wrote to treaty members on Monday that “there can be no winners in a nuclear war, and it must never be fought.”
An extension last year on the New START nuclear arms accord until 2026 has prolonged limits on the arsenals of the United States and Russia. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said on Telegram that the world was “in a different place” after President Biden called Monday for talks on the deal.
At the U.N. meeting, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said the conflict in Ukraine was “so grave that the specter of a potential nuclear confrontation, or accident, has raised its terrifying head again.”
Rafael Grossi said safety was at risk at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine — Europe’s largest nuclear plant which is under Russian control — and urged support for his so far unsuccessful efforts to visit to the facility with a team from his U.N. watchdog.
What to know about Ukraine’s nuclear sites and the risks the Russian invasion could pose
Speakers from countries including Japan said the heightened nuclear rhetoric should not jeopardize the treaty’s mission.
The four-week conference to review its progress presents “an opportunity to hammer out the measures that will help avoid certain disaster,” Guterres said. He urged countries not to forget “the terrifying fires” of Hiroshima, when the United States dropped an atomic bomb in 1945 that obliterated much of the Japanese city, and in Nagasaki days later — the second and last time that bomb was used in war.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty, which went into force in 1970 and allows for nuclear energy for peaceful uses, has 191 members, more countries than any other arms control agreement.
Under its terms, the five nuclear powers — the United States, China, the Soviet Union, Britain and France — had agreed at the time to negotiate to eventually eliminate their arsenals, while countries without nuclear weapons pledged not to acquire them. | 2022-08-02T11:20:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Nuclear annihilation’ is one misstep away, U.N. chief Guterres says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/nuclear-annihilation-world-warning-united-nations/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/nuclear-annihilation-world-warning-united-nations/ |
A resident watches news about the expected visit of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in Taipei, Taiwan, Aug. 2, 2022. (Ritchie B Tongo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
TAIPEI, Taiwan — For Taiwan, a successful visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week is about more than avoiding an immediate crisis in the Taiwan Strait.
It is also an opportunity to signal to senior politicians around the world that they can show support for Taiwan’s democracy in person — despite vocal opposition from Beijing.
Taiwan’s military on Tuesday strengthened its state of readiness for expected saber rattling by China, which claims the self-governing island as its territory and threatens to take it by force if the government in Taipei ever declares formal independence. Pelosi (D-Calif.) is expected to land Tuesday night local time and meet with President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday.
Pelosi’s arrival fits within a broader trend of lawmakers from liberal democracies making more regular visits to Taiwan, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine. “It is highly symbolic, which is part of the reason China has responded so strongly,” said Fang-Yu Chen, a political scientist at Soochow University in Taiwan.
The trend, although years in the making, has accelerated rapidly in recent months as coronavirus travel restrictions have eased and high level delegations of former officials and lawmakers from the United States, Europe and other democracies have visited Taiwan.
These demonstrations of democratic solidarity were given greater urgency by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which raised fears, both among Taiwanese and internationally, of an eventual Chinese attack.
Chen added that Beijing’s promises of “forceful measures” in response to the visit could backfire and end up galvanizing international supporters of Taiwan. “China is not very smart because it is demonstrating that it is a threat to a democratic society,” he said.
The visit comes at a time when high-level delegations from the United States, European nations and other liberal democracies, as well as return visits from Taiwanese officials and politicians, are increasingly common, reflecting Tsai’s efforts to raise Taiwan’s international standing.
Within the last two weeks alone, foreign delegations to Taiwan have included the vice president of the European Parliament, Nicola Beer; two former Japanese defense ministers; two former Australian defense ministers; and former Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves. Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons are planning a trip to Taiwan later this year, the Guardian newspaper reported Monday.
Going the other way, You Si-kun, president of the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s equivalent of House speaker, has also made more trips to democratic counties, notably visiting the Czech Republic, France and the Baltic countries in July.
China objects to all visits to Taiwan by foreign politicians, but it is especially concerned about the rising frequency of U.S.-Taiwan diplomatic exchanges. Chinese scholars claim these represent a change in the United States’ one China policy, which neither challenges nor endorses Beijing’s sovereignty claims over Taiwan.
In an article published in May, Cao Qun, a scholar at the China Institute of International Studies, a think tank under the Chinese Foreign Ministry, argued that the United States in recent years has “hollowed out” its one China policy and promoted the idea that Taiwan’s status is inconclusive as part of what he called a policy of “using Taiwan to control China.”
“The United States may increase its efforts to publicize this ‘true meaning’ of its one China policy” and attract more members into a club of nations who say the status of Taiwan remains undecided, Cao wrote.
Taiwanese analysts expect that China will go beyond large-scale military drills and adopt various forms of economic coercion to punish Taiwan for the visit. On Tuesday, Taiwan’s Ministry of the Economy confirmed that Chinese customs has halted imports of thousands of Taiwanese goods, impacting about 65 percent of products sent to China.
Any response by China must consider the long-term interests of Beijing and avoid a “counterreaction” of worsening the situation by making visiting Taiwan a kind of “pilgrimage” for U.S. politicians, wrote Ren Yi, a Chinese political commentator.
Both the United States and China have concerns that the visit could set a precedent that is not in their interests, said Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist at Australia National University’s Taiwan Studies Program. For Beijing, the fear is that a visit by someone of Pelosi’s political prominence normalizes future visits, while Washington wants to avoid allowing China to effectively veto diplomatic exchanges by raising an outcry.
Chinese President Xi Jinping “faces a dilemma to optimize the robustness of China’s response to Pelosi’s visit,” Sung said. “If China doesn’t come up a strong response, then there is a risk that he will be seen as a weaker leader. At the same time, though, right now what he wants and needs is stability.”
As evidence of the supposed shift in the U.S. position, Chinese analysts point to factors such as the Taiwan Travel Act, confirmation of U.S. troops in Taiwan and President Biden’s vow that the United States will defend Taiwan from a Chinese military attack.
Last month during a visit to Taipei, former defense secretary Mark T. Esper said the United States should “move away” from a its long-standing position of “strategic ambiguity” that is intentionally vague about the circumstances under which the U.S. military would come to Taiwan’s aid during a Chinese attack.
The White House, however, maintains that the United States’ Taiwan policy has not changed.
For Tsai and many others within her Democratic Progressive Party, raising Taiwan’s international status is not, as Beijing charges, a change in the status quo. Rather, it is Taipei’s only viable response to a decades-long campaign by Beijing to isolate Taipei by poaching diplomatic partners and seeking to bar Tsai’s government from participation in multilateral forums and trade pacts.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also undermined beliefs that the United States would come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese attack. According to Taiwanese survey data, only 35 of those polled in March were confident that the United States would intervene, down from 65 percent in November.
Some in Taiwan, especially among the opposition of Nationalist Kuomintang politicians, have also accused Pelosi of not doing enough to make the visit substantive.
Yeh Yu-Lan, a Kuomintang legislator, wrote on Facebook on Monday that the trip would do little to advance bilateral trade talks, let alone the prospect of Taiwan joining regional agreements such as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
“But Pelosi isn’t to blame,” Yeh added. “The House speaker leading members of Congress to loudly support Taiwan doesn’t mean that executive branch officials will give Taiwan the assistance we need.” | 2022-08-02T11:20:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pelosi visit is a test for Taiwan’s global status under Chinese pressure - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/taiwan-china/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/taiwan-china/ |
What $50 billion in taxpayer aid for airlines did not fix
By Bill Saporito
A United Express flight departs next to a taxiing American Eagle jet at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington on Aug. 1. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Bill Saporito is an editor at large at Inc. magazine.
Prosperity is perplexing for the airline industry. And vexing for passengers. This summer, Americans have invaded airports like it was the evacuation of Saigon. Cancellations are getting an extra boost from climate change, and our frustrations are mounting.
You might think this misery is tied to the industry’s return to normal levels of indifferent service. But we aren’t sustaining pre-pandemic flight levels. Domestic airlines are on track to be 150 million “enplanements” behind 2019 this year, according to one estimate. That’s a lot of people going nowhere.
And yet we’re paying more to get there. Delta just said it expects revenue in its September 2022 quarter to top the same period in 2019 despite a reduction in capacity of 15 percent to 17 percent. Yields, which is the industry’s phrase for profit per seat mile, are rising. So are passenger complaints to the Federal Aviation Administration, which earlier this year were running 200 percent higher than pre-pandemic levels — overwhelming the agency’s ability to process them.
In the middle of this mess, low-cost carrier JetBlue is spending $3.8 billion to buy ultra-low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines. That’s money that won’t be invested in the product. These are two carriers that have demonstrated a lack of aptitude when it comes to maintaining a schedule. Putting two clown cars together simply makes the circus parade longer.
Airlines have issued their standard apologies for our summer of seething — but during the pandemic, the industry had the opportunity to restructure itself, using some of the $50 billion of taxpayer money that 10 airlines got from Uncle Sam. There were decisions to be made over the jets they fly, the places they fly to (or don’t), the employees they keep (or don’t) and the fees they charge. Rethinking this could have changed our experience for the better.
The Post's View: Air travel is in chaos — and there are no easy solutions
What the airlines chose to do instead has largely benefited the airlines. Those choices help explain why more than 2,800 flights were canceled over Memorial Day weekend. “The flying public is expecting a good level of service from an airline sector we all rallied to make sure was saved,” noted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Although Buttigieg has done some browbeating and minor rulemaking, he hasn’t made much of a dent in the dreadful service.
And things could get worse. A pilot shortage could further trim flight schedules, leaving even fewer options. North America is projected to be short over 12,000 pilots by the end of this year. This is not a surprise: The industry has known for nearly a decade, when 1,500 hours became the minimum federal requirement to sit in the pilot’s chair, that it needed to train more people to fly airplanes.
During the pandemic, workforces had been downsized drastically, largely through voluntary retirements. Nearly a fifth of Delta Air Lines’s workforce retired during the pandemic, and this year the company has been frantically hiring to restore service.
Even the improvements come with caveats. If you like new jets, this is your summer to fly. In 2019, the sky was a flying junkyard as carriers delayed scrapping their oldest, most inefficient jets because business was too good. The pandemic prompted a retirement rush, with hundreds of 25-to-30-year-old jets sent to the boneyard to be replaced by new models such as the Airbus A200 and the Boeing's 737 Max.
New and bigger jets don’t mean more room for us, though. Allegiant’s new 186-seat A320neo, for instance, replaces a 177-seat version. These new jets are more about making the economics more comfortable, not you. Conversely, many 50-seat commuter aircraft have been retired because they’re unprofitable or there’s no one to fly them. As a result, many smaller markets have lost air service.
In most consumer businesses, innovation normally improves the customers’ lives. In the airline business, innovation often means something else. A dozen years ago, carriers introduced “unbundling” — the fee-for-every-amenity concept that, in effect, reduces the basic seat price while generating offsetting revenue for window seats, leg room or bags. But unbundling has reached absurd levels, with so many options around security line and boarding order priorities, seat location and access to overhead bins that pricing has become a shell game, wrapped inside a puzzle, dressed up as farce.
The worst part about flying is what hasn’t changed: Your flight from New York City to Chicago is still scheduled at 2 hours and 45 minutes when the actual flight time is two hours because the industry still expects things to go wrong. And yet, because the carriers invest little on backup aircraft, the entire system can dissolve into cascading chaos with a single weather event.
Why do the airlines persist in running a business model designed to disappoint? Because they have little incentive to change. North American carriers should make a combined $8.8 billion in profit this year, according to the International Air Transport Association.
Taxpayers paid $50 billion during the pandemic to keep airlines afloat. We thought we were going to get an upgrade. Maybe we should ask for a refund. | 2022-08-02T11:25:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why the airlines industry is still broken - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/airlines-cancellations-delays-50-billion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/airlines-cancellations-delays-50-billion/ |
President Biden in Washington for an event conducted by NASA on July 11. (Bill Ingalls/NASA/AFP/Getty Images)
President Biden’s popularity tumbled a year ago, during the bungled pullout from Afghanistan and a resurgence of covid-19, and it has never recovered. His approval in Gallup polling stands at a rock-bottom 38 percent — lower even than Donald Trump at this stage of his failed presidency. A recent CNN poll found that 75 percent of Democrats would prefer a different standard-bearer in 2024.
Yet even as the perception has taken root that Biden is too old and too out of it, he has quietly been racking up an impressive list of legislative achievements. Biden might turn out to be a more formidable candidate in 2024, should he run again, than he looks to be right now.
Democrats, despite their razor-thin margin in the Senate, have managed to pass a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package, a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, a $280 billion bill to fund semiconductor production and scientific research, and the most significant (if still inadequate) gun legislation in three decades. Now, after an unexpected deal with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), they might be on the cusp of passing a $369 billion bill that would reduce the deficit, lower prescription drug prices, raise corporate taxes and roll back greenhouse gas emissions. Oh, and there is a good chance the Senate can pass bills protecting same-sex marriage and making it harder to overturn election results. Biden’s devotion to bipartisanship has been widely mocked, but it is being vindicated.
In foreign policy, Biden stumbled badly in Afghanistan, but he has been stalwart in mobilizing an international coalition to support Ukraine and sanction Russia. I wish he were sending more powerful weaponry to Ukraine, but his diplomatic achievements recall the skill with which President George H.W. Bush mobilized allies after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The death of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul is Biden’s latest national security achievement.
This is hardly the record of a senile septuagenarian. The major reason Biden is so unpopular is because inflation is at a 40-year high. In response, the Federal Reserve has been compelled to raise interest rates, leading the economy to the brink of a recession even though the unemployment rate remains just 3.6 percent.
But while Biden might have contributed to the inflationary spiral with an overly generous stimulus bill, he doesn’t deserve most of the blame for what is a global phenomenon. The inflation rate in the euro zone, at 8.9 percent, is nearly identical to the 9.1 percent rate in the United States. When inflation inevitably comes down, Biden should reap some political benefit.
Where Biden has really failed is not in policy but in communication. The problem is not that he is 79 years old. The problem is that he spent 36 of those years in the Senate. Longtime senators tend to be far better at dealing with fellow senators than they are at reaching out to average voters who don’t know or care what a reconciliation package is. Voters are barely aware of all the Democrats’ legislative achievements. Biden has made less effective use of the bully pulpit than any president since George H.W. Bush, another longtime Washington insider, and we know what happened to him in 1992.
Yet for all Biden’s manifest weaknesses — chief among them that he would be 82 years old at the start of a second term — it is far from clear that the Democrats have any better alternative. Biden won the nomination in 2020 not because he excited anyone but because he was seen as the least bad option. That might still be true.
If Biden doesn’t run, Vice President Harris would be the prohibitive favorite for the nomination. Yet she is every bit as unpopular as Biden, and, unlike him, does not have a wealth of experience to draw on. Moreover, she would be vulnerable to sexist, nativist and racist attacks from Republicans. It’s not right, and it’s not a reason for her not to run, but it is a sordid political reality that Democrats can’t ignore.
Many of Harris’s potential competitors — e.g., Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker — failed, like her, in winning over Democratic voters in 2020, and it’s not clear that they would do any better in 2024. The only one who has a different job is Buttigieg, and being transportation secretary is only a marginally more plausible path to the presidency than being mayor of South Bend, Ind.
There are some intriguing outsiders, such as Govs. Gavin Newsom of California and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who could be formidable competitors. But, having never before run national campaigns, they could easily fall flat with voters outside their home states, a la former Texas governor Rick Perry in 2016.
None of these potential candidates has indicated a desire to challenge Biden if he runs again, but if one of them does, that would be tantamount to handing the White House to an increasingly deranged Republican Party. Primary challenges to sitting presidents in 1968, 1976, 1980, and 1992 all led to their party’s defeat.
Of course, Democrats could try to persuade Biden not to seek reelection and make way for a new generation. But before party elders urge the elderly president to bow out, they should seriously ponder the possibility that he might be the very worst Democratic nominee except for every other. | 2022-08-02T11:25:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Biden may be the Democrats' least bad option in 2024 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/biden-2024-democrat-nominee/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/biden-2024-democrat-nominee/ |
Health-care workers with New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene help people register for the monkeypox vaccine at one of the city's vaccination sites on July 26 in New York. (Mary Altaffer/AP)
We have yet to put the coronavirus pandemic behind us, and already we are facing another public health crisis. New York has declared monkeypox a public health emergency as U.S. cases of the disease tick upward. Once again, the United States is unprepared to keep an emerging virus at bay — and just as unprepared to talk about it.
As we’ve learned that monkeypox disproportionately affects men who have sex with other men, we’ve seen homophobic conspiracy theories spread almost more quickly than the virus itself. Right-wing ideologues, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-Ga.), have falsely labeled monkeypox a sexually transmitted infection — even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that sex is just one way the virus spreads. Worse, presented with the fact that some young people have contracted the disease, conspiracists are spreading the heinous fiction that gay men are “grooming” children. Meanwhile, not nearly enough vaccines are being distributed, and CDC officials haven’t always clearly communicated who is most at risk and how they can be protected.
These intertwined failures of messaging and policy raise the question: Does the U.S. have epidemic amnesia? The monkeypox response is following an eerily familiar pattern: Viruses begin in a vulnerable population that people in power don’t feel is worthy of their attention and care. Infected people are stigmatized and their suffering is ignored, allowing the virus to spread. Then, only once it’s affecting broader populations — and thus impossible to contain — do those in power take action.
We can trace this shameful tradition back to the 19th century, when the U.S. failed to prepare for global outbreaks of cholera and smallpox due to a prevailing belief that these diseases affected only “immoral” nations. That sort of belief has allowed nativists throughout history to routinely stigmatize immigrant groups as carriers of disease. In the 1860s, they blamed the Irish for cholera. Later on, tuberculosis became “the Jewish disease.” By the early 1900s, racism allowed a Bubonic plague outbreak in San Francisco’s Chinatown to spiral out of control. And of course, we saw similar stigmatization in the disgraceful U.S. approach to HIV/AIDS — from President Ronald Reagan’s withholding payments to the World Health Organization, to the cold-hearted laughter in the White House Briefing Room in 1982 when a journalist asked about the government’s HIV/AIDS response.
Even covid-19 was exacerbated by racist scapegoating. First, the Trump administration ignored warnings about the virus for months. Then, after it had spread all over the world, the administration introduced travel restrictions and testing requirements focused exclusively on China. As hate crimes against Asian Americans spiked, President Donald Trump fueled the fire and diminished the crisis by repeatedly calling covid the “Chinese Virus.” By the time the U.S. declared a national emergency on March 13, 2020, thousands of Americans had already been infected, and the virus’s trajectory was out of control.
It’s a lesson we should have learned many times over by now: Any effective response to an epidemic has to begin with leaders stoking compassion and action, not fear or indifference.
Two and a half years into a pandemic, we know the basic steps needed to stop monkeypox’s spread: Make testing and vaccination easy, accessible and free. Allow those infected to properly isolate — monkeypox requires a full three weeks of isolation to prevent spread — by offering financial assistance to those forced to stay home. And, to ensure that at-risk people can take precautions and seek care, message with empathy, urgency and honesty.
We can find ways to be direct about the fact that particular communities are at disproportionate risk without stigmatizing them. When it comes to monkeypox messaging, LGBTQ health and advocacy groups are leading the way, with fact-based campaigns that focus on reaching gay and bisexual men without the alarmist, insensitive tone that so often defines messaging crafted without community input.
We’re already seeing how empathetic, intra-community messaging can lead to improved health outcomes. Jason Cianciotto, a vice president of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, finds hope in the fact that when thousands of vaccine appointments were made available in New York, they filled up in a matter of hours. “When you equip people with the information they need to make healthy choices for themselves and for their community, and when you help them approach those decisions with self-love and acceptance, it’s amazing what the community is able to achieve,” Cianciotto said in NPR’s Weekend Edition.
Still, as admirable as the efforts by activists and nonprofits have been, they shouldn’t be leading this fight alone. New York City Councilman Erik Bottcher, who represents some of the neighborhoods most affected by monkeypox, is seeing the consequences of the failed federal response firsthand. “We have been forced to do this for so long, we have been forced to fight for our own health care when we got let down by the government,” he said . “Shame on the government for letting us down again.”
The Biden administration’s monkeypox response has been a mess | 2022-08-02T11:25:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Monkeypox is the latest epidemic the U.S is handling badly. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/monkeypox-emergency-covid-messaging/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/monkeypox-emergency-covid-messaging/ |
Red America Should Love Green Energy Spending
Analysis by Liam Denning and Jeff Davies | Bloomberg
The standard political color code for renewable energy holds that green mixes with blue but clashes with red. A detailed look at local realities says otherwise.
Enersection, a new company based in Houston specializing in data-driven insights on the US energy system, has presented them in compelling charts and other graphics (you can access its site here). Bloomberg Opinion partnered with co-founder Jeff Davies to take a deep dive into the energy and emissions landscape at the congressional district level, using data from the Energy Information Administration’s monthly electricity report (EIA 860-M).
The picture that emerges will probably surprise you.
The House minority leader and likely Republican speaker-in-waiting, Kevin McCarthy, has complained that Democrats prefer to leave US oil and gas resources in the ground, even if it means begging for “batteries from China.”
Nothing particularly earth-shattering there. What’s interesting, though, is that a lot of those begged-for batteries look set to land in California’s 23rd Congressional District, represented by McCarthy. Indeed, geolocating the EIA data shows that his district ranks No. 1 in the nation for planned and operating grid-battery projects. McCarthy’s district also ranks first for planned and operating utility-scale solar capacity and second when you combine wind, solar and batteries. That is one green deep-red district.
McCarthy’s district captures a broad disconnect between facts on the ground and political identities when it comes to green energy.
Moving further to the right, there is Colorado’s 3rd District, represented by Lauren Boebert. In January 2021, she responded to the US re-entry into the Paris Agreement by tweeting that she works “for the people of Pueblo, not the people of Paris.” Ironic, really, since Pueblo, one of the biggest cities in her district, has a 100% renewable electricity target and is emerging as a regional clean energy hub. Overall, Boebert’s district ranks 16th of the 435 districts for planned renewable energy capacity.
Elsewhere in Congress and in Colorado is Diana DeGette, the Democratic representative of the state’s 1st District and chair of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigation. At just 23 megawatts, her district barely registers in terms of planned and operating solar, wind and battery capacity. Meanwhile, DeGette’s fellow Democrat Kathy Castor, who chairs the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, represents Florida’s solidly blue 14th District — which ranks 354th in the nation.
Enersection’s detailed district-level graphics are accessible here for desktop users. On just about any metric you care to look at, the green transition’s physical assets are more often found on red ground than on blue.
The most obvious reason for this is the ground itself.
Wind offers the best example. The best place to put up turbines is where there’s lots of open space and the wind blows really hard. Just 10 states roughly between the Mississippi River and the Rockies account for 80% of US onshore wind-power potential, and that region skews red: Seventy percent of the House districts in those states have Republican representatives.(1)
Rural and semirural districts offer more open, and cheaper, spaces to site electricity infrastructure than do the urban and suburban areas that tend to vote blue. Even within states that tilt blue, wind capacity tends to be built in districts with Republican representatives. Of the top 15 districts for existing and planned wind capacity in states won by Joe Biden in 2020, 13 are red.
Using the Bloomberg CityLab Congressional Density Index, Enersection mapped the location of green energy projects to House districts, segmented by type. Rural and rural-suburban areas dominate for solar and, especially, wind projects. Batteries, with greater variability in terms of scale and application, are more evenly distributed.
McCarthy’s district centers on Bakersfield, Kern County, California’s oil capital. To the east lies the Tehachapi area, cradle of the state’s wind-power industry, and the solar plants of the Mojave Desert. So the 23rd is simultaneously a hub for renewables and for fossil fuels. Indeed, in his first two congressional sessions, McCarthy sponsored bills to subsidize wind and solar power. In addition, because it hosts several large natural-gas-fired power plants and fuel-processing sites, the district ranks among the top 40 nationwide on greenhouse-gas emissions from industrial facilities.
Some tweet-defying complexity there, and this extends across the country. Whether it be planned solar, wind or battery capacity, 21, 21 and 15 of the top 25 congressional districts in the country, respectively, are Republican. At the same time, 20 of the 25 districts with the highest greenhouse-gas emissions from industrial sites — which collectively account for fully one-third of the national total — are also Republican. The vast majority of those relate to coal-fired power plants, usually found far from downtowns.
Perhaps US policymaking on green energy is not so much colorblind as willfully blind. “The rocks, the wind and the sun do not belong to political parties; the people who live there do,” says Kevin Book of ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based analysis firm.
As much as green energy and emissions now form a wedge issue between blue and red America, the data show a much more purple reality. For one thing, Democratic representatives pushing for green stimulus dollars are often implicitly directing them toward red districts, because that’s where a lot of stuff will actually be built. Republicans decrying renewables as unreliable are often rhetorically at odds with a growing business in their home locales.
All this takes on added importance in the wake of Biden’s suddenly revived clean-technology stimulus package via the proposed Inflation Reduction Act. While its passage would rely on a strictly blue budget reconciliation process, Republicans have at least one reason to (quietly) cheer it on: Much of the money would be spent in the areas they represent. Applying benchmark estimates of capital costs for wind, solar and battery projects from Bloomberg NEF and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to planned capacity implies a $107 billion investment opportunity — almost four-fifths of it in red districts.(2)
“The solar industry wants the same things the oil industry does,” says Book, pointing to such things as expedited permitting and lower taxes. With green energy sprouting readily in red soil and growing a new constituency, that alignment of interests should someday overtake the discord of ideology.
• The Surprising Places Where All-Electric Dominates: Justin Fox
• Rich-Poor Divide on Clean Power Is Getting Wider: David Fickling
• The GOP’s Climate Plan Forgets About the Climate: Liam Denning
(1) Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming.
(2) This assumes 18, 56 and 16 gigawatts of planned wind, solar and battery capacity at respective estimated capital costs of $1.58, $1.04 and $1.20 per watt. Solar and wind costs are for utility-scale tracking and onshore projects, respectively, as per Bloomberg NEF estimates for the first half of 2022. Battery costs are for a five-hour system, as per NREL’s “Storage Technology Modeling Input Data Report”.
Jeff Davies is co-founder of Enersection, a platform for data-driven visual energy insights. He formerly invested in the energy sector as a fund manager. | 2022-08-02T12:04:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Red America Should Love Green Energy Spending - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/red-america-should-love-green-energy-spending/2022/08/02/152c27b6-1253-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/red-america-should-love-green-energy-spending/2022/08/02/152c27b6-1253-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
Got a Labor Shortage? Make It Easier to Work
Analysis by Kathryn A. Edwards | Bloomberg
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell insists that the tight US labor market isn’t primarily to blame for today’s high inflation, pointing instead to other culprits such as commodity prices, supply chain problems and the war in Ukraine. Rather than a weakness, he argues, the demand for scarce workers is instead a sign that a recession is still not upon us. Right as he might be on both accounts, a persistent worker shortage could still be a very big problem in the longer run.
For a full two years before the pandemic hit, and for the past 11 months, job openings have exceeded the number of people looking for work – a phenomenon not seen in data going back to 2000. In the short term, this can be healthy, providing a rare and much-needed boost to wages and coaxing people such as the long-term unemployed back into the labor market. By reviving the supply of workers, the excess demand can ultimately satisfy itself.
This time around, however, the healthy scenario isn’t quite playing out. Wages are rising, but not enough people are rejoining the workforce. As of June, the adult labor force participation rate stood at about 62%, down from 67% in 2000 and equivalent to the level of the mid-1970s. This raises the question of whether the US faces a long-term dearth of workers, which if true could undermine the country’s productive potential.
The US prides itself on its work ethic, a cultural zeal reflected in social policies such as employment requirements for food stamps and tax bonuses for working single mothers. Last year, Congress ended the expanded child tax credit — which lifted an estimated 3.7 million children out of poverty — out of the concern that it might lead a small fraction of parents to work less. So why aren’t more people working?
A key headwind is demographics: Baby boomers are aging out of the workforce, and will keep doing so at least until the last of them turn 65 in 2029. A lopsided generational composition of the labor force is beyond policy influence; even if some boomers delay retirement, that won’t halt the overall slide.
But the labor force also struggles with self-inflicted structural weaknesses. Many people face barriers to employment that they can’t remove on their own.
Women, for example, could participate more if the US adopted policies — such as paid family leave, free child care and the right to work part-time — that most industrialized nations did a quarter century ago. Black men face well-documented obstacles, such as hiring discrimination, disproportionate disciplining in school and disproportionate incarceration. Disabled individuals often need employers to provide the reasonable accommodations that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires.
And let’s not forget immigrants. There are nearly 45 million in the US, comprising 17% of the labor force. Yet in the 36 years since Congress adopted the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, legislators have failed to address barriers faced by would-be immigrants who want to work, visa rules that limit current immigrants’ ability to work and the legal limbo of large groups such as those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
It’s easy to blame the pandemic for today’s worker shortage, but it can’t explain long-term participation issues. The headwinds of evolving demographics can explain it, but don’t offer a tenable solution.
If the US wants to avoid a long-term worker shortage, it should look to what policy can but has failed to fully address. We have a long history using carrots and sticks, but this is a problem we may not be able to cajole or punish our way out of. Finding workers can be as simple as giving more people a chance to work.
Labor Market Will Help, Not Hinder, Inflation Fight: Conor Sen
US Needs More Migrant Workers, Not More Kin: Allison Schrager
Kathryn Anne Edwards is an economist at the Rand Corp. and a professor at the Pardee Rand Graduate School. | 2022-08-02T12:05:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Got a Labor Shortage? Make It Easier to Work - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/got-a-labor-shortage-make-it-easier-to-work/2022/08/02/e15cdb32-124e-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/got-a-labor-shortage-make-it-easier-to-work/2022/08/02/e15cdb32-124e-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
Merck Has Good Reason to Buy a Cancer-Drug Biotech
Merck & Co. has said nothing publicly about rumors that it is in talks to buy Seagen, a biotech company working on cancer treatments, for about $40 billion.
But Seagen has laid out a strong case for the idea. The 25-year old biotech’s cancer-drug technology is finally coming to fruition.
Seagen is working at the center of a renaissance in so-called antibody-drug conjugates — a class of medicines created by tacking powerful chemotherapy agents onto antibodies that can carry them directly to tumor cells. The idea is that, by releasing the chemo precisely where it’s needed, the drugs might not cause nasty side effects, even if rather toxic chemo is used.
It’s a simple concept that has taken decades to perfect. Of the 12 antibody-drug conjugates to receive Food and Drug Administration approval by the end of 2021, nine have gotten the green light just since 2017.
Biotech companies have finally come to understand the formula for putting the complex molecules together, by choosing the ideal antibodies and chemo agents and figuring out the best ways to connect them.
The new drugs are clearly making a difference in treating cancer. At a recent oncology meeting, data from a clinical trial of an antibody-drug conjugate called Enhertu, developed by AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo, was deemed practice-changing for certain patients with metastatic breast cancer. These data reinforced a sense among oncologists that, for certain types of cancer, antibody-drug conjugates could start to replace conventional chemo.
The results also suggest that this class of drugs could be used much more broadly than thought — a notion that Seagen is exploring with its own portfolio of drugs. This was part of a strong case that company executives laid out in their second-quarter earnings call for expanding the use of Seagen’s four approved drugs. They also noted how these drugs complement Keytruda, Merck’s own immuno-oncology treatment.
Seagen last week showed that combining its drug Padcev with Keytruda shrank tumors in about 65% of people with a certain kind of bladder cancer. Such positive, if early, data is viewed as critical to sealing a deal between the companies.
There’s another reason that buying Seagen would be a smart move for Merck: Those better-built antibody-drug conjugates could be very hard to duplicate. Manufacturing such complex treatments is tricky, and that might stave off generic competition — an appealing proposition for any suitor looking for lasting revenue streams.
For Merck, the appeal could be especially great, because starting in 2028 the company could face competition from the first generic versions of Keytruda, a drug that has become increasingly critical to its financial fate. In the second quarter of 2022, it brought in $5.3 billion, or about 36% of the company’s total revenues of $14.5 billion for the period. Although Merck is developing a subcutaneous version of the currently intravenously administered drug, a delivery format the company believes will get patent protection, alternate revenue streams still will be essential to maintaining its business.
Merck is reportedly delaying its decision on buying Seagen until it learns the resolution of its patent litigation with Daiichi over a component of its antibody-drug conjugate technology. Money certainly hangs in the balance, but the long-term potential of Seagen’s portfolio makes this a deal worth getting done.
• Crispr for the Masses Gets a Bit Closer to Reality: Lisa Jarvis | 2022-08-02T12:05:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Merck Has Good Reason to Buy a Cancer-Drug Biotech - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/merck-has-good-reason-to-buya-cancer-drug-biotech/2022/08/02/4283191e-1257-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/merck-has-good-reason-to-buya-cancer-drug-biotech/2022/08/02/4283191e-1257-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
What to know about renting a truck for an in-town move
Perhaps you found the perfect antique dining table at an estate sale and need to get it home. Or maybe you want to take advantage of your city’s annual free mulch giveaway. The problem: Neither is going to fit in your car — or you don’t even own a car. The solution: Rent a truck or moving van for a few hours.
Whether you’re picking up a cool kayak or moving across town, renting a truck can be an efficient, budget-friendly option. And these days, just about anyone with a valid driver’s license can get access to options such as a flatbed pickup truck or a 26-foot box van that holds the contents of about a four-bedroom home. Here’s what you need to know.
There is more than one truck rental company. Although the ubiquitous U-Haul, with its 23,000-plus locations, has the most trucks, both Penske and Budget Truck Rental rent trucks and vans nationwide. You may also find rentals at home improvement stores or self-storage facilities. Fluid is new to the scene and offers a virtual, app-based truck-sharing platform. Think of it as ride sharing with you in the driver’s seat. “Knowing there are options allows you to shop for the best price and vehicle availability,” says Brandon Scivolette, owner of movinglabor.com, which helps find and book people to load and unload items.
Quality varies. Rental trucks and vans often come with the basics: power steering, air conditioning, AM/FM radio, etc. Some newer Penske panel vans and box trucks may have backup cameras. Depending on the age and mileage of a rental company’s fleet, you could end up with a noisy vehicle that may be less shock-absorbent than what you are accustomed to. If you plan to spend a lot of time in the driver’s seat, ask for a newer truck.
9 questions to ask when hiring a moving company
They’re fairly easy to drive. Rental trucks are much easier to drive than you may think, and no special license is required. “Getting behind the wheel of a smaller box truck will feel a lot like driving a pickup truck,” says Jeff Lockridge, a spokesperson for U-Haul International. It just takes a bit of time to get used to the vehicle. For most drivers, the biggest adjustment is the lack of a rearview mirror and the need to rely on side views instead. “If you are concerned about your capabilities, go to the rental location, where you can check out the various models and even drive one around the yard to see if you are comfortable,” says Carm DeMaio, national consumer field rental director for Penske Truck Leasing.
There is no standard rate. Day rates fluctuate through the year based on truck size and demand, but typically start at $19.99. “You’ll also pay a per-mile rate.” Scivolette says. “It could be as low as 49 cents per mile, or in July, as high as $1.99 per mile.” Pickup trucks and cargo van rentals are a bit more straightforward. You rent by the hour — typically $20 for 75 minutes — and only need to show your driver’s license and proof of insurance.
Don’t forget about fuel. You must replace any gasoline you use. At best, a box truck gets about 10 to 12 miles per gallon. Cargo vans average about 12 to 18 miles per gallon, and most of the bigger trucks take diesel fuel.
You probably need extra insurance. Neither your personal automobile insurance nor your credit card typically will cover a box truck rental. A few may cover a cargo van or small pickup truck. Contact your insurance provider to confirm your policy’s coverage. Although you aren’t required to purchase rental insurance, it’s strongly recommended. “Fortunately, damage protection is very inexpensive. It’s literally just a few dollars more,” Lockridge says.
When in doubt, upsize. The biggest mistake most renters make is underestimating the truck size they need. There are plenty of online tools, such as Penske’s Truck Wizard, that you can use to estimate what type of truck you should rent. “If there’s even a shred of doubt, always go bigger,” Scivolette says. Also, if you have heavy items, you may want a larger vehicle to make loading and unloading easier. Longer trucks (the specifics vary by company) should come with a walk-up loading ramp, but a cargo van or pickup truck won’t. That means you must lift your items to the tailgate.
Allow extra time. “However long you anticipate the process of renting a truck, double or triple it,” Scivolette says. Depending on when and where you rent, you will probably have to stand in line to get your vehicle. And expect to spend time walking around the vehicle with the representative to note any dings or scratches.
Don’t assume you can fit everywhere. Even once you adjust to driving the vehicle, don’t get too comfortable. Scivolette says the No. 1 mistake renters make is forgetting the height of their truck, misjudging a specific clearance height (at a gas station, parking garage or drive-through, for example) and smacking into it. According to DeMaio, the truck’s height should be posted either on the dashboard or in a visible spot in the side-view mirror.
Remember the accessories. Depending on what you are hauling, you may need tie-downs, furniture blankets or a dolly. Tie-downs can include simple ropes or ratchet straps, and they can hold items in place, so they don’t shift or tip over during the drive. There are different types of dollies, including one designed for moving appliances; a hand truck made for moving boxes; and a flat floor dolly made for moving furniture. Furniture pads help prevent items from getting scratched. (They typically come 12 to a package.) Scivolette says that, for moves involving mostly furniture instead of boxes, calculate about one dozen blankets per five feet of space.
Save money by timing your rental. May to September is peak moving season. Weekends are busier than midweek, and the beginning or end of the month is usually busiest, because that’s when leases end or start. “If you can rent on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, rates are likely to be less expensive, and there’s more availability,” DeMaio says.
Plan for the unexpected. Even the most meticulous plan can go sideways. When Lizzie Nealon moved into her Georgetown townhouse in April, relatives across Northern Virginia offered her a houseful of furnishings, as long as she could pick them up. Nealon, who doesn’t have a car, rented a van for eight hours. “I thought I planned the trip perfectly. I mapped out our route, had my relatives measure the items to ensure they’d fit, and estimated the total time of the trip,” she says. “Nothing went according to plan. We underestimated the space we needed. We stressed to find a gas station within a few miles of the rental location, and when we went to return the vehicle, the streets around the location were blocked off by police for some sort of event. We had to rush to make our deadline.” | 2022-08-02T12:05:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What to know about renting a truck for an in-town move - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/08/02/advice-renting-truck-moving/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/08/02/advice-renting-truck-moving/ |
In a changed world, gay men still feel the anxiety (and lessons) of the darker days of HIV/AIDS
Husbands Nicholas Diamond, 29, and Keletso Makofane, 35, are collaborating with fellow public health experts on a rapid epidemiological study of monkeypox in New York. ( Jackie Molloy for The Washington Post)
There is something spooky about sitting in a folding chair in 2022, surrounded by other gay men in folding chairs, waiting to be vaccinated by health-care workers who wear personal protective equipment and immediately wipe down each vacated chair with disinfectant. “Throwback moments,” is how Amanda Cary, manager for the gay men’s sexual health clinic at Whitman-Walker in D.C., describes it — even though, at age 38, she didn’t personally experience the original moments.
“The patient was like, ‘Wow, it’s just like the ’80s,’ ” says Cary, noting that the patient was also too young to have experienced the height of the crisis. “It’s stigmatizing. And also it’s kind of scary, especially in the beginning. With the first couple patients, I expressed a lot of reassurance: ‘I’m wearing a crazy outfit, but this is not going to kill you. You’re going to get over this. It’s going to go away on its own. We have the treatment available.’ ”
“And there’s that trigger of the stigma and shame,” says the epidemiologist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concern about that stigma. “‘Oh, if you got HIV, you did it in a very slutty way,’ or, ‘If you got monkeypox, you got it in a very slutty way.’ The mental health, disclosure and stigma aspects are all tied together. How do we move past that?”
The community is sharing knowledge, pushing for government action and promoting harm reduction. A queer kink event Friday in San Francisco advertised temperature checks, 60 percent capacity, and a “consent and wellness check-in” at the door, where colored-coded wristbands were distributed based on an attendee’s personal space preferences. On July 25, the Washington Blade hosted a monkeypox town hall in person at the Eaton, on K Street NW, where about 50 LGBTQ citizens and public health experts exchanged advice, observations and concerns. The Blade’s counterpart in Los Angeles followed July 27 with its own town hall, which featured a resident named Matt Ford, who was one of the first American men to detail, on social media, his experience with this outbreak. | 2022-08-02T12:05:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Monkeypox is reminding gay men of the early HIV/AIDS days, even if they weren't there - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/02/monkeypox-gay-men/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/02/monkeypox-gay-men/ |
Cyber ambassador could soon take on a world of challenges
Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202. We’re mourning two civil rights pioneers, one a titan of science fiction (Nichelle Nichols) and one a giant on the basketball court (Bill Russell).
Below: 2020 election deniers abound on the ballot in Arizona today, and an organ transplant system has security issues.
A Senate panel is about to kick the tires on Biden’s pick for top cyber diplomat
The first nominee for cyber ambassador at large is set to take center stage in the Senate this week.
If confirmed, Nathaniel Fick would have to juggle an incredibly complex international picture of cyberthreats, diplomatic agreements and conflicts. He would have to do it all while trying to establish a new office to replace a series of cyber organizations at the State Department and that must fit in with other federal agencies that harbor global ambitions.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has scheduled a hearing on his nomination for Wednesday.
“Given the urgency of the threats we face … we need someone there, both for dealing with and working with our friends to build collective action against threats, but also to stand up to our adversaries,” Chris Painter, the Obama administration’s top U.S. cyber diplomat who is now president of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise Foundation, told me.
Fick is a cybersecurity executive, former Marine and best-selling author whose platoon served as the subject of the Iraq War book “Generation Kill” and HBO series of the same name. Just last month, the Council on Foreign Relations published a report he co-chaired, “Confronting Reality in Cyberspace: Foreign Policy for a Fragmented Internet.”
His background for the post has drawn plenty of raves. “He brought a sensitivity both from the U.S. offensive side and issues from the private sector,” Adam Segal, a cybersecurity expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me about Fick’s work on the report.
But Fick would inherit a difficult set of circumstances. The cyber role at State has had several incarnations.
Most recently, the Trump administration restructured the Obama administration’s cyber coordinator office, then proposed another office in its waning days.
The Biden administration followed with a revised Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy. Fick would lead that office, which as of April had more than 60 employees, with 30 more slated this year.
And the range of international cyberthreats is multifaceted, said Rob Strayer, who left the top State cyber role almost exactly two years ago.
“We’re seeing nation-states as well as bad actors that are either working for nation-states or working on their own to get access to increasingly dangerous cyber tools that put at risk a larger and larger amount of our information technology infrastructure,” Strayer, now executive vice president of policy at the Information Technology Industry Council, told me. “And so how do you get governments to focus more sharply on addressing those bad actors that they might have?”
Fick also would oversee three separate international policy units focused on cyberspace security, communications, and information and digital freedom. “The key piece for this role will be casting them in a cohesive, coordinated light, such that they're swimming in the same direction, as opposed to having potentially conflicting priorities,” Lindsay Gorman, the emerging technologies fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy, told me. While Fick has leadership credentials, he’s also an outsider joining an entrenched State Department bureaucracy, she said.
If confirmed, Fick will have to find his way amid the larger federal bureaucracy as well. Deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger and National Cyber Director Chris Inglis have traveled internationally, while the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has opened a London office. And U.S. Cyber Command conducts sensitive overseas military cyber operations.
Questions on the Hill
Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations cyber subcommittee, wants to hear Fick’s views on how he’ll prioritize cyber challenges and how he’ll coordinate with other cyber agencies and offices, according to Markey’s communications director Rosemary Boeglin.
Another potential area of questioning Wednesday is what Fick thinks the United States should do to deter cyberattacks by hostile foreign nations, said a congressional aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record. “Whether we’re talking to Russia or China, we need to be making it clear to them that their current behavior is unacceptable,” the aide said.
Key lawmakers still want to pass a bill to write Fick’s office into law, too. “Even with creating a bureau, which is more permanent, a new secretary could come in and do a lot of stuff, and that's harder to do with legislation,” Painter said.
Fick also has close ties to Democrats. He spoke at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in favor of the Obama-Biden ticket. Those ties could give some Republicans heartburn, Painter said. And even if Fick thrives at Wednesday’s hearing, his nomination could run into other hurdles, like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) slowing down some State and Defense nominees since last fall over the Biden administration’s approach to Afghanistan.
But it’s too important of a position to stall, Painter said.
Cyber is “not just the technical issues. It's not just the military issues,” he said. “The foreign policy issues are incredibly important as we're building the space to try to make it safer to promulgate norms, to promulgate accountability and to make sure that we're looking at this as a key national security and economic security and human rights policy.”
Election deniers vie for GOP nomination to run Arizona elections
Today’s Republican primary for Arizona secretary of state features state Rep. Mark Finchem, who sought to decertify the 2020 election, and state Rep. Shawnna Bolick, who proposed a bill that would let Arizona’s legislature override state voters’ picks for presidential electors, NPR’s Miles Parks writes. The state could become the sixth where a 2020 election denier has advanced to the general election for secretary of state, after Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), who has pushed back on fraud claims and a partisan review of 2020 election results, is running to be governor of the state, which President Biden narrowly won in 2020. Former local television anchor Kari Lake wants to be the Republican nominee for the post, and she has already told her supporters to not trust the results of today’s election — unless she wins, my colleague Yvonne Wingett Sanchez reports. Lake has said she would replace electronic vote tabulators with people to hand count millions of ballots, and she also says she doesn’t recognize President Biden as the legitimate president. Gov. Doug Ducey (R) has endorsed Lake’s rival, Karrin Taylor Robson. Former vice president Mike Pence has also campaigned for Taylor Robson.
Organ transplant system faces security concerns
The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) relies on outdated technology that has had hours-long crashes and has never been reviewed for security flaws by federal officials, according to a confidential government review obtained by my colleagues Joseph Menn and Lenny Bernstein. Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, which has scheduled a Wednesday hearing on the issue, grew so concerned by its security during a briefing this year that they told the Department of Homeland Security and intelligence officials that they had “no confidence” in its security and asked the White House to step in.
“We request you take immediate steps to secure the national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network system from cyberattacks,” committee chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote to Federal Chief Information Officer Clare Martorana.
An official at the Office of Management and Budget, which houses the team that reviewed the UNOS, told The Post that it has worked with the Department of Health and Human Services on working to “ensure the cybersecurity” of the system.
UNOS Chief Executive Brian Shepard told The Post that the report, which calls for the transplant system to be restructured, “reads more like an op-ed” than a research-backed paper. He said the system is secure and effective.
UNOS was audited in 2020 by the Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees it, and last year by the HHS inspector general, which is reviewing its security controls, UNOS said. A former HHS official familiar with the transplant network said HHS ran through a checklist but wasn’t able to access the system itself.
UNOS will soon get a security penetration test by a firm recommended by HHS, and CISA will review its “cyber hygiene,” UNOS said.
Israeli police exceeded authority but didn’t hack phones without warrants, investigation finds
Israeli police used hacking tools once they got warrants, an Israeli government review concluded. But the data collection sometimes exceeded the scope of those warrants, and that amounted to a “violation of authority,” the review said, as the Associated Press’s Emily Rose reports. Israel’s government launched the investigation after Israeli news outlet Calcalist reported this year that the country’s police used NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to hack devices belonging to high-profile politicians and activists. Israel’s Justice Ministry this year said it hadn’t found evidence to back up the report.
“The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said the latest findings show ‘major failures’ that raise concerns about privacy and the rights of suspects,” Rose writes. “It called on authorities to bar police from employing such technology until detailed legislation is implemented to govern its use.” Israel’s police welcomed the report, arguing that it showed that “no deliberate activity was carried out in violation of the law,” she reports.
Russian national charged with U.S. political influence operation (Devlin Barrett)
Austrian spy firm accused by Microsoft says hacking tool was for EU states (Reuters)
BlackCat ransomware claims attack on European gas pipeline (Bleeping Computer)
These companies know you're pregnant—and they're not keeping it secret (Gizmodo)
Tim Hortons offers a free coffee and pastry for spying on people for over a year (Motherboard)
‘Imma make u dig ur own grave’: He doxes ransomware hackers and gets death threats in return (Motherboard)
Dan Patterson, who was most recently a reporter at CBS News, has joined Cybersixgill as its editorial director.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds a hearing on President Biden’s nomination of Nathaniel Fick to be ambassador at large for cyberspace and digital policy on Wednesday at 10 a.m.
CISA senior election security adviser Kim Wyman, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. and election officials testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday at 10 a.m.
Officials from CISA and National Cyber Director Chris Inglis’s office speak at an R Street Institute event on Wednesday at 1 p.m.
The Senate Finance Committee holds a hearing on the United States’ organ transplant network Wednesday at 2:30 p.m.
Exclusive and never-before-seen-footage of a computer hacking trying to evade a system administrator (2022, colorized) pic.twitter.com/O0AwstN310
— vx-underground (@vxunderground) August 1, 2022 | 2022-08-02T12:05:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cyber ambassador could soon take on a world of challenges - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/cyber-ambassador-could-soon-take-world-challenges/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/cyber-ambassador-could-soon-take-world-challenges/ |
Tuesday briefing: The killing of al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri; Arizona and Kansas primaries; Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit; and more
The U.S. killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
What we know: Zawahiri’s safe house in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, was targeted by a drone strike on Saturday after months of planning, officials said yesterday.
Who was he? One of the world’s most-wanted terrorists. He oversaw the 9/11 attacks alongside al-Qaeda’s founder, Osama bin Laden.
It’s the latest in a string of successful U.S. operations against terrorist leaders. And it leaves al-Qaeda facing a potential leadership crisis.
Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington have primary elections today.
What to know: Arizona’s will be another test of Donald Trump’s influence; Kansas has a key abortion vote, plus its primaries; Michigan and Missouri have Democratic races to watch; and much more.
In Arizona: Trump and Mike Pence, his former vice president, have endorsed different Republican candidates for governor.
In Kansas: Abortion rights are protected in the state constitution, but voters will decide today whether to keep or overturn those protections.
A recruiter for a Texas extremist group got the most serious Jan. 6 sentence yet.
The details: Guy Reffitt will serve seven years in prison, a judge ruled yesterday. He was found guilty of bringing guns to the riot and leading a mob that broke into the U.S. Capitol.
The bigger picture: More than 840 people have been charged so far in the Jan. 6 investigation, and most of those cases are ongoing.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to visit Taiwan today.
She would be the highest-level U.S. official to visit the island in decades, though her plan could change at the last minute. It has already made China angry.
Why this matters: The China-U.S.-Taiwan dynamic is delicate. China claims Taiwan, which is self-governing, and the U.S. has no formal diplomatic relationship with Taiwan, even though they behave like allies.
California and Illinois declared states of emergency over monkeypox.
Why? Both states are reporting high case numbers of the normally rare virus, which is similar to smallpox. This will let them direct more resources toward the outbreak.
What else to know: We have a vaccine that protects against monkeypox, but the U.S. may run out of it. The U.S. also named a coordinator to lead the national response.
Another major heat wave will bake large parts of the U.S. this week.
Where? Central states will feel the heat today and tomorrow, and it will reach the Northeast by Thursday. About 43 million Americans could experience triple-digit heat.
Out West: The heat has fueled wildfires in Oregon, Washington and Northern California, where the massive McKinney Fire has killed two people.
A scientific breakthrough could help change the way we heal people.
What was it? Stem cell researchers in Israel created synthetic mouse embryos without using a sperm or egg, then grew them in an artificial womb for eight days.
Why this matters: Scientists hope this method could one day be used to create replacement organs for humans. But that’s a long way off, and some question whether it’s ethical.
And now … a tip from our home expert: You should start cleaning the inside of your dishwasher. Here’s how. | 2022-08-02T12:06:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Tuesday, August 2 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/08/02/what-to-know-for-august-2/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/08/02/what-to-know-for-august-2/ |
Primaries live updates Primaries in Mich., Mo., and Ariz. present a fresh test of Trump’s influence
What we’re watching: Will Kansas vote to end the constitutional right to an abortion?
Analysis: The two Arizona races Arizonans are talking about
On our radar in Michigan: Who are the GOP gubernatorial candidates?
Former president Donald Trump watches Republican candidate for governor Kari Lake speak at a "Save America" rally in support of Arizona GOP candidates on July 22 in Prescott Valley, Ariz. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Welcome to special coverage of primaries in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Washington from Post Politics Now.
Today, voters in five states will pick their nominees for November in contests that, among other things, will offer a fresh test of the influence of Donald Trump. The former president has endorsed 24 candidates, many of whom have repeated his election falsehoods, including in key races in Arizona and Michigan. GOP voters will also decide the fate of three of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, in races in Michigan and Washington state.
Meanwhile, voters in Kansas will decide a ballot initiative Tuesday that would strike down the state’s constitutional right to an abortion. If it passes, it would clear the way for the state’s conservative legislature to enact a ban on abortion. This fight is the first of its kind post-Roe v. Wade, and it could go either way.
In Arizona’s GOP primary for governor, Trump is backing former television news anchor Kari Lake over businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson, who is endorsed by former vice president Mike Pence. Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is heavily favored to win the Democratic nomination.
In Missouri, scandal-ridden former governor Eric Greitens is trying a political comeback in a crowded GOP Senate primary that also includes Attorney General Eric Schmitt. On Monday, Trump endorsed “ERIC,” suggesting he would leave it to voters to choose between the two.
In Michigan, John Gibbs, a Trump-backed election denier, is trying to topple Rep. Peter Meijer, a freshman Republican who voted to impeach Trump. In Washington state, Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse, both of whom voted for Trump’s impeachment, also face GOP primary challengers.
Tuesday’s primaries also present tests for several liberal Democratic members of Congress facing more centrist challengers. Among them: Reps. Cori Bush Mo.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Andy Levin (Mich.).
Polls close at 8 p.m. in Kansas, Michigan and Missouri; 10 p.m. in Arizona; and 11 p.m. in Washington state.(all times Eastern).
By Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer
Voters will cast primary ballots in five states Tuesday — and in several of those races, progressives are on defense.
Two progressive members of the “Squad” are facing challengers who lean toward the ideological center: Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) is facing off against a Democratic state senator who is running to her right, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) is confronting a trio of primary challengers. Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, could lose his seat to Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), who belongs to the more centrist New Democrat Coalition, in a suburban district reshaped by redistricting.
“You’re seeing super PACs funded by billionaires going into war against young progressives, often women of color,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who flew to Michigan on Friday to hold a last-minute rally for Levin. “I think that’s outrageous. I think it’s counterproductive to long-term interests of the Democratic Party.”
Sanders criticized the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which started a super PAC earlier this year that has spent more than $4.2 million supporting Stevens and attacking Levin in the primary.
Kansans could vote this week to close down their state as a key safe haven for abortion in the Midwest.
On Tuesday, voters will decide on a ballot initiative that would strike down the state’s constitutional right to an abortion. If it passes, it would clear the way for the state’s conservative legislature to enact a ban on abortion. We explain what the ballot measure says — and what it would do — here.
This fight is the first of its kind post-Roe v. Wade, and analysts say it could go either way. So it’s a bellwether for whether ballot measures will help protect — or end — abortion rights across the country.
PHOENIX — Happy Election Day! I’ve covered Arizona politics for more than 20 years, and every election cycle, family, friends and politicos ask for my predictions on key races.
I don’t do predictions.
But I will say that this cycle, the races I’m most often asked about are two Republican primaries.
Everyone wants to know if former TV anchor Kari Lake — who is endorsed by former president Donald Trump and has gone full MAGA — is going to win the four-way GOP primary in the race for governor.
And then they want to know if Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R), who refused an effort by Trump and his allies to try to undo the 2020 election results, will lose his primary race to former state senator David Farnsworth, a Trump-backed candidate who grew up in the same community as Bowers.
I can’t answer either of those questions, but I’ve written about both races and, like a lot of Arizonans, I’ll be watching ballot returns closely. It may take days to know the results but when all the votes are counted, they will help us better understand the mood of Republican voters in Arizona, a state that elected two Democratic U.S. senators and a Democratic president in the era of Trump.
Will they go all in with Lake, and by proxy, Trump? Or will they choose a gubernatorial candidate like Karrin Taylor Robson, who is endorsed by the current Republican governor, Doug Ducey, and former vice president Mike Pence? Will they punish Bowers? Or will they reward him for refusing to something he deemed unconstitutional and immoral?
By Amy Wang
Five Republican candidates are running in the Michigan gubernatorial primary — a field that was twice as large before five other GOP candidates were deemed ineligible in May because of invalid signatures on their nominating petitions.
The candidates include business executive Tudor Dixon, real estate broker and Jan. 6 defendant Ryan D. Kelley, pastor Ralph Rebandt, former auto dealer Kevin Rinke and chiropractor Garrett Soldano.
Kelley was arrested in June on misdemeanor charges of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, including a count of damaging federal property. He has called the insurrection an “energizing event” and has since touted the charges against him in his gubernatorial campaign.
Dixon has been endorsed by former president Donald Trump and the family of former education secretary Betsy DeVos. The Republican nominee will face Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), who is seeking another term.
Former Detroit police chief James Craig, who had previously been considered a leading contender for the GOP gubernatorial nomination before he was among those disqualified in May, is still running a campaign as a write-in candidate. | 2022-08-02T12:17:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Primaries today: Updates on elections in Arizona, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Washington - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/primaries-arizona-missouri-michigan-kansas/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/primaries-arizona-missouri-michigan-kansas/ |
By Sarah Enelow-Snyder
Sisters Morgan and Mariah Piper at City Ranch in Windsor Mill, Md. The program aims to instill a variety of life skills through working with horses, including critical thinking, collaboration, leadership and self-control. (Maansi Srivastava/The Washington Post)
“There was a time when the children of the North went back to the South to spend summer with their relatives and to learn about the outdoors,” says Dahn, referring to the aftermath of the Great Migration, in which 6 million Black people fled the South for the urban North and West during the 20th century.
In westerns, however, there was little inclusivity: Few of the cowboys seen on TV and in movies were Black. And during the years of legal segregation in America, Black cowboys faced the same discrimination as other Black people, including being denied lodging or other services as they traveled for work and facing the threat of lynching. Some say that the term “cowboy” (as opposed to “cowhand”) is a specific reference to slavery and segregation, when White men commonly referred to Black men pejoratively as “boy.” (Dahn doesn’t use “cowboy” himself because he sees it as a term that Whites applied to African people who worked with livestock.)
Dahn says it’s important to teach this history to future generations. “When things mean something to me, I tear up,” Dahn told me about sharing these stories. “There is a warm reception from the children. They quiet down, and now you can tell them something because they’re quiet. They’ve seen a man cry.”
“It’s not just about the subject matter, or the hands-on experience in a particular project. It’s all the other skills that come with that process,” says Nia Imani Fields, assistant director of the University of Maryland Extension and a Maryland 4-H program leader. (4-H is the nation’s largest youth-development organization.) Fields is loosely connected to City Ranch through 4-H; the two groups have an informal partnership. She says she has seen young Black 4-H participants develop skills like public speaking by being involved in horse-judging classes and competitive events. There are emotional benefits as well. “Folks gravitate to [riding] as a form of mental well-being and self-care,” she notes.
Morgan is drawn to veterinary science and polo, and Mariah wants to do show jumping. “It’s so fun. It’s every girl’s dream to ride horses,” Mariah says. There’s no history of horseback riding in the Piper family. City Ranch introduced Morgan and Mariah to the history of Black cowboys. They also learned that in the larger world of horses, Black riders are in the minority and may face obstacles to inclusion.
“We can really achieve things when we set our minds to it,” says Morgan, referring to what she learned at City Ranch. “We just have to have a positive attitude and be around the right people to set you on track.”
Brittaney Logan gave her son this kind of exposure to horses at a young age. Logan is an original member of the Maryland-based rodeo team Cowgirls of Color; in rodeos she formerly focused on relay racing and barrel racing but now specializes in mounted shooting. She was introduced to horseback riding around 2007 by a Black colleague (nicknamed Bronc) who came to their Verizon call-center office every day in boots, a large belt buckle and a cowboy hat. Bronc was indeed a bronco rider, and he started coming to birthday parties for Logan’s son, which turned into pony parties.
Logan and her son now attend trail rides together along the East Coast. She’s also spoken to Black children about the history of Black cowboys — her favorite figure being Jesse Stahl, who in the early 20th century was famously under-ranked in his impressive rodeo performances because he was Black.
Today, in the culture at large, Black riders are gaining greater visibility. After the 2020 murder of George Floyd, images of Black protesters on horseback — including the Compton Cowboys, Houston’s Nonstop Riders and the Bay Area’s Urban Cowgirl Ranch — went viral.
For organizations like City Ranch, meanwhile, the goal isn’t necessarily to turn out professional riders. It’s simply to give young people a chance to understand and enjoy this tradition. That can mean riding horses, but it can also mean just coming to observe and connect with nature. “Outdoors is where I’m comfortable,” says Dahn. “I come home to rest for a minute, then go back out and enjoy the world.”
Earlier this year, Morgan and Mariah Piper represented both City Ranch and 4-H at a Martin Luther King Jr. parade in Annapolis. “It was one of the best things that ever happened to me,” Mariah says. “I’ve always watched parades and [thought], ‘I wish I was that person riding that horse.’ And that day, I was that person riding the horse.”
Sarah Enelow-Snyder is a writer from Texas, based in New Jersey. She has an essay in the anthology “Horse Girls” from Harper Perennial. | 2022-08-02T13:13:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Program teaches young people the history of Black horseback riders - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/08/02/black-horseback-riders-history/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/08/02/black-horseback-riders-history/ |
How men can save relationships by learning to be vulnerable
Perspective by Andrew Reiner
(Isabel Espanol/Illustration for The Washington Post)
When Nick Firchau and his wife were dating, he trekked from his Brooklyn apartment into Manhattan to buy fresh scallops to make her dinner. This was a big deal for Firchau, now 43, who rarely cooked and wanted to impress his girlfriend. According to him, she grew vocally upset because he neglected to cook a vegetable, too. “I couldn’t believe she didn’t appreciate all the effort I went to,” he told me.
He never said anything to her, though. Instead, he fumed for days — a dynamic that continued for years into their marriage. When conflict arose, and he felt hurt, Firchau let those feelings “marinate,” which led to pent-up “anger and resentment, because the air hadn’t been cleared the first time.”
Neglecting to examine and tend to emotional needs is common to many men, it turns out. For a number of reasons — many rooted in socialized norms about masculinity — men are often taught very young to diminish, or even ignore, their emotions in relationships. They do this, however, at the expense of their relationships’ health and their own well-being. When men learn to better understand their emotional needs, the payoff can be profound.
The common myth about men and emotions goes something like this: Men are wired differently than women, and, as a result, they don’t have the same emotional needs. But Israeli researchers who pored over scans of more than 1,400 brains discovered that human brain structures and features are a “mosaic,” resistant to easy binary expectations about gender or sex. Another study published last year in Nature reported that men’s and women’s emotions are, as one of the researchers put it, “clearly, consistently and unmistakably more similar than they are different.”
Instead, psychologists say these perceived differences often arise from social constructs, which starts early. “We don’t train boys to have vocabulary around their emotions beyond anger,” said Fredric Rabinowitz, chair of the psychology department at the University of Redlands in California, whose research and private practice focus on men’s mental health. This occurs, Rabinowitz said, because many boys are raised to believe that deeper emotions are separate to their being, which morphs into “unprocessed trauma.” And when men lack emotional language, they cannot explain what they are feeling.
Firchau can identify with this. Until 2018, the podcast producer and host of the “Paternal” podcast “didn’t think about my emotions in general,” he said. (I have appeared as a guest on his show.) That year, he lost his job, the stress became overwhelming, and he felt as if his identity was under siege.
“I always believed guys are supposed to have everything figured out, for ourselves and our families,” Firchau said. He worried that he couldn’t handle everything with “stoicism, confidence and emotional toughness,” which scared him, because he feared that betraying vulnerability “would make me unattractive to my wife. I was afraid I would lose her if I shared what was unraveling me.”
Like so many men who feel beleaguered, he could not express these negative emotions and, he said, became overwhelmed with stress.
Another self-inflicted barrier that prevents men from meeting their own emotional needs occurs when they check out of relational conflicts, or “stonewall.” This occurs when someone feels overwhelmed by their emotions during interpersonal conflict and then physically or emotionally disconnects, such as by walking away, changing the subject or reaching for other diversionary behaviors. Many people who practice stonewalling consider it a peacekeeping tactic, but it merely buries problems that need resolving.
Even if they no longer believe that repressing or suppressing deeper emotions makes them “stronger,” many men believe, or at least hope, that it comes without consequences. They’re wrong. Research shows, for instance, that holding in negative emotions worsens mental health, heightening symptoms of anxiety and depression, and kick-starts physiological responses linked over time to cognitive decline and cardiovascular disease.
Men aren’t the only ones who contribute to masculine stereotypes about vulnerability. Psychologist Paulette Kouffman Sherman said in an email that, despite the well-documented request for male partners to be more emotionally available, some women “don’t find it attractive.” They perceive a man’s vulnerability as “weakness, neediness,” as less masculine, a threat to traits they value in fathers who were the family “rock”: “strong, silent, fixer” types, she said.
Bill Johnson, a psychologist in suburban Chicago, said that his mostly Black clientele, a third of whom are part of the LGBTQ community, experience similar pushback from their partners. “Many men don’t feel they have an audience to talk about deeper pain and hurt in their romantic relationships. It’s difficult to have people in their lives who will do that for them. This is true for both straight and gay men.”
But there’s no question about vulnerability’s role in successful relationships. Therapists know that opening up to partners and spouses, and to potential rejection, builds and deepens trust, empathy and intimacy.
Since Firchau took the step of working with a therapist, walls have come down in his relationship. “My therapist helped me develop the language to talk about my deeper feelings and helped me validate them. And he helped me realize that they weren’t anything to feel ashamed of, that they were normal.”
Emboldened, Firchau approached his wife with his newfound literacy and confessed the truth: He had been afraid that she would regard his true feelings as weakness. He was wrong. “She told me, ‘What’s unattractive is that you were unwilling to face the problem at all.’ ”
This language, Firchau said, has broken down unproductive barriers — and created healthy ones.
“Whenever my wife and I have a heated conversation about kids or money, I know now that rather than engage in a heated argument, I need time to step away and think for myself on how to articulate what I’m feeling.” He now creates some needed space for himself and, a day or so later, shares with his wife why he felt hurt or upset. “But we hold each other accountable. And after that day has passed, we have that follow-up conversation.”
Andrew Reiner teaches at Towson University and is the author of “Better Boys, Better Men: The New Masculinity That Creates Greater Courage and Emotional Resiliency.” | 2022-08-02T13:13:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How men can express emotions and practice vulnerability - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/08/02/masculinity-men-emotions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/08/02/masculinity-men-emotions/ |
Kansas voting in first referendum on abortion since reversal of Roe
Sheila Gregory, a volunteer with Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, encourages a resident in Leawood to vote no on an amendment to her state’s constitution that would end abortion rights. (Christopher Smith for The Washington Post)
OLATHE, Kan. — Kansans head to the polls Tuesday to decide whether the state’s constitution protects the right to abortion, the first electoral test of abortion rights since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
Polling is scant, but interest in the referendum appears high. Signs that say “Vote Yes — Value Them Both” and “Vote No — Value Her Choice” can be seen on green summer lawns, and the airwaves and social media have been inundated with more than $11 million in advertising spending by interest groups this year, according to reports filed with the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission.
The Catholic Church has spent nearly $2.5 million in support of Value Them Both. The American Civil Liberties Union ($381,000) and Planned Parenthood ($1.4 million) are some of the biggest names opposing it.
Kansas is the first state in the country to vote on whether abortion should remain constitutionally protected since the Supreme Court’s historic overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24. Since the ruling, more than a dozen Republican-led states have moved by other means to ban or further restrict abortion. Other states, including California and Vermont, will vote in the fall on ballot initiatives to protect abortion.
If the constitutional amendment passes, Kansas’s Republican-led legislature could pass future limits on abortion — or ban it all together — in its coming session in January. Abortion is legal in Kansas in the first 22 weeks of pregnancy, and the state has become a refuge for pregnant patients seeking procedures who are from states with stricter laws, including Texas and Oklahoma.
Hundreds of abortion opponents gathered on the eve of the crucial vote at a Baptist church in Lenexa, Kan., where they sang, lit candles and prayed for passage of the amendment, the culmination of decades of work by opponents of abortion in the state.
“We’re seeing a lot of energy, we are talking to Kansans every day who are fired up to vote yes,” said Brittany Jones, the spokeswoman for Value Them Both, an antiabortion coalition that includes Kansans for Life and the Kansas Catholic Conference. “We expect a huge turnout in this race.”
Value Them Both has argued that the amendment doesn’t mean a total ban on abortion and is necessary to protect laws that were rendered unconstitutional by a 2019 Kansas Supreme Court decision that enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution.
But critics say this position is deceptive, pointing to previous statements from Republican state lawmakers who have said they are ready with legislation proposing an all-out ban on the procedure for their legislative session in January.
Patrick Miller, a political science professor at the University of Kansas, said abortion rights advocates in the state are still playing catch-up against their more organized opponents.
The Supreme Court takes back a right and inflames the entire country
The Kansas ballot amendment “should be a wake-up call to anyone who supports abortion access that they need to mobilize and educate like they never have before on this issue, and that doing so won’t be easy,” Miller said. “There is nothing they can take for granted anymore.”
Kansas has long been a stronghold of antiabortion activism. During the “Summer of Mercy” antiabortion protests in 1991, thousands of protesters converged on Wichita and were arrested at sit-ins and clinic blockades. In 2009, George Tiller, one of the country’s few third-trimester abortion providers, was assassinated in Wichita by an antiabortion extremist.
Proponents of abortion rights say that the Republican legislature has stacked the deck in its favor, passing tighter restrictions that have mad it harder to register new voters, choosing to hold the vote on a primary day rather than during the general election and selecting a ballot question with convoluted wording that has confused many voters.
“They did it on purpose to confuse people, because a ‘no’ vote means you support choice,” said Anne Melia, 62, a volunteer with Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, a key opposition group. “It’s misleading and disingenuous. And there are a lot of intense feelings on both sides.”
The amendment would affirm that there is no constitutional right to an abortion in Kansas and would “reserve to the people of Kansas, through their elected state legislators, the right to pass laws to regulate abortion, including, but not limited to, in circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or when necessary to save the life of the mother.”
Republicans in the state legislature also placed the abortion measure on the ballot as a special election alongside the previously scheduled primaries, where traditionally only party-affiliated voters are allowed to vote. Many of the state’s unaffiliated voters — some 30 percent of the electorate — may not be aware they can vote this time, abortion rights activists argue.
Abortions have increased 13 percent in Kansas over the past two years, according to statistics from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. That has led to criticism from abortion opponents that the state, led by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, is becoming an abortion “sanctuary” for out-of-staters seeking the procedure. Much of the increase between 2019 and 2020 was driven by short-term coronavirus shutdowns in Oklahoma and Texas, officials said. But preliminary data from 2021 shows that the bulk of those were in-state patients.
However, Trust Women, an abortion clinic in Wichita, has seen a 60 percent increase in its out-of-state patients in the past year, according to Zack Gingrich-Gaylor, the clinic’s communications director, and has doubled its overall patient volume this year over last year. | 2022-08-02T13:22:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kansas voting in first referendum on abortion since reversal of Roe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/02/kansas-abortion-referendum/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/02/kansas-abortion-referendum/ |
Air and Space Museum reopens Oct. 14. Star Wars fans should cheer.
An X-wing starfighter movie prop is among hundreds of new artifacts and displays in redesigned galleries that complete the first phase of a seven-year, $1 billion makeover.
An X-wing starfighter used for “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in the Air and Space Museum’s Restoration Hangar at the Udvar-Hazy Center. (Eric Long/Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)
An X-wing starfighter from “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” will be among the hundreds of new objects — including the plane flown by the first woman to break the sound barrier and a Saturn test engine similar to those used to launch Apollo astronauts to the moon — on display at the National Air and Space Museum when it reopens Oct. 14.
The reopening of almost half of the popular museum marks the end of the first phase in its seven-year, $1 billion makeover. Eight of its 23 galleries, an upgraded planetarium, store and cafe will welcome visitors for the first time since construction closed the building six months ago. They will encounter new artifacts alongside old favorites such as the Wright Flyer and the Apollo 11 command module, both showcased in new exhibits.
“We’re not just reopening the same galleries. It is our hope folks will find it a new and engaging and contemporary experience,” Museum Director Christopher Browne said. “We know the power of this place. It has been a place of inspiration and excitement for countless folks and for generations. We are not only continuing that tradition but advancing it to a broader and wider audience.”
Air and Space will close in March for at least six months
Museum officials will temporarily require timed passes for entry as a way to control what they expect will be large crowds, Browne said.
New exhibitions will tell more stories of women and people of color. In addition to Jacqueline Cochran’s sound barrier-busting T-38, the museum will exhibit an aircraft built by Neal Loving, who in 1951 became the first African American licensed as a racing pilot.
“Our north star, if you will, in designing the experience was we want every visitor to see him or herself in the exhibition,” Browne said. “We know the stories we tell resonate, and we know seeing is believing.”
New artifacts expand the focus beyond aviation and space exploration. One gallery explores the county’s fascination with speed.
“In ‘Nation of Speed,’ we talk about how the quest to go faster, whether in an aircraft, spaceship, motorcycle or car, has informed the American experience,” Browne said. The gallery includes Mario Andretti’s Indy 500 racecar, Erin Sills’s BMW land speed record motorcycle and Robert Craig “Evel” Knievel’s motorcycle.
Interactive exhibitions and videos have been added for a more modern experience. Next to Knievel’s motorcycle, for example, is a pinball game that helps visitors understand the physics behind daredevil’s stunts. In the “One World Connected” gallery, a replica of the space station’s cupola offers visitors a view of space from an astronaut’s perspective.
The renovation is the most expensive capital project ever undertaken by the Smithsonian and almost double what it cost to build the $540 million National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016. Construction on Air and Space — a massive building that stretches along Independence Avenue from 4th to 7th streets SW — began in 2018 and was planned in phases to keep the popular museum partially open. (Nonetheless, the museum had to close March 28 to shift the work from the western side to the east.)
Jeff Bezos donates $200 million to Air and Space Museum
The federal government has provided $779 million — about 10 percent more than its initial $700 million pledge — for the repairs to the building, including the replacement of mechanical systems and its marble exterior and upgrades to its interior spaces and entrances. The museum has raised almost $250 million of a new $285 million goal for private donations. That money supports the redesign of the galleries and education and other programs.
With the reopening of the west side, the renovation will continue on the rest of the museum. The center core and galleries, Imax theater and a new entrance on the National Mall are expected to open in 2024. The eastern side of the building is scheduled to reopen the next year.
Although only part of the museum will be open in October, it will offer many wow moments, Browne said. “Destination Moon” will showcase the artifacts from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, including Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit — which has been conserved and reinstalled — and Apollo 11’s command module, Columbia, in a state-of-the -art, 360-degree display case. Visitors will be able to walk under and around an 18,000-pound rocket engine and see pieces of an Apollo engine later recovered from the ocean floor.
“Remembering that most of our visitors were not alive for Apollo, how do we convey this sense of a ‘moon shot’ and what was involved in fulfilling the challenge that President [John F.] Kennedy put forward,” Browne said.
The new Wright Flyer exhibit explores the brothers’ lives, their inventions and the influence they had on the world, and “Early Flight” details the dramatic innovations in aviation in the decade between the Wrights’ first flights in 1903 and the start of World War I in 1914. Other galleries focus on general aviation, the planets and the technology that resulted from space exploration.
“This is an amazing opportunity to reinvigorate what was a sepia-toned gallery into a really colorful experience,” Jeremy Kinney, associate director of research and curatorial affairs, said during a recent tour of the new “Early Flight” gallery. “It is really invigorating this dynamic story.”
Free, timed passes will be available on the museum’s website starting Sept. 14, and same-day passes will be distributed daily. The passes are expected to be used for several months, Browne said. | 2022-08-02T13:39:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Air and Space Museum reopens Oct. 14. ‘Star Wars’ fans should cheer. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/02/air-space-museum-reopen-october/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/02/air-space-museum-reopen-october/ |
Development near St. Joseph’s Seminary in Michigan Park neighborhood has sold most of its 80 units
The townhouses have ample windows and wide-plank flooring in the living area. (Benjamin C Tankersley for The Washington Post)
Eighty townhouses are making a big splash in a quiet spot in Northeast Washington’s Michigan Park neighborhood.
The site was once part of the St. Joseph’s Seminary grounds, said Nadia Purvis, sales manager for EYA, the marketing agent for JO Associates LLC. Purvis said EYA worked with the Josephites and the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board to secure a protective historic landmark designation for the seminary. Some of the grounds around the seminary have been set aside as publicly available open space, including a new neighborhood playground.
Most of the townhouses have already been sold. Ten “affordable,” income-restricted townhouses have been made available through the D.C. inclusionary zoning program.
There are two floor plans available. The Buchanan starts at $824,900 for 1,610 square feet and a two-car garage. The Buchanan 2 starts at $988,760 for 2,010 square feet, a private backyard and a reserved parking space on the street, not in a garage. Both types have three levels with three or four bedrooms, two or three bathrooms and a powder room (half-bath). Neither has a basement; both offer an optional rooftop terrace.
Adam and Jessica Vicks have been living with their year-old daughter in a new Michigan Park townhouse since May. They bought a condo in 16th Street Heights in Northwest Washington in 2019 and sold it less than two years later after learning that a baby was on the way, said Adam, who is 38 and a program manager for a tech firm.
They had no trouble selling the condo, Adam said. (“This was during the height of the real estate bubble, so our home was only on the market for a few days,” he said.) But the townhouse wasn’t ready when the condo sold, and the family stayed with relatives in Bowie, Md., until it was.
Adam was already familiar with Michigan Park. He said he grew up in the neighborhood and has family there. He and Jessica, who is 33 and works as a program manager in financial services, knew what they wanted, he said. “We wanted a place in the city, but away from all the hustle and bustle,” he said. “We also wanted a family-friendly neighborhood where our daughter could grow up around lots of kids her age.”
The townhouse community’s appeal to families is helped by the playground and 2½ acres of gardens and other green space. The townhouses offer traditional styling on the outside, including porches, gables and cornices that fit in with the surrounding housing. The modern interiors have open-concept floor plans and contemporary finishes.
The Vicks family chose the Buchanan 2 floor plan for the extra space and quickly settled into the new digs. Adam described Michigan Park as “like a hidden gem” and remarked that it is “only a stone’s throw from all the action, but with all the serenity of the suburbs.” He also said many young families were moving into the community, “which is a wonderful thing for our family and especially for our daughter.”
The family, he said, has “only been here a few months, but for me it feels like I never left.”
Townhouses with expandable floor plan in Bowie, Md.
Schools: Bunker Hill Elementary, Brookland Middle, Dunbar High
Transit: The Brookland-CUA Metrorail station (on the Red line) is about a mile southwest and the Fort Totten Metrorail station (on the Red, Yellow and Green lines) is about a mile northwest.
Nearby: Josephite Seminary Park, Michigan Park Community Playground, Providence Urgent Care Center, Turkey Thicket Recreation Center, Catholic University.
The Townhomes at Michigan Park
1201 Allison St. NE, Washington, D.C. 20017.
The 80-townhouse development still has units available to purchase. Starting prices range from $824,900 to $988,760.
Builder: JO Associates LLC
Features: The townhouses have wide-plank flooring, open-concept floor plans, European-style kitchens with an island, quartz countertops and stainless-steel appliances. Main bathrooms have quartz vanity tops and a water closet with elongated bowl.
View model: Schedule private model home tour online at https://www.eya.com/townhomes/washington-dc/michigan-park/contact-us.
Sales: MichiganPark@eyamarketing.com | 2022-08-02T13:40:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. townhouses away from the ‘hustle and bustle’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/02/dc-townhouses-away-hustle-bustle/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/02/dc-townhouses-away-hustle-bustle/ |
Why Polio, Once Nearly Eradicated, Is Rebounding
Poliomyelitis (“polio” for short) has been a cause of life-threatening paralysis for thousands of years. At the height of the biggest-ever outbreak in 1952, almost 60,000 cases with more than 3,000 deaths were reported in the US alone. Thanks to immunizations and access to clean water, wards filled with children kept alive in iron lungs are a distant memory. For years, polio has teetered close to global eradication. Now a combination of old and new challenges -- including conflict, vaccine hesitancy and the Covid-19 pandemic -- are frustrating a decades-long effort to stop its international spread. A case in an unvaccinated man from New York in July is a reminder that failure to vanquish polio from its last remaining strongholds could result in a resurgence of the crippling disease.
1. What’s polio?
It’s a highly infectious disease caused by one of three poliovirus types that replicate in the human gastrointestinal tract. Infectious viral particles are shed in fecal matter, which can infect other people if they are transferred to the mouth via unwashed hands or ingested in contaminated food and drinks. Virus particles can survive in soil and water for months; the duration is shortened by warm weather and sunlight, and formaldehyde and chlorine kill them. Once inside the body, the virus can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis in a matter of hours. In some cases, symptoms can take as many as 30 days to appear. Initial signs include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness of the neck and pain in the limbs. Most infections, though, are asymptomatic, with only 1-in-200 leading to irreversible paralysis, usually in the legs. Among those paralyzed, 5% to 10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized. Polio mainly affects children younger than 5, though anyone who is unvaccinated can contract the incurable disease. In the long term, 25% to 40% of children who recover from paralytic polio get post-polio syndrome, a group of potentially disabling symptoms that appear some 15 to 40 years after a patient’s recovery.
2. How many people does polio affect?
Cases of paralytic polio have declined sharply since immunizations became widely available, and especially since 1988, when world health leaders began a campaign, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, that initially sought to put an end to the disease within 12 years. Back then, polio was paralyzing more than 1,000 children daily across 125 countries. Although only six cases caused by wild poliovirus were reported in 2021, 10 times more were inadvertently caused by a variant of the virus used in the oral polio vaccine.
3. How does the vaccine cause polio cases?
The oral polio vaccine developed by Albert Sabin in the 1950s uses a live, attenuated form of the poliovirus. Among its advantages: Children who receive the inexpensive immunization excrete the virus in their stools for as long as six weeks, passively “vaccinating” those around them. A disadvantage is that if the weakened virus is transmitted from person to person over a prolonged period in an under-vaccinated community, it can undergo genetic changes that turn it back into the paralysis-causing form. A second polio vaccine, originally developed by Jonas Salk, contains inactivated or dead poliovirus that can’t cause paralysis. More than 120 countries, including the US, routinely deliver this inactivated vaccine as a shot, usually administered to kids four times from age 2 months to 6 years. The New York patient, a resident of Rockland County, which borders New Jersey, contracted a poliovirus variant derived from the oral vaccine that’s been genetically linked to strains collected from wastewater from Rockland County, London and the greater Jerusalem area.
4. What else is known about the New York case?
The patient, age 20, was hospitalized in June and had recently traveled to Poland and Hungary, according to the Washington Post. New York authorities are investigating the source of the infection and testing wastewater to assess the virus’s spread. Since the oral polio vaccine is no longer authorized or administered in the US (where only the inactivated polio vaccine has been given since 2000), it’s likely the virus originated somewhere where the oral vaccine is still used, according to the New York Health Department. Rockland County has a polio vaccination rate of 60.5% among 2-year-olds, compared with the New York average of 79.1%. Low rates of routine pediatric vaccination within communities in the New York metropolitan area were linked to a 2018-2019 measles outbreak, the largest in the US since 1992. The nation’s last naturally occurring cases of polio were reported in 1979. The last known case in the US derived from the oral vaccine was recorded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2013.
5. Why is polio rebounding?
In 2020, Covid-19 prompted a four-month pause of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s campaigns and disrupted routine immunizations, resulting in more than 80 million children at increased risk of vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio. Vaccine-derived poliovirus outbreaks tripled from 2019 to 2020, when more than 1,100 children were paralyzed globally. Cases declined in 2021 as immunizations resumed. However, the pandemic continues to stretch health systems, risking further spread. In late 2021, wild poliovirus from Pakistan -- which along with Afghanistan hasn’t been able to stop transmission of the virus -- sparked an outbreak in Malawi. The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan following the change in political regime there, and the war in Ukraine, where weak immunization has repeatedly given rise to outbreaks of vaccine-derived poliovirus, threaten to prolong the global polio scourge. The 32nd meeting of an emergency committee convened by the World Health Organization concluded in June that the risk of international spread remains a public health emergency -- a declaration first made in 2014.
6. Who’s at risk of polio?
Anyone who’s not received the recommended doses of polio vaccine, including babies. Almost all children (99 out of 100) who complete an immunization course will be protected from polio. In respect to the Rockland County case, unvaccinated New Yorkers who live, work, go to school in, or visit the county are at the highest risk of exposure, according to the state’s health department. Although vaccination isn’t necessary for most adults who were immunized against polio as children and have a low risk of exposure, the CDC recommends a one-time booster shot for certain groups:
• Travelers to areas or countries where polio is epidemic or endemic
• Health-care workers who have close contact with patients who may have traveled to areas or countries where the risk of polio is greater
• Unvaccinated adults whose children will be receiving oral poliovirus vaccine (for example, international adoptees or refugees)
These higher-risk adults may need one to three doses of the inactivated polio vaccine, depending on how many doses they have had in the past. Unvaccinated adults at risk for poliovirus infection should get three doses: two doses separated by 1 to 2 months, and a third dose 6 to 12 months after the second dose.
7. Is a booster really necessary?
Immunity provided either by the oral vaccine or exposure to poliovirus provides lifelong protection against paralytic disease, according to a World Health Organization position paper released in June. It’s not known how long people who received four doses of inactivated polio vaccine will be immune, but the CDC says they’re most likely protected for many years and the WHO says possibly for life. Higher-risk adults who have had one or two doses of polio vaccine in the past should get the remaining doses, and higher-risk adults who have had three or more doses of polio vaccine in the past can get a lifetime booster dose, according to the CDC. | 2022-08-02T13:40:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Polio, Once Nearly Eradicated, Is Rebounding - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-polio-once-nearly-eradicated-is-rebounding/2022/08/02/47c9f162-1267-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-polio-once-nearly-eradicated-is-rebounding/2022/08/02/47c9f162-1267-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
‘A Love Song’ is a movie of extraordinary stillness in a noisy world
Dale Dickey and Wes Studi mesmerize in the minimalist feature debut of Max Walker-Silverman
Dale Dickey in “A Love Song.” (Bleecker Street)
If you’ve never been to any kind of silent meditation that lasts more than a few minutes — a Quaker meeting, a Vipassana weekend, a tryout to see if the cloistered lifestyle of a Carthusian monk is right for you — here’s what it can feel like. The first three minutes are kind of fun, like playing the quiet game in the back of the car before you realize it’s a way for your parents to get you to shut up for a few minutes. The next 10 minutes feel like you might die if you don’t look at your phone. After 20 more, you kind of settle in. The sounds around you (because human beings are incapable of actually being silent) get sharper and somehow more lovely. Afterward, your brain feels like it got to both relax and work in a way it hasn’t in a long time. And for a little while, you carry that back into the noisy world.
The movie “A Love Song” is kind of like that. In a filmmaking universe where Michael Bay and Zack Snyder seem to be in a battle to see who can damage more eardrums, first-time feature writer and director Max Walker-Silverman has taken the opposite tack. There is sound, including an excellent soundtrack and score, but there is no noise. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a deep breath and a cool drink.
We meet Faye (Dale Dickey), a woman with enough lines on her face to suggest her life hasn’t been an easy one, camping by a lake in Colorado. It’s not a spectacular landscape; the mountains are relatively small, and the grass is dry. While Faye is alone, we’re not sure if she’s lonely. The one thing we are sure of is that she’s expecting a visit from Lito (Wes Studi), a friend she hasn’t seen in decades. We also know her calendar is almost entirely blank until she writes “Today” on a Thursday she chose at random.
When Lito arrives, the silence continues, but in a different way. There is no small talk, no idle chatter. They sit, they play their guitars, they eat ice cream. The minimalistic dialogue means every action takes on a more significant intimacy. Watching them put up a tent feels almost intrusive, because the moment is so special, so private.
Dickey and Studi, both veteran actors with credits longer than many careers, are extraordinary to the point that it’s hard to articulate why and just how good they are. They are utter masters of their craft, and Walker-Silverman wisely lets them do their thing. In fact, if he had elected to put these two into Faye’s trailer with no script, mount a few cameras, leave them to go have a few beers and return to see what footage he got, he would probably still have gold on his hands. Instead, he works with them. He knows when a close-up builds a relationship between audience and actor, and he knows when a wide shot does the same thing. Though both Faye and Lito start out — and, to a large degree, remain — enigmas, we also feel we know them on some raw level.
Like silent meditation, “A Love Song” isn’t for everyone. The movie requires its audience to both remain still and stay engaged. Those are skills many directors no longer value, so they’re skills many moviegoers no longer possess. But for those who will do the work, “A Love Song” is a special film that will stay with you long after the clamor of real life rushes back in around you.
PG. At area theaters. Contains mature thematic elements. 81 minutes. | 2022-08-02T13:40:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | "A Love Song" is a movie of extraordinary stillness in a noisy world - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/08/02/a-love-song-movie-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/08/02/a-love-song-movie-review/ |
Gingrich, last House speaker to visit Taiwan, downplays China threats
Newt Gingrich speaks with Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui in Taipei on April 2, 1997. (Eddie Shih/Associated Press)
Nancy Pelosi is expected to touch down in Taiwan for the first visit by a U.S. House speaker to the self-ruled island since Newt Gingrich in 1997.
Gingrich, a Republican, is warning China not to follow through on some of the most extreme threats — which have included calls from a state-affiliated commentator to shoot down any U.S. military aircraft flying to Taiwan.
“That would be literally an act of war, and we would have no choice except to retaliate massively,” Gingrich said Monday on Fox News.
But the former speaker acknowledged that an actual clash stemming from Pelosi’s planned visit from China — which claims Taiwan as its own and has vowed to one day unify the island with the mainland — is unlikely.
China’s threats are largely “bluff,” Gingrich said.
They’re also nothing new: When he led a congressional delegation to Taiwan a quarter-century ago, Gingrich said he heard similar complaints from officials in Beijing. “They’re not going to take on the United States, they’re not going to take on the speaker of the House and all these various threats are … not going to happen,” Gingrich said on Fox.
The White House said it is prepared for China to take a range of retaliatory measures in response to Pelosi’s visit that could include firing missiles around Taiwan, staging large-scale military exercises in the region or making public statements about Taiwan’s status that go beyond the norm. And the island is on high alert for a show of force from Beijing.
Pelosi was expected to arrive in Taiwan on Tuesday night, local time, for an unscheduled but highly anticipated stop as part of a congressional delegation to Asia.
The White House — concerned the visit could spark a crisis in the Taiwan Strait — publicly warned the trip wasn’t a good idea, though it maintained that she had a right to go.
“She has to go to Taiwan,” Gingrich told Fox’s Sean Hannity Monday. “To back down now would encourage every aggressive, bullying attitude” from officials in Beijing, he added, and could convince them they could get away with “trying to occupy Taiwan.”
While Chinese officials were also unhappy about Gingrich’s visit, the balance of powers between Beijing and Washington is different today. Pelosi faces a more powerful and assertive China, with a significantly stronger economy today than decades ago. China’s president, who has not ruled out the use of force to unite Taiwan with the mainland, has said the question of the island’s status “should not be passed down generation after generation.”
Still, when Gingrich was there, relations between Washington and Beijing were already in crisis over the island’s status: After Taiwan’s president gave a speech at Cornell University, his alma mater in New York, China fired unarmed missiles into the sea near Taiwan in 1996, and held military exercises in the Taiwan Strait. President Bill Clinton then sent two aircraft carriers and over a dozen warships to the region.
The next year, Gingrich was invited to speak in Shanghai and Beijing, he said, and told Chinese authorities he would come — but also visit Taiwan. “They went crazy, and said ‘oh you can’t do it,’” Gingrich told Fox News. “We said to them look, if you feel that strongly, we’re going to skip China and go just to Taiwan.”
The former speaker settled on a “compromise,” he said, which was to fly to Taiwan from Japan, and not directly from China.
While in China, Gingrich told Chinese Communist Party leaders that the United States “will defend Taiwan. Period.” China’s Foreign Ministry called the remark “indiscreet,” and the White House said Gingrich was “speaking for himself,” as The Post reported at the time.
Pelosi’s visit represents a test for Taiwan as it continues to seek more international recognition amid efforts by China to isolate it on the global stage. Like Gingrich, Pelosi had to walk a fine line in the lead-up to her trip, supporting Taiwan but never appearing to endorse its independence — a red line for Beijing. In a news conference in late July, she said, “none of us has ever said we’re for independence when it comes to Taiwan. That’s up to Taiwan to decide.”
President Biden made it clear in conversations with Chinese officials “that Congress is an independent branch of government and Speaker Pelosi makes her own decisions,” John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, said.
China should “see this for exactly what it is: nothing new,” Kirby added during a news conference. “No change to our policy, and certainly not an unprecedented visit by the Speaker of the House.”
China’s Ministry of Defense said that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would “not sit idly by” should Pelosi visit Taiwan.
But some of its most inflammatory threats have not come from government officials. On Friday, a Chinese journalist issued what appeared to be a direct threat against Pelosi.
“If US fighter jets escort Pelosi’s plane into Taiwan, it is invasion,” Hu Xijin, the former editor in chief of the Chinese state-run outlet “Global Times,” said in a tweet that has since been deleted for violating the platform’s rules.
“The PLA has the right to forcibly dispel Pelosi’s plane and the US fighter jets, including firing warning shots and making tactical movement of obstruction. If ineffective, then shoot them down,” he added.
What we’re watching: Will more Republicans who voted for impeachment lose their jobs? | 2022-08-02T13:40:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Newt Gingrich says China bluffing over response to Pelosi Taiwan trip - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/newt-gingrich-china-taiwan-pelosi-visit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/newt-gingrich-china-taiwan-pelosi-visit/ |
Inflation is the least significant aspect of the Inflation Reduction Act
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill on Aug. 1. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Let’s get something straight: Despite its name, the Inflation Reduction Act — the reconciliation deal forged between Senate Democrats and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) — isn’t really about inflation. But that won’t stop both sides from trying to magnify that aspect of the package.
Republicans and the White House both tend to exaggerate the influence of particular pieces of legislation or presidential actions on inflation (e.g., opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the American Rescue Plan). Inflation both at home and internationally is primarily driven by the sudden drop — and then rebooting — of economic activity during the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in a mismatch between supply and demand. The war in Ukraine then jostled international markets even further.
Let’s get real. The reconciliation bill raises about $739 billion in revenue, offset by $433 billion in spending, for a net reduction of about $300 billion. In a $25 trillion economy, this is a tiny change. Other factors, including the Federal Reserve’s interest rates and fluctuating energy prices, have far more impact on inflation than the fiscal effects of this bill.
Nevertheless, the administration and supportive economists are proclaiming it will help bring down inflation. After the deal was announced, President Biden declared, “This is the strongest bill you can pass to lower inflation, cut the deficit, reduce health-care costs, tackle the climate crisis, and promote energy security . . . while reducing the burdens facing working-class and middle-class families.”
Others have echoed this message: Maya MacGuineas, president of the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget, told the New York Times, “To fight inflation, we want policies that will increase supply or reduce demand. And this does both.” She adds, “Almost every one of these policies, in and of itself, will fight inflation. And on net, the entire package most certainly will.” Economist Lawrence H. Summers, a Post contributor who was one of the lonely voices warning about inflation in 2021, tweeted, “Great budget deal announced today. This will mean progress on inflation, economic growth, tax fairness, inequality, and climate change.” Summers was apparently instrumental in convincing Manchin to make the deal. The West Virginia senator went so far as to say “it’s all about inflation.”
Republicans, for their part, have been all over the place. Some have insisted it would be so disinflationary as to send us into a recession. Others have said it will spark more inflation. So which is it?
Well, the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a widely used economic forecasting model at the University of Pennsylvania, has the most clear-eyed analysis: “The Act would very slightly increase inflation until 2024 and decrease inflation thereafter. These point estimates are statistically indistinguishable from zero, thereby indicating low confidence that the legislation will have any impact on inflation.” That is, in large part, because of “the smaller size of the program’s spending and taxes relative to the overall U.S. economy.”
That does not mean the bill would be useless. Far from it. It would make a huge investment in green energy, which is good for the planet and for jobs down the road. It would prevent a great deal of economic hardship to Americans and improve medical outcomes by extending the Affordable Care Act and containing prescription drug costs. And, finally, it would help mitigate the monstrous unfairness in the tax code by requiring corporations to pay a 15-percent minimum tax on their book incomes and getting rid of the carried interest loophole. Indeed, it might be the best effort in years to reduce glaring inequities in the tax code (not to mention collect money already owed with better IRS enforcement).
Collectively, the bill would have important economic, health and environmental benefits for a wide swath of Americans. By all means, Democrats should vote for the measure thanks to all the varied, positive aspects of the bill. But both Democrats and Republicans should level with the public: Just because it has “inflation reduction” in its title does not mean it will do much to ease — let alone worsen — inflation. | 2022-08-02T14:54:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Inflation is the least significant aspect of the Inflation Reduction Act - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/inflation-adjustment-act-reconciliation-bill-not-really-about-inflation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/inflation-adjustment-act-reconciliation-bill-not-really-about-inflation/ |
(Martha Rial/for The Washington Post; Washington Post illustration; iStock)
“I want you to notice when I’m not around,” is my favorite line from Radiohead’s “Creep.” I love the song so much that when I did karaoke for the first time, in the fall of 2018, it was an easy choice for me to sing. Unfortunately, the message of that line seems to have gone over my head, because I am not giving The Post’s readership an opportunity to ever even consider missing me.
In January, I launched a weekly column for The Post’s magazine, where I muse on such things as “hoochie daddy shorts,” airplane seating etiquette, book ban FOMO and the disorientation of mourning the end of a friendship. I liken my column to a box of chocolates. And not just because you never know what you’re going to get, but because some people love me and I give other people hives.
Part of what makes my work exist on the loved/hives continuum is that I enjoy exploring, deconstructing and even laughing at the most uncomfortable thoughts and feelings swirling in my head. The weirdest of compulsions and the most chaotic of contradictions — and the tensions generated when these neuroses clash with anticipated decorum — are where I’m most comfortable. Now I plan to bring this sensibility to my new advice column, which will launch, um, whenever they get around to launching it. (I’ve enjoyed working at The Post, but man do things move slooooooow here.)
I realize that most people don’t share this desire to unpack mess, so my advice column will do it for you. Sex, money, etiquette, silverware, basketball, parenting, race, armed robbery, whatever. If you have a strange question about a thing, I’ll have a strange (and rigorous!) answer — filtered, of course, through the lens of a 43-year-old Pittsburgh dad who hopes his tattoos and his anxiety-induced acid reflux give him character.
It’s an edict that’s followed me, from VerySmartBrothas (the blog I co-founded in 2008) to the places I’ve written between then and now — including the New York Times, GQ, Esquire, the Atlantic, Slate, and the Root (where I was a senior editor from 2017 to 2020). It even shows up in my memoir, “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker,” a “tragicomic exploration of the angsts, anxieties, and absurdities of existing while black in America” that was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and won the Thurber Prize for American Humor.
If you already read my magazine column (and my book) and this is just too much of me for you, I regret to inform you that in the coming weeks, I’ll also be launching an astrology column, a blog about ketchups, and a true-crime podcast about racist true-crime podcasts called “Guess Who’s Coming to Kill Me Before Dinner?” You will never, ever, ever notice when I’m not around, because I live here now.
Read Damon’s first column on Aug. 19. | 2022-08-02T14:58:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Damon: I’m ready to unpack your mess - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/02/ask-damon-young-uncomfortable-questions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/02/ask-damon-young-uncomfortable-questions/ |
(Jakob Terpak/The Washington Post; Washington Post illustration)
I’m Jules Terpak, and my work focuses on our evolving relationship with digital culture. You might recognize me from TikTok, where I’ve shared commentary since 2021 and have grown an audience of about 280,000 people.
I was born in the late ’90s, which puts me at the beginning of Gen Z, the first generation to be immersed in the internet basically ever since we were conscious. When you grow up with the world at your fingertips, your outlook is going to be far different than previous generations. There’s no playbook for how to navigate the relationships we’ve developed with our digital experiences and what those relationships mean for our lives offline, but we’re taking on the role of guinea pig.
In Ask Jules, we’ll discuss how digital culture intersects with every facet of our lives today. Whether you’re wondering how to better utilize a platform, deal with the highs and lows of broadcasting yourself to the world or anything in between — this is the place for you.
Our online experiences have become just as influential as our real-world experiences when exploring our identities. It’s not something to take lightly. And while I respect rejection of social media platforms, I believe that it’s essential for the public to have an understanding of their use cases. I’m thankful that The Post has given me a platform to reach not only my existing audience, but also those who are less compelled by or even skeptical of how the internet has evolved.
We’re experiencing more “new” than ever before, but we must take time to make sense of where we are so that our growing relationship with digital is one of balance instead of extremes. Whether it be how we approach our social lives, education, or work — I’m ready to answer your questions about life online.
Read Jules’ first column on Aug. 17. | 2022-08-02T14:58:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Jules: Your life online is complicated. I can help with that. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/02/ask-jules-digital-life-complicated-advice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/02/ask-jules-digital-life-complicated-advice/ |
Ask Sahaj: It’s time to lean into discomfort and share our stories
(Sam Hall Media/for The Washington Post; Washington Post illustration; iStock)
I’ve spent my entire life seeking stories and advice, but I’ve often struggled to find authors and writers who look like me, sound like me or share challenges like mine.
As a daughter of Indian immigrants and the first person in my family to marry a partner of a different race and culture, a mental health professional and a therapy-goer, and a former editor and an author-to-be, I am constantly grappling with many questions about my personal and professional identity crises:
How Indian do I have to be to be considered Indian enough? How does my bicultural identity impact my friendships? How do I talk to my immigrant parents about therapy? How do I navigate the “not enoughness” I feel in predominantly White spaces?
To help interrogate some of these questions, I created Brown Girl Therapy, the first and largest mental health community for adult children of immigrants living in the West, in 2019. In this space, I work to democratize mental health and promote and destigmatize therapy for a very underserved population. I also aim to create a community where folks can connect with others who struggle with similar lived experiences.
Through this journey, I also received my master’s degree and became a mental health professional working in a field that often centers Eurocentric perspectives and goals.
My passion is at the intersection of narrative storytelling and mental health advocacy. So it’s no surprise that I have found myself taking on this new endeavor of answering your questions in the form of my mental health advice column, Ask Sahaj.
So far, I’ve answered Washington Post reader questions about family dynamics, career, friendships and more. More specifically, a few personal favorites have been about maintaining your culture when your grandparents pass away, reconciling with how your parents’ parenting style affects you, and how to know when it’s time for a new therapist.
When I answer questions, I like to take a holistic approach and consider all the systems in which the writer exists, because I firmly believe we are a sum of our experiences, our relationships and our identities. I also believe that each person is an expert and author of their own lives — and that my role is to assist them in exploring all sides of a situation through questions and curiosity. My hope is to empower people to identify what is important to them and the values they want to live by.
All that said, I hope to hear from you. Yes, you. I hope that you write in with your questions about identity, relationships, career or mental health. I want to help. I strongly believe that when we lean into our discomfort and share our stories, we not only encourage others to do the same, but we also allow ourselves to take up the space we deserve.
You don’t have to navigate your struggles alone. So, if you have something you’re grappling with, submit your question here. I look forward to hearing from you and helping guide you on this journey with you.
I am rooting for you,
Sahaj
Read Sahaj’s next column on Aug. 4. | 2022-08-02T14:59:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Sahaj: It's time to lean into discomfort and share our stories - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/02/ask-sahaj-mental-health-identity-advice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/02/ask-sahaj-mental-health-identity-advice/ |
Kennedy Center ups the Broadway ante with starry ‘Guys and Dolls’
Jessie Mueller, James Monroe Iglehart, Phillipa Soo and Steven Pasquale will feature in the return of a celebrated concert series
James Monroe Iglehart and members of the ensemble perform “Magic to Do” from “Pippin” during the “50 Years of Broadway” concert at the Kennedy Center in February. Iglehart soon stars in “Guys and Dolls” at the arts center. (Scott Suchman)
Recruiting a bushel and a peck of top-tier talent, the Kennedy Center is restarting its highly regarded Broadway Center Stage series in October with an expanded schedule, an upgraded format and a timeless property: Frank Loesser and Abe Burrows’s “Guys and Dolls.”
The arts center’s got the warhorse right here, with a posse of polished riders for this musical based on Damon Runyon’s New York yarns: Jessie Mueller as Miss Adelaide, the showgirl who wants to hear wedding bells; James Monroe Iglehart as Nathan Detroit, her hard-luck eternal fiance; Phillipa Soo as Salvation Army soul-saver Sarah Brown and Steven Pasquale as dashing, high-rolling Sky Masterson. The caliber of its above-the-title stars, announced by the center Tuesday, makes especially noteworthy the first show in the series since the pre-pandemic “Next to Normal” in January 2020.
The evolution of the musicals-in-concert series — which later in the season includes revivals of “Sunset Boulevard,” with Stephanie Block as Norma Desmond, and “Kiss of the Spider Woman” — continues, too. By agreement with Actors’ Equity, the union representing professional actors and stage managers, the number of performances for each production has been increased, from eight to 10, and some staging restrictions relaxed. No longer, Kennedy Center officials say, will any of the actors carry their scripts onstage, a practice that was a concession to short rehearsal periods but that over time has proved an encumbrance.
The changes will permit more ambitious stagings and more complete choreography, according to Jeffrey Finn, the center’s vice president and executive producer of theater, who created Broadway Center Stage. “These will be much fuller productions,” Finn explained. “That said, I still want to showcase the musicians onstage like we always have in the past. I feel like that’s an exciting part of what Center Stage is.” (Upward of 30 orchestra members will be used for “Guys and Dolls.”)
Beginning in February 2018 with a reworked version of the musical “Chess” with Raul Esparza and Karen Olivo (who now goes by KO), the series has become a magnet for musical theater lovers as well as for marquee-name actors and directors attracted by the short commitment. From first rehearsal to final performance, the job requires only a month. “Getting in and out quick is one of the things that I love to do,” Iglehart said in a phone interview, noting that he is one of the founding members of the popular hip-hop improv troupe, “Freestyle Love Supreme.”
Iglehart, who won a Tony for “Aladdin” and who emceed the February concert celebrating 50 years of Broadway musicals at the Kennedy Center, is now part of the talent network Finn has been building. Mueller, a Tony winner for “Beautiful: The Carol King Musical,” played Marian the librarian in the Center Stage revival of “The Music Man” in 2019, a production with Norm Lewis as Prof. Harold Hill that in my estimation was superior to the current Broadway version with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster.
Soo, who is playing Cinderella in Broadway’s “Into the Woods,” is married to Pasquale, who recently portrayed John Wilkes Booth in an off-Broadway revival of “Assassins.” “Guys and Dolls” is the first time as a married couple they’ll be together in a show.
The concert format’s advantages — including economy and emphasis on words and music over lavish sets — have been evidenced numerous times. John Kander, Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse’s “Chicago” started at the Encores series in New York in 1996 and has played more than 10,000 Broadway performances. Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s “Into the Woods” was staged by director Lear deBessonet earlier this year at the Encores home base at City Center before moving on to the St. James Theatre, where it will now run through Oct. 16.
How 'Into the Woods' makes the noise so joyful
No Broadway Center Stage production has yet moved on from the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater, where “Guys and Dolls” will run from Oct. 7 to 16. Finn, though, has that aspiration in mind. The Kennedy Center production of “Chess,” for instance, was regarded as a test for a show with a great score (by Abba’s Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, and Tim Rice) and a weak book, or libretto. And others, such as “The Who’s Tommy” in 2019, were conceived with such verve and freshness that a longer life somewhere else seemed possible.
But such wishes remain unfulfilled. “I produce them first and foremost for the Kennedy Center and for our audiences,” Finn said. “I’m confident that at the right moment, the stars will align to make a proper transfer happen. There just hasn’t been that moment yet. But I’m eager to have the stars align.”
“Guys and Dolls” will be staged by Marc Bruni, who directed Mueller in both “Beautiful” and “The Music Man,” and will feature music direction by Kevin Stites and choreography by Denis Jones. “It was the first musical that I saw on Broadway from the golden age,” Bruni said, of a 1992 revival starring Nathan Lane and Faith Prince. “I went on a school trip and went twice more to see it. I was so enamored with what musical comedy could do.”
For Iglehart, getting his shot at Nathan Detroit adds a chapter to a family story. His father, he said in an interview, played Sky Masterson in high school in Oakland Calif., at a time when the production was segregated: Black and White students performed the show separately, Iglehart recalled.
“I always loved Frank Sinatra and I fell in love with Nathan Detroit,” the actor said, referring to the 1955 movie version that also starred Vivian Blaine, Jean Simmons and Marlon Brando. He sang music from “Guys and Dolls” in his own high school show choir in Hayward, Calif., and played one of Nathan’s sidekicks, Benny Southstreet, in a Bay Area community theater production.
It seems apt that Iglehart won his Tony playing the genie in “Aladdin.” Because he’s surely now been granted one of his own three wishes.
Guys and Dolls tickets are available now for purchase by Kennedy Center members, and go on sale to the general public Thursday. 202-467-4600. kennedy-center.org. | 2022-08-02T15:07:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kennedy Center ups the Broadway ante with starry ‘Guys and Dolls’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/02/guys-dolls-kennedy-center/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/02/guys-dolls-kennedy-center/ |
William Hudson, longtime conductor of Fairfax Symphony, dies at 89
William Hudson, Fairfax Symphony Orchestra conductor. (Dennis Whitehead)
William Hudson, a pianist and conductor who led the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra for 36 years, establishing it as a leading regional orchestra in the capital area, died July 12 at his home in Vienna, Va. He was 89.
The cause was atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, said his former wife, Denise Battistone.
In 1971, Mr. Hudson, then a new member of the conducting faculty at the University of Maryland, won an audition to take over a struggling, unpaid, 60-piece occasional orchestra. The FSO had been founded 14 years earlier by a local violinist, Dorothy Farnham Feuer. The group’s early support had come from the Fairfax Women’s Club, and Phil Fuller, director of the Fairfax High School Band, led the first performance at Annandale High School.
By many accounts, those early FSO performances were unimpressive. Symphony members were known to bring in punch and homemade cookies to entice listeners. “Ranger Hal,” a local TV host, led one program that also included a puppet show. “Some children threw up with overexcitement,” The Washington Post reported. “In the melee, music was lost, and so was one soloist — locked in the men’s room.”
Indeed, in a sweeping 1968 study of smaller orchestras published by the American Symphony Orchestra League (now the League of American Orchestras), the music service organization could offer no more support to the group than a suggestion that the FSO merge with some other local orchestra, effectively ending its life.
But the appointment of Mr. Hudson turned things around quickly. For the first time, auditions were held to select the musicians in the orchestra. By 1977, the FSO was made up of 110 musicians — almost double its original size — and players were paid for every concert in which they participated.
A violist, Lisa Baltzer, recently recalled the excitement of a developing orchestra for a release published by the FSO, in an obituary for Mr. Hudson released by the orchestra: “I well remember the challenge — and a sense of accomplishment — of our first performance of Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird,’ Strauss’s ‘Till Eulenspiegel’ and Mahler’s first symphony.”
Joseph McLellan, the longtime chief music critic of The Washington Post, heard the FSO in 1989 and admired what he called Mr. Hudson’s “personal touch in each of these works” noting that it could be heard in “details of tempo, dynamics and phrasing, but above all in orchestral balances that often brought out interesting, rarely heard inner voices.”
“All the music demands solid orchestral technique, virtuosity in some solo passages, plus considerable collective power,” McLellan continued. “The Fairfax Symphony is capable of meeting these requirements, and did so last night.”
As the FSO’s reputation grew, it was increasingly able to engage leading soloists, including the singer Ella Fitzgerald, the pianists Leonard Pennario, Peter Serkin and Jorge Bolet, and the cellist Janos Starker. In an interview published by The Post in 1985, Starker said that the orchestra’s recent development had been “incredible” and that the company was then “among the top three community orchestras in the country.” (He declined to name the others.)
In 1990, the FSO moved to the 1,850-seat Center for the Arts at George Mason University, where it remains today, under the direction of Christopher Zimmerman.
William Lee Hudson was born in Newport News, Va., on Jan. 31, 1933. He received a bachelor’s degree in 1957 from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree from Yale School of Music and did conducting studies at the Tanglewood music festival in Massachusetts. In 1970, he joined the University of Maryland faculty, where he remained until his retirement from teaching in 1999. He has no immediate survivors.
Mr. Hudson left the FSO in 2007. “I hope we are all able to somehow do the best we are capable of doing,” he said in an exit interview. “I’ve never been satisfied with any concert I’ve conducted. I’m always rather depressed after a concert because you know what it should be like and it never is, really. But we try to get as close as we can to what the composer wanted, whatever that is.” | 2022-08-02T15:07:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | William Hudson, longtime conductor of Fairfax Symphony, dies at 89 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/02/william-hudson-fairfax-symphony-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/02/william-hudson-fairfax-symphony-dies/ |
Compared with one year earlier, credit card debt has increased at the fastest clip in 20 years.
A shopper carries a Zara bag in the Soho neighborhood of New York. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg)
Credit card balances increased $46 billion in the second quarter, a 5.5 percent increase from the first quarter, and there was also an uptick in new credit card accounts. The 13% increase from the second quarter of 2021 to the second quarter of 2022 was the biggest such jump in more than 20 years.
The numbers reflect the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s consumer spending report released last week, which showed that spending in June climbed 1.1 percent. Similar to the New York Fed’s findings, gas prices, which surged past $5 a gallon in many parts of the country in the second quarter, and inflation, which jumped 9.1 percent, year over year, in June, were likely the drivers of the increased debt.
The report released Tuesday found that household debt increased in the second quarter by $312 billion, or 2 percent, compared to the first quarter. Total balances are now $2 trillion higher than before the pandemic. Mortgage balances saw the highest increase, which is in line with a the central bank’s increased interest rates to cool down the blazing hot housing market. | 2022-08-02T15:11:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Credit card debt surges as inflation drives up costs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/02/credit-card-debt-inflation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/02/credit-card-debt-inflation/ |
But Americans still quit their jobs at the same elevated rate as in the past few months
Emma Asch, left, wipes the counter after each transaction at the American Eagle/Aerie store at Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio. (Andrew Spear for The Washington Post)
The slowing down in the labor market is related to mounting head winds in the economy. Inflation has soared to a 40-year high, which is weighing on many companies and households. In response, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates four times this year, including by three-quarters of a percentage point in July.
The Fed is aiming to bring prices down, but that work is expected also to push the unemployment rate to rise from 3.6 percent to 4.1 percent. The Fed’s goal is to reduce the number of job postings and hirings without triggering a massive wave of job losses.
A record number of Americans quit their jobs over the past year, in a phenomenon known as the Great Resignation, as a hot labor market spurred by the pandemic afforded them leverage to find better-paying opportunities, particularly in leisure and hospitality. But data suggests that this era may be coming to a close. Although the rate at which workers are quitting their jobs is still elevated, Americans are no longer pursuing other opportunities at the same pace.
Hayden said that he has had no trouble finding new job opportunities in software development. In fact, he said, he’s overwhelmed by the number of open positions and the recruiters getting in touch with him. | 2022-08-02T15:11:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Job openings begin to level off, as labor market cools down - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/02/job-openings-labor-market-jolts/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/02/job-openings-labor-market-jolts/ |
Oatly maker recalls 53 beverage products over contamination risk
While no illnesses have been linked to the recall, customers are advised not to consume beverages covered by it.
Updated August 2, 2022 at 11:02 a.m. EDT|Published August 2, 2022 at 9:46 a.m. EDT
Oatly containers are displayed at a grocery store on May 18, 2021, in North Miami (Marta Lavandier/AP)
The maker of Oatly and other specialty drinks has issued a recall for 53 of its products due to potential microbial contamination, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
Fresno, Calif-based Lyons Magnus issued the voluntarily recall after a preliminary analysis showed they did not meet commercial sterility benchmarks, raising the risk of contamination from Cronobacter sakazakii. Though no illnesses have been reported in connection with the issue, the agency advises against consuming any of the products.
The recall extends to various protein drinks, coffee products and other beverages, including Oatly’s Oat-Milk Barista Edition, Stumptown Cold Brew Coffee with Oat Milk and Aloha plant-based protein drinks, as well as offerings from Lyons Ready Care, Lyons Barista Style, Pirq, Intelligentsia, Kate Farms, Premier Protein, MRE and Imperial.
Though Cronobacter infections are rare, vulnerable and immunocompromised people are more susceptible to illness. Common symptoms include fever, vomiting and urinary tract infection.
The FDA published a list of specific lot codes and product codes to identify the recalled products, which were distributed nationally. More information can be found at fda.gov or by calling the company’s recall support line at 800-627-0557. | 2022-08-02T15:11:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oatly almond milk among 53 products recalled over bacterial infection - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/02/oatly-almond-milk-among-53-products-recalled-over-bacterial-infection/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/02/oatly-almond-milk-among-53-products-recalled-over-bacterial-infection/ |
Analyzing Apple’s earnings can, on occasion, feel like looking at a jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing.
Consider the quarter ended in June: The fact that a slight dip in sales from Apple’s all-important hardware segment was offset by growth in its services segment — the App Store, advertising, etc. — received a lot of attention when the company reported last Thursday night. What drew less notice was that the services’ 12% growth rate was meaningfully slower than the 25% that the segment averaged over the previous four quarters.
Well, maybe that’s hyperbolic. After all, the Manhattan Project was a secret from the get-go. In Apple’s case, it has reduced what it discloses around its services over the past decade, since Tim Cook became chief executive officer, even as the segment has become a crucial contributor to Apple’s bottom line.
Going back to Apple’s fiscal 2012 securities filings, for instance, the company reported that net sales for the iTunes store — which at that time included App Store sales — was $7.5 billion. That expanded to $10.2 billion in 2014, but Apple stopped giving out the number after that. It did disclose the App Store had net sales growth of 29% in fiscal 2015, but even that number was dropped from subsequent filings.
In recent years, other than services’ revenue and gross margin, Apple has simply listed three businesses driving growth in net sales, which rose to $68.4 billion in fiscal 2021. Usually, the App Store is in that group.
What little we know about the App Store suggests it is the services segment’s biggest source of revenue — and with profit margins reported to be around 80%, probably the main source of profits. This is where the lack of disclosure is an issue for investors. You have to imagine that recent moves by several countries to force Apple to loosen rules on the App Store, allowing people to use alternative payment methods, would dampen its revenue growth. Kramer, for instance, assumes in his forecasts that Apple’s App Store fees drop to 20% from 30% in 2023 as a response to those pressures.
But Apple’s habit of disclosing virtually nothing about the business makes it impossible for outsiders to be sure.
• Apple, JPMorgan Turn to Pay Now Grow Later: Paul J. Davies
• Apple’s $3 Trillion Valuation Should Unnerve Investors: Tae Kim
• An IPhone Subscription Would Boost Apple’s Profit: Alex Webb | 2022-08-02T15:11:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Are Apple App Store Profits Slowing? Investors Need to Know - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/are-apple-app-store-profitsslowing-investors-need-to-know/2022/08/02/0422bd8a-1268-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/are-apple-app-store-profitsslowing-investors-need-to-know/2022/08/02/0422bd8a-1268-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
Elimination of Al-Qaeda Leader Is a Moment to Celebrate
Like Osama bin Laden, his predecessor as leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri had the blood of thousands of innocents on his hands. His death, announced by the White House on Monday, should be welcomed not just in the United States but everywhere his terrorist organization has wrought havoc over the past decades.
Zawahiri’s killing was a feat of patient, effective intelligence work. US spies tracked him through his family to Kabul earlier this year, then spent months confirming his presence and observing how he spent his days. That information allowed an American drone to target him while he was standing alone on his balcony; the two Hellfire missiles that took him out killed no one else, according to US officials. In announcing the strike, President Joe Biden was right to pay tribute to the intelligence professionals who spent decades tracking down the Egyptian terrorist leader and who devised the plan to eliminate him.
There was no doubt he had it coming. In addition to helping plot the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — which he called a “victory” in 2002 — Zawahiri had a hand in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people; the 2000 attack against the USS Cole, which took the lives of 17 U.S. sailors; the 2005 London transit bombings, which killed 52 civilians; and numerous other atrocities. Few terrorists of his generation were responsible for more bloodshed.
While assessments of al-Qaeda’s remaining strength vary, Zawahiri had been its best-known remaining leader and a rallying point for its affiliates in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Though lacking in bin Laden’s charisma, he had managed to keep those offshoots within the fold despite efforts by Islamic State to win them over. Zawahiri himself was continuing to encourage attacks against the US; the affiliates he cultivated remain a threat to carry them out.
First, it’s difficult but not impossible for the US to gather intelligence, conduct surveillance and eliminate terrorist threats in Afghanistan despite having ceded the country to the Taliban a year ago. Biden pledged at the time to use such “over-the-horizon” operations to keep Americans safe. His administration should redouble efforts to improve its capabilities by working out overflight and basing agreements with Afghanistan’s neighbors, while expanding intelligence cooperation with Pakistan, India and others worried about extremist groups being sheltered by the Taliban.
Second, the Taliban clearly can’t be trusted to uphold its promises to prevent terrorist groups from using Afghanistan as a base. Zawahiri was apparently living under the protection of the Haqqani branch of the Taliban; US officials say Haqqani operatives spirited away Zawahiri’s family after the strike to eliminate evidence of his presence. At the very least, those open links violate the spirit of the Doha Agreement, which paved the way for the US withdrawal. The Taliban have been pursuing aid and international recognition ever since; they should receive neither as long as they continue to coddle terrorists.
For now, it’s enough to say that justice has been served — and that the world is a safer place with Ayman al-Zawahiri in his grave.
• Will Afghanistan’s Media Survive Under the Taliban?: Bobby Ghosh
• Biden’s $7 Billion Betrayal of Afghanistan: Ruth Pollard | 2022-08-02T15:11:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Elimination of Al-Qaeda Leader Is a Moment to Celebrate - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/elimination-of-al-qaeda-leaderis-a-moment-to-celebrate/2022/08/02/6b03106c-1269-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/elimination-of-al-qaeda-leaderis-a-moment-to-celebrate/2022/08/02/6b03106c-1269-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
Democrats’ Climate Bill Is a Clean Energy Dream. That’s Not Enough.
Welcome to the promised land. (Photographer: David McNew/Getty Images)
I can think of four major approaches to fighting climate change, and the new Inflation Reduction Act uses only one of them: Subsidizing green energy. The bill does this by offering consumers incentives for electric vehicles and heat pumps and also by directly subsidizing research and development for solar power, nuclear power, wind power, energy storage, and even new research into geothermal alternatives. These are all sexy initiatives, but they’re the “feel-good” part of fighting climate change. That’s not enough.
Here’s the issue: More green energy does not solve climate change problems at the relevant global level. We need more green energy and fewer carbon emissions. Currently we are on a track where total energy consumption is due to rise, and the world will have both more green energy and more carbon emissions, moving along a never-ending upward spiral.
The case for the bill is that it does something rather than nothing. The case against the bill is that it doesn’t, alone, do much to get the world off this track.
This brings me to the second way of fighting climate change: raising the price of fossil fuels. Economists (myself included) typically are enamored of a Pigouvian carbon tax, which would make carbon emissions more expensive, but raising the price of energy has proven deeply politically unpopular. This is especially evident in 2022, when leaders worldwide are seeking to insulate their voters from the effects of high fuel prices. Australia ended up repealing its carbon tax; more generally, the idea simply has not caught on. You might say, “We still need to tell voters that spinach is good for them.” But the bill doesn’t do much in this direction.
A third approach to dealing with climate change is combatting environmental NIMBYism. Plenty of homeowners do not want wind farms or nuclear power plants nearby and environmental restrictions can limit hydroelectric power, to name but a few examples of many. In each case, these restrictions limit the chances to expand green energy and thus prop up sources of carbon emissions.
The bill in its early stages didn’t do much to remedy these problems, although there is now a report that building and environmental review provisions will be eased by separate legislation. Often the relevant regulations are state and local rather than federal, but clearing away the relevant federal regulations is at least a start. It would be better yet if President Biden and other prominent politicians could use their bully pulpits to draw attention to these issues at the state and local level, and to emphasize the positive sides of deregulation, including job creation. The drawback is that this path would involve spending political capital, with slow and uncertain final results.
Finally, a fourth approach to climate change is to make its consequences easier to deal with. That could involve support for sea walls, agricultural improvements and more robust crops, denial of public sector storm aid to residents in danger zones, measures to enhance interstate mobility, and also geoengineering, among other options.
The case for such measures is that, realistically speaking, a fair amount of climate change is on its way in any case. Many climate change reformers, however, are hostile toward such talk, which they regard as equivalent to accepting the problem and “giving up.” The bill also does not seem to be strong in this area.
In sum, the new climate bill addresses one of these four areas, namely subsidizing green energy. But a fundamental choice stands before us: Do we wish to feel good about green energy, or recognize climate change as a global problem that actually requires fossil fuel consumption to decrease? The feeling good about green energy is the easy part, and it is what we have chosen. At some point, the latter will be necessary to actually solve the problem. | 2022-08-02T15:12:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats’ Climate Bill Is a Clean Energy Dream. That’s Not Enough. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/democrats-climate-bill-is-a-clean-energy-dream-thats-not-enough/2022/08/02/6760277c-1270-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/democrats-climate-bill-is-a-clean-energy-dream-thats-not-enough/2022/08/02/6760277c-1270-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
Juneteenth is meant to unite us, just like the Fourth of July
But there was something else about the Panther Burn Cottage that the luxury listing proudly advertised: The property was an “1830s slave cabin” that housed enslaved people at a plantation in Greenville, Miss.
“The history of slavery in this country is constantly denied,” Yates said in the Friday video, “and now it’s being mocked by being turned into a luxurious vacation spot.” Yates, who is Black, added, “This is not okay in the least bit.”
Brad Hauser, who took over ownership of the Greenville property last month, said in a statement to The Washington Post that even though the building had been a doctor’s office and not a quarters for enslaved people, it was “the previous owner’s decision to market the building as the place where slaves once slept.” Hauser, who is White, said he “strongly opposed” the previous owner’s decision and vowed to provide guests with a “historically accurate portrayal” of life at the Belmont Plantation.
It’s unclear how many Airbnb listings feature properties in the United States that once housed some of the millions of enslaved Black people. Several properties in Georgia and Louisiana that were billed as quarters for enslaved people have since been removed from Airbnb’s site, according to Mic.
‘These are our ancestors’: Descendants of enslaved people are shifting plantation tourism
Yates, 34, told The Post on Tuesday that he was first made aware of the Greenville listing in a group text message. Yates said his brother’s friend was looking for rental properties in Greenville, about 100 miles northwest of Columbia, S.C., and found that the Panther Burn Cottage was the only listing available.
“To see weddings on plantations and events on plantations and suburbs and subdivisions named after plantations and plantation owners is something I’ve been grossed out by every day of my life. But this was a new level of disrespect for what slavery was,” Yates said. “To see the space where enslaved peoples lived being renovated into a luxurious space and rented out just took my breath away.”
Screenshots of the listing show the cabin is next to a 9,000-square-foot mansion that has nine bedrooms and eight bathrooms. Built in 1857, the luxury structure is “the last remaining antebellum mansion standing” in the Mississippi Delta, according to the listing.
“This particular structure, the Panther Burn Cabin, is an 1830s slave cabin from the extant Panther Burn Plantation to the south of Belmont,” the listing reads. “It has also been used as a tenant sharecroppers cabin and a medical office for local farmers and their families to visit the plantation doctor.”
The previous owner noted in the listing that the cabin was moved to the Belmont Plantation in 2017 and “meticulously restored,” while keeping some of the cypress boards used in the original built in the 1830s. The Panther Burn Cottage was advertised on the Airbnb listing as “the last surviving structure from the fabled Panther Burn Plantation.”
Hauser told The Post that when he initially inquired about the building behind Belmont, the previous owner told him it was not a cabin for enslaved people and was not being advertised as such. He said he was “misled” about the cabin, and noted how Airbnb and Booking.com had suspended advertising contracts with the Belmont “pending further investigation.”
Yates said he doesn’t know whether Airbnb’s apology will amount to situations like the Panther Burn Cottage being avoided in the future. When asked what he would tell property owners with buildings that once housed enslaved Black people, Yates had a clear message: “Stop romanticizing the experience of slavery.” | 2022-08-02T15:13:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Airbnb apologizes for Mississippi ‘slave cabin’ listed as luxury getaway after viral TikTok video - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/08/02/airbnb-slave-cabin-mississippi-tiktok/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/08/02/airbnb-slave-cabin-mississippi-tiktok/ |
Jes Negrón’s first game after suing Riot is about heritage and a haunted house
Jes Negrón poses for a portrait at her Connecticut home with her upcoming game, "Good Bones." Jes led a class action lawsuit against her former employer, Riot Games, for gender discrimination. (Johnny Milano/For The Washington Post)
In “Good Bones,” players experience the story of Avi, who is moving into a new home with her daughter, Bianca, after the death of her wife. And like Avi and Bianca at the beginning of the game, Jes Negrón, the game’s developer, is also in the process of starting something new.
Retcon Games is Negrón’s new studio, founded in October 2021, and “Good Bones” is her first game, set to release on August 31. The debut comes nearly half a decade after Negrón made headlines for a lawsuit that shook the video game industry: In November 2018, Negrón sued “League of Legends” publisher Riot Games for gender-based discrimination, sexual harassment and misconduct, alongside former employee Melanie McCracken.
“[Starting my own studio] was just me being sick of everything in the industry, and not being able to find my way back in fully after the whole lawsuit thing,” Negrón said. “It’s been really tough to get positions. I had a job last year, and I was like, ‘Alright, this is my last shot. And if this doesn’t work out, I’m just going to go it on my own.’ Because after the whole Riot situation and the lawsuit, and this years-long fight, my tolerance for the BS at work is just zero.”
The job last year — the “last shot” — didn’t work out. And so, Negrón followed through on her promise to create something new.
“Maybe I can start something new with this kind of vision and a set of values that I think the industry is sorely lacking in a lot of places,” Negrón said. “I just went for it. I figured I have the time, and I’m in a unique place in my life where I can go for it, and not be super worried about where I’m going to get my next meal. It’s been freeing and exciting to own the whole vision, the process, to do things in a way that I know works for me.”
“Good Bones” is a game that feels cozy yet haunted, drawing vibes from Negrón’s Puerto Rican heritage while featuring art and music from Latinx artists. A point-and-click puzzle game with a supernatural twist, “Good Bones” is about a family trying to rebuild in a new home that’s haunted by the ghost of a young woman who can’t remember why she’s there. To uncover more about the family, you must solve puzzles set to lo-fi chill beats with a hint of bossa nova. In later parts of the game, there are elements of reckoning with domestic violence.
For now, Retcon Games is a one-person studio. The studio is named after the term “retcon,” short for retroactive continuity, or the idea that a backstory in a TV show, for instance, can be edited after the fact.
“There are a lot of stories that have been retconned for marginalized folks. And I want to go back and rerecord and let people tell their stories the way they’re meant to be told,” Negrón said.
Black game developers: Diversity push is lots of talk, little progress
She coded “Good Bones” and wrote a novel’s worth of dialogue and backstory herself. Most of her $5,000 budget went toward art and music, a priority for setting the vibe and attracting players. Over 3,500 people have added “Good Bones” to their wishlist on Steam, and Negrón estimates that if only a fraction of those people pay $14.99 for the game, she will break even. Anything extra will go toward funding the next game.
“I do really want to build this into something lasting. I hope I can,” Negrón said. “The vision for this studio is solid. My vision, in general, for the kinds of stories that can be told through games is solid. And I work in a space that not a lot of people are working in right now, which is just, very story-driven, high quality, low production games.”
She hopes to staff up the studio in time.
“I hope I can grow sustainably and, in the future, expand the team to get some actual developers and be a real studio,” Negrón said.
Launching “Good Bones” on her own is a stark contrast to Negrón’s previous work, where she was part of a larger team.
“My experience at Riot was like coming in on somebody else’s vision and trying to execute. Fun work, amazing work. But definitely not the rush of being able to create something of your own,” she said.
Patricia Navarro Guerra, an artist in Caracas, Venezuela, drew the background art for “Good Bones,” after Negrón found her online.
“Working on ‘Good Bones’ was an interesting and exciting experience. Every concept brief for each background felt like creating a window to a story that remains in secret,” Navarro Guerra said. “There are certain places of the main house that I’m excited to play and find out what’s behind all the little details scattered around places that were designed to be full of nostalgia.”
The path from Riot Games to “Good Bones” was hardly a straight line. Negrón described her last job at the tabletop gaming company Incredible Dream as the same “White, male-dominated space” that was resistant to her efforts to diversify game narratives and characters. The company fired her in July, she said.
Incredible Dream’s CEO, Jane Chung Hoffacker, disputed Negrón’s characterization in a statement (“70% of our full-time employees are womxn,” Chung Hoffacker wrote) but declined to share details about Negrón’s termination, citing a nondisclosure agreement.
Riot Games agrees to pay $100 million in settlement of class-action gender discrimination lawsuit
As for funding, Negrón said it’s hard to find investors when you’ve been vocal in the industry. Venture capital funding in video games is often concentrated in the top several dozen firms that hold significant capital.
“Venture capital would be a rough space for me. I don’t think a lot of people want to work with the woman who sued Riot Games, in terms of investment,” Negrón said. “It’s a rough paradox, because you have these really brilliant people who are speaking out to make a better industry. And unfortunately, these people who are the most likely to go out on their own and try something are also the folks that then can’t get funding because the people they spoke against are in charge of all the money everywhere.”
“League of Legends” publisher Riot Games announced last December that it was settling its 2018 gender-based discrimination class-action suit with California state agencies and current and former women employees for $100 million. The company will pay $80 million to members of the class-action suit and approximately $20 million toward plaintiffs’ legal fees. A judge approved the settlement on July 25 and the case is still awaiting final approval from the court.
“So much went on behind the scenes for years to make this happen. It’s a sense of relief. I’m just excited that we’re just another step closer to it being over,” Negrón said.
Riot’s $100 million settlement comes just as the video game industry faces broad scrutiny of its workplace culture. Multiple government agencies, for example, are investigating “Call of Duty” and “World of Warcraft” developer Activision Blizzard over allegations of employee sexual misconduct and gender-based discrimination.
For years, workers in the video game industry have made steps to organize the industry. A union at the indie developer Vodeo Games was recognized by management last December, followed by Raven Software quality assurance testers winning a union election last May. A group of testers at Blizzard Albany, formerly Vicarious Visions, announced their organizing efforts in July.
“I have spoken to so many people who have approached me and said, ‘You know, I want to do something about what’s going on at my company, but I don’t even know where to start,’ ” Negrón said. “The fact that I’ve done all the hard work, so I’m able to be like, ‘Yep, I got you. This is what you do, this is who you talk to.’ That knowledge that gets shared and used has been amazing. And it’s about time.” | 2022-08-02T15:13:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jes Negrón sued Riot Games in 2018. Now, she's back with a new game. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/08/02/jes-negron-good-bones-riot/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/08/02/jes-negron-good-bones-riot/ |
England won its first major trophy Sunday, defeating Germany in the Euro final at Wembley. (Harriet Lander/Getty Images)
The U.S. women’s national soccer team, which is aiming to win a third consecutive World Cup trophy next summer, is tentatively scheduled to play newly crowned European champion England in an Oct. 7 friendly at Wembley Stadium, the respective federations announced Tuesday.
The match is contingent on England qualifying for the 2023 World Cup during the September international match window. The Lionesses (8-0-0) need only to draw at Austria (6-1-1) on Sept. 3 or defeat Luxembourg (3-5-0) three days later at home.
In an away qualifier with Luxembourg last year, England won, 10-0. Should the Lionesses stumble and be forced into a World Cup playoff in October, the England FA and U.S. Soccer Federation said they would work to reschedule in the future.
The top-ranked Americans and No. 8 English met in the 2019 World Cup semifinals in France (a 2-1 U.S. victory) and 2020 SheBelieves Cup in Orlando (a 2-0 U.S. victory). But after England won the Euro title for the first time Sunday, defeating Germany, 2-1, before 87,192 at Wembley, interest in women’s soccer there is at its highest level and a match with the sport’s most decorated program would sure to bring enormous attention.
England fans reacted to the country's first major women's soccer title on July 31. The Lionesses made history after beating Germany 2-1. (Video: Reuters)
Tickets went on sale right away. The match will kick off in the evening in London. Fox Sports 1 will provide coverage in the United States.
In a statement, U.S. Coach Vlatko Andonovski said playing England at Wembley is an “opportunity that doesn’t come around very often, so we’re all thankful that the match could be arranged, and we’ll be hoping that England finish their [World Cup] qualifying campaign.”
Andonovski added, “This is exactly the kind of match we need at exactly the right time in our World Cup preparations so we can test ourselves against a very talented England team.”
Since the Americans won the 2019 world title, most of their matches have come against weak and middling opponents. Last month, they qualified for the World Cup and 2024 Olympics by romping through the Concacaf W Championship with five victories by a 13-0 aggregate score.
They’re unbeaten in 19 straight since losing to Canada in the Olympic semifinals this past summer and have recorded shutouts in 11 of 12 games this year.
The Americans have not appeared at Wembley since the 2012 Olympic gold medal match against Japan. Their only two away games against England were played at small venues around London, in 2011 and 2015.
After the proposed England game, the United States is planning to play a second friendly in Europe, Oct. 10-11. Spain, ranked No. 7, is the top candidate, one person familiar with the plans said.
Before venturing to Europe, the Americans have two friendlies against Nigeria: Sept. 3 in Kansas City, Kan., and Sept. 6 at Audi Field in Washington. In November, they are planning to play two home matches. The opponent and venues have not been finalized.
All games this fall are during FIFA international windows. The National Women’s Soccer League, which supplies most of the U.S. national team players, has one game scheduled during the September window. The league is expected to pause the start of the playoffs for the October friendlies and the NWSL championship game takes place more than a week before the November matches.
In a statement, England Coach Sarina Wiegman said of the planned U.S. clash: “It would be the perfect game for our squad to meet another strong team after so many tough games in the Euros. It is good we enjoy the moment we are in after this wonderful summer, but we know we still have to work to do to take the next step forward.”
D.C. United acquiring goalkeeper David Ochoa in trade with Real Salt Lake | 2022-08-02T15:59:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | USWNT set to play England at Wembley Stadium - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/02/uswnt-england-wembley-stadium/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/02/uswnt-england-wembley-stadium/ |
An artist sketch depicts Guy Reffitt, joined by his lawyer William Welch, right, in Federal Court in D.C. on Feb. 28. (Dana Verkourteren/AP)
Guy Reffitt, a recruiter for the Three Percenters right-wing movement who was convicted in March of five felonies — including obstruction of an official proceeding — for his involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, received a seven-year prison sentence on Monday. It’s the longest to date arising from the insurrection.
Donald Trump should pay close attention. The former president could well face a similar charge — and sentence.
In addition to his prison time, Reffitt received a tongue-lashing from U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich. The Post reports that Friedrich declared that Reffitt’s views were “absurd,” “delusional” and “way outside of the mainstream.” Couldn’t the same be said of Trump, whose delusional dream of holding power by any means necessary resulted in the catastrophic events of Jan. 6?
Friedrich was just warming up. The Post reports:
Again, that could apply to Trump as well.
The Justice Department is now pursuing a wide-ranging investigation encompassing the phony elector scheme as well as the violence on Jan. 6. Attorney General Merrick Garland recently assured the public, "We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for the events surrounding Jan. 6, for any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable.”
In confirming there is no legal or other barrier (e.g., presidential immunity) foreclosing the department from prosecuting an ex-president, Garland effectively said that Trump should receive the same treatment as others implicated in Jan. 6. If facts and the law lead the Justice Department to conclude Trump broke the law, Garland would have no justification for giving Trump a pass.
Reffitt was found guilty because his intent was plainly to impede the electoral vote counting, an “official proceeding” in terms of the statute. Trump also intended to obstruct the electoral vote counting. Testimony from the House Jan. 6 select committee has repeatedly illustrated that he was willing to see violence play out to achieve his aim, refusing to act for at least 187 minutes. Even if Trump truly believed he won the election (although there is ample evidence he did not), he “corruptly” sought to use a variety of schemes to delay the count.
Trump was no more entitled to do this than he would be, for example, to kidnap his vice president,Mike Pence or to bribe him to reject the electoral votes. As former prosecutors Donald Ayer, Stuart Gerson and Dennis Aftergut wrote for the Atlantic, “Any argument that Donald Trump lacked provable criminal intent is contradicted by the facts elicited by the January 6 committee."
In short, if a low-level zealot such as Reffitt can be prosecuted, convicted and given seven years for carrying out the violent insurrection that Trump encouraged, after all of the former president’s other corrupt schemes failed, then there can be no moral or legal justification for letting Trump walk. There is no better illustration for the principle that “no one is above the law.”
When pressed as to whether he would pursue Trump even if he announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, Garland insisted: “I’ll say again that we will hold accountable anyone who was criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the transfer, legitimate, lawful transfer of power from one administration to the next.” In other words, there will be no special treatment afforded to an ex-president or someone seeking the presidency.
As the conviction of lower-level actors and hearings for the Jan. 6 committee have progressed, nothing has come up to suggest there is any constitutional barrier to pursuing Trump. Nor has any critical factual gap emerged that might prevent conviction. If Garland is to reaffirm the rule of law and make good on his promise to follow the facts and the law, it is hard to see why Trump should escape the same fate as Reffitt. That is the essence of pursuing justice without “fear or favor.” | 2022-08-02T16:04:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | If low-level zealots can be prosecuted for Jan. 6, so can Trump - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/guy-reffitt-sentenced-jan-6-trump/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/guy-reffitt-sentenced-jan-6-trump/ |
Four ways to improve the Manchin package
Steam rises from cooling towers of the Électricité de France (EDF) nuclear power plant in Belleville-sur-Loire, France, in October 2021. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)
Assume that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) signals her support for the massive tax-and-spending bill agreed to last week by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.). That’s not a sure thing, of course, but party pressure on Sinema is likely to have an impact. Then an open floor amendment process begins in which Republicans can put forth their own amendments. If Republican senators stick together, hold all 50 of their votes and find just one Democrat to support one or more of their successful amendments all the way through the Senate finish line and the “wraparound” amendment typically used to strip out the “symbolic vote” amendments, the real changes will get included in any final measure sent to the House.
Most “poison pill” amendments — designed to kill a much bigger measure before final passage — are normally a waste of time. But one can easily see four amendments that Republicans should try to add to the Schumer-Manchin bill that could survive the last hurdle if attention fixes on them.
First, look to the Pacific. “Reconciliation” — the name for the legislative process under which this huge bill proceeds — should redirect some of the unprecedented largesse flowing out of the treasury to the two classes of new submarines we must have — and the shipyards that build and maintain them. While boosting the number of sailors vital to the long conflict ahead with China, lawmakers should reduce military force structure not geared to conflict in the Pacific. A NATO reenergized by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine means the United States can move to fully fund its commitments to the Pacific Rim. Our subsurface fleet is the future of great-power competition. Reconciliation should — finally — put Congress’s money where its mouth has been for years: into the Navy, especially the Columbia-class subs that will be the backbone of our future nuclear deterrence.
Second, condition federal funding for elementary and high schools on the elimination of teaching in elementary grades divisive subjects such as human intimacy, gender and race. Those subjects are best taught in upper grades, and only when parents are fully informed. Public school teachers are public employees. Federal money comes with federal strings, and those strings should serve to limit the radical ideologues at work in public schools.
Third, provide start-up funds for construction and expansion of new charter schools — both public and private, and yes, religious and secular — on an equal basis with funds for public schools. Republicans will be hard-pressed to persuade the Senate parliamentarian to rule that such an amendment is germane to a tax-and-spend bill, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try. Capital outlays for buildings count as infrastructure, and small deductions from the other billions should meet the test. So should reallocation of existing federal funding from some Education Department boondoggles to make a start. Along the way, it would be smart to take some steps to force the feds to stop the “woke” movement increasingly seeping into K-12 curriculums.
Finally, the Schumer-Manchin compromise is allegedly a huge push to combat global climate change. It appears on close inspection to be a huge push to bail out early investors in green technologies for which no self-sustaining markets have materialized. Slice off some of the billions about to be wasted and mandate the technology that will actually cut harmful emissions: a new nuclear plant in every state.
Manchin caved in to his party. Sinema will likely follow. But the latest move in Democratic spending is a huge opportunity for the GOP to define the fall campaign beyond President Biden’s many and manifest failures. If the GOP uses the weeks ahead to demand more spending on our Navy and on alternatives to government schools and to make a strong stand in favor of the nuclear power that will keep our homes lit and warm for generations to come, Manchin’s collapse can provide even more GOP definition for the fall campaign. | 2022-08-02T16:04:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How to make the Manchin bill better - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/manchin-bill-navy-education/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/manchin-bill-navy-education/ |
‘Cooler than a Cadillac with AC in hundred-degree weather’
By Kathy Gilsinan
ST. LOUIS — Damion Baker was in elementary school when he picked up the phrase he’d use for the rest of his life: “Well, technically…” It tickled his mom An’namarie Baker to hear her son carefully explain some finer point.
The expression captured Baker’s essence, An’namarie said. He was witty and diligent, a leader in school and a Division One football player who went on to run his own construction business.
Baker was “cooler than a Cadillac with AC in hundred-degree weather,” his friend Kevin Spraggins Jr. said at his funeral. He had great taste in sweatshirts and gave “the best hugs,” according to his aunt Carlotta Baker.
That kindness was on full display on July 3 when Baker agreed to escort a woman to her car in downtown St. Louis. The pair were shot in an attempted carjacking. She survived multiple gunshot wounds to the lower body. Baker died at age 25. He was among 19 people shot and seven killed in the city over the July Fourth weekend.
At a service in Baker’s honor at Lighthouse Baptist Church, images flashed across the auditorium screen ahead of the ceremony. In one photo, Baker is a skinny kid with big ears. In another, he’s a grinning teenager in a #17 jersey at Christian Brothers College High School, where his team won the state championship in his senior year with a 14-0 record. In a video clip, he’s teaching his beloved niece De’Sanyi, now 5, how to brush her teeth. (“Don’t eat it,” he advises her on the video.)
Baker dreamed of playing in the NFL making enough money so that his mother wouldn’t have to work, his cousin Abryon Givens said at the service. But when he realized that wasn’t going to happen, he adjusted his focus. “One thing D-Bake told me was, if we stand-up men, that’s all our mama want,” Givens said.
Baker’s older brother Devon said that their mother called the two of them her “Double D’s.” At an early age, they’d decided that meant “dedication and determination.” The boys saw things through to the end, An’namarie said, “whether they liked it or not.”
An’namarie is pushing to find her son’s killer; police say they have no leads. She is determined to help stop the gun violence that has taken so many other children from so many other mothers. “Damion cannot just be some random number of homicide and we move on to the next number,” she said. “It’s gotta look different.”
“We gotta get to work,” she said. | 2022-08-02T16:16:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Cooler than a Cadillac with AC in hundred-degree weather’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/02/cooler-than-cadillac-with-ac-hundred-degree-weather/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/02/cooler-than-cadillac-with-ac-hundred-degree-weather/ |
Man charged with DUI after fatal hit-and-run in Arlington Heights
Police have detained a 62-year-old Arlington man charged with fatally striking a pedestrian Monday evening in Arlington Heights while driving under the influence.
Julio David Villazon was driving on S. Old Glebe Road when he turned onto 2nd Street S., struck a pedestrian crossing the road and then fled the scene, police said.
The victim was identified as Viviana Oxlaj Lopez, 52, of Arlington. Police responded to the crash about 7:32 p.m. and transported Lopez to a hospital, where she died of her injuries.
Police identified Villazon as a suspect from witness interviews and detained him at his residence Monday evening. Alcohol is believed to be a factor in the crash, police said. Villazon has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, hit-and-run and driving under the influence, and is being held without bond in the Arlington County Detention Facility, police said. A criminal investigation is ongoing.
The collision is Arlington’s first fatal pedestrian collision this year, police spokeswoman Ashley Savage said. | 2022-08-02T16:34:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Arlington man charged with DUI after fatal hit-and-run - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/02/arlington-dui-hit-run/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/02/arlington-dui-hit-run/ |
The inevitable end to claims of rampant voter fraud: None is found
All that’s missing from the fraud claims is actual fraud
Trump supporters protest alleged voter fraud at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Elections Center in Phoenix on Nov. 7, 2020. (Caitlin O'Hara for The Washington Post)
In section 6.6.7 of the “audit” of votes cast in Maricopa County, Ariz., two years ago, one finds an estimate that 282 dead people submitted ballots.
The methodology is offered with a complicated abundance of jargon. Using an “identity and address validation tool” called “Personator,” the team hunting for fraud in Arizona’s largest county cross-checked deaths with votes as indicated in the file “VM55 Final Voted Nov2020 PBRQ” (MD5 hash: 43070bc7afdf40a37cd45092e9733654). And, lo: 282 suspected dead voters were found.
This wasn’t enough to shift the results in Maricopa, where Joe Biden won by 45,000 votes. It was, however, an important part of the narrative: Here was a place where suspect ballots were cast, amplifying questions about the level of confidence one could have in the election results. The report recommended that “the Attorney General further investigate this finding to confirm the validity of this finding.”
Arizona’s attorney general did investigate the finding — and found that the finding had no validity. Of those 282 dead voters, only one was dead. Many of those contacted by his office, Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) said in a letter, “were very surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased.”
The probe was yet another massive waste of state employees’ time and taxpayers’ money. There’s some slight benefit to the state in establishing that the allegation made by the auditing firm, Cyber Ninjas, had no merit. But Brnovich’s probe will not diminish skepticism about election results. Those who believed that the firm had uncovered dead voters based solely on the presented evidence — which, despite all of those complicated numbers, was just a rough match of two lists of identities — will simply shift their assumptions about rampant fraud to one of the Ninjas’ other claims. That’s why the “audit” existed in the first place: to surround the election tally with as much just-asking-questions fog as possible.
It’s very easy to simply wave this away, to shrug at another claim of fraud falling apart. Why even bother covering it?
The answer is simple. As often as possible, we should highlight the fact that, despite all of this attention and focus, no more than a dozen or two cases of fraud have come to light. The past 21 months have seen a flurry of allegations of varying complexity, asserting that statistical or circumstantial evidence shows that rampant fraud occurred. And every single time, those assertions crumple under scrutiny. This is not only the perpetual endgame for the claims, it’s the predictable one — as we keep seeing.
Consider the assertion that has been at the center of the fraud universe over the past several months, the idea that thousands of people worked to insert ballots in a smattering of drop boxes in a number of cities. Expressed succinctly, it’s not really clear what’s being alleged by that statement: Where did the ballots come from? Why not just drop them all in one drop box? Is that even illegal? Such questions are not answered in the film espousing this theory — Dinesh D’Souza’s “2000 Mules” — but it doesn’t really matter for our purposes here. What matters is that D’Souza alleges that at least 2,000 people were involved in this scheme — but in the three months since the movie came out, not a single participant has been identified.
Not one. D’Souza’s supporters have tried to claim the arrest of a former mayor in a small Arizona city as evidence of his alleged scheme, but that arrest predates the movie (and centers on the 2020 primary, a period the purported analysis in the film doesn’t cover). Beyond that? Just rumblings about all of these people being exposed or complaints that they haven’t been.
Imagine how easy it would be to become a celebrity on the right by announcing your involvement here! Admit to your participation and glean the benefits of widespread praise! Cooperate with the feds in uprooting any illegality and earn the admiration of both sides of the aisle for exposing this flaw! And yet: tumbleweeds.
To determine the identity of their “mules,” D’Souza and the analysis team, True the Vote, claim to have analyzed weeks of cellphone movement. They purport to be able to pick out people moving between ballot drop-box locations in a given day — but can’t figure out where those people live? Why not bring a film crew to those houses and interview alleged participants?
I asked D’Souza a version of that question, incidentally. He didn’t answer.
In any other context, the game being played here would be obvious and the response clear. Imagine if you were trying to sell your house, and someone came along constantly raising questions about what he saw. Is that stain evidence of water leaking into the foundation? No, it’s just an old spill, as the home inspector verified. Is that hole in the siding a bug infestation? No, it’s just a small drilled hole that the exterminators double-checked. But wait: Is that a ghost? On and on and on until it becomes obvious that the potential buyer isn’t properly vetting the property but trying to undermine the sale.
The extent of the resources that have been dedicated to examination of the 2020 election is hard to tally, and I’ve tried. However skeptical one might be of the claim that the election was the most secure ever conducted, it’s hard to argue with it having been the most scrutinized. And the result of that scrutiny, across the board, is a failure to demonstrate any substantial fraud.
That’s true once again in Arizona. Section 6.6.7 of the Cyber Ninjas’s report — just like huge swaths of the rest of the report — has been debunked. But the point isn’t to determine the price of the house, it’s to keep anyone from wanting to buy it. So those insistent on the existence of fraud will just move on to Section 6.6.2 or 6.6.9.
Proving something wrong requires an audience that wants to consider the evidence. And the only evidence Donald Trump’s defenders want to consider is the evidence pointing in the other direction. | 2022-08-02T16:34:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The inevitable end to claims of rampant voter fraud: None is found - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/elections-voter-fraud-claims-arizona/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/elections-voter-fraud-claims-arizona/ |
Mo Ostin, who brought star musicians to Warner records, dies at 95
Record executive Mo Ostin, front left, is embraced by singer-songwriter Paul Simon after being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, as singer-songwriter Neil Young and producer Lorne Michaels look on. (Gregory Bull/AP)
Mo Ostin, a self-effacing giant of the music business who presided over Warner Bros. Records’ rise to a sprawling, billion-dollar empire and helped discover and nurture artists from Jimi Hendrix to Green Day, died July 31. He was 95.
His death was announced in a statement by Warner Records, which said he died “in his sleep” but did not cite a cause.
Short and bald and mild in demeanor, “Chairman Mo” was never as famous as such rival moguls as Clive Davis or Walter Yetnikoff, but few equaled his power or prestige as rock music officially became big business. For decades, he thrived on the simple, underused idea of taking on talented and original performers and letting them remain talented and original, whether Hendrix and Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac and Paul Simon, or R.E.M. and Green Day.
“Mo Ostin was one of a kind,” Davis tweeted. “The company he chaired was truly unique in its very special management of artists and the extraordinary depth and range of talent on its roster.”
Under Mr. Ostin’s leadership, Warner signed Hendrix when the guitarist was hardly known beyond the London club scene, Fleetwood Mac when they were a blues act and the Grateful Dead when their legend was confined to the Bay Area. John Lennon and Yoko Ono, George Harrison, Nirvana, Madonna, Eric Clapton, James Taylor, Prince, R.E.M. and Guns N’ Roses were among the other performers who joined Warner during his reign.
“Intimidation is not the answer,” Mr. Ostin, in a rare interview, told the Los Angeles Times in 1994. “I don’t know why, but corporate people have a tendency to think in terms of immediate gratification. Sure, you can squeeze another dollar out of anything, but that’s not what makes a record company run profitably.”
He also assembled an elite and trusted team of executives, including producer and Warner president Lenny Waronker and advertising-marketing head Stan Cornyn. David Geffen, whose Geffen label was distributed by Warner, would eventually hire Mr. Ostin to run the DreamWorks music division.
Mr. Ostin started at Warner in 1963, became president in 1970, chairman soon after and rarely faltered over the next quarter century as the once-marginal label eventually included Elektra, Atlantic, Sire, Geffen’s Asylum and Madonna’s Maverick Records, among others.
With corporations finally embracing the music they once disdained, Warner competed fiercely with CBS Records — and its leader, Yetnikoff — for industry leadership. Mr. Ostin’s prime was an era of high-level bidding and poaching, whether Warner’s taking Simon from Columbia or Columbia’s convincing Taylor to leave Warner.
Mr. Ostin was praised for his judgment and for his patience, sticking with artists such as Simon and Van Morrison even when their albums didn’t sell. He even inspired some songs, including Young’s “Surfer Joe” and Harrison’s playful ballad “Mo,” featured on a compilation album that Mr. Ostin helped release.
His ouster in 1994 led to new tributes. “Mo, Mo, why do you have to go? / You’re the first record company guy / That looked me in the eye,” wrote Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Numerous artists and executives left Warner after his departure.
Mr. Ostin did have occasional conflicts with artists. Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac would recall his unhappiness when the group followed its megaselling “Rumours” album with the experimental double record “Tusk.” Some of Prince’s greatest hits, including his albums “Purple Rain” and “1999,” came out through Warner. But Prince fought with the company over control of his master tapes and how much music he could release. For a time he changed his name and was called the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. He appeared in public with the word “slave” written on his cheek.
“It bugged me, but I understood where he was coming from,” Mr. Ostin told Billboard in 2016, adding that he remained in awe of the late musician. “The guy was so unbelievably talented it was overwhelming.”
Prince, mysterious, inventive chameleon of music, dies at 57
Morris Meyer Ostrofsky was born in New York City on March 27, 1927. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia, and the family moved to Los Angeles when he was 13 and ended up next door to the brother of jazz impresario Norman Granz, whose Verve label included Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Charlie Parker.
As an undergraduate at the University of California at Los Angeles, Mr. Ostin helped Granz sell concert programs. He dropped out of UCLA law school in the mid-1950s to manage the finances at Verve, which was then known as Clef, and shortened his name soon after entering the record business,
Mr. Ostin fit well into Verve’s sympathetic environment and was noticed by a superstar who in the late ’50s had attempted to buy the label: Frank Sinatra. When Sinatra instead formed his own company, Reprise, he brought in Mr. Ostin to run it.
“Frank’s whole idea was to create an environment which both artistically and economically would be more attractive for the artist than anybody else had to offer,” Mr. Ostin told the Times. “That wasn’t how it was anywhere else. You had financial guys, lawyers, marketing guys.”
But Mr. Ostin became frustrated by Sinatra’s aversion to rock music and moved over to Warner, which had purchased Reprise. He signed up one of Britain’s hot new bands, the Kinks, and followed over the next few years with Hendrix, the Dead, Morrison and others. He took on heavy metal acts (Black Sabbath), light pop (the Association), country rock (the Allman Brothers), comedians (Steve Martin) and novelty performers (Tiny Tim).
His good name and deeds helped him again and again. When Gene Simmons of Kiss learned of an upcoming band from the Los Angeles area, he alerted Mr. Ostin; Van Halen soon had a record deal. In 1990, Mr. Ostin was outbid for the Chili Peppers by Sony/Epic, but still called singer-songwriter Anthony Kiedis to wish him well. Kiedis was so surprised that the band ended up dropping Sony and moving to Warner.
Mr. Ostin had a close relationship with corporate boss Steve Ross, president of Kinney National Services when the former parking company purchased Warner in 1969. But Ross died of cancer in 1992 and Mr. Ostin clashed with Warner Music Group Chairman Robert Morgado, who believed the company needed to cut expenses.
A breaking point was Ice-T’s single “Cop Killer,” for the band Body Count, which led to widespread demands that it be pulled. The rapper’s critics included law enforcement agencies, President George H.W. Bush and actor and conservative activist Charlton Heston. Ice-T left Warner in 1993 after agreeing not to put the song on his most recent album, and the fallout was widely believed to have weakened Mr. Ostin’s standing.
In 1995, Geffen convinced Mr. Ostin and Waronker to head the music division of the newly-formed DreamWorks company. George Michael, Nelly Furtado and comedian Chris Rock were among the artists signed before DreamWorks was purchased by Universal Music in 2003.
In recent years Mr. Ostin was a consultant at Warners and donated $10 million to UCLA to help establish the Evelyn & Mo Ostin Music Center, named in part for his wife of 55 years, Evelyn, who died in 2005. Their three sons — Michael, Kenny and Randy — have all been Warner executives. Kenny and Randy died in 2004 and 2013, respectively.
Mr. Ostin was voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2014, he received an honorary Grammy Award for lifetime achievement, cited as “a true pioneer of the contemporary music era whose life’s work has had a profound impact on the artists he has helped develop and the fans around the world who have benefited from their inspired creativity.” | 2022-08-02T16:38:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mo Ostin, who brought star musicians to Warner records, dies at 95 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/02/record-executive-mo-ostin-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/02/record-executive-mo-ostin-dead/ |
How the Senate Strategy Known as Budget Reconciliation Works
(EDITORS NOTE: Image was created using a variable planed lens.) The U.S. Capitol is seen in this aerial photograph taken with a tilt-shift lens above Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2019. Democrats and Republicans are at odds over whether to provide new funding for Trump’s signature border wall, as well as the duration of a stopgap measure. Some lawmakers proposed delaying spending decisions by a few weeks, while others advocated for a funding bill to last though February or March. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)
In the US Senate, a 60-vote supermajority is needed to pass most legislation. An important exception to that rule is the fast-track process known as budget reconciliation, which Democrats hope to deploy to pass a tax, health and climate bill viewed as crucial to their chances in November’s midterm elections.
1. Why is 60 votes normally needed?
The Senate, envisioned by the founders to be a highly deliberative body, was created with no mechanism to end debate on a given topic. Senators quickly realized that long speeches could delay action on legislation they didn’t like. In the 1850s, the practice of talking a bill to death got a name -- filibuster, from the Dutch word for “pirate.” In 1917, senators adopted a rule establishing that debate could be ended upon a so-called cloture vote supported by a two-thirds supermajority. That bar was lowered in 1975 to a three-fifths supermajority, meaning it takes 60 votes in the 100-seat Senate to end debate.
2. What is budget reconciliation?
It’s a procedure created by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 that allows for expedited consideration of legislation related to spending, taxing and the federal debt limit. First, the House and Senate must agree to a budget resolution, which contains instructions to specific committees in each chamber and usually includes a deficit impact. Then, bills advanced in the name of “reconciling” tax and spending practices with that budget resolution need only a simple majority vote to win approval in the 100-seat Senate. There are limits on what qualifies for reconciliation and on how many bills can be deemed as reconciliation each year.
3. Is it unusual?
Congress has passed more than 20 budget reconciliation bills since 1980, including deficit-reduction packages during the 1980s and 1990s, welfare reform in 1996, parts of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax-cut law.
4. Why are Democrats using it?
With only 50 of the 100 Senate seats (counting two independents who vote with them), Democrats hold the majority only because the vice president -- Democrat Kamala Harris -- breaks ties. Finding 10 Republicans to support any Democratic initiative is a tall task.
5. What can and can’t be in a budget reconciliation bill?
The Byrd rule -- named for Robert Byrd, a Democratic senator who represented West Virginia for 51 years -- requires that all provisions in a reconciliation bill have an impact on federal revenue, spending and deficits, and that no extraneous provisions are included. The rule has been a nuisance to both parties in recent history. For instance, Republicans had to ditch their preferred (and PR-friendly) title for their 2017 tax-cut law, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, because jobs aren’t directly related to revenue, spending or deficits -- though that name has stuck unofficially.
6. What can Republicans do to prevent Democrats from using reconciliation?
Any senator can challenge any part of a reconciliation as extraneous by raising a point of order or offering an amendment to strike the provision. The Senate parliamentarian rules on whether the objection is valid; if so, the offending provision is typically deleted from the bill. While the Senate has traditionally deferred to the rulings of the parliamentarian on interpreting arcane rules, the actual ruling is made by the chair -- which, when Democrats need her in the chamber, will be Harris, the vice president. It would take 51 senators to overturn a ruling of the chair, and Republicans only have 50 votes. Budgets are also subject to what is known as a vote-a-rama, when senators can offer theoretically unlimited amendments to try and force Democrats to take tough votes. At some point, however, Harris could shut down those efforts. | 2022-08-02T16:42:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How the Senate Strategy Known as Budget Reconciliation Works - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-the-senate-strategy-known-as-budget-reconciliation-works/2022/08/02/3eb99202-127c-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-the-senate-strategy-known-as-budget-reconciliation-works/2022/08/02/3eb99202-127c-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
By Barb Mayes Boustead
Fog lingers on fields of corn and soybean in the community of Lyles Station in Princeton, Ind., in 2016. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
During summer, the Midwest can experience some of the most oppressive humidity in the country. Fields in Iowa can be muggier than beaches in Miami. The culprit? Billions of stalks of corn.
Akin to a person breathing, plants exhale water into the atmosphere through a process called evapotranspiration. In the Midwest and northern Plains, corn and soybean crops draw moisture from the ground through their roots into their leaves, stems and fruits. The water evaporates into the surrounding air through their leaves, joining forces with neighboring water molecules to humidify the air.
Densely planted across millions of acres, corn can bring a-maizing levels of humidity during the middle of summer. One acre of corn can release 4,000 gallons of water per day, enough to fill a residential swimming pool in less than a week.
The additional moisture from corn causes higher heat indexes — a measure of how hot it feels taking humidity into account. It can turn an oppressive day into a dangerous one. The effects are strongest in the heart of the planted fields, but a person doesn’t have to be standing in a field to feel the heat. The moisture follows the winds, mixing around to blanket the region.
What in the world is ‘corn sweat’?
Temperatures on Tuesday are expected to climb from 95 to 105 in the Plains and Midwest, but high humidity levels will make it feel like 100 to 110 degrees from Texas to southern Minnesota.
While hotter conditions favor higher rates of evapotranspiration, the process peaks when corn reaches its “tasseling” phase, or when it hits maximum height — with a crown of thin spikes — and begins to sprout. Tasseling generally occurs around mid-July to August, about 80 to 90 days after planting. Humidity levels can increase in the span of a week or two once the plant hits the tasseling phase.
The moisture from corn evapotranspiration may not only make it intolerably muggy during the day, it can also slow cooling at night, leaving little respite from the heat. Lows on Wednesday from Texas to Illinois are predicted to dip only to 75 to 80, about 5 to 15 degrees above normal.
When ingredients are in place for showers and storms, the added juice can make them more intense; this could be the case in parts of the Midwest on Wednesday.
Corn is not the only culprit in summer humidity, though. Soybeans also contribute substantial moisture through evapotranspiration. In other words, soybeans sweat, too. Moisture also evaporates from bodies of water and even from the wet soils of areas with recent rains. Not to mention a good deal of the moisture that reaches the Corn Belt during summer is sourced from the Gulf of Mexico and sometimes even from the Pacific Ocean.
In other words, corn does not act alone. But it can be that one more thing that pushes the summer heat from muggy to miserable.
If it’s muggy in Mid-America in midsummer, go ahead and blame the corn. Just don’t forget its friends: soybeans, soil and waterways, just to name a few.
Barb Mayes Boustead is a meteorologist and climatologist living in the heart of the Great Plains. Her interests include the overlap between weather and climate, especially in weather extremes, as well as historical weather events like the one at the heart of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “The Long Winter.” She is a Dissertation Award winner from the American Association of State Climatologists and past president of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association. | 2022-08-02T16:43:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What is corn sweat and why it's making the Midwest so humid - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/02/corn-sweat-midwest-plains-heatwave/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/02/corn-sweat-midwest-plains-heatwave/ |
Climate deal has a big blind spot: Bikes
The agreement struck between Sens. Schumer and Manchin has large incentives for electric cars. For bicycles, not so much.
A bicyclist in the Rosslyn neighborhood in Arlington, Va., in July. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Wind turbines. Solar panels. Electric cars, nuclear reactors, geothermal energy.
The $369 billion climate package unveiled by Democrats last week is chock-full of subsidies for technologies meant to rein in planet-warming pollution. But there’s one popular, emissions-free machine conspicuously absent from what could be the nation’s most significant piece of climate legislation yet: the bicycle.
Provisions designed to supercharge the sale and use of traditional bikes and the battery-powered variety were dropped from the climate deal reached by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), the Senate’s most conservative Democrat. The absence is grinding the gears of bike manufacturers and cycling enthusiasts who pushed for months to include the pro-bike provisions in Democrats’ climate package.
Dropped from the deal is a tax credit worth up to $900 to help cyclists purchase electric bikes. Also gone is a pretax benefit for commuters to help cover the cost of biking to work. Versions of both benefits were included in the roughly $2 trillion spending package that passed the House last year.
The proposed commuter benefit for bikers, which Republicans repealed in 2017, would be similar to a perk many employees already get for taking a car or subway to work.
“I’m surprised that that didn’t make it in, because it just seems so common-sense,” said Caron Whitaker, the deputy executive director of the League of American Bicyclists, a cycling advocacy group.
Sam Runyon, a spokeswoman for Manchin, declined to comment.
The transportation sector outpaces power plants as the nation’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter. The Biden administration’s big bet for lowering those emissions is to shift drivers from gasoline-powered cars to electric vehicles.
But biking advocates say that getting more commuters onto two wheels not only makes streets safer for pedestrians, but it is also better for the environment. Electric cars and trucks need more energy than e-bikes to operate, and much of that electricity still comes from power plants burning fossil fuels. Cycling makes up only a small fraction of commutes, even though most car trips are less than six miles long.
“We know that bicycles — and increasingly electric bicycles and electric cargo bicycles — have the unique capacity to replace those short car trips,” said Noa Banayan, a lobbyist for PeopleForBikes, a trade association representing bike makers. “We want to make this normal for everyday Americans and accessible to low-income folks, too.”
But it was hard for bicycle manufacturers to match the clout of automakers, who fought to include a $7,500 tax credit for new electric vehicles over Manchin’s apprehensions in the climate and economic package, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act. The deal also includes a tax credit for used electric vehicles.
“It is difficult to understate the lobbying power that car companies have,” Zipper said. “We make jokes about Big Bike, but the reality is that it is a minuscule lobbying force supporting bicycles compared to what’s behind automobiles.”
One bump in the road for the bike provisions was the price tag. The federal government would be on the hook for $4.1 billion to subsidize the purchase of e-bikes, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, which prepares cost and revenue estimates on tax proposals.
But that estimate is out of line with manufacturers’ sales projections, Banayan said. “That’s just not quite congruent with what we’re expecting in the industry overall,” she said.
The Schumer-Manchin deal isn’t all bad news for cyclists: The package includes about $3 billion for grants from the Transportation Department to help states and local governments make neighborhoods safer for walking and biking.
And many Americans already pedal to cut their own carbon footprints. Many of those cyclists are happy to see Congress doing something — anything — about global warming, especially after a climate deal looked dead earlier this summer.
“As a movement,” Whitaker said, “we really want to see this climate legislation go through.” | 2022-08-02T16:43:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Incentives for biking are missing from the climate deal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/02/electric-bikes-incentives-cyclists-climate-deal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/02/electric-bikes-incentives-cyclists-climate-deal/ |
Taiwanese people will be reassured by Pelosi’s visit, research says
A high-level visit might boost confidence in U.S. security commitments
Analysis by Yao-Yuan Yeh
Fang-Yu Chen
Charles K.S. Wu
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) exits a plane as she arrives in Taipei, Taiwan, on Aug. 2. (AP)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) arrived in Taiwan on Aug. 2, a trip that had sparked earlier warnings from Beijing that China’s military “won’t sit idly by” if the visit occurs. A day earlier, the White House urged China not to overreact to Pelosi’s likely visit. And while President Biden went to great lengths to clarify to Chinese President Xi Jinping that Congress acts independently from the White House, the U.S. administration had expressed reservations about Pelosi’s plans.
Taiwanese have become less certain about U.S. support
Xi and Putin have declared a united front against the United States
The importance of high-level visits
Do high-level visits provide this type of reassurance? Our recent survey explored the effects of a high-level U.S. visit on public support for national security policies in Taiwan. We utilized a trip by three high-profile U.S. senators in June 2021 as a quasi-experiment, as their visit occurred during the survey. The delegation that visited Taiwan included Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.).
The conflict over Ukraine is a conflict over international order. That makes it nearly impossible to resolve.
Taiwan is increasingly concerned about China
The importance of high-level visits to Taiwan
Pelosi’s stop in Taiwan could be a dangerous moment in U.S.-China relations. But our research suggests that the visit would probably significantly reassure the people of Taiwan, enhancing public support on the island for military and defense spending as well as U.S. strategic policy goals.
Yao-Yuan Yeh is Fayez Sarofim-Cullen Trust for Higher Education endowed chair in international studies, chair of the International Studies & Modern Languages Department and chair of the Political Science Department at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. Find him on Twitter @yeh2sctw.
Fang-Yu Chen is assistant professor of political science at Soochow University, Taiwan. Find him on Twitter @FangYu_80168.
Austin Horng-En Wang is assistant professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Find him on Twitter @wearytolove.
Charles K.S. Wu is assistant professor of political science at the University of South Alabama. Find him on Twitter @kuanshengtwn. | 2022-08-02T16:43:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What does Taiwan think about Pelosi's visit? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/taiwan-pelosi-opinion-security/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/taiwan-pelosi-opinion-security/ |
U.S. kills al Qaeda boss Zawahiri. Now what?
Welcome to The Daily 202! Tell your friends to sign up here. The Associated Press reminds me that on this day in 2014, Kent Brantly, a physician and the first Ebola patient to be brought to the United States from Africa, was safely escorted into a specialized isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where he recovered from the disease. (cc: Dr. Jay)
Four questions about the strike that killed bin Laden’s heir
Not quite one year after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Biden announced last night that a U.S. drone strike in Kabul had killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, a central figure in the 9/11 attacks plotting and one of the most wanted extremists in the world.
“Justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more,” the president said from the balcony outside the Blue Room on the White House’s first floor. “The United States continues to demonstrate our resolve and our capacity to defend the American people.”
The raid, which Biden said was carried out Saturday, amounted to a significant victory in the so-called war on terrorism America declared after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon 21 years ago this fall.
The Daily 202 has four questions related to the strike and the aftermath.
1. What does this mean for U.S. ‘over the horizon’ capabilities in Afghanistan?
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan deprived America of some critical intelligence and Special Forces assets on the ground — both sources of information leading to airstrikes. “Over the horizon” refers to the ability to deter or destroy would-be terrorist plotters with fewer, if any, of those capabilities — and from suddenly far longer range.
“We will maintain the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries. We just don’t need to fight a ground war to do it,” Biden promised Aug. 31. “We have what’s called over-the-horizon capabilities, which means we can strike terrorists and targets without American boots on the ground — or very few, if needed.”
Killing Zawahiri proves there’s considerable merit to the argument. But it once again raises the uncomfortable question: What’s happening in Afghanistan that the United States is missing?
2. Just what was the Taliban role, if any?
A few weeks after the U.S. withdrawal, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, told Congress the Taliban were sheltering al-Qaeda and warned the group could reconstitute a threat to the United States within six months to three years.
In The Washington Post, we noted Monday night that “[the] 2019 agreement leading to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan included a Taliban pledge not to allow terrorist groups with international aims to operate within their territory, and to break all relations with those groups. While the Islamic State has been growing within Afghanistan and has claimed frequent attacks against Taliban and civilian targets, al-Qaeda appears to retain a strong relationship with the Taliban government.”
On the other hand, this is the first known U.S. counter-terrorism strike inside Afghanistan since the withdrawal. Biden said U.S. intelligence had located Zawahiri earlier this year in downtown Kabul where he had relocated “to reunite with members of his immediate family.”
At the Associated Press, Matthew Lee, Nomaan Merchant, Mike Balsamo and James LaPorta reported: “The house Al-Zawahri was in when he was killed was owned by a top aide to senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, according to a senior intelligence official.”
Pretty much the definition of “harboring.”
So are the Taliban reliable al-Qaeda allies? Or is it possible they played a role — intentional or not — in revealing his location?
3. What’s the domestic political effect for Biden?
One of the first Congressional statements about Zawahiri that landed in The Daily 202’s inbox came from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who has never hesitated to fire rhetorical broadsides at Biden. His reaction had no words of praise for the president, but he cheered the operation unreservedly.
If history is any guide, Biden will get next to zero political benefit from the raid. Why such certainty?
At the time of the May 2011 U.S. raid that killed him, Osama bin Laden cut a far more recognizable figure to the U.S. public, and 9/11 was fresher in American minds.
President Barack Obama’s six-point polling bounce from ordering the mission that killed the al-Qaeda mastermind subsided within weeks.
4. Just how relevant (dangerous) was Zawahiri?
Here’s how The Post team on the story put it.
Zawahiri “played an important role in turning al-Qaeda into a more lethal and ambitious terror organization, according to many of the investigators who hunted its leadership for decades. By merging his Egyptian-centric organization with bin Laden’s, the group became a far more dangerous and global terror group, analysts said. Zawahiri was indicted for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, attacks that first highlighted the growing threat from al-Qaeda.”
“After bin Laden’s death, Zawahiri became the figurehead leader of al-Qaeda, but he was a hunted man in charge of a decimated organization. Lacking bin Laden’s loyal following, Zawahiri tried to command far-flung terror groups that often ignored his decrees and rejected his advice. In particular, he was overshadowed by the rise of the Islamic State and its bloody dominion for several years over parts of Syria and Iraq.”
As the old line goes, it seems he was (mostly) forgotten, but not gone. Until Saturday.
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) arrived in Taiwan late Tuesday, defying Chinese warnings against visiting the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its territory and setting the stage for a sharp escalation in tensions between China and the United States,” Lily Kuo reports.
“Pelosi, in a statement issued moments after her arrival, said, ‘Our congressional delegation’s visit to Taiwan honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant Democracy.’”
More: Gingrich, last House speaker to visit Taiwan, downplays China threats
“The hot labor market could be starting to soften, as U.S. employers posted 10.7 million job openings in June, tapering off a bit from previous months,” Lauren Kaori Gurley reports.
“Six days after striking a legislative deal to the shock of Washington, Democratic leaders still have much to do ahead of a final vote: They need to shore up support among their own ranks, steel themselves for new Republican attacks and prepare for the possibility that a coronavirus outbreak could rattle even the best laid plans around the Inflation Reduction Act,” Tony Romm reports.
“The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed the firearms manufacturer Smith & Wesson for key documents related to the company’s sale and marketing of AR-15-style firearms after it failed to produce sufficient documents and information requested by the committee and the company’s CEO refused to appear before Congress last month,” Jacqueline Alemany reports.
Promising signs for grain shipments from Odessa
“Monday’s grain shipment was ‘the first positive signal that there is a chance to stop the spread of the food crisis in the world,’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address. That cargo vessel, carrying more than 26,000 metric tons of corn, is en route to Lebanon under a deal brokered by the United Nations,” Jennifer Hassan, Sean Fanning, Kendra Nichols, Dalton Bennett and Robyn Dixon report.
Memo shows Wisconsin GOP lawyer privately opposed decertifying Biden’s 2020 win
“It was an extraordinary public statement from a former state Supreme Court justice hired by Republican lawmakers to probe the 2020 election: Wisconsin should take a ‘hard look’ at canceling Joe Biden’s victory and revoking the state’s 10 electoral college votes,” Patrick Marley reports.
“The compromise legislation unveiled Monday ensures federal abortion rights up to viability, and allows post-viability abortion when the health of the mother is in jeopardy. The statute does not specify what week is viability or what constitutes when a mother’s health is in danger. Both issues are to be defined by the pregnant person’s medical practitioner,” Leigh Ann Caldwell reports.
Cassidy Hutchinson kept working for Trump for nine weeks after he left the White House, government records show
“Hutchinson served as a ‘coordinator’ for Trump's official, taxpayer-funded post-presidential office from about January 20, 2021, to April 1, 2021, earning an annualized salary of $90,000, the General Services Administration documents state,” Insider's Dave Levinthal and C. Ryan Barber report.
“Forty members of Congress on Monday asked the IRS and the Treasury to investigate what the lawmakers termed an ‘alarming pattern’ of right-wing advocacy groups registering with the tax agency as churches, a move that allows the organizations to shield themselves from some financial reporting requirements and makes it easier to avoid audits,” ProPublica's Andrea Suozzo reports.
“Reps. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., and Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., raised transparency concerns in a letter to the heads of both agencies following a ProPublica story about the Family Research Council, a right-wing Christian think tank based in Washington, D.C., getting reclassified as a church.”
“The US drone strike that killed Zawahiri on his balcony in downtown Kabul was the product of months of highly secret planning by Biden and a tight circle of his senior advisers. Among the preparations was a small-scale model of Zawahiri's safe house, constructed by intelligence officials and placed inside the White House Situation Room for Biden to examine as he debated his options,” CNN's Kevin Liptak reports.
“The White House named Robert J. Fenton Jr. as coordinator of the nation’s monkeypox response amid a surging epidemic that has prompted three states to declare health emergencies,” Dan Diamond reports.
“Fenton is a regional administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where he has worked since 1996. He previously served as acting administrator of the agency. Fenton helped oversee the Biden administration’s efforts to set up coronavirus vaccination sites.”
“China appears to be positioning itself to take further steps in the coming days and perhaps over longer time horizons,” White House spokesman John Kirby said, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Ellen Nakashima and Lily Kuo report. He added: “Nothing about this potential visit — which, oh, by the way, has precedent — would change the status quo.”
Ukraine's grain exports, visualized
“The first ship carrying grain departed a Ukrainian port early Monday under a United Nations-brokered deal to ease a global food crisis sparked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Dalton Bennett and Kareem Fahim report.
“A side agreement reached between Democratic leadership and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) as part of their broader deal on an economic package would overhaul the nation’s process for approving new energy projects, including by expediting a gas pipeline proposed for West Virginia, according to a one-page summary obtained by The Washington Post,” Jeff Stein and Tony Romm report.
“To win Manchin’s support for the climate, energy and health-care package that was etched last week, Democratic leaders agreed to attempt to advance separate legislation on expediting energy projects.”
A new constitutional convention?
“You take this grenade and you pull the pin, you've got a live piece of ammo in your hands,” former Republican senator Rick Santorum, a two-time GOP presidential candidate explained in audio of his remarks obtained by the left-leaning watchdog group the Center for Media and Democracy, Insider's Grace Panetta and Brent D. Griffiths report.
“34 states — if every Republican legislator votes for this, we have a constitutional convention,” Santorum said.
“Interviews with a dozen people involved in the constitutional convention movement, along with documents and audio recordings reviewed by Insider, reveal a sprawling, well-funded — at least partly by cryptocurrency — and impassioned campaign taking root across multiple states.”
At 2:45 p.m., Biden will take part virtually in an event with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) as she signs an executive directive to implement the CHIPS and Science Act.
ERIC v. ERIC
ICYMI: Trump endorses ‘ERIC’ in Missouri primary, a name shared by rivals | 2022-08-02T16:43:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. kills al Qaeda boss Zawahiri. Now what? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/us-kills-al-qaeda-boss-zawahiri-now-what/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/us-kills-al-qaeda-boss-zawahiri-now-what/ |
Democrats call on IRS to review right-wing group’s ‘church’ status
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, speaks in Cleveland at the Republican National Convention in 2016. (Mark J. Terrill/AP)
Congressional House Democrats are asking the IRS to review the tax-exempt status of a prominent conservative advocacy group recently reclassified as a church, arguing the organization may be exploiting the designation to avoid scrutiny.
Forty Democratic lawmakers, led by U.S. Reps. Suzan DelBene (Wash.) and Jared Huffman (Calif.), outlined their concerns about the Family Research Council in a letter sent to the head of the IRS and the secretary of the Treasury on Monday. According to a recent report from ProPublica, the FRC successfully applied to be reclassified as a “group of churches” in 2020.
Lawmakers say that while the FRC often appeals to faith and advocates for a “biblical worldview,” the status change “strains credulity” because the group operates primarily as “a political advocacy organization.”
Clergy sue over Florida abortion law, say it violates religious freedom
“They do not hold religious services, do not have a congregation or affiliated congregations, and do not possess many of the other attributes of churches listed by the IRS,” the letter reads. “FRC is one example of an alarming pattern in the last decade — right-wing advocacy groups self-identifying as ‘churches’ and applying for and receiving church status.”
According to ProPublica, the FRC, which is led by former state lawmaker and ordained minister Tony Perkins, claimed in its IRS application that it holds chapel services in its main building in Washington, although a staffer suggested otherwise when contacted by ProPublica. The FRC also claimed it has a congregation made up of its board of directors, employees, supporters and partner churches — although it did not list the names of those churches.
The FRC is primarily known for its long-standing advocacy on conservative issues. Perkins is credited with being a driving force behind former president Donald Trump’s efforts to ban transgender people from the U.S. military. Perkins was also part of a “Pro-Life Voices for Trump” effort launched as part of Trump’s unsuccessful reelection campaign.
In their letter, lawmakers note the benefits of being classified as a church, a legal term that encompasses an array of tax-exempt religious houses of worship. Churches do not have to file 990 forms, which detail the salaries of major staffers and allow for public scrutiny. What’s more, the IRS rarely investigates churches, in part because doing so requires sign-off from a “high-level Treasury official,” the letter pointed out.
“We understand the importance of religious institutions to their congregants and believe that religious freedom is a cherished American value and constitutional right,” the letter reads. “We also believe that our tax code must be applied fairly and judiciously. Tax-exempt organizations should not be exploiting tax laws applicable to churches to avoid public accountability and the IRS’s examination of their activities.”
Major evangelical nonprofits are trying a new strategy with the IRS that allows them to hide their salaries
Indeed, an array of primarily conservative evangelical Christian advocacy groups have been reclassified as churches in recent years. The Washington Post reported in 2020 that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was reclassified as a church sometime around 2015 — roughly the same time controversy began to swirl regarding the reported $880,000 annual salary paid to the group’s head, Franklin Graham. Other organizations that have made the change include Gideons International, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and the Willow Creek Association.
“Given that the FRC is primarily an advocacy organization and not a church, we urge the IRS to swiftly review the tax-exempt status, and whether there are other political advocacy organizations that have obtained church status, but do not satisfy the IRS requirements for churches, integrated auxiliaries, and conventions or associations of churches,” the lawmakers’ letter says.
How Franklin Graham pushed a domestic abuse victim to return to her husband
The signers called on the IRS to review existing guidance and ensure it cannot be abused, and to improve its review process for organizations seeking church status, “to ensure that organizations that are not churches cannot abuse the tax code.”
Among the letter’s signatories are U.S. Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.), Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Jan Schakowsky (Ill.) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.). | 2022-08-02T16:44:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats ask IRS to review Family Research Council’s ‘church’ status - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/08/02/family-research-council-irs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/08/02/family-research-council-irs/ |
Juan Soto became one of baseball's biggest stars with the Washington Nationals, the only team he has ever known. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Breaking: The Washington Nationals have a deal in place to send Juan Soto to the San Diego Padres for a package that includes multiple highly ranked prospects, according to multiple people with knowledge of the matter. The deal will also send first baseman Josh Bell to San Diego.
Soto, 23, won a World Series with Washington in 2019 and is considered one of baseball’s biggest names, known for his impressive plate discipline and now-famous “Soto shuffle.” The all-star outfielder will head to San Diego along with Bell as the Nationals, mired in a miserable season, continue to rebuild. | 2022-08-02T16:44:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nationals have deal to trade Juan Soto to San Diego Padres - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/02/juan-soto-trade/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/02/juan-soto-trade/ |
FILE- Sri Lanka’s new prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe gestures during an interview with The Associated Press in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Saturday, June 11, 2022. Sri Lankan President Wickremesinghe on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2022, said the number of COVID-19 patients and deaths are rising in the Indian ocean island nation and urged the citizen to get themselves inoculated with the 4th dose of the vaccine in a bid to prevent a possible outbreak of the virus. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, File) | 2022-08-02T16:44:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sri Lankan president says COVID-19 cases are rising again - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/sri-lankan-president-says-covid-19-cases-are-rising-again/2022/08/02/6e81a8e6-127f-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/sri-lankan-president-says-covid-19-cases-are-rising-again/2022/08/02/6e81a8e6-127f-11ed-8482-06c1c84ce8f2_story.html |
The NFL announced it had suspended and fined Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, left, on Tuesday. (Wilfredo Lee/AP)
The NFL suspended and fined Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and stripped the team of two draft choices for violating league policies governing the integrity of the game, the league announced Tuesday.
Ross was suspended through Oct. 17 and removed from all NFL committees. He was fined $1.5 million, the league said. The Dolphins lose their first-round pick in next year’s draft and a third-round selection in 2024.
The penalties stem from the league’s investigation of allegations of tampering and tanking, which was led by Mary Jo White, a former U.S. attorney and chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The probe began after former Miami coach Brian Flores accused the Dolphins in his racial discrimination lawsuit against the NFL and teams of offering him $100,000 to lose games during the 2019 season in a bid to improve draft positioning.
Mary Jo White to lead NFL’s probe of Dolphins tanking allegations
The investigation found that the Dolphins “had impermissible communications” with quarterback Tom Brady in 2019 and 2020 while he was under contract with the New England Patriots. The team also had impermissible communications with Brady and his agent, Don Yee, during and after the 2021 season, which the quarterback spent with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and with Yee in January 2022 regarding a coaching client, Sean Payton, the NFL said.
“The investigators found tampering violations of unprecedented scope and severity,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a written statement. “I know of no prior instance of a team violating the prohibition on tampering with both a head coach and star player, to the potential detriment of multiple other clubs, over a period of several years. Similarly, I know of no prior instance in which ownership was so directly involved in the violations.”
The investigation found that the Dolphins “did not intentionally lose games during the 2019 season,” the NFL said.
“Every club is expected to make a good faith effort to win every game,” Goodell said. “The integrity of the game, and public confidence in professional football, demand no less. An owner or senior executive must understand the weight that his or her words carry, and the risk that a comment will be taken seriously and acted upon, even if that is not the intent or expectation.
“Even if made in jest and not intended to be taken seriously, comments suggesting that draft position is more important than winning can be misunderstood and carry with them an unnecessary potential risk to the integrity of the game. The comments made by Mr. Ross did not affect Coach Flores' commitment to win and the Dolphins competed to win every game. Coach Flores is to be commended for not allowing any comment about the relative importance of draft position to affect his commitment to win throughout the season.”
The Dolphins did not immediately respond to a request for comment. | 2022-08-02T17:04:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFL suspends and fines Dolphins owner, strips team of two draft picks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/02/dolphins-owner-tampering-tom-brady/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/02/dolphins-owner-tampering-tom-brady/ |
By Scott Allen | Aug 2, 2022
July 2, 2015: Nationals sign Soto
The Nationals made Juan Soto the biggest international signing in team history when they inked the 16-year-old Dominican to a $1.5 million deal. Baseball America listed the 6-foot-1, 175-pound outfielder as the No. 13 international prospect available.
“We think he’s the best left-handed hitter on the market,” said Johnny DiPuglia, the Nationals’ international scouting director. “He understands using the whole field. … And ultimately, we think he’s going to have some power.”
Soto progressed quickly, and in 2018 he hit seven home runs in 15 games with high Class A Potomac.
May 21, 2018: Soto homers in first start
After Howie Kendrick suffered a season-ending Achilles’ injury, the Nationals called up Soto, who was hitting .362 with 14 home runs and a 1.218 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in 39 games across three minor league levels. One day after striking out as a pinch hitter and becoming the first player born in 1998 to appear in a major league game, the 19-year-old Soto made his first start and became the first teenager to homer in the big leagues since Bryce Harper in 2012.
June 18, 2018: Bizarro home run
How impressive was Soto as a rookie? Because of a scheduling quirk, he was credited with hitting a home run five days before his major league debut. The Nationals’ May 15 game against the New York Yankees was suspended because of rain in the sixth inning and completed June 18, with Soto’s two-run homer providing the winning margin in Washington’s 5-3 victory. Soto finished his rookie season with 22 home runs, 70 RBI and 77 runs in 116 games while hitting .292 with a .406 on-base percentage and a .517 slugging percentage. The home run he hit May 21 is still considered the first of his career.
Charles LeClaire/Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
Aug. 19, 2019: 100th extra-base hit
Soto went 4 for 4 with a pair of doubles in a 13-0 win at Pittsburgh to join Mel Ott, Tony Conigliaro and Harper as the only players to record 100 extra-base hits before their 21st birthday.
Oct. 1, 2019: Wild-card hero
With two outs, the bases loaded and the Nationals trailing the Milwaukee Brewers 3-1 in the National League wild-card game, Soto laced a single off closer Josh Hader. The ball skipped under the glove of Brewers right fielder Trent Grisham, allowing three runs to score and Washington to take a 4-3 lead. Despite getting caught in a rundown between second and third and being tagged out to end the inning, Soto celebrated as the Nationals Park crowd went crazy. He shared a jubilant moment on the field with his dad after Washington hung on.
Oct. 9, 2019: Soto takes Clayton Kershaw deep
In the deciding Game 5 of the NL Division Series, Soto followed Anthony Rendon’s solo home run off Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw in the eighth inning with a home run of his own to tie the score. The Nationals went on to win, 7-3, on Kendrick’s grand slam in the 10th inning.
Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post
Oct. 22, 2019: Smashing World Series debut
After striking out in his first World Series at-bat, Soto deposited a Gerrit Cole fastball onto the train tracks above the left field seats at Houston’s Minute Maid Park, a 417-foot blast that tied the score. Soto went 3 for 4 with three RBI in Washington’s 5-4 Game 1 win over the Astros.
Oct. 29, 2019: The bat carry
Soto took Astros starter Justin Verlander deep to right field in the fifth inning of Game 6 — and then took a page out of Alex Bregman’s book. Just as Bregman had done after his first-inning homer, Soto carried his bat for the first 90 feet of his home run trot. “I was like, ‘That was pretty cool; I want to do that,’ ” Soto explained after the Nationals’ 7-2 win.
Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post
Aug. 4, 2020: Dancing on the dugout
Soto is well known for his “Soto shuffle,” the between-pitch routine involving squats and slides in the batter’s box he developed in the minor leagues. While missing the Nationals’ first seven games of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season after testing positive for the coronavirus ahead of Opening Day, Soto did a different sort of dancing atop the home dugout to celebrate home runs by Kendrick and Josh Harrison.
Sept. 27, 2020: NL batting champion
Soto walked and singled before being lifted for a pinch hitter in the third inning of the Nationals’ pandemic-shortened season finale. Soto finished the year batting .351, best in the NL, and surpassed the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Pete Reiser as the youngest player to win a batting title.
July 12, 2021: Home Run Derby sparks strong second half
Soto eliminated top-seeded Shohei Ohtani in the first round of the Home Run Derby, which included a derby record 520-foot shot by the Nationals slugger at Denver’s Coors Field. The performance helped jump-start Soto’s power numbers. He hit 18 of his 29 home runs after the break and finished runner-up to Harper in NL MVP voting, ending the year with a .313 batting average, a .465 on-base percentage and a .534 slugging percentage.
July 18, 2022: Home Run Derby champion
A few hours after answering questions about his future in Washington and the 15-year, $440 million contract offer he had rejected, Soto knocked off José Ramírez, Albert Pujols and Julio Rodríguez to win the Home Run Derby at Dodger Stadium. “Can’t do anything about it. I have my hands tied. I’m just going to play as hard as I can and play baseball. Forget about everything else,” Soto told reporters. During the All-Star Game the next night, Soto was serenaded with chants of “Future Dodger!” while playing center field.
Aug. 2, 2022: Traded
Hours before Major League Baseball’s trade deadline, the Nationals dealt Soto and first baseman Josh Bell to the San Diego Padres for a package that included shortstop C.J. Abrams, left-handed pitcher MacKenzie Gore and multiple highly ranked prospects. Soto became the first player to receive multiple all-star nods and change teams before turning 24. | 2022-08-02T17:04:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Juan Soto's Nationals career in photos - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/interactive/2022/juan-soto-nationals-highlights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/interactive/2022/juan-soto-nationals-highlights/ |
Former president Donald Trump takes the stage at a GOP rally in Prescott Valley, Ariz., last month. (Reuters/Rebecca Noble)
Republicans are eroding American democracy day by day. It’s not a fully coordinated effort directed by former president Donald Trump or national party leaders. Instead, GOP officials, particularly at the state and local levels, are regularly taking actions that add up to an antidemocratic movement. They are reducing news media access, making it harder to vote, aggressively gerrymandering legislative districts and using government power to threaten their political enemies. We are not seeing democracy die in darkness but rather democratic decline in the light.
Here are seven of these actions, all of them taken since June 9. (There are many more I could have highlighted.) Conservatives on the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of a scheme by the state’s GOP-controlled legislature to stop Democratic Gov. Tony Evers not only from appointing his choices to state boards and commissions but also in some cases requiring him to keep in place the selections of his predecessor, Republican Scott Walker. Those Wisconsin judges also banned the use of ballot drop boxes. Georgia Republicans’ Senate nominee, Herschel Walker, started refusing to commit to any candidate debates. U.S. House Republican leaders, who have not released a list of policies they would adopt if they won a majority in November, made one firm commitment: extensive investigations of Hunter Biden and other members of the president’s family.
Florida Republicans barred some journalists of mainstream media publications from a recent party conference while admitting those from right-wing outlets. Pennsylvania’s election agency was forced to file a lawsuit to get three GOP-controlled counties to count mail-in ballots from recent primaries. Indiana’s Republican attorney general launched an investigation of a doctor in the state after she conducted an abortion for a 10-year-old girl from Ohio who had been raped.
Opinion: I provide abortions in Indiana. I don't believe in turning patients away.
I mentioned June 9 for a specific reason: That was the start of the congressional hearings on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The hearings are depicting one huge antidemocratic move — the attempt by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. And they are showing how it was stopped: Trump legitimately lost the election to Joe Biden; institutions, such as the news media and the courts, actively opposed his moves; some individuals, including longtime Republicans and people close to the president, refused to go along or obstructed the scheme.
In contrast with Jan. 6, these smaller-scale antidemocratic actions are often successful. That’s in part because they aren’t as brazen. Trump’s moves before and on Jan. 6 obviously and rightly generated more pushback than did Florida Republicans keeping reporters from hearing their speeches or Wisconsin judges not allowing voters to use ballot drop boxes.
But there are also some structural differences that make it easier to erode democracy at the local and state levels compared with nationally. In the red states where many of these antidemocratic actions are taking place, gerrymandering and voters’ hatred of the Democratic Party mean that, unlike Trump, GOP officials in these states basically can’t lose power no matter how badly they behave.
At the national level, there are political and economic incentives for Republicans who oppose the party’s antidemocratic turn to speak out. For example, Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump communications director, has become a critic of the ex-president and is now a political commentator for CNN and reportedly will soon get a hosting role on ABC’s “The View.” But a Texas Republican staffer who publicly rebukes Gov. Greg Abbott isn’t likely to end up with two prestigious television gigs. Also, the news media covering Washington remains fairly large and is able to closely scrutinize public officials, while local and state media continue to decline in size and influence.
Tens of millions of Americans have watched the Jan. 6 hearings, but I suspect many of them have never heard of the seven antidemocratic GOP actions I described above or of numerous others, even those that have happened in the states and cities where they live. And that’s a big problem. I worry that the anti-Trump politicians and the news media, in their focus on Trump and Jan. 6, have created the impression that America’s antidemocratic movement is centered on one man and one day.
In reality, antidemocratic sentiments were rising in the Republican Party well before Trump became its leader. In 2013, North Carolina Republicans adopted a voting law that a federal court later ruled had, with “surgical precision,” tried to make it harder for Black people to vote.
And, as all of these incidents that have happened during the hearings show, those sentiments are still rising in the party — and keep turning into actions.
The biggest danger for American democracy is that Donald Trump or a figure like him succeeds at something bold and extreme like Jan 6. But an almost equally important danger is that a bunch of mini-Trumps, some of whom you have never heard of, take several hundred actions, most of which you will never learn of, that gradually create either a national government or 25 to 30 state governments where elections are rigged by gerrymandering and voting restrictions, where news coverage and other forms of public accountability are nonexistent, and where people worry about retribution if they disagree with their political leaders.
America stopped Trump on Jan. 6. But we are not yet stopping Trumpism. | 2022-08-02T18:01:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The Jan. 6 hearings haven't stopped the GOP's anti-democracy movement - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/gop-anti-democracy-movement/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/gop-anti-democracy-movement/ |
Demonstrators gather in Taipei, Taiwan, in support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit on Aug. 2. (Ann Wang/Reuters)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her delegation have landed in Taiwan, where the immediate worry is the small, but serious possibility, of direct military confrontation with China. But the larger impact of Pelosi’s visit will play out after she goes home, over weeks, months and years.
The pace and intensity of U.S.-China competition are set to go up, changing the relationship forever, with Taiwan caught squarely in the middle. For several weeks, President Biden’s senior national security officials privately tried to persuade Pelosi to delay her trip, arguing that the risks of Chinese retaliation were not worth the benefits of a high-profile visit at this time. But as confirmation of her impending arrival leaked out Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken publicly expressed support for her trip and urged China not to escalate the already tense situation.
To avoid the appearance of provocation, the U.S. Air Force plane carrying the Pelosi delegation flew around the Philippines on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei. No U.S. fighter planes flanked Pelosi’s jet, although there was plenty of U.S. military firepower nearby, just in case. The administration’s urgent priority is to reduce the risk of a miscalculation that could spark a confrontation.
But several administration sources told me that while the Chinese military is likely to make some aggressive moves today, such as shooting off missiles or flying jets close to Taiwan, China’s leaders will also probably try to avoid a military confrontation over Taiwan — at least for the time being. Beijing’s response will come in phases and not primarily in the military domain. That could forever change the U.S.-China relationship and subject Taiwan to longer-term pain.
“China appears to be positioning itself to take further steps in the coming days and perhaps over longer time horizons,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Monday.
In his phone call this past week with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Biden both defended Pelosi’s right to travel to Taiwan and also reaffirmed that U.S. policy toward Taiwan had not changed, officials told me. U.S. officials have been telling their Chinese government interlocutors that Pelosi’s trip is not an intentional provocation, but Chinese leaders don’t believe that Biden is powerless to stop her.
Some American officials believe that there is a contingent within the Chinese leadership that is eager to use Pelosi’s trip as an excuse to change the status quo on the ground between China and Taiwan. Beijing’s near-term retaliation will likely be aimed at Taiwan’s economy and society, these officials believe. Before Pelosi even landed, the Chinese government announced a ban on more than 100 Taiwanese export goods. Taiwanese politicians have correctly denounced the move as a “weaponization of trade,” but there will still be pain for their constituents.
Over the longer term, Beijing will likely use Pelosi’s visit as an excuse to make changes to its military posture vis-a-vis Taiwan, widening China’s military advantage across the Taiwan Strait. China could also ramp up its attacks on Taiwan in the cyber and information warfare realms, further menacing the Taiwanese population. On Monday, China shut down the communication and social media app Weibo in Taiwan.
“China has a very broad array of tools to hurt Taiwan,” one administration official said. “What we’ve learned over the years is that when China sees a misstep by its adversary, it often steps in aggressively to take advantage. That’s what they are likely to do here.”
Bilaterally, Beijing can now claim a pretext for rejecting the Biden administration’s current pitch for putting “guardrails” on the U.S.-China competition to manage it responsibly. To be sure, the Chinese leadership might well have rejected that idea anyway and Pelosi’s visit may be a convenient justification. Nevertheless, this latest Biden administration initiative for the bilateral relationship now appears less likely to succeed.
When China tried to change the status quo across the strait in 1995, in what later became known as the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, the Clinton administration showed resolve, and after nine tense months, eventually the Chinese government backed down. An immediate crisis was averted, but the strategic game changed forever. Since then, China has engaged in what U.S. military officials call “the largest military buildup in history.”
There’s little to no debate in Washington or Taipei about the principles at stake. U.S. lawmakers have every right to visit Taiwan and Taiwan has every right to host them without being punished. But there’s also a practical reality, one that Pelosi won’t have to deal with. That burden will fall mostly on the Taiwanese, but the Biden administration also has a responsibility to help.
The silver lining is that Beijing’s overreaction to Pelosi’s visit might result in Taiwan and other countries accelerating their own plans to reduce their dependence on China. Beijing’s use of economic coercion and military aggression are only set to rise over time. Therefore, the international effort to bolster Taiwan militarily, economically and diplomatically must increase accordingly. | 2022-08-02T18:01:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The crisis over Taiwan will unfold for long after Pelosi comes home - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/pelosi-taiwan-us-china-tension-generations/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/pelosi-taiwan-us-china-tension-generations/ |
Washington Nationals right fielder Juan Soto leaves the dugout after his final game as a National. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
This is how you have to do it, the only way to get through the idea that Juan Soto is leaving and the Washington Nationals are somehow better for it. Close your eyes, and think of the 2025 season opener at Nationals Park. MacKenzie Gore is on the mound, proven but still full of the promise that once made him the third pick in the draft. C.J. Abrams is the shortstop, just 24 and still on the rise — which means Luis García has long since slid over to play second base.
Robert Hassell III and James Wood are precocious outfielders talented enough to start on a contender. Cade Cavalli is ready to take the mound the next day, with Josiah Gray behind him, all throwing to Keibert Ruiz — by now an experienced big league catcher. Plus, a 21-year-old right-hander named Jarlin Susana is pushing to join the rotation by midseason.
And Juan Soto has left the San Diego Padres, where he never won a World Series, to sign the largest free agent deal in the history of the game with, say, the Los Angeles Dodgers or the New York Yankees. It doesn’t really matter the team. (Unless it’s the Mets or the Phillies or the Braves, I suppose.)
It takes some combination of faith and vision to let the mind believe events will play out that way. Tuesday’s deal that is poised to send Soto — the best young hitter in the sport, a player whose ability at the plate draws comparisons to the best who have ever worked at the craft — to the Padres can be lots of things at once: jarring, predictable, dumbfounding, logical.
But the way that it becomes a success is if the Nationals get back to contending — as they did from 2012-2019, that last season bringing the brightest trophy in the sport — with the players they received from the Padres on Tuesday and the Los Angeles Dodgers last summer as something of a core. Development isn’t a straight line, and the above scenario almost certainly won’t play out perfectly. But that’s how this admittedly depressing scenario can provide some hope.
Is the team that the Nationals will field Tuesday night against the Mets better because Soto and first baseman Josh Bell were dealt to San Diego for that package — Gore and Abrams, who have major league experience, along with Hassell, Wood and Susana, who are all in the lower minor leagues? Absolutely not.
But are the Nationals, as a franchise, deeper in the minors and the majors — with more flexibility to pursue both trades and free agency — than they were Monday night? Yes, absolutely. An attempt at quantifying all that can be provided by the essential website FanGraphs. Before the trade, the Nationals had the 24th-ranked farm system in baseball. After it, if you include Gore as a prospect rather than a major leaguer, they rank fifth. That’s a franchise reset.
Still, I’m not going to declare a winner or a loser today. I’m just not. Victor Robles was once a young player the Nats themselves refused to part with when they were contending annually. In hindsight, was that a mistake? You know what? Let’s not do hindsight. Teams make the best decisions they can in real-time.
We know that Soto turned down a 15-year, $440-million extension offer from the Nationals. We know that he said repeatedly that the idea of going to free agency intrigues him. We know that people in the industry believed the return for his services would be highest at this trade deadline, because the receiving team would get three pennant races out of him. And we know the Nationals need a lot more than just a right fielder.
As I wrote leading up to Tuesday, I thought a deal would be hard to pull off, in part because it would be easy for General Manager Mike Rizzo to say that the team loves Juan Soto, that the Lerner family is in the process of selling the club, so why not let the new owners take a crack at it? The situation was fluid. I was wrong.
But there’s also some thinking that a new ownership group — and we don’t yet know who that might be or what philosophy they’ll impose — didn’t want its first move upon arrival to be failing to convince Soto to sign an extension, and then doing this dance over the winter and possibly up to this point next summer. That would have put a bit of a cloud over what’s supposed to be a fresh, invigorating start with a new direction.
On Soto: It stings. In a vacuum, and in totality, because he follows Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon and Trea Turner out the door, and because it says here when it’s all said and done, he’ll be the best of the bunch. As Soto said Monday night — after what turned out to be the last of his 565 games as a National, when he hit the last of his 119 homers as a National — “I understand it’s a business.”
It is, and a harsh one. For fans, it’s still a game. Juan Soto wasn’t just a known commodity here. He was a World Series champion, a batting champ, an unreal hitter, a smiling kid becoming a man. Those prospects above, they’re currently nothing more than names and ages and stats and hope.
Get to know them. Then close your eyes. This team is going to lose 100 games this summer. It’s not going to lose 100 games in perpetuity. There’s a path back to contention, and it became more identifiable because the Nationals swallowed hard and traded the untradeable, Juan Jose Soto.
Nats set to send Juan Soto to Padres, a seismic move for the sport and franchise | 2022-08-02T18:01:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Juan Soto trade could start a better future for the Nationals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/02/juan-soto-nationals-future/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/02/juan-soto-nationals-future/ |
Brad Pitt is the only fun thing about this quippy, violent action flick
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, left, and Brad Pitt in “Bullet Train.” (Scott Garfield/Sony Pictures)
Has it gotten old yet? Not to the makers of “Bullet Train,” in which John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson’s Royale-with-cheese banter has morphed into rapid-fire disquisitions on Thomas the Tank Engine, and in which nearly every other Tarantino signature is slavishly forged with shameless fealty. The result is a movie that is almost constantly two things at once: breezily lighthearted and overwrought; hyper-energetic and lazy; bracingly fresh and drearily derivative. Directed by David Leitch, who has evinced impressive action chops with such films as “Atomic Blonde” and the John Wick franchise, “Bullet Train” is reverse-engineered to satisfy an itch routinely met by the likes of Ben Wheatley, Matthew Vaughn, Guy Ritchie and Edgar Wright. If you’re craving one more variation on the well-worn theme of promiscuous bloodlettings accompanied by glib verbal filler, Leitch has served up a presentable slab of grist for an increasingly creaky mill.
The chief pleasure to be had watching “Bullet Train” lies in watching Brad Pitt deliver one of his throwaway left-handed performances, here nerding out in a bucket hat and pair of thick-rimmed glasses and generally taking the mickey out of his star-god persona. As Ladybug, a member of an elite assassination force whose expertise lies in “snatch and grab” jobs, Pitt is relaxed, endearingly goofy and consistently on point. Indeed, Tarantino’s reach extends even to Pitt’s relationship with Leitch, who has worked as Pitt’s stunt double, an unmistakable echo of Pitt’s role in Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
R. At area theaters. Contains strong and bloody violence, pervasive crude language and brief sexuality. 152 minutes. | 2022-08-02T18:15:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Bullet Train is a jokey, chaotic bore - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/08/02/bullet-train-movie-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/08/02/bullet-train-movie-review/ |
Britain's Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak at a debate last month. (Jacob King/AP)
The race to succeed Boris Johnson as leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, and as prime minister, has focused on dueling tax cut plans from the two contenders, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and former chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak. I hope my friends across the pond won’t mind a word of advice based on the United States’ long experience with similar frenzies: Don’t buy the supply-side snake oil.
The idea that tax cuts pay for themselves has long animated conservative politics in the United States. It is true that people spend and invest more if they have more money, and the economy therefore grows a bit faster than would otherwise be the case. So far, so good.
But the additional activity generally does not generate enough tax dollars to make up for the revenue lost from the cuts. President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts are a case in point: Federal revenue after the cuts dropped compared with pre-cut projections despite the added growth. This was no surprise even to its advocates. The supply-side friendly Tax Foundation, which touted the proposed cuts before their passage, acknowledged they would reduce federal government revenue by nearly $1.5 trillion over the subsequent decade.
Likewise, suggestions that Truss’s proposed tax cuts would pay for themselves are balderdash. (Truss, for her part, has been wise to avoid making such an argument.) That means Britain would finance the proposed cuts the old-fashioned way: by increasing public-sector borrowing. That should worry any conservative.
Britain’s recent fiscal history is remarkably similar to that of the United States. Britain, like the United States, has run annual budget deficits for most of the past 50 years. Despite years of spending cutbacks derided as austerity, Conservative governments between 2010 and the beginning of the pandemic managed to trim the annual shortfall from nearly 9 percent of gross domestic product to only a bit more than 2 percent. Its gross government debt is now more than 102 percent of GDP, triple what it was in 2001.
American conservatives have followed the supply-side mantra for decades to no great success. The U.S. economy has grown in that time, but much of that is because of population growth, including from large immigration inflows. The United States’ annual budget deficits were even larger than Britain’s before the pandemic, and the U.S. debt to GDP ratio is a startling 125 percent. U.S. experience should not give British conservatives comfort.
Britain would likely suffer more than the United States from a debt binge because the pound is not the world’s reserve currency. The United States can finance its debt in large part because demand for U.S. Treasury bonds is fueled by the dollar’s global dominance. Investors will accept lower interest rates because they either need the dollars to finance trade or because they value the dollar’s perceived safety. The pound offers neither advantage, and Britain would likely start to see rising interest rates if it followed the United States’ path.
The next Conservative prime minister should instead look for ways to generate new investment that will generate jobs and take pressure off the public fisc. Britain’s ban on fracking, for example, should be immediately repealed. That would generate significant investment and help both Britain and Europe replace Russian gas imports. Such a move would be highly controversial, but it would create high-paid working-class jobs, lower energy prices and improve national security.
Health care is another field in which government policy impedes private activity. Unlike in the United States, employer-provided health insurance is taxed in Britain. The next prime minister should make those premiums tax free, thereby encouraging employers to offer this valuable benefit and expanding private health care in the country. This could help reduce the massive waiting lists plaguing the National Health Service. That would also be controversial, given Britain’s affection for the NHS, but the alternative is large increases in public spending.
Politics will always play a role in tax policy, and to that extent, the next PM must favor the Tories’ new working-class voters. Truss’s proposal to reverse the hike in National Insurance contributions (Britain’s version of the Social Security payroll tax) is politically sound. She or Sunak should also consider cuts in Britain’s 20 percent value-added tax. The VAT is a regressive tax, hitting those with lower incomes harder than the well-to-do. Cutting it would give working-class voters more purchasing power. It would also be a political winner, as Canada’s Tories found in 2006 when they promised to cut that country’s sales tax by 2 percent and went on to victory.
Britain’s next Conservative prime minister will face a daunting task: revitalizing economic growth while rebuilding the new working-class-based political coalition that Brexit and Boris Johnson bequeathed to the party. Adopting American-style supply-side economics won’t solve either problem. | 2022-08-02T19:32:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Please, Tories. Don’t fall for the supply-side snake oil. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/britain-uk-liz-truss-rishi-sunak-tories-supply-side-snake-oil/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/britain-uk-liz-truss-rishi-sunak-tories-supply-side-snake-oil/ |
How Biden could upend a key perception of his presidency
President Joe Biden delivers remarks during the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate on June 17, 2022. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
The prevailing perception of President Biden’s policy record has been primarily about disappointment. Biden made grand promises as a candidate but found his agenda stymied in a closely divided Congress, leading to persistent political torpor and disgruntlement among his party’s voters. While he has done some things within the limits of executive power, this story goes, on the whole he hasn’t gone anywhere near where his voters hoped.
In some ways that’s accurate. But if the recently announced Inflation Reduction Act passes — which at the moment looks likely if not certain — Biden might be able to say that on climate change, he’s making good progress toward keeping his campaign promises. Which is particularly notable because climate is one area where he seemed less likely to deliver.
Climate was not an issue that Biden had long been associated with. Action on climate always faces obstacles: powerful forces (the fossil fuel industry, the GOP) are determined to maintain the status quo, and because global warming plays out over decades it can easily be pushed aside in favor of priorities that can be described as more urgent.
Yet climate action seems to be happening. So it’s worth looking back to see what Biden said he was going to do, and how far this bill takes us toward keeping those promises.
Biden’s campaign climate plan was similar to those of many of the other Democrats he ran against in the 2020 primaries, which is to say it was quite ambitious. Some of what it proposed could be easily achieved — reentering the Paris Climate Accord, which Biden did — while other ideas were more complicated and would require legislation.
The plan was prodigious in its detail. If you wanted to know Biden’s position on the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol or the share of domestically produced wind turbine components, it was there. But its central goal was to transition to a 100 percent clean energy economy and net-zero emissions by 2050.
And it was chock full of incentives, credits, grants, and things it would “promote.” Which is one of the key features of the IRA: While its $369 billion in climate spending does have some provisions aimed at directly stopping pollution, the bill is almost all carrots and not sticks. It offers tax credits for electric vehicles and energy efficient homes, gives grants and credits to promote the use of renewables in energy production and manufacturing, provides money for research on new technologies and helps underserved communities and ports and farmers.
That reflects the prevailing sentiment among Democrats on climate: As important as it is to stop bad actors, it’s easier to build political support for something that’s driven by a positive vision and offers short-term benefits, like a rebate on a new car or a solar project in your town that can lower people’s electric bills and create some jobs. At the same time, many of the investments in the bill are designed to have a long-term impact.
The nature of this kind of project is that some of these programs will probably prove ineffective, while others will exceed expectations. But if you cover enough ground you can make real progress, and early analyses suggest the IRA could significantly lower America’s emissions.
Does that mean Biden will be able to say he kept his climate promises? The answer is probably…sort of. But in this case, “sort of” is not too bad.
Some kinds of issues are simple enough that a candidate can make a very specific promise and keep it. You can pledge to increase the minimum wage, then sign a bill increasing the minimum wage, and you’re done. But climate change is fantastically complex, and countless policy ideas out there could reduce emissions.
So if a candidate offers a hundred different ideas for reducing climate change, then takes executive and legislative action that follows through on dozens of them (in addition to a bunch more his campaign didn’t think of), it’s fair to say that he ought to get credit, even if he shouldn’t be putting up any “Mission Accomplished” banners. And so should the legislators and staff who hammered out the agreement.
There will never be a moment when Biden or any president could say, “I promised to fix climate change, and we did.” This will be the work of multiple presidents and multiple Congresses. As we suffer through another horrific summer of heat waves and floods and fires, it’s clear we have a long way to go.
But if this bill passes, Biden would at least be able to say that on one of the most complex challenges he’ll face, he’s moving in the right direction. If we’re mature enough not to expect miracles from the people we elect, we can give him some credit for that. | 2022-08-02T19:32:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | On climate change, Biden could upend the narrative of his presidency - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/climate-change-biden-upend-policy-narrative/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/climate-change-biden-upend-policy-narrative/ |
Popular anger could push regime to retaliate and further turn away from the West in favor of hard-line religion
Taliban patrol in the neighborhood where a U.S. drone strike killed the Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, in Kabul on Aug. 2. (EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
KABUL — The U.S. drone strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri here early Sunday morning also struck a humiliating blow to the Taliban regime, which had secretly hosted the aging extremist in the heart of the Afghan capital for months but failed to keep him safe.
Just as the Taliban was preparing to celebrate its first year in power later this month, the attack has sparked a nationalistic backlash against the beleaguered regime at home and taunting comments on social media calling for revenge against the United States.
“If the martyrdom of Zawahiri is confirmed, then shame on you that we could not protect the true hero of Islam,” an Afghan named Ehsanullah tweeted in response to a statement early Tuesday by the chief Taliban spokesman that the al-Qaeda leader had been killed in a U.S. drone strike.
The assassination of al-Zawahiri, a hero to Islamist militant groups but a long-wanted terrorist in the West, has also crystallized the ongoing struggle between moderate and hard-line factions within the Taliban regime. Several leaders of the hard-line Haqqani network, long denounced by U.S. officials for directing high-profile terrorist attacks, hold powerful positions in the regime.
Now, some Afghan and American analysts said, the drone strike may harden Taliban attitudes and push the regime toward an open embrace of the extremist forces it pledged to renounce in its 2020 peace deal with the United States.
“The Taliban are in deep political trouble now, and they are going to face pressure to retaliate. The relationship they have with al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups remains very strong,” said Asfandyar Mir, an expert on Islamic extremism at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington. “I think we should brace for impact.”
Mir noted that while Taliban officials have been hoping to gain international recognition and access to more than $9 billion in assets that were frozen by the Biden administration, the group’s supreme religious leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, declared flatly at a national conclave in May, “We are in a clash of civilizations with the West.”
There is deep-seated animosity here toward the United States, which intensified after U.S. troops withdrew last year and the war economy collapsed, leaving millions of Afghans jobless. When Afghan officials belatedly confirmed that a U.S. drone had killed the al-Qaeda leader, after first insisting the strike was a harmless rocket attack, many Afghans were infuriated.
“We have so many worries already. For a whole year, there have been no jobs, no business, no activity. But at least the fighting was over. The Taliban was in charge, and there was good security,” said a resident of the Sherpur neighborhood, where the drone struck, who gave his name as Hakimullah. “Now, suddenly, this attack happens, and everyone is frightened again.”
Many Afghans seem to know little about al-Zawahiri or al-Qaeda. In part, this is because so many of them were born after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that U.S. officials said were masterminded by al-Zawahiri and his associates, and in part because the al-Qaeda fighters who joined forces with the Taliban are Middle Easterners whose presence in Afghanistan has always been low profile.
Until now, people here were far more focused on the threat posed by a different Sunni Muslim extremist movement, known as the Islamic State-Khorasan or ISIS-K. The group has in the past repeatedly bombed mosques, schools and other sites in Kabul, especially during the Shiite Muslim festival of Muharram, which began this week.
Among those most dismayed by the turn of events are Afghan civilians who have tried to form working relationships with the new Taliban authorities, encouraging them to develop moderate and practical governing policies rather than focusing exclusively on religion.
Faiz Zaland, who teaches governance and political science at Kabul University, expressed frustration with the Taliban for failing to anticipate the risks of bringing al-Zawahiri to the capital and concern that the U.S. attack had doomed chances for the moderate elements in the regime to compete with the hard line religious figures at the top.
“The Taliban are stuck now, and it’s their own fault,” he said. “This is going to undercut the achievements of their first year, and people who care feel betrayed and scared.” | 2022-08-02T19:41:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Drone strike on al-Zawahiri confronts Taliban with nationalist backlash - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/zawahiri-qaeda-taliban-afghanistan-kabul/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/02/zawahiri-qaeda-taliban-afghanistan-kabul/ |
Private jets are seen on the tarmac at Friedman Memorial Airport on July 5, 2022, in Sun Valley, Idaho. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The analysis of flight data, which was published online Friday by a U.K.-based sustainability marketing agency, came on the heels of other big-name celebrities such as Kylie Jenner and Drake weathering intense public criticism after it was revealed that their emissions-spewing private jets logged trips as short as 17 minutes and 14 minutes, respectively.
Using data from a popular Twitter account that tracks flights of jets owned by famous people, the marketing agency found that so far this year, planes owned by celebrities emitted an average of more than 3,376 metric tons of CO2 — roughly 480 times more than an average person’s annual emissions. Swift’s jet was identified as the “biggest celebrity CO2e polluter this year so far,” racking up 170 flights since January with emissions totaling more than 8,293 metric tons, according to the analysis, which was not peer-reviewed. A plane owned by boxer Floyd Mayweather came in second, emitting about 7,076 metric tons of CO2, with one logged trip only lasting 10 minutes. Jay-Z’s jet was third with 136 flights totaling about 6,981 metric tons of emissions.
Kylie Jenner gets roasted for flaunting private jet in climate crisis
“A short jump with a private jet requires lofting into the air a 10 to 20 ton jet and then moving it from point A to point B,” said Peter DeCarlo, an associate professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins who studies atmospheric air pollution. “I know no one likes being stuck in traffic, but you’re not launching your car into the air. … The act of taking a huge piece of metal and putting it up into the sky is going to be an enormous carbon footprint that’s really not necessary, especially for these kinds of short distances.”
Compared to fuel-efficient commercial planes and climate-friendly cars, such as hybrid or electric vehicles, the emissions per passenger mile are substantially higher for private jets, which typically carry few passengers and travel shorter distances, Field said. But, he noted, the fuel economy of a private jet with a reasonable number of passengers could be comparable to a single person driving a Ford F-150.
You can buy a private jet membership at Costco along with your bulk paper towels
What 150,000 miles in a private jet reveal about his ‘excruciating’ year | 2022-08-02T19:45:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why celebrity private jet travel is a climate nightmare - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/02/taylor-swift-kylie-jenner-private-jet-emissions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/02/taylor-swift-kylie-jenner-private-jet-emissions/ |
On Aug. 2 Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the Justice Department would file suit against Idaho for its restrictive abortion law. (Video: The Washington Post)
The Justice Department has filed its first lawsuit in the wake of a historic Supreme Court decision allowing states to outlaw abortion, arguing that a new Idaho law that would impose a near-total ban on the procedure violates a federal requirement to provide medical care when a pregnant person’s life or health is at stake.
“We will use every tool at our disposal to ensure that every pregnant woman gets the emergency medical treatment of which they are entitled to under federal law,” Garland said.
The Idaho governor’s and attorney general’s offices could not immediately be reached for comment.
Abortion ban creates confusion around treatment of miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy
The lawsuit represents the Biden administration’s initial legal salvo as it tries to protect abortion rights, to some degree, in the wake of the June decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case which had for five decades guaranteed a right to abortion.
But while a host of legal fights are expected to flow out of the Supreme Court’s ruling, it is difficult to predict precisely where or how. Much will depend on how judges respond to initial cases like the one in Idaho, and how states choose to enforce their statutes. Justice Department officials did not say on Tuesday if they plan to file similar lawsuits against any other states.
Garland argued the legal issues at stake in the Idaho case are straightforward – the state law is in direct conflict with a federal law that says hospitals receiving Medicare funding are required by federal law to provide emergency treatment to those who need it. By banning abortions even to women in medical emergencies, the Idaho law violates that federal statute, and when state and federal laws are in conflict, federal law prevails, according to the Constitution.
Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta also faulted the Idaho law for putting the legal burden on doctors and nurses accused of performing abortions to prove that they did not violate the law.
“The law places medical professionals in an impossible situation,” Ms. Gupta said. “They must either withhold stabilizing treatment … or risk felony prosecution and license revocation. The law will chill providers’ willingness to perform abortions in emergency situations and will hurt patients by blocking access to medically necessary health care.”
The lawsuit cites several medical conditions that could require a doctor to perform an abortion for life-saving reasons, including septic infections and ectopic pregnancies — when the fetus implants outside the uterus and the pregnancy cannot be viable.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, which came in a case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, multiple states across the country have tightened abortion restrictions. Pregnant women in several states have reported that doctors have been reluctant to provide them with appropriate medical treatment in fear of running afoul of state abortion laws.
This developing story. It will be updated. | 2022-08-02T19:45:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Justice Dept. sues Idaho over near-total abortion ban coming Aug. 25 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/02/idaho-abortion-justice-lawsuit-garland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/02/idaho-abortion-justice-lawsuit-garland/ |
The numbers used to spread the texts were leased to Alliance Forge, a Nevada-based firm that provides texting services to Republican campaigns
A supporter of a state constitutional amendment that would allow Kansas’s conservative legislature to enact a near-total ban on abortion holds up a sign Aug. 1 in Olathe, Kan. (Kyle Rivas/Getty Images)
The text messages arrived on Monday, the day before Kansans were set to vote on an amendment that would excise abortion protections from their state constitution.
The text claimed that approving that measure, which could allow the Republican-controlled legislature to outlaw abortion, would safeguard “choice.” If the amendment fails, constitutional protections would remain in place, buttressing current law that allows abortion in the first 22 weeks of pregnancy.
“Women in KS are losing their choice on reproductive rights,” the text warned. “Voting YES on the Amendment will give women a choice. Vote YES to protect women’s health.”
The unsigned messages were described as deceptive by numerous recipients, including former Democratic governor Kathleen Sebelius, who also served as health and human services secretary in the Obama administration. She told The Washington Post that she was “stunned to receive the message, which made clear there was a very specific effort to use carefully crafted language to confuse folks before they would go vote.”
The gambit was all the more alarming to abortion rights advocates and watchdogs because its source was unknown. But the messages were enabled by a fast-growing, Republican-aligned technology firm, whose role in the episode has not been previously reported.
The messages were sent from phone numbers that had been leased by Alliance Forge, based in Sparks, Nev., according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue. Alliance Forge, which was founded in 2021, describes itself as the “nation’s fastest growing political technology company, proudly serving federal, state, and local campaigns throughout the nation.”
The numbers were leased by Alliance Forge from Twilio, a San Francisco-based communications company. The numbers were disabled Monday evening, according to a Twilio spokesman, Cris Paden, who said the account that had leased them was in violation of the company’s policies prohibiting the “spread of disinformation.”
In a statement, Alliance Forge chief executive David Espinosa said that “Alliance Forge did not consult on this message’s messaging strategy or content.” He said the company was notified Monday night of a “possible content violation” and “immediately began working with the Twilio team to identify the source and nature of the content.”
It was not immediately clear which of Alliance Forge’s clients sent the messages seeking to sway Kansas voters. Alliance Forge representatives declined to say. The Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission said Monday that, “under current law, text message advocacy about constitutional ballot initiatives does not require paid-for disclaimers.”
This election cycle, Alliance Forge has been paid more than $60,000 by federal campaigns alone, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Its clients have included Adam Laxalt, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Nevada, and a committee associated with Kathy Barnette, a political commentator and unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. Alliance Forge provided text-messaging services for both, filings show.
The texts sent Monday did not mention Alliance Forge or its client, leaving no clear way for people who received the messages to tell who was seeking to push them in favor of a “Yes” vote.
The effort offered fresh evidence of the power of text messages in political campaigning, as well as the covert style of communications made possible by the platform. Two days after the 2020 election, a Republican firm run by a top aide to then-President Donald Trump’s campaign helped send unsigned text messages that urged supporters in Philadelphia to converge outside a building where local election officials were counting votes. It blared: “ALERT: Radical Liberals & Dems are trying to steal this election from Trump!”
Reports filed with the Kansas ethics commission illustrate keen interest in the outcome of Tuesday’s referendum, the first major vote on abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June. The opposing camps have spent $11.2 million this year, with the Catholic Church and its affiliates dispensing $3.4 million in support of the amendment that could give legislators the ability to impose new abortion restrictions and the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood spending $382,000 and $1.3 million, respectively, to oppose it.
Espinosa, an information technology specialist, is among Alliance Forge’s co-founders. The others are Michael Clement, a Republican operative whose LinkedIn profile says he managed the 2020 campaign of Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah), and Greg Bailor, a former state director for the Republican National Committee and executive director of the Nevada Republican Party.
Dispatch from Kansas: State official predicts higher turnout than years past | 2022-08-02T19:46:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Misleading Kansas abortion texts linked to Republican-aligned firm - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/kansas-abortion-texts/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/kansas-abortion-texts/ |
The ongoing political effort to separate America’s cities from America
A full moon known as the “Buck Moon” rises over the New York skyline, as seen from Weehawken, N.J., July 13, 2022. (Jeenah Moon/Reuters)
It seems likely that New York will elect Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) to a full term in office in November.
This isn’t surprising. The state is reliably blue and hasn’t elected a Republican as governor in 20 years. In polling conducted by the Siena College Research Institute, Hochul holds a 14-point lead over her challenger, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R).
That is not the point of this article, though. Instead, the point is this tweet from the New York Post.
Hochul has big lead over Zeldin, but gov survey tight in suburbs, upstate https://t.co/E2viZ6C1DR pic.twitter.com/7Jj54RuC78
When I first read it, I skipped over the word “big" and jumped right to the “tight in suburbs, upstate” part. Knowing a bit about politics and a bit about New York, my immediate thought was: if Hochul’s tied upstate, she must be crushing him. And only then did I see the word “big," and learned of the 14-point gap upon clicking through.
But that framing stuck with me. The Siena poll breaks out the regions highlighted by the Post and, sure enough, shows that Zeldin has margin-of-error leads both upstate and in the counties immediately surrounding New York City. In the city, though? Hochul’s up by nearly 50 points. Since the city is nearly half the population of the state, that’s all you need.
Consider just presidential voting. Since 2000, New York has consistently voted for Democratic presidents by about a 20-point margin. The gap in support between the city and those upstate counties has consistently been about 50 points. In 2016, with native son Donald Trump on the ballot, the upstate counties voted Republican, leading to the biggest upstate-city gap in the past six elections. On average, 4 in 10 votes cast in New York in those elections came from the five counties of New York City.
So why did the Post highlight the “upstate” and “suburbs” part? Who cares? It’s like being behind 50 at half time but trumpeting that you scored just as many points in the second half. Uh, cool?
Here, though, the effect is likely something else. By separating out the city from the rest of the state, the Post is drawing a culturally familiar line for New Yorkers. Those people in the city want one thing but the rest of the state — real New Yorkers — want something else. What’s more, it’s highlighting a differentiation between city and non-city, between urban and rural, that has come up a lot in recent years.
Remember when Trump won that race in 2016 and started showing everyone that red-hued map of his victory? He was taking advantage of the fact that large, rural areas with low populations are more visible than compact, heavily Democratic cities to suggest that his victory was broader than it actually was. (After all, he lost on the metric that map depicted: county-level popular vote.) In another sense, though, he was offering a judgment: that so much of the country was red was a reflection of how important those areas were. It was right to submerge the results in cities to those in rural areas since those rural areas voted correctly. Voted right.
This impulse isn’t simply metaphorical. In 2018, Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) argued that “if you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, [Republicans] would have a clear majority.” Excise those counties from Wisconsin and you can finally measure the state’s real predilection. When officials in Wayne County, Mich., considered rejecting certification of the 2020 election results, one was direct: maybe they could reject just the votes from heavily Democratic Detroit and accept the rest. Before a House special election in Ohio in 2018, the Republican candidate argued that voters shouldn’t “want somebody from Franklin County representing us” — that is, from the city of Columbus. He won.
Part of this stems from the fact that rural and urban areas of the country have been moving in different directions in recent years. The Department of Agriculture has a nine-category rating system for counties to evaluate how urban or rural they are. Comparing the presidential vote in the most-urban and most-rural counties nationally and in key states since 2000 shows that divergence — though not as much in New York.
Another categorization, from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute (PHI), clusters counties into fewer groupings. The effect, though, is largely the same: the margins in rural counties have often shifted to the right as the margins in large urban counties shift to the left.
See that weird Arizona result? Maricopa County is the state’s most populous, by far. In 2020, more than 60 percent of the votes cast in the state were cast there. It has long been the main driver of presidential results — and has generally voted Republican. It’s also the only “large urban” county in the PHI categorization.
Importantly, this shift hasn’t been uniform. Both nationally and in states like Michigan, more-rural counties have shifted right faster than more-urban ones have shifted left.
Overall, on either metric of county urbanization, the trend has been consistent: a growing gap in presidential vote margins between urban and rural counties. (The only exception is Arizona, where Maricopa County in 2020 voted more like other urban counties.)
Interestingly, the gap between urban and rural in New York has actually not grown as rapidly as in other states — in part because it was already wide back in 2000. Other parts of the country are now becoming as polarized on the urban-rural measure as New York has long been.
We have to note one element of subtext here. Cities vote more heavily Democratic and are therefore seen by some on the right as unwelcome participants in the democratic experiment. But the residents of those urban counties also often don’t look like rural residents, quite literally. Trump’s 2016 election was confounded heavily by racial views; the extent to which muffling or excising cities also disempowers non-White voters is hard to overstate.
In Wisconsin, for example, removing Milwaukee and Dane (home to Madison) counties from the mix dumps a quarter of the state’s population. It also removes a fifth of Wisconsin’s White population — and half of its non-Whites. New York state without New York City is 43 percent smaller and loses 63 percent of its non-White population.
There is an added way in which the New York Post’s summary of the gubernatorial contest in that state was odd: the Post is itself a product of the city. It was playing off a resentment of the city despite being an emblem of it. But, then, it also often targets the city’s substantial number of moderate or conservative residents. And there are a lot of them: More residents of New York City voted for Trump in 2020 than did residents of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia or Wyoming.
Cities are not as simple as might be assumed.
Dispatch from Kansas: Abortion rights supporters ‘fell asleep’ after Roe decided, voter says
7:17 PMDispatch from Arizona: County official sends ‘cease and desist’ letter to GOP candidate over pens | 2022-08-02T20:20:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The ongoing political effort to separate America’s cities from America - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/elections-new-york-cities-rural/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/02/elections-new-york-cities-rural/ |
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