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These four factors made the difference
Analysis by Matthew N. Green
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) heads to the Senate chamber for a vote on Aug. 3. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Early Sunday, in one of the biggest political surprises of the year, the Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which would cut carbon emissions, reduce the deficit and cap prescription drug costs. Because Republicans unanimously opposed the bill, the IRA needed all 50 Senate Democrats’ votes to pass. When one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), announced in July that he could not support the measure, it seemed all but dead.
But secret negotiations between Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) — and follow-up conversations between Schumer and another undecided senator, Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) — resurrected the bill. Those negotiations could easily have failed. But they shared key features that history tells us help to engineer legislative bargaining.
Negotiators can’t be stuck in the mud
With a team of research assistants and the support of American University’s Program on Legislative Negotiation, I reviewed congressional histories and media accounts between 1981 and the present to find over 140 instances of negotiation in Congress. Negotiators’ willingness to revise a measure’s text is the most common factor propelling a bill to the next stages of the legislative process.
This may seem obvious. But as political scientists Sarah Binder and Frances Lee have noted, in an era of ideologically polarized parties, lawmakers who want to stay in the good graces of their core supporters and avoid primary challengers have an incentive to reject compromise. As a result, such willingness can be hard to come by. Indeed, when the players’ policy differences are too great to overcome, congressional negotiations typically fail.
Although Manchin is by far the most conservative member of the Democratic Caucus, he never abandoned the idea of getting to yes on the bill. He just wanted certain changes — and a pledge that Democrats would put another, pro-pipeline measure on the Senate agenda. Sinema, who like Manchin often votes with Republicans, was also open to compromise. And Democratic leaders proved willing to give up or change much of what was in the original legislation to lock down their votes, even giving it a more politically attractive name “Inflation Reduction Act.”
Why is Manchin such a thorn in the Democratic party's side? Let us count the reasons.
Congressional leaders are in the room where it happens
Party leaders in Congress are responsible for getting legislation passed. They usually have both the persuasive abilities and resources at their disposal — like campaign funds and control over what other measures come to the floor — to move negotiations forward. In the past, congressional leaders have helped negotiate differences among lawmakers that led to such major enactments as the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act and the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
Schumer was central to the final negotiations over the IRA. Not long after Manchin walked away from the bill in mid-July, he reached out to Schumer, who quickly took the opportunity to restart discussions with Manchin over the measure. Schumer was also the main negotiator with Sinema and is credited with quickly getting her to an agreement.
Presidents often stay out of negotiations
In a newly published book chapter, David Barker and I explain that presidents have often been very useful in legislative bargaining. But we also note that, in most cases, presidents stay clear of internal congressional negotiations. This can sometimes help the bargaining process, especially if the president is unpopular or perceived by lawmakers as too partisan.
The current political context didn’t favor pulling President Biden into negotiations on this bill. His approval ratings have been near rock-bottom for a first-term president. His relationship with Manchin has not been good, either. So it was essential that the White House not be part of conversations with Manchin on the measure. For the same reason, the White House has kept itself away from other recent — and successful — legislative negotiations on Capitol Hill about such issues as gun violence and high-tech manufacturing.
The Democrats passed their big spending bill through reconciliation. What's 'reconciliation'?
Closing the doors, meeting deadlines
When bargaining is done in private, lawmakers can negotiate with each other without fearing blowback from lobbyists, organized interests or voters. Manchin and other Senate Democrats did a remarkable job keeping the lid on their discussions until their agreement was finalized.
Impending deadlines can also encourage negotiators to resolve differences. In this case, negotiators were staring at both the upcoming end of the fiscal year in September — after which Republicans could have forced the bill to get 60 votes to pass — and at the upcoming November elections, when Democrats could lose control of one or both chambers.
Senate passage of the IRA was not inevitable. Leaders could not count on securing either Manchin’s or Sinema’s votes. The bill contained a number of politically difficult provisions, particularly those about climate change. Both Manchin and Sinema have been willing to block other Democratic initiatives. But in this case, negotiations between Senate leaders and the two holdouts had several of the ingredients that make bargaining in Congress more likely to succeed.
Matthew N. Green (@mattngreen), professor of politics and department chair at Catholic University, is the co-author with Jeff Crouch of “Newt Gingrich: The Rise and Fall of a Party Entrepreneur” (University Press of Kansas, 2022). | 2022-08-08T17:30:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why did Manchin change his mind on the Democrats' big spending bill? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/manchin-sinema-congress-ira-climate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/manchin-sinema-congress-ira-climate/ |
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during an interview with The Washington Post at his office in Kyiv. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post).
KYIV, Ukraine — The way to stop Russia from annexing any more of Ukraine’s territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday, is for Western countries to announce that they would ban all Russian citizens in response.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post, Zelensky said that “the most important sanctions are to close the borders — because the Russians are taking away someone else’s land.” He said Russians should “live in their own world until they change their philosophy.”
Russian leaders have signaled they could hold annexation votes in the occupied parts of Ukraine’s east and south — in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions — on Sept. 11, alongside regional elections already scheduled to take place. Russian officials say those votes would legitimize Russia’s claim to those areas, but critics say the votes would be a Russian-manipulated farce.
It is unclear what those consequences would be. Much as they did before Russia invaded on Feb. 24, Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials are pushing their Western partners to announce sanctions as a deterrent. Zelensky told The Post on Monday that the sanctions already imposed on Russia for its unprovoked war in Ukraine are “weak” compared with closing borders to Russian citizens for one year and a full embargo on the purchase of Russian energy.
Russian airlines have been banned from flying over most of Europe and North America, which has made it more challenging for Russians to travel abroad. But there is no blanket ban in place such as Zelensky is suggesting; Russian citizens are still free to apply for a visa to visit the United States, for example.
Some critics have argued that banning all Russians would unfairly impact those who have left the country because they disagree with President Vladimir Putin’s government and his decision to attack Ukraine.
Zelensky said such distinctions don’t matter: “Whichever kind of Russian … make them to go Russia.”
“They’ll understand then,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘This [war] has nothing to do with us. The whole population can’t be held responsible, can it?’ It can. The population picked this government and they’re not fighting it, not arguing with it, not shouting at it.”
“Don’t you want this isolation?” Zelensky added, speaking as if he were addressing Russians directly. “You’re telling the whole world that it must live by your rules. Then go and live there. This is the only way to influence Putin.”
Zelensky spoke for an hour in his presidential office, where hallways are kept dark and lined with sandbags to protect against attack. Zelensky wore a black T-shirt with the Ukrainian trident symbol, rather than his usual military-green fatigues. He was leaning forward and animated as he answered questions, gesturing with his hands, tapping the white table to make his points.
One challenge for Ukrainian officials pushing for strong measures to prevent a referendum is explaining why it would mark a turning point in the war. The vast majority of the international community wouldn’t recognize such a vote or Russia’s subsequent annexation. But analysts have said that once Russians officially laid claim to territory and declared it part of Russia, it would erase any possibility of Russian troops withdrawing without being forced out militarily.
Ukrainian officials understand Russia’s thinking from experience. Russian forces invaded Crimea in 2014, held a vote that was dismissed internationally but have had control of the peninsula ever since. Officials in Kyiv still complain that the Western response wasn’t strong enough then.
Annexation would also complicate matters for Western countries that have been providing Ukraine with weapons. Officials in Washington and European capitals have carefully sought to limit the weapons they provide for strikes on Russian forces inside Ukraine. But if Moscow considered strikes in post-referendum Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as targeting of Russian territory, it could risk dragging NATO countries into the conflict.
Zelensky has said that annexing territory would rule out negotiations with Russia.
Ukrainian officials are also concerned that Russia will move up its referendum timetable in response to Ukraine threatening a military counteroffensive in the region. Ukrainian forces have been steadily gaining back ground around the city of Kherson, the first major city Russia captured and the only regional capital.
Military advances are often one small village at a time. That progress has been aided some by Ukraine’s use of U.S.-supplied M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, commonly known as HIMARS, to damage Antonovsky Bridge, which is key to Russia’s efforts to resupply its troops.
Russia appears to be shifting its own troops and equipment south in response, potentially setting up a military conflict for the key Black Sea port that analysts say could be key to the trajectory of the war.
Zelensky said he wanted Russia to know that regaining control of Kherson was just a first step: “Let them know that as soon as we have enough forces and means, we’re going to de-occupy all of our territories.” | 2022-08-08T17:31:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ukraine's Zelensky calls on West to ban all Russian travelers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/08/ukraine-zelensky-interview-ban-russian-travelers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/08/ukraine-zelensky-interview-ban-russian-travelers/ |
Cox Enterprises said Monday it has acquired majority control of Axios, a five-year-old digital news company headquartered in Washington.
The companies didn’t announce what Cox paid, but the Atlanta-based publisher will own 70 percent of Axios, which the two parties said was worth $525 million.
Axios’s three founders and its employees will retain about 30 percent of the ownership. The company has about 500 employees spread across several operations and cities, including Axios HQ, a communications software company.
The sale is a huge payday for Axios’s investors, including employees and founders. The site launched in 2017 and quickly grew into a well-read purveyor of news and analysis about politics, government, technology and media. Axios also struck TV deals with HBO and MSNBC, giving it an immediate promotional boost.
Axios’s early investors included NBCUniversal and Emerson Collective, the private corporation founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. (Emerson bought majority control of the Atlantic magazine in 2017 and has a stake in Gimlet Media, a leading podcast producer.)
Cox, a 124-year-old media company, had already been a minority investor in Axios before the sale, which is the second major transaction involving a Beltway digital news company in the past year. In October, German publisher Axel Springer purchased Arlington-based Politico for $1 billion after discussing a bid to buy Axios.
One of the co-founders of Axios, chief executive Jim VandeHei, was also a co-founder of Politico, but left the company in 2016 in a dispute over its management. VandeHei, a former Washington Post reporter, launched Axios the following year with two Politico alums, columnist Mike Allen and digital strategist and business manager Roy Schwartz, who is Axios’s president.
The three co-founders will remain in their present roles with the company, Cox said in an announcement Monday morning. They will also hold three of seven board seats.
Axios, which uses a crisp format on its articles that it calls “Smart Brevity,” is one of the few successful digital news start-ups of recent years. The digital media sector has been rife with new entrants over the past decade or so, but even well-funded titles have struggled to find a steady audience and revenue in a business dominated by giants such as Facebook and Google. The pandemic has exacerbated the difficulties and uncertainty surrounding digital advertising.
Not so for Axios, which turned profitable two years after it was started, according to Dallas Clement, the president and chief financial officer at Cox.
“Obviously, media has gone through a variety of disruptions over the past few years,” he said in an interview. “We have been looking for new models [and] we thought Axios brought something new to the table.”
“What Axios does is different” from its competitors, he added. “It does real reporting of real stories.”
Axio’s website attracted 19.4 million unique visitors in June, according to ComScore, placing it far behind leaders such as CNN.com (122.0 million) and the New York Times (87.9 million), but ahead of digital news offered by such legacy organizations as Time (14.6 million) and ABC News (14.3 million.). The Washington Post’s website drew 64.8 million unique visitors in June, according to ComScore.
Axios also publishes newsletters and local news sites in 22 cities, with plans to expand to dozens of other cities.
The company’s stars are Allen, another former Post reporter who started the popular Playbook column while he was at Politico; and Jonathan Swan, who broke numerous stories as a White House reporter and conducted probing interviews with newsmakers on Axios’s weekly HBO program.
“We have found our kindred spirit for creating a great, trusted, consequential media company that can outlast us all,” VandeHei said in a statement on Monday.
Cox is a private company, closely held by descendants of its founder, James M. Cox. Its extensive media holdings include cable TV systems, TV stations and newspapers such as its flagship, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It also operates an automotive division that owns Autotrader, Dealer.com and Kelly Blue Book.
Axios’s estimated value is similar to another digital start-up, the sports-journalism site the Athletic, which the New York Times bought for $550 million earlier this year.
Clement said he expected the sale to close in the next two months. | 2022-08-08T18:44:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Axios, valued at $525 million, to be sold to Cox Enterprises in major media deal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/08/08/axios-cox-sale/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/08/08/axios-cox-sale/ |
Analysis by Liam Denning and Bobby Ghosh | Bloomberg
Through that alchemy peculiar to Washington DC, Build Back Better became the Inflation Reduction Act. But the climate-related core of the landmark legislation passed in the Senate this weekend — now awaiting a House vote — remains building.
President Joe Biden’s flagship economic package extends tax credits for new wind and solar generation (as well as battery storage and geothermal projects). There are also incentives for domestic manufacturers to build the equipment for those projects, as well as mining the minerals and making the components that go into battery-powered electric vehicles. Beyond accelerating the construction of energy assets, this represents an effort to catch up with Chinese industrial policy and encourage building an entire value chain for US-made clean technology.
And while the IRA was passed via a strictly blue budget reconciliation process, many of the climate-related dollars unleashed will be spent in red locales. A data analysis conducted by Bloomberg Opinion and Enersection, a Houston-based data visualization firm, of where renewable energy technology gets deployed in the US shows the vast majority is in Republican-led congressional districts.
Bobby Ghosh recently hosted a Twitter Space featuring Liam Denning of Bloomberg Opinion and Jeff Davies, co-founder of Enersection, on why US green energy is redder than you might think. Here are three major takeaways from their discussion.
The IRA represents an enormous investment in climate and energy spending.
Liam Denning: It’s a landmark piece of legislation that advocates of renewable energy will be thankful for, particularly in terms of tax credits and EV incentives. But I don’t think we should forget how this legislation was passed. It was passed on an arcane reconciliation process, and I think it’s worth dwelling on the fact that during the voting process, we saw a lot of carefully tailored amendments from the Republican side that focused on things like high gasoline prices. It’s clear that renewable energy and climate change still remain ideologically-charged issues in this country. And that’s despite the fact that at a base level, what we’re really talking about here are questions of science, technology and economics. As much as it’s a landmark piece of legislation, clearly, we as a society have some ways to go in terms of how we approach these topics.
Jeff Davies: Surely like all legislation in the US, there’s compromises in the package, but that’s what needs to happen in order to get it done. I’m still shocked. Just a few weeks ago, it felt like any legislation was dead in the water and then kind of out of nowhere, the dam broke. So I think at the end of the day you have to take whatever deal you can get done.
The vast majority of IRA spending on renewable energy will go to red districts, not blue ones.
There’s a big discrepancy between federal and local-level rhetoric on climate change and the IRA.
LD: If you look at California — the poster child for the energy transition in this country — you’ll see Kevin McCarthy’s bright-red district, which also has a huge renewable energy hub. If you leave the ideology to one side and just look at this from the perspective of where is stuff being built, where are dollars being invested, the picture that comes out is far more nuanced than what you’ll find in an op-ed or a tweet.
JD: Obviously Kevin McCarthy’s constituents benefit from the capital investments that come in by way of solar plants, wind plants, battery storage projects that are being built, the jobs that are created, the property tax benefits, the royalties, the lease payments, etc. All of that accrues to his constituents and yet most likely for political reasons, at the federal level, McCarthy and many others speak out against renewables. It’ll be interesting to see how the House votes go relative to the data. If you go to a lot of these folks’ websites, they actually promote renewables. And yet at the end of the day, the party lines still dominate. The political reality in this country is unfortunate: If the Democrats say black, the Republicans are going to say white. Even if the representatives of red districts ultimately support it and understand that their constituents are benefiting from it, the divisiveness in this country influences how they speak about renewable energy.
To learn more about why clean power money is largely spent in Republican districts, read “Red America Should Love Green Energy Spending,” by Liam Denning and Jeff Davies.
Don’t Call It a Windfall Tax: Liam Denning
Rich-Poor Divide on Clean Power Is Getting Wider: David Fickling | 2022-08-08T19:01:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Republicans Will Take Home the Money From the Democrats’ Energy Bill - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/republicans-will-take-home-the-money-from-the-democratsenergy-bill/2022/08/08/0b1e8a98-1744-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/republicans-will-take-home-the-money-from-the-democratsenergy-bill/2022/08/08/0b1e8a98-1744-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
A mosquito on the outside of a mosquito net. (iStock)
Scientists are always looking for better ways to foil bugs that leave itchy welts in their wake. Despite the many tools being studied, from tick-killing fungus to genetically modified mosquitoes, bug repellent is still “the first line of defense,” says Mustapha Debboun, a medical and veterinary entomologist. “It’s a personal protection measure that any individual can take into their own hands.”
It’s an important one, too. In the United States, mosquito-borne West Nile virus is thought to have infected nearly 7 million people since it first appeared in New York in 1999, and every year close to a half-million people get Lyme disease after a tick bite.
Not all repellents provide equal protection, however, which is why Consumer Reports tests how well each one blocks real bugs from biting real people. And it turns out that what matters most is not the brand or type of repellent (spray, lotion or wipe) but the active ingredient and its concentration.
But what are these ingredients? And why do some products work better than others with the same active ingredients? Here are answers to those questions and more.
What’s so great about DEET?
When it comes to active ingredients that can ward off bugs, it’s hard to beat DEET. It is “broad spectrum,” meaning it works on a wide variety of bugs, including mosquitoes, ticks and flies. When scientists are testing the effectiveness of new insect repellent ingredients, they compare them to DEET to see how they measure up.
How to get rid of mosquitoes without killing friendly pollinators
Though scientists found out long ago that DEET works, they still don’t know why. DEET may mask the odor of humans, confuse the odor-sensing abilities of mosquitoes or simply compel them to move away, perhaps because it resembles a natural substance they’ve evolved to avoid. But it may be more than just odor at work.
And it’s also possible that DEET is so effective against mosquitoes because it’s working on more than one and maybe several levels at the same time, says Chris Potter, an associate professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who specializes in insects’ sense of smell.
Why DEET also repels ticks is even less understood, though the mechanisms are probably different than with mosquitoes. One thing we do know: Ticks, which generally hitch a ride as you pass them in brush or tall grasses, are less likely to attach themselves to your skin if they sense DEET, and they’ll avoid spots on your skin where DEET is. That’s one reason it’s important to apply repellent carefully to all exposed skin when you want to avoid ticks, says Bryan Cassone, an associate professor of biology at Brandon University in Manitoba.
DEET works, but is it safe?
DEET has been available to consumers for more than 60 years, and it’s estimated that people use it millions of times each year. In all that time, scientists have found only a few cases of harm potentially linked to it.
The Big Number: 12 out of 200 types of mosquitoes spread diseases in the U.S.
A 1998 Environmental Protection Agency analysis investigating health effects of DEET, for example, found that since 1960, the estimated incidence of seizures with a possible connection to DEET exposure was 1 per 100 million users. A 2007 EPA chemical summary report on DEET reported that many of these instances of adverse neurological effects were linked with ingestion or “repeated dermal exposure or accidental ingestion of DEET that were not consistent with label directions.”
In other words, DEET may pose some risk if it’s ingested or used improperly. Keep repellents well out of kids’ reach.
And high concentrations aren’t necessary. CR tests DEET repellents in concentrations up to only 30 percent. More than that just isn’t needed to get long-lasting protection.
When you use DEET-powered repellent as directed, it poses little risk. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends it as a safe option for adults, children older than 2 months and even people who are pregnant.
Still, no chemical is without risks, and DEET needs to be used properly to be safe. According to the National Pesticide Information Center (NPIC), you should avoid applying DEET underneath your clothes (use it only on exposed skin and on the outside of clothing), wash it off your skin at the end of the day and try not to reapply it too frequently. Neglecting those tips could lead to you getting a higher dose of DEET than intended. Plus, DEET can degrade certain synthetic materials like plastic, so it shouldn’t be applied to some types of clothing.
You may also be worried about the long-term risks of exposure to DEET. According to a 2008 fact sheet by the NPIC, “researchers have not found any evidence that DEET causes cancer in animals or humans,” and there’s no clear evidence of other long-term risks of topical use despite the availability of DEET for decades.
What are OLE and picaridin?
OLE was brought to the attention of U.S. scientists in the 1990s, when they learned that a Chinese product called Quwenling was repelling mosquitoes much better than other plant-based products. One of its major components is the chemical p-Menthane-3,8-diol, or PMD, which gives OLE its repellency.
How to get rid of mosquitoes, and other tips for dealing with these pesky insects
The name “oil of lemon eucalyptus” is something of a misnomer. The Australian plant it comes from, Corymbia citriodora (or lemon-scented gum), used to be considered part of the Eucalyptus genus but isn’t anymore. And unlike lemon eucalyptus oil, OLE isn’t a true essential oil because it’s refined and concentrated. In short, it’s not what it sounds like, though it’s indeed a naturally derived ingredient that’s often effective.
Picaridin, also called icaridin, is a chemical that was developed by Bayer AG in the 1980s and 1990s. Its structure is similar to piperidine, a chemical that occurs naturally in certain pepper plants. It has been available to U.S. consumers since 2005 and is especially popular as an insect repellent in Europe and Australia.
Are OLE and picaridin safe?
Compared with DEET, less is known about OLE and picaridin, but evidence suggests that they’re safe when used according to the label.
OLE is classified as a biopesticide by the EPA, which means it’s a naturally occurring substance considered to be a lower risk than more conventional pest-control chemicals. The main risk appears to be that it can be harmful if it gets in your eyes. It also shouldn’t be used on children younger than age 3; its safety has not been well studied in young children.
Picaridin carries a small risk of skin irritation, but this appears to be rare. Any possible long-term effects of these two ingredients have largely been unstudied.
Why different performance?
Our testing can’t tell us why some repellents with the same labeled active ingredient last for a long time while others don’t. In part, that’s because — unlike cosmetics or other personal care products — manufacturers of EPA-registered repellents aren’t required to disclose all of the ingredients. It could be that some of the nonactive ingredients in a given repellent are affecting how well they perform.
Nontoxic methods to protect yourself against mosquitoes and ticks
And manufacturers are reluctant to provide their formulas to researchers for testing — they consider them to be trade secrets — so independent scientific studies of insect repellents can’t test how a repellent’s nonactive ingredients may be contributing to its efficacy.
That’s why CR performs its tests with the same products that you buy on store shelves. So even though we don’t know all of the ingredients in a product, we can see how well it works in comparison with other products on the market.
How are natural insect repellents?
The bottom rungs of CR’s insect repellent ratings are filled mostly with “natural” insect repellents, meaning those whose active ingredients are essential oils. Lemongrass oil, cedarwood oil, citronella oil and peppermint oil are among the common ingredients.
It’s not that these ingredients don’t work. After all, they come from plants that have been repelling insects “for millions of years,” says Joel Coats, a distinguished professor emeritus of entomology and toxicology at Iowa State University. But there’s a problem: The molecules that make up many of these essential oils, known as terpenes, are small and light. So although they’re effective repellents, Coats says, they evaporate quickly from skin, which means they don’t last long, sometimes for only an hour.
Also, the quality or potency of essential oils is highly variable and unpredictable, says Aaron Gross, an assistant professor of toxicology and physiology in the department of entomology at Virginia Tech. And while essential oils might seem safer, some people can be hypersensitive or even allergic to them.
If you’re interested in a naturally derived repellent that should last longer, look for products with OLE. | 2022-08-08T19:01:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Looking at DEET, picaridin, other ingredients in insect repellents - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/08/safe-insect-repellant-ingredients/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/08/safe-insect-repellant-ingredients/ |
Amnesty International's secretary general, Agnès Callamard, poses in Paris in April 2021. (Christophe Ena/AP)
In February, Amnesty International, one of the world’s premier human rights organizations, removed the status of “prisoner of conscience” from Alexei Navalny, arguably the world’s most famous political prisoner. Amnesty apparently acted in response to a coordinated pressure campaign by pro-Russian trolls pointing out that Navalny, a fearless critic of Vladimir Putin, had once echoed some Russian nationalist views. In May, the organization backtracked, redesignating Navalny a “prisoner of conscience” and apologizing for taking the label away.
Yet Amnesty International seems to have learned nothing from what should have been a chastening experience. It is still exhibiting a bewildering and unconscionable bias against Putin’s enemies. On Thursday, the organization issued a morally myopic statement accusing Ukrainian forces of “violating the laws of war” by “establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals.”
The Russians, who have launched an unprovoked war of aggression, were predictably delighted — and the Ukrainians, who are fighting to save their country from a merciless and bloodthirsty foe, just as predictably dismayed.
The head of Amnesty’s Ukraine office, Oksana Pokalchuk, quit in disgust, writing on Facebook that the organization had not given the Ukrainian Defense Ministry enough time to respond to the accusations. “The organization created material that sounded like support of Russian narratives,” Pokalchuk said. “Seeking to protect civilians, this study instead has become a tool of Russian propaganda.”
Sure enough, the Russian mission in Geneva tweeted that “When a civilian [house] is used for military purposes, it turns into a legitimate target for a precision strike. Ukraine continues to do it but now even @amnesty can’t handle it.” The Russian Embassy in London, which recently called for the execution of Ukrainian POWs, chimed in to say that Amnesty’s report is “exactly what Russia has been saying all along.”
I hope Amnesty’s employees, executives and board members at least have enough moral sense left to feel embarrassed that their research is being used to justify war crimes. Amnesty itself has chronicled Russia’s barbarous actions, noting that by “using indiscriminate weapons such as cluster munitions in populated areas, including in cities such as Kharkiv and Chernihiv, Russian forces have killed civilians and demolished residential structures, including apartment blocks.”
And yet now Amnesty is suggesting that Ukraine somehow brought these monstrous cruelties on itself by positioning troops in its cities. What was Ukraine supposed to do? Not defend its cities and allow Russia to occupy them without a fight? That would simply expose Ukrainians to the horrors of Russian occupation, which has resulted in credible accusations of murder, rape, looting, mass deportation and other heinous crimes.
It’s true that part of the reason Ukrainian forces fight in urban areas is that these areas offer strong defensive positions. But Ukraine is hardly compelled by international law to surrender its cities. Marc Garlasco, a veteran war-crimes investigator, tweeted that Amnesty has gotten the laws of war wrong: “Ukraine can place forces in areas they are defending — especially in urban warfare. There is no requirement to stand shoulder to shoulder in a field — this isn’t the 19th century.”
Ukraine does have a responsibility to safeguard civilians from combat as best it can, and it is doing so. Ukrainian authorities urge, and even order, civilians to evacuate areas under Russian attack and help them to do so despite the constant threat of bombardment. (In April, a Russian missile struck a train station full of refugees in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 50 people.)
There is no record of the Ukrainians deliberately attacking civilians in Russian-occupied cities such as Kherson, as the Russians routinely do in Ukrainian territory. Nor have they used civilians as human shields to deter attacks, as groups such as Hamas and the Islamic State so often do. Indeed, such tactics would prove entirely ineffective against Russian generals, who show no concern for the lives of their own soldiers, much less for Ukrainian civilians. Amnesty International is blaming the victims by suggesting that Russian attacks on urban areas are somehow justified by the presence of Ukrainian defenders.
On Sunday, following an uproar, Amnesty issued a statement saying that it “deeply regrets the distress and anger” that it caused, but that “we fully stand by our findings.” Agnès Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary general, only made it worse with a self-pitying tweet blaming “Ukrainian and Russian social media mobs and trolls” for “attacking @amnesty investigations” and spreading “war propaganda, disinformation, misinformation.” So now Amnesty is accusing not just Russia but also Ukraine of spreading “disinformation”?
This is more evidence that the faulty logic of moral equivalency has taken deep root at Amnesty International. It is a shame that Amnesty is harming its own credibility, because it undoubtedly does a great deal of good in calling out human rights abuses around the world. But until Amnesty recants its offensive accusations against Ukraine — as it previously recanted its risible refusal to list Navalny as a prisoner of conscience — it does not deserve to be taken seriously. It certainly does not deserve more of the individual donations that it uses to support its faulty findings. | 2022-08-08T19:01:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Amnesty International is blaming the victims in Ukraine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/amnesty-international-ukraine-russia-war-crimes/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/amnesty-international-ukraine-russia-war-crimes/ |
How Filipino Americans could decide the balance of the Senate
A sign directs people where to vote at a polling place in Las Vegas, including with directions in Filipino, on Oct. 30, 2020. (John Locher/AP)
ENTERPRISE, Nev. — There’s been a lot of talk about how Hispanics’ shift to the right could empower Republicans. But another ethnic group might also be crucial to deciding Senate control: Filipino Americans.
The demographic rarely gets the attention it deserves in terms of the increasing influence of Asian Americans in politics. In fact, it is one of the largest immigrant groups in the United States. More than 4 million Filipinos live in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. That’s about 18 percent of all Asian Americans and the third largest Asian ethnic group behind Chinese and Indians.
Filipinos are especially numerous in the key swing state of Nevada. They comprise about half of the state’s Asian population, which cast 5 percent of the votes in the 2020 elections. Asians make up a larger share of the population in Las Vegas and its prosperous suburbs. They’re nearly 11 percent of Clark County, the county that houses the Vegas metro area, and 21 percent of the highly contested 3rd Congressional District. Quick math shows that Filipinos are between 5 percent and 10 percent of the adult population here, more than enough to tip a close election.
This group’s demographics and political history give hope to both parties. Working in Democrats’ favor are their relative education and wealth. Filipinos in the United States are highly educated, with nearly half holding a bachelor’s or postgraduate degree. They are also affluent, with a median annual household income of $90,400. White people with similar demographics have been swinging toward Democrats in recent years.
But the socio-religious background of many Filipino Americans gives Republicans hope. Filipinos are overwhelmingly Catholic, meaning they are relatively socially conservative. A 2012 Pew survey found that half of Filipino Americans believe that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, a much higher share than among the nation as a whole. Filipino Americans are therefore likely to support the overturning of Roe v. Wade at much higher levels than White college-educated voters, making Democrats’ embrace of legal abortion problematic with this demographic.
This background is probably a reason Filipino Americans are more Republican than most other Asian groups. A September 2020 poll found that 28 percent identified as Republicans and 34 percent were planning to vote for President Donald Trump, second only to Vietnamese Americans among all major Asian ethnicities. This gives the GOP a stronger base on which to build.
Republicans in Nevada are trying to do that through targeted outreach and general messaging. GOP Senate nominee Adam Laxalt recently attended the National Federation of Filipino American Associations annual meeting, held in Las Vegas, and also published an op-ed in the Asian Journal outlining why Asian American voters should shift to the GOP. The Republican National Committee has also opened an Asian American community center as part of that effort.
So far, the data is mixed about whether Filipino Americans are shifting rightward. A national July poll found Filipino Americans have not moved to the right since 2020. But an analysis of national Asian American data by CNN analyst Harry Enten found a significant shift to the GOP. A recent Nevada poll conducted by Emerson College showed nearly 51 percent of Asian Americans approved of President Biden’s performance and 61 percent supported Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. The sample size for Asians was only 122, though, giving it a substantially larger error margin than for the survey as a whole.
Republicans may have a secret weapon, however: Filipino American patriotism. The Philippines was an American colony between 1898 and 1946, and the United States liberated the islands from Japanese rule with substantial Filipino support during World War II. The United States has been viewed extremely favorably in the Philippines, even during Trump’s presidency. Simply put, many Filipinos love America. That could make problematic Democrats’ willingness to tolerate, or in some cases embrace, elements in their coalition that view U.S. history harshly.
Terry McAuliffe’s debate gaffes in his 2021 gubernatorial run in Virginia over parental influence in education significantly increased Asian support for Republican Glenn Youngkin. A similar gaffe on U.S. culture and history by a Nevada Democrat could have the same effect.
Nevada’s swing state status and its mélange of ethnic groups make it a petri dish for election analysis this year. Don’t be surprised if the often-overlooked Filipino American vote proves decisive. | 2022-08-08T19:02:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How Filipino Americans could decide the balance of the Senate - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/filipino-americans-voters-senate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/filipino-americans-voters-senate/ |
Cars on Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park on Sept. 23, 2019, in D.C. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
Amid all the devastating impacts of the pandemic, there have been some rare, unexpected bright spots: The flexibility afforded by telework; the convenience of ordering groceries online; the advantages of telehealth medical visits. To that list, Washingtonians can add the enhanced recreational opportunities created when a section of Beach Drive running through Rock Creek Park was closed to traffic. And just as it seems online work, doctor visits and grocery shopping will continue to be a part of the post-pandemic world, so, too, there must be a way for this car-free park oasis to continue. But the exact contours of that status are subject of a fierce debate.
The National Park Service closed the roughly four-mile upper stretch of Beach Drive in Northwest Washington to the Maryland line in April 2020 as the covid-19 pandemic tightened its grip on daily life. Washington area residents were in desperate need of open space and with few people going to work, the road, used by commuters headed downtown, sat idle. The park service planned to reopen the road to traffic in June 2021, but pressure from residents and officials made it reconsider.
The closure of the road seven days a week — before the pandemic, it was closed to cars only on weekends and holidays — has passionate fans. The People’s Alliance for Rock Creek and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association have collected more than 6,000 signatures to keep the road closed. Both the D.C. Council and the Montgomery County Council, along with D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), have urged the park service to make the seven-day closure permanent. Pushing back, The Post’s Luz Lazo reported, have been some park neighbors and commuters who say the prolonged shutdown has resulted in more cars cutting — and speeding — through their neighborhoods and has worsened traffic congestion on parallel routes. Critics of a permanent shutdown wonder why the federal government completed in 2019 a $35.3 million rehabilitation of Beach Drive — including $11 million for this upper section — if it wasn’t going to be used.
The park service came up with a compromise — keep the road car-free in summer when there is less traffic and open it to vehicles the rest of the year, except for weekends and holidays — but that made few people happy. No doubt that was due to the park service’s convoluted reasoning that more cars would actually improve forest health and help threatened species thrive by deterring visitors from cutting through the park on unofficial trails. “Just to make sure I understand, you want less people using the park, so you’re trying to make the park worse so less people will come,” said one resident who participated in a spirited virtual meeting last month. Surely, there are better ways to safeguard the health of the park than whizzing cars that discourage park users.
That said, there may be some merit to a compromise that tries to balance the desire for a safe recreation area with the interests of park neighbors. More information is needed, particularly on traffic impacts that take into account what the workweek will look like with many companies opting for telework. The public can still weigh in with the park service accepting comments through Thursday.
The Editorial Board on D.C.
Mayor Bowser needs to take action on migrant buses coming to D.C.
This D.C. Council decision makes city streets unsafe
D.C.'s promising approach to violence prevention has room for improvement | 2022-08-08T19:02:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Rock Creek Park’s Beach Drive was closed for covid. Should it reopen? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/rock-creek-park-beach-drive-reopen-debate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/rock-creek-park-beach-drive-reopen-debate/ |
When it comes to undermining elections: If it’s legal, is it okay?
Republican candidate for attorney general of Michigan Matthew DePerno reacts as he is recognized by former president Donald Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas on Aug. 6. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
There’s no question that attorney Matthew DePerno tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Michigan.
He did so actively, vocally and repeatedly. He served as attorney for a resident who wanted to challenge the presidential election results in Antrim County, Mich., filing suit in December 2020. By that point, a technical glitch that had led to the results in Antrim being temporarily misreported was well-established, but DePerno pressed forward anyway. He was granted access to voting machines used in the county, allowing a right-wing group called Allied Security Operations Group to do a “forensic analysis” of the devices. That analysis, alleging intentional fraud, was itself thoroughly debunked in short order.
DePerno kept going. In March 2021, in an effort to bolster his lawsuit, he subpoenaed a number of county clerks in the state, arguing that in Michigan, as elsewhere, there had been an “algorithm used to regulate and shift votes in the 2020 elections.” His aim was to show that fraud had occurred in Antrim County using other counties as a baseline.
A judge rejected the effort as a “fishing expedition,” which is understating how ridiculous the whole thing was. DePerno’s argument relied on analysis by a high school teacher named Douglas Frank who claimed to have found a secret “key” proving that electronic machines rigged results. The reality was that Frank and his complicated-seeming graphs were simply mixing age-related voting patterns with bad data.
After DePerno filed a motion in early April 2021, though, this is how he predicted the response would unfold. The displayed graphs are Frank’s.
The entire Michigan media has been huddled with far left wing progressives and gov’t fascists for 48 hours to come up with a response to our brief. The media will bow to their government masters today and all print a reply brief, disguised as a news story. Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/vhVJP5BUv4
— Matthew S. DePerno, Esq. (@mdeperno) April 11, 2021
In May, DePerno’s lawsuit was tossed out. The next month, a Republican-led committee of the Michigan state Senate released a lengthy report assessing claims about the 2020 election in the state. Its conclusions were anodyne: There was no evidence of significant fraud. One by one, it walked through claims that had been raised and dismissed them.
DePerno got a special mention.
“The Committee closely followed Mr. DePerno’s efforts,” the report read, “and can confidently conclude they are demonstrably false and based on misleading information and illogical conclusions.”
A few days later, at a rally in the state capital, DePerno nonetheless excoriated state leaders over the 2020 election results.
“They are lying,” he said. He declared that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) was a “tyrant” and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) “the Fuhrer.” County clerks, he claimed, had “committed crimes.”
By the end of last year, DePerno had announced his candidacy for state attorney general — and received the endorsement of former president Donald Trump. In March, Trump hosted DePerno for a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago.
There was another important development by that point, however. Benson had been made aware of allegations that voting machines in Roscommon County might have been improperly accessed and, in February, asked state law enforcement to investigate. The investigation was conducted by state police and the office of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D).
On Friday, there was a new development. Nessel filed a petition with a state agency for the appointment of a special prosecutor to take over the investigation as it reached the point of potentially filing criminal charges — because, the filing alleged, DePerno was likely to be among those charged. Since he is likely to be confirmed as the Republican challenger to Nessel in November, Nessel sought to move the investigation out of her purview.
The filing specifies what DePerno is alleged to have done:
“It is alleged that DePerno [and other alleged conspirators] orchestrated a coordinated plan to gain access to voting tabulators that had been used in Roscommon County and Richfield Township (Roscommon County), Irving Township (Barry County) and Lake City Township (Missaukee County),” it alleges. " … All 5 tabulators were taken to hotels and/or AIRBNB’s in Oakland County where [alleged conspirators] broke into the tabulators and performed ‘tests’ on the equipment. It was determined during the investigation that DePerno was present at a hotel room during such ‘testing.’ ”
A spokesman for DePerno insisted that the filing was a function of Nessel’s concern about winning in November.
“She is desperate to win this election at all costs and is now targeting DePerno, her political opponent,” campaign manager Tyson Shepard said.
This is where we hit pause.
Consider the argument here: that the risk to DePerno’s candidacy is not everything contained in the first dozen paragraphs of this article but, instead, that there exists an investigation into one subset of his effort to undercut confidence in the election. It’s not that he compared the governor to Adolf Hitler or that he promoted patently ridiculous claims about evidence of fraud, it’s that he might face criminal prosecution.
There’s certainly reason to think that prosecution is more politically dangerous. An indictment for conspiracy has a weight that rhetoric doesn’t. But this particular scenario elevates a core distinction in how many Americans, particularly on the right, view the effort to overturn the 2020 election: If it was legal, it was okay.
This month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) will travel to Arizona and Pennsylvania to support Republican gubernatorial nominees in those states. In Arizona, that means Kari Lake, whose fealty to the idea that the 2020 election was stolen is so unwavering that Trump reportedly can’t help but praise her for it. In Pennsylvania, it means Doug Mastriano, whose commitment to the idea led him to actually be on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021.
NBC News’ Benjy Sarlin picked out how DeSantis’s schedule reflected sentiment within his party: Republicans “almost all treat [Jan. 6] as good faith disagreement between friends, rather than disqualifying.” Attempts to overturn election results within the boundaries of the law — or in exploration the liminal gray area where legality is unarticulated — are often seen as simply “just another issue to debate among many,” as Sarlin put it.
Last week, I wrote about how Mastriano’s not having actually entered the Capitol — thereby avoiding federal charges — gives him space to differentiate himself from the rioters themselves. But for those wary of elected leaders who might be inclined to elevate partisanship over election results, it is small consolation.
It is not proven that Matt DePerno was in those hotel rooms where voting machines were accessed. It’s not clear whether he’ll face any charges related to his alleged presence. What is proven, robustly, is that he both tried to undercut confidence in the 2020 election results despite a complete lack of evidence to that effect, and that he cast those who pushed back as nefarious in the starkest possible terms.
It’s telling that his campaign doesn’t seem to think that the latter activity is by itself an impediment to victory. | 2022-08-08T19:02:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | When it comes to undermining elections: If it’s legal, is it OK? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/trump-2020-election-michigan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/trump-2020-election-michigan/ |
Major League Baseball returns to Dyersville, Iowa, this week. (Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
The Reds’ 1919 World Series-inspired uniforms feature white caps, jerseys and pants with royal blue pinstripes. The cap features a red stylized 'C' and a red band above the brim, while the jersey features “Reds” in capital letters inside an elongated ‘C.’ The Reds wore 1919 World Series throwbacks in 2019 when they celebrated their 150th season. | 2022-08-08T19:03:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Reds and Cubs show off ‘Field of Dreams’ game throwback uniforms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/08/reds-cubs-uniforms-field-of-dreams/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/08/reds-cubs-uniforms-field-of-dreams/ |
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant outside the Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar, Ukraine, as seen on Aug. 4. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)
In the wake of purported strikes targeting Europe’s largest nuclear plant over the weekend, which caused reported explosions near a spent-fuel storage facility not designed to survive such attacks, world leaders and experts are calling on Russian occupying forces and Ukrainian defenders to declare a military-free zone around the site, and to let international inspectors in.
Russia indicated Monday that it would allow in international observers, but did not indicate if it would take the steps to facilitate such a visit.
Both sides have exchanged blame for explosions near the Zaporizhzhia plant, in southeastern Ukraine, which Russia captured in March. Ukraine has accused Russia of using the plant as a shield for artillery, and of firing rockets into the area. Russia has accused Ukraine of launching strikes in the vicinity.
“Any attack to a nuclear plant is a suicidal thing,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said Monday at a news conference in Japan, amid commemorations in Hiroshima marking the 77th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing, conducted by the United States against the Japanese city.
“Russia must immediately cease occupation of Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and withdraw its military equipment,” read a tweet Monday from Poland’s Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Russian state media outlets reported on Monday that Moscow would be willing to allow international inspectors access to the site. Russia is ready to facilitate a visit by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. atomic energy watchdog, Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna told Ria Novosti on Monday. Kyiv has appealed for the same. But the area would first need to be demilitarized to the point that monitors could enter safely.
Oleg Nikolenko, spokesman for Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, said Kyiv supports a U.N. team coming to the nuclear site “as soon as possible.”
“We want the watchdog to come to the power plant and check on the status to verify how the nuclear materials are being used,” he said in a phone call with The Washington Post. “And we also want the organization to prepare a report about the violations of nuclear security that Russia is committing in Zaporizhzhia.”
On Saturday, an IAEA statement warned that shelling the plant could cause a nuclear disaster.
“There is no such nation in the world that can feel safe when a terrorist state fires at a nuclear plant,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an evening address over the weekend, urging international agencies to hold Russia accountable for the attack. “God forbid, if something irreparable happens, no one will stop the wind that will spread the radioactive contamination.”
On Sunday, power unit No. 4 of the plant was disconnected because of “partial destruction,” but regional governor Oleksandr Starukh reassured that “everything is more or less under control.” Speaking on government television, Starukh said that “our country has lived through Chernobyl and, understandably, every person and the country has a special attention to these issues.”
Radiation levels at the plant remained within normal range, according to a Ukrainian official.
Built to produce 5,700 megawatts of electricity at full capacity, the Zaporizhzhia plant is essential to Ukraine’s energy circuit and sits about 200 miles from the border with Russia.
Ukraine relies heavily on nuclear energy — its 15 functional reactors, six of them in Zaporizhzhia, provide about half of the country’s electricity, according to the IAEA. Nuclear power has been formative to Ukraine’s strategy to wean off energy dependence on Russia.
Ukraine was also the site of a 1986 nuclear meltdown that sent a radioactive cloud over Europe. The specter of the Chernobyl disaster has loomed large amid fighting near nuclear reactors in recent days.
Jennifer Hassan, Adam Taylor, Kostiantyn Khudov and John Hudson contributed to this report. | 2022-08-08T19:44:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia, Ukraine open to IAEA visit after Zaporizhzhia strike - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/08/zaporizhzhia-shelling-ukraine-nuclear-plant-un-iaea-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/08/zaporizhzhia-shelling-ukraine-nuclear-plant-un-iaea-russia/ |
Consumers see lower home prices ahead
Americans are starting to see an end for the relentless rise in U.S. home prices.
Consumers surveyed last month said they expect home prices to rise by about 3.5 percent in the coming year, down from an expected change of 4.4 percent a month earlier and 6 percent at the start of 2022, data from the New York Federal Reserve showed Monday.
The drop was reflected across education and income groups, marking the third straight decline and the lowest expected growth rate since November 2020.
Home prices have surged over the last couple of years, fueled by ultralow mortgage rates and a pandemic-related rush for more spacious properties.
While price increases remain extremely high, recent data have shown a slight deceleration as higher borrowing costs deter prospective buyers and inventory picks up.
U.S. sanctions service over N. Korea hackers
The service, Tornado Cash, is what is known as a mixer, and it pools digital assets to obscure their ownership. Since its launch in 2019, the program has laundered more than $7 billion in digital assets, according to the Treasury Department. By adding the service’s website and 45 associated crypto wallets to the sanctions list, the administration makes it illegal for any American to transact with them.
The sanctions mark the Biden administration’s second such move against a mixer. In May, it blacklisted a program called Blender, which was also employed by the North Korean hackers. The mixer has not appeared to be operational since then, a senior Treasury official said Monday.
— Tory Newmyer
New rules proposed for clearing houses
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday proposed new rules aimed at preventing conflicts of interest in management and governance of clearing houses.
Clearing houses are essential in ensuring that securities or derivatives trades are completed, even if one side of a transaction goes bust.
Under the SEC’s proposal, registered clearing houses would be required to disclose more details on board composition, independent directors, and nominating and risk management committees, among other details.
“I think these rules would help to build more transparent and reliable clearing houses,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement.
The plan would replace two related measures that were proposed following the 2009-2010 global financial crisis but were never adopted.
Specifically, the SEC’s plan would require clearing houses to identify, mitigate or eliminate conflicts of interest involving directors or senior managers, and also to document such actions.
Consumer expectations for U.S. inflation over the coming years declined sharply in the latest survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Expectations for U.S. inflation three years ahead fell to 3.2 percent in July, from 3.6 percent the previous month, according to the New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations. It was the second straight monthly drop. The outlook for inflation in the coming year fell to 6.2 percent from 6.8 percent. U.S. inflation has surged to four-decade highs in the past year, driven by pandemic-related supply shortfalls and soaring commodity prices, as well as strong consumer demand bolstered by fiscal stimulus and low interest rates.
Twitter subpoenaed Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison in its legal battle to make Elon Musk complete his proposed $44 billion purchase of the social media company. Last week the company subpoenaed an official of a trust Ellison controls that committed $1 billion to Musk’s proposed buyout. Now the company has notified Delaware Chancery Court that it has subpoenaed Ellison himself. | 2022-08-08T20:33:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Consumers see lower home prices ahead - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/consumers-see-lower-home-prices-ahead/2022/08/08/80077a4c-1738-11ed-84fb-e187e1a4a96f_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/consumers-see-lower-home-prices-ahead/2022/08/08/80077a4c-1738-11ed-84fb-e187e1a4a96f_story.html |
Researchers in France found newborn lizards with prematurely aged DNA, a potential sign of how climate-related stress passes from one generation to the next
Two young viviparous, or common, lizards sun on a log in the summer. (Arterra/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)
As temperatures rapidly rise, some lizards are giving birth to young that are already old.
In central France, temperatures are accelerating so quickly that many lizards enter the world with DNA that’s already damaged and aged, according to new research published Monday, diminishing their chances of survival.
The findings add to the growing body of research showing the menace that climate change poses to reptiles and other wildlife as hundreds of thousands of plants and animals are threatened with extinction in a warming world. Hotter summers are not just a human problem: Around the world, heat waves send wildlife scrambling for shade. Scorched vegetation deprives animals of lifesaving cover from predators. In some cases, droughts get so bad that populations die en masse of dehydration.
In the case of the lizards in France, the degradation of DNA over generations may send populations into a death spiral from which they can’t recover. Unlike in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” the F. Scott Fitzgerald story in which a man ages in reverse, fewer of the lizards “born old” are expected to make it to reproductive age.
“Once you are in this circle of events, it’s quite complicated to come back,” said Andréaz Dupoué, a biologist at Ifremer, a research institute in France, and co-author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “It can become a vicious circle.”
Dupoué’s team focused on a species called the viviparous lizard, or the common lizard. Despite the “common” in its name, the two-inch critter does something uncommon among reptiles: It can both lay eggs and give live birth.
For more than a decade, his team traveled around France’s Massif Central mountains sampling blood from the lizards’ eyes and clipping off tiny pieces of their tails, in an effort to catalogue the genetic material of hundreds of individuals.
With many lizards lounging in grassy areas, “they are not quite difficult to catch,” Dupoué said.
With a microscope, the team measured caps at the ends of the lizards’ chromosomes called telomeres. Like a hem at the edge of a piece of fabric, telomeres shield the rest of the DNA from fraying or tangling.
But the caps wear away as the body ages, until they can no longer provide protection. The stresses of life — including rising temperatures — can trim telomeres prematurely.
Newborn lizards in declining, heat-stressed populations had abnormally stubby telomeres, Dupoué and his colleagues found. As female lizards living in hotter places potentially pass their shortened telomeres to their offspring, damaged chromosomes may accumulate across generations and drive populations down.
As temperatures rise, the problem may only accelerate.
“The most relevant result of the paper is the detection of a very worrying tendency towards shorter telomeres — and thus, faster aging — in populations exposed to the more demanding climatic conditions for the species,” said Germán Orizaola, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Oviedo in Spain who was not involved with the latest research. Such populations, Orizaola said, are “at higher risk of extinction.”
France is already one of the fastest-warming places in the world. This summer, the heat in Europe has been so intense that Tour de France organizers sprayed water on roads to keep them from “melting.” The French government warned that the nation is facing its “most severe drought” ever recorded.
Of the 10 lizard populations the researchers examined in France, one disappeared during the course of the study.
“It was quite sad, actually,” Dupoué said. “It’s something that is really happening at a rapid pace.”
The viviparous lizard, which is found from Ireland to Japan, is not at risk of vanishing any time soon. The species is hardy, and so well adapted for colder climates that it can freeze for the winter and survive.
But many other reptiles are in danger of extinction. More than a fifth of all reptile species are threatened, a research team found this year, with turtles and crocodiles among the most imperiled.
There’s a silver lining, though, not just for lizards but for all sorts of wildlife: Measuring the lengths of telomeres could become a tool that helps biologists figure out if conservation efforts are working, Dupoué said. It may even help scientists spot species in distress before it’s too late.
“We could just sample the individuals in the populations and diagnose the lengths,” he said. “And we can say, ‘Okay, this one is good; this one is in really bad shape.’ ” | 2022-08-08T20:33:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Climate change stress is prematurely aging lizards - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/08/climate-change-lizards-premature-aging-dna/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/08/climate-change-lizards-premature-aging-dna/ |
FILE - Director Lars von Trier appears at the premiere of the film “The House That Jack Built” at the 71st international film festival, Cannes, southern France, on May 14, 2018. Von Trier, known for films like “Melancholia” and “Dancer in the Dark,” has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, his production company Zentropa said Monday. The company said it released the information in order to avoid speculation about his health leading up to the premiere of his series “The Kingdom Exodus” at the Venice Film Festival next month. (Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-08-08T20:33:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Filmmaker Lars von Trier diagnosed with Parkinson’s - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/filmmaker-lars-von-trier-diagnosed-with-parkinsons/2022/08/08/a573c21c-1757-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/filmmaker-lars-von-trier-diagnosed-with-parkinsons/2022/08/08/a573c21c-1757-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
FILE - Actress and singer Olivia Newton-John attends the 2018 G’Day USA Los Angeles Gala in Los Angeles on Jan. 27, 2018. Newton-John, a longtime resident of Australia whose sales topped 100 million albums, died Monday at her southern California ranch, John Easterling, her husband, wrote on Instagram and Facebook. She was 73. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-08-08T20:33:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Olivia Newton-John, superstar singer and actress, dies at 73 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/olivia-newton-john-superstar-singer-and-actress-dies-at-73/2022/08/08/45c96174-1756-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/olivia-newton-john-superstar-singer-and-actress-dies-at-73/2022/08/08/45c96174-1756-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Despite support from seven Senate Republicans, an amendment to include a $35 insulin price cap in the Inflation Reduction Act failed to get 60 votes on Aug. 7. (Video: The Washington Post)
Republicans block cap on insulin costs for millions of patients
What would the insulin price cap do?
The average Medicare patient using insulin paid $54 for prescriptions, according to KFF, an increase of nearly 40 percent since 2007.
Insulin was developed in Canada in the 1920s, and its creators, who won the Nobel Prize, sold their patent to the University of Toronto for $3. Since then, the drug has become a major commercial enterprise.
The global insulin market is dominated by Eli Lilly, the French company Sanofi and the Danish firm Novo Nordisk. A report released in December by Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee accused the drugmakers of repeatedly raising their prices in lockstep and working to “maintain monopoly pricing,” allegations which the companies have denied.
In a statement, Novo Nordisk said the complexities of the U.S. health-care system influence the insulin market and that “many factors” determine what a person pays out of pocket for insulin. The company said net prices for its products have “continued to decline over the past 5 consecutive years.”
Eli Lilly and Sanofi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A Yale University study found insulin is an “extreme financial burden” for more than 14 percent of Americans who use it. These people are spending more than 40 percent of their income after food and housing costs on the medicine.
What does this mean for uninsured patients and Medicaid recipients?
The legislation doesn’t limit the cost of insulin for uninsured patients, despite last-minute lobbying from some House lawmakers to add in such protections. Uninsured Americans with diabetes are more likely to be using less costly formulations of insulin compared to those on private insurance or Medicaid, yet they have a higher tendency to pay full price for the lifesaving medication, according to a 2020 report from the Commonwealth Fund, a health-care think tank.
For those on Medicaid, many don’t pay co-pays for insulin, though some states may have modest amounts beneficiaries must pay, such as $2 for a standard prescription, according to Sherry Glied, dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.
“There’s no average person with diabetes, right, and so no two people are managing their diabetes in the exact same way,” said Aaron Turner-Phifer, advocacy director for JDRF, an organization funding research into Type 1 diabetes. “Folks are taking different types of insulin, they’re taking them via pens, they’re taking them via pumps, some are using different devices. … The amount of insulin that they’re taking varies from person to person”
What are Republicans saying about the insulin price cap?
Still, other Republicans decried what they called “socialist” government interference in the free market. “Today it’s the government fixing the price on insulin,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “What’s next, gas? Food?”
Did President Donald Trump lower the price of insulin?
In 2020, President Donald Trump claimed that he had drastically lowered the price of insulin: “Insulin, it’s going to — it was destroying families, destroying people. The cost,” the president said in a debate. “I’m getting it for so cheap it’s like water.” His statement drew criticism from patient advocates and people still struggling to afford their medication.
Where have Democrats and Republicans stood historically on insulin prices?
Republicans have long proposed alternatives to Democrats’ drug pricing measures. In the House, key GOP lawmakers have released plans to place a monthly $50 cap on insulin and its supplies for those in Medicare’s drug benefit after seniors hit their deductibles. In the Senate, top-ranking Republicans have crafted a bill to make permanent an existing temporary pilot project that gives those on Medicare the option to get a voluntary prescription drug plan where insulin only costs $35 per month.
Meanwhile, a bipartisan pair of senators unveiled legislation in June aimed at tackling the cost of insulin, which was the byproduct of months of work to forge a compromise. But the legislation hasn’t come up for a vote, and faces daunting political odds in its quest to obtain 10 Republican votes to pass the bill in the Senate.
Evan Halper, Bryan Pietsch and Tony Romm contributed to this report. | 2022-08-08T20:33:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | GOP senators blocked a $35 insulin price cap: What to know - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/08/insulin-price-cap-diabetes-senate-republicans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/08/insulin-price-cap-diabetes-senate-republicans/ |
Protesters block roads after power outages
Temperatures reached 122 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly matching last year’s record high. Southern provinces, where the heat wave is most intense in Iraq, suspended working hours.
Many protesters in Basra said they supported al-Sadr’s protest and demands and were tired of rampant government corruption. Protests in the south are common in the summer. In 2018, protests over the lack of basic services turned violent. In 2019, they paved the way for mass anti-government demonstrations in the capital.
Aquatic drone to be used in mine rescue
The mine in Sabinas, Coahuila, about 70 miles southwest of Eagle Pass, Tex., collapsed Wednesday with 15 miners inside. Five managed to escape with injuries. Authorities say the miners breached a neighboring space filled with water. There has been no contact with the remaining 10.
The miners’ families are desperate, and some complained Sunday that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador gave them little information when he visited the site.
The president said that as a public servant you have to be willing “to always pay the tax of humiliation” but that his conscience is clear.
Cuban oil tank fire spreads: A deadly fire that began at a large oil storage facility in western Cuba spread Monday after flames enveloped a third tank that firefighters had tried to cool as they struggle to fight the massive blaze. At least one person has died and 122 are injured, with dozens of firefighters reported missing ever since lighting struck one of the facility's eight tanks on Friday night. A second tank caught fire on Saturday, triggering several explosions.
Chad's main rebels shun case-fire: Chad's military government and some rebel groups signed a pledge Monday in Qatar ahead of planned national reconciliation talks, though the deal did not include the country's main opposition group. Under the terms of the deal in Doha, those who signed have agreed to a cease-fire ahead of the Aug. 20 talks planned in the Chadian capital of N'Djamena. However, the Front for Change and Concord in Chad, the main rebel group in the country, did not sign the pledge. The shadowy group, known by its French acronym FACT, is blamed for the 2021 killing of longtime President Idriss Déby.
Bahamas' migrant interceptions rise: The Bahamas has apprehended more migrants this year than in the previous three calendar years combined, according to figures released to Reuters, amid a steady rise in sea-bound vessels seeking to reach the United States. The Royal Bahamas Defense Force (RBDF) has apprehended 2,250 migrants between January and August, compared with 2,235 total apprehensions for the 2019, 2020 and 2021 calendar years, according to figures provided by the RBDF. The figures show that 39 vessels were intercepted in 2021 compared with 15 in 2020 and six in 2019. | 2022-08-08T20:34:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Digest: Aug. 8, 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-aug-8-2022/2022/08/08/f3ae2532-1705-11ed-b777-8e8738265b2c_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-aug-8-2022/2022/08/08/f3ae2532-1705-11ed-b777-8e8738265b2c_story.html |
The sugar-sweet performer with a string of No. 1 hits was also an advocate for cancer research
Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta in "Grease" (1978). (Photo 12 /Alamy Stock Photo)
Her family announced the death in a statement on Facebook, noting that she “has been a symbol of triumphs and hope for over 30 years sharing her journey with breast cancer.” Additional details were not immediately available, but for many years she owned a 12-acre estate on the Santa Ynez River near Santa Barbara.
Since her initial diagnosis at 44, Ms. Newton-John had become an advocate for cancer research and awareness, as well as for environmental causes. She sang for presidents and a pope, the sick and the disabled, and touted music as a form of spiritual therapy, raising millions of dollars to fund the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Center at Melbourne’s Austin Hospital. Her latest albums featured inspirational music about love, friendship and overcoming trauma.
But her slickly produced, sugary-sweet crossbreeding of styles irritated purists of all stripes and left some reviewers searching for pejoratives. One compared her thin, nondescript voice to a sandwich loaf (“If white bread could sing . . . ”). A Playboy writer observed that her music made the listener “feel as if you’ve been wrapped in cotton candy and set out in the sun.”
When the Country Music Association named Ms. Newton-John its female vocalist of the year in 1974, Nashville stars including Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton formed a short-lived rival organization intended to exclude pop singers from their musical terrain. Some of her detractors spread the perhaps apocryphal story that Ms. Newton-John, on a visit to the country music capital, was excited to meet Hank Williams, the country legend who had been in his grave for 20 years.
In whatever regard she was held, Ms. Newton-John was widely considered one of the most guileless performers in the business and avoided responding to criticism in kind. “I was just a performer the audience found pleasant,” she told the Detroit Free Press. “And after all, the audience’s opinion is the only one that counts, isn’t it?”
She squandered her stardom in “Xanadu” (1980), a musical roller-disco fantasy that also featured Gene Kelly and the Electric Light Orchestra. It gave her the chart-topping “Magic”but was otherwise a critical and box office fiasco, which she compounded with the bomb “Two of a Kind” (1983), co-starring Travolta.
The image was jarringly out of character for Ms. Newton-John, who said she was far more conservative, even “boring,” in her personal life. She worried that “Physical,” an aggressively suggestive song initially intended for British singer Rod Stewart, risked a backlash from her fans. She opted before the record was released to first make alighthearted video, set in a gym filled with out-of-shape men instead of in a boudoir.
Within a few years, her musical and movie trajectory had plateaued, but she remained a staple of glossy magazines, which voraciously chronicled her personal travails. She was a survivor of cancer; of the deaths of family and close friends from the disease; and of her daughter’s public battle with depression, anorexia and drug abuse.
In 2005, her on-and-off boyfriend of nine years, cameraman Patrick McDermott, disappeared on an overnight chartered fishing expedition off San Pedro, Calif. A Coast Guard investigation concluded that he probably drowned. But McDermott’s troubled financial history fueled enduring speculation that he had staged his bogus death and was living incognito in Mexico. (Ms. Newton-John was in Australia at the time of the incident and was reserved in her public statements, once calling the situation “heartbreaking.”) | 2022-08-08T20:34:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Olivia Newton-John dies; pop singer and ‘Grease’ star was 73 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/08/olivia-newton-john-grease-singer-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/08/olivia-newton-john-grease-singer-dies/ |
Tamika Palmer, center, Breonna Taylor's mother, celebrates with community members on Aug. 4 after the announcement that the FBI had arrested and brought civil rights charges against four current and former Louisville police officers for their roles in the 2020 fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor. (Amira Karaoud/Reuters)
“Today’s overdue, but it still hurts,” Breonna Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, said at a news conference last Thursday. Earlier that day, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced federal charges against four current and former Louisville officers involved in the botched police raid that killed Taylor. It had been 874 days, Ms. Palmer noted, since plainclothes police officers burst into Taylor’s apartment in the middle of the night on March 13, 2020, to carry out a search warrant; 874 days since Taylor’s then-boyfriend, fearing intruders, fired one shot and officers fired 22 back, fatally striking Taylor in the chest. Now, the Justice Department’s efforts — the first federal counts in the case — could bring Taylor’s family much-needed answers and some measure of justice.
The Justice Department’s action doesn’t satisfy protesters’ calls to charge the two officers who shot and killed Taylor. But the federal charges do implicate former officer Brett Hankison, who during the raid fired 10 shots through Taylor’s window and sliding glass door. He was previously charged and acquitted on the state level — not for endangering Taylor, but for endangering her neighbors. The Justice Department’s efforts make progress by actually charging Mr. Hankison for endangering Taylor.
At the center of the other charges is the search warrant itself. Two of the officers charged, former detective Joshua Jaynes and a current police officer, Sgt. Kyle Meany, allegedly knew the affidavit used to obtain a search warrant for Taylor’s apartment contained “false, misleading, and out-of-date” information, according to the Justice Department’s indictment. The Louisville Metro Police Department had targeted Taylor’s home as part of a drug investigation into her former boyfriend. Mr. Jaynes claimed to have verified with a U.S. postal inspector that Taylor was receiving packages on behalf of her ex-boyfriend when there was no evidence of these packages, according to prosecutors. Sgt. Meany, despite knowing the information was false, signed off on the affidavit, according to the indictment.
“They shouldn’t have been there, and Breonna didn’t deserve that,” Ms. Palmer said at the news conference. But the police officers’ alleged crimes go beyond recklessly endangering Taylor on the basis of a faulty warrant: After Taylor’s killing, prosecutors allege that Mr. Jaynes and current detective Kelly Goodlett conspired to cover up their actions. Ms. Goodlett knew Mr. Jaynes’s packages claim was false, according to the indictment, and added a “misleading” statement that Taylor’s ex-boyfriend was using her apartment as his current address. As scrutiny into Taylor’s death mounted, Mr. Jaynes and Ms. Goodlett allegedly met in Mr. Jaynes’s garage to coordinate a false cover story for investigators.
“Breonna Taylor should still be alive,” Mr. Garland said after announcing the charges last week. Along with the charges, the Justice Department has separately launched a civil investigation into the policies and practices of the Louisville Metro Police Department, another welcome development. Louisville police officers are charged with falsifying information to gain access to Taylor’s apartment. They allegedly did so again after her killing to cover their tracks. Let’s hope the Justice Department’s efforts finally deliver accountability. | 2022-08-08T20:34:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | breonna-taylor-federal-charges-justice-merrick-garland - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/federal-charges-breonna-taylors-killing-are-step-toward-justice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/federal-charges-breonna-taylors-killing-are-step-toward-justice/ |
A 'one way' sign is seen as a pilot flame burns atop a flare stack at the refinery of the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Rheinland in Godorf near Cologne, Germany, August 3, 2022. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay (Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters)
American statesmen have long regarded Germany with frustration: They wanted Europe’s economic giant to stop being a political dwarf. Today, there is at least a chance that their wish will be granted. In a world of increasingly assertive autocracies, Germany’s potential transformation is a welcome prospect. There are three elements to watch.
The first sign of the new Germany involves defense. Over the past dozen years, German military spending has averaged around $40 billion annually, or a bit over 1 percent of gross domestic product. To put that in perspective, in 2021 the U.S. defense budget was about 14 times bigger. But three days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that his country would henceforth exceed the NATO military spending target of 2 percent of GDP — and that it would do so “year after year.” As a down payment, Scholz committed $107 billion to upgrading Germany’s military capacity, a sum almost equivalent to the annual defense expenditures of Japan and France combined.
Scholz is a workhorse, not a show horse, and he could have delivered faster. But five months into the war, Germany published a detailed list of its arms shipments to Ukraine: some 3,000 antitank weapons, 3,200 portable air-defense systems and much more. Meanwhile, Germany has announced additional deliveries, including 100 howitzers and 16 bridge-layer tanks. Despite the pacifist roots of his Social Democratic Party and his Green coalition partner, the chancellor is making good on his promise to turn Germany into Europe’s leading military power.
Then there is Germany’s energy U-turn. In 2011, when a tsunami hit Japan’s nuclear facilities in Fukushima, the government of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel experienced the policy equivalent of a breakdown. Merkel immediately decommissioned about half of Germany’s nuclear generation capacity and declared that the rest would be shuttered by December 2022. In 2017, Merkel’s government passed a law that more or less banned fracking, even though Germany had been safely using this technique for years to exploit its considerable natural gas reserves.
The outcome has been a dangerous dependence on gas imports from Russia, which accounted for 55 percent of German gas consumption on the eve of the Ukraine invasion. A long Cold War tradition of “Ostpolitik” — the policy of softening the Communist East by trading with it — made this folly feel acceptable. But Russia’s assault on Ukraine served as a wake-up call. For the past five months, Scholz has been scrambling to develop alternative energy sources. Russian gas now represents just 27 percent of German consumption. Scholz has begun talking about extending the life of Germany’s three remaining nuclear plants.
Germany’s third transformation relates to its neighbors. A decade ago, Berlin’s rigidity during the euro crisis exasperated the Obama administration, which wanted a stable commercial and geopolitical partner in Europe. Germany fanned populism in the weaker southern European economies by forcing too much austerity on them. It sniped at the European Central Bank’s efforts to assist them with monetary easing. It rejected the idea of common European bonds, closing off another channel of crisis-fighting aid. It refused even to invest adequately in its own economy, depriving German industry of digital infrastructure and the rest of Europe of a useful fillip to demand.
Today, Germany is thinking differently. As part of its response to the covid-19 pandemic, Berlin approved more than $800 billion worth of jointly guaranteed euro-zone bonds. Meanwhile, confronted by the latest financial tremors on Europe’s periphery, this time in too-big-to-fail Italy, Germany has gone along with a prompt ECB pledge to backstop the debt of governments that get into trouble. And domestic austerity has gone out the window. Germany’s budget deficit stands at 3.7 percent of GDP, a big shift from the consistent surpluses before the covid pandemic.
Of course, Germany has stirred before — and then fallen asleep again. In 1999 it summoned the fortitude to back a military response to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo; over the next decade, however, its defense spending actually fell. But today’s German awakening is less about a war of choice and more about self-preservation. Russia has proven itself to be far more dangerous than the Germans had imagined. Thanks to the once and possibly future presidency of Donald Trump, the United States has shown itself to be a far less reliable ally. China, shaking its fist at Taiwan, looks like an increasingly poor candidate to be Germany’s main trading partner, though that is what it has become.
Scholz has recognized these shifts and is responding, demonstrating the value of a leader with a plodding, empirical style. People in the former East Germany are nervous about antagonizing Russia, but a majority of the country backs the chancellor’s stand. So do Scholz’s fellow Social Democrats. As Lars Klingbeil, the co-leader of the party, put it recently, “Germany must lay claim to be a leading power.”
Germany has only itself to blame | 2022-08-08T20:34:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Germany is finally acting like Europe’s major power - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/germany-leading-power-europe-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/germany-leading-power-europe-russia/ |
By David Moscrop
Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre in the House of Commons in Ottawa in December 2019. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
The Conservative Party of Canada’s leadership race is on until September, but it’s already over. For months, Pierre Poilievre has led the pack, a clear front-runner in a contest that will shape the future of the party. Right now, that future looks to be a toxic, right-wing populist libertarian turn — a nasty turn we’ve seen before around the world.
Last week, fundraising numbers confirmed what anyone paying attention could have told you. Throughout April, May and June, Poilievre raised more donor money than all his competitors combined. That’s just over 4 million Canadian dollars (about $3.1 million). That’s it. That’s the ballgame. Call it.
In late July, former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper endorsed Poilievre. The nod wasn’t unexpected. It has long been assumed that Harper supported his former cabinet minister, just as it has long been known that Harper wasn’t the biggest fan of Poilievre’s principal rival, Jean Charest. The endorsement was a rubber stamp on top of a foregone conclusion. It made Poilievre the unity candidate — which is to say, it called for the ideological diversity of the party to be subsumed under Poilievre’s libertarian conservatism served with a dollop of populist pastiche. It’s Poilievre’s party now. That’s bad news for conservatives and the country.
Poilievre is a reckless politician. He supports the toxic convoy that occupied Ottawa in the winter, as we learned once more in June when he marched with James Topp. As Rachel Gilmore reported at the time for Global News, Topp appeared on “far-right figurehead Jeremy [MacKenzie’s] podcast.” MacKenzie, she noted, “was also a part of a controversial January YouTube broadcast, during which [he] claimed the so-called freedom convoy could ‘bring down the government’ as his co-hosts chimed that they ‘think we need to assemble to gallows on f—ing Parliament.’”
The front-runner is also fond of torqued attacks against the Bank of Canada, journalists, the World Economic Forum and anyone who might plausibly be defined as a “gatekeeper.” His anti-elite, anti-establishment bit belies the fact he’s a career politician and former cabinet minister. He’s establishment all the way down. He’s a phony loudmouth who has been walking the halls of Parliament since 2004, when he was in his 20s.
With all those years in Parliament, you’d think he’d know what he’s talking about, but he doesn’t. He has made the federal budget a crusade: shrinking the deficit and debt, railing against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Bank of Canada’s “money printing” and inflation, and supporting a batty policy to force his ministers to cut a dollar of spending for each new dollar they wish to spend, as if government finance and personal finance are the same thing. It turns out, contrary to Poilievre’s lazy, rehashed-Thatcherist fever dream, that Canada is in healthy and sustainable fiscal shape. Inflation is a problem, a serious one, but it’s not caused by what Poilievre thinks it is, and it won’t be solved by his unserious, debate-club ideas.
Poilievre will become leader of the Conservative Party, bringing with him a populist conservatism that ought to worry the country. It’s possible that as leader or, God forbid, prime minister, he will be moderated by the pressures and checks of the party and the country. Running for something is cheap and easy compared with winning and keeping the thing, as the last two leaders of the Conservative Party learned quickly. Poilievre as leader will have to manage a caucus of members of Parliament and senators. As prime minister, he would have to do the same, alongside a cabinet, departments and relationships with premiers and foreign states. Not to mention, naturally, the people who will expect him to deliver on promises of a better country — promises he simply lacks the capacity to keep. But we can’t count on Poilievre being moderated by external forces. We must assume the worst. He keeps telling us who he is. We should believe him.
While it’s too late to prevent Poilievre’s ascendancy to leader of the Conservative Party, it isn’t too late to resist him becoming prime minister. The Liberals, New Democrats and Greens ought to make it a priority to ensure he never forms a government. So should sensible Conservatives. Of course, the people of Canada must do the same. The problems Canada and the world face are far too great to leave to a right-wing, doctrinaire, stuffed-shirt politician of such little distinction, capacity or imagination. | 2022-08-08T20:34:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | It’s Poilievre’s Conservative Party now. That’s bad news for Canada. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/pierre-poilievre-conservative-party-bad-news-canada/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/pierre-poilievre-conservative-party-bad-news-canada/ |
(Shuran Huang for The Washington Post)
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, more than a few antiabortion advocates were heard saying that now that they had achieved their decades-long goal, they should give some thought to helping all the women who will be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, as though it were something they hadn’t bothered to think about before.
This brought to mind former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s old joke that conservatives believe life begins at conception and ends at birth. Every fetus is a glorious gift from heaven who must be protected at all costs, but an actual child? You’re on your own, kid.
But not every Republican feels that way. Some want to back up their rhetoric about the importance of the family with real and substantial government support. Unfortunately, they’re having trouble finding many takers in their own party. “Pro-family” has its limits.
As The Post’s Jeff Stein and Leigh Ann Caldwell report, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) has continued to pitch his colleagues on a proposal he introduced last year to give families with children monthly financial support, to no avail. A few Republicans have joined him, but the idea is mostly dismissed by the GOP.
Romney’s idea isn’t that different from the enhanced child tax credit that was passed as part of pandemic relief and expired at the end of last year; most Democrats wanted to extend it, but Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) refused.
So if a bill expanding family support does pass anytime in the near future, it won’t be a Republican project. It will happen because all or nearly all Democrats wanted it, and a few Republicans, such as Romney, joined them.
There are all kinds of reasons a conservative might back such a policy: It promotes healthy children and family stability, and it could even make it possible for parents to stay home with the kids rather than work outside the home.
But if you want to know what Republicans really think about policies that would support families, all you have to do is look at the states where they’re in charge. Watch what they do, not what they say.
The results are awful. Republican-run states — the ones now rushing to outlaw abortion — have weaker support systems for pregnant women and parents; higher child poverty; and higher ratesof teen pregnancy, infant mortality and lack of health insurance.
Could that change now that Roe is gone and at least some Republicans are remembering what happens if you ban abortion? Will they embark on a broad effort to improve the lives of families? It doesn’t seem likely.
Here’s a lesson in how mass opinion translates to elite behavior: For lawmakers, inaction is easy, but action is hard.
Let’s say your party’s base would like you to do a particular thing. Not doing it might hurt you, but rather than producing a fierce backlash, your inaction will probably just make for vague dissatisfaction among your supporters. For instance, Democrats know their base favors a public option in health insurance and an assault weapons ban, but the fact that they haven’t managed to deliver on those items isn’t exactly a political emergency for them.
But putting something your base wants on the back burner is different from taking action that your base would genuinely dislike. That’s much more dangerous. And most Republicans probably guess that their base would not like a program that gives cash to parents and children. Why, that sounds like … socialism! Who knows what your next primary opponent would say about it?
Not all Republican voters would oppose an enhanced child tax credit; many could be happy to see more aggressive government support for families and children. But the party’s hardcore base — of whom all GOP officeholders live in fear — could be easily turned against the idea, especially since it resembles what Democrats support. So why run the risk?
Not only that, many elected Republicans simply don’t want to offer the kind of support Romney is proposing. Maybe it’s because they don’t care about women and children; when they say they’re “pro-family” what they mean is that they support a restoration of traditional gender hierarchies, not that they think every family should be given the means to flourish. Or maybe they care, but they’re so committed to the principle of small government that they can’t bear the thought of passing out money to people.
Mostly, they don’t see how it’s worth the political risk, especially when there are so many hot-button issues they can use to get their voters riled up, such as the possibility that a trans girl might want to play on her middle school softball team.
I wouldn’t want to discourage Romney and his small band of Republican compatriots; they should keep making the case inside their party for genuinely pro-family policies. But if those ideas are going to become law, it will be mostly because of Democrats. | 2022-08-08T20:34:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Mitt Romney's lonely quest to make the GOP an actual pro-family party - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/romney-gop-roe-pro-family-party/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/romney-gop-roe-pro-family-party/ |
Relatives and friends of defenders of the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol hold a rally on Aug. 7 demanding to recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism after killing Ukrainian prisoners of war. (Mykola Synelnykov/Reuters)
It has been more than a week since an explosion and fire tore through a prison barracks in Russian-held Ukraine, killing at least 50 Ukrainians prisoners of war and injuring dozens more.
This horrific event on July 29 led immediately to dueling accusations as Ukraine and Russia blamed each other. With each passing day, however, evidence — direct and circumstantial — mounts that this was, indeed, a premeditated massacre by Russia. As such, it would rank as one of the worst war crimes yet, in a war marked by the atrocity with which Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops have waged it. There must be an investigation, followed by full accountability for the perpetrators, lest international law on treatment of prisoners of war become another casualty of Mr. Putin’s war.
Most of the soldiers held at the Olenivka prison site are members of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment who surrendered after fighting for weeks from a last redoubt in the city of Mariupol. Their status as ex-combatants entitles them to all the protections of the 1949 Geneva Convention. Arguably, the mere fact that Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists were holding them at Olenivka, just about 12 miles from the front line, violates Geneva text, which reads: “Prisoners of war shall be evacuated, as soon as possible after their capture, to camps situated in an area far enough from the combat zone for them to be out of danger.” Thus, Russia and its allies would be at fault even if one believes their version of events: Ukraine targeted the prison with rocket fire from a U.S.-provided HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) system, supposedly to keep the POWs from disclosing secret information or Ukrainian war crimes.
And the Russian story is highly dubious: It does not explain how Ukraine’s army could know the Azov soldiers would have been in the particular building when they purportedly fired at it. Nor does it square with the analysis of experts, consulted by The Post, who noted that damage depicted in photos of the site is inconsistent with a rocket attack.
Far more plausible is Ukraine’s allegation that Russia targeted the POWs for annihilation, for two reasons: to take revenge on the Azov unit for waging ferocious resistance at Mariupol and to prevent POWs from reporting the torture to which they have been subjected at Olenivka, also in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Prisoners had been newly moved to the targeted barracks; satellite photos show fresh excavations on nearby grounds shortly before the explosion, as though those in charge were preparing mass graves. Within hours of the incident, the Russian Embassy in London tweeted a supposed quotation from purported Mariupol residents: “Azov militants deserve execution, but death not by firing squad but by hanging, because they’re not real soldiers. They deserve a humiliating death.”
Small wonder that the International Committee of the Red Cross, the neutral body that monitors compliance with the Geneva Conventions, has not had access to Olenivka since May 20, despite requesting a visit and offering aid immediately after news of the July 29 explosion broke. The secretary-general of the United Nations has announced a fact-finding mission. The truth must come out. Russia has already shredded key post-World War II rules against instigating aggressive war. It cannot be allowed to destroy restraints on the conduct of war, too. | 2022-08-08T20:34:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | There should be no impunity for Russia’s slaughter of POWs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/russia-ukraine-prisoner-deaths-punishment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/russia-ukraine-prisoner-deaths-punishment/ |
Celebrities flocked to social media with personal anecdotes and photos to remember Olivia Newton-John, the Australian actress and pop singer who died Monday at 73. Best known for 1978’s “Grease,” as well as her robust musical career, Newton-John spent her later years advocating for cancer research.
Newton-John was first diagnosed and treated for breast cancer in 1992. She was in remission until 2013, when the disease returned, and years later announced it had metastasized to her spine. A family statement posted Monday afternoon to Newton-John’s Facebook page emphasized how open she was about her breast cancer journey. It described her as a “symbol of triumphs and hope for over 30 years.”
That very sentiment echoed across social media. John Travolta, who played Danny Zuko opposite Newton-John’s Sandy Olsson in “Grease,” shared a photo on Instagram in honor of his “dearest Olivia.”
“Your impact was incredible,” he wrote. “I love you so much. We will see you down the road and we will all be together again. Yours from the first moment I saw you and forever! Your Danny, your John!”
Barbra Streisand, who once featured on Newton-John and Travolta’s Christmas album, posted an old photo to Instagram of herself alongside Newton-John and singer and record producer Lou Rawls.
Dionne Warwick tweeted, “Another angelic voice has been added to the Heavenly Choir,” noting that her “dear friend” was also “once of the nicest people I had the pleasure of recording and performing with.”
Singer-songwriter Richard Marx, a close friend of Newton-John’s who also collaborated with her on music, wrote on Twitter that she was “as kind and loving a person as there’s ever been.”
Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd described her as “a great Australian woman” and “great advocate for global cancer research.”
Fans and celebrities alike made note of the four-time Grammy winner’s status as a musical icon, particularly throughout the 1970s and ’80s.
“Hopelessly Devoted to YOU, Olivia Newton John. Rest In Peace, Queen. Thank you for the music,” late-night host Andy Cohen captioned an Instagram video of her performing the “Grease” hit.
Comedian Kathy Griffin, sharing a video clip of an outlandish afternoon tea she once shared with Newton-John, wrote on Twitter that the singer-actress “rolled with EVERYTHING.”
Director James Gunn and actor Daniel Dae Kim described her as their first crushes, while comedian Billy Eichner called her “one of my first pop obsessions.”
Writer and romance novelist Bolu Babalola tweeted that Newton-John was “so charming and so beautiful with this spark within a veneer of a girl-next-door. One of the first romance leads I felt affinity to.”
Actor George Takei, referencing Newton-John’s 1980 musical fantasy film, wrote on Twitter that she is “now in the great Xanadu beyond.”
This weekend I got sent a massive folder of outtakes from album cover photo shoots. Here are two from the Grease Soundtrack that I love a lot. RIP to Olivia Newton-John. pic.twitter.com/NvG3y4U8ca
British born and Australian raised, Dame Olivia inspired us in song and brought us together as one.
We remember her with our British friends, and send our deepest condolences to her loved ones.
🇦🇺 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/YMYzIjuOmT | 2022-08-08T22:04:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Olivia Newton-John remembered by John Travolta, Dionne Warwick - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/08/reactions-olivia-newton-john-death/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/08/reactions-olivia-newton-john-death/ |
FILE - Fetty Wap appears at the MTV Video Music Awards in Newark, N.J. on Aug. 26, 2019. Fetty Wap, whose real name is Willie Maxwell, has been jailed after prosecutors say he threatened to kill a man during a FaceTime call in 2021, violating the terms of his pretrial release in a pending federal drug conspiracy case. U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven Locke, acting on a request from prosecutors, revoked Maxwell’s bond and sent him to jail following a hearing in federal court on Long Island. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-08-08T22:05:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rapper Fetty Wap jailed after alleged FaceTime death threat - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rapper-fetty-wap-jailed-after-alleged-facetime-death-threat/2022/08/08/ff9cbd14-1759-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rapper-fetty-wap-jailed-after-alleged-facetime-death-threat/2022/08/08/ff9cbd14-1759-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Maybe we vote on too much
Canvassers for the Montgomery County Board of Elections review mail-in ballots on July 21 for the primary election. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
Regarding the July 29 Metro article “Vote count will stretch into the weekend”:
I think the ballot-counting would be going a little faster if there were fewer races on the ballot. I don’t feel that either I or the voting public has the expertise to choose a comptroller, an attorney general, a circuit court judge, a state’s attorney, a circuit court clerk, a register of wills or a sheriff. I’d even argue that the Board of Education falls into this category, too.
We don’t vote for the U.S. attorney general or the Internal Revenue Service commissioner. In Montgomery County, we don’t vote for parks and planning commissioners. We leave those decisions up to our elected executive and legislative representatives. Perhaps we should trust them with nominating and confirming qualified personnel to the rest of these state and local positions.
Daniel Marcin, Silver Spring | 2022-08-08T22:05:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Maybe we vote on too much - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/maybe-we-vote-too-much/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/maybe-we-vote-too-much/ |
Taking sides in Taiwan
People walk in front of a large screen showing a news broadcast about China's military exercises encircling Taiwan, in Beijing on Aug. 4. (Noel Celis /AFP)
Qin Gang, a Chinese top diplomat in D.C., misled The Post’s readers in his Aug. 4 op-ed, “Why China objects to Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.” The Cairo Declaration in 1941 stipulates that “all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa (Taiwan), and The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China” — the government that has to this day remained in Taiwan. The historical term “Republic of China” should never be arrogated by the People’s Republic of China, which has never ruled Taiwan.
Nothing can justify China’s impetuous action in firing missiles over Taiwan, a vibrant democracy with 23 million people. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) visit last week, demonstrating the United States’ solidarity with the island, should not take the blame, because it didn’t signal any changes to the one-China policy the U.S. government has upheld since 1979. Beijing’s misinterpretation leads to miscalculation, which then results in an overreaction that is destroying the peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait — the heart of the Indo-Pacific region.
Charles Chen, Taipei, Taiwan
The writer is a legislator in Taiwan.
Chinese Ambassador Qin Gang, in his Aug. 4 op-ed, “Why China objects to Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan,” based China’s claim over Taiwan on three facts: history (“Taiwan has been an inseparable part of China’s territory for 1,800 years”); ethnicity (“People on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese”); and the “postwar international order.” Thus any deviation from the one-China policy is a violation of Chinese sovereignty, and U.S. policies impeding reunification interfere in Chinese domestic affairs. Yet Mr. Qin overlooked the critical question: What do the Taiwanese want?
Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says, “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.” Nothing — not history, ancestry, culture or decades-old agreements — trumps popular sovereignty. By Mr. Qin’s logic, Russia should annex Ukraine; Germany should revert to East and West; and Haiti should be ruled from Paris.
Our Taiwan policy should be simple. If the people of Taiwan proclaim independence through referendum, we will honor them. If they choose to reunify with China, we will honor them. Any other outcome is simply great powers using smaller nations as chess pieces. The living present is more important than the dead past.
John Mitchell, Bedford, Mass. | 2022-08-08T22:05:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Taking sides in Taiwan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/taking-sides-taiwan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/taking-sides-taiwan/ |
The time Bill Russell gave me unbeatable bragging rights
Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics drives to the basket against the Los Angeles Lakers during the NBA Finals on May 5, 1969. (Harold P. Matosian/AP)
I’d like to add my memory to the many accolades bestowed on Bill Russell, including the Aug. 1 front-page obituary, “11-time NBA champion also stood tall off the court,” with the accompanying photo of Russell with Coach Red Auerbach.
I spent a lot of my teen years at Auerbach’s house in D.C. His daughter Randy was a best friend. Her dad was very often in Boston. One afternoon, Russell stopped in to visit and offered to drive me home. On the ride home, I told him about Randy and my high school guy friends who would stop over unexpectedly. Randy and I (sort of) knew it wasn’t to see us but that they hoped her dad was in town. I didn’t tell Russell that I was definitely going to have bragging rights with those guy friends.
Helaine Cohen, Olney | 2022-08-08T22:05:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The time Bill Russell gave me unbeatable bragging rights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/time-bill-russell-gave-me-unbeatable-bragging-rights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/time-bill-russell-gave-me-unbeatable-bragging-rights/ |
Demonstrators march during a climate change rally in D.C. on Oct. 15, 2021. (Eric Lee/ Bloomberg News)
Regarding the Aug. 5 front-page article “The rise of billion-dollar disasters”:
We were warned. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said, “We will experience extreme events that are unprecedented either in magnitude, frequency, timing or location.” I live near Ellicott City, and I’ve seen the damage from two “thousand-year floods” separated by two years. People perished; those who survived live with trauma from the events. That’s what I recalled as I read about the people who experienced the flooding of the Pigeon River.
Weather is increasingly abnormal, and a warming climate is a culprit. That’s the context for the phone calls I made to my members of Congress. The Inflation Reduction Act contains more than $300 billion for climate change provisions that are projected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030. This is a game-changer for mitigating climate change.
Cheryl Arney, Ellicott City | 2022-08-08T22:05:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | We were warned - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/we-were-warned/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/08/we-were-warned/ |
Migrants from Venezuela who boarded a bus in Del Rio, Tex., disembark in D.C. on Aug. 2. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)
New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) is no stranger to media stunts. Over the weekend, though, he was taking issue with someone else’s: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R).
“It is unimaginable what the governor of Texas has done,” Adams said during a news conference outside of the city’s bus terminal. “When you think about this country, a country that has always been open to those who are fleeing persecution and other intolerable conditions, we’ve always welcomed that. And this governor is not doing that in Texas.”
What did Abbott do? He implemented a policy in which migrants being released by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection after being stopped at the border with Mexico could receive free transit to Washington and New York. The New York Times interviewed one recent arrival in Washington, who explained that he’d been given a choice between paying $50 to go to San Antonio or getting a free ride to the nation’s capital. He chose the latter.
On Friday, Abbott proudly announced that the first busload of migrants to New York had reached their destination.
“In addition to Washington, D.C., New York City is the ideal destination for these migrants, who can receive the abundance of city services and housing that Mayor Eric Adams has boasted about within the sanctuary city,” he said in a statement. “I hope he follows through on his promise of welcoming all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border towns can find relief.”
City officials were skeptical that the arrivals were the first from Texas. In mid-July, Adams called for additional support from federal officials to deal with the influx, claiming at the time that “families are arriving on buses sent by the Texas and Arizona governments.”
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) similarly asked for support from the federal government, requesting National Guard support to process the busloads of migrants arriving in her city. That request was denied.
There are a few different things overlapping here that should be disentangled. One is Abbott’s explicit election-year jockeying to elevate immigration as an issue. Another is the explicit political response from Bowser and Adams, using Abbott’s efforts to cast him as the problem instead of the migrants.
This is all triggered, of course, by the increase in migrants stopped at the border with Mexico. And that, in turn, is complicated by an important aspect of migration to the United States: whether new arrivals have family in the country.
By now, you’re probably aware that there’s been a surge in apprehensions at the border. The top-line figures don’t tell the whole story; most of those apprehended are not then released in the United States while their cases are processed. But tens of thousands are, and they will often seek out communities where they have relatives or where there are others from their home countries.
One of the interesting patterns in recent months is that an increasing percentage of those stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border are not from Mexico or the three Central American countries that have long made up a significant portion of arrivals. In 2021, about a quarter of those apprehended at the border were from other countries. In 2022, more than 40 percent have been from other nations.
That matters in part because cities like New York and Washington have relatively small populations of people from Mexico and Central America. Census Bureau data from 2020 show that cities with large populations of Mexican-born residents are largely in Texas, with the exception of Chicago. Foreign-born residents from other countries outside of Central America tend to live in more populous counties.
So New York has a large population of people from Latin America — but a lot of them are from the Caribbean and often didn’t arrive by crossing the border with Mexico. Seattle has a lot of foreign-born residents, largely from Asia. (Asians make up an estimated 14 percent of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.) In southern Florida, the foreign-born residents are heavily from Cuba and other Caribbean nations.
What this means for New York and Washington is twofold. First is that since more of those stopped at the border are not from Mexico and Central America there may be more arrivals who have relatives in those cities who are arriving independently of efforts by Abbott. On the other hand, those taking advantage of the free transportation offer may be less likely to have family at their destination and therefore fewer resources — income, housing — upon arrival. Migrants in that group may then require services from the government. (The man in the Times article, arriving from Venezuela, provided an example of that.)
The political flexing masks a real, understated point. In his statement, Abbott’s team touted how the busing effort was “providing much-needed relief to Texas’ overwhelmed border communities.” Speaking to the Times, the administrator of a New York City nonprofit that’s been aiding new arrivals lamented the increase, saying, “the infrastructure in New York is not built for this. We are not on the border.”
As Adams noted in July, though, he’s bound by a commitment that Abbott isn’t: providing resources for those migrants. He’d just rather blame Abbott than immigrants for the way in which that strains the city’s resources. | 2022-08-08T22:05:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New York and Texas go to battle over a surge in immigrants - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/new-york-texas-immigrants-abbott/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/new-york-texas-immigrants-abbott/ |
The Los Angeles Sparks played the Washington Mystics on Sunday afternoon and were stuck in the area overnight. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
The WNBA’s travel issues were, once again, thrust to the forefront as the Sparks were stranded in the Washington area hours after a 79-76 victory helped keep their postseason hopes alive.
The 2012 No. 1 draft pick took to Twitter early Monday morning as she strolled through Dulles International Airport and documented a first for the Women’s National Basketball Players Association president.
“Yeah, so, we are roaming the airport,” Ogwumike said. “First time in my 11 seasons that I’ve ever had to sleep in the airport. … It was only a matter of time. So half of us are sleeping in the airport, half of us are at a hotel. There weren’t enough rooms after our flight got delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed and then canceled at 1 a.m. So it is now 1:44 and we’re here till 9 a.m.”
The Sparks were scheduled to leave at 10:30 p.m. and didn’t find out about the cancellation until 1 a.m., according to a team spokesman. All players were offered a hotel room, but not everyone took advantage of the accommodations, according to the team.
The team made it back to Los Angeles late Monday morning. Los Angeles, which is a game out of the final playoff spot with three games to play, will host Connecticut on Tuesday night.
The lack of charter flights for WNBA teams has long been a point of contention, and the players have become more vocal about the issue in recent years. The league does not permit individual teams to charter flights, and the New York Liberty was fined last season when owner Joe Tsai did so. Tsai tweeted last year, “League says you can’t fly charter because different owners have different financial situations.”
With expansion coming, WNBA players want owners willing to spend
Delays and cancellations have been a growing issue for all travelers; federal transportation officials said 88,161 flights were canceled this year through May — the second most in the first five months of a year since 1988. The only year worse was 2020 as the pandemic began.
That has left WNBA teams regularly scrambling to arrive in cities for games or to leave afterward. Last month, the Minnesota Lynx arrived in Washington around midnight for a 3 p.m. game after an original flight was canceled, a second had mechanical issues and the team and staff were forced to split up and take separate planes.
Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has consistently said the league has researched an abundance of options, but without a major commitment from a sponsor, charter flights for all teams would be detrimental to the league’s financial health. The league declined to comment Monday.
“Nobody wants this more than me, but no one has stepped forth,” Engelbert said in June. “No owner, no airline, no corporate sponsors stepped forth and said, ‘We’re ready to fund a charter program for the WNBA.’ Everybody would like to, and then they hear the price tag. We’ll continue to talk about a [path] towards it — if we can build the economic model, get more corporate sponsorship, get more revenue.”
The league announced last month that it will provide charter flights for all WNBA Finals games this season. | 2022-08-08T22:06:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Los Angeles Sparks players sleep in Dulles airport after win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/08/los-angeles-sparks-sleep-in-airport/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/08/los-angeles-sparks-sleep-in-airport/ |
The officer was placed on leave pending the results of the criminal case and an administrative investigation.
An officer for the Arlington County Police Department was charged Monday with assaulting a woman and breaking her cellphone while he was off duty, police announced.
William J. Hahn, 34, has been placed on unpaid leave pending the outcome of the charges and an administrative investigation by Arlington police, which hired him in June 2020. He is detained without bond, police said.
The woman, who was not identified by name, sustained serious injuries that were not considered life-threatening and has been released from the hospital, police said.
“I want to assure the community these serious criminal allegations reflect behavior that is unacceptable by any member of our agency and these actions are in direct contradiction to our role as professional law enforcement officers,” Arlington County Police Chief Andy Penn said in a statement, vowing to conduct comprehensive and transparent investigations into the matter.
Hahn was taken into custody Friday and charged in Arlington County General District Court with malicious bodily injury, which is punishable by a minimum of five years and maximum of 20 years in prison, and destruction of property, according to court records. A judge has scheduled a hearing for Sept. 12.
An attorney listed in court records for Hahn did not respond to a request for comment.
The woman and Hahn knew each other, and the incidents began after they left a “nightlife establishment” and drove to another location, according to a news release from Arlington police.
Hahn broke the woman’s cellphone, then “threw the victim to the ground and physically assaulted her,” police alleged in the news release.
“Following the assault, the parties reentered the suspect’s vehicle and drove to the 2300 block of Columbia Pike,” police said. “While inside the residential building’s parking garage, a second verbal dispute occurred, during which the suspect struck the victim in the face.”
The pair was waiting for the elevator when another person noticed the woman’s injuries and called the police. A spokeswoman for Arlington police said the person who reported the injuries did not know Hahn or the victim. | 2022-08-08T22:13:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Off-duty Arlington police officer charged with assaulting woman - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/08/arlington-police-officer-charged-assault/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/08/arlington-police-officer-charged-assault/ |
A Montgomery County, Md., middle school teacher holds a sign during a rally to protest staff shortages in October 2021. (Donna St. George/The Washington Post)
“I think people needed someone to be angry at,” said Maggie McCabe, a Stafford County, Va., English teacher who was one of thousands of teachers across the country who quit this year when their dream job became toxic.
A teacher fired for being gay watches it happen all over again
Compensation was among the reasons American Federation of Teachers members said they were dissatisfied with their jobs, according to the union’s June survey. Seventy-five percent of the teachers surveyed said their jobs changed for the worse, with 29 percent of them saying that was due to pay.
“AFT members were on the frontlines of the first wave of the pandemic, but in many ways the last year was even harder,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement about the survey. “Whether it was mask wars, culture wars, the war on truth, or the devastation in Uvalde, members sacrificed and struggled and carried their schools and their students through the most difficult days of their lives.”
On top of all that, federal data showed that 80 percent of schools reported increases in student behavioral issues, including rowdiness, threats and fighting between students and aggression toward teachers.
Kids who spent a year or more going to virtual class in their PJs are not adjusting well to being back in a classroom. It’s been hard on them and many are acting out in class. Add misdirected, parental freakouts about critical race theory and sexual orientation, and too many kids have been groomed at home to mimic that jackassery in the classroom. | 2022-08-08T22:13:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The teacher shortage is driven by politics, violence and disrespect. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/08/teacher-shortage-schools-shootings-culture-wars/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/08/teacher-shortage-schools-shootings-culture-wars/ |
With “Let’s go, Brandon,” Biden’s critics found a way to curse him. His supporters are seizing on the “Dark Brandon” meme to vaunt his superpowers.
President Biden on Aug. 7. In memes, his supporters are depicting him with laser eyes and lightning powers. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
It’s not President Biden as many have come to know him. He’s not the aviator-wearing average Joe with familiar family folkisms, the grandpa who plays with his dogs, the ice cream aficionado.
In one image, he is in a lifeguard chair, lightning bolts coming out of his hands as he declares, “Let there be jobs!” In another, he’s sitting in a chair that evokes Game of Thrones. In yet more, his eyes are glowing with lasers, or he is bearded and wearing an eye patch. At times there is rubble in his wake.
Meet Dark Brandon.
Over the past few weeks, Democrats have attempted to co-opt one of the most searing catchphrases that Republicans have pinned on Biden, turning the “Let’s go, Brandon” meme around and reclaiming it as their own version of Biden fan fiction.
The new liberal-driven meme is meant to depict Biden as having superpowers, able to smite an al-Qaeda leader and pass legislation through Congress with ease.
Rather than an ineffective president inspiring Republican vitriol and earning historically low approval ratings, he is a superhero familiar with the dark arts and able to change the course of history.
The tone reflects the shift in outlook at the White House, from a struggle to accomplish items on Biden’s agenda to a mood of more swaggering confidence. The imagery, which has roots among anti-Biden users on social media, has quickly gone from some of the far corners of the internet into more mainstream use by administration officials, liberal commentators and U.S. senators.
“Dark Brandon is crushing it,” tweeted deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates, with an image of Biden with pupil-less red eyes and text that reads, “Your malarkey has been going on for long enough, kiddo.”
Rob Flaherty, the White House’s director of digital strategy, also tweeted an image of Biden smiling with red eyes, his hair haloed against a dark background. He did it on his official White House account, he wrote, to ensure that it goes into the historical archives.
Some have added Biden-isms to the memes (“Dark Brandon said ‘here’s the deal’ and then there was a deal,” wrote Megan Apper, a senior adviser in the Bureau of Global Public Affairs at the State Department). Others in the White House have openly ruminated about changing their Twitter biographies to state that they work for “Dark Brandon” rather than the 46th president of the United States.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) posted an image of Dark Brandon after the Senate approved the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which includes a number of key Biden priorities.
Imagery around Biden has taken different forms in recent years. During his time as vice president, the satirical Onion portrayed him as a sort of goofy uncle who washed his car shirtless in the White House driveway, while “Saturday Night Live” imitations played up his toothy smile.
To his supporters, he has often been a cool yet folksy guy wearing aviator sunglasses and driving a Corvette. To his critics, he is the bumbling, gaffe-prone elderly president who recently fell off his bike.
Early in his presidency, the “Let’s go, Brandon” tag tapped into the invective that many Republicans were aiming at Biden.
The phrase originated with a vulgar chant that broke out in October 2021 at Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway. The crowd was screaming “F--- Joe Biden!,” but an NBC Sports reporter — interviewing NASCAR driver Brandon Brown on air — quipped, “You can hear the chants from the crowd, ‘Let’s go, Brandon!’”
Biden's critics hurl increasingly vulgar taunts
Supporters of Donald Trump claimed that the media was censoring anti-Biden content, the exchange went viral, and a shorthand for vulgarity directed at the president was born.
Yard signs with the phrase were put up. Trump supporters lined streets along Biden’s motorcade holding signs or chanting it. Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) wrapped up a speech on the House floor by saying, “Let’s go, Brandon,” and it has been the focus of several songs, including one from Kid Rock. Even in Rehoboth Beach, Del., not far from Biden’s vacation home, stores sell T-shirts with the phrase.
Biden himself did not seem aware of the coded phrase. When he and first lady Jill Biden were taking calls on Christmas Eve for the NORAD Santa tracker, one man ended his call by saying, “Merry Christmas, and let’s go, Brandon.”
“Let’s go, Brandon, I agree,” the president responded.
Several months later, during the White House correspondents’ dinner, Biden joked about the phrase. “Republicans seem to support one fella, some guy named Brandon,” he said. “He’s having a really good year, and I’m kind of happy for him.”
The phrase “Let’s go, Brandon” has waxed and waned in popularity among right-wing online influencers since it started in October 2021, according to a Washington Post analysis of political text content on both sides of the political spectrum. Lately, though, it has ticked up again after Trump was greeted with chants of the phrase at a golf tournament, and it’s more frequently used than at the beginning of the year — a trend that perhaps inspired the left to pay attention to the meme again.
The Dark Brandon imagery began to gain traction in March and April, but often in ways that were not complimentary of Biden. That changed over the past week or so, particularly after the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Biden supporters en masse began referring to him as Dark Brandon, with imagery of the president as the shadowy dark lord who authorized a drone strike. Some noted that he was sick with the coronavirus while doing so.
“Dark Brandon strikes again,” wrote one user, with an image of Biden wearing aviators and eating ice cream as a bomb explodes in the background.
They are using a similar aesthetic to Dark MAGA, an online movement that uses imagery of Trump and calls on him to seek political vengeance.
Critics on Monday pointed to what they alleged was Nazi imagery in the background of some of the images. Bates had tweeted a meme that placed Biden — with facial hair and an eye patch — on the movie poster for “The Dark Knight.”
“The Malarkey Will End,” it read. “The Dark Brandon Rises.”
Conservative commentators pointed to the background of the poster, saying it included an image of an eagle that was used as a Nazi symbol.
“So Biden’s Deputy White House Press Secretary, @Andrewjbates46, is posting literal Nazi memes on Twitter and our corrupt media is completely silent about it,” wrote Donald Trump Jr. “I’m sure that if this was a Trump WH staffer, the media would treat it the exact same way and totally ignore it.”
But Tobin Stone, who says he created the meme, said the image was in no way meant to evoke any Nazi elements.
“The eagle is not, and was never intended to be the Reichsadler,” he said in a direct message on Twitter, referring to the “Imperial Eagle” used by, among others, Nazi Germany. “It was just intended to be a representation of America’s national bird, the bald eagle, and any reasonable person should be able to interpret it as such. It was just an eagle, and nothing more.”
Stone said he is a graduate of Albright College in Reading, Pa., in political science and public policy and administration, but he makes posters and does graphic design in his free time. He has created several recent Dark Brandon memes.
“I’m a Democrat — and if we are being honest — the past year since the withdrawal from Afghanistan has been pretty disheartening for Democrats,” he wrote. “Up until this past month, where we’ve been seeing win after win, from the gun bill, to declining gas prices, and now the Inflation Reduction Act finally passing. It’s been great to see so many wins, and celebrating them with these memes that portray Biden as this powerful figure that made it all happen is just good fun.”
White House officials said they wanted to tap into the zeitgeist and saw an opportunity to draw attention to the successes they had last week.
Their base is less active on Twitter — and it was a point of pride during Biden’s campaign that they avoided the policies and conversations that may have been trending on social media — so White House aides have been more selective about when to engage.
But they have also sought to turn perceived negatives around. When Trump attempted to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election, they made the case to Democratic primary voters that Trump was most afraid of facing Biden.
It is unclear, however, whether Biden knows about the new direction the memes about him have taken.
Jeremy Merrill contributed to this report. | 2022-08-08T23:00:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brandon Returns, Darkly: Democrats turn an insult into a pro-Biden meme - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/dark-brandon-meme-superhero/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/dark-brandon-meme-superhero/ |
NYC mayor slams Texas governor for busing migrants to New York
New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) at an Aug. 3 news conference. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News)
New York Mayor Eric Adams greeted a group of migrants who arrived from Texas on Sunday morning, then slammed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for sending buses of asylum seekers from the border to the city.
“This is horrific, when you think about what the governor is doing,” Adams (D) said in a brief statement at the Port Authority bus terminal where the 14 migrants were dropped off, after three days of travel.
Later in the day, Adams condemned Abbott (R) on Twitter, accusing him of using “innocent people as political pawns to manufacture a crisis.” He was referring to the governor’s repeated claims that a record-high influx of migrants, along with President Biden’s immigration policies, have led to a “humanitarian crisis” at the border.
Since April, Abbott has been sending thousands of asylum seekers on buses to Washington in an effort to pressure the Biden administration into cracking down at the border as migrant crossings reach record levels. But critics argue that the governor, who is running for reelection, is also using the tactic to rally his conservative base.
D.C. aid groups overwhelmed as migrants arrive from Texas, Arizona
The idea of moving migrants out of border states to more-liberal areas is not new. In 2019, under President Donald Trump, White House officials pushed to release detainees in “sanctuary cities” as a form of retaliation against political adversaries, The Washington Post has previously reported. Sanctuary cities are those where local authorities refuse to hand over undocumented immigrants for deportation.
The Texas governor has said the free and voluntary bus rides are meant to provide “some relief” to Texas’s “overwhelmed border communities” and keep them safe, while critics have dismissed it as a political tactic that does little to resolve the issue.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) followed Abbott’s lead and started sending buses of migrants from his state to the nation’s capital in May.
Adams said Sunday that some migrants who have arrived in New York were forced onto the buses — including some families who wanted to go to other cities. Some were falsely told they would be taken to their desired destination and found themselves bound for New York, he told local reporters.
Adams said that officials expected 40 people to be on the bus but that some appeared to have gotten off at other stops along the route.
Manuel Castro, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, who was at the bus terminal on Sunday, told local reporters that the families had arrived hungry and thirsty after the long trip. He disparaged Abbott’s actions as “misleading” and “cruel.”
The Texas governor announced Friday he was sending buses of migrants to New York City for the first time, making it the new “drop-off” destination for his busing strategy; 50 migrants arrived in the city on Friday.
“In addition to Washington, D.C., New York City is the ideal destination for these migrants, who can receive the abundance of city services and housing that Mayor Eric Adams has boasted about within the sanctuary city,” Abbott said in a statement Friday.
Adams has previously accused Abbott of sending asylum seekers to New York in recent weeks and of overwhelming the city’s homeless-shelter system.
The city estimated last week that 4,000 asylum seekers have entered its shelter system since late May. The asylum seekers come from Latin America and other regions and have been sent from Texas and Arizona, the mayor has said.
New York City is required to provide emergency shelter for every unhoused person. On Sunday, Adams asked for financial and technical assistance from the federal government to accommodate the migrants’ needs and provide them with adequate services.
The arrival of more than 6,000 migrants in D.C. prompted Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) to ask the National Guard for help to manage the situation, arguing that the volume of arrivals has reached “tipping points” and has overwhelmed the city.
“Our collective response and service efforts have now become overwhelmed: the regional welcome center we helped establish in Montgomery County, Maryland is at capacity; our homeless services system is already under great strain,” Bowser said in a letter to the secretary of defense, asking for federal help.
The Biden administration rejected her request Friday.
Biden administration denies Bowser’s request for National Guard to help with Texas migrants
On Monday, Abbott sent a letter to the mayors, Adams and Bowser, inviting them to visit and “see firsthand the dire situation” on the border with Mexico. | 2022-08-08T23:00:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New York Mayor Eric Adams blasts Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for busing migrants to city - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/eric-adams-texas-migrants-buses-new-york/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/eric-adams-texas-migrants-buses-new-york/ |
Police in Maryland arrest ‘Old Man Bandit’ with history of robberies
Steven Gregory Gass is being held after his release from prison for bank robbery in Florida, according to police
A 67-year-old man whom law enforcement has called the “Old Man Bandit” has been arrested and charged with multiple bank robberies after returning to Maryland after being released from prison for a string of robberies in Florida, Montgomery County police said.
Steven Gregory Gass of Frederick was arrested July 14 after he tried to rob a Wells Fargo bank in Gaithersburg, police said. He is also accused of robbing a different Montgomery bank in June, and a bank in Baltimore County.
Gass has a 45-year history of bank robberies, with one of the earliest dating back to 1977 in Montgomery, according to police. He admitted in 2010 to robbing 21 banks between 2008 and 2010 in South Florida and pleaded guilty to six of them, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison for those crimes, according to court documents.
Gass was granted compassionate release in 2019 for medical reasons and had moved in with his parents in Frederick, police said.
Officers responded shortly after 9:30 a.m. to the report of an attempted bank robbery at a Wells Fargo in the 600 block of North Frederick Avenue, police said. A man wearing a “light-colored fisherman’s hat, sunglasses and a large face mask” had entered the bank and handed a teller a handwritten note that announced the robbery, according to police. The teller walked away while another employee activated a silent alarm, and the man left without any money.
Once an electrician to Potomac’s elite, a 72-year-old bank robber heads to prison
Officers saw the man leave the area in a black Honda Civic, police said. They followed him to a Park and Ride along Maryland Route 80 near the exit ramp on Interstate 270, where Gass was arrested.
Investigators then linked Gass to a robbery that occurred June 18 in Bethesda, police said. According to police, the robber was wearing a fisherman’s hat and a blue face mask when he entered a Truist bank in the 10400 block of Old Georgetown Road shortly after 10:30 a.m. The approach was similar to the July incident, with the bank teller receiving a handwritten note that announced the robbery, police said. The robber left the Truist bank with an undisclosed amount of money, police said.
Montgomery and Baltimore County police served a search warrant July 21 at the home of Gass’s parents, and “items of evidentiary value were recovered,” police said.
Once called the “Joker” by the FBI for handing notes to tellers that said the robbery was “no joke,” according to a report from the Palm Beach Post, Gass served more than eight years in prison for bank robbery in 1991.
Some of the notes from his robberies between 2008 and 2009 in Florida, which were detailed in court documents, included “Bank Robbery! Open 2nd and 3rd Drawers. Put 100, 50, 20’s on counter. I have a gun & will shoot. You have 10 seconds. Do NOT push buttons,” and “Give me $15,000 in 5 seconds or not I will shoot you.” In some robberies, he left with thousands of dollars, according to court documents.
Gass is being held without bond at the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit, authorities said. Baltimore County police have charged Gass with one count of robbery.
An attorney who represented Gass in Florida could not be reached Monday afternoon. It was not immediately clear whether Gass has an attorney in Maryland. | 2022-08-08T23:01:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Police arrest 'Old Man Bandit' with history of robberies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/08/old-man-bandit-robbery-maryland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/08/old-man-bandit-robbery-maryland/ |
Ukraine Live Briefing: U.N. seeks access to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant; U.S...
The Biden administration’s efforts come at a challenging moment, as Russia’s protracted war in Ukraine tests the resolve of even Kyiv’s biggest backers
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and South Africa's Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor arrive for a news conference in Pretoria on Monday. (Pool/Reuters)
PRETORIA, South Africa — On his tour of African nations this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has an recurring message for the continent’s leaders: Washington won’t push you to choose between America and its global rivals, even as Russia and China make inroads across the continent.
In a speech Monday unveiling the Biden administration’s new strategy for sub-Saharan Africa, Blinken instead described what he said was America’s more constructive alternative, including the promotion of democracy, debt relief, and support for farming and green power, an approach he hopes will prove more appealing than what U.S. officials characterize as China’s usurious debt practices and the destabilizing activities of the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group.
“The United States will not dictate Africa’s choices, and neither should anyone else,” Blinken said in an address at the University of Pretoria. “The right to make these choices belongs to Africans, and Africans alone.”
Blinken’s declaration lands at a challenging moment, as Russia’s protracted war in Ukraine, now in its sixth month, tests the resolve of even Kyiv’s biggest backers. His visit to three African nations comes days after Blinken’s Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, completed his own regional tour, blaming Western sanctions for a severe global food crisis and courting local leaders with the prospect of military aid with few strings attached.
African nations’ increasingly complex set of economic and political ties was apparent from Blinken’s first stop, where South African officials underscored their right to pursue their country’s core interests rather than following cues from larger, more prosperous states. And in Rwanda, ahead of his visit later this week, the government is preemptively pushing back against U.S. pressure over a high-profile detainee.
Russian mercenaries have landed in West Africa, pushing Putin’s goals as Kremlin is increasingly isolated
Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s minister for international relations and cooperation, dismissed the importance of Russian influence in South Africa but blasted what she said was a “patronizing” attempt by some European and other nations to bring African nations in line on Ukraine.
“One thing I definitely dislike is being told either you choose this — or else,” she told reporters alongside Blinken following bilateral talks. “I definitely will not be bullied in that way, nor would I expect any African country worth its salt to agree.”
Pandor said the United States was not guilty of such an offense. But she did push back against what she described as the inconsistent application of the principles that Western powers have championed in Ukraine, making an implicit criticism of U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as she called for the equal defense of Palestinians’ and Ukrainians’ right to self-determination.
“We’ve not seen an evenhanded approach in utilization of the prescripts of international law,” she said. “This is what at times leads to cynicism about international bodies and a lack of belief in their ability to protect the weakest and most marginalized.”
South Africa was among more than a dozen African nations that abstained from a key vote at the United Nations in March, when the United States and other backers of Ukraine sought global support for a resolution condemning Russia’s role in starting the war. Another group of African nations chose not to be present for that vote.
The divisions apparent in New York in the early weeks of the war were a reminder of the limits of Western influence across the vast continent as China expands its role as financier of major infrastructure projects coveted by some African leaders.
While Russia has far less clout, it now ranks as the continent’s biggest arms supplier, selling its weapons without the onerous vetting involved in the U.S. process. Russia is a major source of grain and fertilizer to African nations. U.S. officials meanwhile have accused Wagner mercenaries of human rights abuses in the African countries where they operate, which have included Mali, the Central African Republic, Sudan and Mozambique.
How Africa will become the center of the world’s urban future
Blinken’s visit comes as Africa struggles with the punishing economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic and experiences a democratic crisis, with a series of coups over the last 18 months in countries including Mali, Sudan, Burkina Faso and Chad.
Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the International Crisis Group, said a flurry of Western-backed U.N. resolutions that sought to isolate Russia following President Vladimir Putin’s invasion had left African countries resentful of what they saw as Western pressure. “This is drawing out a real strategic dilemma for a lot of African countries,” he said.
He said the United States had responded to those concerns more quickly than other nations. In May, when Washington held the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council, Blinken convened a summit on food insecurity, a phenomenon that has hurt African nations more than most.
Analysts say the Biden administration faces an extra challenge in dealing with Africa after four years in which the Trump administration paid little heed to the region, allowing Russia and China to further build influence.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the expectation of automatic allegiance overlooked the determination of African nations, despite myriad problems including corruption and poverty, to set their own course.
“It fails to recognize the fundamentals of realpolitik, which is: ‘What have you done for me lately?’” he said.
Describing the Biden administration’s new blueprint, Blinken said the United States would support democracy and help combat climate change in Africa. But he acknowledged the United States’ own governance challenges and developed nations’ oversize role in causing the warming crisis.
Blinken said Washington instead would protect civil society and spur innovation including on vaccines. “The U.S. is there for African countries in this unprecedented crisis, because that’s what partners do for each other,” he said.
U.S. officials are quick to point out that China, unlike the United States, can direct state funds to roads and other projects. The United States cannot order private companies in the same way.
African nations however say that recent U.S.- and European-backed steps to loosen licensing of vital medicines are inadequate. Pandor also condemned a bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, which she said would punish African nations for failing to exhibit sufficient deference with the West over Russia. She called on the Senate to reject it.
Ebenezer Obadare, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that while many African leaders seek gain in playing China or Russia against the West, most Africans remain drawn to Western values and lifestyles. He cited U.S. soft power, including music and the allure of the U.S. economic model.
“To the extent there’s a struggle, that’s taking place at the level of leadership,” he said. “And there’s a lot of cynicism associated with it.” | 2022-08-08T23:01:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In Africa, Blinken seeks to beguile, not browbeat, over Russia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/08/blinken-africa-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/08/blinken-africa-russia/ |
Workers in protective gear exhume bodies of civilians found in a mass grave behind Saint Andrews Church in Bucha, Ukraine on April 13. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
BUCHA, Ukraine — After months of meticulous, painful and at times gruesome investigation, officials in Bucha said Monday that they had reached what may be the closest they will get to a final accounting of victims of the murderous rampage by Russian troops that set off worldwide outrage over alleged atrocities: 458 bodies, of which 419 bore markings they had been shot, tortured or bludgeoned to death.
Mykhailyna Skoryk-Shkarivska, the town’s deputy mayor, recounted that grim tally at a news conference Monday, where she said the details of each case were now being investigated by prosecutors working to identify the perpetrators and ultimately try them for war crimes.
Of the victims, 39 appeared to have died of natural causes, Skoryk-Shkarivska said, but those may have been related to the war or to the Russians’ treatment of the civilian population during their month-long occupation, which ended with a hasty retreat in defeat on April 1.
Even those 39 cases are now being scrutinized by war crimes investigators. They include a seemingly healthy 34-year old mother who died of a heart attack while sheltering from bombardments in a basement with her three young children, who remained trapped alongside their dead mother for days, and an elderly woman living alone with her sister who died shortly after her sister was shot by Russian troops — deaths that hardly could be considered natural.
That it has taken more than four months to account for 32 days’ worth of killing underscores the horrific circumstances officials encountered when the Russians troops left. Bodies were strewn unattended around the streets, stuffed into wells or abandoned deep in the forest. Electricity and internet service had been cut, meaning the earliest documented evidence had to be written by hand, Skoryk-Shkarivska said.
Identifying all of the bodies proved impossible. Some 50 corpses remain unidentified or unclaimed by relatives, Skoryk-Shkarivska said, adding that city officials nonetheless decided to announce their findings because the final tally, and complete identities, likely will never be known. Just in the past two weeks, two more bodies were discovered, in a forest and a storm drain, and 10 residents have reported missing relatives who cannot be accounted for.
The final figure also includes one bag of body parts. The remains were too fragmented, decomposed or badly mutilated to be identified, but apparently belonged to multiple people, Skoryk-Shkarivska said, perhaps including some Russian soldiers. Among the pieces are two right arms that investigators say they have reason to suspect belonged to Russians.
A body in the woods hints at horror in Bucha
The stark numbers offer only a hint of the horrors inflicted on the small number of people who remained behind after the Russians swept into the Kyiv suburb on Feb. 27, intent on reaching the capital 20 miles away. Instead, they found their advance blunted by fierce Ukrainian resistance.
Most of the town’s estimated 39,000 population escaped before the Russians arrived, but some 4,000 remained – one in 10 of whom died in just over a month.
If such numbers are being repeated in only a fraction of the towns and villages currently under Russian occupation — amounting to 20 percent of Ukrainian territory — the full scale of atrocities committed by Russian troops could be vast.
Bucha, however, experienced by far some of the worst of the violence among the dozens of towns and settlements briefly occupied by Russian troops in the Kyiv region, accounting for a third of the estimated total of 1,300 victims.
Many of those who stayed in Bucha when the Russians invaded were elderly, refusing to flee because they were too frail, sick or stubborn to leave their homes, said Father Andriy Halavin, the priest of the town’s church.
He helped bury 116 people killed in the first two weeks of the Russian occupation in a mass grave dug by residents in the yard of his church, and recognized some of his congregants. But others may have relatives who live far away and were unable to provide DNA samples to help investigators.
In brutalized Bucha, a psychologist helps heal hidden wounds
Records compiled by the investigators indicate that many of those unidentified were also elderly, said Eugene Spirin, one of the volunteers who helped collect and identify the dead. He shared a list documenting some of those that proved hardest to identify, accompanied by brief descriptions of what investigators were able to establish about who they were.
There is the man, about 60 years old, shot in the eye, his face barely recognizable. and another aged 75 to 85 with stubby gray hair who was shot in the back of the head. One elderly woman’s head was so badly smashed it could not be recognized. Investigators assessed that she was 75 to 85 years old, according to the records.
Skoryk-Shkarivska said the effort to identify these victims will continue. The city is determined to put a name to every one of those who died and memorialize them with a monument. But if final answers don’t come soon, the city said it plans to hold burial services for the last remaining victims who died lonely, nameless deaths. | 2022-08-08T23:01:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In Bucha, officials tally the dead and unidentified - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/08/ukraine-bucha-bodies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/08/ukraine-bucha-bodies/ |
Teachers union president cites ‘ongoing disrespect’ of members as a retention problem
Monifa B. McKnight, superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools, pictured on July 25 at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Md. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Three weeks before school begins, Montgomery County Schools is facing roughly 500 teacher and support staff vacancies, mirroring a national shortage of educators that has left school systems scrambling to fill positions.
The school system — Maryland’s largest with roughly 160,000 students — is trying to recruit and hire teachers in a more competitive environment than in previous years, Schools Superintendent Monifa B. McKnight said Monday during a media briefing on the system’s staffing. The school district’s biggest hiring needs are for special education instructors, elementary school teachers and school psychologists.
School districts across the country — including Montgomery County — are facing significant staffing shortages as a result of the pandemic that led many teachers to leave the profession. Complaints of burnout, low pay and lack of respect from students, parents and lawmakers have also impacted the number of available teachers and support staff.
Despite the openings, the school system is 98 percent staffed and there has been progress in reducing the vacancies, McKnight said. On July 20, there were 396 teaching positions open, compared to the 157 open as of Monday morning. The superintendent attributed the improvement to the school system’s multiple recruitment efforts, including several in-person job fairs and partnerships with community organizations.
The school system is also seeking to hire 367 support staff — including paraprofessional educators and front office employees — and 16 bus drivers.
D.C.-area schools see spike in teacher resignations
“As we are continuing to set up, even until the first day of school, the process will continue,” McKnight said. “The numbers are going to change.” She said the system will continue to fill vacancies with substitute teachers, including several retirees, until the positions are filled permanently.
While the school system works on hiring, McKnight said it plans to maintain its current class sizes in the upcoming school year, which starts Aug. 29. Maximum class sizes vary by grade-level and program. Secondary schools, for example, usually have a maximum class size of 32 students.
The number of teachers who resigned at the end of the most recent school year, 576, was actually less than the previous year when 610 left, according to data provided by the school system in June. The number of teachers who left their jobs in the most recent year is equivalent to about 4 percent of the workforce.
Retirements, however, were up in Montgomery County this year, which has caused more staffing shortages, said Jennifer Martin, president of the Montgomery County Education Association, a union that represents over 14,000 teachers. Martin regularly spoke at county school board meetings during the last school year, warning of increases in teacher and support staff retirements and resignations.
Martin was invited to the news conference Monday, but did not attend. Two leaders of unions representing administrators and support staff were present.
Martin said it felt inappropriate to attend, since many of the union’s pleas for workload relief and initiatives to address staff burnout have been unheard, she said in an interview Monday. The union put out its own statement after the news conference, writing that staff members continue to experience “ongoing disrespect” that affects teacher retention. The union criticized a move made by the system in July to involuntarily transfer a handful of teachers to different schools about a month before the start of the school year.
“I completely agree with my sister presidents and the unions who were there today, and with Dr. McKnight, who want to ensure that MCPS is a wonderful place to work,” Martin said in an interview. “But right now, we’re in disagreement with MCPS as to what teachers need for that to be the case.” | 2022-08-08T23:27:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Montgomery Schools facing teacher, staff vacancies before Aug. 29 opening - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/08/montgomery-county-teacher-shortage/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/08/montgomery-county-teacher-shortage/ |
Brittney Griner arrives at a court hearing outside Moscow on Aug. 4. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images)
With the sentencing of Brittney Griner last week, the clock started ticking on potential U.S. negotiations with Russia to secure the release of the WNBA star and another American, security consultant Paul Whelan. But how do prisoner swaps actually work? What are the considerations both countries have to weigh before agreeing? And what happens after a deal is made? Senior national security correspondent Karen DeYoung breaks down the ins and outs of prisoner swaps.
Also, Post Opinions writer Jason Rezaian – who was released as part of a prisoner swap after spending 544 days in an Iranian prison – talks about the growing problem of Americans being taken hostage by hostile governments and what to expect in the Griner case. “I'm asked often if I'm for or against these kinds of exchanges,” he said. “My answer is, that's not the right question. The right question is … ‘What are we doing to deter hostage-taking in the first place?’” | 2022-08-08T23:35:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How a prisoner swap for Brittney Griner could happen - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/how-a-prisoner-swap-for-brittney-griner-could-happen/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/how-a-prisoner-swap-for-brittney-griner-could-happen/ |
An appearance by Rudy Giuliani is put on hold amid a dispute with the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis
By Tom Hamburger
Attorney John Eastman speaks next to President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, as Trump supporters gather ahead of the president’s speech to contest the certification of the electoral college vote on Jan. 6. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Atlanta is slated to consider the claim of Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) that he should not be compelled to testify to the same grand jury about his calls to Georgia’s secretary of state after the 2020 election.
The judge presiding over the inquiry, disqualified Willis last month from investigating one of the would-be Trump electors — Republican state Sen. Burt Jones — after Willis hosted a fundraiser for Jones’s opponent in an upcoming lieutenant governor’s race. The judge, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, called it a “’What are you thinking?’ moment” and said the “optics are horrific.”
Costello called the prosecutors’ claims “ludicrous,” adding: “First of all, Giuliani has not flown anywhere since his operation. He has not purchased these tickets and never purchased airline tickets for cash for any reason."
The phone calls Graham made to Raffensperger’s office, his lawyers say, were part of his official legislative duties to help inform his vote to certify the election for President Biden and to draft election-related legislation.
May recently rejected similar arguments from Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), a Trump ally who echoed false claims of widespread election fraud in his failed bid for secretary of state. Hice is scheduled to appear before the grand jury on Aug. 16.
In contrast, a lawyer representing two of the purported Trump electors in federal probes, Robert N. Driscoll, said his clients cooperated with the House Jan. 6 committee and are responding to Justice Department subpoenas. | 2022-08-08T23:35:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rudy Giuliani's grand jury appearance put on hold amid dispute with Georgia prosecutors - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/trumo-willis-georgia-2020-giuliani/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/trumo-willis-georgia-2020-giuliani/ |
A Southwest Airlines flight takes off from Reagan National Airport in Arlington earlier this month. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Travelers endured a difficult weekend at the nation’s airports as storms snarled air travel, prompting the cancellation of more than 4,000 flights since Thursday with tens of thousands delayed.
The troubles began Thursday as severe weather swept through the Northeast, where the Federal Aviation Administration issued ground stops at several airports. The inclement weather continued Friday, triggering another round of cancellations.
Those delays rippled throughout the nation’s aviation system and affected virtually all U.S. carriers. The latest round of disturbances comes as airlines already are under scrutiny for their performance this summer, a period marked by heightened demand for air travel during a pandemic that saw airlines lose thousands of employees.
Some of the industry’s worst-performing days in recent months have surrounded holidays — with significant numbers of cancellations over the Memorial Day and Father’s Day/Juneteenth weekends. While staffing shortages have been an ongoing factor in this year’s delays, weather appeared to be the main culprit.
Friday was the roughest of recent travel days, with more than 1,500 flights canceled and more than 7,600 delayed, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.com. The day saw more than half of Southwest Airlines’ scheduled arrivals delayed by an average of nearly an hour. New York-based JetBlue Airways ran into similar issues; half of its Friday arrivals were delayed an average of 96 minutes. JetBlue did not respond to requests for comment.
Several carriers, including American Airlines and United Airlines, issued travel waivers, which allow customers more flexibility to rebook their flights.
Airlines tried to shift the blame, but they're the biggest cause of delays
United officials said thunderstorms and strong winds affected operations at the carrier’s Newark and Chicago hubs, disruptions that rippled throughout its network. During the height of weekend disruptions, United customers were delayed an average of more than 90 minutes. Southwest and Delta Air Lines officials also said severe weather affected their operations.
By Sunday, the number of cancellations had dropped significantly, although delays remained a problem. The pace resumed Monday, when more than 4,200 delays were reported.
This year has recorded more cancellations and delays than in all of 2021, according to FlightAware. U.S. airlines canceled 2.7 percent of flights between Jan. 1 and Aug. 7 this year, compared to 1.5 percent in 2021. The number of delayed arrivals has grown to 20.7 percent this year, compared to 15.6 in 2021.
The latest delays come as airlines have taken steps in recent months to handle the increased demand for air travel after it nearly ground to a halt early in the pandemic. Despite more passengers, carriers have reduced the number of flights they operate. Those slimmed-down schedules mean fewer options for passengers when problems occur.
The nation’s top transportation official, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, had to make alternative arrangements after two of his flights were canceled earlier this summer.
Flight cancellations are stressing weary travelers
Frustrations over the industry’s operational issues have spilled into public view this summer, with airlines blaming some of the problems on a shortage of air traffic controllers. While some disruptions this year have been tied to weather and staffing issues at key air traffic control centers, federal data shows that many are the fault of U.S. carriers.
According to data last month from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, air carriers were directly responsible for about 41 percent of delays through May, a figure on par with 2021 but higher than before the pandemic. Late-arriving aircraft — another problem mostly attributable to airlines — accounted for an additional 37 percent of delays.
The data showed roughly 17 percent of delays were linked to problems with the nation’s airspace, which includes congestion, bad weather or staffing at air traffic control facilities. That number was the lowest since officials began tracking the data in 2004. Extreme weather is its own category, accounting for about 5 percent of delays.
Did your flight get delayed? Tell us what happened.
The problems have prompted lawmakers and consumer advocates to push for more protections for passengers.
Last week, the Department of Transportation proposed protections that include requiring airlines to issue vouchers with no expiration date to passengers infected with the coronavirus or other communicable diseases who decide to cancel their travel plans. DOT officials say without the protections, would-be passengers face a choice between traveling and risking the health of fellow passengers or suffering a financial loss.
The public has 90 days to comment on the proposal. Then the Transportation Department will consider the comments before finalizing the rules.
Also last week, a group of Democratic members of the House and the Senate introduced legislation that would build on existing federal refund rules. The bill would entitle passengers to refunds if they cancel tickets at least 48 hours before departure.
The number of delays and cancellations Tuesday appeared to be on the decline, with a only a handful of flights removed from the schedule. | 2022-08-08T23:36:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Summer air travel: More than 4,000 flights canceled since Thursday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/08/08/airline-delays-cancellations-weather/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/08/08/airline-delays-cancellations-weather/ |
Fifth murder trial set for Keith Davis Jr.
BALTIMORE — A Baltimore judge has scheduled Keith Davis Jr.’s fifth murder trial for next May.
By that time, Ivan Bates, the Democratic nominee for state’s attorney, is expected to have been sworn in and the decision of how to handle the controversial legal saga will fall to him.
On the campaign trail, Bates said that he disagreed with State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s repeated prosecutions of Davis and that he believed the charges should be dismissed.
Despite persistent calls from Davis’s supporters to “Free Keith Davis Jr.,” Mosby has not wavered from her position that there is enough evidence to support a conviction and that her prosecutors are committed to seeking justice on behalf of Kevin Jones, the Pimlico Race Course security guard who was gunned down more than seven years ago. Mosby’s term ends Jan. 2.
The competing perspectives between the incumbent and her presumptive successor add uncertainty to an already unique case. Some scholars say Davis’s repeated prosecutions are unprecedented in the courts, though Mosby’s office disputes the contention that he is among the most prosecuted people in American history.
Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn on Wednesday scheduled Davis’s trial for May 1 through May 19. The lawyers are expected to handle his fifth murder trial, and his unrelated attempted murder trial, over those three weeks.
“As State’s Attorney-elect, I am no longer a private citizen. I must be mindful of the gag order imposed to the current State’s Attorney and how it would ethically apply to me. For this reason, I can provide no further comments on the Keith Davis Jr. case,” Bates said last week in a statement to the Baltimore Sun.
The gag order issued June 7 by Circuit Court Judge John Nugent prohibits lawyers involved in the case and their staffs from making statements outside court that could sway public opinion about the case. It’s one of several outstanding legal matters set to be addressed before trial and before Bates takes office.
Davis’s lawyers have accused Mosby of violating the gag order twice: when she spoke about the case on Baltimore’s public radio station, WYPR-FM, within hours of the order taking effect, and when she commented in July on a social media post from someone claiming to be a voter who said Mosby lost her support because of her administration’s repeated prosecutions of Davis.
Davis’s supporters became a thorn in Mosby’s side. The two-term Democrat has clashed more than once with people calling for her to dismiss the charges.
Defense attorneys for Davis highlighted those spats and Mosby’s public comments as part of a pattern of animosity they used to argue that Davis’s murder and attempted murder cases should be dismissed. Mosby’s office brought the latter charges against Davis almost a year after an alleged jail fight and weeks after he won a new murder trial.
Nugent stopped short of dismissing either case, but found Davis’s lawyers had provided enough evidence to show there was a “presumption of vindictiveness” underlying his attempted murder case — an exceptionally rare ruling in the courts. His order requires Mosby’s office to provide Davis’s lawyers with any evidence of animosity before an evidentiary hearing about the legal issues.
Bates won the primary election comfortably and faces no challengers in November’s general election, though it’s possible that someone may launch a write-in candidacy. It’s unclear whether his clear path to office and previous stance on the case will impact scheduling or the prosecutors’ position on the case now.
Mosby’s office first charged Davis with murder in Jones’s death in 2016, days after he was largely absolved in an attempted armed robbery case that stemmed from an incident the same morning Jones was killed. The jury found he was guilty of being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm.
Police and prosecutors say that firearm was recovered from a garage that officers chased Davis into the day of Jones’s death. The officers suspected Davis was armed and had robbed an unlicensed cabdriver. They fired 32 rounds at Davis, striking him three times.
The jury deadlocked at Davis’s first murder trial in 2017. His second trial the same year ended in a conviction that was overturned when a judge found prosecutors withheld information from the defense. Another hung jury came at his third trial, in 2018. | 2022-08-09T00:14:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fifth murder trial set for Keith Davis Jr. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fifth-murder-trail-set-for-keith-davis-jr/2022/08/08/44407dc0-1467-11ed-a642-b9be12ce0b34_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fifth-murder-trail-set-for-keith-davis-jr/2022/08/08/44407dc0-1467-11ed-a642-b9be12ce0b34_story.html |
FILE - In this photo provided by the National Park Service, Mud Canyon Road is closed due to flash flooding in Death Valley, Calif., Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. Authorities say the main roadway into Death Valley National Park will remain closed into the following week as crews clean up after record-breaking rains damaged the roadway and choked it with mud, rocks and debris. (National Park Service/Death Valley National Park via AP, File) (Uncredited/National Park Service/Death Valley National Park) | 2022-08-09T01:07:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Death Valley route buried in floods closed for another week - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/death-valley-route-buried-in-floods-closed-for-another-week/2022/08/08/06bf1ba6-177c-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/death-valley-route-buried-in-floods-closed-for-another-week/2022/08/08/06bf1ba6-177c-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
The FBI search of Mar-a-Lago instantly became entangled with politics
Politicization was inevitable, given the advantage Trump thinks it offers
Former president Donald Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando in February. (Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images)
It wasn’t until the fourth sentence of Donald Trump’s lengthy statement revealing an FBI search of his Florida estate Mar-a-Lago that the former president suggested that politics were at play. From that sentence on, however, politics was inextricably entwined with the law enforcement action — precisely as Trump would likely have hoped.
That’s three things: The FBI’s search is an attack by Democrats (1) because they fear Trump in 2024 because of polling (2) and they want to damage Republicans in the midterms (3). And that’s just the first politics-focused sentence of several in the statement he published on his social-messaging platform.
It’s important to note that there is no reason to think the FBI’s action was triggered by politics. On the contrary, the default assumption should more reasonably be that the decision to search Mar-a-Lago received unusual consideration given the significance of searching the property of a former president and demi-presidential candidate.
The Washington Post reported that “agents were conducting a court-authorized search as they probe the potential mishandling of classified documents that were shipped to Mar-a-Lago,” according to someone familiar with the investigation. “Court-authorized” means a federal judge signed off on a warrant. So not only did the FBI — and probably Attorney General Merrick Garland — have to decide to move forward with the politically volatile search. They had to convince a judge that it was justified. In other words, a third party reviewed and approved the request to seize potential evidence — evidence that investigators were confident existed.
(As mentioned, the search appears to relate to Trump’s retention of federal documents, including some that were classified, after leaving office. His habit of destroying documents is also well-established.)
Even setting aside the unlikelihood that the FBI — and Trump-appointed Director Christopher A. Wray — are simply effecting the will of “radical-left Democrats," Trump’s claims about the 2024 election are similarly easy to dismiss. President Biden’s approval rating is lower now than Trump’s was at the same point in his presidency, yet Trump still trails Biden by 3 points nationally in recent Yahoo News-YouGov polling of registered voters. The former president likes to inflate his standing in political contests, but there’s little indication that Democrats are worried about his candidacy. If anything, Democrats and Biden seem largely to think Trump is the best possible Republican nominee for the current president’s reelection chances.
The idea that this search would somehow negatively affect Republican chances in November also seems misplaced. For one thing, it drowns out the relatively good week Biden is having, with the passage of a hefty reconciliation bill by the Senate on party lines. For another, it risks mobilizing Republicans against the government in much the same way (if not to the same extent) that the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade energized Democrats. If Trump’s narrative about the search being politically motivated takes hold, the ramifications in terms of motivating Republican voters will be negative for Biden, not positive.
There are already good reasons to think that narrative will take hold. Consider the immediate reaction by Fox News contributor (and former CIA officer) Buck Sexton.
Buck Sexton on Fox: "They are sending a message now to President Trump and to his supporters that THEY WILL COME FOR YOU if you stand against the machine. This is a chilling moment in the country's history." pic.twitter.com/aPvQPNTIyo
Well, no. The message sent — particularly at the time that Sexton was speaking — was that federal criminal investigators had sufficient evidence to convince a judge that evidence of a crime existed at Mar-a-Lago. If average Fox News viewers are worried that their own estates will be occupied in a search for government documents they’d purloined from the White House, then perhaps Sexton’s alarmism is warranted.
For many on the right, of course, the immediate reaction was to amplify Trump’s claims and jockey for attention in the conservative media’s angry universe. Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) pledged to dismantle the FBI, for example — conveniently tagging all the conservative voices he hoped might retweet him.
“Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries,” Trump wrote in his statement. “Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before.”
Conservative commentator David French dismissed this idea succinctly.
“Yes, corrupt regimes politicize prosecutions,” he wrote on Twitter. “But corrupt regimes also permit powerful people to break the law with impunity. If the legal and evidentiary grounds for a search exist, then even a former president should be searched.”
Monday’s search makes very real the possibility that Trump might face criminal prosecution. It may also shift the timeline for Trump’s expected announcement of his candidacy for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination. After all, his complaint that he was being targeted as a potential 2024 opponent of Biden’s carries less weight than if he is actually an potential Biden opponent.
In July, Rolling Stone reported that Trump had spoken with confidantes about the benefits of running for and then being president in terms of federal prosecution. Trump, a source told the magazine, had spoken of “how when you are the president of the United States, it’s tough for politically motivated prosecutors to ‘get to you.' ” That prosecuting presidents is considered verboten according to Justice Department guidelines was, of course, a central theme of Trump’s actual presidency.
Lara Trump appears on Fox as it covers the Mar-a-lago search, saying she has talked to her father in law and “he’s as shocked as anybody.”
She calls it an attempt to hurt him as “he’s going to announce any day that he’s running for president in 2024.” pic.twitter.com/T46IMbaKd1
All of this is why the Justice Department was treading carefully as details about Trump’s post-election actions mounted. Garland has been a target of criticism by the left for not actively prosecuting Trump, the former president having proven his guilt beyond reasonable doubt to his political opponents. But it was inevitable that any serious law enforcement action targeting Trump would trigger precisely the sort of politics-laden response that emerged nearly simultaneously with the news itself.
This is precisely why the American legal system has so many checks aimed at minimizing any political interference. It is also why Trump spent so much time and energy insisting (including in his statement on Monday) that, despite objective evidence, the FBI and the Justice Department were hopelessly biased. That works much better for him than treating the search of Mar-a-Lago as serious and, if you’ll pardon the pun, warranted. | 2022-08-09T01:07:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The FBI search of Mar-a-Lago instantly became entangled with politics - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/fbi-search-mar-a-lago-instantly-became-entangled-with-politics/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/fbi-search-mar-a-lago-instantly-became-entangled-with-politics/ |
Diana Taurasi, shown last year, is suffering from a quad strain, Phoenix announced. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
Phoenix Mercury star Diana Taurasi will miss the rest of the regular season with a quad strain, the team announced Monday.
It is unclear if Taurasi, 40, might be able to return to the court should the Mercury make the playoffs. At 14-19 entering Monday with three games to play, Phoenix is among six teams jockeying for the WNBA’s final three postseason berths.
The league’s all-time leading scorer, Taurasi has spent all 18 of her seasons with the Mercury. She is the team’s second-leading scorer this season (16.7 points per game), behind Skylar Diggins-Smith (19.7), and is second in assists (3.9) and free throw percentage (89.4).
Ahead of her final regular season matchup last month against the Seattle Storm’s Sue Bird, a fellow former University of Connecticut standout who is set to retire after this season, Taurasi expressed uncertainty about her own future.
“Seeing how happy [Bird] is going through her retirement years made me really think about that long winter,” Taurasi said then to ESPN. “When the season ends, I’ll be a free agent, and I’ll see what’s best for me. I don’t know what that is right now.
“It’s always something that, as you get older as an athlete, you start thinking about, and you start really kind of bouncing off ideas on [wife] Penny [Taylor] and my close friends and people that I really respect and trust their opinion.”
After winning three straight national championships at U-Conn. and earning two Naismith player of the year awards, Taurasi was selected first overall by the Mercury in the 2004 WNBA draft. She also won the first of five Olympic gold medals that year, and has helped Phoenix win three league titles, most recently in 2014. Taurasi earned MVP honors in 2009 and has been named to the All-WNBA first team a record 10 times.
To replace Taurasi on its roster for the remainder of the season, the Mercury signed Yvonne Turner, a 34-year-old guard who played for Phoenix from 2017 to 2019.
The Mercury has spent the season without Brittney Griner, a star center who was arrested in Russia in February for bringing less than a gram of cannabis oil into the country. Griner was recently given a 9½-year prison sentence, sparking an outcry from around the WNBA and elsewhere. | 2022-08-09T01:15:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Diana Taurasi to miss rest of regular season for Phoenix Mercury - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/08/diana-taurasi-injury-phoenix-mercury/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/08/diana-taurasi-injury-phoenix-mercury/ |
Their quick defense of Trump and combative posture underlined the former president’s status as a standard-bearer in the party, even as he was tainted anew by another investigation
Responding to the news of an FBI search at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said the Justice Department has “reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.” (Meg Kinnard/AP)
Top Republicans on Monday rallied quickly behind Donald Trump’s efforts to discredit the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago Club, embracing his claims, presented without evidence, that it was a political attack intended to impede his chances to run again for the White House.
Democrats, meanwhile, weighed in more slowly, applauding the news of the search and urging the Justice Department to fully investigate the former president’s handling of classified information. “Good!” tweeted House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) in response to the news.
“Secretary Clinton’s fundamental lack of judgment and wanton disregard for protecting and keeping information confidential raises continued questions about the exposure of our nation’s diplomatic and national security secrets,” McCarthy said in 2016, after Comey initially announced the end of the investigation.
Six years earlier, however, Graham was critical of the FBI after it found no crime to charge in its probe of Clinton’s email server.
“We need a special prosecutor, someone outside the Justice Department, to look into this matter,” said Graham in an August 2016 interview on Fox News, 75 days before that year’s presidential election. “If you’re waiting on this Justice Department to hold anybody in the Obama-Clinton world accountable, you’ll die of old age. It’s sad but it’s true.”
A person familiar with the investigation related to the search of Trump’s safe at Mar-a-Lago, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss its details, said agents were conducting a court-authorized search as they probe the potential mishandling of classified documents that were shipped to Mar-a-Lago. The FBI declined to comment.
Trump nominated the current head of the FBI, Christopher A. Wray, to the position in 2017, after firing Comey amid a probe of whether any Trump campaign advisers had conspired with Russian operatives to influence the 2016 election.
Trump likened the FBI search of his home to an assault that “could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries” and compared it to Watergate, when allies of President Richard Nixon illegally broke into the offices of the Democratic National Committee. Republican lawmakers quickly seized on the former president’s rhetoric, casting the search, without evidence, as federal government overreach against a political adversary.
“This was a strange day,” Trump said during a telerally for former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, a congressional candidate, on Monday night, calling it “another day in paradise.”
Democrats, who had twice impeached Trump but failed both times to convict him, reacted very differently. Some cheered the news that there was enough evidence against the former president for a court-approved search warrant of his private property.
“This man and his fellow bootlickers hid under a rock rather than respond every time Donald Trump called for persecution, investigation, imprisonment, or violence against his political opponents,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), referring to McCarthy’s statement. “These same people talk about Trump like he’s above the law. He’s not above the law.”
Other Democrats reveled in the news that the FBI was moving forward with its investigation and said it imperiled Trump’s future political prospects.
“Might Trump be questioning his ever running for office. He is facing so many legal troubles and has engaged in a multitude of questionable(understatement) acts that make him vulnerable in so many different forums and jurisdictions. He has more avenues to prison than Al Capone did,” tweeted Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.).
The surprise raid, related to an investigation into Trump’s possible mishandling of classified information, adds another potential factor to the midterm elections. A string of political wins for Democrats in recent weeks had begun to temper GOP optimism about winning back control of Congress because of President Biden’s low approval ratings, rising prices and concerns about crime.
Some Republican strategists argued that the investigation gives Trump and his allies a new chance to play the victim, but it is also a reminder to voters of the baggage he carries. In recent months, the party’s operatives and donors have said that Republican voters are moving away from backing Trump in 2024 — even as he leads in the polls — not because they don’t like him but because they believe it is time for new blood.
“I just hope DOJ fully appreciates all that it’s biting off here. Whether they want it to be or not, it’s going to become extraordinarily political,” said Brendan Buck, a longtime adviser to former House speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and a frequent Trump critic. “It would be in their interest to communicate very clearly what has happened and why. Regardless, the right is going to lose its mind, and Trump will again play the victim card to great effect.”
But for now, Republicans, even those with an eye on the White House in 2024, were swift in their condemnation of the raid and rallied behind Trump, firing off similar evidence-free statements.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), echoing Trump’s rhetoric, said the raid was akin to political persecution seen in “3rd world Marxist dictatorships.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is considered one of Trump’s biggest potential rivals if both men run in 2024, synthesized the GOP’s main grievances.
“The raid of MAL is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves. Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic,” DeSantis wrote on Twitter.
Across social media and in statements, some Republicans’ characterization of the raid attempted to paint a dystopian picture of America.
“If you’re a Republican with any kind of voice, and not speaking up for President Trump tonight don’t expect any of us to speak up for you when your time comes,” tweeted Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), a far-right member of Congress. “You may not realize it yet, but they’re coming for all of us.” | 2022-08-09T03:30:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Top Republicans echo Trump’s evidence-free claims to discredit FBI search - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/trump-fbi-search-reaction/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/08/trump-fbi-search-reaction/ |
Dear Amy: I’ve been dating a man for seven months. He is absolutely wonderful. We are even talking about marriage, except that we don’t see eye-to-eye on politics. This was made even more apparent with the recent Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs case [on abortion rights].
With the newest coronavirus variant being so contagious, I am very worried that he will end up catching the virus, and then I would catch it because we spend so much time together.
When I asked if he would get vaccinated for me, he said, “No,” and gave me a long list of political reasons why.
Vulnerable: You see this issue as somehow being about politics, but you’re the person with lupus and five children.
You’re the person already worried about your life being shortened by your autoimmune disease. So this isn’t about politics. This is about science, safety and health.
Of course he won’t get vaccinated for you! If he cared about your health, he would do everything possible to guard your health.
Now, it’s your turn.
[Find the latest coronavirus guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.]
Fed Up: This behavior could be a sign of senility, certainly if you have asked “Charlotte” not to belittle and correct you and she continues to do so.
However, aside from telling her how this makes you feel, you don’t report actually asking her to stop doing it. It might be time for you two to have a serious heart-to-heart.
If you decide to continue as roommates, you should tell Charlotte that moving forward, you expect her not to criticize you in front of others, and if she persists, you will remind her publicly to stop.
Dear Amy: Responding to “Loving, but Sad Daughter,” whose brother left out factual details in the obituary of their father — I suggest that she write and publish her own!
Librarian: Great advice. | 2022-08-09T04:09:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: The man I’m dating isn’t vaccinated against the coronavirus - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/09/ask-amy-covid-vaccine-dating/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/09/ask-amy-covid-vaccine-dating/ |
Carolyn Hax is away. The following is from March 9, 2008.
Dear Carolyn: I’m a 44-year-old divorced woman looking for a committed relationship, and I want to get remarried. I’ve had a few fun dates with a 48-year-old never-married man. We’ve not yet talked about previous relationships or goals in our relationship. We’ve all been warned to be leery of never-married men; it’s likely that they never will get married, right? What are your thoughts on the matter? As I move forward in the relationship, what are some questions I might ask of him to learn whether he is truly open to commitment or whether I’m wasting my time?
— D.
D.: The never-marrieds are a bad risk because they will never commit, yes, I’ve heard that.
Remember, too, that divorced people will commit — but then they’ll bolt.
And, of course, widows and widowers will always remain devoted, on some level, to the departed, whom you can never hope to replace.
I hardly need mention the ones who are dating you while they’re still married, but I will anyway: You can never trust them not to cheat on you the way they did on your predecessor.
I’m not sure if the spouses of alien abductees are considered married or a category all their own, but, either way, they’ll just be up all night checking the foil on the roof.
And don’t get me started on the marriage-or-bust crew.
By my count, that just about rules out dating another human being.
If you’re at peace with the idea that a certain level of risk is inevitable, though, then there are arguments to be made for and against just about anyone in any of these categories. That’s why the most important questions you can ask this man are the ones that help you get to know the one you’re dating, as a person (as opposed to a spouse-by-numbers). Find out who he is, what he stands for and whether you’d ever commit to him.
Dear Carolyn: This is a twist on a common problem:
My new boyfriend makes more money than I do. We take turns paying when we go out. Unfortunately, he has expensive tastes. I tend to order frugally; he orders basically the priciest things on the menu.
We’ve discussed our income disparity before and resolved to eat out less. But when we do go out, again, it’s always something that costs twice as much as what I ordered! I feel like a mean-spirited, nitpicky cheapskate heel for being annoyed, but I have serious money problems as it is, and I’m very stressed out about them.
So how do I say, “Baby, get a burger, not the filet mignon, because I’m gonna get evicted otherwise”?
— Washington
Washington: Common problem, but there is no twist: You need to learn to say no.
It’s not a matter of the words; your burger line is just fine, and you could also suggest splitting things equitably. Though I would argue that you need to speak up even sooner than that, and offer dately reciprocation by cooking and not dining out.
The real issue is your ability to say the words.
This is your money he’s spending, to the detriment of your financial and emotional health, and, because you won’t stand up for yourself, he’s doing it with your permission. Find your spine, and use it. | 2022-08-09T04:09:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Is dating a never-married man a waste of time? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/09/carolyn-hax-date-never-married-man/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/09/carolyn-hax-date-never-married-man/ |
“Sorry — I’m teaching him not to talk to strangers. I’m sure you understand how important that is these days.”
No matter how many times Miss Manners pleads to be spared bathroom problems, they keep on coming.
Yes. If you keep dancing around like that, everyone is going to be late to work. | 2022-08-09T04:10:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: How do I handle intrusive questions about my son? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/09/miss-manners-son-grandson-strangers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/09/miss-manners-son-grandson-strangers/ |
Girl, 3, boy, 13, shot in Northeast Washington, police say
No immediate description of any suspect.
A 3-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy were shot and wounded Tuesday night in Northeast Washington, the D.C. police said.
The girl suffered a graze wound, according to police Capt. David Augustine. The teenager’s wound was apparently more serious, but Augustine said police did not think it was life-threatening. Both victims were taken to hospitals.
They were shot about 9 p.m. in the 700 block of 18th Street NE, police said. It appeared that the shooting occurred outdoors, according to Augustine.
He said police did not think the children were the intended targets of the gunfire. But he also said police did not think the shots were fired at random.
The site was in the Kingman Park area, a couple of blocks south of Benning Road NE. | 2022-08-09T04:10:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Girl, 3 and boy, 13, shot in Northeast, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/08/boy-girl-shot-northeast-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/08/boy-girl-shot-northeast-dc/ |
Registered nurse Uzo Okorie administers a shot to Kevin Carnell at a D.C. monkeypox vaccine clinic on June 28. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Biden administration officials are set to announce Tuesday a new strategy to split monkeypox vaccine doses in hopes of vaccinating up to five times as many people against the virus, according to officials with direct knowledge of the plan.
The strategy, first described publicly by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf last week, would allow the Biden administration to stretch its limited supply of monkeypox vaccines by changing how those shots are administered. Rather than inject doses of Jynneos subcutaneously, a traditional way of delivering vaccines into the fatty tissue under the skin, the doses would instead be injected under the top layer of the skin. This approach, known as an intradermal injection, uses a thinner needle and less vaccine, but leads to a small bubble forming on the surface of the skin that can scar.
The change in injection method would maximize the immune reaction generated by the vaccine and allow U.S. officials to only administer one-fifth of the original dose, Califf told reporters last Thursday, stressing that the approach would not compromise safety or efficacy.
“It really means, basically, sticking the needle within the skin and creating a little pocket there into which the vaccine goes,” Califf said, comparing it to tests for tuberculosis and other injections performed by health-care workers. “This is really nothing highly unusual.”
But the planned change in vaccine dosing would be a large-scale, real-time experiment as officials race to stave off a monkeypox outbreak that has infected more than 8,900 people in the United States. If successful, the new vaccine plan would allow the Biden administration to transform hundreds of thousands of existing doses of Jynneos — the only FDA-approved vaccine for monkeypox — into several million potential shots. Although U.S. officials last month received nearly 800,000 additional doses of Jynneos, demand has rapidly outpaced supply and more doses are not expected for weeks.
Struggle to protect gay men from monkeypox exposes inequities in community
“This isn’t a ‘snap your fingers and it’s done,’ ” said a public health expert who was briefed by the administration on its pending plan but was not authorized to comment. “There’s a lot of complexity to rolling this out right, many vaccination sites won’t be fully ready, and it’s not obvious that [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] has done everything it should to help get local preparations in place.”
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said he had concerns about the immune protection provided by the strategy, particularly for people with health conditions like HIV. “We don’t yet have the data to know how effectively an intradermal-administered vaccination will protect immunocompromised persons," he said.
HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FDA said Monday that the agency did not have any information to share.
Administration officials worked through the weekend on the logistics of the new strategy, drawing on prior studies into splitting vaccine doses, which is often referred to as “dose-sparing.” Infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci and other senior administration officials have reviewed that data and support the planned change, according to two officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.
The federal government must still take several steps before the vaccine change is legally permissible. Although Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra last Thursday declared monkeypox a public health emergency, he would need to issue a second declaration that would allow for “emergency use” of the existing monkeypox vaccines and other medical countermeasures, such as the plan to change how the shots are administered.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also working on guidance for health-care workers on how to administer the new vaccine strategy, according to two other people with knowledge of the planned announcement who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.
U.S. repeats early covid mistakes in monkeypox response, experts say
Outside experts signaled their support for the idea. Daniel McQuillen, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said in a statement that his organization “agrees with the strategy under consideration by FDA.”
The plan is “supported by compelling evidence of an equally strong immune response compared to the current strategy and could be an effective way to achieve the important goal of vaccinating more people,” McQuillen wrote.
But he noted that changing the way the shots would be administered could create new challenges, such as the greater risk of a skin reaction at the injection site. “For this strategy to succeed, strong public education about the way to correctly administer the vaccine intradermally and collection of data on its impacts will be essential.”
“There’s a lot of data that FDA has looked at … [on] how we would extend doses of the smallpox vaccine. What they learned from those studies is transferrable to this vaccine for monkeypox,” Gottlieb said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
“This is a well-recognized issue where intradermal injections can be tough to do, without adequate training,” he said.
The Biden administration has faced sustained criticism from patients, local public health officials and some lawmakers for not ordering more monkeypox vaccines earlier in the response, as demand now outpaces supply. Federal officials consider at least 1.6 million gay and bisexual men at highest risk for the virus and are urging them to get the shots. | 2022-08-09T04:10:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Limited monkeypox vaccine supply would be stretched under FDA plan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/08/monkeypox-vaccine-doses/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/08/monkeypox-vaccine-doses/ |
He also starred in the musical biopic ‘Leadbelly,’ directed by Gordon Parks, and played boxer Sonny Liston in the Muhammad Ali movie ‘The Greatest’
Actors Larry Manetti, Tom Selleck, and Roger E. Mosley accept an award for “Magnum P.I.” at the 2009 TV Land Awards in Los Angeles. The show premiered in 1980, ran for eight seasons and continued to reach a wide audience in syndication. (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)
Filmed on location in Hawaii, the original “Magnum, P.I.” starred Selleck as the mustachioed, Ferrari-driving investigator Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV, who is aided on his cases by two fellow veterans of the Vietnam War: T.C., who runs a charter helicopter company, and Orville “Rick” Wright, a bar owner played by Larry Manetti. The show also starred John Hillerman as the stuffy British army veteran Higgins, who owns the estate that Magnum uses as his base.
But his agent was insistent. “They really want you,” he said. “So go to Hawaii for two weeks, they’ll treat you like a king.” Besides, the agent added, the new show was “starring this guy Tom Selleck,” who had appeared in several pilots, none of which had gotten picked up. “The show with Tom Selleck on it won’t sell,” he said, “and you’ll be fine.”
“I went ‘for two weeks,’ ” Mr. Mosley told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, “and the rest is history — eight and a half years.”
His business projects dovetailed with his effort to promote African American actors and artists, including by founding an acting group, the Watts Repertory Company, and a production company, Mo-Laud. He said he also felt a responsibility to promote a positive image of Black manhood, explaining that he refused to smoke or drink in episodes of “Magnum, P.I.” because “that’s not what I want Black kids to see.”
“They told me they couldn’t find any qualified Blacks,” he told Ebony magazine in 1982. “I raised hell, telling them that as many Blacks as there were flying in Vietnam, I know they could find somebody.”
The oldest of three children, Roger Earl Mosley was born in Los Angeles on Dec. 18, 1938, and grew up in Watts. His mother was a school cafeteria worker, and his parents separated when he was young; his mother later married the proprietor of a car repair shop in South Central.
After graduating from Jordan High School, Mr. Mosley hoped to work in broadcasting. He decided to try acting after enrolling in a drama class taught by Raymond St. Jacques — who helped blaze a trail for Black TV actors as a star of “Rawhide” — at the Mafundi Institute, a Watts arts center where Mr. Mosley later served as a board member.
Mr. Mosley appeared in episodes of “Sanford and Son,” “Starsky and Hutch” and “Roots: The Next Generations,” as well as blaxploitation films including “Hit Man” (1972), “The Mack” (1973) and “Sweet Jesus, Preacherman” (1973). But he said he didn’t feel fully liberated as an actor until he played musician Huddie Ledbetter in the biopic “Leadbelly” (1976), directed by trailblazing Black photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks.
The film was hailed by critics including Roger Ebert, who praised the “great strength” of Mr. Mosley’s performance and called “Leadbelly” “one of the best biographies of a musician I’ve ever seen, and one of the most direct.”
After the success of “Magnum, P.I.,” he became a familiar face on game shows including “The $10,000 Pyramid” and played a high school basketball coach on “Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper,” an ABC sitcom. He was also featured as Ray Liotta’s partner in the police thriller “Unlawful Entry” (1992) and had a recurring role on the Showtime sitcom “Rude Awakening.”
Mr. Mosley’s marriage to Saundra Locke ended in divorce. He later married Antoinette “Toni” Laudermilk, his partner of almost 60 years. She survives him, as does their daughter, Ch-a Mosley. He also had two children from his first marriage and two children from another relationship, although complete information on survivors was not immediately available.
“I was crying I was so mad,” she said. “And he said, ‘When you’re out there training, everyone is back home. This is when you get ahead. When everyone else is losing time, you’re gaining time. And this is how you win.’ ” | 2022-08-09T04:10:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Roger Mosley, the chopper pilot T.C. on ‘Magnum P.I.,’ dies at 83 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/08/roger-mosley-magnum-pi-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/08/roger-mosley-magnum-pi-dead/ |
A week ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) made her trip to Taiwan. The leadership in Taipei welcomed her vows of U.S. support for the self-governing island and its democracy, as Pelosi sought to burnish her foreign policy legacy in what may be the twilight of her political career. It was, after all, the most significant visit of a U.S. official to Taiwan in a quarter-century.
But the symbolism of the moment gave way to a fiery response from China. Beijing, which views Taiwan as an integral part of its territory, cast Pelosi’s visit as a dangerous provocation and evidence that Washington is hollowing out its formal position on the island. The United States neither challenges nor endorses Beijing’s claim to Taiwan, even as it has long maintained close but informal political, economic and military links with Taipei.
Pelosi’s visit was followed by four days of scheduled Chinese live-fire naval exercises, ballistic missile launches and aircraft maneuvers over and around Taiwan. Chinese naval forces took up positions that effectively encircled Taiwan and simulated what analysts suggested could be a future naval blockade of the island. The drills were extended Monday by the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army, with Chinese state media announcing that the nation’s forces would conduct “regular” exercises on the eastern side of the median line in the Taiwan Strait — the informal maritime boundary between the mainland and Taiwan.
Taiwanese officials counted more than 200 Chinese military aircraft and more than 50 warships in and around their territorial waters since Thursday. Beijing appears to be accelerating efforts to establish a new normal in its military posture around Taiwan.
“Meng Xiangqing, a professor at the PLA-affiliated National Defense University, told state broadcaster China Central Television in an interview published Sunday that the drills aimed to ‘completely smash the so-called median line’ and demonstrate China’s ability to prevent foreign intervention in a conflict by blockading and controlling the Bashi Channel, an important waterway between the western Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea,” my colleagues reported.
Analysts view this as par for the course for Beijing. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, Beijing has taken increasingly aggressive and assertive positions on many territorial disputes with its neighbors, from occupying rocky shoals in the South China Sea, to establishing an “air defense identification zone” over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku island chain it also claims, to stealthily seizing territory in the Himalayas along its rugged, contested border with India.
“Just as China changed the status quo around the Senkakus in 2012 and the Sino-Indian border in 2020, it seeks to now further change the status quo in its favor in the Taiwan Strait,” noted Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund.
This keeps with its growing clout on the world stage. “In 1995 China’s defense budget was only twice the size of Taiwan’s, even though China has around 60 times as many people. Today China spends more than 20 times as much as Taiwan on defense,” explained the Economist, referring to the last time tensions over Taiwan were this intense. “By the Pentagon’s own account, the PLA has achieved parity or surpassed America in the number of ships and submarines, surface-to-air missiles and cruise and ballistic missiles it can deploy.”
Now, China has the capacity and capability to squeeze Taiwan in ways that the United States may have difficulty deterring. “Beijing’s message is that Washington needs to stop boosting ties with Taiwan, and restore the diplomatic understanding that discouraged any House speaker from visiting for the past 25 years,” reported Bloomberg News. “If not, China could start to restrict Taiwan’s freedom to operate off its shores in the same way that it has restricted the island’s ability to participate in global organizations since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s election in 2016.”
For Washington and Beijing, the aftermath of Pelosi’s visit has been defined by a clash of talking points. Both U.S. and Taiwanese officials emphasize that there was nothing abnormal about the speaker’s visit and that China is unilaterally choosing to escalate tensions. China, meanwhile, accused the United States of abandoning its long-standing ambiguity over recognition of Taiwan and infringing on Chinese sovereignty. It chose to freeze some tracks of dialogue and collaboration with the Biden administration, including discussions over climate action.
One-China principle is part of postwar int'l order & a general int'l consensus. As a country that thinks of itself as a champion of “rules-based int'l order,” the US should naturally abide by the #OneChinaPrinciple. Read my op-ed on The Washington Post: https://t.co/9dBLLizcvS pic.twitter.com/UgJoOxSKCg
“The U.S. and China are seriously talking past each other. This is not just about Pelosi,” tweeted Evan Feigenbaum, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a veteran U.S. diplomat. “The U.S. thinks this is about Chinese coercion. The Chinese think this is about a drift from ‘one China’ to ‘one China, one Taiwan.’ That disconnect will lead to a very unstable new baseline.”
Elsewhere in Asia, politicians are taking note. During a speech delivered Monday to mark Singapore’s National Day, Prime Minister Lee Hsien-Loong warned that “a storm is gathering” around his prosperous city state, in part because of spiking U.S.-China tensions. Relations between the two powers are “unlikely to improve anytime soon,” Lee said. “Furthermore, miscalculations or mishaps can easily make things much worse.”
In countries like Japan and Australia, Beijing’s reaction to Pelosi’s visit has only hardened attitudes about the threat posed by a Chinese navy that increasingly sees the Pacific as its backyard. “Whatever fears many had about Pelosi’s trip, the dramatic missile launches and live-fire drills have created a negative outcome for Beijing, by galvanizing an increasingly united chorus of critics,” wrote Demetri Sevastopulo in the Financial Times.
For Taiwan, the die seems to have been cast. A few decades ago, a considerable proportion of the island’s population looked favorably upon the prospect of reunification with China, excited not least by the economic promise of a closer embrace with the booming mainland. But most are convinced now that their future lies on a different, democratic path, with only six percent of Taiwanese recently surveyed supporting unification with China.
Xi has pinned his legacy in part on his ability to bring about reunification, ideally through peaceful means. But hard power may be the sole path toward achieving it. “The attractiveness of the carrots in China’s Taiwan policy — economic inducements — has now fallen to its lowest point since the end of the Cold War,” Wu Jieh-min, a political scientist at Taiwanese research academy Academia Sinica, said to the New York Times. “The card it holds presently is to raise military threats toward Taiwan step by step, and to continue military preparations for the use of force until, one day, a full-scale military offensive on Taiwan becomes a favorable option.” | 2022-08-09T04:11:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | China shifts the military status quo on Taiwan after Pelosi visit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/military-beijing-china-pla-taiwan-pelosi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/military-beijing-china-pla-taiwan-pelosi/ |
Former prime minister Raila Odinga and Deputy President William Ruto are vying for the highest office.
NAIROBI — Kenyans are heading to the polls Tuesday in a hotly contested presidential election pitting two of the countries most prominent politicians against each other.
Former prime minister Raila Odinga, 77, who is making his fifth bid for the country’s highest office, says he wants to root out corruption, funnel money to Kenya’s poorest residents and implement reforms to address the skyrocketing prices of food and fuel in this East African nation. The left-leaning veteran opposition leader has the backing of term-limited President Uhuru Kenyatta, a former adversary with whom he formed an alliance in 2018.
Deputy President William Ruto, 55, argues that he will better represent Kenya’s poor with a “bottom-up” economic model targeted toward small businesses and addressing unemployment — he often describes how he became successful only after working as a chicken farmer in his youth. Ruto, who publicly fell out with Kenyatta during their second term in government, has tried to frame the election as a competition between “hustlers” like himself and “dynasties” like those of the Kenyattas and Odingas.
Kenya's Raila Odinga and William Ruto are in a tight race ahead of the presidential election on Aug. 9. (Video: The Washington Post)
Analysts predict that the election could be one of the closest in recent history. A runoff vote would be triggered if neither candidate reaches a 50 percent majority — which could depend on the success of a third candidate, George Wajackoyah, whose platform is built around legalizing medicinal marijuana. While some of Wajackoyah’s ideas are seen as outlandish — including exporting hyena testicles — the reggae-loving professor has won passionate fans.
The winner of Tuesday’s election will have to address the country’s massive debt, soaring inflation, a drought in the north that has left millions hungry, and increasing youth unemployment. Many voters are disenchanted, unsure whether either Odinga or Ruto will bring change.
“Politicians are all the same,” said Mark Otieno, 27, who was attending a Ruto rally Saturday in Nairobi. He said he has been unemployed for four years despite having a college degree. “These people are first politicians, people after their own interests.”
The election will be closely watched inside Kenya and abroad, including in Washington. Kenya has been an important counterterrorism ally of the United States and a source of stability in the region. The country has a long history of election-related turmoil, with post-election violence in 2008 leaving more than 1,000 dead and 600,000 displaced. The most recent election, which pitted Odinga against Kenyatta in 2017, was marred by street riots and a prolonged period of turbulence after a botched vote. Odinga challenged the results in the country’s Supreme Court, and the judges ordered a rerun. Odinga also lost the second vote.
This year, both Odinga and Ruto have publicly raised concerns with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, the body charged with overseeing the election, citing issues including technical preparedness and the disappearance of voters from the registry. But both have also said they will accept the election results.
“If I lose fairly, I will be the first to concede defeat,” Odinga said in an interview at his mansion in Kisumu, in western Kenya. “But if it is not fair, then I will follow the normal channels to address the issues.”
In recent days, both tickets have filled stadiums with energized supporters. In Kisumu, Odinga’s hometown, his fans held a massive gavel to symbolize the justice they believe Odinga and his running mate, Martha Karua, will bring. Karua would be the first woman to serve as Kenya’s deputy president.
Standing in the sea of orange, the color of Odinga’s party, Daniel Liech, 68, said the former prime minister’s moment has arrived, after years of struggle that included serving as a political prisoner in the 1980s. That history is important, said Liech, adding: “We want to support him this last time.”
At a rally for Ruto in Nairobi on Saturday, fans danced to hits including his campaign anthem, “Sipangwingwi,” and waved signs with the deputy president’s face on them. Some wore yellow shirts that said “Freedom is coming.” Kefa Simiyu Wanyonyi, 33, who is unemployed, said he hoped that under Ruto — whom he sees as the best advocate for the youth and the poor — he would get a job.
“We have hustled so long,” he said, “and now we have someone who says that he can see us, that he can see our struggles, that he will help us.” | 2022-08-09T05:19:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kenya election: Voters head to polls in tight election - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/kenya-election-odinga-ruto/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/kenya-election-odinga-ruto/ |
It’s open season on UK financial regulation. The latest target is a real sacred cow — the 30-year-old UK Corporate Governance Code that dictates boardroom best practice. The tome is subject to yet another review, prompting a pair of law professors to suggest abolishing it completely. This is a highly provocative call. But it might not be radical enough.
The first version of the code landed in 1992 after Adrian Cadbury, of the Cadbury business family, was commissioned to draw lessons from a raft of British business blow-ups. He focused on strengthening oversight of company audits and boosting the role of outside directors. The original guidelines have since mushroomed in response to subsequent government reviews, adding directives on pay and the broader role of non-executives.
This mission creep shouldn’t be a problem. The code isn’t law and is meant to operate on a “comply or explain” basis. It comprises “provisions” rather than rules. If companies can’t comply with the precepts, they can just say why. However, those with a so-called premium listing, a requirement for inclusion in the FTSE UK indexes, must describe how they have “applied” the code in their annual reports.
Although there are no specific sanctions for offenders, shareholders can punish boards by voting down company resolutions, notably on directors’ pay or re-election, at the annual meeting.
But a strange situation has arisen. Despite the code’s optionality, there is strong market pressure to comply rather than explain. A 2019 study by auditor Grant Thornton UK LLP found that nearly three-quarters of FTSE 350 firms followed all of the directives.
In practice, then, the UK appears to have ended up with a one-size-fits-all governance regime that lacks the intended flexibility. The Financial Reporting Council that oversees the code has slimmed and simplified it in recent years. Yet there are still some 41 provisions.
The expectation that these boxes need ticking can be constraining for smaller, more entrepreneurial firms that may want to preserve unconventional leadership arrangements, in particular around founder influence. This could be one of several factors deterring firms from listing in London. There’s been a proliferation of mid-sized UK firms accepting bids from private equity in recent years.
The UK’s gold-plated governance hasn’t led to better performance of listed companies, argue Brian Cheffins and Bobby Reddy of the University of Cambridge. As the FRC consults on adding guidance on ESG reporting, the academics propose scrapping the code outright. They suggest that firms could simply make disclosures about a handful of key aspects of their governance, such as directors’ possible conflicts of interest.
While the plan is in many ways appealing, the snag is that some companies ought to be subject to tough governance without qualification. Banks, insurers and businesses involved in public-service contracts come to mind, given their failure would have a broader impact.
The imposition of strictures on these businesses could, of course, come from another source — say, the Bank of England in the case of financial firms. But it needs to come from somewhere. A simplified code, with much more explicit wiggle-room for companies that pose less risk, would be an alternative remedy.
Either way, the challenges here look like a symptom of a more fundamental issue — the legal ambiguity around what boards are responsible for, and who holds them accountable for what.
The 2006 Companies Act obliges directors to “promote the success” of the firm for the benefit of shareholders, while also paying attention to other stakeholders such as employees. It’s hard to see, though, how the investors who hire and fire boards can always be trusted to use that power to protect stakeholders with potentially opposing interests to their own. UK corporate law is as worthy of review as the code.
Britain needs a governance regime that’s tough where necessary without stigmatizing companies that have sound reasons for custom boardroom arrangements. It must also decide precisely how directors’ duties beyond serving shareholders are imposed and policed. Binning the current governance code won’t, on its own, do the trick. | 2022-08-09T05:41:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A Radical Plan to Curb the Lure of the UK Buyout - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-radical-plan-to-curb-the-lure-of-the-uk-buyout/2022/08/09/f8ad4f0e-17a0-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-radical-plan-to-curb-the-lure-of-the-uk-buyout/2022/08/09/f8ad4f0e-17a0-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
The UK’s Next Leader Might Be Knee-Deep in a Recession
LONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 17: (ONE MONTH FREE EDITORIAL USE; NO ARCHIVING) In this handout image provided by ITV, Conservative leadership candidates Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss during Britain’s Next Prime Minister: The ITV Debate at Riverside Studios on July 17, 2022 in London, England. At 7pm on Sunday 17th July Live on ITV, Julie Etchingham hosts an hour-long debate in London with the five Conservative Party leadership contenders, vying to become Britains Prime Minister. All five candidates have agreed to take part and over the course of the 60-minute programme, they will debate with each other in response to questions put by the host. Taking place on the eve of the next round of voting, Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, Tom Tugendhat, and Kemi Badenoch will debate the issues dominating the campaign. Each candidate will have the opportunity to make a closing statement. ITV is the UKs biggest commercial broadcaster and the programme will give the audience the opportunity to get to know more about the candidates and help them decide who has the qualities to be our new Prime Minister. Britains Next Prime Minister: The ITV Debate will also be streamed live on ITV Hub, as well as through ITV.com/news, ITV News YouTube channel, facebook and on Twitter. (Photo by Jonathan Hordle / ITV via Getty Images) (Photographer: Handout/Getty Images Europe)
The Bank of England startled analysts last week — not so much with its half-point increase in the policy interest rate to 1.75% as with its unexpectedly bleak assessment of Britain’s medium-term prospects. Its main projection shows a shallow but protracted recession, with roughly no growth in output over the next three years and inflation peaking at more than 13% before the end of 2022. Unemployment is expected to rise from a little under 4% of the labor force to more than 6% by 2025.
Officials rightly emphasize the uncertainty attached to all such projections. That should be kept in mind before drawing conclusions about the new forecast. Yet when all is said and done, one thing stands out: With Britain politically paralyzed and still awaiting the appointment of its next prime minister, the crisis could hardly have come at a worse time.
The immediate cause of the UK’s economic plight is, as elsewhere, the global shock to energy prices. Natural gas has seen the sharpest increase, and Britain is unusually dependent on this particular fuel. In addition, fiscal policy has been tightened over the past year as the government reined in pandemic-era emergency spending. Disruptions due to Brexit are a third factor. Together with an unusually tight labor market, this combination of supply shock, fiscal adjustment and severe trade dislocation accounts for the blend of high inflation and diminishing growth that the bank describes.
It’s clear by now that the Bank of England (like the Federal Reserve) was too slow to start raising rates. But central banks can’t grapple with challenges like these by themselves. Calling their independence into question — as the leading candidate for the Conservative Party leadership, Liz Truss, has done — makes things worse.
Britain’s government needs an intelligible strategy on taxes and spending. At the moment, Britain lacks a government, let alone a strategy.
Support for low-income households will be needed to prevent severe hardship when a new round of higher energy costs kicks in later this year. Help that was belatedly granted in May should be renewed, with more assistance for the neediest groups and correspondingly less in the form of universal payments. For now, there’s enough fiscal space for this (bearing in mind that temporarily high inflation is boosting tax revenues). But the longer-term trend of public debt is grim, and public services badly need more resources. Fix those problems before thinking about tax cuts.
And remember Brexit? The near-total neglect of policy on UK-EU trade in the leadership debates has been stunning. A new crisis is entirely possible given the lack of progress in resolving the quarrel over the Northern Ireland Protocol. This needs to be settled as soon as possible. Beyond this immediate dispute, warmer economic relations with the EU should be among the next prime minister’s top priorities. Even in far more favorable circumstances, Britain couldn’t succeed in a state of sullen animosity toward its closest trading partner. It has challenges enough to overcome without adding any fresh Brexit nonsense to the mix.
In recent weeks, the Conservative Party’s contenders to lead the country have been mostly debating their rival brands of conservatism. The gravity of the country’s problems requires practical answers to urgent questions. Whoever prevails next month will have to start delivering them.
• Bank of England Gives a Lesson in Honest Central Banking: Mohamed A. El-Erian
• Inflation Beast Won’t Lie Quietly Again for a Long Time: Alison Schrager | 2022-08-09T05:41:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The UK’s Next Leader Might Be Knee-Deep in a Recession - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-uks-next-leader-might-be-knee-deep-in-a-recession/2022/08/09/f9062e76-17a0-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-uks-next-leader-might-be-knee-deep-in-a-recession/2022/08/09/f9062e76-17a0-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Back in the 1980s, London’s “Big Bang” revolutionized stock trading and put the City at the forefront of international financial markets. Following Britain’s departure from the European Union in 2020, the government has aspirations for another kind of “Big Bang”: jettisoning EU financial rules that it sees as holding back innovation and economic growth. A new financial services bill, published in July, isn’t on the same scale as the changes more than three decades ago, though the inspiration is similar. The legislation aims to make stock listings easier while relaxing regulations in areas such as insurance, share trading on private platforms and even crypto assets.
The bill ranges from reforms to company listings and capital markets rules to measures to help consumers cope with technological change. Parts of the EU’s vast MiFID II rules, designed to protect investors and improve the functioning of financial markets, will be unraveled, such as the cap on trading in so-called dark pools, or private venues, to try to tempt share trading back from Amsterdam and shore up London’s existing business. Looking to the future, certain types of stablecoins, digital assets designed to hold a steady value, will be regulated as a form of payment. The bill also introduces a secondary objective for financial regulators to promote economic growth, after their primary aim of ensuring safety of the financial system.
The bill coincides with the Conservative Party’s election to choose a new leader, who would automatically become prime minister. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, was leading Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor of the exchequer, in early August, having won support from the right wing of the party and Brexiteers. That group is likely to want measures to implement their vision for Brexit, including cutting financial red tape and reducing the size of the state. There could be calls for less focus on consumer protection and more emphasis on freeing firms to pursue faster growth. A key factor will be who is appointed chancellor in the new government.
5. How might a new Chancellor change the bill?
Nadhim Zahawi, who replaced Sunak as chancellor in July just two days before Boris Johnson announced his intention to stand down as prime minister, backed away from adding a controversial “call-in” power to the bill which would have allowed the government to block or change the actions of financial regulators. A new chancellor might take a different approach and the “call-in” could still be added alongside other changes as the bill makes its way through Parliament.
At the heart of the debate about the call-in power is politicians’ attitudes to the Bank of England, which is the UK’s ultimate financial regulatory authority as well as the setter of interest rates. The BOE is having a difficult time. There is rising criticism across government of its handling of inflation, which may escalate as cost-of-living problems intensify. Truss, the foreign secretary, has said she wants to revisit the BOE’s mandate and explore how to ensure policy makers meet their goal to keep inflation down, triggering debate about the central bank’s independence.
Even for backers of the BOE, there is recognition that the bill should lay out some new oversight. That’s because before Brexit, the Prudential Regulation Authority -- the part of the BOE which oversees the financial system -- and the Financial Conduct Authority, which focuses on consumer protection, operated according to directions set by people elected democratically to the European Parliament. Much of the decision making passes to the regulators themselves as part of the shift of EU rules to UK law. Many in Parliament, as well as lawyers, economists and industry figures, want some checks to be introduced over regulators, who are not democratically elected. Ideas vary from monitoring by lawmakers on the Treasury Select Committee helped by experts, to the courts taking an active role, to greater powers for the government. | 2022-08-09T05:41:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Britain Is Targeting in a Post-Brexit City - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-britain-is-targeting-in-a-post-brexit-city/2022/08/09/b2b2d296-17a3-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-britain-is-targeting-in-a-post-brexit-city/2022/08/09/b2b2d296-17a3-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
A Chinese Navy Force helicopter takes part in military exercises in the waters around Taiwan on Monday, in a handout photo provided by the Eastern Theater Command of China's People's Liberation Army. (Eastern Theatre Command/Via Reuters)
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan’s foreign minister on Tuesday accused China of using U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taipei as a pretext for launching large-scale military drills in preparation for an eventual invasion of its rival.
Speaking to reporters, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu called Beijing’s military exercises in response to Pelosi’s trip a “serious provocation” and an attempt to overturn the status quo in the sensitive Taiwan Strait.
“China has threatened Taiwan militarily for years and it continues to upgrade its efforts. This is a fact,” he said.
The Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said Tuesday that sea and air drills near Taiwan were continuing, marking at least the sixth consecutive day of exercises intended to menace the island. It said the maneuvers would focus on simulating blockades and joint logistics coordination. Taiwan on Tuesday also began previously scheduled exercises.
Beijing claims Taiwan, a self-governed democracy that has enjoyed de facto independence for decades, is an inseparable part of its territory that must be unified with China. In retaliation for Taiwan’s hosting Pelosi last week, the PLA announced military exercises targeting Taiwan from all directions.
The PLA subsequently fired missiles around Taiwan and sent dozens of military aircraft and warships near the island. It has deployed warships and jets across the midpoint of the Taiwan Strait, the unofficial median line that both sides had largely respected for years.
While tensions are at their highest since the last Taiwan Strait crisis in the 1990s, when the PLA fired missiles that landed close to Taiwan, the prospect of military confrontation is still low.
Beijing has signaled some restraint and a desire to avoid direct conflict with the United States. Plans for the drills — scheduled for after Pelosi’s departure — covered areas within the 12-nautical-mile littoral zone that Taiwan claims as its territorial waters. But Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said on Monday that no Chinese military aircraft had yet encroached on the island’s territory.
A poll released Monday by the Chinese Association for Public Opinion Research, a group in Taiwan, found that more than 60 percent of about 1,000 respondents surveyed between Aug. 3-5 were not worried about cross-strait relations leading to military conflict. About 54 percent said they believed Pelosi’s visit had been good for U.S.-Taiwan ties.
Asked whether there was real concern in the Taiwan government that Beijing is preparing for an invasion, Wu said his country was “very concerned."
“But at the same time, we stay calm. We stay resilient. The best way to deal with a regime which is trying to intimidate us is to show that we are not intimidated. We are not scared by China,” he said.
Pei-Lin Wu contributed to this report. | 2022-08-09T06:50:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Military drills show China is preparing to invade, Taiwan says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/china-military-taiwan-invasion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/china-military-taiwan-invasion/ |
Sen. Mike Crapo (Idaho), the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, speaks about taxes at a news conference on Aug. 3. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“The mislabeled ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ will do nothing to bring the economy out of stagnation and recession, but it will raise billions of dollars in taxes on Americans making less than $400,000.”
— Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, in a news release, July 30
We have long found that complex tax and budget issues are ripe for spin that confuses ordinary readers. Crapo’s comment above is illustrative of a GOP onslaught against the massive bill that was approved in the Senate over the weekend and is up for a vote in the House this week.
At issue is whether President Biden violated his 2020 campaign pledge not to raise taxes on people earning less than $400,000 a year. Whether this is good tax policy is open to debate, but it was smart politics. During the election campaign, President Donald Trump claimed some 80 times that Joe Biden was going to raise taxes on all or most Americans. Biden had a consistent refrain — that was false, no one making less than $400,000 a year would face higher taxes.
Of course, this kind of memorable pledge is bound to face constant scrutiny from one’s political opponents. Every time various versions of the president’s tax bills were drafted, the administration insisted he was sticking to his pledge.
But Crapo, citing official scorekeeping from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), says Biden broke his pledge.
The bill — which according to our former colleague Steven Pearlstein would do virtually nothing to tame inflation — is a catchall package that includes clean-energy incentives, health-care policies such as an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, additional hiring for the Internal Revenue Service and new corporate taxes. There’s little in the bill that would directly affect people’s tax returns, except for things such as tax credits to buy electric cars or add solar power to homes.
But the corporate tax increases offer some political gold for Republicans. The JCT assumes corporations adjust to a higher tax by reducing investment returns or cutting workers’ wages; it allocates the corporate tax 25 percent to labor and 75 percent to capital. Many other groups that analyze the impact of new tax policies take a similar stance.
The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group, assumes that over time, 60 percent of the corporate income tax is borne by shareholders, 20 percent is borne by capital owners and 20 percent is borne by labor. Those reductions are then reflected in the after-tax income distribution tables, even if none of those lower-wage workers are directly affected by the corporate tax.
There may be indirect effects, however. For instance, workers making less than $400,000 might have equity investments in their 401(k) retirement plans negatively affected by the corporate tax hike.
In any case, for many Americans, even the estimated impact of these “tax increases” is rather small — less than $100 a year — but these tables give Republicans a hook to claim that taxes will rise for just about every income group.
Economists have long debated the impact of corporate taxes on employment. It’s worth noting that because Republicans prefer to cut corporate taxes, these models work in their favor, as the models assume that corporations would raise workers’ wages and thus after-tax income.
Amanda Critchfield, a spokeswoman for the Finance Committee’s GOP staff, acknowledged that the bill would not be felt on people’s tax returns. But she argued that the impact was real.
“If you’re referencing the individual tax rate in the tax code changing, i.e., a change on your tax form, then no — that doesn’t change,” she said in an email. “If you’re talking about people paying more in taxes via tax incidence, then yes — JCT estimates that people will pay more in taxes.”
Critchfield pointed to a working paper published in 2020 by the Bureau of Economic Research that studied the impact of corporate taxes on product prices. It concluded that existing models “significantly underestimate the incidence of corporate taxes on consumers.” The study said that 31 percent of a tax hike is borne by consumers via higher prices, 38 percent is borne by workers via lower wages and 31 percent is borne by owners.
Crapo, at an Aug. 3 news conference, said it was a “technical argument” as to whether Biden’s pledge involved just tax rates. “Technically [the bill is] not raising [middle-class Americans’] tax rates,” he said. “It is raising taxes, and they are paying them — they will be the ones who incur the burden of these taxes.”
In 2020, when this same issue of distributional models emerged, Biden campaign officials said the test was how any tax plan signed into law by Biden would affect individuals when they had to calculate their taxes. They also argued that the models often failed to account for tax proposals that would mitigate the presumed impact of corporate taxes.
The JCT, for instance, initially did not calculate the benefits of consumer tax rebates, health premium subsidies and lower prescription drug costs that the bill hopes to deliver.
“A complete distributional analysis of the full bill would show lower costs or taxes for all but the highest-wealth individuals,” said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. A memo issued by the CRFB says that “the $64 billion on ACA subsidies alone would be more than enough to counter net tax increases below $400,000 in the JCT study,” while the bill also reduces “prescription drug costs for individuals (premiums and out of pocket) by roughly $300 billion.”
Various think tanks are still crunching the numbers on the final version of the bill that emerged from the Senate over the weekend. Critchfield said Republicans asked the JCT to run an analysis that included the ACA subsidies and many energy credits. That analysis still found a net tax increase, though the ACA subsidies are extended only three years, so when they run out, it looks like a tax increase in the later years covered by the bill.
There’s another wrinkle. Bill Gale and John Buhl of the Tax Policy Center have noted that the JCT, in its analysis, does not make a distinction between “normal” and “supernormal” returns on investment. Normal is what is needed to be a successful business, while supernormal means excess profits, earned through “patents, special expertise, outsized influence in product or labor markets, or just simple luck.” The bill would impose a corporate minimum tax on companies with $1 billion or more in profits — which are more likely to have supernormal returns. That might mean the tax would be less likely to affect investment or hiring than the JCT estimate assumes.
There is no easy way to adjudicate this debate. By the standards set by the Biden campaign in 2020, the president appears to have kept his promise not to raise taxes on people making less than $400,000 a year. Even Republicans concede that tax rates have not changed.
But the JCT is also the gold standard for analyzing the impact of tax policies — and few economists would dispute that higher corporate taxes work their way into the economy and eventually may affect hiring and investment.
What’s also difficult to measure is the combined impact of the various incentives contained in the bill and whether they basically wipe out the estimated impact of the corporate tax cut — which for most income groups is not very large.
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The Fact Checker is a verified signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network code of principles. | 2022-08-09T07:08:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Did Biden keep his pledge not to raise taxes on people making less than $400,000 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/09/senate-bill-bidens-pledge-not-raise-taxes-people-making-more-than-400000/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/09/senate-bill-bidens-pledge-not-raise-taxes-people-making-more-than-400000/ |
NEW YORK — Kevin Durant has again told Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai that he wants to be traded, reiterating a request he first made nearly six weeks ago, a person with knowledge of the matter confirmed.
SAN FRANCISCO — The PGA Tour asked a federal judge to deny the appeal of three suspended players who joined Saudi-backed LIV Golf and now want to compete in the tour’s lucrative postseason, arguing the players knew the consequences two months ago.
SEATTLE — Aaron Judge hit his 44th homer, Josh Donaldson also went deep and drove in three runs, and the New York Yankees snapped a five-game losing streak by beating the Seattle Mariners 9-4.
SAN DIEGO — Alex Wood held San Diego to three singles in 6 1/3 innings and the San Francisco Giants benefited from an overturned call at the plate to beat the sputtering Padres 1-0.
NEW YORK — Chris Bassitt scattered eight hits over eight innings and Starling Marte hit a two-run homer in the first, leading the New York Mets to a 5-1 win over the Cincinnati Reds.
BALTIMORE — Jason Tucker and the Baltimore Ravens agreed to a four-year extension worth $24 million. The agreement includes $17.5 million guaranteed for the star kicker, whose previous deal was through 2023.
TORONTO — Serena Serena picked up her first victory since the 2021 French Open, beating Nuria Parrizas-Diaz 6-3, 6-4 at the women’s National Bank Open. | 2022-08-09T07:09:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Monday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mondays-sports-in-brief/2022/08/09/ef2cce9a-17b0-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mondays-sports-in-brief/2022/08/09/ef2cce9a-17b0-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Ashton Kutcher says he is ‘lucky to be alive’ after battling vasculitis
Ashton Kutcher at a movie premiere last month in Los Angeles. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
“You don’t really appreciate it until it’s gone, until you go, ‘I don’t know if I’m ever gonna be able to see again. I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to hear again, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to walk again,’ ” said Kutcher, who is known for his roles in “That ’70s Show” and “the Butterfly Effect.”
She was ambushed by searing leg pain that struck without warning | 2022-08-09T07:56:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ashton Kutcher says he had vasculitis, a rare autoimmune disease - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/09/ashton-kutcher-vasculitis-symptoms-covid/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/09/ashton-kutcher-vasculitis-symptoms-covid/ |
Ukraine Live Briefing: Zelensky accuses Russia of ‘nuclear blackmail’; Ukra...
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during an interview with The Washington Post at his office in Kyiv, Ukraine, on August 8, 2022. (Heidi Levine/FTWP)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is accusing Russia of “nuclear blackmail” following recent attacks on Europe’s largest nuclear power plant that the United Nations has warned could lead to catastrophic consequences — as his troops advance towards the key city of Izyum, placing further strain on Russian troops. Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
“We are actively informing the world about Russian nuclear blackmail,” Zelensky said in his nightly address, calling for other nations to impose harsher sanctions on Russia for creating “the threat of nuclear disaster.” Ukraine and Russia are trading blame for the attacks on the plant in Zaporizhzhia, in southeastern Ukraine. “The world should not forget about Chernobyl,” Zelensky added.
Ukrainian troops are “moving very successfully” towards the key city of Izyum in the north-east, putting further pressure on Russian troops, Ukrainian Presidential adviser Alexsey Arestovych said in a Youtube video. The city of 50,000 is seen as the gateway to the Donbas region, most of which is held by pro-Russian forces.
Two more grain ships sailed Tuesday under a deal brokered by the United Nations and facilitated by Turkey. One ship is destined for South Korea, the other is headed to Turkey, the Black Sea Grain Initiative Joint Coordination Centre said in a statement. The ships are carrying a combined total of 70,020 metric tons of foodstuffs.
Zelensky, in a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post, urged Western nations to ban entry for all Russian citizens. “The most important sanctions are to close the borders," he said, adding that Russians should "live in their own world until they change their philosophy.”
Russia’s assaults on the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut have been its most successful axis in the Donbas region in the past 30 days, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said, though it noted that Russian troops had only gained 10 kilometers during that timeframe. “In other Donbas sectors where Russia was attempting to break through, its forces have not gained more than 3km during this 30 day period; almost certainly significantly less than planned.”
In the Kharkiv region, at least a dozen settlements came under Russian artillery, tank and aircraft fire, the Ukrainian military said in its latest update. But Ukrainian forces claimed to have captured the town of Dovhenke. Several villages in the northern Sumy region also came under intense Russian fire.
The Pentagon is to send Ukraine an additional $1 billion in military assistance, including tens of thousands more munitions and explosives — the largest such package since Russia launched its invasion in February.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is seeking to strengthen support for Ukraine in Africa on a three-country tour after a recent Russian charm offensive there. “The United States will not dictate Africa’s choices, and neither should anyone else,” he said Monday.
The United States has obtained a warrant for the seizure of a $90 million aircraft owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Andrei Skoch, the Department of Justice announced Monday. “The airplane is subject to seizure and forfeiture based on probable cause of violation of the federal anti-money laundering laws,” officials said.
Accounting of bodies in Bucha nears completion. It’s the closest accounting of victims from Russia’s occupation of the Kyiv suburb, officials say. The Washington Post’s Liz Sly reports from the ground that “after months of meticulous, painful and at times gruesome investigation...[the tally is] 458 bodies, of which 419 bore markings they had been shot, tortured or bludgeoned to death.”
More: “Mykhailyna Skoryk-Shkarivska, the town’s deputy mayor ... said the details of each case were now being investigated by prosecutors working to identify the perpetrators and ultimately try them for war crimes. The Russian troops left the corpses of many of those they killed to rot unattended, but also burned some, possibly out of hygiene concerns or to hide evidence of torture, the deputy mayor said.” | 2022-08-09T08:04:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ |
Smoke rises from the McKinney Fire in California's Klamath National Forest on Aug. 7. (Jen Osborne/Bloomberg News)
One of the victims killed in the McKinney Fire, California’s largest blaze this year, was a local woman and a “beloved, long-time” wildfire lookout, the U.S. Forest Service said.
Kathy Shoopman had served as a fire lookout for nearly five decades, according to a post from the Klamath National Forest’s Facebook account Monday announcing her death. Four deaths have been confirmed in the McKinney Fire.
“It is with great sadness that we must announce that the Klamath National Forest has lost one of its own,” the post said. “Kathy died in her home in the community of Klamath River as a result of the McKinney Fire.”
The fire has torched the scenic hamlet of Klamath River, home to about 200 people before last week, destroying its community hall, grocery store and post office.
The McKinney Fire had burned more than 60,000 acres as of Monday evening and was 55 percent contained, according to fire officials. Last week, severe thunderstorms brought heavy rain — slowing the fire’s growth but triggering floods and mudslides in parts of the burn scar.
The fire was reported July 29, and its cause is under investigation. It has so far destroyed 185 structures and damaged 11 others.
The Forest Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment about when Shoopman died or was found. The four deaths are the only wildfire fatalities in California this year, according to Cal Fire.
The Forest Service said Shoopman started as a fire lookout in 1974 at Baldy Mountain Lookout, near where the wildfire is burning. The job often requires living in a tower in the middle of the forest during fire season, keeping watch across wide swaths of land for signs of a blaze. She also staffed Lake Mountain Lookout and, since 1993, Buckhorn Lookout.
“Kathy was also a talented artist, gardener, and a devout animal lover,” the post said.
The other victims of the fire have not been identified. The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said search teams found two bodies Aug. 1 at separate homes along Route 96, a highway that runs alongside the Klamath River, about 350 miles north of San Francisco. The previous day, firefighters found two bodies in a burned vehicle along a road near the highway, the sheriff’s office said. | 2022-08-09T09:36:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | California woman killed in McKinney Fire was beloved fire lookout - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/09/mckinney-fire-california-fire-lookout/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/09/mckinney-fire-california-fire-lookout/ |
“I really feel like that experience [with ayahuasca] paved the way for me to have the best season of my career,” said Aaron Rodgers. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Aaron Rodgers is at no risk of punishment from the NFL for his recent usage of ayahuasca, a plant-based drink that has psychedelic properties.
A spokesman for the NFL said Monday (via the Associated Press) that ayahuasca does not trigger positive drug test results that would result in violations of either the league’s collectively bargained substance abuse or performance-enhancing substance policies.
The Green Bay Packers quarterback has spoken recently of consuming ayahuasca on trips to Peru in 2020 and earlier this year. On an episode last week of “The Aubrey Marcus Podcast,” Rodgers agreed with a suggestion that his first experience with ayahuasca was connected to a late-career upswing that saw him win NFL MVP honors after the 2020 and 2021 seasons.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I really don’t,” the 38-year-old quarterback told the podcast host. “I don’t really believe in coincidences at this point. It’s the universe bringing things to happen when they’re supposed to happen.”
In comments to NBC Sports published Monday, Rodgers extolled ayahuasca for having “unlocked a lot of my heart.”
“Being able to fully give my heart to my teammates, my loved ones, relationships because I can fully embrace unconditionally myself,” he continued. “Just didn’t do that for a long time. I was very self-critical. When you have so much judgment on yourself it’s easy to transfer that judgment to other people. When you figure out a better way to love yourself, I think you can love people better because you’re not casting the same judgment you cast on yourself on other people. I’m really thankful for that.”
Ayahuasca is illegal in the United States because it contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which is classified by the federal government as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act. Such drugs are considered by the government, per the Drug Enforcement Administration, as having “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” Other examples of Schedule I drugs include heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMT or ecstasy), peyote and marijuana.
On the podcast, Marcus recounted how Rodgers had previously told him the “one of the best days” of the quarterback’s life was when he consumed psychedelic mushrooms, which contain the Schedule I chemical psilocybin.
Rodgers said he wouldn’t necessarily recommend ayahuasca to everyone, but he credited his multi-night “journeys” with it for helping him achieve “deep self-love and healing.”
“The greatest gift I can give my teammates, in my opinion, is to be able to show up and to be someone who can model unconditional love to them,” he asserted. “Obviously, it’s important that I play well and show up and lead, and all that stuff. But they won’t care about what you say until they know how much you care.”
Of what he experienced while on the drug, Rodgers said, “I had a magical experience with the sensation of feeling a hundred different hands on my body, imparting a blessing of love and forgiveness for myself and gratitude for this life, from what seemed to be my ancestors.”
Upon his return in 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic brought much of the sports world and everyday life to a standstill, Rodgers said he found he was “able to go back in to my job and have a different perspective on things.”
“To be way more free at work, as a leader, as a teammate, as a friend, as a lover,” he continued. “I really feel like that experience paved the way for me to have the best season of my career.” | 2022-08-09T09:49:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Aaron Rodgers at no risk from NFL for ayahuasca usage - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/09/aaron-rodgers-no-risk-nfl-ayahuasca-usage/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/09/aaron-rodgers-no-risk-nfl-ayahuasca-usage/ |
Megan Aldridge carries her 3-month old son, Mac, as Biden administration members tour Mamatoto Village, a maternal-care facility in Northeast D.C. in July. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post) (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
As part of a major push by the Biden administration to address the nation’s maternal health crisis, senior officials have traveled the country for the past year, talking to midwives, doulas and people who have given birth about their experiences. They’ve held summits at the White House.
The result: an almost 70-page plan aimed at taking the United States from being the worst place to give birth among high-income nations — especially for Black, Native American and rural women — to “the best country in the world to have a baby.” But maternal health experts say it remains to be seen whether the federal initiative is enough to accomplish the administration’s goal.
As the only high-income nation that doesn’t guarantee access to provider home visits or paid parental leave in the postpartum period, the obstacles are formidable. The roots of the nation’s maternal health crisis lie in an accumulation of life events that start long before pregnancy begins and that are centuries in the making. Experts and the administration acknowledge that addressing maternal mortality means understanding the effects imposed on expectant mothers by racism, housing policy, policing, climate change and pollution.
Experts say the blueprint, which includes extending Medicaid coverage to a full year postpartum and requiring hospitals to document whether they’re improving maternal care, is a step on the way toward more sweeping societal changes needed to cut rates of maternal mortality and morbidity and reduce persistent racial disparities.
“Improving maternal health is not just going to be in the hospital setting. It’s not just going to be in our outpatient clinics,” said Laxmi Mehta, a cardiologist at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and an advocate of teams that manage cardiovascular disease, a leading cause of maternal death. “This is all hands on deck.”
The White House says it is taking a “whole-of-government” approach that goes beyond health-care delivery solutions.
“I directed government agencies to come up with deliberate and tangible plans to address the maternal health crisis in this country,” Vice President Harris, who is spearheading the efforts, said in a statement.
The administration’s plan provides a set of more than 50 actions. Part of the administration’s financial commitment includes a $470 million budget request to expand the workforce involved with pregnancies and births, improve data collection and address behavioral health.
LaTasha Seliby Perkins remembers sitting in an exam room nine weeks pregnant with her first child. Perkins waited for the doctor to bring up the fact that her age — 37 — put her and the baby at higher risk of complications.
She was already nervous. Black maternal mortality and morbidity had become headline news, and fears of becoming a casualty of the nation’s maternal health crisis accompanied her to the appointment. So when the doctor didn’t mention that her age put her at risk, she did.
Confused, he looked down at her chart and said, “ ‘Oh! You are over 35. So, let’s talk about this,’ ” Perkins, a family medicine physician in D.C., recalled. That was a big deal, said Perkins, now 41. “If you’re going to miss something as important as my age, then what other things are you going to miss?” She switched doctors immediately.
“If you really care about Black women’s lives, don’t just talk about it. Do something,” Perkins said. “I’m ready for the do-something phase.”
Perkins’s new doctor allowed her to be a patient first and not a doctor having to monitor her own care, even as she developed gestational diabetes and needed a cervical stitch to keep her cervix from opening too early in pregnancy. And her daughter was in a breech position and needed to be delivered by C-section.
A thought nagged at Perkins: What if she wasn’t a doctor who knew the implications of that missed question during her first prenatal appointment?
The campaign to improve care comes at a time when there is an unprecedented spotlight on pregnancy and the implications of childbirth with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Each year, thousands of people experience unexpected pregnancy complications — cardiovascular issues, hypertension, diabetes — and about 700 die, making pregnancy and childbirth among the leading causes of death for all teenage girls and women 15 to 44 years old.
University researchers have estimated there could be up to a 25 to 30 percent increase in maternal deaths now that access to abortion services is no longer legal nationwide.
“Given what we have to offer people in terms of health care, it just makes sense” that maternal deaths would increase following the Supreme Court ruling overturning the constitutional right to abortion, said Edward Hills, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Meharry Medical College.
And considerable gaps in death exist based on geography, too, with women overall who live in rural communities about 60 percent more likely to die than their urban counterparts.
“We are at an inflection point,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said. “We as a country, because of covid-19, have really seen the price we pay for allowing these inequities.”
The past 2½ years have forced the nation to reckon with the ways entrenched racial inequality is evident in various realms. And Brooks-LaSure, whose agency provides health insurance to more than 100 million people, is calling for measures that go beyond seminars addressing implicit bias.
Those include CMS’s new reporting requirement for hospitals, which is part of the agency’s “pay-for-reporting quality program” that reduces payments to hospitals not meeting that standard. Additionally, hospitals that take quality-improvement measures would receive what has been proposed as a “birthing-friendly” designation.
“As the major purchaser of health coverage in this country, people pay a lot of attention to what we as an agency do,” said Brooks-LaSure, adding that the agency tried to “integrate the perspectives of those with lived experience into policymaking,” not dictate solutions to the public.
But Rachel Hardeman, founding director of the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, said she has “concerns — and not because I think anything that has been highlighted in the blueprint is wrong or inaccurate.”
But Hardeman said providing access may not be enough and assuming that it is “may or may not be true.”
Karen A. Scott, an obstetrician-gynecologist who is also a quality-improvement and implementation scientist, said that too often, measures of evaluating care are based on clinical protocols rather than the experiences of Black women and people giving birth.
Consider hemorrhage carts, which are stocked with tools and medications to stop a leading cause of maternal mortality and morbidity. Scott said while having a hemorrhage cart is crucial, it’s not enough if complaints of headaches and double vision have been ignored for weeks.
“Just because you don’t see the pathology that you define doesn’t mean someone’s not being hurt or harmed,” said Scott, who created an instrument to measure Black patients’ experiences of obstetric racism, capturing what she describes as the misalignment between hospital intentions of providing safe and high quality care and patients’ actual experiences.
White House Domestic Policy Adviser Susan Rice acknowledges the administration’s blueprint alone isn’t sufficient to eradicate the maternal mortality and morbidity crisis but said it lays out necessary steps to begin addressing the problem. Federal agencies are “building new muscle and sinew and expectations,” Rice said.
“We are now judging the private sector providers, the system, on how well they perform, and holding them to a standard,” she said.
All states provide Medicaid coverage to low-income women who are pregnant, with the safety net program covering 42 percent of the country’s births. But coverage runs out 60 days after delivery, causing many women to become uninsured shortly after giving birth. Democrats’ pandemic relief bill, passed last year, let states extend health insurance benefits to 12 months after delivery, with federal funding provided. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis, 22 states and the District have opted to extend coverage.
“These are not just blue states that are taking this up,” Rice said after touring Mamatoto Village, a nonprofit that provides doula services, breastfeeding assistance, nutrition coaching and mental health support for about 350 families from a nondescript building in Northeast D.C. Inside, there is a wash of warm lights, magenta and blue walls and art by Black artists. Cranky babies had their teething gums soothed with frozen breast milk. Expectant mothers picked up bands to support their growing bellies and learned how to cook iron-rich foods.
They listened as Megan Aldridge, an emergency management strategist who lives in suburban Maryland, told them about how she paid out of pocket to become a client at the center because it wasn’t covered by her insurance. She wanted a different level of care with her third pregnancy, which was uneventful.
She delivered a healthy nine-pound baby without complications but then suffered a postpartum hemorrhage and preeclampsia, a complication of pregnancy that can cause high blood pressure. Her Mamatoto support team noticed her blood pressure was too high compared with her baseline, during a home visit. She returned to the hospital twice before being admitted. The first time, she was told she didn’t meet the hospital’s protocol for preeclampsia and was sent home.
They listened as Aza Nedhari, executive director of Mamatoto, urged them to consider what a standard model of 12 months of postpartum coverage — and care — would look like beyond the routine six-week post-birth doctor’s visit. Nedhari said her team checks in with families three to five times after birth, providing overnight support if necessary.
“Surviving during pregnancy and the postpartum period is the least of what we’re asking,” Jamila Perritt, a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist, told them. “That is the floor.” | 2022-08-09T10:15:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maternal mortality is a U.S. crisis. A new effort aims to change that. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/08/maternal-mortality-biden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/08/maternal-mortality-biden/ |
Robert Terwilliger of Williamsburg, Pa., participates in a Lyme disease vaccine trial on Aug. 5. (Gary M. Baranec/AP)
’You’re sterilizing the tick’: Lymerix was heralded as a ’unique’ innovation
“With increasing global rates of Lyme disease, providing a new option for people to help protect themselves from the disease is more important,” Annaliesa Anderson, the head of vaccine development at Pfizer, said in a news release.
Although traditionally more prevalent in New England, Lyme disease has been detected in all 50 states and D.C. About 476,000 people in the United States are treated annually for Lyme disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pop star Justin Bieber revealed in 2020 that he had been diagnosed with Lyme disease, and Canadian singer Avril Lavigne has also talked about her struggles with the disease and its complications. | 2022-08-09T10:15:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pfizer and Valneva developing new Lyme disease vaccine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/09/pfizer-lyme-disease-vaccine-valneva/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/09/pfizer-lyme-disease-vaccine-valneva/ |
Brian Standefer called it “a surreal and emotional thing, especially since we’d lost Travis.”
Terry Pettijohn with the note in a bottle he found while cleaning up trash along a bayou in La Marque, Tex. (Alanah Brown)
“The rest of us were devastated,” Standefer said.
“When something like that happens, you think a lot about the fun times you had together,” he added.
Even as he and his childhood buddies reminisced, they had forgotten about the message in a bottle — until this summer. They were shocked to learn that 27 years later, it had surfaced downstream, just two miles away.
“I couldn’t believe he’d found that bottle — I hadn’t thought about it since the day we threw it in,” said Standefer, now a certified financial planner in League City, about 14 miles from where he grew up in La Marque.
“I saw this really nasty piece of carpet, and when I picked it up, there were lots of cans and beer cans underneath it,” he said. “But this particular bottle stood out — it was buried halfway into the ground.”
“Only this time," Standefer said, “I hope it doesn’t take somebody 27 years to find it.” | 2022-08-09T10:15:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brian Standefer left a note in a bottle 27 years ago. Someone just found it. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/09/brian-standefer-message-bottle-texas/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/09/brian-standefer-message-bottle-texas/ |
The singer’s turn in ‘Grease’ came just as Generation X started having questions about everything having to do with sex. Tell us more, tell us more. And she did.
Olivia Newton-John greets the press in 1978. (Bandphoto/Starstock/Photoshot/Everett Collection)
It didn’t matter that Newton-John was pushing 30 at the time; everyone in “Grease” was far too old to be playing a high school student, and what exactly was “Grease” supposed to be anyhow, besides an underwhelming act of musical theater? Was it an early case of nostalgia disorder, the final throes of a ’70s fixation with the ’50s? Was “Grease” intended as a farce meant to delight people old enough to appreciate a rough facsimile of American high school life before the Vietnam War era? Or was it just an excuse to pair Newton-John and the ruling heartthrob of the moment, John Travolta (as Danny Zuko), with just enough of a movie around them to send a double-album soundtrack to the Top 40 stratosphere?
And then, a couple years later, the depths and miseries of middle school: Newton-John is an angel once more, this time arriving on roller skates, the muse Terpsichore (a.k.a. Kira) in the objectively terrible musical comedy “Xanadu,” which was released in the summer of 1980 during a tricky segue in the story of Gen X’s upbringing.
You can hear “Physical” a hundred times, maybe a thousand, before you really hear what it’s about, and it’s not exercise. It’s a woman taking control of seduction, claiming for herself the tactics usually deployed by men: the flirtation, the dinner, the movie, the horny insistence. “There’s nothing left to talk about, ’less it’s horizontally.” Although Newton-John would not survive a coming onslaught of the far more suggestive pop hits of Prince and Madonna and beyond, she showed us a door to a kind of forbidden zone, if you chose to go through it, and naturally, we did. | 2022-08-09T10:15:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Olivia Newton-John, the pop angel who guided us to the forbidden zone - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/09/olivia-newton-john-appreciation-essay/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/09/olivia-newton-john-appreciation-essay/ |
Justice Alito is living up to promises to supporters of his nomination
His anger and commitment to expanding the meaning of freedom of religion are exactly what his champions wanted in a justice.
Perspective by Duncan Hosie
Duncan Hosie is a writer and civil rights lawyer. A graduate of Yale Law School, he previously was a Marshall scholar at the University of Oxford, where he received a master's degree in history.
In his first public speech since writing the opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was angry. Speaking recently at a gilded hall in Rome, Alito ridiculed world leaders who criticized his decision. His sardonic broadsides went viral, with legal observers agape at the spectacle of a sitting Supreme Court justice swiping at Justin Trudeau, Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron.
Alito’s headline-grabbing attacks crowded out discussion of another important part of his speech: his comments on religion. He bemoaned America’s “increasingly secular society” and its “turn away from” religion. He quoted scripture and, echoing St. Augustine, said “our hearts are restless until we rest in God.”
Alito also suggested two groups — nonbelievers and people who think religion is “just not all that important” — threaten “religious liberty.” These are fighting words that show a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitution’s commitment to the separation of church and state. But no one should be surprised. These beliefs pervade the Christian Right, and in fact, Alito’s support for them are a reason he became a Supreme Court justice in the first place.
Alito rose to the Supreme Court thanks to luck, loyalty to the legal right and a game of musical chairs. When Justice Sandra Day O’Connor retired in 2005, President George W. Bush first nominated John G. Roberts Jr. to fill her seat. A few weeks later, he named Roberts to fill a new vacancy created by the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and slotted his White House counsel, Harriet Miers, to fill O’Connor’s seat.
The religious right immediately recoiled at Miers. Some raised concrete objections. She had previously donated to conservative Democrats. Worse, social conservatives saw her answers to an election questionnaire in 1989 as insufficiently opposed to LGBTQ rights. Others fretted that she lacked the verve, ideology and chops to challenge the left — especially when the appointed hour came to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Some of this speculation was baseless; Miers had been a member of Texas Right to Life and led a charge to remove a bar association’s support for abortion rights in the mid-1990s. But Miers didn’t have an extensive paper trail on the issue, and she gave cagey and confusing answers when pressed by Republican senators about whether she believed in a constitutional right to privacy.
The right revolted over her nomination, going so far as to buy television commercials clamoring for a more conservative pick. Their mutiny, along with Miers’s uneven performance as she courted senators, made continuing with the nomination untenable for Bush and forced Miers to withdraw.
But the initial choice unnerved the President’s supporters, who began to question whether Bush was truly committed to using courts to achieve sweeping right-wing social policy.
In a bid to appease them, Bush then nominated Alito, a stalwart conservative whom the right trusted to remake America’s highest court. Alito had spent his life in the trenches of the conservative legal movement. Alito went to law school, in his telling, because he disagreed with Warren Court decisions about the separation of church and state and the rights of criminal defendants and voters. As a federal appellate judge, he consistently ruled against some (prisoners, death row inmates and victims of discrimination seeking redress in courts) and consistently for others (police, corporations and Christians).
Crucially, he passed the right’s anti-Roe litmus test with flying colors. In fact, as a Department of Justice lawyer in the 1980s, he helped craft a legal strategy to undermine the constitutional right to abortion. And as a lower court judge in 1991, he famously wrote a solo-dissent arguing that a state law requiring women to notify their husbands before obtaining an abortion did not unduly burden their privacy rights, a view later rejected by the Supreme Court.
The justice he would ultimately replace, Justice O’Connor, rebuked Alito’s extreme position, noting with two other justices that “a state may not give to a man the kind of dominion over his wife that parents exercise over their children.” To the religious right, Alito’s position on marital dominion was a virtue, not a vice, and they quickly mobilized to get him confirmed.
Nothing illustrated their commitment to Alito quite like the national telecast held on the eve of his confirmation hearing in January 2006. It was the third installment of a series called “Justice Sunday” intended to boost support for President Bush’s judicial nominees. Broadcast on Christian radio and television and beamed into churches all across America, this pro-Alito production had the potential to reach over 80 million households. The speakers were a who’s who of the religious right: televangelists, politicians, fundamentalist pastors, avowed Christian nationalists, conservative legal movement tacticians and right-wing gadflies.
To muster support for Alito’s nomination, Justice Sunday orators flirted with calls for the United States to become a theocracy and posited that Christianity should occupy a place of primacy in American life. Don Feder, the president of an organization called “Jews Against anti-Christian Defamation,” told Justice Sunday viewers point blank that America’s Constitution was made for government by Christians.
Rev. Jerry Falwell claimed in his address that there had been a “terrible move toward secularization in our county” that Alito could help staunch. “Let’s confirm this man, Judge Alito, to the U.S. Supreme Court, and let’s make one more step toward bringing America back to one nation under God,” he said. Name checking Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, Falwell proclaimed that Alito would be part of a Godly “reconstruction of a court system gone awry.”
Speaker after speaker argued liberals persecuted American Christians, pointing to federal court decisions preventing Christians from using the government to promote their faith. And Sen. Rick Santorum (R-P. A.) told the Justice Sunday crowd that Alito would stand athwart to “extreme liberal judges” who were “destroying traditional morality, creating a new moral code which prohibits any dissent.”
After the Senate confirmed his nomination, Alito wrote an unusual thank you note to James Dobson, a key figure in the Christian right who spoke at Justice Sunday. “This is just a short note to express my heartfelt thanks to you and the entire staff at Focus on the Family for your help and support during the past few, challenging months,” the freshly-seated justice wrote. “As long as I serve on the Supreme Court, I will keep in mind the trust that has been placed in me.”
He has stayed true to that promise. The Justice Sunday speakers stewed in grievance and victimhood, conflating the loss of Christian cultural power with oppression. This thinking infused Alito’s recent speech in Rome. Echoing Santorum, he condemned the “growing hostility to religion, or at least the traditional religious beliefs that are contrary to the new moral code that is ascendant in some sectors.” And he suggested Christianity should be treated with special concern and regard in Western society, recounting his horror over seeing a young boy at a Berlin museum who couldn’t identify Christian iconography.
This thinking also permeates Alito’s jurisprudence. In 2015, for example, he argued in dissent that the Supreme Court’s decision-making same-sex marriage a right would be used to “vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy.” Equal constitutional rights would be “exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent” and cause the “marginalization of the many Americans who have traditional ideas” about the subjugation of LGBTQ people.
He has almost reflexively voted to erode the separation of church and state, undermine LGBTQ rights and dole out new privileges for Christians to free them from complying with secular laws. Perhaps most consequentially, he penned the theologically-inspired opinion overturning Roe that has led scores of states to ban abortion on religious grounds.
Justice Alito refracts his jurisprudence through the stained glass of the Christian right and its resentments, and he relishes being a combatant in the culture war. His Rome speech shows that he’s not stopping anytime soon. | 2022-08-09T10:16:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Justice Alito is living up to promises to supporters of his nomination - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/09/justice-alito-is-living-up-promises-supporters-his-nomination/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/09/justice-alito-is-living-up-promises-supporters-his-nomination/ |
It starts with organizing locally, where the greatest threats exist.
A stack of books that have been banned in various places around the country on display at Brooklyn's Central Library, which in response to a recent wave of censorship maneuvers recently offered free membership to anyone in the U.S. between 13 and 21 to check out digital versions of books. (Ted Shaffrey/AP)
And in Llano, Tex., a single complaint from a resident about books on sexuality, gender and race (“pornographic filth,” she charged) in the public library’s section for young readers prompted a purge of texts ranging from Maurice Sendak’s “In the Night Kitchen” to Ta-Nehisi Coates’s acclaimed “Between the World and Me.” This set off an uproar after which officials dissolved the library board, closed meetings to the public and fired a librarian who had objected.
Censorship battles’ new frontier: Your public library | 2022-08-09T10:16:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book bans are threatening American democracy. Here’s how to fight back. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/08/09/banned-books-censorship-fight-back/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/08/09/banned-books-censorship-fight-back/ |
Casper is hiring those with ‘exceptional sleep ability’ to snooze in its stores and on TikTok
Casper, which launched eight years ago as an online-only mattress company, is hiring people with an “exceptional sleeping ability” and “a desire to sleep as much as possible” to exercise those natural talents for money. Those tapped to be “Casper Sleepers” will snooze in the company’s stores and “in unexpected settings out in the world,” serving as real-life mannequins and in-house influencers whose catnaps and siestas will be spun into “TikTok-style content.”
A massive snowstorm left dozens stranded in an Ikea. They slept on the display beds.
For nearly a decade, the “bed-in-a-box” retailer has sold mattresses online, a new concept when it launched in 2014.
“Before we started this company, the idea of sleeping on your mattress before you bought it just didn’t exist,” one of the five co-founders, Philip Krim, told The Washington Post in 2018. Their gambit paid off: Casper raked in $1 million in its first month of business and more than $100 million in its first full year, The Post reported.
But Casper’s founders quickly realized they’d underestimated how much people valued the physical experience of mattress shopping. When they first opened for business, a would-be customer came to the company’s office at the time, a one-bedroom apartment in New York City.
“On day one, we had someone knock on our door and say, ‘I’m here to try out the mattress,’” Krim said. “That’s when we realized, by accident, just how important the physical experience was going to be.”
In 2015, the company opened several pop-up stores, with co-founder and Chief Creative Officer Luke Sherwin admitting to The Post at the time that “one of our biggest challenges is educating consumers that an amazing mattress can be bought online.” While employees offered coffee and waffles to lure people into the pop-up in Georgetown, Sherwin told The Post that “D.C. has a large community of Casper fans already.”
More than seven years later, Casper is trying to make inroads on TikTok, Gen Z’s social media platform of choice. It’s working, at least with Trost. In her video application, she said she had just woken up to a notification about the job posting. Before getting out of bed, she fired up her camera and rubbed some sleep out of her eyes — all evidence that “it already looks like I’m doing a good job,” she said. Trost could not immediately be reached for an interview early Tuesday, presumably because she was sleeping.
Other would-be Casper Sleepers also made their cases. CJ wrapped herself up in a blanket in her application video. Ashley included photos and videos of herself sleeping through multiple scenarios: as a baby, on a floor, while snuggling a dog, while leaning against a desk with a backpack on — all set to the Hollow Coves’s song “Coastline.” Erick said his friends and family had taken photos of him sleeping at different times and places, which flashed across the screen as he made an additional pitch.
“Yesterday, I slept on the bus, I usually sleep on trains and I can sleep like that — snap — on planes,” he said, adding, “What can I say, transit time is sleep time.” | 2022-08-09T10:16:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mattress company Casper hiring people to sleep - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/09/casper-paid-professional-sleep-job/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/09/casper-paid-professional-sleep-job/ |
Supporters of former president Donald Trump stand outside his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., after Trump said Monday night that FBI agents raided it. (Marco Bello/Reuters)
It’s also an army that, it bears noting, was once quite consumed with the import of document security by would-be presidential candidates — and quite happy to promote the idea that their preferred candidate ought to “lock” such an opponent “up.”
Trump immediately likened the raid to what happens in third-world countries. Plenty happily echoed that talking point, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and the House Judiciary Committee’s Republicans, led by Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio). “Doesn’t the FBI have better things to do than harass the former PRESIDENT?” read a tweet from the House Judiciary GOP’s account.
Another talking point promoted by the House Judiciary GOP and Fox News commentators was the idea that, if they could go after Trump like this, nobody is safe.
Many blamed Biden — Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade went so far as to say that the order for the raid “has to have come from @POTUS and/or someone in White House” — despite there being zero evidence the president had any role.
The responses from the highest levels of the GOP soon arrived, and they were equally pitched.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) assured Monday night that Garland had better be prepared to answer questions. But even without any of those questions answered, McCarthy declared: “The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.” The Republican National Committee declared that “Democrats continually weaponize the bureaucracy against Republicans. This raid is outrageous.”
That’s a lot of firm conclusions based on not much at all. But it’s the fruit of years of Trump claiming persecution.
First there was the Russia investigation, which, it turned out, included plenty of evidence of potential obstruction of justice and even coordination with Russians — per a report by the then-GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee — but is now shorthand for a classic “witch hunt” on the right. There was the Ukraine impeachment, which ended with Trump being acquitted but included plenty of remarkable details about using foreign policy to benefit his reelection. Lastly was Jan. 6, which many top Republicans initially acknowledged was very bad and even blamed Trump, only to acquit him at his second impeachment trial on a technicality and quickly revert to standing by Trump when it was clear he was going nowhere politically.
Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that this investigation hardly comes out of nowhere: Trump’s handling of government documents has long been a focal point. The Washington Post reported as far back as February on Trump’s “relentless document destruction habits.” A couple of days later, the National Archives confirmed that it had retrieved 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago — including records marked as “classified” and even “top secret” — that should have been turned over, and then asked the Justice Department to investigate, which it clearly has.
It also bears noting that this portion of the country was once quite laser-focused on keeping tabs on potentially sensitive government documents. Trump’s best attack on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign was her private email server. Many of those who raised alarm bells about that were very quiet when we learned that government documents had made their way to Mar-a-Lago. (McCarthy, for one, had lambasted Clinton for what he called her “fundamental lack of judgment and wanton disregard for protecting and keeping information confidential” back in 2016.)
Then there’s the matter of supposed political targeting by the Justice Department and the baseless allegations about Biden’s supposed involvement. During the 2016 campaign, Trump encouraged supporters to chant “lock her up” over Clinton’s emails. He had very little compunction about using his power as president to investigate political adversaries, including on Ukraine. And whatever you think of how the Clinton investigation turned out, there was an investigation — a quite public one, involving a presidential candidate in the heat of a campaign, which might well have turned the 2016 election.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), the former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, offered a somewhat more measured response on Monday night. He complained about the proximity of the raid to the midterm elections and cited supposed overreach in past Trump probes. But he also said that “no one is above the law” and added, “time will tell regarding this most recent investigation” into Trump.
That latter sentiment seemed reasonable. By that early juncture, though, his party had already passed him by, deciding it wasn’t worth waiting for time to tell us anything. | 2022-08-09T10:16:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The GOP’s inauspicious knee-jerk reaction to the Trump raid - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/09/gops-inauspicious-knee-jerk-reaction-trump-raid/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/09/gops-inauspicious-knee-jerk-reaction-trump-raid/ |
In this early 2022 photo provided by Global Witness, a new rare earth mine is dug into the side of a mountain in Pangwa, Kachin, Myanmar. The region is close to the Chinese border and the home of hundreds of rare earth mining sites. In the wake of rare earth element mining, an AP investigation has found environmental destruction, the theft of land from villagers and the funneling of money to brutal militias with links to Myanmar’s secretive military government. (Global Witness via AP) (Uncredited/Global Witness)
“I’m only responsible for digging the mountain up and selling it,” Guo said. “The rest is none of my business.....We just see if we can make money. It’s that simple.” | 2022-08-09T10:17:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'The Sacrifice Zone': Myanmar bears cost of green energy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-sacrifice-zone-myanmar-bears-cost-of-green-energy/2022/08/09/1130c6c4-17c3-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-sacrifice-zone-myanmar-bears-cost-of-green-energy/2022/08/09/1130c6c4-17c3-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Cory Abbott held his own in his first start with the Nationals, going toe-to-toe with returning Mets star Jacob deGrom with five scoreless innings on Aug. 2. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Cory Abbott hasn’t been able to stick in his major league career. He’s been a member of three different organizations since the beginning of spring training, bouncing between Class AAA and the majors often over the past two years. Abbott has been developed as a starter but made more appearances as a reliever in his brief career in the majors.
“Disaster,” Abbott said about last season. “I just couldn’t figure out the recovery process as much … and how to manage the workload. I think now, this year, I’ve been able to just know when to take the days, know when to step off the gas pedal a little bit more and not try to really push in and do something, hurt something, tweak something.”
Still, Abbott said the ride is a “beautiful drive" because of the trees and other nature that he doesn’t see where he lives in Arizona.
Abbott has seen mixed results in his two starts. He pitched five scoreless innings and went toe-to-toe with two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob DeGrom as both made their first start of the season. Then, he allowed seven runs and four homers in 3 2/3 innings against the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday.
For the past two years, Abbott’s “normal” has been being a pitcher who has had to adapt by the day. But does he hope that one day that changes?
“Oh, yeah, I hope not to [do both],” Abbott said. “But it’s not something I can think about. … I’m taking it a day at a time. There’s nothing I can do about it. There’s nothing I can really say. I mean, what am I going to do? Pout and say no? | 2022-08-09T10:17:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pitcher Cory Abbott has an up-and-down start with the Nationals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/09/nationals-pitching-cory-abbott/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/09/nationals-pitching-cory-abbott/ |
Micron joins list of computer chip makers planning new U.S. plants
The Idaho-headquartered company says it will seek a federal subsidy under the Chips Act that Biden is set to sign
President Biden is expected to sign legislation Tuesday that provides $52 billion in subsidies to companies building new computer chip manufacturing plants in the United States. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
Semiconductor giant Micron says it will spend $40 billion on new chip-manufacturing facilities in the United States through the end of the decade, joining a list of projects seeking federal subsidies from new legislation that President Biden will sign Tuesday.
The company, based in Boise, Idaho, said the investment will create 5,000 high-tech jobs and will boost the United States’ share of global manufacturing of so-called memory chips to 10 percent from 2 percent today. Memory chips store data and are vital to new technologies such as artificial intelligence, 5G communications and cloud computing.
Micron chief executive Sanjay Mehrotra told The Post that the investment depends on the company receiving part of the $52 billion in subsidies that will become available after Biden signs the Chips and Science Act in a ceremony set for Tuesday morning.
“This legislation is enabling us to make investments that we would not have made otherwise in the U.S.,” Mehrotra said, adding that the new facilities would manufacture “leading edge” chips. “Without the Chips Act this production would not have been in the U.S., and that 2 percent over time would have gone down even to a smaller number.”
Micron is considering “multiple states” as the future site of the manufacturing facilities and will announce its decision in the coming weeks, he said. The company does some manufacturing in Manassas, but makes most of its chips, and all of its highest-tech chips, in Japan, Singapore and Taiwan, he said.
In Detroit, the chip shortage has left the city eerily short of cars
The White House praised the project, which joins similar large U.S. investment plans announced by chipmakers Intel, TSMC and Samsung, all of which are seeking the federal subsidies.
“Thanks to the bipartisan Chips and Science Act, America is poised to once again lead the world in semiconductor research, design, and manufacturing,” Sameera Fazili, deputy director of the National Economic Council, said in a statement.
Computer chips, which are the brains that operate all modern electronics, have been in short supply for nearly two years amid soaring demand and a dearth of factories worldwide. Few companies have been willing to invest the billions of dollars needed to construct the factories, which are packed with some of the industrial world’s most expensive manufacturing equipment.
The shortages have hobbled all types of manufacturing that rely on computer chips — most prominently auto production, which has stalled in the United States and other countries, causing shortages and soaring prices for cars.
The chip shortage has prompted countries around the world to throw billions of dollars of subsidies at manufacturers with the hope of sparking more factory construction. Because chips underpin not only consumer electronics but a variety of military gear, including F-35 fighter jets and Javelin missiles, they are seen as key to national security.
The U.S. subsidy package cleared Congress with rare bipartisan support late last month, after more than a year of wrangling that threatened to delay some factory construction projects. | 2022-08-09T10:17:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Micron to invest $40 billion in semiconductor manufacturing in U.S. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/08/09/micron-40-billion-us-subsidies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/08/09/micron-40-billion-us-subsidies/ |
Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake in 1991 in Paris. (Pierre Guillaud/AFP/Getty Images)
Designer Issey Miyake, known in the fashion world as the prince of pleats and for his innovative cuts and bold style, has died of cancer. He was 84.
His studio, Miyake Design Office, said Tuesday that he died on Aug. 5 of liver cancer, according to the Associated Press.
The pioneering designer, who became a star in the 1970s shortly after he formed his studio, was best known for his origami-style pleated clothing that never wrinkles and for making Apple founder Steve Jobs’s signature black turtlenecks.
Japan’s public media organization NHK reported that a family funeral has taken place and that there will be no further public events, in keeping with Miyake’s wishes.
His clothes weren’t form-fitting like those of his Western counterparts, as he championed freedom of movement, and they were often made with minimal decoration and detail, in sweeping shapes and block colors.
His designs have been worn by a trove of celebrities and put on display in museums around the world. There are 136 Miyake stores in Japan and 134 others worldwide. He went on to design handbags, watches and fragments before retiring in 1997.
Miyake, who was born in Hiroshima in southern Japan in 1938, was 7 when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city in 1945, killing tens of thousands, including his mother, who died of radiation exposure three years later, he wrote in an opinion piece for the New York Times in 2009. He said he had never wanted “to be defined by my past.”
“I did not want to be labeled ‘the designer who survived the atomic bomb,’ and therefore I have always avoided questions about Hiroshima. They made me uncomfortable,” he wrote as he urged President Barack Obama to visit the city during an Asian tour. “But now I realize it is a subject that must be discussed if we are ever to rid the world of nuclear weapons.”
“I close my eyes, I still see things no one should ever experience,” he wrote. “A bright red light, the black cloud soon after, people running in every direction trying desperately to escape — I remember it all.”
Miyake went on to study graphic design at a Tokyo art university, according to Reuters, and then clothing design in Paris, where he worked as an apprentice for fashion designers Guy Laroche and Hubert de Givenchy. He later moved to New York and then back to Tokyo.
Apple co-founder Jobs told his biographer that he had asked the Japanese designer to make him a uniform initially for his Apple staff but that idea was quickly dismissed by employees. Jobs, however, took to wearing the black shirts himself often paired with stiff blue jeans and white sneakers.
“So I asked Issey to make me some of his black turtlenecks that I liked, and he made me like a hundred of them,” Jobs said, showing off a stack in his wardrobe. “I have enough to last for the rest of my life.” | 2022-08-09T10:58:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Issey Miyake, famed Japanese fashion designer, dies of cancer - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/japanese-designer-issey-miyake-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/japanese-designer-issey-miyake-dead/ |
Actress Anne Heche is in a coma after crashing into home, rep says
Anne Heche arrives at the premiere of “The Tender Bar” on Dec. 12, 2021, at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. Heche is in the hospital after her car smashed into a house and erupted into flames. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
On Friday around 10:55 a.m., a car crashed into a home in the Mar Vista neighborhood, causing both the vehicle and the house to erupt into “heavy fire,” the Los Angeles Fire Department said. Heche, 53, was pulled from the car, a Mini Cooper, and transported to the hospital.
The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating the circumstances of the crash, including the possibility that Heche may have been driving under the influence, LAPD spokeswoman Officer Norma Eisenman confirmed to The Washington Post. A warrant for the actress’s blood was obtained the day of the incident, Eisenman said. As of early Tuesday, Heche had not been charged with any crime. | 2022-08-09T11:25:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Actress Anne Heche is in a coma following crash into home, rep says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/09/anne-heche-coma/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/09/anne-heche-coma/ |
Pro-Trump brand fined by FTC for incorrect ‘Made in the USA’ labels
The Utah-based Lions Not Sheep apparel company and its owner must pay $211,335, officials say
A Lions Not Sheep T-shirt carrying a false "Made in the USA" label, according to the Federal Trade Commission. (Federal Trade Commission)
T-shirts and other apparel sold by Lions Not Sheep feature American flags, guns and phrases commonly associated with right-wing groups — and the company promises to ship a free copy of the U.S. Constitution with every order.
“We are a generation of leaders. We are a generation of lions,” the website states.
“Wear this shirt as a public DECLARATION you are,” the Lions Not Sheep Facebook page adds.
But even though the labels on those shirts read “Made in the USA,” the company’s products are actually imported from other countries, according to a Federal Trade Commission complaint.
“Stop making bogus Made in USA claims, and [come] clean about foreign production,” the trade commission said in a late-July statement announcing actions against Lions Not Sheep.
Now, the Utah-based apparel brand and its owner, Sean Whalen, have been ordered to pay a $211,335 fine and to cease “Made in USA Fraud,” according to the FTC.
“Companies that slap phony Made in USA labels on imported goods are cheating their customers and undercutting honest businesses, and we will hold those companies and their executives accountable for their misconduct,” Sam Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in May when announcing the actions.
Whalen and Lions Not Sheep didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post. However, the brand addressed the FTC’s announcement in an Instagram post earlier this year, saying “Our T-Shirts are Printed in the USA! Our hats are embroidered in the USA.”
“I’m proud to have built a company from a single tee shirt on blood sweat and tears and who employs dozens of hard working Americans,” the post states. “Lots of folks who haven’t done much always have plenty to say, but we at LNS are head down working hard to continue to grow and support our first responders, military, and all patriots across the globe.”
The journey from fabric to T-shirt — such as the one depicting Donald Trump as the Terminator above the words “I’ll be back” — begins overseas, the company now discloses on its website. Manufacturers in China, Colombia or Bangladesh create blank apparel and ship the items to American facilities, where they’re “printed on, embroidered, labeled, tagged, and bagged” before being sent to Lions Not Sheep headquarters, the company’s website states.
But the FTC says that to qualify for the “Made in the USA” label, items can only include “a negligible amount of foreign content.”
According to the complaint, Lions Not Sheep not only falsely marketed its products as being “100% AMERICAN MADE,” it went a step further by swapping the garments’ original labels.
In October 2020, Whalen shared a video on social media in which he said he “could conceal the fact that his shirts are made in China by ripping out the origin tags and replacing them with tags stating that the merchandise was made in the United States,” according to the FTC.
“This is how it works,” he said in the video.
“Whalen and Lions Not Sheep must stop claiming that products are made in the United States unless they can show that the product’s final assembly or processing — and all significant processing — takes place here and that all or virtually all ingredients or components of the product are made and sourced here.”
The rare fashion brand that’s beloved by the women of Trump world and not afraid to show it
Lions Not Sheep is a name that riffs on a popular conservative stance — one that gained prominence during the pandemic by denigrating those who adhered to strict health guidelines as followers, or “sheep.” The brand often features products with right-wing messaging.
A recent Instagram advertisement for “Shall Not Be Infringed” tees was captioned with the text of the Second Amendment. Other apparel includes phrases like “Give Violence A Chance,” “One Nation Under God” and “Let’s Go Brandon,” a disparaging reference to President Biden. | 2022-08-09T11:25:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lions Not Sheep clothing brand fined for swapping ‘Made in USA’ labels - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/09/lions-sheep-clothing-brand-fine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/09/lions-sheep-clothing-brand-fine/ |
A 10th Century Khmer sandstone statue of Skanda was among the items seized and displayed by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, New York City, Aug. 8, 2022. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters)
The United States is returning 30 “looted antiquities” to Cambodia, among them Buddhist and Hindu religious statues and ancient artifacts, officials in New York said.
In a repatriation ceremony on Monday, Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams and Acting Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations Ricky J. Patel handed over the intricate artifacts to the Cambodian Ambassador to the United States, Keo Chhea. He said they would be “cherished” and returned to the Southeast Asia nation they were stolen from.
The items include artifacts from the Bronze Age to the 12th Century, the attorney’s office said in a statement. Notable pieces being repatriated include a 10th Century sandstone sculpture of the Hindu god of war Skanda riding on a peacock and a monumental sculpture of Ganesha — a central Hindu and Buddhist deity, both looted from the ancient Khmer capital, Koh Ker.
“Today, we celebrate the return of Cambodia’s cultural heritage to the Cambodian people, and reaffirm our commitment to reducing the illicit trafficking of art and antiquities,” Williams said.
The New York attorney’s office said the artifacts had been “stolen from Cambodia as part of an organized looting network” and many sold by antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford to collectors and museums in the United States.
Also known as “Pakpong Kriangsak,” Latchford was a Bangkok-based dealer, charged in 2019 with wire fraud conspiracy and other crimes related to schemes to sell looted Cambodian antiquities on the international art market. The New York attorney’s office said this was largely done by creating fake provenance documents and falsifying invoices. Latchford died in 2020 and the indictment was dismissed.
The Cambodian ambassador said that plundering priceless antiquities remained “a global problem,” which runs much deeper than one man and can involve “some of the world’s most prestigious places.”
“We are eager to welcome back home our precious cultural heritage,” he said, likening it to the “returning of the souls of our culture back to our people.”
Pandora Papers: Global hunt for looted treasures leads to offshore trusts
He thanked the United States for its “noble assistance” and urged art dealers and collectors to be more thorough in checking the provenance of international items.
“Each piece has a significant connection to our people, culture and our history,” he added. “We hope the world will now not only appreciate the beauty of these antiquities but also their spiritual meaning and cultural significance to the Cambodian people.”
According to Reuters the items will now go on display at the National Museum of Cambodia in the capital, Phnom Penh.
Civil conflicts in Cambodia between the 1960s and 1990s saw statues and other artifacts looted from Koh Ker — the capital of the ancient Khmer empire — and other archaeological sites. They were later sold on the international art market through organized networks. The items were generally smuggled over the Cambodia-Thailand border and transferred to brokers, who transferred them to dealers in Khmer artifacts in Bangkok to sell on.
“These antiquities we return today were ripped from their country,” said Patel. “Beyond their extraordinary beauty and craftsmanship, many are sacred artifacts pried from temples and palaces to be smuggled across borders and peddled by those seeking profit, without any regard to the intangible value they have to the people of their homeland.”
Elsewhere, in the United Kingdom 72 artifacts “forcibly removed” by British soldiers in 1897 will be returned to the Nigerian government, London’s Horniman Museum announced earlier this week. Among them are 12 famed Benin Bronzes, some of Africa’s most culturally significant artifacts.
Similar repatriations of art have been made in Germany and France, as Western countries grapple with the remnants of colonialism and illegal removal. | 2022-08-09T11:25:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | United States repatriates looted Cambodian antiquities from Bronze Age - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/09/united-states-cambodia-looted-art/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/09/united-states-cambodia-looted-art/ |
How to clean if you have indoor allergies
Cleaning the house is one of those necessary adulthood must-dos that sits somewhere near filing taxes on the fun scale. (Unless you’re an accountant or a cleaning devotee, in which case, spill your secrets.)
And it’s even more essential if you have allergies, because it’s an integral part of “environmental control,” says John James, a Colorado-based allergist and immunologist and a spokesman for the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. “This is something that’s very important in allergy treatment,” he says. It’s “the first step, then medical treatments, like doing antihistamines and nasal sprays and such. And then the third step is doing allergy shots or immunotherapy.”
Some of the most common allergens you’d find in your home include pet dander, dust mites and mold spores. Typical reactions are similar to the symptoms of hay fever, James says. (Think nasal drainage, sinus pressure, headaches, itchy eyes and fatigue.) In some cases, they can also cause allergic asthma, with chest tightness, wheezing and shortness of breath.
Although it’s impossible to eradicate all allergens in your home, cleaning will help mitigate and reduce your exposure. And if you have allergies, you might want to consider wearing an N95 mask while cleaning and leaving your home for about an hour after you finish, because you’ll have stirred up some of the allergens.
How to choose the best flooring for allergies
It’s not the dust you’re allergic to; it’s the dust mites that live within said dust. Ninety percent of your home’s dust consists of dead skin cells, which dust mites eat, says Janna Tuck, a Santa Fe, N.M., allergist and a spokesperson for the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
To minimize exposure, use dust-mite covers for your pillows, mattress, box spring and duvets. Mites can settle into the cloth and filling of your bed, and the covers create a barrier between you and the allergens. Tuck recommends washing and changing your sheets at least once a week. You don’t need to wash them in hot water, but dry them on high heat to kill the mites. And replace your pillows annually, she says, because they collect dead skin cells over time: “If you have a 20-year-old feather pillow, it’s disgusting how much of that weight of the pillow is not feathers anymore,” Tuck says.
You don’t need to use a pesticide, such as an acaricide spray, to get rid of mites, James says; wiping surfaces with a damp cloth once or twice a week should suffice. That includes surfaces in rooms you don’t typically frequent, such as a basement, storage closet or formal living room. And wipe down your headboard. (If you have an upholstered headboard, use a handheld vacuum.) It’s also helpful to reduce clutter, because piles of clothes or toys can gather dust.
Use a vacuum with a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter to clean floors, carpets, rugs and any other upholstered items, such as furniture or drapery, at least once a week, Tuck says. Allergens are “protein particles, and they’re very small,” she says. “So unless you’re using a very good filtering system on your vacuum, you’re just moving those particles around.” Empty the vacuum canister each time you use it; otherwise, you’ll just put dirt back into the house.
Tuck also recommends selecting air filters with a minimum efficiency reporting value (MERV) rating of nine or higher and changing them every few months, as well as using a dehumidifier, because dust mites thrive in high humidity.
People who say they’re allergic to dogs and cats are often allergic to the protein found in the animal’s dander, which collects in its fur or hair. (You can also be allergic to the proteins in pet saliva, urine and feces.)
Not having pets is the easiest way to combat a pet dander allergy, James says. But let’s be real: We love our pets. Instead, try keeping the animal out of your bedroom, he says, and limiting your pet’s access to just a few rooms, so you can contain the dander.
Many of the dust-removal techniques also work for pet dander: Wash and change your sheets and vacuum weekly, wipe surfaces once or twice a week, and reduce clutter. Wash your pet’s bed at least once a month, and dry it on high heat. (You can wash it more often if you have a bed that’s easy to launder. James recommends getting one with a removable cover.) Bathing your pet frequently could also help, James says — but consult with your veterinarian to ensure that doing so won’t irritate the animal’s skin.
The proteins in pet allergens are lighter than those associated with dust or mold, Tuck says, so they’re more likely to be airborne. “That’s why, if you have a dog and somebody’s allergic and they walk into your house, within a few minutes they’re like, ‘Do you have a dog?’ and they’re starting to have symptoms,” she says. Pet dander particles are small, so using an air purifier in a contained space could also help reduce symptoms, Tuck says.
The good news: “There’s exceptionally more mold outside your house than is inside your house,” Tuck says. “Your house is your haven if you’re mold allergic.”
But if you have an allergic response to mold spores, you’ll want to be more cautious. Fortunately, preventing mold doesn’t require too much work. “I don’t recommend patients doing anything special for mold other than just keeping [things] dry, and don’t have high humidity, high moisture or water damage,” says Steven Cole, an allergist in Dallas.
Pay attention to basements, showers and tubs, kitchens, windowsills, laundry rooms, garages with refrigerators or freezers, and the space under the sink. Regularly check these areas for standing water, damp sections or leaking faucets and pipes. (And if you keep veggies in your fridge, clean the drawers often, Tuck says.) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends keeping your home’s humidity level between 30 and 50 percent. (A dehumidifier can help.)
Also check inside your washing machine. If it smells odd, that means it’s time to clean it, Tuck says. You can use a special cleaner, or you can put bleach in the dispenser and run an empty cycle with hot water. And pay attention to your houseplants. If you overwater them, mold may start to grow on the soil’s top layer. In this case, take the plant outside and repot it.
Clean bathrooms weekly, and, if you have a fan, always run it after showering. Use a solution of bleach (10 percent) and water (90 percent) to remove mold from a bathtub, Tuck says. Those with allergies should take special care, though, when using bleach, because it can cause a cough and congestion, as well as asthmatic reactions. “Test it out in a larger, ventilated area,” Tuck says. “If number one, it works well for you, meaning it cleans well, and number two, you do well with it, it doesn’t cause you symptoms, then great. But it needs to do both of those things.”
And although it’s fine to scrub away a tiny patch of mold, more extensive or structural damage — for instance, mold spread throughout a bathroom wall — requires professional help, because large quantities of mold can affect even those who don’t have allergies. | 2022-08-09T11:46:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to clean if you're allergic to dust mites, mold or pet dander - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/08/09/cleaning-tips-indoor-allergies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/08/09/cleaning-tips-indoor-allergies/ |
An employee places steel rods in a furnace as tools are forged at the Vaughan & Bushnell Manufacturing Co. facility in Bushnell, Illinois, U.S., on Friday, March 31, 2017. The U.S. Census Bureau is scheduled to release durable goods figures on April 4. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
If the US avoids a recession, or at least a deep one, it will most likely be able to thank industrial companies.
While demand on the consumer side of the economy is weakening, it remains solid in the manufacturing sector and, more important, appears to be sustainable even if shoppers cut back further. Consider the outlook from a few companies most people pay little attention to.
Eaton Corp. Chief Executive Officer Craig Arnold said variations of “strong” and “strength” more than 45 times during a conference call with analysts on Aug. 2, and that’s not counting references to the dollar. “It feels positive, in some cases, too positive,” Arnold, whose company makes electrical gear for construction, power, autos and aerospace, among other goods. With a market value of about $60 billion, Eaton isn’t small.
Illinois Tool Works Inc., which is even larger than Eaton, said its organic sales were up 18% in July from a year earlier, the highest monthly growth rate all year. The company makes all kinds of products for the food service, test and measurement, welding, construction and auto industries, and most of those areas are “off to a really strong start in Q3.”
Companies as diverse as chemical maker DuPont de Nemours Inc., industrial distributor W.W. Grainger Inc. and a metal-bender like Arconic Corp. are saying the same thing: The manufacturing economy is sizzling.
“The industrial parts of the economy are certainly growing faster for us than the non-industrial parts right now,” said DG Macpherson, CEO of Grainger, which sells just about any industrial-related part or gadget you can think of.
While the strength of the industrial economy isn’t new, its ability to power through a downturn in consumer spending is a change from past cycles.
“We strongly believe that the industrial economy will decouple from the consumer economy,’’ Scott Davis, an analyst with Melius Research, said in an email. “There’s just too much pent-up demand for projects and megaprojects that are based more on secular changes than cyclical.”
The reasons for this decoupling are multifold. An obvious one is the recovery of investment in the oil and gas industry. Although some industrial companies pulled back exposure to energy, especially in activity closer to the wellhead, after oil prices sank in mid-2014, the increase in drilling reverberates broadly through the industrial economy with increased demand for steel, construction, trucks and safety equipment.
Another is that the makers of autos and heavy trucks are still struggling to keep up with demand and have huge holes in their inventories that will take a while to rebuild. There were 95,000 cars in inventory in June, down from a monthly average of 660,000 in 2019, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The number of Class 8 trucks, as the big rigs are known, in backlog as a ratio of the build rate was about 10 for the first six months this year, which is lower than last year when the computer-chip shortage was at its peak, but still higher than 6.6 in 2019, according to FTR Associates data. It’s the opposite problem from large retailers, which are grappling with too much inventory.Makers of commercial and private jets also have big backlogs to fill as people, restless from the Covid-19 shut-ins, are on the move again. Construction projects are moving forward, and even consumer-facing companies are continuing with projects to improve their logistics, an area where costs jumped during the pandemic.
The transition to cleaner energy also is also feeding the fire of industrial demand, and the climate change bill passed by the Senate over the weekend would keep those flames burning for some time — perhaps even through a consumer recession.
Eaton’s Arnold has positioned his company to ride the wave of electrical power demand as economies wean themselves off oil. The company has a long history of selling transformers and circuit breakers for power generation and transmission and recently made a push to become a key supplier to electric vehicle manufacturers. The company boosted its 2002 earnings-per-share guidance by 4 cents to a midpoint of $7.56 and increased its forecast for annual organic sales growth to as much as 13% from 11%.
“So despite all the talk about potential slowdown and downturn in the market, and we’ll be ready if we have one, we’re focused on investing to capitalize on what we see as the super growth cycle, driven by favorable trends in the recovery and some of our other end markets,’’ Arnold said on the call.
Eaton, DuPont and ITW, which raised its guidance in May, called out international weakness from the China lockdowns and Europe’s difficulties with soaring energy prices. Still, there are no signs the international weakness is bleeding over to the US. The year-over-year increase in US industrial production in June was more than 4%, a solid pace, and that comes on top of the big rebound of more than 9% in June last year.Ironically, the same supply chain snags that stoked inflation because demand wasn’t being met also kept a lid on the overbuilding of vehicles, homes, electronics and other goods that normally would occur and then cause a pullback in output. The trucking industry, for example, is notorious for the boom-and-bust cycles because companies buy too many trucks when freight demand is strong and then have too much capacity when cargo cools. Those truckers were never able to purchase all the trucks they wanted. There will be no big bust this cycle.
Add it all up, and it makes sense that the manufacturing industry can buoy the economy through a downturn in consumer spending.
• New Chips Act Could Become a $280 Billion Boondoggle: Editorial | 2022-08-09T11:46:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Industrials’ Long Coattails Can Carry the US Economy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/industrials-long-coattails-can-carry-the-us-economy/2022/08/09/6d3c3da4-17d7-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/industrials-long-coattails-can-carry-the-us-economy/2022/08/09/6d3c3da4-17d7-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
The Bond Market’s Yield Curve Has Lost Its Way
The bond market’s yield curve has a sort of mythical hold on economists and investors. It’s easy to see why, given that every recession since the 1950s has been preceded by an inverted curve, which happens when short-term rates rise above long-term ones. And right now, the curve is the most inverted it has been since 2000, with yields on two-year Treasuries almost 0.42 percentage point higher than those on 10-year Treasuries.
Naturally, that has many market participants saying a deep, long and nasty recession is on the horizon. But what if the yield curve is sending a much different message, one that is the opposite of an economic doomsday scenario? Perhaps the message is that the Federal Reserve will ultimately be successful in getting inflation back under control and closer to its 2% target and that a recession can be avoided. That would be beneficial to companies, consumers and financial markets. (The economy may have met the technical definition of a recession by contracting mildly in the first and second quarters, but it won’t be considered one unless the private National Bureau of Economic Research deems it one.)
Sure, this may be wishful thinking, but the latest economic data suggest it could actually happen, starting with the monthly employment report that was released Friday. It showed that 528,000 jobs were added in July, exceeding the median estimate of 250,000 in a Bloomberg survey and well above every one of the 71 forecasts. A few days earlier, the Labor Department said that although total job openings decreased by 605,000 in June from May, at 10.7 million they remain double the long-term average going back to 1999.
Also consider the Institute for Supply Management’s gauge of manufacturing activity. At a reading of 52.8 for July, it’s comfortably above the 50 level that marks the dividing line between expansion and contraction in that part of the economy. The organization’s sister gauge of the services economy unexpectedly rose in July. Overshadowed by those two reports was the Commerce Department’s release of factory orders for June, which showed a 2% advance, a 10-fold increase over the average in the decade before the pandemic.
As my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Jared Dillian noted last week, many consumer-facing companies that would normally be the canaries in the coal mine for those looking for evidence of an impending recession, such as Starbucks Corp. and Uber Technologies Inc., are enjoying pricing power and doing quite well, bolstering the case for a so-called soft landing. And travel companies are experiencing booming demand, with Marriott International Inc. saying hotel occupancy has nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels. Overall, members of the benchmark S&P 500 Index are on track to post record profits for the second quarter.
To be clear, there is nothing inherent about an inverted yield curve that causes a recession. In the six inversions since the 1970s, a recession started an average of 20 months afterward, ranging from 10 months after September 1980 to 33 months after June 1998, according to research firm Statista. A lot can happen in 20 months, as the onset of the pandemic has demonstrated. And it’s arguable that the last extended period of inversion — in August 2019 — was a false positive. Yes, the economy went into a deep recession in the first half of 2020, but that was caused by the pandemic lockdowns. Covid-19 was not on anyone’s radar screen in August 2019. At that time, the concern was that the record economic expansion was tiring and that consumers were running out of steam.
Some strategists say the yield curve’s predictive ability has diminished since the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 and as the Fed and other top central banks have become more intertwined with bond markets. Those at Wells Fargo & Co. wrote in a research note in March that, as a result, “the link between curve shape and growth has been weak at best since 2009.” As they point out, the curve flattened steadily from late 2013 to late 2019, yet gross domestic product growth was stable.
An inverted yield curve should in theory have some negative influence over the economy through the banking system. That’s because banks make money by borrowing at short-term rates and lending it out at long-term ones, and an inverted yield curve should make them less willing to provide funding. But that’s not happening. Fed data show that commercial and industrial loans outstanding have soared by $221.4 billion this year to $2.71 trillion. Not including 2020, when borrowers tapped their credit lines for cash during the early days of the pandemic, this is already the busiest year for lending after 2007’s $235.1 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
So if not a recession, what’s the yield curve’s message now? Quite possibly, it’s that the current high rates of inflation will be coming down in short order. Breakeven rates on five-year US Treasury notes, which are a measure of what traders expect the rate of inflation to be over the life of the securities, confirm that idea. They have declined to less than 2.70% from as high as 3.73% in March. The outlook among consumers for inflation over the coming years has taken a big drop, according to the latest such survey released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York this week. Expectations for inflation three years ahead fell to 3.2% in July from 3.6% the previous month in the second consecutive monthly drop.
No doubt the improved outlook has something to do with the recent drop in fuel and food prices after a big run-up. The American Automobile Association says that gasoline prices have fallen almost $1 a gallon since mid-June. The United Nation’s World Food Price Index dropped in July by the most since January. The Bloomberg Commodity Index is down 14% from its high this year on June 9.
The thing to know about the yield curve is that the Fed has tremendous influence over the short end through its ability to push the target federal funds rate higher or lower. It has almost no influence over the long end, which is set by the market and reflects both inflation expectations, the outlook for short-term rates in the future, the supply of bonds and estimates for growth, among other things.
It’s not as if the chief factors that contributed to tame inflation over the past few decades, namely technological innovation and an aging population that favors saving, have gone away. Perhaps the one exception may be globalization. But if we’ve learned anything from the pandemic-era economy, it’s that the old playbooks are largely irrelevant. Nobody predicted with any degree of accuracy what would come after the economy was shut down, some 17 million were booted from the workforce and the government injected trillions of dollars directly into the pockets of consumers and businesses. And we’re still working through the fallout. In that sense, it wouldn’t be crazy to think that perhaps the yield curve has lost its crystal-ball abilities. More From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion: | 2022-08-09T11:47:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Bond Market’s Yield Curve Has Lost Its Way - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-bond-markets-yield-curve-has-lost-its-way/2022/08/09/3dceb348-17d3-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-bond-markets-yield-curve-has-lost-its-way/2022/08/09/3dceb348-17d3-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
We now know that the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have an active interest in Donald Trump because Trump told us so.
“My beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump said in a rambling statement he released on Monday evening. “They even broke into my safe!”
It’s not entirely clear why the FBI targeted Mar-a-Lago. Trump, who was not there, predictably characterized the search as a Democratic hit job. But the feds were apparently searching for classified records Trump stashed in Palm Beach after leaving the White House. He has already returned some files that the National Archives said belonged to the government, but Bloomberg News and the New York Times reported that the raid was focused on records he might have kept.
Theft of government records is the least of Trump’s legal worries, however. Attorney General Merrick Garland appears to be finally bringing the full weight of federal law enforcement to bear on the former president. Depending on how aggressively Garland pursues Trump for the attempted coup that he and his co-conspirators tried to engineer after he lost the 2020 presidential election, the list of criminal charges could include seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the US and obstruction of official proceedings.
Garland’s choices in the months ahead will have momentous consequences. His correct course of action would be to demonstrate that no president is above the law and indict Trump. As the Jan. 6 committee hearings have already demonstrated, Trump and his team were awash in crimes — including creating slates of false electors to be used in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential vote and pressuring former Vice President Mike Pence to withhold certification of the 2020 election. The Justice Department has convened a grand jury to investigate both of those efforts.
Trump also incited the violent insurrection that took place on Jan. 6, and he did nothing to stop a mob he knew to be armed until after it stormed the Capitol, endangering federal legislators and the police protecting them. He has shown little remorse for the damage he set in motion before, during and after Jan. 6, and his statement about the Mar-a-Lago raid was littered with unhinged distractions his political base will lap up.
“It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections,” he noted. “Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries.”
Trump’s pied pipers at Fox News devoured his talking points. “This is some Third World bullshit,” one of the network’s propagandists, Dan Bongino, said of the Mar-a-Lago raid. Trumpistas in the House of Representatives also fell into line, likening the FBI search to “weaponization” of federal investigations. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the FBI’s actions reminded him of something that might happen in a “ Banana Republic.”
The FBI’s search, and the broader effort to hold Trump accountable, are anything but that, of course. FBI agents don’t get to waltz into a former president’s home and execute a search warrant unless a federal judge has already reviewed the warrant and approved it. A judge wouldn’t have signed off unless investigators demonstrated they had probable cause to search Mar-a-Lago because there was evidence of crime there.That’s not “Third World” lawlessness. That’s how a proper federal investigation unfolds. And those worried that holding a former president accountable for his crimes runs the risk of sparking a constitutional and political crisis should consider the converse: Allowing Trump to end-run the law also threatens to shred the fabric of American democracy and justice.
Garland appears to be convinced that Trump and a collection of his advisers committed crimes, so that’s no longer a debating point. What matters now is whether Garland has the resolve to place all of that damning evidence before a jury, and whether that jury can be convinced that Trump broke the law. Those are strategic issues Garland must consider, just as he must weigh the political consequences of taking Trump to court.
In the end, though, Garland’s primary responsibilities aren’t gauging what kind of jury pool he might encounter or how an indictment will ripple across MAGA-land. The American democratic experiment is at stake, and Garland’s core duty is to charge Trump for the crimes he committed and then let the judicial process run its course. | 2022-08-09T11:47:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump Raid Should Just Be Garland’s Opening Act - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/trump-raid-should-just-be-garlands-opening-act/2022/08/09/d64f94a6-17ca-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/trump-raid-should-just-be-garlands-opening-act/2022/08/09/d64f94a6-17ca-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
A tight housing market and renewed desire for campus life have left some schools with long waiting lists for dorms
University of California at Berkeley students Sanaa Sodhi, right, and Cheryl Tugade look for apartments in Berkeley in March. Many college students are trying to find an affordable place to live as rents surge nationally, affecting seniors, young families and students alike. (Eric Risberg/AP)
The end of summer is always stressful for Jordan Hubbard, as he tries to find a place to live for the upcoming semester. This year is even worse: Military benefits that helped him pay for tuition and housing at New York University ended this spring. He needs the money he’s earning from two jobs this summer, as well as a stipend for his role in student government, to pay for classes.
He knows some people whose parents can help them rent places in the neighborhoods near their NYU classes, but he knows many low-income students are crowding into apartments a long subway ride away from campus. “All I see on my Instagram feed is … ‘Who’s subletting? Who’s looking for roommates?’” he said.
It’s scary, Hubbard said, shortly before the start of his senior year. “I have no way to pay for any kind of housing.”
Surging rental costs and greater demand for traditional campus life after the disruptions of the pandemic have students at some universities scrambling to find housing. At schools struggling with long wait lists for university housing, efforts to accommodate students have led to some unusual solutions.
Housing “is a beast right now,” said Ron Hall, a senior who leads student government at NYU. Sometimes, he said, “students are shut off from being able to come to school because of the housing costs.”
Colleges’ ability to draw students, and their surrounding markets, vary dramatically, and some schools are grappling with declining enrollment. But at some campuses and in some regions, housing issues are acute.
In California, the state is pouring money into building new student housing at public universities, after shortages and legal battles escalated in some college towns. A lawsuit claimed the University of California at Berkeley’s enrollment and resulting demand for scarce housing were straining nearby neighborhoods and forcing longtime residents from their homes, leading to a court order to cap enrollment that was later overturned by state leaders. Berkeley has also faced multiple starts and stops on a project at a park near campus that would include more than 1,000 beds for students.
“The university has faced legal challenges around almost every single housing project it has launched in recent years,” spokesman Dan Mogulof said.
College students: Are you struggling to find housing this year? Share your experience with The Post.
Meanwhile, some of the state’s community colleges, traditionally commuter schools for students juggling jobs and classes, are now planning to build dorms. The University of California at Los Angeles has promised that all incoming freshmen, beginning this fall, will be guaranteed campus housing for up to four years.
The urgency is hard to overstate, said Alex Niles, 21, a student at the University of California at Santa Barbara who is chair of government relations for the University of California Student Association. Last year, he said, “There were students living in illegal subleases and garages, way too many students sleeping in cars parked on the street, or couch-surfing. It’s really common to have 13 students to a house,” he said, with bunk beds cramming four or more students into a room. “Rents are sky-high.”
At Virginia Commonwealth University, senior Sabeeka Khan said a lot of people struggle to pay rent, using their student loans to cover it and worrying near the end of the year when the loan money is drying up. Some students can’t afford to live in safer neighborhoods in Richmond, she said.
At Florida Atlantic University, many more students are asking to live on campus now than before the pandemic. The biggest factor, said Larry Faerman, the acting vice president of student affairs at FAU, is the cost of rentals in the area: He said they have roughly doubled in the past year or 15 months. The cost of driving has gone up, as well.
The school had a wait list of more than 800 students hoping for campus housing in the spring who had to look for alternatives. “I don’t know how many of them will elect not to return to school if they can’t find accommodations,” he said.
They also found that more students than usual held onto their campus housing for the fall. This year, the school has about 175 more students who have signed contracts than it can house. FAU will give those students rooms in local hotels — at the cost of student housing — and provide some transportation to and from campus.
The school is also planning to offer more classes online, he said, to let students learn away from campus.
At the University of Utah, the wait list for housing exceeded 3,500 students this spring.
University officials are planning new residential buildings, but took several interim steps this summer to ease the gap. They sublet an apartment building owned by nearby Westminster College, and plan to use nearly 300 rooms at an on-campus hotel for students this year.
They’re also launching a pilot program to connect students with graduates as far as 45 miles away from campus who are willing to provide housing. The university will charge a flat $5,000-per-semester fee to students and pay that to alumni for rooms or apartments in their homes — or direct it to a scholarship fund, if alumni want to donate. That’s significantly less than the typical rate for a studio apartment near campus, said Bethany Hardwig, director of special projects and outreach in the Office of Alumni Relations.
There is so much need for housing, Hardwig said, that one graduate told her that within an hour of posting an available apartment, 100 people had filled out a form in response. “That just felt really unmanageable,” she said.
Linda Dunn, who has multiple ties to the university, has extra room in her house several miles from campus — but had hesitated to rent it, nervous about having a stranger in her home. The university’s safeguards reassured her. “My neighborhood is very beautiful,” she said, right up against the mountains, minutes from canyons and hiking, and half an hour from multiple ski resorts.
Even in expensive housing markets such as Washington, some students are finding solutions.
At American University, senior Henry Sprouse said he found an apartment near campus relatively easily, and is sharing the two-bedroom with two friends. He’ll pay $950 a month for his half of one bedroom.
His father Scott Sprouse said the process wasn’t as hard as he had worried it might be. Last year, his son’s rent for a 700-square-foot apartment was more than the mortgage payment for the family’s 3,400-square-foot house on an acre and a half just outside of Nashville, he said. “But when I looked at the market, it was a fair price. And when you get a roommate, that helps with that price.”
At Howard University, Cynthia Evers, vice president for student affairs, said they have seen increased demand for housing on campus this year, and have worked to make more beds available on and off-campus.
With uptick in enrollment, Howard University braces for housing shortage
Last year, Jomi Ward helped organize efforts for fellow Howard University students struggling to find affordable apartments. This year, Ward is happy to be able to live on campus, where she applied to be a resident adviser.
“Senior year is my only opportunity to really live the on-campus-housing life, develop connections with other students, and enjoy college,” she said as she packed for the fall semester. “It’s my last hurrah.”
Meanwhile, in New York, NYU officials have seen heavier than usual demand for on-campus housing, and fewer cancellations, according to spokesman John Beckman.
Hubbard, who’s a student leader on campus, said NYU administrators have been very supportive and helpful and he’s grateful for that.
A program allowing students to donate unused meal “swipes” from their dining cards to help others eat was incredibly helpful, as well. “I literally survived off ‘Swipe it Forward,’” for lunches and dinner this past semester, he said.
He has kept a record, since sixth or seventh grade, of the requirements for admission to NYU. “It was always my dream,” he said. School officials are working with him to help keep him enrolled despite the costs, he said.
For now, with the school year starting in weeks, he’s still unsure of where he could live for senior year. But, he said, “things are looking hopeful.” | 2022-08-09T11:47:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | College students scramble for affordable housing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/09/college-student-housing-costs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/09/college-student-housing-costs/ |
What one developmental researcher has learned from studies on young people’s risk-taking behavior, reasoning and more
By Tim Vernimmen
Adolescence is often portrayed as a period of struggle and friction, filled to the brim with exhilarating ups and depressing downs. Young people’s behavior tends to be stereotyped as self-absorbed and impulsive. But how accurate is this picture, and what might explain it?
Developmental neuroscientist Eveline Crone, based at Erasmus University Rotterdam, has studied adolescents, defined by researchers as people ages 10 to 24, for more than 20 years.
She has gradually expanded her interest from the study of the many changes happening in adolescent brains to include her study subjects’ own views and experiences. This has helped to enrich her earlier findings on how young brains learn, produce emotions, process rewards and account for the perspectives of other people. It also provides new inspiration for adults trying to help them.
To study adolescents, Crone visualizes their brain activity while they are engaged in various tasks and games on computer screens: ones designed to assess behaviors and attitudes toward things such as risk and reward, how they think about and are influenced by others, and more. She supplements these studies with other methods such as surveys and youth panels — and, these days, consults young people for their input from the moment the study is designed.
In an article in the 2020 Annual Review of Psychology, Crone and colleague Andrew Fuligni of the University of California at Los Angeles, explored how adolescents feel and think about themselves and others, and stress that far from being either/or, both are inextricably intertwined. Recently, she discussed what she has learned about the adolescent brain. (This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.)
Q: When you started your research career, your own adolescence was a recent memory. Now it is rather more distant. How do you think that has affected your views on this phase of life?
A: We know from history that there has always been this view of adolescents as troublemakers. I am at an age now where I really start to see the differences between generations, and I do sometimes find myself rolling my eyes as well. But then I catch myself and think: Okay, this is just how young people think or respond.
A recent example during the pandemic was that students would never put on their cameras when I was teaching. That was not nice for me, but then I have had to rethink and remind myself of research by Harvard psychologist Leah Somerville showing that in mid-adolescence, people are more embarrassed when they have to look at themselves on a screen, or if they have the idea that others are looking at them. So there are explanations for how they behave.
But — and this is what I also tell people when I give talks for a general audience — it may be good to know that some patterns of behavior are the same for everybody. Still, I’m not saying that means adolescence is easy, either for adolescents or parents.
Q: Many people have found themselves wondering what is going on in adolescent brains. But how do you actually study it?
A: We ask people of various ages to perform a certain task — they respond to questions presented on a screen — and, using a brain imaging tool called fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), we can look at activity patterns in the brain.
For example, you could think of a task where you make a choice alone or while friends are watching you, and we can look at the patterns of activity in the brain during each scenario and compare them. Using such an approach, we have explored a range of behaviors and responses — what happens when adolescents have to wait before receiving a reward, are thinking about themselves or others, or deciding whether or not to cooperate, share with or give to others.
Then we try to understand the same process by using surveys, talking to youth panels and using interventions to see if we can change a behavior. The idea is that if you approach the question in all these different ways, the advantages of one method compensate for the disadvantages of another.
Q: Which brain regions have been found to change in adolescence, and what is the result?
A: I have always been intrigued by the prefrontal cortex, one of the latest brain regions to evolve as well as one of the last to develop as we grow up. It is important for rational thought, working memory, future planning and reasoning. Studying this region for more than 20 years using fMRI brain scans, we’ve observed that the maturation of the prefrontal cortex underlies key cognitive milestones that are important for reasoning.
Reasoning develops while we are growing up. Young children are a bit more focused on explorative trial-and-error learning. But the older we get, the more we consider strategic motives, and think about the consequences of our actions for ourselves and others, now and in the future. We rely more on cognitive strategies; we are far more inclined to rationalize — we can’t even control it. The primary emotions speak less, because adults more easily control their emotions.
Our team has studied the role of a certain reward region in the brain, the ventral striatum, in relation to risk-taking behavior, often using an online gambling task in which participants could win or lose money for themselves, their best friend or a disliked person. While only a small percentage of adolescents gets in trouble through extreme risk-taking, we see that the ventral striatum becomes more active for all adolescents when a risky choice — for example, a risky bet that will yield a lot of money if they win — results in rewards for themselves, or when risky choices are made in the presence of friends.
We also discovered that this response is seen for rewards that benefit their friends, their parents or other people that are close to them, suggesting adolescents are also sensitive to benefits for others.
The activity of these regions peaks in mid-adolescence and decreases when we get older. But that finding is very sensitive to how we design the experiment, so it is not always found. To me, that is a supercool scientific puzzle: Why is it that sometimes adolescents do not show this peak in sensitivity to things that are rewarding, whether it’s risk-taking or helping others? I like variance, because it suggests you can make changes to give young people the opportunity to grow up successfully. Adolescence may be a time in life when social experiences really matter and have long-lasting effects on people’s kindness and how they feel connected to others.
Q: To many people, adolescent behavior seems unnecessarily impulsive. Do you think this has an important function, or could it be simply a side effect of some necessary steps in brain development?
A: Usually, I think this is beneficial to young people. It can really help adolescents to go out there and seek new experiences. It’s a huge transition from being a child and being totally dependent on your parents, to all of a sudden distancing yourself from the rules of the house to find your way out there. There must be a kind of trigger for that. But of course, some risk-taking is too dangerous, and that, I think, is a side effect of the helpful, adaptive function of risk-taking that propels teens into adulthood.
Q: In your 2020 review, you focus on the parts of the brain that allow us to think about ourselves and others. It turns out these are largely the same ones — was this a surprise to you?
A: The social brain network, four regions in the brain that are consistently active when you think of social situations, is very robustly found across hundreds of studies. One of these areas, the medial prefrontal cortex, is also strongly engaged when you think about yourself, so this region appears to be involved in both.
We really expected that self- and other-processing could be separated. But it turned out that every time, the same region of the brain was activated whether adolescents got an assignment to think about their own traits, to think about others or to think about what other people think of them — it was the same area over and over again.
Now I don’t think that they can be disentangled anymore. You constantly reflect on yourself when you interact with others, and when you interact with others, it has an effect on how you feel about yourself.
The medial prefrontal cortex is more active in adolescents than in adults, and some studies even show a peak in activity. The big question is why. We think it might reflect an increased use of strategizing which, as I’ve explained, the prefrontal cortex is involved in. But it’s also possible that there is more introspection, that adolescents spend more time thinking about themselves.
Another brain area that is part of the social brain network, the temporoparietal junction, specifically becomes active when you switch your perspective between yourself and others. We did some research in adolescents with a history of delinquent behavior and found that the temporoparietal junction showed less variation in activity across different social situations in adolescents with a history of delinquency, compared with others. One potential explanation is that they are not as successful in switching from their own perspective to others’. But there are many other reasons this could be, so it is good to be modest in this respect.
That, to me, was somehow a hopeful message: This is something we can possibly train people to be better at — you can learn to take the perspective of others. Well-adjusted people tend to do that automatically.
Q: How might your research help us to reduce frictions between adolescents and adults?
A: My research has made me rethink the assumption of adolescents being troublemakers, because it just didn’t fit the data. We have demonstrated such a strong feeling of purpose and meaning in adolescents. They feel a fundamental need to contribute in a positive way.
I no longer think it should be our goal to always have complete understanding between generations. I don’t think it’s possible. And I think that’s a good thing. Historically, we have seen many examples where the younger generation shapes society in ways that may not always align with the norms of previous generations. But this planet is theirs for the future, so they should have a say in what they find important.
The climate debate is a good example; young people have very different ideas about sustainability and take part in demonstrations for a healthier planet. I believe their voice is important here, even when it is uncomfortable for the older generations.
For interventions, research shows that ones thought up by adults to help adolescents often don’t work. Young people should have the space to develop new ideas and put them in practice themselves. That is something I have also learned over time — if adolescents can invent their own approach, it is much more likely to work.
Q: How might this research inspire parents, for whom this is often also a complicated time?
A: Research has shown that being too strict or too loose is not helpful. Adolescents need guidance as well as opportunities to explore. That is not my own research, but I think it makes a lot of sense. The important thing is that we know from brain imaging that brain activity can change, and that it matters what you do as parents. Because the brain is especially plastic in adolescence, there is a window of opportunity to provide support and help adolescents grow into the best versions of themselves. Young people still find the opinions of their parents very important.
Tim Vernimmen is a freelance science journalist based near Antwerp, Belgium. His own adolescence theoretically ended in 2010. The article appeared in longer form in the online health and science publication KnowableMagazine.org | 2022-08-09T11:47:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Understanding the adolescent brain - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/09/brain-adolescents-neuroscience/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/09/brain-adolescents-neuroscience/ |
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) at a news conference after passage of the Inflation Reduction Act on Aug. 7. (Shuran Huang for The Washington Post)
Congressional Democrats are on the verge of passing their most significant health-care legislation in more than a decade, delivering a major victory to President Biden, who has made tackling the high price of care a key plank of his domestic agenda.
After more than a year of fraught negotiations, the economic package won the support of all Senate Democrats on Sunday, and heads to the House, where it’s expected to advance this week. The bill doesn’t make changes to the health-care system as sweeping as the party originally envisioned, and some policies will take years to be implemented. But, three months before the midterm elections, Democrats are already gearing up to tout the measures on the campaign trail.
“There’s a whole range of things that are really game-changing for ordinary folks. Now, some of it is not going to kick in for a little bit, but it’s all good,” Biden told reporters Monday. “When you sit down at that kitchen table at the end of the month, you’re going to be able to pay a whole hell of a lot more bills because you’re paying less in medical bills.”
The legislation caps the cost of insulin. Who will benefit?
Does the legislation lower health insurance costs? And if so, for whom? | 2022-08-09T11:47:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How the Inflation Reduction Act might affect your health care - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/09/health-care-inflation-reduction-act/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/09/health-care-inflation-reduction-act/ |
Trump investigation live updates Trump claims political persecution after FBI search of Mar-a-Lago residence
Analysis: FBI searches Mar-a-Lago in rare investigation of a former president
Analysis: The GOP’s inauspicious knee-jerk reaction to the Trump raid
‘Another day in paradise,’ Trump says of the FBI search
Trump releases video claiming U.S. is ‘a nation in decline’
Democrats applaud news of the Mar-a-Lago search
President of FBI Agents Association defends court-approved searches
Analysis: The FBI search of Mar-a-Lago instantly became entangled with politics
Activity appears related to potential mishandling of classified documents
In statement, Trump equates raid to Watergate
Trump not at Mar-a-Lago as search conducted
The Mar-a-Lago Club is seen in Palm Beach, Fla., on Dec. 19, 2016. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Former president Donald Trump’s residence at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., was searched Monday by the FBI in what appeared to be part of a long-running investigation of whether documents — some of them top-secret — were taken there instead of being sent to the National Archives when Trump left office.
News of the court-authorized search prompted recriminations from Trump’s fellow Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who threatened to investigate the Justice Department if the GOP takes control of the chamber next year. Democrats, who twice impeached Trump but failed both times to convict him, welcomed the news of the raid.
Trump’s advisers said he was not there on Monday when the search involving more than a dozen FBI agents was conducted. He was at Trump Tower in New York, they said.
Trump briefly addressed the FBI activity during a tele-rally Monday night for former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (R), now a congressional candidate, calling it “another day in paradise.” In an earlier statement, he said his home was “under siege.”
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment when asked whether Attorney General Merrick Garland approved the search. The FBI also declined to comment.
Trump advisers have denied any bad intent, saying the boxes in question contained mementos from his presidency.
Former president Donald Trump’s extraordinary revelation that the FBI had raided Mar-a-Lago and searched his safe there reverberated through Washington on Monday night.
As The Post reported in February, Trump took 15 boxes of documents with him to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office, prompting the National Archives and Records Administration to contact Trump’s team to alert it that some high-profile documents from his presidency appeared to be missing.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) vowed investigations of the department and Attorney General Merrick Garland if Republicans take back the House in the midterm elections. He called the FBI raid an “intolerable state of weaponized politicization.”
For now though, we don’t yet know much about what was in the search warrant used to raid Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago on Monday. We do know that the raid concerned the removal of classified documents from the White House and that, according to Trump, agents raided his safe.
Former president Donald Trump briefly addressed the FBI activity at Mar-a-Lago during a tele-rally Monday night for former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (R), now a congressional candidate for her state.
“Another day in paradise,” Trump said. “This was a strange day — you probably all read about it, but very important.”
He then continued with remarks about Palin’s race.
Palin also referenced the FBI search during her comments to supporters.
“He has to witness and take that injustice that so many of us are so angry about all around him, especially today,” Palin said. “And yet, look at what he’s doing, you guys, he’s spending the time with us, with Alaskans, and we love him for that.”
Hours after announcing that Mar-a-Lago had been raided, Trump released a nearly four-minute video that casts the United States as a “nation in decline” but promises that “we will have greatness again.”
Narrated by Trump, the video ticks through a long series of alleged shortcomings of the presidency of Joe Biden, including inflation, covid deaths, the U.S. “surrender” in Afghanistan and what he calls the curbing of free speech.
“We are a nation that has weaponized law enforcement against the opposing political party like never before,” Trump says at one point in the video, which was shared on his social media site, Truth Social.
It’s unclear when the campaign-style video was produced. It turns more upbeat in its final minute, teasing another Trump White House run with videos of some of his political rallies.
“We are a nation in many ways that has become a joke, but soon we will have greatness again,” Trump says.
By Colby Itkowitz, David Weigel and Josh Dawsey
Democrats applauded news of the search and urged the Justice Department to fully investigate former president Donald Trump’s handling of classified information.
“Good!” tweeted House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) in response to the news.
“This man and his fellow bootlickers hid under a rock rather than respond every time Donald Trump called for persecution, investigation, imprisonment, or violence against his political opponents,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), “These same people talk about Trump like he’s above the law. He’s not above the law.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a top Trump ally, responded with a threat to the Justice Department to investigate the agency if Republicans win back the House in the midterm elections. Claiming without evidence that the department has “reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization,” McCarthy warned: “Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar.”
By Devlin Barrett and Mariana Alfaro
The president of the FBI Agents Association, Brian O’Hare, issued a broad defense Monday of the investigators who carry out court-approved searches, without commenting specifically on the case of former president Donald Trump.
O’Hare said search warrants are issued by federal judges, “must satisfy detailed and clear procedural rules, and are the product of collaboration and consultation with relevant Department of Justice attorneys.”
FBI agents, he added, “perform their investigative duties with integrity and professionalism, and remain focused on complying with the law and the Constitution.”
Trump nominated the current head of the FBI, Christopher A. Wray, to the position in 2017, after firing the previous FBI director, James B. Comey, amid a probe into whether any Trump campaign advisers had conspired with Russian operatives to influence the 2016 election.
But Trump’s relationship with Wray also soured, and the president considered firing him on multiple occasions, former advisers said. Through most of Trump’s presidency, the two men had limited interactions.
By Philip Bump
It wasn’t until the fourth sentence of Donald Trump’s lengthy statement revealing an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that the former president suggested that politics were at play. From that sentence on, however, politics was inextricably entwined with the law enforcement action — precisely as Trump would probably have hoped.
That’s three things: (1) The FBI’s search is an attack by Democrats, (2) because they fear Trump in 2024 based on polling, and (3) they want to damage Republicans in the midterms. And that’s just the first politics-focused sentence of several in the statement he published on his social-messaging platform.
By Devlin Barrett, Mariana Alfaro, Josh Dawsey and Jacqueline Alemany
The activity Monday at Mar-a-Lago appears related to an investigation into the potential mishandling of classified documents, according to two people familiar with the probe.
At the time, Ferriero said in a statement that Trump representatives were “continuing to search” for additional records. Trump was resistant to handing over the records for months, advisers said at the time.
Mar-a-Lago is closed in the hot months of Florida’s summer, and Trump’s advisers said he was not there on Monday when the search involving more than a dozen FBI agents was conducted. Trump advisers said agents arrived Monday morning and left by late afternoon. Few Trump employees were around, but the Secret Service was present.
The former president has spent much of the summer at Bedminster, his golf resort in New Jersey. But on Monday he was in New York, according to a person familiar with his whereabouts.
Trump’s team was given no heads-up about the search, several advisers said. There was no indication the FBI had searched any of Trump’s other properties, and advisers said law enforcement had not. | 2022-08-09T11:47:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump claims political persecution after FBI search of Mar-a-Lago residence - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/09/trump-fbi-search-maralago/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/09/trump-fbi-search-maralago/ |
Praveena Somasundaram
Clockwise from top left: The New Mexico Supreme Court building in Santa Fe, N.M., the sun rises over campaign signs at a polling location at the Carver Branch Library on Texas Primary Election Day in Austin, a sign outside of the Supreme Court of Illinois in Springfield and signs for former Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) and outside the Fletcher Town Hall. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP; iStock; Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Mary Kay O’Brien had been working for a year to drum up interest in her campaign for Illinois Supreme Court, struggling to convince voters that it would affect them as a presidential or gubernatorial race would.
But “within 24 hours” of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to end federal protections for abortions, levels of interest in judicial races like hers skyrocketed, said O’Brien, a Democratic appellate judge.
“There’s no question that it energized and mobilized, especially young people and women,” she said. “It’s something that I think was just a complete alarm bell to some people.”
All over the country, the Dobbs decision has drawn attention to the power of state judiciaries, transforming once-sleepy races into high-energy elections that could bring out voters focused on abortion and other civil rights issues, candidates, legal experts and party officials said. Even where abortion has not yet been on the docket since the fall of Roe v. Wade, courts are making decisions on hot-button issues from gerrymandering to affirmative action.
In Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and North Carolina, which have partisan elections for state supreme court, this year’s races could determine which party controls the state’s top court, according to the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. They are among the 30 states holding state supreme court elections this year, with 85 seats on the ballot, according to a Ballotpedia database, though many of those are nonpartisan races or elections to retain a sitting judge, like in Kansas.
In the nine states that hold partisan elections for state supreme court, candidates are barred from stating how they would rule on a specific case or issue. Instead, they rely on highlighting the types of cases they might rule on if elected or drumming up interest in the judiciary generally, which has become easier since Dobbs, candidates said.
“The second you say you’re on the state supreme court, they’re suddenly very interested in my election and generally don’t pass me by and get irritated, which they might have done before,” said Briana Zamora, a New Mexico State Supreme Court justice running to keep her seat. “They are very interested in understanding more about what impact we have as a state supreme court on their rights.”
Zamora added that Democratic county chairs in New Mexico are organizing rallies and canvassing events specific to judicial candidates for the first time.
In recent years, issues such as abortion and gun control have made judicial elections more political and polarizing, said Richard Briffault, an election law expert and professor at Columbia Law School.
“My guess is some combination of the 2020 election and all the focus on election decisions, and now Roe and Dobbs and maybe some stuff on gun-control legislation, where the Supreme Court has put them in the news, so you’re likely to see them contested in state elections,” Briffault said.
Even before Dobbs, state judicial races were attracting more money, with the 2019-20 election cycle setting a record of $97 million spent on state court elections nationwide, according to a report from Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School.
“States that have contested elections are going to see a ton of money coming in,” said Billy Corriher, an author who focuses on state courts and judicial independence.
A judge’s political affiliation isn’t always indicative of how they will rule — the Republican-led Ohio Supreme Court struck down a GOP-drawn congressional map as gerrymandered earlier this year — but the elections are increasingly drawing the attention of partisan groups.
The Republican State Legislative Committee, which typically backs legislative candidates, is pledging more than $5 million for state judicial races this year — a record — though most will be focused on states where redistricting is an issue, according to its spokesman, Andrew Romeo.
Its Democratic equivalent, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, plans to support judicial candidates for the first time this election cycle, spokeswoman Gabrielle Chew said.
“Our main focus still remains state legislatures, but we know that state Supreme Courts wield tremendous power over state laws like abortion access, redistricting maps, and election implementation,” Chew said in a statement. “Like state legislatures, Democrats historically have overlooked them to their detriment. Here at the DLCC, we’re looking to change that.”
In Illinois, a group of progressive political operatives launched an organization last month dedicated to increasing awareness of the state Supreme Court race, according to co-founder Terry Cosgrove.
Democrats, in particular, see state supreme court races as a way to bring out supporters if they can convince them the races could have a direct effect on their right to an abortion. In Kansas, a referendum to remove abortion protections from the state’s constitution failed amid unexpectedly high turnout, including from independents and Republicans.
Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said the party will try to convince Texas voters that supporting Democratic justices will achieve a “much quicker result” in protecting abortion rights, as opposed to trying to end the filibuster and pass a federal guarantee in the U.S. Senate, for example.
Hinojosa said he hopes for a repeat of 2018, when Democrats beat 19 incumbent Republicans on the state’s appellate courts, giving the party a majority on half of the state’s 14 appeals courts.
Texas Republican Party Chair Matt Rinaldi said in a statement that GOP enthusiasm for judicial races was already high before Dobbs, pointing to a record number of candidates filing for judicial office and high turnout in the March primary.
“As the U.S. Supreme Court continues to abate liberal policies and return to government by the Constitution, we anticipate even stronger enthusiasm for our judicial candidates,” Rinaldi added.
In Fannin County, Tex., which voted for Trump by 63 points in 2018, Erin Nowell said she heard from a group of older White women who were upset and recalling their experiences pre-Roe at a recent club meeting.
“It’s affecting so many people that those low-propensity voters are more energized,” said the appellate judge running for Texas Supreme Court as a Democrat. “They have a reason that, hey, this is why you need to come out and vote, and so we’re seeing more energy and more motivation and more surge in people who might have sat it out.”
Michigan State Rep. Kyra Harris Bolden (D), who is running for state Supreme Court, is nine months pregnant, something she has made a focal point of her campaign.
“I think I get more pregnancy questions than issue questions,” she said. “I want people to feel that they have something to vote for and not just against, and be excited to vote and excited to vote for me.”
New Mexico Democratic Party chair Jessica Velasquez said it has been a challenge in the past to find volunteers to knock on doors for judicial candidates, but the Dobbs decision “really fired up our base here.”
“When I’m talking to donors on the phones, the judiciary comes up in almost every single conversation, and that is something brand new,” Velasquez said, adding that county party organizers are hosting judicial-specific campaign events in response to the enthusiasm.
Thomas Montoya, an Albuquerque lawyer running for New Mexico Supreme Court as a Republican, said he expects to get more questions about abortion in the coming months thanks to Dobbs, but plans to make clear to voters he would not take a position on such an issue without hearing the facts of a case first.
“The Supreme Court is not a legislative body, as Dobbs pointed out, nor should it be,” Montoya said. “So if anyone were to make a policy decision in seeking a judicial role, that’s a clear disqualification — we don’t decide policy issues.”
North Carolina has been plagued with legal battles over the state’s congressional maps, with conflicts playing out in its courts over partisan gerrymandering. In February, the state Supreme Court struck down redistricting maps and ordered the legislature to redraw them, a dispute that delayed North Carolina’s primary elections.
Democrats hold a razor-thin 4-3 majority on the high court, and the Roe and Dobbs decisions have upped the stakes for this November’s race.
Shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) signed an executive order ensuring people in the state could access an abortion, which is still legal there. North Carolina has been inundated with people traveling there to receive a legal abortion, local news media have reported.
Republicans in the GOP-led state legislature have not made plans to pursue abortion legislation this year because Cooper would veto laws that are passed, but the two seats up for election on the state Supreme Court this year could give Republicans the majority.
“So reproductive rights might not be talked about by the candidates, but it’s on the ballot in so many states right now,” Corriher said.
While there is some discussion on the U.S. Supreme Court rulings, they have not been dominating election conversations for the state’s GOP, said Michael Whatley, chairman of the party.
Whatley said the most important issues in the state are inflation, gas prices and the southern border. He added that the party has been focusing on raising money for its Judicial Victory Fund, while staying on “high alert” for the recent Supreme Court decisions.
“Fortunately, we had already built this apparatus and were ready to go when the decisions came down,” Whatley said.
On the ground, judicial candidates are seeing more grass-roots engagement and enthusiasm with their campaigns ahead of races in November, where prominent issues such as abortion could be at stake.
“We’re in the middle of summer parade season — normally when we show up in past cycles, judges are kind of at the back of the pack,” said Brian Morris, who leads the New Mexico Democrats’ efforts on judicial races. “Judges are up in front and center now.”
Trump voters back his candidates, but some still don't want him to run in 2024 | 2022-08-09T11:48:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Post-Roe, state Supreme Court races raises stakes for voters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/09/dobbs-state-judicial-elections/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/09/dobbs-state-judicial-elections/ |
Tuesday briefing: FBI search at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home; Wisconsin primaries; monkeypox; Olivia Newton-John; and more
The FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, he said.
The details: Agents opened a safe at the former president’s South Florida home yesterday, said Trump, who was in New York.
What we know: It’s part of an investigation into whether top-secret documents were taken when Trump left the White House, which could violate the Presidential Records Act.
It’s historic: Raiding a former president’s property is very unusual and would have needed senior approval at the Justice Department. Top Republicans reacted with outrage.
Wisconsin, Vermont, Connecticut and Minnesota have primaries today.
One key Republican race: The fight over who will face the vulnerable Democratic Wisconsin governor. It’s another test of Trump’s influence.
One key Democratic race: A Senate fight, also in Wisconsin. The likely Democratic candidate, Mandela Barnes, would be the state’s first Black senator and one of the youngest ever elected.
Two of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers received second life sentences yesterday.
Why? Travis and Gregory McMichael were found guilty this year of committing a hate crime in the 2020 attack of Arbery, an unarmed 25-year-old Black man.
What it means: They’ll serve decades more behind bars, and they’ll be sent to a Georgia state prison, which they argued would be far more dangerous than a federal one.
Ukraine’s president wants the West to ban all Russian travelers.
What he said: That countries should close their borders to Russian citizens for a year. In an interview with The Post, President Volodymyr Zelensky called the existing sanctions on Russia “weak.”
What else to know: Zelensky accused Russia of “nuclear blackmail” following recent attacks on Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine.
The U.S. is going to split monkeypox vaccine doses to stretch supply.
The idea: It’s a change in how shots are given. The vaccine will be injected under the top layer of the skin instead of the fatty tissue underneath, which requires a much smaller dose.
Why it’s needed: There’s a limited supply of the vaccine. The new strategy, expected to be announced today, could help protect five times as many people against the normally rare virus.
Grammy-winning singer and actress Olivia Newton-John died yesterday.
How we’ll remember her: As Sandy to John Travolta’s Danny in “Grease” and as a shape-shifting pop sensation, with hits like “You’re the One That I Want” and “Physical.”
She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992 and began battling it again in 2013. She spent years advocating for cancer research and awareness. She was 73.
Some lizards are giving birth to young that are already old.
How is that possible? It’s linked to stress from climate change. Temperatures are rising so quickly that many lizards enter the world with DNA that’s already damaged, researchers in France found.
Why it’s worrying: Fewer of the lizards “born old” are expected to make it to reproductive age, so it could threaten species survival.
And now … if you’re stuck in a cooking rut, here are some tips on how to break out, and also five perfect summer recipes to try. | 2022-08-09T11:48:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Tuesday, August 9 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/08/09/what-to-know-for-august-9/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/08/09/what-to-know-for-august-9/ |
Why we feel ‘mom guilt’ — and how to stop
By Amy Paturel
(James Steinberg/For the Washington Post)
My youngest son, Jack, was born with an extra branch stemming from his heart that I was convinced was my fault. The anomaly constricted Jack’s airway like a vice. He choked on bite-size O’s, landed in the emergency room four times and endured a half-dozen operations before he hit 2 years old.
Years later, I read a news story about parental drinking preconception upping the odds of congenital heart defects. Bam! I had evidence of culpability. After all, I sipped wine during the six months before conception. I’d also downed a few shots of NyQuil in the days before I realized I was pregnant. Enter: extreme mom guilt. (Never mind that the likelihood of heart defects was higher when dads-to-be imbibed, not moms.)
Although I was highly skilled at linking my “wrongdoings” to Jack’s faulty heart, I attributed his 10 fingers and toes, full-capacity lungs and seamless nursing to chance. Lisa Marie Emerson, a University of Canterbury researcher and clinical psychologist, tells me that this sort of irrational thinking is common among moms. “Women are especially good at taking credit for everything that’s wrong in their kids’ lives, in part because the tremendous societal pressure to raise kids ‘right’ often falls on moms, not dads,” she says, pointing out that no one asks dads how they’re feeding their babies.
Unfortunately, mom guilt can have significant effects. Research suggests that feelings of guilt and shame catapult parents’ levels of depression, stress and anxiety. Other studies show that guilt surrounding a child’s brain injury, nursing difficulties, an adolescent’s mental health problems and more sabotages moms’ health, happiness and ability to parent effectively. There’s even evidence to suggest that self-blame interferes with the parent-child relationship.
According to Dana Dorfman, a New York-based psychotherapist, that sense of control is a maternal defense mechanism that enables us to believe we can prevent terrible things from happening to our children. “A primitive part of the brain takes over, and we become like a child who feels responsible for his parents’ divorce,” she says. “With this sort of ‘magical thinking,’ if you’re the cause, then you can be the solution.”
Maryam Abdullah, the parenting program director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California at Berkeley, says it’s not uncommon for parents of children with a medical condition to look to science to explain their family’s experience. “To some degree, science can be helpful, but it can also lead you down a rabbit hole of potential minefields,” she says, because the more you pick apart the research, the more likely you are to uncover “evidence” to suggest you’re responsible.
It turns out, that’s where I had planted myself: How old was I when I got pregnant? What is my family’s health history? How many happy hours did I hit before my positive pregnancy test?
It can feel as if our every move has outsize consequences for our kids. Young children don’t have the agency — or, in Jack’s case, the vocabulary — to make their own decisions. It makes sense for us to take the mental leap that we’re responsible when bad things happen, to feel as if it’s our fault, and to feel guilty about whatever we imagine we did to create a more difficult life for our children.
“Guilt and shame are not pleasant emotions, but when we experience them to a lesser degree, they do serve a function,” Emerson says. For example, imagine that you yelled at your daughter for forgetting to feed the dog or that you didn’t show up to your son’s recital on time. The ensuing guilt can motivate you to change your behavior moving forward.
But beating myself up for my child’s heart defect won’t motivate meaningful change. It won’t make what happened to him go away. Even more disturbing, my frequent self-critical monologues were inadvertently teaching Jack (and my other two children) to play the self-blame game themselves. By the time they hit preschool, I heard, “Sorry, mom, it’s my fault,” on a loop around my home.
Fortunately, there’s an antidote for the harsh talk: self-compassion. According to the literature, self-compassion has three key components: self-kindness (rather than harsh criticism), common humanity (seeking common ground with others rather than isolating) and mindfulness (staying in the moment and noticing your feelings).
In Emerson’s research, a 15-minute self-compassion writing exercise helped parents (about 83 percent of whom were women) release their guilt and enhance their ability to deal with the challenges of parenting. A 2019 study published in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology found that when parents of children hospitalized with burn injuries practiced self-compassion, they had fewer symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome. And in a 2018 study published in the Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, researchers found that, for parents of adult children with intellectual and developmental disabilities, self-compassion may offer greater resiliency against certain parenting challenges. There’s even work to suggest that self-compassion exercises may act as a buffer against internal and external criticism.
So how can we blame ourselves less and feel positive more often? When feelings of guilt arise, Emerson says to use something called soothing rhythm breathing: Breathe in for four seconds, hold your breath for two seconds, then exhale for six seconds. Repeat the cycle a few times to calm your nervous system and to anchor yourself in the moment. Then pause and focus on positive self-talk.
Because we tend to be kinder and more compassionate toward other people than ourselves, Abdullah suggests imagining how you would support a friend or family member. Chances are, you wouldn’t tell your friend she’s responsible for her child’s autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or mental health problems, so don’t berate yourself for your children’s maladies.
Call to mind a person who loves you, someone who you can rely on when you’re unsteady on your feet. “You can even use the person’s terms of endearments in your self-compassion self-talk to marshal in the person’s presence,” Abdullah says. Me? I wrote a letter to myself from my son’s perspective. It’s a safe bet that Jack doesn’t blame me (or his dad) for his heart defect. He has no memory of it.
By putting myself in my son’s shoes, I felt tremendous gratitude. The exercise reminded me that, despite the traumas we faced, our family is thriving. It also helped me step outside of our experience and consider parents whose children have irreparable heart conditions. Do I believe they’re responsible for their kids’ challenges? Of course not. Inside of our shared quest to fix our kids’ heart ailments, there’s community.
And rather than belaboring the past, Dorfman suggests considering how the event or misstep affected your child and your family in positive ways. “Challenges are growth opportunities that not only help kids develop self-efficacy, but they can also bond you together as a family.”
That sort of silver-lining thinking not only helped me release the guilt and negative self-talk, but it also fostered feelings of peace and gratitude. Sure, I’d like to rewrite Jack’s second year of life, to obliterate the surgeries, X-rays and angst-filled days at the hospital. But when I finally accepted that wasn’t an option, I learned to let go and embrace what is: Jack is a healthy, happy kid who will try as many jokes as it takes to get you to laugh.
Good or bad, Jack’s heart defect and the process we went through to correct it are part of our shared story. The experience shaped who we are as a family, and the bottom line is, at least according to Jack’s perspective as I penned it: I showed up for him. “Those days in the hospital allowed me to truly experience the abundance of love you have for me. I wouldn’t change a thing,” he wrote. Then, the sign-off: “I love you with my whole healthy heart.” | 2022-08-09T12:39:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why we feel ‘mom guilt’ — and how to stop - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/08/09/mom-guilt-self-compassion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/08/09/mom-guilt-self-compassion/ |
Here’s what muscle memory really means, and how to use it
It’s not a fitness myth: There really is such a thing as muscle memory, although it may not mean exactly what you think it does.
Although people colloquially refer to never forgetting how to ride a bike, throw a baseball or serve a tennis ball as examples of “muscle memory,” those comeback skills actually stem from a motor learning process. In other words, they are “motor memory.” When you learn how to perform these movements well and can do them automatically without conscious thought, that information becomes encoded in the brain, so in the future, “you still have the fundamental coordination that you learned,” explained David Behm, a university research professor in the School of Human Kinetics and Recreation at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada.
When exercise physiologists talk about muscle memory, on the other hand, they’re referring to the phenomenon whereby previously trained muscles acquire strength and volume after a period of disuse much more quickly than never-trained muscles do when starting from scratch.
Muscular memory
In the past 15 years, research has shown that the changes actually persist in the muscles themselves. In one study of mice, for example, the results suggest that after nuclei in muscle cells proliferate in response to an overload of training, those extra nuclei aren’t lost during subsequent periods of inactivity. They’re retained in distinct muscle fibers, essentially waiting to be reactivated with retraining.
When you exercise, it’s normal for muscle fibers to experience minor damage; this is part of the way a muscle gets stronger. Dormant cells called satellite cells move to the site of the injury and insert more nuclei — the brains of the cells — into the muscle fibers, which allows the muscle to grow, explained exercise physiologist Fabio Comana, a lecturer in exercise and nutritional sciences at San Diego State University. Even if you stop exercising for a significant period of time, he said, “the nuclei stay [in place] and accelerate the return to muscle growth” with retraining.
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Another area of research into muscle memory relates to changes to the ways your genes work in response to your environment and behavior, according to Kevin Murach, an assistant professor of health, human performance and recreation at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. “In the muscle cells, genes get turned on and off in response to exercise in order to make certain proteins in the cell, which ultimately facilitates muscle growth and strength,” he said. According to this theory, long-term changes to these genes could be what drives muscle memory.
One way or another, this much is clear: The more you exercise, the more (muscle memory) savings you’ll accrue. “Once you’ve got those additional nuclei, they’re in reserve. You’re banking that capacity,” said Lawrence Schwartz, a professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “You essentially have an instrumental manual for making muscle, so you can get enhanced growth much faster the second time around.”
And researchers believe muscle memory is long lasting, maybe even permanent. “There’s never an age where it stops,” Behm said. In fact, a recent study involving men in their 50s to 70s investigated the effects of completing a resistance training regimen, followed by a detraining period, then a retraining period, each consisting of 12 weeks. As expected, resistance training increased knee extension strength and power by 10 to 36 percent. Detraining resulted in a 5 to 15 percent loss of strength and power. The big reveal: “Less than eight weeks of retraining were needed to reach the post-training level of … maximum strength,” according to the researchers.
But how quickly you regain your former fitness depends on how fit you were initially, how long the layoff was, how old you are and how long you’d been exercising to establish your muscle memory, according to Cedric Bryant, president and chief science officer of the American Council on Exercise. “The more fit you are and the longer you established that muscle memory,” he said, “the more the odds tilt in your favor.”
Making use of muscle/motor memory
All this news about muscle memory should be encouraging for those who fell off the fitness wagon during the pandemic. It means you’re not starting from square one; you have a distinct advantage when it comes to regaining your former level of fitness. And the principles apply to both resistance training and endurance training, according to Cory Dungan, an assistant professor in exercise physiology at Baylor University.
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With strength training, Comana recommends using this principle for weight progression to avoid injuring yourself when you resume weight training: If you’re doing three sets of 10 reps for two or three weeks, once you get to the point where you feel as if you could do two more reps until you reach the point of failure, then it’s time to add a little more weight.
With aerobic exercise, the best way to rekindle your muscle memory is to ease into your workouts again. “Start at a level below what you were accustomed to doing, then gradually increase in terms of duration, frequency, then intensity,” Bryant said. “Do the minimum effective dose. Moderately challenging should be enough to set you on a course of regaining fitness. Don’t try to go from zero to 60 in terms of ramping up too soon.”
Instead, it’s generally safe to increase these elements by 5 percent every week or two as you feel comfortable, Bryant said. This means that if your goal is to do 150 minutes of aerobic exercise per week, which amounts to five 30-minute sessions, you could start with 15-to-20-minute sessions at an intensity where you can speak but not sing, he said. “Then add five minutes per week until you get to where you were.” After that, you can increase the intensity of your workouts, perhaps by adding higher-intensity intervals to your baseline pace.
To hone your skills with a particular sport, such as tennis, soccer or golf, focus more on how you can take advantage of the motor-neuron process. “You can use mental imagery to send messages to those neurons that will turn on when you want to do that movement,” Behm said. It may also help to watch videos where other people are playing that sport, because this will activate the mirror neurons in your brain, he added. (When you watch sports, specific neurons in your brain will fire as if you were playing the sport yourself.)
Ultimately, it helps to think of muscle memory as a payoff for all the past work you put into learning a sport, boosting your aerobic capacity or endurance, or building muscle and strength. The best way to tap into muscle memory is to “get back on the horse,” Murach said. “You will never know how much muscle memory you may have until you start training again.” | 2022-08-09T12:39:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What is muscle memory? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/08/09/muscle-memory-motor-skills-fitness/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/08/09/muscle-memory-motor-skills-fitness/ |
Relationship weight gain is real — and can be a sign of happiness
One study found that, among those who had been married for more than four years, happy couples were twice as likely to put on weight than less-content couples. (iStock)
Wendy Irvine had been chunky — or “well-insulated,” as she likes to call it — from the time she was a child. But when she turned 26 and started dating her now-husband, her weight ballooned to the point that she had trouble recognizing herself in photos. She gained about 25 pounds on top of the extra 30 she felt like she was already carrying.
“My husband lived on pizza and fancy bakery treats, and I ate with him and packed on the pounds,” said Irvine, 57, a writer who lives in Atlanta. “It absolutely bothered me. I’d always been a size 12/14, and all of a sudden 16s were cutting off my ability to breathe. I was horrified.”
About 10 years in, she realized that her husband was going to continue eating cinnamon rolls every weekend and ice cream every night, and she decided to focus on changing her own diet. “I was happy, of course, but I didn’t like that I’d let myself go,” she recalled. She ultimately lost 55 pounds and has kept the weight off for years.
Why scientists now say you can’t blame midlife weight gain on a slow metabolism
Over the past decade, Tara Suwinyattichaiporn has gained weight in multiple long-term relationships. She’s been with her current partner for three years, and they’re both foodies who enjoy trying new restaurants together. “My partner is super fit, so we would eat the same amount of food, but then I would gain all the weight, and he doesn’t ever gain weight,” said Suwinyattichaiporn, 34, an associate professor of human communication at Cal State Fullerton. “Right now, some skirts are really tight, and some dresses are really tight” — so she’s pledged to take action, starting with journaling about how she feels and using that to motivate healthier behaviors.
Like Irvine and Suwinyattichaiporn, many people report that coupling up eventually means sizing up their clothes: “A lot of people are surprised. It’s a very familiar and intuitive idea that a good relationship should make us better in every way and help preserve our health and well-being,” said Sarah A. Novak. Novak is an associate professor of psychology at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., who has researched relationship weight gain. “It’s counterintuitive that there could be an exception to that, depending on how you think about weight.”
Yet studies indicate that putting on pounds while in a relationship is a common phenomenon. Here’s a look at what the research has found, plus tips on how to address it.
Who gains relationship weight
Relationship weight gain is particularly difficult to study, said Penny Gordon-Larsen, a professor of global nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For one thing, there tends to be insufficient data on both members of the relationship; only one partner will participate directly, estimating details like what their partner weighs and eats. It’s also rare for researchers to collect data on people before they enter the relationship and then again afterward.
Plus, coupling up often occurs alongside other major life changes: “That’s the point in the life cycle when you’re also getting a new job, or transitioning to a busier schedule, or moving out of your family home and cooking on your own,” she said. Any of those factors could play a role in weight gain.
Still, there’s a pool of research that shines a light on who tends to put on the most relationship weight. A 2012 study that Gordon-Larsen co-authored, published in the journal Obesity, found that transitioning from being single or dating to cohabitation or marriage was associated with an increased likelihood of obesity. The longer a woman lived with a romantic partner, the more likely she was to continue putting on weight, while the risk of obesity among men spiked between the first and second years of cohabitation. Within a few years of their nuptials, spouses were twice as likely to become obese as those who were only dating.
Why people gain weight in relationships
It’s nearly impossible to tease out exactly why people gain weight in relationships, Gordon-Larsen says, but a number of factors likely contribute: busier schedules that interfere with health routines; fancy date nights lingering over restaurant meals; perhaps spending more time on the couch watching favorite TV shows. Plus, she says, there’s some indication that if you’re eating with someone who has a tendency to eat larger meals, you’re more likely to increase your portion size, too.
Interestingly, research co-authored by Novak determined that, among those who had been married for more than four years, happy couples were twice as likely to put on weight than couples who reported not being as content with their relationship. It wasn’t a dramatic amount: about 5 to 15 pounds over four years. “It’s this indicator that people are comfortable. They’re prioritizing the relationship and saying, ‘With our limited time, let’s go get brunch,’ ” she said. “They’re not trying so hard to maintain their bodies to look cute in the club.”
Less-happy couples, on the other hand, were perhaps more likely to keep weight off because they were motivated by the “mating market model,” or desire to attract a new mate. “If you’re single or think you might become single soon, you’re going to invest in things that make you more attractive, like fitness,” Novak said. Plus, if you’re already checked out of the relationship, it might be easy to spend more free time at the gym.
Some people who gain relationship weight feel perfectly fine about the extra pounds. But for those who want to make a change, experts suggest an array of strategies that also seek to protect the partnership:
Be proactive. Since many couples are prone to weight gain, it can be helpful to think about preventing it before it even happens, said Becca Krukowski, a professor in the department of public health sciences at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and an expert in behavioral weight management. “There are things that can be quite enjoyable, like engaging in physical activity together or going grocery shopping together or meal prepping for the week,” she said. “Particularly during those early honeymoon months when everything is fun, you might as well do something that's also good for your body.”
Torn between embracing your pandemic looks or changing them? Here’s how to feel your best.
Pay attention to the way your lifestyle has changed, and look for a happy medium. If you and your partner love going to brunch together, don’t drop that or other favorite activities, or “prioritize fitness to the exclusion of the relationship,” Novak emphasized. Instead find a middle ground. “Maybe it’s that sometimes we do brunch, and sometimes we go hiking,” she said. “Think about, what can we do differently but still be connected to each other?”
If you’re the only partner interested in making a change, invest in new shared activities. Perhaps you and your significant other used to linger over gourmet meals together, but now you’re cutting back — or you’re blowing off movie night to spend time with your Peloton. If your new lifestyle will “disrupt some of the things that brought you joy together,” look for new shared routines or activities, Novak suggested. For example, reserve 8 p.m. every night for distraction-free connection.
Over-communicate. It’s best to be clear with your partner about how you’re feeling, what kind of changes you want to make and what type of support will be most helpful (or not). You might say, for example, “Please don’t ask me if I want seconds. That’s too challenging for me,” Krukowski suggested. Or “Please tell me one time after dinner that I set a goal to go for a walk, but if I tell you that I’m too tired, don’t continue to bug me about it.”
And remember: Your partner shouldn’t police what you eat. Perhaps you’re reaching for the dessert menu when your significant other hits you with the dreaded, and unwelcome, “Are you sure you want to eat that?” Regardless of whether you gained weight in a relationship, you don’t have to tolerate such comments. As Novak put it: “Even if they have the best of intentions, if your partner is focused on your attractiveness — or making jokes or teasing in a way that is not cute — then they have given you the gift of a giant red flag.” | 2022-08-09T12:39:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Relationship weight gain is real — and can be a sign of happiness - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/08/09/relationship-weight-gain-reasons-research/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/08/09/relationship-weight-gain-reasons-research/ |
London police’s strip search of hundreds of children sparks national probe
An investigation found that 42 percent of children subjected to the "traumatic” practice were Black boys.
Members of the Metropolitan Police walk among shoppers on Oxford Street, in London on Dec. 21, 2017. (DANIEL LEAL/AFP via Getty Images)
LONDON — A public investigation that found London police strip searched hundreds of children has triggered alarm about the “traumatic” practice and a wider probe of potential abuses around the country.
The inquiry said the Metropolitan Police was searching children as young as 10 years old on an almost daily basis, and revealed 650 strip searches between 2018 and 2020. It said 42 percent of the children were young Black boys.
The Children’s Commissioner for England said she was “unconvinced” the police was “consistently considering children’s welfare” after her report found that an adult was not there during nearly a quarter of the searches. This was despite a law requiring the presence of a parent, guardian or social worker.
“A police power that is as intrusive and traumatic for children as a strip search must be treated with the utmost care and responsibility,” said commissioner Rachel de Souza, who published the report Monday.
She pledged to investigate police forces around the country. “Sorry isn’t good enough,” she said after announcing the findings, which London Mayor Sadiq Khan called “gravely concerning.”
The probe began after the case of a Black schoolgirl in 2020 prompted protests in east London. Female officers strip searched the 15-year-old, identified as “Child Q” in British media and in the report to protect her privacy, on school grounds without another adult present and while she was menstruating. Her mother was not notified.
A local review said earlier this year that while the child was undressed due to suspicions she was carrying cannabis, the police did not uncover any drugs, and concluded that racism likely influenced their approach. The incident distressed the girl to the extent that she was referred for psychological support.
Watchdog says London police officers engaged in misogynistic, racist, discriminatory behavior
"Child Q was not an isolated issue,” according to De Souza, who said the case indicated deeper problems with protecting children.
In an email, the Metropolitan Police said Tuesday it was working to “balance the policing needed for this type of search with the considerable impact it can have on young people.”
After the uproar over Child Q, police officers in her London borough received training on racial bias including not treating Black children as adults. The London police force said it has made changes such as raising the level of approval necessary before an officer initiates such a strip search and launching a review of its policy for searching minors.
The commissioner’s report acknowledged the city’s police force had “committed to several changes,” while recommending more training and scrutiny. But some activists called for an end to strip searching children, rather than attempts to improve it with best practices.
Protests over the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, which spread around the world including to Britain, pushed the country to contend with its own policing system, including the power for officers to stop and search people on suspicions of carrying weapons or other criminal activity. Data shows that Black people are stopped at disproportionate rates.
How George Floyd’s killing sparked a global reckoning
The latest probe shows that of all the boys strip searched each year, more than half were Black, as described by the officer. In 2018, it was 75 percent, fueling concerns of racial profiling.
Half of all the searches of children led to no further action, which calls into question whether they were necessary at all, De Souza said. And in one in five cases, the search was labeled at “another location,” so it was not possible to determine where it took place, the report says.
British accountability and children’s groups called for greater transparency in the use of police powers. “This problem won’t be limited to one police force in one part of the country," said Anna Edmundson, head of policy and public affairs at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
For Kevin Blowe, campaigns coordinator at the Network for Police Monitoring, the “horrifying" use of strip searches on children “is part of the bigger picture of failing to see young people as needing help far more than enforcement.”
He said the figures show why many young people “have a deep-rooted mistrust and a sense of powerlessness about their treatment” by the police, especially in London’s most diverse or poorest communities. “We support an end to the use of strip searches on children. The police have shown they cannot be trusted with this power," he said. | 2022-08-09T12:56:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | London police strip-searched hundreds of children, triggering wider probe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/london-met-police-children-strip-searches/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/09/london-met-police-children-strip-searches/ |
What a difference a summer can make for a Democrat in a swing district
Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) talks with distiller Sherry Brockenbrough during a tour of the Hilltop distillery in Maidens, Va., on June 7, 2021. (Steve Helber/AP)
Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a moderate Democrat in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, has never had easy races. The upcoming midterms will be no exception, but Spanberger says she’s feeling upbeat.
“We’re going to win,” she tells me in a phone interview. Her confidence comes from her perception that voters in her district are intensely pragmatic. Their test, essentially, boils down to one question: “What have you done for me lately?”
“You gotta get something done,” Spanberger says. And that’s why she is so enthusiastic about Democrats’ recent string of legislative wins. While no bill is perfect, she says, “we’re moving forward. Success begets success.”
Spanberger’s seat is a true swing district. She won in 2018 and 2020 with less than 51 percent of the vote. Her constituents voted for Donald Trump by six points in 2016 and for Joe Biden by one point in 2020. To make matters more dicey, the district’s borders have changed considerably thanks to redistricting, meaning Spanberger must introduce herself to a whole patch of new voters. (She lost some Richmond suburbs and picked up areas west to the Shenandoah and more of the outer D.C. suburbs.) Though some of her constituents were part of the old 7th District, hundreds of thousands were not.
Still, she has plenty to show constituents after this summer. For a district that includes Marine Corps Base Quantico and is home to many veterans, the recently passed legislation that will expand access to health care for sick veterans exposed to burn pits in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is certainly welcome. Democrats in the U.S. House “didn’t compromise” on the bill, she says. “We demanded the Senate be as responsive as we were.” After humiliating themselves with an unnecessary delay, Senate Republicans finally helped pass the bill 86-11.
What’s more, Spanberger says her district has “so many retirees on a fixed income” who will save hundreds if not thousands of dollars thanks to the reconciliation package the Senate recently passed, which includes a $2,000 cap on Medicare drug costs, a cap on insulin prices for those on Medicare and reforms to allow the government to negotiate prices with drug companies.
Even the package’s increased funding for the Internal Revenue Service gets a thumbs-up. “People who are having problems with the IRS want it to be able to function,” she says.
Meanwhile, abortion was not on the radar for many voters until the Supreme Court overturned abortion rights in June. "Suddenly, it’s in the forefront,” Spanberger says. The notion that they might not be able to get post-miscarriage care is a “jarring reality” for many voters. Even those who might not be directly affected express unease that “things are going backwards.”
The abortion issue looms particularly large in her district, since her Republican challenger, Yesli Vega, cheered the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Vega was recently caught on tape sounding a lot like failed Missouri’s failed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin, who argued women couldn’t get pregnant from rape. In the recording, after someone made a similar claim, Vega responded, “Maybe, because there’s so much going on in the body? I don’t know. . . . But if I’m processing what you’re saying, it wouldn’t surprise me, because it’s not something that’s happening organically. You’re forcing it.”
Spanberger slammed Vega for the remark, which Spanberger says has “no reality in fact or biology.” She added that Vega is “incredibly extreme” and wants “more government control and more government intrusion.”
Nevertheless, Spanberger faces a tough political environment in which inflation remains a top issue. She acknowledges voters’ pain and the cycle of “bad news after bad news” causing so much angst. She concedes that some people want to blame it all on President Biden and expect an instant solution. But, she says, “people recognize things are complicated.” And they want to know what she’s doing to solve the problems.
Spanberger is betting voters are much less ideological and more results-oriented than the partisan media and politicians. If so, she could not ask for a better contrast from her opponent. As a moderate Democrat running against a radical MAGA candidate, Spanberger argues that voters want legislators who appreciate “nuance,” can get things done and are not driven by partisanship.
Thanks to the run of legislative successes, Spanberger and other Democrats in tough races can at least show voters what they are doing to improve voters’ lives (e.g., lowering drug costs, building infrastructure, taking care of veterans, giving residents help to convert to clean energy). That will be critical in November as Democrats present voters with a choice between out-of-step MAGA candidates and pragmatic Democrats who have delivered for them. | 2022-08-09T13:13:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why Abigail Spanberger feels confident she can win reelection - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/09/why-abigail-spanberger-feels-confident-she-can-win-reelection-midterms-virginia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/09/why-abigail-spanberger-feels-confident-she-can-win-reelection-midterms-virginia/ |
Development 20 miles from Fredericksburg sells homes on one-acre lots. Prices start at $433,900.
The sunroom flows into the dining room in the Dunmore model's open-space design. (Benjamin C Tankersley/For The Washington Post)
Buyers looking for a new single-family house in a small-town setting not too far from Fredericksburg, Va., might want to sample the charms of the Eden View development in King George.
King George, the seat of King George County, is about 20 miles east of Fredericksburg, a little more than 60 miles south of D.C. and about 10 miles west of the Potomac River.
The Eden View builder, Westbrooke Homes, has plans for 33 single-family houses, with three ready for immediate delivery and four more under construction. Move-ins are expected to continue for the next nine to 12 months.
The houses occupy one-acre lots, and there are plenty of options to choose from, said Holly Lane, community sales manager. “We have nine models, each with three exterior elevations [facades],” Lane said. “The architectural features have a Craftsman feel” — including shake siding and board and batten siding — “all accented in a variety of paired color schemes available to personalize each home.”
Interior fixtures and finishes are chosen at the design and sales center.
Base prices range from $433,900 to $585,900. Square-footage ranges from 1,623 to 3,100. Eden View offers one- and two-story houses, including two-story houses arranged for single-level living. All the models come with a two-car garage and an unfinished basement with a three-piece plumbing rough-in for a full bathroom.
Dan and Colleen Hogan went with a two-story house, a Dunmore model, with 2,288 square feet, three bedrooms and three bathrooms. “We really liked the open floor plan,” Dan said, “including the morning room with a nice view of the yard and the loft on the second floor that we can use as a common area for the kids.”
The Hogans rented a place at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division — located on the Potomac River and a major employer in the county — for three years before moving to Eden View in early August. Dan, 48, said he is a retired naval officer who works as a government scientist. He said Colleen, 45, is a former prekindergarten teacher who sells homemade pies through her small baking business.
“We were renting to give ourselves a chance to get a feel for the area and make sure we wanted to stay here,” Dan said. “Once we knew we wanted to put down roots in King George, we made the jump into homeownership.”
The Hogans kept an eye on the market for a while and, then, struck quickly, Dan said. “Eden View,” he said, “had the right balance of everything we were looking for.”
King George is a bit off the beaten trail, but that’s what some buyers are looking for. “King George has a small-town feel,” Lane said. “This quaint, yet growing community offers abundant recreational opportunities. King George is bordered by the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers as well as the Chesapeake Bay.”
Schools: Potomac Elementary, King George Middle, King George High
Transit: Residents have easy access to state Routes 301 and 3.
Nearby: Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail, Caledon State Park, Northern Virginia Gun Club, Fredericksburg, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division.
Eden View
9279 Eden Drive, King George, Va. 22485
A total of 33 houses are planned, with three ready for immediate delivery and four under construction. Base prices range from $433,900 to $585,900.
Builder: Westbrooke Homes
Features: The houses have eight-foot-high ceilings, flat-panel cabinets and stainless-steel sink and refrigerator in the kitchen and cultured marble vanity tops in bathrooms.
Bedrooms/bathrooms: 2 to 6 / 2 to 5
Homeowners association fee: $140 per quarter
View model: Scheduled appointments or walk-ins available Saturday through Monday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Virtual self-guided tours are also available upon request.
Sales: Holly Lane, Holly@Westbrooke-Homes.com, 540-899-2333 | 2022-08-09T13:18:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Single-family houses in quaint King George, Va. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/09/single-family-houses-quaint-king-george-va/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/09/single-family-houses-quaint-king-george-va/ |
Presidents Hire ‘Yes Men’ at Their Peril
WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 28: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office before signing an executive order related to regulating social media on May 28, 2020 in Washington, DC. Trump’s executive order could lead to attempts to punish companies such as Twitter and Google for attempting to point out factual inconsistencies in social media posts by politicians. (Photo by Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images) (Photographer: Pool/Getty Images North America)
Even before Donald Trump disclosed that the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, the day brought new revelations about his presidency, ranging from more evidence of his casual disregard for the law — toilet edition — to the military’s efforts to try to fight back against his moves to overthrow the election to his admiration for what he mistakenly believed was Hitler’s relationship with his generals.
The latter two items are from an excerpt of a forthcoming book by journalists Susan B. Glasser and Peter Baker that also contains the detail I found most fascinating. It’s what Trump told General Mark Milley when the general advised him against hiring a “yes man” as his third White House chief of staff. Trump’s reply:
“I want a yes man!”
Trump wasn’t shy about letting everyone know that he basically thought of the presidency as an elected dictatorship. He considered pushback from anyone a personal affront, rather than just the normal workings of a complex political system. And unlike cabinet secretaries and other agency chiefs, who are accountable to both the White House and Congress, senior White House appointees answer only to the Oval Office. That leaves the White House staff as the one place that presidents can hope for subservience and loyalty.
So while it’s possible to have a “yes man” as White House chief of staff, it’s also — I might as well be blunt here — an incredibly stupid way of running a presidency. The reason is simple: When it comes to policy, presidents are mostly ignorant. That goes even for those with extensive experience, such as President Joe Biden; those who have worked hard to master the substance of the job, such as Bill Clinton; and even those, such as Richard Nixon, who qualify on both of those counts.
There is simply too much to know. In just the last two weeks, the Biden White House has had to deal with China and Taiwan; Russia and Ukraine; NATO expansion; burn pits and veterans’ health care; support for the semiconductor industry and basic science research; terrorism in Afghanistan; violence between Israel and the Palestinians; negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program; gasoline prices and inflation and jobs and economic growth and interest rates; the filling of judicial and executive-branch vacancies amid confirmation fights for some nominees; and climate and taxes and health care. And that’s just what has been in the news recently; other issues have surely required presidential attention during that time span, let alone over four years in office.
Many capable politicians can understand the gist of all these things; no single person can have in-depth knowledge of even most of them, let alone all.
When it comes to dealing with the president, the people who have received good reviews as chief of staff have made sure that presidents were exposed to a range of opinions. It isn’t wise when a chief of staff advances his or her own personal preferences and locks out other information the president should hear, as Donald Regan did when he was Ronald Reagan’s second chief of staff.
A skilled chief of staff will know who the boss is. But that doesn’t mean the job is simply to enforce the president’s whims (or some nutty idea he just saw on Fox News). It’s to make sure that the president is fully informed of the alternatives that White House experts, executive-branch agencies and other important players are supporting. That isn’t an easy needle to thread; obviously no president can consider every possible option on every policy question.
The White House staff, and ultimately the chief of staff, have an important and difficult job of narrowing down what to include and what to exclude. That process won’t be helped if they have to worry that the president will tear their heads off if they bring in unwelcome news or urge the president to consider uncomfortable choices.
While this would be obvious to many top executives, Trump never appreciated the value of different points of view. And as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Timothy L. O’Brien has pointed out, Trump never really had much management experience in the first place.
Contrary to what Trump thinks, people aren’t good at being president because they have good intuition about public policy. Franklin Roosevelt wasn’t a brilliant economist. His expertise — the expertise of all good presidents — was politics. And not just, or even primarily, electoral politics. Certainly not the mythical connection many presidents believe they have with the people. Instead, it’s politics more broadly: the interplay of politicians and other officials in and out of government, their interests, their constituencies and their institutional incentives, and the way that interacts with particular policy choices and other actions.
Good chiefs of staff can’t substitute their own political expertise for that. But they can help. If, that is, they have their own independent judgment and the good sense to use it for the president, rather than just echoing everything the president says.
• Republicans Will Take Home the Money From Democrats’ Bill: Denning & Ghosh
• Why British Conservatives Went Cold on Rishi Sunak.: Therese Raphael | 2022-08-09T13:18:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Presidents Hire ‘Yes Men’ at Their Peril - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/presidents-hire-yes-menat-their-peril/2022/08/09/cea87370-17df-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/presidents-hire-yes-menat-their-peril/2022/08/09/cea87370-17df-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Marc Andreessen’s Housing NIMBYism Is Losing Ground
Analysis by Virginia Postrel | Bloomberg
Atherton tops the US richest-places list. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen got caught last week engaging in housing hypocrisy. The author of a 2020 manifesto called “A Time to Build,” Andreessen is a vocal opponent of NIMBYism. Yet when it came to his own town of Atherton, California, Andreessen signed a public comment opposing a plan to add 137 units of multifamily housing by rezoning nine lots. (The comment, written in the first-person singular and a style unlike Andreessen’s, seems to have been composed by his wife.)
An anonymous emailer sent links to the relevant documents and local press coverage to me and, apparently, to Jerusalem Demsas of the Atlantic. Her subsequent article concluded that Andreessen’s hypocrisy illustrates why housing reforms have to take place at the state level, where “officials are influenced by NIMBYs, but they have a much larger electorate to worry about and a mandate to address the cost of living and rising home prices, not just respond and implement local desires.”
The incident proves more than that. It demonstrates that California’s state-level housing reforms are working — not as fast as they ideally would, but working nonetheless.
Under a law passed in 1969, two years before Andreessen was born, every eight years California cities have to project the future demand for housing in several income tiers and specify where those homes might be built. The long, complicated and expensive ritual has produced many hearings and documents but not much housing. It offered too many loopholes.
Cities could lowball the numbers. They could identify theoretical sites in their plans but, when later faced with a real development proposal, impose delays and restrictions that required scaling down the project, increasing the sales prices or rents, or abandoning the whole thing.
“Housing element” plans didn’t have to make sure the owners of prospective sites were willing to sell. As long as cities went through the right motions, they faced no consequences for obstructing new housing.
California has toughened its approval process for the housing-element plans, and cities face fines of up to $600,000 a month if they don’t come up with an acceptable plan. The state can review at any time whether the city is complying with its promises. If not, it can require streamlining development permissions to keep those commitments.
Cities that fail to meet their obligations face fines of up to $100,000 a month. They can lose state funding. The state can even suspend their power to regulate land use.
The process is still roundabout. It’s a long way from letting supply meet demand. But as housing advocate Nolan Gray said an email, it’s “a useful kludge for bringing at least a little liberalizing state oversight into a very dysfunctional and restrictive system of local land-use regulation.”
The threat of state punishment gives city officials political cover to loosen housing restrictions — like it or not. “I don’t want Atherton to change,” city councilwoman Elizabeth Lewis said at a July 21 hearing. “It is just heartbreaking and sickening to think we’re facing this from the state.”
But Atherton has already changed dramatically over the past few decades. The growth of Silicon Valley has made a town just four miles from Stanford University or Facebook headquarters an extremely desirable place to live. The upper-middle-class people who bought houses there decades ago couldn’t afford them today. Loosening housing restrictions would make room for people like them.
That fact seems lost on some longtime residents. Take one couple who filed their objections to allowing local schools to buy adjacent lots and build multiunit housing for their staff members. According to public records, they bought one of the area’s more modest homes, with 1,950 square feet, for $370,000 in 1987. It’s now worth 10 times that much.
Then there’s the woman who wrote that “if the mandate to build 345 units including multi-family low-cost units is implemented, Atherton would be dramatically changed forever.” She bought her place for $255,000 in 1976. Zillow estimates that the 3,820-square-foot house on 1.29 acres would sell for more than $10 million today.
Thanks to Proposition 13, these owners pay about $9,000 a year in property taxes, a fraction of what market-rate assessments would yield. A new $1 million townhouse would yield more property taxes than a single-family home that last sold 40 years ago.
Atherton, Gray said, is “an island of state-enforced mansion zoning in the middle of one of the most productive regions on Earth — there’s enormous demand for housing.” The town is never going to be cheap.
But without zoning, he hypothesized, “you’d likely overwhelmingly get a lot of seven-figure condos. That would be OK — every new unit permitted in a wealthy place like Atherton eases price pressure on housing further down the market.”
In the more constrained reality, California requires Atherton to add 348 new housing units over the next eight years, up from 93 in the current cycle. Between 2015 and 2020, the city gained 90 new units, including 54 inexpensive “accessory dwelling units,” or ADUs, otherwise known as granny flats, guest houses or garage apartments. The town hit its numbers for “very low income” housing but not for any other income category.(1)
Atherton has added places for live-in domestic staff, but not for young Stanford professors. If its new plan doesn’t do better, it will face serious penalties. Local officials feel the pressure.
Confronting constituents outraged by the prospect of sharing the neighborhood with townhouse-dwelling riffraff, however, the Atherton city council revised its proposal. It eliminated zones for multiunit housing, including 40 units on a lot whose owner emphatically refuses to sell (shades of the old housing-element flimflam). The new plan still counts on a few multiunit additions on school property.
Mostly, it relies on two recent reforms that encourage single-family homeowners to add to the housing stock. One is the 2016 law requiring cities to approve ADUs, which Atherton says will supply 280 new units. The other is a 2020 law giving single-family homeowners two complementary rights: to build two units on their property and to split the lot in two, for a possible total of four homes. The new construction is exempt from challenges under the California Environmental Quality Act, a tool frequented used to block new housing.
With its large lots, Atherton is well suited to this approach. The plan attributes 96 new units to lot splits, including some already in the works.
In the Atlantic’s version of the story, the NIMBYs won: “As a result of a few hundred ultra-wealthy people, the town will remain exclusively for the elite.” But that’s not exactly the case.
For starters, it’s by no means sure that the state will approve the new plan. It could deem its assumptions unrealistic and require revisions.
More important, Atherton still has to meet the goals. The plan is no longer mere ritual. If the projections don’t line up with reality, the town may have to allow some multiunit developments. When constituents complain, local politicians can blame the state.
And a major zoning transformation has already taken place. Making places like Atherton friendly to ADUs and especially to lot splits is a big deal. City planners identified more than 600 lots larger than an acre where the current house was built before 1970 — the prescription for a teardown. With splits, they could account for more than 1,800 new homes.
In a town with fewer than 7,500 residents, that represents enormous potential. As Gray pointed out about seven-figure condos, even expensive new homes free up supply elsewhere in the region.
California’s modest reforms have already pushed the country’s most expensive town into accepting smaller, cheaper homes. Letting NIMBYs vent is a civic ritual. Once it’s over, it’s time to build.
(1) In San Mateo County, which includes Atherton, a family of four with a household income of $149,100, a couple making $119,300 or an individual earning $104,400 qualifies as low income. For very low income, the limits are $93,200, $74,600 and $65,250.
Virginia Postrel is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a visiting fellow at the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University and author, most recently, of “The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World.” | 2022-08-09T13:18:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Marc Andreessen’s Housing NIMBYism Is Losing Ground - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/marc-andreessens-housing-nimbyismis-losing-ground/2022/08/09/fe347cb6-17e3-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/marc-andreessens-housing-nimbyismis-losing-ground/2022/08/09/fe347cb6-17e3-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Proponents “haven’t measured the long term,” Erik Hurst of the University of Chicago told me. “So they think they have a costless solution.”
Recent research by Hurst and three colleagues concludes that President Biden’s proposal to raise the federal minimum to $15 would end up damaging the livelihood of about 15% of the workers earning less than that — mainly those at the very bottom of the pay scale. Even if they benefited from the pay boost in the short term, many would lose their jobs in the end.
Three decades ago, economists David Card from the University of California, Berkeley, and Alan Krueger from Princeton University surveyed fast-food restaurants on both sides of the border between New Jersey, which raised its minimum wage, and Pennsylvania, which didn’t. To the surprise of many, they found no evidence that raising the wage floor cost jobs.
Economists have found evidence of so-called monopsonistic behavior among employers in some industries and markets. This has bolstered the proposition that forcing employers to raise wages will not automatically lead them to drop workers altogether, because they are paying them less than what they are worth to the firm. They can pay them more and still make a profit.Lifting the minimum wage in this kind of market might even create new jobs. More people would be drawn to work by the higher pay. As long as the new wage didn’t rise above the value of their contribution to the firm, the employer would still turn a profit on each additional worker.
Some economists argue against the new theoretical framework. “I think the monopsony train is going out of the station way too fast,” David Neumark, an economist at the University of California, Irvine, who is skeptical of the value of the minimum wage, told me. He notes that companies in big markets where most people live and most workers work are not likely to wield much monopsony power. There are too many competitors also hiring.
But perhaps more importantly, the groundswell of support for the minimum wage as the tool of choice to improve the lot of the working poor fails to account for time: all the empirical studies observe changes in employment over a few years at most. Firms don’t usually overhaul their workforce or retool their production lines that fast.
Whether they have monopsony power over their workers or not, businesses will do their best to keep their costs down, substituting high-cost inputs with lower-cost ones.
Workers can be replaced with robots or with other workers who, either because they have more education or more experience, are more profitable for the firm. Just give them time.
This proposition is grounded in empirical research that is just as strong as that by Card and Krueger. (Indeed, Card is co-author of some of it.) The low-wage workers who are suddenly made expensive by a rising minimum wage will largely be replaced in the end.
Hurst, Patrick Kehoe and Elena Pastorino from Stanford University, and Thomas Winberry from the University of Pennsylvania have put together a model of the labor market that fits both the evidence that raising the minimum wage has little or no impact on jobs in the short term, as well as findings regarding worker substitution over the long run.
They conclude that raising the minimum wage in real terms to $15 an hour — compared with the average wage distribution of 2017 to 2019 — would affect a big chunk of the workforce: 40% of workers without any college education and 10% of workers with college made less than that. The group includes workers earning $14.50 and workers making half that.
The main finding by Hurst and his co-authors is that all these workers would benefit over the first few years, as their paychecks shot up. But over the long term — which in some cases could mean as little as four years — the less-productive workers on the bottom end would be fired, to be replaced by others of higher productivity.
Whether raising the minimum wage is ultimately good or bad for workers, then, needs to be calculated over their entire time in the workforce. This will add up to positive gains for many, but it would ultimately damage those at the bottom — including about everybody earning less than $9.
What’s more, the higher minimum would damage the prospects of future low-wage workers who are not yet in the labor market. They wouldn’t benefit from any wage bump in the short term. But they would likely be ignored by employers looking for workers with a latent value to the firm in the $15 range.
The precise effects are hard to estimate. They rely on estimates from empirical-research papers of the elasticity of substitution between different types of workers, as well as between workers and machines, and these things are difficult to measure. The magnitude of firms’ monopsony power is another parameter that would also affect the calibration.
Yet the broad thrust of the finding is solid: The minimum wage is not a cost-free tool to fix the low-wage economy. This might not be obvious at first, but just wait. | 2022-08-09T13:18:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Minimum Wages Are Going Up. Jobs May Disappear. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/minimum-wages-are-going-up-jobs-may-disappear/2022/08/09/9e6de130-17db-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/minimum-wages-are-going-up-jobs-may-disappear/2022/08/09/9e6de130-17db-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Extreme heat is making work more dangerous. But outside of the West Coast, the fight to protect workers is facing headwinds.
A gated housing community is being built by immigrant workers in western Palm Beach County, Fla. Heat indexes of over 100 degrees have made such work dangerous, especially for those who are not given enough drinking water, shade and rest breaks. (Cindy Karp for The Washington Post)
HOMESTEAD, Fla. — In the nearly two decades she has worked in South Florida’s plant nurseries, baking under greenhouse plastic covers, Sandra Ascencio has seen more than her share of misery.
Ascencio remembers seeing the body of a co-worker several years ago crumpled in the parking lot as paramedics tried to revive her. The woman struggled with asthma in hot weather and may have been trying to reach her air-conditioned car, Ascencio said.
In 2008, Ascencio collapsed while working at a different nursery. She said she suffered heatstroke, lost consciousness and spent a week in the hospital.
Today, she belongs to a growing group of immigrant laborers in South Florida pushing for what many health experts say is the best way to prevent heatstroke as temperatures reach new extremes: a law requiring employers to provide outdoor workers with drinking water, shade and rest breaks on hot days.
But as the need to keep workers safe from heat grows, many efforts to do so have failed. While places like California and Washington have adopted workplace rules to address heat exposure, many other states’ attempts to mandate these protections have been blocked or weakened following opposition from industry groups representing agriculture, construction and other business interests, according to public records and those involved in efforts to craft new rules. The Biden administration’s plan to draft heat rules for workers is likely to face similar resistance and legal challenges from the biggest companies.
In Nevada, where climate change is fueling hotter summers, state data shows workplace heat stress complaints nearly tripled from 2016 to 2021. But a heat safety regulation adopted by the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is awaiting final approval from a panel of lawmakers, who have put off a vote for months. Victoria Carreon, an administrator at the Nevada Department of Business and Industry, said the agency is in talks with industry groups “concerned about the burdens on businesses of having to implement regulations.”
In hot and humid Virginia, the state’s workplace safety board voted against a proposal to adopt a heat illness prevention rule last year. At the time, its members were appointed by then-Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat. And workplace heat bills introduced in New York and Maine have been unsuccessful.
“A lot of states have been getting a tremendous amount of pushback,” said Juley Fulcher, a worker health advocate for the nonprofit Public Citizen, which has pushed for a national heat standard requiring employers to give workers water, shade and rest breaks. “There is this generic response you hear from business groups: ‘We’re taking care of it.’ Others say it just needs to be really flexible — almost so flexible that it’s not a rule.”
A heat illness prevention bill has failed three times in Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature in recent years. This year, supporters were feeling hopeful after a Republican state senator from Miami-Dade County agreed to sponsor the legislation, giving it bipartisan credibility. The Senate Agriculture Committee passed it in a unanimous vote in January. No one testified against it.
“It should have been a no-brainer,” said Karen Woodall, a longtime Florida lobbyist on behalf of social and economic justice issues.
But behind the scenes, trade associations representing some of the state’s largest companies with thousands of outdoor workers expressed concerns that the bill would expose them to lawsuits, Woodall said.
Florida lawmakers have previously supported heat safety legislation. In 2020, they passed a bill designed to prevent heatstroke in student-athletes. But when asked to extend protections to the state’s outdoor workers, many of whom are Latino immigrants from Central and South America, they let the bill die in committee.
Workers in the Southeast have long struggled with the region’s hot and humid summers, but in agricultural communities like Homestead, climate change is magnifying the health risks. A 2020 study by University of Washington and Stanford University researchers found that the average farmworker in the United States endures dangerous levels of heat 21 days per season. If the planet warms by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the number of unsafe work days is expected to nearly double.
Rising temperatures are especially perilous for farm and construction workers, who have the highest heat-related fatality rates.
How many occupational heat deaths there are in the country is difficult to say. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that heat exposure kills an average of 40 workers annually — there were 56 fatalities in 2020, the most recent year for which data is available — and injures more than 3,000. But the government says its figures are “likely vast underestimates” because of underreporting.
It is not just Ascencio struggling in the heat. At a meeting last month of WeCount!, the Miami-Dade immigrant rights organization pushing for a statewide standard, other workers said they had also been sickened. José Delgado, 73, a white-haired man who harvests sweet potatoes, said he has been hospitalized with heatstroke twice in the past five years. Construction worker Andres Villegas, 57, said has seen men with heat illness fall from rooftops and ladders. He had his own close call a few years ago. Farmworkers, landscapers and nursery workers said their bosses don’t provide water or prohibit them from pausing their labor to take a drink, causing headaches, nausea and dizziness.
“We’re seeing temperatures above 100 degrees,” said Ascencio, 50. “We meet workers who tell us that their bosses don’t give them even 10- or 15-minute breaks. They know it’s inhumane to work under those conditions, but they have to pay their bills.”
‘If we give them breaks, it costs us money’
Germany and Spain set maximum indoor temperatures for workplaces. China has measures to prevent heatstroke in indoor and outdoor workers. But there is no national heat standard in the United States.
The Biden administration is moving to protect workers from heat and has directed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, part of the Labor Department, to issue a new rule. But it takes the agency an average of seven years to write new safety standards. The fate of a heat regulation could depend on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
That has left it to states. Four of them — California, Washington, Oregon and Minnesota — have broad workplace heat safety regulations. Each is slightly different: California and Washington’s rules apply to outdoor workers; Minnesota’s regulation protects only indoor workers; Oregon’s standard covers both. Colorado has a new heat rule that protects only farmworkers. Maryland passed a law two years ago requiring workplace safety officials to adopt a heat illness regulation by Oct. 1, but the state government still hasn’t released a draft.
While they wait for the federal government to act, worker advocates say preventing heat deaths relies on more states joining this small club. But the challenges are many.
In 2019, Virginia’s Safety and Health Codes Board voted unanimously to begin drafting a heat illness prevention rule. State officials assembled an advisory panel of worker advocates, industry representatives and safety experts. In interviews, six of the panel’s members said participants could not agree on whether a rule was even necessary.
Fulcher served on the panel and said the experience was deeply frustrating. One business representative’s comment so infuriated her that she wrote it down: “If we give them breaks, it costs us money.”
“My reaction was: ‘If you don’t give them breaks, they die, and that costs you money too,’ ” Fulcher said.
Hotter days mean not just more cases of heatstroke but also more accidents and injuries, which can drive up businesses’ insurance and legal costs. A study of California workers’ compensation injury reports found that the number of heat-related injuries declined after 2005, when the state enacted a heat safety rule for outdoor workers on days when temperatures top 95 degrees. Worker advocates took the findings as a positive sign that new regulations could help businesses adapt to global warming. But many industry groups were not swayed.
On the day of the Virginia board’s vote last December, representatives of the agriculture, construction, timber and shellfish industries lined up to oppose the proposed rule.
“It is an unreasonable and unnecessary standard,” said Brandon Robinson, CEO of the Associated General Contractors of Virginia, according to a recording of the session.
“Employees in Virginia are acclimated to their environment and are less impacted by higher temperatures,” said Conner Miller, of the Virginia Forest Products Association. The proposed rule “would be very disruptive.”
The board rejected the proposal by one vote.
Legal obstacles ahead
Across the country, industry leaders and lobbyists have made the same argument: States should put off writing their own rules until a national regulation takes effect. But business interests are working to create doubt about whether a national heat rule is needed — or even legal.
In comments to OSHA, business groups have said that the compliance costs would be extreme and that employers are already doing the right thing.
The American Farm Bureau Federation wrote to the agency, saying it should “partner with employers” on better training materials instead of pursuing a new rule.
The National Cotton Council wrote that many heat-related issues are not caused by farm work or poor management, “but instead result from the modern employee lifestyle in an advanced 21st century global economy.” The group pinned workers’ inability to withstand high temperatures on “present-day luxuries such as air-conditioning” and Americans’ “sedentary lifestyle.”
David Michaels, a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health and a former OSHA administrator, said industry groups usually fight new federal health and safety standards. But opposition to a heat illness rule is likely to be especially fierce, he said, because it would affect so many sectors of the economy.
“There’s no question this will be expensive,” Michaels said, “but if we think that safe work is a right, then weighing out the cost shouldn’t be part of that calculus.”
In Oregon, trade organizations representing timber and manufacturing companies have filed a lawsuit to stop the state from enforcing new rules protecting workers from heat illness and wildfire smoke. The groups argue that the rules are too vague, too costly and amount to regulatory overreach.
To support this last claim, they appear to borrow from what was ultimately a winning argument before the U.S. Supreme Court, which in January stayed the implementation of the Biden administration’s vaccine-or-test mandate for large companies. The court’s conservative majority found that the coronavirus is not a workplace hazard, but a “universal risk” that is “no different from the day-to-day dangers that all face from crime, air pollution, or any number of communicable diseases.”
In their lawsuit, the industry groups argue that Oregon’s heat rule regulates “a societal hazard rather than an occupational hazard.” Worker advocates said they expect industry groups will use the same argument to attack a federal heat rule — and any future workplace protections related to climate change.
How to stay safe in extreme heat
For Michael Wheelock, president of Grayback Forestry, a contract wildfire fighting company headquartered in Southern Oregon, complying with the new heat rule has been “cumbersome.”
Wheelock said he has had to buy an ice machine and insulated coolers to keep drinking water cold enough. He also has to monitor the heat index and call the required number of rest breaks.
“There’s a lot of real good-intentioned regulations and I would put this in that category, but it’s pretty broad” he said, adding “I hope they modify it some.”
Water, shade and rest
Without more support from the Florida legislature, WeCount! organizers say their best chance to enact a heat safety law relies on a local campaign. If they can persuade a majority on the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners to support their proposal, they would win new protections for the hundreds of thousands of outdoor workers in the county. It would be the first countywide heat standard in the country.
With plans to put a proposed ordinance before the board as soon as next month, the organization has ramped up its campaigning, deploying day laborers and farmworkers-turned-activists to knock on doors in nearby cities and worker camps.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, Andres Villegas looked down the sidewalk outside a busy commercial strip and saw a woman approaching. He stepped into her path. “Señora, how are you today?” Villegas asked, gently beginning the pitch he hoped would lead to a signature of support, or at least a conversation. But the woman walked away. “There’s heat all over the planet,” she called over her shoulder.
“Many people don’t understand that too much heat is dangerous,” said Villegas. He explained that he had recently seen a roofer fall from a considerable height on a job site. When Villegas reached the man, his co-workers were slapping his cheeks to revive him, playfully needling him for having tripped. But the fallen man didn’t recover until Villegas moved him to a shady spot and doused him with water, lowering his body temperature.
“In the countries these people came from, they and their families worked the land, they fished, they withstood the sun for generations. But the sun today is fiercer,” said Villegas, who emigrated from Mexico. “It’s a constant fight because many people aren’t paying attention.”
His lucked improved. A trio of men in dress shirts, stiff jeans and cowboy boots stopped. Two nodded intently and agreed to sign. They worked in nurseries, growing ornamental palms and trees under plastic tents that trap the heat. “The bosses don’t allow us time to drink water,” one man said, adding that he hides from his supervisors when he’s desperate for a water break.
The following evening, more than 90 workers packed the meeting room in the WeCount! office to hear how the group was going to change all of this. An hour went by as the organizers presented their strategy. The air grew warm and stale. Babies and young children fell asleep on their mothers’ laps.
When Villegas’s turn came, he looked past the weary faces and snickering teenagers in the back. “We are the pioneers of this campaign — and we are growing,” he bellowed into a microphone. “We can’t beg the government, or the politicians, to help us. We have to say it’s their obligation. And we aren’t doing this for a few hundred people, we are doing it for thousands.”
The workers erupted in applause. He and the other canvassers had collected more than 1,000 signatures over the summer, repeating the slogan “water, shade, and rest” until their children knew it by heart. But very few of the people who signed in support could vote — the movement’s strength was not in its power at the ballot box, but in the number of fed-up workers who stood behind it.
Would that be enough? They would soon find out. September was only a month away. | 2022-08-09T13:19:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As temperatures rise, industries protest heat safeguards for workers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/09/climate-change-heat-workers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/09/climate-change-heat-workers/ |
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