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WASHINGTON — Congress is poised to pass a transformative climate change fighting bill. Friday’s vote would be the first major climate package in the U.S. and would include close to $375 billion in spending. Most of the bill is aimed at infusions of cash, subsidies and tax breaks to make green energy eventually so cheap it’s nearly irresistible. It would slice U.S. carbon emissions by about 40%. This compromise bill comes 34 years after Congress was warned that climate change was a serious threat. Since then there have been 308 weather disasters that each cost $1 billion.
DALLAS — U.S. gas prices have dipped under $4 a gallon for the first time in more than five months. AAA says the national average is $3.99 for a gallon of regular. That’s down 15 cents in just the last week, and 68 cents in the last month. Gasoline peaked at around $5.02 a gallon on June 14. Motorists in California and Hawaii are still paying above $5, and other states in the West are paying close to that. The cheapest gas is in Texas and several other states in the South and Midwest. The decline reflects falling prices for crude oil, which have dipped close to $90 a barrel from over $120 a barrel in June.
WASHINGTON — Prices at the wholesale level fell from June to July, the first month-to-month drop in more than two years and a sign that some of the U.S. economy’s inflationary pressures cooled last month. Thursday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the producer price index — which measures inflation before it reaches consumers — declined 0.5% in July. It was the first monthly drop since April 2020 and was down from a sharp 1% increase from May to June. The easing of wholesale inflation suggests that consumers could get some relief from relentless inflation in the coming months.
NEW YORK — An afternoon pullback left stock indexes on Wall Street mixed, erasing most of their morning gains following another encouraging report about inflation. The S&P 500 closed 0.1% lower Thursday. The Nasdaq also fell, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose slightly. Investors weighed new data showing inflation at the wholesale level slowed more than economists expected in July. That bolstered hopes that inflation may be close to a peak and that the Federal Reserve will be less aggressive about raising interest rates than feared. Stocks pared their gains after Treasury yields climbed. The Walt Disney Co. rallied after reporting stronger quarterly results than expected.
WASHINGTON — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates soared this week in a continued volatile market as the key 30-year loan rate jumped back over 5%. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reports that the 30-year rate rose to 5.22% from 4.99% last week. The average rate on 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, popular among those looking to refinance their homes, increased to 4.59% from 4.26%. Last week the 30-year rate fell below 5% for the first time in four months. Experts see some stability returning to the housing market as the drop in homebuyer demand moderates although supply remains fairly tight.
WASHINGTON — Whether it’s the fitness tracker on your wrist, the “smart” home appliances in your house or the latest kids’ fad going viral in online videos, they all produce a trove of personal data for big tech companies. How that data is being used and protected has led to growing public concern and officials’ outrage. Now federal regulators are looking at drafting rules to crack down on what they call harmful commercial surveillance and lax data security. The Federal Trade Commission announced the initiative Thursday, seeking public comment on the harmful effects of companies’ data collection and the potential benefit of new rules to protect consumers’ privacy.
CHICAGO — McDonald’s will begin reopening some of its restaurants in Ukraine in the coming months. The burger giant closed its Ukrainian restaurants after Russia’s invasion nearly six months ago but has continued to pay its more than 10,000 employees in the country. McDonald’s said Thursday that it plans to gradually begin reopening some restaurants in the capital, Kyiv, and western Ukraine, where other companies are doing business farther from the fighting. McDonald’s has 109 restaurants in Ukraine but didn’t say how many would reopen, when that would happen or which locations would be first. McDonald’s has sold its 850 restaurants in Russia.
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s central bank has raised its interbank interest rate by 0.75% to 8.5% — the highest level in at least 16 years. The Bank of Mexico cited continuing inflationary pressures, and predicted inflation would peak at 8.5% in the third quarter. Authorities did not rule out future rate increases, and Intercam bank says in an analysis report that interest rates could hit 10% or more, depending on inflation. Mexico’s annualized inflation rate hit 8.15% in July, the highest in more than two decades. The Mexican peso gained ground against the dollar before the widely expected move to increase rates. | 2022-08-11T23:12:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Climate bill, gas prices - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-climate-bill-gas-prices/2022/08/11/9b8e14c0-19c1-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-climate-bill-gas-prices/2022/08/11/9b8e14c0-19c1-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Suspect charged in fatal stabbing and burning of Fairfax County woman
A Virginia man has been charged with second-degree murder and other crimes in the killing Wednesday of a female acquaintance who was found stabbed and “actively on fire” in her Fairfax County apartment, police said Thursday.
In what county police Maj. Ed O’Carroll called “a brutal case,” officers and firefighters Wednesday afternoon responded to a reported “domestic dispute” and “active fire alarm” in the 2900 block of Willston Place in the Seven Corners area of Falls Church. There, they found 40-year-old Silvia Vaca Abacay suffering from multiple stab wounds to her upper body and with her body on fire.
Hours later, police arrested Richard A. Montano, 47, described by O’Carroll as “an acquaintance” of the victim. He said Montano, who lived in Arlington County, was being held in the Fairfax jail Thursday on charges of second-degree murder, burglary with intent to commit murder and “the burning of an occupied dwelling.”
“Preliminarily, detectives believe Montano forced entry into the apartment, assaulted Ms. Abacay and set her on fire,” police said in a statement. Asked about a motive for the attack, O’Carroll said at a news briefing, “That has yet to be answered in this case.”
Online court records do not indicate whether Montano is represented by an attorney.
When first-responders arrived at the building shortly after 3 p.m., O’Carroll said, “they saw smoke emanating from the apartment. They took heroic action and entered the apartment. They located an adult female, actively on fire. … They gave immediate life-saving treatment,” after which a police officer was treated for smoke inhalation. He said Abacay was pronounced dead at the scene.
An autopsy was performed Thursday, but a report on the cause of her death had not been completed, O’Carroll said.
“The suspect knew the victim,” he said. “We are determining the extent of their relationship. … This was not a stranger attack. They had a relationship — an acquaintance, if you will. … There’s no indication of anything more than that.”
O’Carroll said police had been called to the apartment twice before for reports of domestic disturbances, but it was not clear whether those incidents involved Abacay or Montano. He said “there are multiple occupants that live there,” often moving in and out. Referring to Abacay’s death, he said Montano “is likely the only person responsible. We are not actively looking for anyone else.”
After a neighbor called police Wednesday to report a noisy domestic dispute in Abacay’s apartment, the neighbor called back to say that a fire alarm was sounding, which caused firefighters to also respond, O’Carroll said. He said investigators found security-camera images of Montano outside the apartment, and witnesses told detectives that they saw him fleeing.
He was arrested Wednesday night at an Arlington gas station.
O’Carroll said Montano “has had very minimal contacts with law enforcement in the past. The charges today are clearly the most significant he has ever faced. … He had not been widely on our radar.” | 2022-08-11T23:12:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Richard Montano charged in stabbing and burning of Silvia Vaca Abacay - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/11/murder-fairfax-woman-stabbed-burned/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/11/murder-fairfax-woman-stabbed-burned/ |
The entrance to the to an exhibit about Native Americans in Alabama is closed to the public at the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery, Ala., Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022. The department announced Thursday that it has removed funerary objects from displays and is returning them along with Native American remains to tribes as required by federal law. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The remains of Native American people who once lived in Alabama were dug up a century ago — often by amateur archaeologists — and given to the state along with the jewelry, urns and other objects buried with them. | 2022-08-11T23:12:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Archives to return Native American remains, burial objects - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/archives-to-return-native-american-remains-burial-objects/2022/08/11/16922154-19ca-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/archives-to-return-native-american-remains-burial-objects/2022/08/11/16922154-19ca-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Serena Williams holds the championship trophy after beating Victoria Azarenka of Belarus in the championship match at the 2012 U.S. Open tennis tournament Sept. 9, 2012, in New York. (Mike Groll/AP)
With the countdown ticking on Serena Williams’s retirement from professional tennis, fans of the sport and the Grand Slam great have wasted no time snapping up tickets to what could be her final tournament — if they can get them.
Ticket sales to the U.S. Open surged after Williams, 40, announced Tuesday that she soon plans to retire from tennis, hinting that it could come as soon as the forthcoming tournament, which begins in New York on Aug. 29.
By day’s end, the U.S. Open had moved 15,700 tickets, according to Brendan McIntyre, a spokesman for the USTA.
“To put that in perspective, that’s more that day than we sold the previous seven days combined — and 10 times more than we sold the previous Tuesday,” McIntyre told The Washington Post on Thursday.
The tournament sold more than 4,600 tickets for the opening night on Monday, Aug. 29, and 4,300 for the following night, leading both days to sell out more than two weeks before the matches begin.
“People are buying up tickets thinking she’ll play one of those two,” McIntyre said. “We get to sellouts quite often, but what’s not common is selling 4,600 and 4,300 tickets in one day.”
Williams shocked the sports world when she shared on Instagram an excerpt of her interview with Vogue for its storied September issue. She said she would be moving “in a different direction” and that “the countdown has begun.”
“I have to focus on being a mom, my spiritual goals and finally discovering a different, but just exciting Serena,” wrote Williams, who said that as much as she loves the game she’s helped to transform over the past three decades, she wants to focus on business ventures and have another child with her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
Though she was vague about when she would make her official exit from pro tennis, the U.S. Open emerged as a likely target after Williams cryptically noted, “I’m gonna relish these next few weeks.”
The U.S. Open is the last Grand Slam tournament of the year in the international tennis calendar and represents Williams’s next — and perhaps last — chance to tie Australian Margaret Court for the all-time Grand Slam women’s singles record of 24.
Williams has won the American hard court tournament six times as a singles player and won two doubles titles with her older sister, Venus.
Sharing her plans in Vogue, Williams said she was not looking for a final on-court moment full of pop and ceremony.
“I’m terrible at goodbyes, the world’s worst,” she wrote. “But please know that I am more grateful for you than I can ever express in words. You have carried me to so many wins and so many trophies. I’m going to miss that version of me, that girl who played tennis. And I’m going to miss you.”
For the winningest American female tennis player of all time, the feeling from the sport appears mutual.
Stacey Allaster, chief executive of professional tennis with the U.S. Tennis Association and director of the U.S. Open Tournament, praised Williams as a “a generational, if not multigenerational talent” who made an impact not only on the tennis court, but on women in sports, business and society.
“At a time when our nation and the world have wrestled with essential issues of identity, Serena has stood as a singular exemplar of the best of humanity,” Allaster said in a statement. “She leaves an indelible legacy that will inspire athletes, female and male, for many generations to come. We can’t thank her enough for all she has done for our sport.” | 2022-08-11T23:14:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Serena Williams retirement news sends US Open ticket demand sky-high - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/11/us-open-tickets-serena-williams/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/11/us-open-tickets-serena-williams/ |
Victor Palsson joined D.C. United from German club Schalke this summer. (D.C. United)
Victor Palsson, D.C. United’s latest newcomer to receive a work visa, will begin his second MLS tour this weekend.
He barely remembers the first.
Ten years ago, the Icelandic midfielder was 21, playing for the New York Red Bulls, living across the Hudson from the temptations of Manhattan.
“I probably spent more time in the nightclub than on the pitch,” he said in an interview Thursday, two days before his probable D.C. debut at New England. “Every day was Saturday [night], if I wanted it to be. Soccer was number two; lifestyle was number one.”
Predisposed to addiction because of his family history — both parents had alcohol and drug problems, he said, and his mother died of an overdose two years ago at age 47 — Palsson almost threw away a career that promised to take off upon joining Liverpool FC in 2009.
A partial season with the Red Bulls fell in the middle of a troubled stretch that featured five clubs over four years.
“I had a lot of demons inside of me that I just didn’t know how to deal with,” he said. “So I would use escapes.”
The wake-up call came in 2014, when he said no clubs wanted any part of him because of his personal issues. He cleaned himself up and says he’s been sober for eight years.
“I’m a very different person,” he said. “I’ve had to go through some tough stuff to be who I am today. I don’t regret anything because I’m here now. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished and I’m proud of where I’ve come as a person. And as a player.”
Palsson said he divides his career into two parts: 2007 to 2014 and everything since.
In the first half, there was a lot of “drinking and partying and not focusing on what was important,” he said. “I was f------- things up for myself, but I didn’t see that.”
In New York, he didn’t make it through the whole season.
“I wasn’t playing. I wasn’t doing well in life,” Palsson said. “I barely remember that time.”
His problems continued with his next club, NEC Nijmegen in the Netherlands, which, after two years, told him to not report to preseason in 2014.
“I had burned all the bridges around me — family, girlfriend, friends,” he said. “Everything was rock bottom. So I had to make a decision to turn my life around.”
He said he sought counseling and worked with a psychologist and other mental health specialists. (He said he remains in regular contact with them.) He leaned on childhood friends.
Swedish club Helsingborgs gave him a second chance, offering a three-month contract to prove himself as a person and player. That was followed by moves to Denmark, Switzerland and 2½ years with Darmstadt in Germany’s second division.
While there, he learned of his mother’s death.
“When she was sober, she was my mom,” he said. “When she was using, she was someone else.”
The emotional toll hit him hard but, thanks in part to his support system, he said he never came close to relapse.
“I grew up in difficult circumstances [in Reykjavik] without that one person to help you along the way as a young person,” said Palsson, who added that his father is not a presence in his life. “It was just me.”
After Darmstadt, Palsson played a pivotal role in helping Schalke, a famed German club, gain promotion back to the Bundesliga after one year adrift.
Staying with Schalke in a top-five European league seemed like a perfect scenario, but uncertainty over his role this season and a desire to live in North America drew him to MLS. His girlfriend and their 5-year-old son live in her native British Columbia; the family plans to reunite permanently in the D.C. area this winter.
United’s interest in Palsson started last year, but the timing for a move wasn’t right for either side. This summer, seeking a defensive midfielder with experience and an edge to his game, the club paid an undisclosed transfer fee to Schalke and made Palsson one of its three designated players.
Wayne Rooney, United’s new coach, said he knew of Palsson over the years. “If you hear him speak, he sounds like he is from Liverpool” with a Scouse accent, the Liverpool-born Rooney said with a grin.
Also, while Rooney was working on his European coaching license last year, he received an assignment to analyze Schalke. Palsson, one of the team’s captains, started 28 of 34 league matches as the club finished first.
“He likes to tackle, which we need in the middle of the pitch,” Rooney said. “You can already see his character — wanting to play, wanting to learn, how we can improve. It’s really good for the coach to have a player who’s so invested and interested in how we can all develop.”
Palsson also remains in the Icelandic national team player pool, having made 29 appearances and scored once.
As his club career takes a fresh turn, Palsson said he must continue working on his life’s path.
“It’s a live process,” he said. “But I do know what is good for me. I do know what’s bad for me. I do know where I feel comfortable and where I don’t feel comfortable. I know what’s the right thing for me to do in my work, but also in life. Mostly in life.”
Notes: Ecuadoran forward Michael Estrada (four goals, four assists) has left the team by mutual consent and is expected to join a Mexican club soon. He was on a season-long loan from Toluca (Mexico). With Rooney shaking things up, Estrada hadn’t been in uniform for weeks. …
Rookie midfielder Jackson Hopkins was cleared to play after leaving last Saturday’s match with a knee injury. … Goalkeeper David Ochoa, acquired in a July 28 trade with Real Salt Lake, will be in uniform for the first time Saturday, Rooney said. He or Rafael Romo will start. | 2022-08-11T23:14:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Victor Palsson arrives with D.C. United for second MLS stint - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/11/victor-palsson-dc-united/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/11/victor-palsson-dc-united/ |
Defensive tackle Daniel Wise (63), center, runs a drill at Washington Commanders training camp. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
In three weeks of training camp, the linemen have resisted any temptation to answer with words. No one is crowing about sack records, as Chase Young did last year, and most have spoken in a steady stream of team-first mantras.
Last season, Washington’s defense ranked 25th in points allowed per game (25.5) and 29th in expected points added per play (.08). The struggles weren’t solely on the line — there was also poor communication in the secondary, and several players were uncomfortable in a new scheme — but because the line featured four first-round picks, and two of those picks were vocal and relatively unproductive (Young and Sweat), the unit’s failings were among the most glaring.
Washington football notes: Success on offense, criticism of Jack Del Rio, more
If Washington’s defense is to rebound this season, if it’s to regain the prominence it held briefly in 2020, the line will probably have to lead. It can count on Allen and Payne, two of the few bright spots from last year, but it must hope that Young and Sweat can reclaim their promise and that a relatively inexperienced group of depth linemen can provide steady support.
For now, Rivera appears optimistic. During the offseason and leading into camp, Washington tried to fix the unit’s problems from 2021, which included a room divided over which techniques to use, a lack of assignment discipline, “out of whack” expectations and, perhaps at the root of more than one issue, what Rivera saw as immaturity from Young and Sweat. The pass rushers were injured in back-to-back games — Sweat broke his jaw in Week 8, before the bye, and Young tore his ACL in Week 10 — and never really got the chance to prove they could adapt midseason, as the rest of the team did.
“[It’s] not just about, obviously, your personality being humbled or anything like that,” he said. “But it's more about learning and … understanding it's not all about you. It's about us.”
If Sweat and Young refocus and find a rhythm with Allen and Payne, the line could again be one of the league’s most fearsome fronts. The team could lean on the straightforward formula it used in 2020 on the way to the playoffs. Back then, Del Rio rushed four most of the time and trusted his most talented players to generate pressure. He didn’t blitz often — about 18 percent of the time, which is around the league average — but when he did, it worked, and he found particular success blitzing defensive backs.
Until Young returns, it seems as though James Smith-Williams will line up across from Sweat, with Casey Toohill and Efe Obada as the backup ends. Rivera called Smith-Williams and Toohill “opposites,” because Smith-Williams is a physical rusher with the power to get push off the edge, and Toohill plays with more finesse and athleticism— a skill set Rivera likes in a five-man front.
Last year, Washington used five down linemen far more than any other defense in the NFL. According to TruMedia, Del Rio used the grouping on 22.5 percent of snaps, which is significantly more than every team except Cincinnati (19 percent) and nearly 10 times more than the average (2.34 percent). Rivera said Washington relied on it because of certain matchups, though it’s also possible the team just wanted to get its best players on the field more often. If Del Rio continues leaning on a five-man front at such a high rate this season, he could regularly use Toohill as the fifth lineman and then drop him into coverage.
Washington’s stout defensive line is about to get expensive. That’s where depth comes in.
Inside, after Allen and Payne, the team is replacing two solid backups in Matt Ioannidis, who was cut in March before signing with Carolina, and Tim Settle, who signed with Buffalo in free agency. The top backup now is Phidarian Mathis, a two-gap anchor drafted in the second round from Alabama, and though there’s a competition for the fourth lineman, Daniel Wise has lined up most often next to Mathis in camp. Wise, an undrafted free agent in 2019 from Kansas, impressed when promoted from the practice squad last year.
All these tweaks seem to have given Rivera confidence that his line will be better this season. Earlier this week, when he fired defensive line coach Sam Mills III and promoted assistant Jeff Zgonina, the new coach was asked what it would take for his unit to reach its potential. | 2022-08-11T23:14:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Washington Commanders D-line has embraced a new attitude this season - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/11/washington-commanders-defensive-line/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/11/washington-commanders-defensive-line/ |
“Of course, we were going to let him do what he needs to do,” Tampa Bay General Manager Jason Licht said of Tom Brady. “He’s focused as ever.” (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
NFL quarterbacks don’t usually miss an extended period of time shortly before the regular season begins, but Tom Brady is not a usual quarterback.
The 45-year-old is set to be absent from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for at least 10 days, the team revealed Thursday. Bucs officials played down the development as nothing for fans to be alarmed about and expressed confidence Brady will be ready to lead Tampa Bay in its Week 1 matchup against the Dallas Cowboys on Sept. 11.
“There’s not many 45-year-olds playing at an MVP level with seven Super Bowls in their back pocket,” General Manager Jason Licht said with a smile on Tampa station WDAE, “so we’re not at all concerned about that.”
Licht added that Brady’s previously unannounced absence, which began Thursday, had already been in the works.
“He’s going to deal with some personal things,” Coach Todd Bowles told reporters after a practice Thursday. “It’s something we talked about before training camp started.”
Bowles indicated that Brady, who briefly retired after last season before changing his mind and returning to the Bucs, was taking advantage of the fact that he was going to be held out of Tampa Bay’s first two preseason games. The team hosts the Miami Dolphins on Saturday before traveling to Tennessee to play the Titans on Aug. 20. Tampa Bay’s preseason slate ends with a road game at the Indianapolis Colts on Aug. 27, and then it faces Dallas on “Sunday Night Football” to begin its regular season.
Bowles said Brady would return after the Titans game. In the meantime, the coach said, his absence helps the team’s backup quarterbacks — Blaine Gabbert, Kyle Trask and Ryan Griffin — gain valuable training reps.
“We trust him,” Bowles, in his first season as the Bucs’ head coach, said of Brady. “We talked about it.”
When asked if the quarterback’s issue was health-related, Bowles said, “It’s a personal issue. That’s all I can tell you.”
Bowes said he had a “pretty high” level of confidence that Brady will, in fact, be under center in Week 1.
Brady’s level of commitment to the Bucs has been questioned in some quarters following the revelation that, despite his contractual status with Tampa Bay, he and his agent had impermissible contact with the Dolphins during and after the 2021 season. That news emerged from an NFL investigation resulting in punishments to the Dolphins’ owner, Stephen Ross, and his team for violating league policies related to the integrity of the game.
That dalliance with Miami, which the NFL also revealed included impermissible communication in 2019 and 2020, when Brady was a member of the New England Patriots, has continued to hover over the Bucs this week because they are spending several days practicing against the Dolphins ahead of their preseason matchup.
Brady has not spoken with the media about the NFL investigation. After he and Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa were spotted conversing Wednesday on the practice field, the Miami starter told reporters he was picking the brain of the 22-year NFL veteran for tips on how to sustain such stunning longevity.
As to his feelings on the Dolphins’ years-long pursuit of Brady — which may not quite be over — Tagovailoa said Wednesday: “I’m still here. To me, that’s all noise at this point.”
Bowles, when asked Thursday if had any concerns that Brady’s absence was related to a possibly wavering commitment to the Bucs, replied, “Per our conversation, I am not worried, no.”
“Of course, we were going to let him do what he needs to do,” Licht said of Brady in his radio appearance. “He’s focused as ever. He’ll come back even more focused.
“It’s the least of our concerns. … Business as usual here.” | 2022-08-11T23:25:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tom Brady to miss 10-plus days in what Bucs call a pre-planned absence - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/11/tom-brady-personal-absence-bucs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/11/tom-brady-personal-absence-bucs/ |
Florida will soon ban transgender people from accessing gender-affirming care through Medicaid. (iStock)
Transgender Floridians of all ages will soon no longer be able to use Medicaid to help pay for gender-affirming care under a new state rule, a move that comes as Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration pursues policies increasing restrictions on medical treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
Florida joins at least 10 other states — including Arizona, Missouri and Texas — in barring residents from using Medicaid to pay for several often-prescribed medications and surgeries for those diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The rule was published Wednesday and is slated to go into effect August 21.
Florida’s move is a “major change” that is going to disrupt low-income members of the transgender community who have been receiving treatment through Medicaid for years, said Carl Charles, senior attorney of the Southern Regional Office for Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ advocacy group. He said his group was “alarmed” to see the measure come so quickly and that “people would be right to assume” the move has the stamp of approval from DeSantis, who is widely considered a potential 2024 Republican candidate for president.
Brock Juarez, a spokesman for the Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, the agency overseeing the state’s Medicaid program, did not immediately return requests for comment.
Lambda Legal is “exploring all options” to challenge the rule, Charles said.
“It’s gut-wrenching,” he said. “People have made a decision in their lives to pursue a course of care that’s going to be life-changing, and now they’re facing the potential that they may not be able to move forward with that.”
Earlier this year, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo released a memo to the state’s health-care workers advising providers against providing gender-affirming treatments, such as puberty blockers, to minors. The memo also advised against social transition — a nonmedical process in which a person changes their clothing, name or pronouns to better align with their gender identity. Ladapo wrote that this should “not be a treatment option for children or adolescents.”
The country’s largest medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recommend gender-affirming care to help treat minors experiencing gender dysphoria — a condition in which a person experiences psychological distress because their biological sex and gender identity do not align.
Gender-affirming care can, but does not always, include medical interventions. The most common treatments for adolescents include puberty blockers, which are reversible, and hormone replacement therapy. According to current standards, genital surgeries are not recommended for patients under the age of 18. In April, 300 medical providers in the state wrote an open letter in the Tampa Bay Times criticizing the state’s guidance against gender-affirming care.
“Florida was really the first state to come for the throat of the medical evidence behind gender-affirming care, to create this false narrative that there is not sufficient evidence to support the benefits,” said Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor at Yale’s School of Medicine, who worked with a team of researchers to review Florida’s medical report on the issue.
“We are alarmed that Florida’s health care agency has adopted a purportedly scientific report that so blatantly violates the basic tenets of scientific inquiry,” the report’s authors wrote.
State medical boards historically have not decided policy or standards of care, McNamara said. Instead, their work tends to focus on issues like licensing or reviewing complaints against physicians. AHCA’s Medicaid decision, as well as its impending rule changes, she said, are “really unusual and concerning to the medical community.”
In a post-Roe world, “it’s kind of terrifying to think about the precedent that this might set," McNamara added.
An estimate from a 2019 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law showed there were about 9,000 people receiving gender-affirming care each year in Florida. Some research suggests that trans people are more likely to be on Medicaid; one survey reported 15 percent have a household income of under $10,000 a year, compared to 4 percent of the general population. As of 2019, approximately 152,000 trans adults are enrolled in Medicaid across the country — and about 32,000 of those lived in states that denied coverage for gender-affirming care, according to the UCLA report.
The move comes at a time when LGBTQ advocates say some of the state’s most vulnerable residents are already feeling targeted.
In the last two years, Florida has passed legislation banning trans girls and women from participating on female sports teams in the state’s public schools, as well as a law that restricts classroom discussion of gender and sexuality.
Last week, Florida’s Board of Medicine voted to begin weighing new restrictions, spurred by pressure from DeSantis and the state’s Department of Health, that could ban gender-affirming care for all trans youth, as well as requiring a 24-hour waiting period for adults seeking transition care, such as hormone therapy or surgery.
At a recent press conference, DeSantis said doctors were “literally chopping off the private parts of young kids. And that’s wrong.” He added that his administration is “doing stuff administratively and with medical licenses," but that Florida lawmakers “may want to come in and do something more significant on that.”
Such moves have rallied supporters, including many who showed up to the recent Board of Medicine meeting. WFSU reported a number of the attendees belonged to religious groups. Among them was Jeannette Cooper, co-founder of Parents for Ethical Care, an organization that believes “no child is born in the wrong body.” Cooper urged the state to impose a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth.
“For many children, a trans identity is a crutch,” Cooper said. “It is a placeholder for real suffering that hasn’t been named.”
Alyssa MacKenzie, an Orlando-based trans right activist, has found Orlando to be, for the most part, safe and affirming for LGBTQ people. But in the past six months, as the governor has prioritized legislation restricting LGBTQ rights and labeled critics “groomers,” the 42-year-old activist has noticed an increase in harassment and attacks, including on children and families.
MacKenzie was particularly alarmed by earlier guidance advising doctors against letting children socially transition — which requires no medical intervention and could be as simple as changing a name or the way one wears their hair. Transgender youth face far higher rates of depression and suicidality than their cisgender peers.
For trans adults and children, accessing gender affirming care and receiving support for their transition is often a matter of “life and death,” MacKenzie said. “To forcibly detransition trans youth and take away health care for trans adults is the most serious threat trans people have faced in the United States.”
Instead, Florida has sought to bar people from accessing gender-affirming care through its Department of Health — which some health experts have criticized as an example of government overreach that could set a dangerous precedent.
Mike Haller, a professor and chief of pediatric endocrinology at the University of Florida, said the decision to bar people from using Medicaid to cover gender-affirming care was “cruel and unusual punishment” for patients seeking safe, evidence-based care.
The new rule would affect all transgender patients on Medicaid, including adults. Haller, who treats children at his clinic, estimated that 60 to 65 percent of his patients are on Medicaid.
“It’s already had a concerning, chilling effect,” Haller said. “[Patients] are not going to come to their appointments because they’re afraid that it is already illegal, and it’s not.” | 2022-08-11T23:25:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida to bar Medicaid coverage for those seeking gender-affirming care - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/11/florida-transgender-medicaid/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/11/florida-transgender-medicaid/ |
To listen to Singapore’s leader, the Bank of England nailed it. The UK central bank’s warning of a tough new era that sent shockwaves through the world of monetary economics resonated in the city-state. The tiny republic that’s staked its survival on the ebbs and flows of global capitalism is girding for a protracted period of slacker growth and a drawn-out fight against inflation.
Singaporeans initially enjoyed robust growth coming out of Covid, but need to adjust to a less-favorable financial and strategic environment. That was the dour message from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on the eve of Tuesday’s celebrations marking the nation’s 57th birthday. “The world is not likely to return anytime soon to the low inflation levels and interest rates that we have enjoyed in recent decades,” Lee said.
Singapore had its share of fumbles, but it looks good now, especially when compared to the debacle of Hong Kong’s pandemic response. Even so, its next challenge is here.
Borrowing costs are climbing in almost every economy and global growth is losing altitude. That’s a familiar message to central bank watchers, though few heads of government have laid the shift out as starkly to the citizenry. Even in the annals of monetary policy, the BOE’s pronouncement days before Lee’s remarks was startling: A long recession will begin soon, unemployment will go up and inflation will remain elevated. Don’t look for rate cuts to alleviate the downturn. “To our knowledge, no central bank has ever published as negative an economic forecast (relative to the private sector consensus) as the Bank of England’s latest,” Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., wrote in a report Monday.
Inflation in Singapore is low relative to many advanced economies at 4.4%, excluding private transport and accommodation. It’s nevertheless accelerating; June’s reading was the highest in almost 14 years. The Monetary Authority of Singapore reckons inflation will peak next quarter, before easing toward the end of the year. Given the experience of most central banks who were surprised by the force of price increases, it would be unwise to bet the house on that. Policy has been tightened four times, beginning last year, and economists foresee the MAS tapping the brakes at least once more.
The core level inflation obscures some of the pain most households feel. The all-items consumer price index climbed 6.7%, quicker than most economists had forecast. “I know the cost of living is at the top of everyone’s minds,” Lee said. Residents are wrestling with spikes in electricity charges, contending with big jumps in rent, moaning about the cost of taxis and ride-hailing services and spiraling costs of home renovations. Singapore, which is about half the size of Maui, imports much of what is consumed on the island.
The march of inflation has been accompanied by eroding growth. Gross domestic product shrank last quarter from the prior three months, the government reported Thursday; economists had forecast a small increase. The government cut its full-year projection to growth of between 3% to 4%, down from 3% to 5%. As with the US, the labor market simultaneously remains pretty warm. At conferences and business gatherings, executives frequently complain about the lengths rivals will go to in poaching staff, even waiting outside bathrooms to make a pitch to employees on their way back from a break.
Another issue Singapore, and Southeast Asia, needs to adjust to is the less rosy economic conditions in China. The decades that Lee put in the rear-view mirror were also characterized by a China that surged after its entrance to the World Trade Organization in 2001 and propped up the region with a costly stimulus program in 2008. Since then, it’s been on a gentle glide down to a more sustainable, but still enviable, pace of growth. The Covid era has brought a rude awakening. Beijing’s expansion won’t always be as sluggish as the second quarter’s 0.4%, let alone the contraction at the start of 2020. But it faces a banking and real estate crisis, an aging population and the economic fallout of heightened tensions with the US.
Lee warned of a bumpier time between the US and China. No Asian leader thinks the strained ties between the superpowers is a good thing, but adding it to Singapore’s national day message elevates the concerns. The city grew rich during a period of stability and rapid growth in much of Asia, a time characterized by an expanding Chinese commercial footprint and US strategic dominance.
How does Singapore steer through these shoals? Sure, monetary policy can manage short-term fluctuations in the economy. Fiscal measures can also alleviate inflation’s bite; Lee foreshadowed more steps in that direction. But a series of shocks adds up to an environment much less conducive to the success of small global financial hubs. The power of Singapore’s mighty public sector can be a cushion to absorb change: From aviation, banking, healthcare and daycare to supermarkets and convenience stores, the reach of the state and its partners is enormous. That’s useful for resilience in times of crisis. If the new normal calls for nimbleness, Singapore may have its work cut out.
Lee is right to put us on notice.
• BOE’s Apocalyptic Prophesies Fall on Deaf Ears: Marcus Ashworth | 2022-08-12T00:43:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Singapore’s Next Big Challenge Is Already Here - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/singapores-next-big-challenge-is-already-here/2022/08/11/b962c4ce-19cf-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/singapores-next-big-challenge-is-already-here/2022/08/11/b962c4ce-19cf-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Rising smoke can be seen from the beach after explosions were heard from the direction of a Russian military airbase near Novofedorivka, Crimea, on Aug. 9. (UGC/AP)
The grinding war of attrition in Ukraine might be entering a new phase as the Ukrainian military prepares an offensive to recover occupied land in the southern region surrounding Kherson, and Russia escalates its rhetoric by charging that the United States “is directly involved in the conflict.”
Ukraine appears to have begun its new southern campaign with a bold attack Tuesday on a Russian air base in Crimea, along the Black Sea coast. Commercial satellites show that as many as nine Russian jets were destroyed by explosions at the base, which also damaged nearby apartment buildings. A Ukrainian official said his country’s special forces carried out the attack.
With its long-anticipated southern offensive, Ukraine evidently hopes to regain momentum against Russian forces that have suffered heavy losses of soldiers and equipment since they invaded on Feb. 24. At a time when Russia is strained and vulnerable, Ukrainian leaders want to show that they can reclaim lost ground and ultimately prevail.
It’s a gutsy strategy, but also a risky one. Russia has a bigger army, and in combating a Ukraine assault, it will have the advantage of defense, unlike in earlier phases. “This is the time for a Ukrainian counteroffensive, but they’ve got to succeed,” argues William B. Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Kyiv. “You don’t want to try it and fail.”
The Biden administration says it is giving Ukraine the weapons, ammunition and training it needs to win this battle to regain occupied territory in the south. On Monday, the Pentagon announced a new $1 billion arms package that includes additional rockets for the 16 HIMARS launchers now in Ukraine, 75,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, and advanced antiaircraft missiles.
Russia, meanwhile, has accused the United States of providing Kyiv with intelligence information to attack Russian forces. The new tensions surfaced after an Aug. 1 report by London’s Daily Telegraph in which Ukrainian Maj. Gen. Vadim Skibitsky, the country’s deputy chief of military intelligence, said that “we use real-time information” from the United States in targeting attacks by HIMARS rockets on Russian fuel and ammunition supplies.
The Skibitsky interview drew sharp Russian comments on Aug. 2. “What other confirmation of US involvement in hostilities in Ukraine is required,” said the foreign ministry in a tweet. “All this undeniably proves that Washington, contrary to White House and Pentagon claims, is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine,” said defense ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov.
Asked about the Skibitsky comment, a Pentagon spokesman said: “We provide the Ukrainians with detailed, time-sensitive information to help them understand the threats they face and defend their country against Russian aggression.” An administration official didn’t respond to a query on Thursday as to whether Russia had sent private messages about the targeting issue as well.
Ironically, one U.S. aim in the intelligence sharing was apparently to check any HIMARS attacks the United States viewed as too risky. The Telegraph said Skibitsky “suggested” that the exchange of information “would allow Washington to stop any potential attacks if they were unhappy with the intended target.”
Ukraine is able to turn its attention to the southern front because it has largely blunted Russia’s attacks in the eastern Donbas region. Russia has made slow progress there, at great cost, expanding the foothold it gained when its forces invaded in 2014. But Ukraine’s real lifeline is the Black Sea coastline. If Ukrainian forces can push the Russians back from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, to the east, it would relieve pressure along the coast and could eventually protect Ukraine’s maritime access to global markets.
Ukraine’s timetable for the southern campaign is driven partly by its desire to beat a planned Russian referendum in Kherson and neighboring areas that might be a first step in declaring them “Russian” territory. U.S. officials expect that this referendum could take place this month or in September, and they fear it would intensify the war and make any eventual peace negotiations much harder.
Ukraine’s battle against the invaders is also evolving toward greater use of special forces in covert attacks against Russia and its Ukrainian allies. Vitaliy Gura, a Ukrainian who was helping Russia administer in the Kherson region, was assassinated Aug. 6, according to a Tass report quoted by Agence France-Presse. “Several assassination attempts have been reported against officials in Ukrainian regions seized by Russia since the start of its military operation,” the AFP reported.
Senior U.S. officials warned Moscow before the war began that they would face such guerrilla tactics if they invaded. Ukraine would prove to be an indigestible “porcupine,” U.S. officials predicted, drawing on the United States’ own bitter experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the invasion, U.S. and British special forces have helped train their Ukrainian counterparts in insurgency tactics that could help make the “porcupine strategy” a reality.
Ukrainian morale remains astonishingly high. According to a new poll released Thursday by the International Republican Institute, 93 percent of Ukrainians see the future as “rather promising,” and about 98 percent think Ukraine will win the war.
Russian generals are said to be frustrated by the stalemate in Ukraine, and their consternation will grow if Ukraine can stage a successful counteroffensive in the south. But Russian President Vladimir Putin appears unfazed by Ukraine’s new southern strategy. For him, this war remains the geopolitical equivalent of a cage fight, in which he demands submission from his opponent. | 2022-08-12T00:44:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The Ukraine war enters a new, southern phase - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/11/ukraine-war-southern-phase-crimea/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/11/ukraine-war-southern-phase-crimea/ |
By Caleb Jones | AP
This photo provided by the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources shows a large wildfire in a rural area of Hawaii’s Big Island that is not threatening any homes, but high winds and extremely dry conditions are making it difficult for crews to contain the blaze. (Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources via AP) (Uncredited/Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources) | 2022-08-12T02:15:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Large wildfire burning amid drought on Hawaii’s Big Island - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/large-wildfire-burning-amid-drought-on-hawaiis-big-island/2022/08/11/f6b13830-19dc-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/large-wildfire-burning-amid-drought-on-hawaiis-big-island/2022/08/11/f6b13830-19dc-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
In this undated photo provided by Masih Alinejad, Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, Alinejad, an Iranian opposition activist and writer in exile in New York City, poses for a picture. Authorities have charged a man with lurking near Alinejad’s home with an assault rifle, a year after she was identified as the target of an alleged kidnapping plot. (Courtesy of Masih Alinejad via AP) (Uncredited/Masih Alinejad) | 2022-08-12T02:15:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man arrested near home of Iranian dissident faces gun charge - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/man-arrested-near-home-of-iranian-dissident-faces-gun-charge/2022/08/11/0ed6a306-19dc-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/man-arrested-near-home-of-iranian-dissident-faces-gun-charge/2022/08/11/0ed6a306-19dc-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Indians who lived through the 50th anniversary of independence, in 1997, will have pretty clear memories of the event. A few years into its program of economic liberalization, India seemed to be on the cusp of greatness. A patriotic music video highlighting the country’s diversity, released by singer-composer A.R. Rahman, practically became a second national anthem for my generation.
A quarter-century later, India’s 75th Independence Day will pass on Aug. 15 with far less consequence. The current government in New Delhi loves nothing more than pomp and circumstance; Prime Minister Narendra Modi knows that every such bit of nationalist theater further secures his position at the apex of Indian politics. Yet, aside from a special logo that looks like it was designed by a committee at the Ministry of Culture — probably because it was — and a campaign urging every household to fly the national flag, the government has done little to mark the occasion.
The fact is that such anniversaries have little place in the New India that Modi and his party have begun to build since he took office in 2014. The self-image of this New India is consciously different from that of the old republic born in 1947. After Modi was first elected, the Guardian said that “today … may well go down in history as the day when Britain finally left India.” Many of Modi’s voters agree his accession to power was when true independence was achieved.
The British left behind in 1947 a ruling class that upheld liberal norms and institutions — and, in the Hindu nationalist worldview held by the New India’s foot soldiers, was also effete, deracinated and entirely Anglicized. Being ruled by Western-educated leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first prime minister, was no better than being ruled by the British or the Mughals, rendering “independence” meaningless.
In this telling, we were still mentally enslaved, in thrall to imported ideas in our Constitution, too humiliatingly weak to play a leadership role in global affairs. Modi himself declared in 2014 that he would set India free from “1,200 years of slavery” — slavery to a millennium of Muslim emperors and sultans, slavery to the British and slavery to their pusillanimous successors.
This Second Republic is a very different country from the one that celebrated its golden jubilee in 1997. It has a new iconography, for one. Nehru and Mohandas K. Gandhi are gone from the pantheon, replaced by men such as Vinayak Savarkar — who in the 1930s developed the concept of “Hindutva,” described Nazism in Germany as “imperative and beneficial,” and has long been suspected of playing a role in Gandhi’s assassination. Gandhi’s honorific is “Mahatma,” or Great Soul, while Savarkar’s is “Veer,” or “brave,” which neatly encapsulates the values celebrated in their different versions of India.
Even the old, circular Parliament House in which Nehru gave his midnight “tryst with destiny” speech 75 years ago is no longer considered appropriate. Another structure is to replace it, within a revamped central corridor linking government buildings and grand memorials, meant to be forever associated with Modi. On the roof of this new building, the familiar lion emblem of the Indian republic — taken from a sculpture dating back to the pacifist king Ashoka 23 centuries ago — will look very different, too. When the new symbol was unveiled last month, the entire country noticed that the lions now bare their fangs and snarl.
An India that bares its teeth is one that should concern the world. Nehru’s first republic saw itself as a leader of the post-colonial movement, forging a new and fairer international order. Even if that dream of brotherhood was dashed in the 1960s when Mao Zedong’s China switched suddenly from partner to antagonist, it remained at the heart of Indian engagement with the world into the 2000s.
Modi himself seems to have internationalist instincts and may still see advocating for developing countries as part of India’s role. But the country he is creating will eventually demand the world acknowledge its strength.
The old republic described its vision of itself as “unity in diversity.” That sentiment has little place in the new one, which sees diversity as the fatal weakness that led to 12 centuries of “slavery.”
The patriotic song that defined my generation was a paean to diversity, composed by a Muslim from a southern state. It seemed to fit a 50-year-old India perfectly. Everything about it is wrong for the India that’s turning 75. | 2022-08-12T03:46:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | India’s 75th Anniversary Is One to Forget - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/indias-75th-anniversary-is-one-to-forget/2022/08/11/1351657e-19e6-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/indias-75th-anniversary-is-one-to-forget/2022/08/11/1351657e-19e6-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
1 killed, 1 wounded in drive-by shooting in Dupont Circle, police say
night police car lights in city — close-up with selective focus and bokeh background blur (iStock)
Two men were shot and one was killed late Thursday near the Dupont Circle neighborhood, police said.
A police spokesperson said a call came in about 9:32 p.m. The shooting occurred in the 1900 block of S Street, outside the Assets strip club. One man was pronounced dead at the scene and another was taken to the hospital and was in critical but stable condition.
Police said both men were suffering from gunshot wounds.
A D.C. strip club had been there for years. But a new name is sparking protest.
Police said they don’t know what sparked the shooting, but that a silver car was involved. They also said they think there was more than one shooter.
Police ask that anyone with information call D.C. police at 202-727-9099. | 2022-08-12T03:55:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 1 killed, 1 wounded in shooting in Dupont Circle - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/11/1-killed-1-wounded-drive-by-shooting-dupont-circle-police-say/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/11/1-killed-1-wounded-drive-by-shooting-dupont-circle-police-say/ |
Bothered: You’ve asked about adopting a new mentality, versus acting out or going to management.
Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron describes ways to practice equanimity, outlining a situation analogous to yours — sitting in heavy traffic, while people cut ahead of you. This can be seen as an opportunity to practice your calming skills.
His parents have, at best, a strained relationship with their daughter, “Anne.” As a result, they have named Anne in their will only to state that she will get nothing when they are gone.
I have asked them, and their answer is that it “… has to be a surprise!” I really don’t understand why they can’t be the ones who see the look on her face, if that is what is so important to them.
Why do they want to leave the “dirty work” for my husband and destroy his relationship with his sister? I believe that if she knew now, she would “move on” with her own life, instead of trying to please them before they are gone.
Upset: I agree with you; your in-laws seem exceedingly and unnecessarily mean-spirited regarding their final wishes. Their glee at disinheriting their daughter seems to leave out the fact that they will not be there to see the look on her face when she learns of their choice.
They are also putting your husband in a terrible position. Executors should not disclose details of a will without permission of the testator (the person writing the will).
Imagine the looks on his folks’ faces if he simply declined to be part of their cruel game. But regardless of what you (or I) think, how he handles this should be up to him.
Grammarian: You’re right! Thank you for the correction. | 2022-08-12T04:08:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: I keep getting cut in line at work - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/12/ask-amy-cutting-in-line/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/12/ask-amy-cutting-in-line/ |
Carolyn Hax is away. The following is from May 21, 25 and 30, 2008.
Dear Carolyn: I am 28 and married. My father feels I am wasting my time and skills in a job that pays so poorly (high school English teacher). He thinks I ought to go to law school, like my cousins. I’ve been teaching for four years, and while it hasn’t been easy, I’m really passionate about it and feel as though I’m making a difference. My parents frequently go on cruises, and each time I’m bombarded with tales of people they’ve met who are successful in business, law, etc. Presumably, the intent is to encourage me to pick something else. How do I handle my father’s nitpicking in a respectful way?
— Stressed in California
Stressed in California: Presumably, these successful cruisers were so talented they taught themselves in high school?
And how respectful is it of your dad to call your career a “waste?”
Never mind. My arguing your worth to you is as far beside the point as your arguing your worth to Daddy. Your profession is your business, not his. While it’s certainly nice to bask in parental approval, a functioning adult certainly also knows it’s not necessary.
So, stop giving him traction. Ask him, once, to please respect your choice and stop pressuring you. For any further meddling, it’s, “Appreciate the concern,” change subject (or, for cruise anecdotes, “How nice for these people,” change subject). Daddy loses more than you do, ultimately, from his refusal to see who you are.
Dear Carolyn: I have a guy friend who’s always very generous. Every time we go out, he gives the credit card well in advance to the waiter, so I don’t get a chance. Even when I have my friends with me, he pays for everything. I don’t want to seem like I’m taking advantage, so I don’t invite him out as often. I buy him a gift as a thank-you, but I feel like his generosity outweighs what I get for him. What is the best way to return his generosity?
— Too Good to Be True
Too Good to Be True: Someone who goes that far out of his way to pick up every check is inviting people to take advantage.
Not that you should, of course; you’re right to reciprocate. However, it’s not about protecting him from the abuse of his generosity. That’s his responsibility.
Your shared duty is to keep the friendship from getting so out of balance that you feel infantilized. If your gifts aren’t sufficient, in your opinion, then make it clear it’s a matter of dignity for you to be able to pay. Think about it: Your current strategy for acknowledging his generosity includes avoiding him. That alone suggests something is off.
Dear Carolyn: My boyfriend and I are the same height. He thinks he is short and doesn’t like me to wear heels that make me even the least bit taller. He doesn’t say so, exactly, but he sulks if I try to wear them. Is it really my job to make sure he always is happy, or is it okay to be a “heel” once in a while?
M.: Whether you wear flats when you’d prefer heels, or wear heels when you’d prefer a date who wasn’t sulking, dating someone immature will always cost you something. As always, it’s a matter of deciding whether his other qualities are worth that particular price. | 2022-08-12T04:47:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Dad dismisses teaching career as a waste of time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/12/carolyn-hax-dad-teaching-career-criticism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/12/carolyn-hax-dad-teaching-career-criticism/ |
STOCK IMAGE: Emergency vehicle, light car. Police car. (iStock)
A man was shot and killed in Temple Hills on Wednesday morning, Prince George’s County police said.
The man, identified as 55-year-old Nesredin Esleiman of Silver Spring, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
Police said that patrol officers were called to the 5400 block of Chesterfield Drive at 6:20 a.m. Wednesday morning for a welfare check. Officers located Esleiman inside a vehicle and suffering from a gunshot wound.
Police said that the preliminary investigation revealed that Esleiman worked as a ride-share driver at the time of the killing. Detectives are working to identify a suspect and motive. . | 2022-08-12T05:09:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Silver Spring man found shot, killed in Temple Hills - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/12/man-shot-temple-hills/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/12/man-shot-temple-hills/ |
By Steve Peoples and John Wawrow | AP
ERIE, Pa. — Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman is expected to open up about his personal health challenges as he officially returns to the campaign trail Friday, more than 90 days after the Democrat suffered a stroke that threatened his life and political prospects in one of the nation’s premier Senate contests. | 2022-08-12T05:18:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fetterman plans 'raw' remarks in return to PA Senate race - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fetterman-plans-raw-remarks-in-return-to-pa-senate-race/2022/08/12/dee1c8b0-19f9-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fetterman-plans-raw-remarks-in-return-to-pa-senate-race/2022/08/12/dee1c8b0-19f9-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, south of Los Osos, Calif., is viewed Sept. 20, 2005. The California Energy Commission is holding a three-hour workshop focused on the state’s power needs in the climate change era and what role the power plant might have in maintaining reliable electricity. (AP Photo/Michael A. Mariant, File) (Michael Mariant/FR96689 AP)
LOS ANGELES — The California Legislature has less than three weeks to determine if it will take an extraordinary step and attempt to extend the life of California’s last operating nuclear plant, a decision that would be made amid looming questions over the cost and who would pay and earthquake safety risks. | 2022-08-12T05:19:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nuke or no nuke? California officials ponder nuclear future - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/nuke-or-no-nuke-california-officials-ponder-nuclear-future/2022/08/12/21780e3c-19f5-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/nuke-or-no-nuke-california-officials-ponder-nuclear-future/2022/08/12/21780e3c-19f5-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
A more muscular, chauvinistic India is casting aside the “father of the nation” for other heroes
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays homage at Rajghat, the memorial for India's founding father, Mahatma Gandhi, on Martyr's Day, in New Delhi on Jan. 30. (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
As India celebrates 75 years of independence on Monday, the legacy of the “father of the nation” who advocated nonviolence and secularism is being debated, downplayed and derided as never before. Instead, Indians are embracing a pantheon of other 20th century heroes, particularly leaders who favored armed struggle or overtly championed Hindus, in a reflection of the nation’s mood and its shifting politics.
Nor did they appear in “RRR.” Prasad ended his summer blockbuster with tributes to Bose, Patel and Bhagat Singh, a folk hero who shot a British policeman and bombed the parliament building in Delhi before being hanged in 1931. They were the kind of heroes who forced the British to go home, Prasad explained.
Revisionist wave
But the wave of revisionism has accelerated and grown mainstream in recent decades, especially with the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the decline of the Congress. The BJP has roots in the Hindu nationalist movement that opposed Gandhi’s secular ideology during his lifetime and favored a vision of India as a Hindu state. Nathuram Godse, the man who shot Gandhi three times in the chest in 1948, was a member of the Rashtriya Swayam Sangh (RSS), an influential Hindu nationalist organization that Modi would join in 1978 as a young cadet.
“Criticism of Gandhi isn’t new, but what is interesting is it is taking root once again at this moment when you have a new nationalist ideology of the BJP trying to assert its hegemony,” said Srinath Raghavan, a historian at Ashoka University. Because organizations like the RSS stayed away from the Gandhi-led independence movement, Raghavan added, their “search for historical legitimacy has required a search for alternative nationalist icons.”
To be sure, Modi, 71, has continuously paid respect to Gandhi at public ceremonies and in speeches. When fellow BJP lawmakers have praised Godse as a patriot, Modi has scolded them. In 2011, when Modi, then serving as the chief of Gujarat state, banned a biography by an American journalist that suggested Gandhi had a same-sex relationship and racist views, Modi said the book defamed an “an idol not only in India but in the entire world.”
But he also stayed silent in the past year, as the Hindu far right gathered for a series of religious assemblies in which speakers called for violence against Muslims — and hatred of Gandhi became a running theme. At a December rally, a Hindu cleric saluted Godse and argued that India would be stronger than America today had Patel, not Nehru, been its first prime minister.
One of the high-profile activists at the rallies, Pooja Shakun Pandey, said she believed Modi privately shared the far right’s disdain for Gandhi. “He is bound by the circumstances of his secular chair, but I believe in his heart of his hearts, he has the same feelings,” Pandey said. “His upbringing was in the RSS, and the RSS teaches in its classrooms: ‘Who is the real hero, Godse or Gandhi?’”
On the anniversary of Gandhi’s death in 2019, Pandey made headlines when she picked up an airsoft gun and fired three shots into an effigy of him, which spurted fake blood. What was needed in India, she said, was national strength, greater militarization, more training for India’s young men to fight against what she called the threat of Islamic jihad.
“You have to become spiritually and physically strong,” she said.
Cultural transformation
In 1998, the government under the BJP Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee banned a Mumbai theater production that featured Gandhi’s killer as the protagonist. But since the 2000s, more films have emerged to explore the lives of lesser-known nationalists, radicals and Gandhi’s rivals. In 2004, the acclaimed director Shyam Benegal released a biopic about Bose, the militant nationalist, with the subtitle, “The Forgotten Hero.”
Today, more mass-market films are being made that “anticipate” the country’s rightward shift, said Srinivas S.V., a professor at Azim Premji University who studies Indian cinema. “We see a preference for a more muscular nationalism and a rewriting of the kind of nationalist who we should be respecting,” he said. But, he cautioned, some popular narratives are derived “from internet re-tellings of history, which are not evidence-based.”
Mahesh Manjrekar, a filmmaker and actor who starred in the 2008 British drama “Slumdog Millionaire,” plans to release a picture this year about Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, a forefather of Hindu-nationalist thought who was charged as a co-conspirator in Gandhi’s killing. Manjrekar also has an upcoming project about Godse, which he plugged on Instagram as “a story no one dared to tell before!”
How bulldozers in India became a symbol of Hindu nationalism
Prasad, the “RRR” writer, says he, too, has undergone a transformation in recent years.
Born into a wealthy Telugu-speaking family in southern India in 1941, Prasad had a long and successful writing career before “RRR” and frequently collaborated with his son, the director S. S. Rajamouli. The plots he conjured up often became hits. They included “Baahubali,” an action epic set in ancient India, and “Bajrangi Bhaijaan,” a drama about a devout Hindu (played by the superstar Salman Khan) who befriends a mute Pakistani Muslim girl.
Five years ago, Prasad said, his friends sent him online posts about Gandhi and the history of independence, which upended the orthodoxy he learned in school.
Prasad began digging online and concluded that Gandhi was undemocratic, and the partition of India “unfortunate.” And while Nehru failed to protect Hindu women from being violated by Muslims in Prasad’s home city of Hyderabad in the early days of the republic, Patel sent in the military, he said.
These days, Prasad has grown a bushy white beard, turned vegetarian and expounds on the Bhagavad Gita’s teachings to visitors. But he called on Hindus to embrace religious pluralism and condemned the Hindu nationalist fringe that worships Gandhi’s killer. “No person is perfect,” he said. “But no person deserved to be killed.”
When “RRR” finally hit theaters this year after a lengthy production that cost $70 million — the most in Indian film history — it came loaded not just with political but also religious undertones.
Prasad’s story was loosely based on the tale of Alluri Sitarama Raju, a real-life, southern Indian guerrilla. In the film, Alluri devises an elaborate plot to obtain guns for the Indian resistance. After numerous explosions, fistfights and a jailbreak, he finds himself hunted by British soldiers in a forest. Wounded and desperate, Alluri suddenly morphs into a character who bears a striking resemblance to the Hindu god Ram himself. The transformation scene was so popular that when “RRR” premiered, some Indian theaters burst into spontaneous cheers and cries of “Hail, Lord Ram,” a chant favored by Hindu nationalists.
Reinvigorated and clad in a saffron dhoti, Ram exacts revenge on the despotic British governor with the help of his burly friend Bheem, who bears a resemblance to the Hindu god Hanuman.
Ultimately, Prasad said, “RRR” was fictional, but the underlying message for Indians was real.
“We created an alternate history,” he said. “But the inherent themes — patriotism, honor, commitment to country — it’s all there.”
Anant Gupta contributed to this report | 2022-08-12T05:20:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As India marks 75 years of independence, Mahatma Gandhi is cast aside - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/12/india-independence-mahatma-gandhi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/12/india-independence-mahatma-gandhi/ |
Waiting on weapons deliveries, Ukrainian gains on the ground have stalled
MYKOLAIV REGION, Ukraine — On the front line in southeast Ukraine, there is little sign that a major counteroffensive is brewing.
For weeks, Western intelligence and military analysts have predicted that a Ukrainian campaign retake the strategic port city of Kherson and surrounding territory is imminent. But in trenches less than a mile from Russia’s positions in the area, Ukrainian soldiers hunker down from an escalating onslaught of artillery, with little ability to advance.
Retaking Kherson would mark a devastating blow to President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine. The wider region is crucial to providing fresh water to Crimea, a problem that has cost Russia billions of rubles since its illegal annexation of the peninsula in 2014. It is also a key foothold for any future Russian military push in the south toward Odessa, the coveted jewel on the Black Sea.
“They’ve dug in,” said Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the military administration in Kryvyi Rih, after returning from a trip to inspect the front lines on Sunday. “We know that they are trying to fortify their positions. The enemy has significantly increased its artillery, along the entire line,” he said of the 60-mile long front line, after returning from visiting positions on Sunday.
The progress Ukrainian forces had made here in recent months — recapturing a string of villages from Russia’s control — has largely stalled, with soldiers exposed in the open terrain.
“There is no where to hide,” said Yuri, who has fought here without a break since the beginning of the war, and like other soldiers did not give his last name in line with protocol. His unit have a hodgepodge stock: modern antitank weapons and a Soviet machine gun manufactured in 1944 and the focus here is holding the line.
Ukrainian military officials are tight-lipped on any timeline for a wider push, but say they need more supplies of Western weapons before one can happen. Ukraine currently lacks the capacity to launch a full scale offensive anywhere along the 1200-mile front line, one security official conceded.
“We have to be honest — for now Ukraine doesn’t have a sufficient number of weapons systems for a counter offensives,” said a defense and intelligence adviser to the Ukrainian government who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
“It’s still possible to get a result but if so it will be the result of smart Ukraine strategy more than of countering Russia with equal power,” the adviser said. “It’s very difficult to match them.”
In an interview this week, Ukrainian army commander Major General Dmytro Machenko also said “small batches” of Western military aid means carrying out offensive actions is “very difficult” but expressed optimism the dynamic would change soon.
“I think once we get the full package of this aid, our counteroffensive will be very quick,” he told RBC newspaper, urging people of Kherson to be “a little patient”. “It will not be as long as everyone expects,” he added.
Others have appeared to temper expectations stressing that the situation is dynamic. In recent days Russia has launched a new Russian assault on cities in the country’s east.
“It changes pretty much every day because the enemy moves their forces and we change our tactics and maneuvers,” said Yuriy Sak, an adviser to defense minister. “Things change and plans change.”
The counter offensive “is already happening” in the way that is feasible, said Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military’s Southern Command, adding that progress will be “little by little” and pointing out that the conflict is a “hybrid war.”
Some have even hinted that the offensive here may have been trumpeted as part of a campaign of informational warfare, designed to draw Russian firepower away from areas further east.
In Kherson, misery under Russian occupation
And Russia has been reinforcing. Around 3,000 troops have arrived in the Kherson region over the past week alone, bringing to at least 15,000 the number of Russian troops on the western bank of the Dnieper River, the intelligence adviser said.
Most of them are elite airborne troops who are helping to bolster exhausted Russian forces who have been manning the front line for months, according to Kirill Mikhailov, a Kyiv-based analyst with the Conflict Intelligence Team, a Russian research and investigative group.
“Two weeks ago they came in with big equipment, grads,” said one 42-year-old from Novovorontsovka, near Kherson, who is in touch with parents there. “They are setting up bases in houses.” A 65-year-old who left the tiny village of Mar’ine on June 11, said Russian forces who had barely been visible earlier in its occupation began moving in large numbers in the days before she fled. “They were digging in trenches,” she said.
The troop movements have raised concerns that Russia could be preparing its own new offensive in the area. But while Russia may now try to recover some of the villages retaken by Ukrainian troops in recent months, they also lack the means to launch a large-scale operation, analysts and officials say.
The forces around Kherson city constitute Russia’s only foothold that side of the river, a natural defensive barrier that carves Ukraine and requires supply routes to pass through a number of highly vulnerable chokeholds.
Those supply routes have proven vulnerable to Ukraine’s new U.S.-supplied HIMAR rocket systems. And with its strike on Crimea, Ukraine has demonstrated the capacity to strike at the heart of Russian military installations in the major military supply hub for Moscow’s operations in the south.
Outgunned, Ukraine is also looking to hybrid tactics. In the city, much of the local population is hostile to occupation, said Konstantin Ryzhenko, a Ukrainian journalist currently in hiding there. Russian soldiers are already not visible on the streets of the city in to fear of attacks, he said.
Given the strike in Crimea, Russia’s hold over Kherson is in jeopardy, said Dmitri Alperovich, chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, a Washington-based think tank.
“I think the Russians will pull out of Kherson soon,” he said of the city. “It’s becoming untenable — really hard to resupply forces.”
In the first days following the invasion, Russian forces blew up a dam in a canal in the region that had long infuriated Putin. Ukraine dammed the waterway in 2014 following Russia’s occupation of the peninsula. Once fertile farmland turned into parched barren flats, and the Kremlin was forced to pay out billions in subsides and to invest in new water projects.
My hometown, now occupied by Russia, is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster
Some Ukrainian military units are already paying a price. For nearly six months, Ukraine’s 28th Mechanized Brigade has fought along the southern front, stopping a lightning-advance by Russian forces outside the city of Mykolaiv.
The unit’s battled hardened fighters continue to claw back territory as they inch closer to Kherson. Despite being some of the best equipped and professionally trained units on the front lines, withering Russian artillery strikes across the open steppe have maimed and killed many of their fighters.
In late July, the 28th Mechanized Brigade’s commander, Vitalii Huliaiev, was killed in combat and his fellow soldiers intend to avenge his death.
“We will get to Kherson,” said the battalion commander who goes by the call sign Zloy, which means Angry. “We will have our revenge.” | 2022-08-12T06:10:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ukraine's battle to retake Kherson seen as key turning point - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/12/ukraine-kherson-battle/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/12/ukraine-kherson-battle/ |
A bottle of Johnson & Johnson's baby powder. (Jeff Chiu/AP)
Johnson & Johnson will stop selling its talc-based baby powder worldwide starting next year, in what it called a “commercial decision” aimed at ensuring long-term growth.
The decision comes just over two years after the company discontinued sales of such products in the United States and Canada. Johnson & Johnson had cited declining demand for the baby powder after thousands of consumer lawsuits were filed against it, alleging that the powder contained carcinogens.
Activist shareholders had previously pushed the firm to stop selling the talc-based powder products internationally.
Johnson & Johnson said Thursday that it remains “firmly behind” the view that its talc-based goods are safe, do not cause cancer and do not contain asbestos. Asbestos exposure has been linked to lung cancer but there is debate over whether the material can cause ovarian cancer; Johnson & Johnson has lost court cases involving claims that its talc-based powders cause the latter.
Ben Whiting, an attorney at the Chicago-based Keller Postman law firm, said that there would have been a “real and negative impact on litigation” in the United States if Johnson & Johnson had made the decision to stop selling talc-based products internationally at an earlier time.
The company will transition to selling only cornstarch-based baby powder. In 2020, Johnson & Johnson said that demand for its baby powder is higher outside the United States and Canada. Some 75 percent of its U.S. baby powder customers buy the cornstarch version, while only 25 percent purchase talcum powder, according to Bloomberg News. Those percentages are reversed outside the United States.
Does talcum powder cause ovarian cancer?
Since 2014, Johnson & Johnson has faced lawsuits in the United States from consumers who alleged they contracted cancer after using the company’s talc-based products for prolonged periods. The suits accused the company of hiding and downplaying cancer risks, and asked for compensation.
In 2016, Jacqueline Fox won a suit against the company, in the first case of monetary compensation being awarded against Johnson & Johnson over a talc-based powder product. A Missouri jury ordered the company to pay Fox’s family $72 million. Fox died before the ruling from ovarian cancer, which she partly blamed on her decades of using Johnson’s talc-based powder.
In 2020, Missouri’s highest court let stand an earlier appeal court decision ordering the company to pay $2.1 billion to women who claimed they contracted ovarian cancer after using its talc products. That amount was a reduction from the original $4.7 billion that a jury had awarded, after some original plaintiffs were dismissed from the case. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a Johnson & Johnson appeal. | 2022-08-12T06:49:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Johnson & Johnson to stop selling talcum baby powder globally - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/12/johnson-and-johnson-talcum-baby-powder/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/12/johnson-and-johnson-talcum-baby-powder/ |
The Bank of England’s role has been in flux ever since it was founded in 1694 to fund a war with France. Its main job these days is to keep prices in check, something it has largely achieved since being handed control over interest rates 25 years ago. But like other central banks, it’s now struggling to calibrate policy in response to the economic shocks unleashed by the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Inflation in the UK has soared well past its official target, leaving an institution long seen as a model for others to follow facing a crisis of credibility.
1. How is the system meant to work?
After the breakdown of the Bretton Woods regime of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s and the high inflation that followed, many central banks, including the BOE, adopted a principle laid out by Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman: that the best way to ensure steady economic growth and a robust financial system is to focus on keeping prices stable. They do this via so-called inflation targeting -- explicitly aiming to keep prices going up by a small amount each year. The BOE says this makes it easier for businesses to set the right prices and for people to plan their spending.
2. Who sets the inflation target?
The BOE is tasked with achieving a rate of inflation set by the government each year. Right now that rate is 2% based on the Consumer Prices Index, a goal it shares with most central banks in advanced economies. If inflation diverges by more than 1 percentage point in either direction, the bank’s governor must write to the chancellor of the exchequer -- Britain’s finance minister -- explaining why, and what the bank will do about it.
3. How does it keep inflation in check?
Its main policy tool is the Bank Rate, the rate of interest it pays to commercial banks that deposit money with the BOE. For those banks, making loans to consumers and businesses is only worthwhile when it pays better than making risk-free loans to the BOE. So when the Bank Rate goes up, the banks charge everybody else more, restricting the supply of money in the economy and curbing prices. By the same token, when the Bank Rate goes down, the money supply tends to grow and prices rise. Between 1997 and the eve of the pandemic, UK inflation averaged 2% a year.
4. How has the BOE’s role evolved?
Before 1997, interest rates were set by the chancellor, with the BOE governor providing advice. Within days of taking office, Tony Blair’s Labour government gave the bank operational independence and created a nine-member Monetary Policy Committee led by the governor, a move designed to insulate monetary policy from the risk of political opportunism. The BOE was initially given an inflation-rate target of 2.5% based on the Retail Prices Index excluding mortgage interest payments. In 2003, the goal was shifted to 2% based on the CPI. In 2013, the BOE saw its remit change again when George Osborne, the Conservative chancellor, said that letting inflation overshoot the target was tolerable if it was required to support growth and employment. At the time, inflation was running close to 3% and the economy was emerging from the euro area’s sovereign debt crisis.
5. What’s happening now?
Inflation was 9.4% in June and forecast to peak at 13.3% in October -- the highest since 1980. This is not out of line with the pressures being experienced in other advanced economies, where prices are rising at their fastest pace in decades. However, BOE Governor Andrew Bailey is under attack from members of the ruling Conservative Party and the press. Their central charge is that the bank missed the signs of a price explosion and then acted too slowly once they began to emerge. This, the argument goes, has increased the likelihood of a long recession and a jump in unemployment.
6. So what’s their solution?
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, the front-runner to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister, has said the UK is facing an unprecedented economic situation and that the “business as usual economic strategy” isn’t working. The BOE should remain independent but the time has come to revisit its mandate, she said. In a newspaper article, Truss said the recent commodity-induced inflation spike has been “exacerbated by monetary policy.” How she would revise the current system is unclear. She hasn’t said she would scrap inflation targeting, but did mention the possibility of widening the target to include a measure of money supply or nominal gross domestic product.
Some analysts have expressed concern that talk of revising the BOE’s remit again raises questions about the independence of the central bank from political meddling. Any loss of credibility for the BOE could damage the economy by making monetary policy less predictable, leading investors to demand higher returns for owning UK government debt. The chancellor has the power to change the BOE remit overnight by sending a letter to the governor. In practice, the government would probably formally consult on the matter to signal its intentions.
• The chancellor who introduced Britain’s first inflation target in 1992 says it would be a mistake to abandon the regime. | 2022-08-12T06:49:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Change the Bank of England’s Inflation Target? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-change-the-bank-of-englands-inflation-target/2022/08/12/ff923446-1a08-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-change-the-bank-of-englands-inflation-target/2022/08/12/ff923446-1a08-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Anne Heche arrives for the premiere of Netflix's “The Unforgivable” at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles on Nov. 30, 2021. Heche has been hospitalized in critical condition after crashing her car into a Los Angeles home. (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)
“Unfortunately, due to her accident, Anne Heche suffered a severe anoxic brain injury and remains in a coma, in critical condition,” the statement, shared with The Washington Post, read. “She is not expected to survive.”
The statement added that Heche is being kept alive on life support to determine whether any of her organs are viable to donate. The representative told The Post that Heche is “brain dead.”
“Anne had a huge heart and touched everyone she met with her generous spirit. More than her extraordinary talent, she saw spreading kindness and joy as her life’s work — especially moving the needle for acceptance of who you love,” the statement added. “She will be remembered for her courageous honesty and dearly missed for her light.”
Heche, 53, was hospitalized last Friday after she drove her Mini Cooper into a house in Los Angeles’s Mar Vista neighborhood, causing the vehicle and the house to erupt in flames. It took nearly 60 firefighters over an hour to extinguish the fire. Police are investigating the possibility that Heche had been driving under the influence.
An initial test of Heche’s blood found narcotics in her system, Officer Tony Im, a spokesman with the Los Angeles Police Department, told The Post. But a second test is being performed to determine whether those substances were present because of her medical treatment, he added.
Heche rose to fame after appearing in the soap opera “Another World” starting in the 1980s. She later starred in films such as “Donnie Brasco,” “Six Days, Seven Nights” and “Volcano,” and she was known for her 3 ½-year relationship with Ellen DeGeneres in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Before the crash last Friday morning, Heche had bought a wig from a salon, whose owner told the Los Angeles Times that she was in good spirits and didn’t seem intoxicated. TMZ reported that Heche crashed into an apartment garage before peeling off down the street, citing a video that was not time stamped. Surveillance footage from another home showed a blue Mini Cooper speeding down a residential street minutes before the crash.
A GoFundMe campaign was set up for the occupant of the home, who “very narrowly escaped physical harm” but lost many of her possessions, according to the fundraiser statement.
In their statement Thursday night, Heche’s family thanked staff at the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills hospital, as well as “everyone for their kind wishes and prayers for Anne’s recovery.” | 2022-08-12T06:50:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rep: Anne Heche suffered anoxic brain injury, unlikely to live - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/12/anne-heche-anoxic-brain-injury-coma/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/12/anne-heche-anoxic-brain-injury-coma/ |
BALTIMORE — Tyler Huntley went 16 of 18 for 110 yards and a touchdown in the first half, and the Baltimore Ravens extended their record streak of preseason victories to 21 with a 23-10 win over the Tennessee Titans.
TAMPA, Fla. — Tom Brady was excused from training camp, the first day of what Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles said was a planned, 11-day absence from the team to address “personal things.”
LAS VEGAS — Former NFL running back Marshawn Lynch was asleep and smelled of alcohol when Las Vegas police found him in his damaged sports car and arrested him on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, according to an arrest report made public.
LOS ANGELES — The proposed $24 million settlement between U.S. women soccer players and the sport’s American governing body was approved by a federal judge, who scheduled a Dec. 5 hearing for final approval.
TORONTO — Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil beat top-ranked Iga Swiatek of Poland 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 in windy conditions to reach the National Bank Open quarterfinals.
MONTREAL — Fourth-seeded Casper Ruud of Norway advanced to the National Bank Open quarterfinals, beating No. 14 Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4), 6-4. | 2022-08-12T08:21:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Thursday's Sports in Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/thursdays-sports-in-brief/2022/08/12/d8043534-1a0b-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/thursdays-sports-in-brief/2022/08/12/d8043534-1a0b-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Ukraine Live Briefing: U.N. urges demilitarization at nuclear plant; grain ship sails to Ethiopia
A rocket launched toward Ukraine from Russia's Belgorod region is seen at dawn in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022. (Vadim Belikov/AP)
The United Nations appealed for a demilitarized zone around a nuclear plant in southern Ukraine, and a ship loaded with Ukrainian grain is headed to hunger-hit countries in the Horn of Africa. Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
The U.N. chief called for the withdrawal of military forces and equipment from around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, which Russia seized from Ukraine. As the two countries trade blame for shelling near the facility, the U.N. atomic energy watchdog warned of potential disaster and urged a cease-fire at a Security Council emergency meeting.
The Brave Commander, chartered by the United Nations, will export more than 23,000 metric tons of grain through the port of Djibouti in Ethiopia. The shipment is part of a deal to lift the blockade on Ukrainian grain which has propelled rising prices and worsened a global food crisis. Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia are also dealing with their worst drought in decades, with more than 18 million people facing acute food insecurity.
Two more ships left Ukraine’s Black Sea ports Friday under the agreement, including one carrying 3,000 metric tons of wheat, according to the defense ministry in Turkey, which helped broker the deal along with the United Nations. That vessel is going to a coastal city west of Istanbul, while another is taking 60,000 metric tons of corn to Iran.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told his government officials to stop divulging details about military tactics to reporters. In a nightly address, he said revealing defense plans for “big headlines” was “frankly irresponsible.”
At least eight Russian fighter aircraft were “almost certainly destroyed or seriously damaged” in Tuesday’s explosions at the Saki Air Base in Crimea, the British defense ministry says. While this would represent a blow to the base, “the airfield probably remains serviceable,” the British assessment added. A Ukrainian official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, previously told The Washington Post that Ukrainian special forces were behind the attack on the Russian base.
The Kremlin’s war in Ukraine has set back the Russian economy four years in the first quarter since the invasion, opening the door to one of the country’s longest downturns on record, according to a Bloomberg analysis.
Kyiv wants the Biden administration to sanction all Russian private banks to pressure Moscow, Ukraine’s ambassador to Washington, Oksana Markarova, said in an interview. She said she had relayed the request to the Treasury Department.
On the Kherson front lines, little sign of a Ukrainian offensive: On the front line in southeast Ukraine, there is little sign that a major counteroffensive is brewing, Washington Post correspondents report from the Mykolaiv region.
“For weeks, Western intelligence and military analysts have predicted that a Ukrainian campaign to retake the strategic port city of Kherson and surrounding territory is imminent,” they write.
But less than a mile from Russian positions, Ukrainian soldiers hunker down in trenches, with the progress they had made here, retaking a string of villages, largely stalled. | 2022-08-12T08:21:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/12/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/12/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ |
Workers clear debris from a waterlogged semi-subterranean apartment in Seoul on August 11. (Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images)
SEOUL — As rainwater gushed into Yoon Jin-hyeok’s semi-underground apartment on Monday, the night of South Korea’s historic downpour, the 26-year-old and his two roommates scrambled to pump out water from their 390-square-foot home. But the water filled up to their knees in just an hour.
“I felt so desperate,” Yoon said, as he scooped mud and dirt out of his home days later.
Yoon considers himself lucky. He survived. Just a few miles away, a teenager, her mother and aunt, who had Down syndrome, drowned in their semi-basement home. In a nearby district, a resident with a developmental disability escaped but returned to rescue her cat, got trapped inside, and died.
The record rainfall in parts of South Korea this week that killed at least 11 drew into focus Seoul’s most vulnerable residents, who live in semi-underground flood hazards. The lack of funding and planning to protect hundreds of thousands of the city’s poor, elderly and disabled has spurred widespread anger. Over the past three years, the Seoul city government slashed flood-related spending by about a third, from about $474 million to $323 million in 2022, budget documents show.
Seoul’s mayor this week announced plans to phase out half-basement units in response to the disaster, which residents and experts say is only a short-term solution to growing housing and income inequality in the area around the capital. Apartment prices in Seoul have more than doubled in the past five years, with rising interest rates and mortgages increasingly pricing residents out from home ownership. Landlords have sharply raised rental prices, pushing people out of homes they can no longer afford.
"Though dark, musty and unhygienic, it was the only affordable option that I could find,” Yoon, a student, said of his home. “I agree it is an inhumane environment for people to live in, but we didn’t come here because we wanted to. Do we really have other options?”
This week’s devastating floods are not likely to be the last. In recent years, Seoul has increasingly been exposed to extreme weather events such as heatwaves and floods. Low-lying areas in southern Seoul, even including the affluent Gangnam area, have repeatedly been hit. “For South Korea, climate change will largely be felt through extreme weather events, primarily flooding in certain areas and droughts in others,” wrote the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington-based center-left think tank.
In the aftermath of Monday and Tuesday’s record rainfall, horrific stories emerged of those who were trapped inside when pressure from the floods sealed their front doors shut. Some escaped through a ground-level window that is often barricaded with metal bars as a security measure. These homes, or “banjiha,” gained global attention after their depiction in the Academy Award-winning movie “Parasite.”
An elderly couple, ages 90 and 87, banged on their window for help as water rushed to their chests, and a neighbor upstairs broke open their window so they could escape, Korean media reported. A 67-year-old living alone was watching television when she noticed her living room fill up with water. As neighbors struggled to remove the metal security bars with a saw, the glass on her front door cracked, relieving the water pressure and allowing her to flee.
These stories have sparked public outcry, prompting calls for more resources and attention on public services for marginalized communities, and an overhaul of the country’s housing and climate policies in order to protect them.
“This torrential flood once again reminded us that disasters do not treat everyone equally. In particular, it was most harmful to the socially disadvantaged, low income and disabled who live in half-basements,” said Jang Hye-young, a lawmaker from the liberal minority Justice Party and a disability rights advocate.
Extreme flooding to increase as temperatures rise, study finds
The cramped, tiny apartments that barely get any sunlight are a relic of the 1970s, when many basements were built as bunkers in event of a North Korean attack. They were originally banned from being lived in, but were converted into rental units due to a housing crunch. There are about 330,000 banjiha homes nationwide, with about 200,000 in Seoul, according to the 2020 Census.
On Wednesday, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said it would ban such spaces from being lived in, and announced a plan that offers monetary incentives and a grace period of 10 to 20 years to convert banjiha homes for nonresidential use. The banjiha spaces would then be repurposed into warehouses or other facilities. The city government proposed public rental housing as alternative homes for residents.
“The policy we are working on is not a makeshift solution, but a fundamental one to protect the safety and provide our citizens with housing stability,” Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said in a statement.
For many, Oh’s commitment was a deja vu moment from 2010, when another major flood inundated the Seoul metro area. Under Oh, who served a previous stint as mayor between 2006 and 2011, the city proposed prohibiting the issue of new construction permits for banjiha units.
In 2012, the national government passed new laws to ban the building of new banjiha apartments in habitually flooded areas. Still, 40,000 new banjiha units have been built in the capital since then, according to the city.
This week’s renewed plan was criticized by both disability rights advocates and housing experts, who say it overlooks fundamental housing inequalities in South Korea.
“It sounds good in the immediate term, but it’s unrealistic and empty,” said Jang, the lawmaker. “Without resolving fundamental problems, such as the shortage of public rental housing in the metropolitan area, the excessive burden of housing costs on low-income households, and the insufficiency of the institutional rent control system, an announcement alone will not solve anything properly.”
In response to the last major flood, Oh pledged that the city government would increase spending on flood prevention services. Under his successor, who served from 2011 to 2020, the flood prevention budget increased annually until 2019, though it has plummeted since. City officials say the budget decreased because major projects had been completed.
But housing experts say city planners still need to prioritize flood prevention, particularly for affordable housing units.
‘Gangnam Style’ is back, but do Psy’s wild concerts have a place in covid time?
“Seoul Metropolitan Government cutting the flood prevention budget was the wrong thing to do. … To prevent damage from natural disasters you need to be preparing for them when there is no disaster," said Kwon Dae-jung, a real estate studies professor at Myongji University in Seoul.
With rising housing prices and a lack of public rental homes to accommodate residents who move out of banjiha units, policymakers need to devise long-term, comprehensive policies, said Kim Seung-hee, a housing welfare expert at Kangwon National University in South Korea.
One major cause of housing price hikes is growing income inequality across class, generations and regions, which are affected by larger economic and social trends. Policymakers need to contend with these challenges by systemically instituting an expansion of public rental housing and housing subsidies, Kim said.
“It should be preceded by a human-focused policy shift from a focus on the volume of supply,” Kim said. “The priority of the housing support should be set based on the profile of the underprivileged.” | 2022-08-12T09:17:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After Seoul floods, focus on plight of basement 'banjiha' home residents - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/12/seoul-floods-banjiha-basement-south-korea/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/12/seoul-floods-banjiha-basement-south-korea/ |
Kalorama house is on the market for $4.5 million
The 6,700-square-foot house has had several notable owners over the years
The living room has several glass French doors that lead to a walled courtyard in the rear. (Constance Gauthier)
The odd-numbered side of the 2300 block of S Street NW, in D.C.’s Kalorama neighborhood, has just two private homes — the one Jeff Bezos (owner of The Washington Post) reportedly bought in 2020 and this house, both built in 1958. The rest belong to the Netherlands, Pakistan, Mauritania and China. Across the street are the former Textile Museum (which Bezos bought in 2016 and converted into a private residence) and the Woodrow Wilson House.
“Over the previous two decades, work had taken us to Moscow, London, Geneva and Madrid, and we were looking for a property that was in the center of the city, close to the museums, the Kennedy Center (we are both classical music enthusiasts) and green areas, such as the Rock Creek park,” Lopez-Claros wrote in an email.
Kalorama house | The 1958 house is in D.C.’s Kalorama neighborhood. It is listed at just under $4.5 millon. (Constance Gauthier)
The couple, who bought the house in 2011, also wanted a home that allowed them to entertain large groups comfortably. They enjoy inviting guests for talks and dinner parties. But they weren’t the first people to take advantage of the house’s layout. Several other notable Washingtonians have lived and entertained here.
Philip M. Stern is believed to have been the first owner. Stern was a philanthropist, author and Democratic Party activist. He served as a deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs in the Kennedy administration. His books include “The Best Congress Money Can Buy” (1988); “The Great Treasury Raid” (1962); and “The Shame of a Nation” (1965). He spent several months in 1974 as a special investigative reporter on the life insurance industry for The Washington Post.
Taylor also had worked in the Kennedy administration, serving as special counsel to and executive vice chairman of the newly formed President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities, forerunner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He was the first non-White person to direct the staff of a presidential committee. He is credited with coining the term “affirmative action.” Taylor later was director of the Export Import Bank under President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Mishal al-Sabah, now crown prince of Kuwait, is listed in the deed records as owning the house from 1983 to 1988. Requests to the Embassy of Kuwait to confirm his ownership went unanswered.
Ellen Tauscher paid $1.5 million for the house in 1996, shortly after she was elected to the House of Representatives from California. Tauscher, who was one of the first women to hold a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, served in Congress for more than a decade. She resigned her seat in 2009 to join the State Department as a senior arms control adviser to President Barack Obama.
After taking possession of the house, Mirta Lopez worked closely with Jennifer Gilmer Kitchen and Bath in Bethesda, Md., to update it. On the third floor, the owner’s suite bathroom and dressing area were transformed. The fourth-floor bathroom also was redone. Carpeting was removed, revealing near-pristine hardwood floors. Both kitchens — the main one on the second level and the catering one on the first level — were revamped. A room next to the main kitchen was turned into a breakfast area.
But several of the home’s original features were not touched, including the sweeping spiral stairway and the wall of windows next to it, both of which span all four levels. In the marble foyer, the sculptural stairway provides a stately entry to the house.
“It was one of the features that we found very attractive,” Augusto Lopez-Claros said by phone from Madrid, where he is head of the Global Governance Forum. “The combination of the circular stairway and the very large window that goes from the first to the fourth level really gave the house an enormous amount of light.”
Mirta noted that the stairway is not steep and, therefore, is easy to climb. For those who don’t want to take the stairs, an elevator runs to all four levels.
Because the house is built into a hill, both the entry level and the second level open to the outdoors. The living room has several glass French doors that lead to a walled courtyard in the rear. There is parking for three cars in front of the house, and a cleverly concealed, attached garage has room for a fourth car. Rather than a traditional garage door, the opening to the garage looks like a set of glass French doors with shutters.
“It’s a very comfortable, easy house,” Mirta said. “It has a lot of natural light. It has a wonderful flow when you have guests. … But aside from that — this is a little bit esoteric — I think every house has a soul and this house is one of the happiest houses.”
2315 S St. NW, Washington, D. C.
Features: The 1958 house in D.C.'s Kalorama neighborhood has formal living and dining rooms on the second level. Jennifer Gilmer Kitchen and Bath updated the main kitchen on the second floor. The catering kitchen, on the entry level, has also been remodeled. The living room has several glass French doors that open to a walled courtyard. Besides parking for three cars in front of the house, there is a one-car garage attached to the house.
Listing agents: Margot Wilson, Robert Hryniewicki, Adam Rackliffe and Christopher Leary, Washington Fine Properties | 2022-08-12T09:43:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kalorama house is on the market for $4.5 million - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/12/kalorama-house-for-sale/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/12/kalorama-house-for-sale/ |
People experiencing homelessness camp in front of Union Station in May, before a National Park Service sweep cleared the area. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
D.C. had a plan to become the city that ended chronic homelessness.
Boosted by revenue from a controversial tax increase on top earners, the D.C. Council last year budgeted millions of dollars to permanently pay for housing for the city’s hardest-to-house residents, including those suffering from mental illness and years of homelessness. Advocates rejoiced, predicting the hundreds of housing vouchers would be enough to permanently house almost every person in long-term need in the District.
Ten months in, though, that hasn’t happened. While the city gave out an unprecedented 2,400 permanent vouchers, just 555 people have managed to use them to move into apartments, locked out by a tight housing market and D.C. Housing Authority delays. Most of those the program was designed to help remain homeless.
“When the budget passed last year, I had a moment of thinking we could clear out encampments [and] shelters. You could have a system that has so few people in it that you could really start to have more one-on-one attention and better services. You could really change everything,” said Amber Harding, a lawyer at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. “It’s been really frustrating that we’re not realizing the promise.”
The housing vouchers permanently pay for a person to rent an apartment, generally in the private market, while asking them to contribute only a fraction of their income toward the monthly rent. But many who have received them have struggled nonetheless to find apartments.
The Department of Human Services said the average voucher recipient takes four to five months after receiving a voucher to sign a lease, a decrease of about a month from a year ago.
“We are housing more people than ever before,” DHS Director Laura Zeilinger said, calling the results “all very positive.”
“It would be unrealistic that we could just double the size of our program for single adults … and lease up 100 percent of our vouchers and do it well in one year,” she said.
Homeless camp cleared at Union Station: ‘We don’t have nowhere to go’
Still, the District’s solutions are taking longer than advocates had hoped.
“I used to think there was a silver-bullet answer, one thing would fix everything. And the more that I’ve dug in, I realize: Instead of one glaring gap, there’s several smaller gaps, which all add up,” said Jesse Rabinowitz, manager of the Way Home Campaign, which advocated for the increase in vouchers. “This is no longer a resource issue. We have the [money] to get thousands of people into housing. This is purely a bureaucratic administration issue.”
The city has made several revisions this summer to try to speed up voucher usage.
The D.C. Council heard from case managers that many people who were offered housing vouchers had trouble securing apartment leases because they had lost their identification documents while homeless. The council passed emergency legislation last month allowing a tenant with a voucher to self-certify to his identifying information, meaning he can move into housing while pursuing the lengthy process of replacing a lost ID.
And the city agreed to address another complaint from case managers: that while their clients could pay rent using their housing vouchers, many large apartment buildings charge “amenity fees” that vouchers wouldn’t cover. Recently, the District revised its policy to let case managers use city money to cover those fees so tenants can move in. Zeilinger said some voucher recipients had previously been unable to move into an apartment because they couldn’t come up with the money for a move-in fee or a garbage-collection fee, which the District will now pay.
Obstacles remain. Some would-be tenants, Zeilinger said, have had applications denied because of their criminal history, their level of income or their credit score — all legally permitted reasons for a landlord to reject a tenant, though the law bars landlords from turning people away just because they plan to pay for their housing using a voucher.
Helping a voucher recipient move into an apartment is a laborious process, Christy Respress, who runs the nonprofit Pathways to Housing, explained. Someone interested in obtaining a voucher might complete an intake interview, then wait for the city’s algorithm to say they are next in line. At that point, the city assigns the client’s name to a case manager at Pathways or another organization.
“‘Mr. Smith has been assigned to you. He is eligible.’ Then we start the detective work,” Respress said. “Is he staying in a shelter? We’re going to that shelter to try to find him. … We’re pounding the pavement, going out on the street where they have spent time in the past. That’s a very labor-intensive upfront piece. Some people have a phone, but they might have run out of minutes, or have nowhere to charge their phone, or they lost their phone, or it got stolen while they were sleeping outside.”
With more vouchers available, Respress said, her organization needs more staff to assign to the growing number of cases. But hiring is hard nationwide. “We’re eager to keep growing and growing quickly to meet the need. But we can only grow as quickly as we can bring people on,” she said.
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced bonuses for many city jobs last month, including for positions related to the homeless services system. And Zeilinger said that starting this month, the city will also cover the costs for nonprofits that provide case management for permanent supportive housing residents, such as Pathways to Housing, to pay $1,500 signing bonuses and retention bonuses of at least $2,000 to their case managers, to help the nonprofits increase the size of their staffs. (Rabinowitz praised the bonuses but noted they are much smaller than the $20,000 signing bonuses for new police officers that Bowser strongly advocated for earlier this year.)
The District also loosened its hiring qualifications for case managers, Zeilinger said, allowing job candidates who do not have a relevant degree to apply if they can demonstrate relevant work experience instead.
Once a case manager helps a voucher recipient find an apartment, the D.C. Housing Authority must approve the use of the voucher for the home, including completing an inspection of the living quarters. Advocates complain that DCHA delays account for much of the gulf between people who have been given vouchers and those who have actually been able to use their vouchers to move into housing.
“There’s nothing that makes a landlord wait for somebody with a subsidy, if somebody else has cash in hand ready to go,” Respress said. “The law is you can’t deny a voucher-holder. It doesn’t say you have to hold the unit for someone who is still waiting for the housing authority to inspect it.”
Zeilinger said that as the District tries to improve the speed of voucher use, DCHA is looking at inspecting certain units even before a voucher holder identifies the apartment as a place they want to rent.
Respress and other advocates are optimistic that the city is working out the many kinks in the system. If D.C. does manage to use those 2,400 vouchers, they still believe the city’s homelessness scourge would vastly improve.
Maybe, they say, D.C. still could be the city that ends chronic homelessness.
“When I first started doing this work in D.C. in the late ’90s, we weren’t really talking about ending homelessness,” Respress said. “For the first time in my career in homeless services in this region, I do see that coming to an end. It’s powerful. It’s huge.” | 2022-08-12T10:22:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | DC housing vouchers aren't putting a dent in homelessness so far - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/12/dc-housing-vouchers-homeless/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/12/dc-housing-vouchers-homeless/ |
Nurses with babies in a hospital maternity ward ca. 1916-1919. (Photo by: HUM Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Most-regretted baby names
Inspired by Mississippi-based journalist Sarah Fowler’s brilliant Washington Post story on the folks who changed their baby’s first name — 30,000 in the past five years alone — we asked the Social Security Administration for a list of the most-changed names. They ran the numbers back to 2017.
Apparently, it’s hard to spell after you or your partner have just gone through labor: The two most-changed names are “Issac” and “Chole,” and the two most-adopted names, as you might expect, are “Isaac” and “Chloe.”
The Department of Data needed to know more about these Choles. We can’t access birth records, but we can search voter registrations with the help of award-winning Post news researcher Alice Crites.
When we reached the California voter registered as “Chole Tuckness,” she couldn’t have been more eager to correct the record. Is she really Chole?
“No! Because here’s the thing,” said Chole Chloe Tuckness, age 22. “That’s a ridiculous name!”
“It became a huge thing,” Tuckness said. “I’m still volunteering in this organization. For the last four years, everybody now calls me Chole, at 4-H, because of this specific skit.”
The absurdity escalated that fall, when a friend asked if she could register Tuckness to vote, as part of a homework assignment. A few weeks later, “Chole” started getting official mail from the government. And in the goofiest twist of all, her friend was probably somebody who should have known better.
“The girl that signed me up to vote? Her name is also Chloe,” Tuckness said. “And it’s spelled the same way!”
Regardless, “Chole Tuckness” should now be banished for good. Just weeks before we spoke, Tuckness submitted the name-correction documents to the county registrar — which just happens to be in the same complex as the county 4-H office where it all began.
We could have predicted the states in which couples are most likely to have children. Utah leads the list — only 14 percent of couples ages 35 to 45 go childless — followed by Plains states such as Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa, according to our analysis of Census Bureau data from 2019 and 2020.
We can almost exclude D.C. as an outlier — as the urban core of a major metropolis, it has more in common with places like San Francisco, Manhattan or Boston than it does most states, as demographer Ken Johnson of the University of New Hampshire points out. But what about that odd grab bag of childless states?
Our first instinct was education. The more educated the head of the household, the more likely a couple will be childless. That could explain D.C., where most people have a bachelor’s degree and almost a third have a postgraduate degree. It also applies to Vermont and Colorado, both in the top 10 most-educated states. But it doesn’t explain Maine, West Virginia, Florida or Nevada.
There must be another factor. We asked Johnson, who spends much of his time thinking about population growth and the factors that influence it. After running the numbers, he ruled out religion — yes, some of the least-childless states tend to have a very high Latter-day Saints population, but the relationship breaks down after that. The most childless states include some of the most Christian (West Virginia) and least Christian (Vermont, Oregon) states, according to Pew Research.
So Johnson zeroed in on age at first marriage, and he’s right: The states with the most childless couples tend be the ones where women get married later. But Johnson said there are probably deeper forces at play — cultural or economic variables, such as the cost of housing, that are simultaneously pushing people to get married later and pushing them to go without children. We just need to figure out what those variables are.
Perhaps recreation plays a role? Leaving aside D.C., many of the most childless states are also in the top 10 for outdoor recreation as a share of the state economy — the exceptions are Oregon, which still ties for 13th, and West Virginia, which tied for a surprising 35th.
Something about high-recreation states seems to attract couples who don’t plan to have kids. Why? Alternatively, maybe you can think of another factor that might be behind the distribution of childlessness? We’d love to hear your suggestions, because we’re kinda stumped.
By combining census, survey and tax data for people born between 1978 and 1992, the report breaks new ground by explaining how your parents’ income determines the distances you can move later in life — and thus the breadth of opportunities you’ll be able to pursue.
On average, a person whose parents are in the bottom 25 percent will end up moving less than half as far by age 26 as a peer whose parents are in the top 5 percent, the analysis finds.
“Most young adults do not move far from their childhood home,” write the report’s authors, Census Bureau sociologist and demographer Sonya Porter, Harvard economist Nathaniel Hendren and Harvard PhD candidate Benjamin Sprung-Keyser.
To be sure, the ultra-detailed data needed for the report — which you can map in impressive detail on migrationpatterns.org — isn’t available in real time, and so it doesn’t reflect the effects of the coronavirus or anything else that has happened since 2017.
Greetings, friends! The Department of Data needs your fun facts and quantifiable queries! How old do people get before they start to hide their birthday announcements from Facebook friends? What are the highest-paying jobs for high-school dropouts? Where do reporters go after leaving the media? Just ask!
To get every question, answer and factoid in your inbox as soon as we publish, sign up here. If your question inspires a column, we’ll send an official button and ID card. This week’s buttons go to (hilarious) Mississippi journalist Sarah Fowler, Post demography reporter Tara Bahrampour, who pointed us to the migration-patterns work, and our colleague Michelle Jaconi, the creative genius who helped build the Department of Data, and whose question about professional couples in D.C. sparked part of this week’s column. | 2022-08-12T10:22:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Most regretted baby names according to Social Security, and more! - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/12/baby-names-childless-couples-moving/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/12/baby-names-childless-couples-moving/ |
Today’s creative works are never “final.” Beyoncé and Lizzo are only doing what Han Solo and Greedo taught us years ago.
(Emma Kumer/The Washington Post; Matt Rourke/AP; Netflix via AP; Matt Sayles/AP; Charles Sykes/Invision/AP; Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty)
So far as we know, Eddie Vedder has never darkened anyone’s doorstep and demanded they give back their copy of Pearl Jam’s debut album “Ten” so he could continue tinkering with it.
When Rob Harvilla, music critic and host of the podcast “60 Songs That Explain the ’90s,” recently pictured that exact scenario, he couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s just wild to me to try to wrap my head around the idea of Pearl Jam bursting into my bedroom and being like, ‘Give me that. We’re taking “Jeremy” off the record,’” he said.
Beyoncé made two changes to her long-anticipated album “Renaissance” after it was released on July 29: She removed a sample of “Milkshake” from “Energy,” after Kelis called the use of her song “theft”; Beyoncé also agreed to remove the word “spaz” from “Heated,” after fan outcry accused her of using ableist language. A few weeks earlier, Lizzo had responded to online protest and removed the same word from her song “Grrrls” — this too came after it was released.
Review: Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance’ was made to last forever
Warner Bros. Discovery, meanwhile, spiked “Batgirl” — a movie already in postproduction, sending creatives into an existential panic as the studio also quietly removed at least six movies it was exclusively streaming on HBO Max, including Seth Rogen’s “An American Pickle.”
“The Batgirl/HBO Max situation is why I spent my last day on set of Dickinson calling an exec at apple and *begging* for a physical recording of my show … they actually gave me one, I have the ONLY copy,” tweeted Alena Smith, the creator of “Dickinson,” an Apple TV Plus period dramedy. “People said I was crazy but dude, that’s ten years of my life.”
If all content is digital, then it is subject to being edited — or even erased — at the whim of anyone with controlling access to it. We live in an age of revision, in which art is impermanent, ever shifting, always on the precipice of being “fixed” or “updated.” The motivations for such changes can vary: online pressure from fans, or the perfectionist tendencies of an anxious artist, or a potential legal issue. It can all send creators and producers back to the originals to correct a perceived wrong. A network or studio or record label can update or delete its library to avoid offending consumers. The reasons are potentially unlimited. No art is ever considered final in the digital age.
“I always tell my students, if you really love something, buy it in hard copy, own it, have a DVD of it, a Blu-ray of a CD of it,” said Paul Booth, the associate dean of DePaul University’s College of Communication who has extensively studied fandom. “Because if you only have a digital version, you don’t have a finite finished product. You’re renting a product from whatever service that you have.”
Art has long been subject to alteration for endless reasons. In the 16th century, the Catholic Church began adding fig leaves on the genitalia of statues to avoid inciting lust in the masses. Four hundred years later, give or take, George Lucas infamously angered fans by continuously rereleasing both the original “Star Wars” trilogy and its prequels with significant changes, such as the addition of new characters and dialogue — simply because he wanted to and leaving an endlessly and contentiously unsettled debate about whether Han Solo or Greedo shot first.
Similarly, Steven Spielberg digitally altered “E.T.” for its 20th anniversary to replace the FBI agents’ guns with walkie-talkies, a decision he’s since said he’s “lived to regret.” “It was OK for a while, but I realized what I had done was I had robbed people who loved ‘E.T.’ of their memories of ‘E.T.’” he said of the change. He restored the guns for the 30th anniversary cut.
The list goes on. When Disney rereleased the original animated version of “The Lion King” in IMAX eight years after the film’s original release, it replaced some scenes and reanimated others. Disney Plus has routinely edited shows and films on its service. Sometimes, it’s (ostensibly) accidental, such as when Netflix unknowingly streamed a non-U.S. version of “Back to the Future Part II” that edited out the cover of a skin mag discovered by Marty McFly, according to screenwriter Bob Gale.
Plus, it’s only getting easier as deepfake technology grows more powerful. What was previously used to make fake — but shockingly believable — videos of celebrities like Tom Cruise is now being employed by major movie studios. Rather than reshoot the movie, Lionsgate recently hired an artificial intelligence company to remove the F-words out of its new action-thriller “Fall” to avoid an R rating.
Brent Cowley, a University of Oregon PhD candidate in media studies who focuses on media manipulation, said that editing media, particularly movies, is nothing new, pointing to sanitized versions made for airlines and network TV. “They’ve always manipulated language and so forth, but it was obvious,” he said.
“What’s changing now is the use of digital alterations where people would not know” that anything had been changed, Cowley added. “The cat’s out of the bag. It is cheaper to do it than ever before, and on top of that, it’s more accepted than ever before. People know what deep fake technology is. They’re kind of used to it.”
As news of Beyoncé and Lizzo changing their songs circulated, another story was unfolding: “Stranger Things” co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer claimed in a June interview with Variety to have edited earlier episodes of the Netflix sci-fi drama. “We have George Lucas-ed things, also, that people don’t know about,” Matt Duffer said. “But it’d be hard for anyone to figure it out.”
“You do have the physical copies, though. The Blu-Rays and stuff. You’d have to compare, but the beauty of Netflix is we can just drop [it in],” his brother Ross added. “Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this, but if you watched Season 4 the night it came out versus if you watched it one day later, Friday, it’s different. Some of the visual effects.”
The show’s writers later issued a denial, tweeting, “PSA: no scenes from previous seasons have ever been cut or reedited. And they never will be.”
So did they actually edit the show or not? Netflix has done it before, removing a graphic suicide scene from the teen drama “13 Reasons Why” in response to backlash. But in this case, nobody knows, and that’s the key. It’s not only easy to make changes to art in the digital age, it can be done without anyone noticing and perhaps with no definitive record of what originally existed. As Ross Duffer himself said, “I do like that we can just sneak stuff in.”
That would have been much harder in a world ruled by physical media. Sure, DVDs of “Stranger Things” exist, but they certainly aren’t the prominent format. And without physical media, the past can easily be rewritten or forgotten. Famously, for example, in 1971 the BBC planned to erase all the original tapes of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” to reuse them as a cost-saving measure. The only reason we have the show today is because Terry Gilliam bought them all.
So, will a physical copy of the original recording of “Renaissance” exist in five years? Or will Beyoncé's new version be all there is? “Technology allows you to do the ‘Men in Black’ memory wipe thing, like the old version never existed,” music critic and author Steven Hyden said.
Fans also play a complicated role in all this. They’ve always been a key part of artistic and commercial success (even in simpler times, when “Stan” was just the name of some guy), but social media has equipped them with a powerful and unified say in the product.
Before the social media age, fans “didn’t necessarily have a way to reach out to other fans who might be in other countries, but now you can,” said Booth, the DePaul professor. “So you’ve seen fans be able to mobilize the same way we’ve seen political groups mobilize. It’s not that fans didn’t want to change things, didn’t want to adjust things, didn’t want to have things different. There just wasn’t a mechanism for making those claims or those desires known.”
There were exceptions, he added. In the late 1960s, fans launched a successful letter-writing campaign to save “Star Trek” from cancellation. But, he said, “It’s not like the fan were asking for content changes. They were just asking for more.”
“Creators are needing to become more aware that fans’ investment in their work goes beyond just buying and enjoying their music or art. They may feel they have a greater say in the ultimate outcome, the ultimate creation, what it looks like and how it sounds,” said Seth Lewis, director of the journalism program at the University of Oregon.
Consider the infamous saga of “Snakes on a Plane,” the 2006 Samuel L. Jackson B-movie about, well, you know. New Line Cinema originally planned a PG-13 cut of the action thriller, but, thanks to that title, fanfare for the movie exploded long before it was set to hit theaters. Fans had one particular request: Have Jackson yell a certain explicit catchphrase in a very certain way. In what was then a fairly shocking move, the studio spent five days shooting new scenes after principal photography wrapped to accommodate the fans with a hard-R flick. “When the movie finally came out, it felt like it had been crowdsourced by the internet,” Harvilla said.
Lizzo and Beyoncé both re-recorded songs after fans called attention an ableist slur in each of their lyrics. The Post's Travis Andrews analyzes the trend. (Video: Allie Caren/The Washington Post)
‘Snakes on a Plane’: The movie that was a meme before we knew what memes were.
It’s not difficult to imagine how this might play out in 2022: A PG-13 version is released on a streaming service. Quickly, fans wishing for a more explicit movie flood Twitter, and soon the studio kowtows to them, uploading a racier version and deleting the previous one.
“The future is likely to include more impermanence, not less. The work is out there, but it’s never fully formed or finished because it could always be edited with some degree of ease, if it only exists in some digital form,” Lewis said, adding that the initial release of a piece of art might become more like the beta test of a piece of software. Not only can it be updated, it very likely will be.
Booth envisions a world in which companies “hire fans to consult.” Perhaps Marvel grabs 35 fans at Comic-Con and asks them to take a look at the script for its next superhero movie. “I see that happening at the creation stage, almost like a focus group, rather than once the text has been finished, because it’s also expensive to change all of these things,” he said.
When you can consistently edit art, where is the endpoint? It’s a question people have been asking since February 2016, when Kanye West released his album “The Life of Pablo” onto streaming music services with the strange suggestion that it wasn’t actually finished. And it wasn’t. In the ensuing months, he repeatedly updated the record, swapping out different versions of songs and changing the track list — prompting a mixture of awe and anger from fans and critics.
“At what point is a record ‘over,’ and who gets to make the call? Kanye West is seeing how far he can stretch the point right now, in a way no pop star has ever quite tried: in real-time,” critic Jayson Greene wrote in Pitchfork at the time, adding, “West is testing the shifting state of the ‘album cycle’ to see if he can break it entirely, making his album like another piece of software on your phone that sends you push updates.”
“I think that was the moment that planted this idea in everyone’s head that this specific record is a living, breathing, mutating document,” said Harvilla, the “60 Songs” podcast host. “That really did change something fundamentally about the way people thought about and listened to music. … Now I think we are grasping more fully the reality that there is no stopping this from happening. There’s no stopping anyone from doing this.”
The idea of art changing in real time excites Harvilla: “The idea that the ground is shifting under your feet” can be thrilling as a consumer. On the other hand, he said, “It’s a paradigm shift that’s genuinely hard to wrap your mind around. And there are ugly, unpleasant applications of it.”
As with any emerging technology, the ability to easily revisit art and erase blemishes, sand out the edges — to “fix” it — can be something of a Pandora’s box. After Beyoncé agreed to edit “Heated,” Monica Lewinsky suggested via tweet that the singer should also edit the 2013 song “Partition,” which uses Lewinsky’s name to describe a sexual act.
The whole saga raises a key question: Should there be a statute of limitations on what an artist can edit? “Beyoncé isn’t flawless. She makes mistakes, and we should be reminded of that,” Hyden said.
“What if Eminem had a change of heart and was like, ‘I want to take out all of the anti-gay language I used in my early records?’ You can look at that as a positive thing, because he was using homophobic slurs. Who’s gonna defend that?” Hyden added. “On the other hand, that was part of the package who made him who he was in the moment, good or bad. So yeah, you’re taking out offensive language, but you’re also rewriting history. It would feel like sanitizing history.”
He suggested it’s worthwhile to be able to revisit an album filled with offensive content, such as Eminem’s “The Marshall Mathers LP” and “use that record as a prism to understand why this record was so popular in 2000. What was it about it that [the culture] embraced it so much? You need the vile stuff in there to help understand that.”
Then again, he added, “If you’ve grown up in a world where it’s always been digital, maybe this conversation doesn’t really make sense. Maybe this is an analog perspective, because that’s something I was raised with.” | 2022-08-12T10:57:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Beyoncé and Lizzo's revisions are part of the digital era's impermanence - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/12/song-tv-movie-revisions-beyonce-stranger-things/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/12/song-tv-movie-revisions-beyonce-stranger-things/ |
A defiant orchestra of Ukrainian artists hopes Putin can hear them
Refugees and musicians unite as the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, led by conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, wraps up its inaugural tour at the Kennedy Center
By Michael Andor Brodeur
The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, led by conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, is made up entirely of Ukrainian refugees and musicians. (Wojtek Radwanski/AFP/Getty Images)
Early in the morning on Feb. 24, Ukrainian violist Kateryna Suprun and her 2-year-old daughter were startled awake in their beds by a massive explosion. Sirens started to wail in the streets as Russian missiles rained on downtown Kyiv.
Like many of her friends and neighbors, Suprun never believed this could actually happen; but within hours, she was among tens of thousands of Kyiv residents grabbing what they could and evacuating the city. Suprun, her daughter and their two cats navigated traffic jams and panicked crowds during a harrowing four-day drive to the Polish border, where locals supplied them with food and water.
“I will remember for the rest of my life the moment when we crossed the border,” Suprun, 31, tells me in an email (translated from Ukrainian), “because I didn’t know if I would ever return, [if] I would see my family, and whether my beautiful country would exist.”
Suprun is among an estimated 5 million Ukrainian refugees who have fled their home country; another 7 million remain in Ukraine, but displaced from their homes. Now, nearly six months after the first strike on Kyiv, Suprun is one of 74 musicians banded together and touring the world as the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra.
The orchestra, conceived and led by the Canadian Ukrainian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson, is made up entirely of Ukrainian refugees, Ukrainian members of European orchestras and musicians representing the Kyiv National Opera, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, the Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra, Kharkiv Opera and other Ukrainian ensembles.
Formed through a collaboration between the Metropolitan Opera (Wilson’s husband is Met General Manager Peter Gelb) and the Polish National Opera, the orchestra coalesced quickly around a mission to stage, as the Met news release put it, “artistic defense” of its homeland. Its debut concerts across Western Europe and Britain have been met with rave reviews and long ovations. (The BBC recently released a stream of the orchestra’s Proms performance at Royal Albert Hall.)
Following a pair of shows at Lincoln Center on Aug. 18 and 19, the tour culminates at the Kennedy Center on Aug. 20.
For Wilson, 55, the project is deeply personal. One of her cousins, originally from the southwestern Ukraine city of Chernivtsi, went to the front lines in Donbas at the start of the invasion and is still there. His sister is a volunteer, driving trucks with medical supplies, and Wilson sometimes sends her supplies she can’t find — goggles, camo gloves, protective vests.
Wilson’s great-grandparents emigrated from Chernivtsi to Winnipeg, part of a massive diaspora of Ukrainians to Canada through the first few decades of the early 20th century. But when she refers to Ukraine as a “second home,” she clarifies that “home” includes Russia.
She remembers fondly being embraced as a Ukrainian artist when she would visit Russia to conduct at the Bolshoi Theatre, which she considers her artistic home.
“The irony is just sickening,” she says on the phone from a tour stop in Edinburgh, Scotland. “It really is like one nation.”
When the invasion started, Wilson felt shock, horror and a desperation to find a way to contribute — or at least unleash some of the anguish she felt watching the images play out on television. At the time she was on a blur of a tour for a solid month, guest conducting four different orchestras in four different countries — leading them each in programs of largely Russian composers.
At a March concert in Gran Canaria, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, with the Gran Canaria Philharmonic, she added the Ukrainian national anthem to a program of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, and gave a short speech (in Spanish). She did the same at every subsequent date.
“A year ago I never thought we’d be playing Russian repertoire in this climate,” she recalls telling the audience. “But we were playing Tchaikovsky for ourselves. This was at the time that they started canceling Tchaikovsky around Europe. So it was delicate, but I felt very, very strongly that we had to separate clearly: What is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and what is Russia?”
Classical music is seldom the first responder in a crisis. On the whole, it’s a slow-moving machine with many moving parts, much of them rusted over with institutional inertia. But in cities across Ukraine, Russian aggression was met almost instantly (and seemingly instinctually) with salvos of artistic resistance, as orchestras, ensembles and individual musicians staged defiant public performances in city squares, apartments and subway stations.
Music as resistance: Kyiv’s orchestra plays on
This spirit seems to live within Wilson as well. Her third week of that European tour was supposed to feature a run with the Odessa Philharmonic, many of whose members were forced to flee.
The subsequent week off found Wilson flying to London, meeting up with Gelb, and wondering what she could do — fly to Warsaw and volunteer? Hand out food and blankets? She felt helpless watching footage of millions of refugees flowing into Warsaw, and wondered how many of them were musicians.
Surely enough to form an orchestra?
Wilson had accidentally hatched a plan that would consume the rest of her summer. Before Gelb reached the airport for his flight home, he’d contacted his counterpart at the Polish National Opera, Waldemar Dabrowski, in an effort to join forces. Dabrowski was already hosting refugees at his home, including a musician from Kharkiv and her daughter, camped out in one of their dressing rooms.
Dabrowski immediately signed on and within days the three had enlisted the help of prestigious London-based concert agency Askonas Holt, which swiftly squeezed the orchestra into spots at a string of summer festivals across Europe — most of which are typically booked years in advance.
To assemble the orchestra itself, Wilson flew to Warsaw and met with Dabrowski’s team, administrators and musicians who within 48 hours produced a list of Ukrainian musicians eager to join the orchestra. Nearly a third would come from the orchestra in Lviv, the rest would be performing with each other for the first time.
(In Ukraine, while there’s no conscripted service for eligible men between ages 18 and 60, they are largely forbidden from leaving the country. Several male musicians received special dispensations to perform, with support from Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and Information Policy. One was called into service before the tour began.)
The cultural ministries of Poland and Ukraine granted funds for the orchestra to use the Polish National Opera’s Teatr Wielki, and rehearsals commenced. Ten days later, the orchestra played its inaugural concert in Warsaw — a gesture akin to a rush to the front lines.
“I also wanted to fight. I would have no qualms taking up a weapon, but I took up a baton,” Wilson said.
Wilson’s program is a finely tuned plea for peace, but also an assertive stand for the strength and creative force of Ukrainian culture.
She opens with the intensely beautiful seventh symphony by the esteemed Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. At 84, he also fled Kyiv at the start of the invasion and now lives in Berlin.
The haunting 17-minute work was completed in 2003 as a memorial to Silvestrov’s wife, musicologist Larissa Bondarenko, who died suddenly in 1996 at the age of 50. Wilson was drawn to its elegiac potential as an expression of grief for Ukrainian soldiers lost in battle. In its closing moments, breaths pass unsounded through brass instruments, lightly resonating through their forms. Wilson thinks of them as the sound of “the breath of life, the soul living on.”
“It was hard to hold back tears in certain places,” Wilson recalls of rehearsing the Silvestrov. “Of course, I did. I had to. As a conductor, you can’t let your emotions show too much.”
In addition to the Silvestrov, Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova will join the orchestra to perform Chopin’s second piano concerto, which was first performed by the composer in Warsaw in 1830.
Soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska will sing “Abscheulicher! Wo eilst du hin?” from Beethoven’s “Fidelio” — an aria that finds Leonora recoiling in horror at the monstrous cruelty and “wildem Grimme” (i.e. wild rage) of Pizarro the jailer, only to resolve, beautifully and inevitably, to find strength in love.
The program concludes with Dvorak’s “New World” symphony, No. 9 and an encore Wilson says has broken the hearts of every audience who has heard it.
It’s so easy, especially an ocean away, to think of the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra as another manifestation of our compulsion to equate art with often inert expressions of “hope” and “humanity” and answer horror with beauty. A pandemic’s worth of performing arts defined by consciously summoned optimism has perhaps dulled our faith in art as more than mere salve.
For Wilson, it’s a weapon. The orchestra is an operation. And the musicians are soldiers. Nobody complains, she says. They smile. They hug. They play. They know what they’re doing.
“This is not just about music making. We are on a mission to fight,” she says. “Every day, Putin is trying to silence Ukraine in every way: bombing them, saying that they don’t have any culture, that they don’t have any tradition. He’s lying! When I saw everybody living in fear in their basements, not having the freedom to make music, it was just atrocious to me. This [concert] is a way of saying, ‘You will not win, because culture is the soul of Ukraine.’ ”
The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra performs at the Kennedy Center on Aug. 20 at 8 p.m. kennedy-center.org. | 2022-08-12T10:57:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A defiant orchestra of Ukrainian artists hopes Putin can hear them - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/08/12/ukrainian-musicians-kennedy-center/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/08/12/ukrainian-musicians-kennedy-center/ |
An inclusive look at women’s history, beyond White activists
Review by Connie Schultz
Democratic lawmakers join an abortion rights rally on Capitol Hill on July 19. Reflecting the often overlooked diversity of the women's movement throughout history, Elisabeth Griffith strives to present a “multi-racial, inclusive chronology.” (Oliver Contreras for The Washington Post)
A confession: A few pages into historian Elisabeth Griffith’s book, I felt the weariness of a lifelong feminist. Who needs to read this encyclopedic account of the last 100 years of women’s fight for equality?
By the time I finished the introduction, my mood had shifted. Who needs this steamroller of a timeline full of pluckable facts and anecdotes about what women have endured in America? Far too many of us, I’m afraid. Including me.
This book has earned its title: “Formidable: American Women and the Fight for Equality: 1920-2020.” It is large at nearly 400 pages of text because it must be, as historical accounts of women’s history seldom lift our gaze beyond the activists, who were mostly White and united for the cause, and with plenty of free time to pursue it. This is an intersectional account of what it has meant to be a woman in America for the past century.
Griffith forces us to consider the complexity of women and acknowledge that we have been “oppressors, progressives, enslaved, activists, adversaries and allies.” She guides us through a “multi-racial, inclusive chronology” that commands us to consider just who we mean when we talk about women’s history.
“Because I’m writing American history about Black and white women, racism is part of this story. It cannot be whitewashed or deleted … We need to be mature enough to both confront and celebrate our history,” she writes. “Historians have a responsibility to be truth witnesses and accurate recorders.”
Griffith expects critics to sound off: “This book recalls decades of tension between Black and white women, and the distrust caused by white racism. Given the ferocity of the current debate over how our nation addresses its past and present, there are critics who will charge me with appropriation, or misappropriation. My response is that we study history to learn, to be inspired, and perhaps chastised. Learning is our responsibility. Too many of us know too little about America’s past. I’m a white, cisgender, feminist historian, writing about women who may or may not look like me. I have a doctorate in history, and I’m still learning. I’m also an optimist. I believe political and personal change is possible, as the past century demonstrates.”
There have always been divisions among women. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, generational tensions are likely to rise among women as we try to move from blame to action. Why didn’t older generations do more to protect this essential right? Why did so many younger people take it for granted? This can be disheartening, but it is perhaps instructive to remember that this, too, is our legacy.
After a big celebration of her 80th birthday, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton published “The Woman’s Bible” in 1895. As Griffith writes, Stanton’s book “dismissed the Adam’s rib version of creation (Genesis, 2:18, 21-23) in favor of the earlier version (Genesis, 1:26-27: ‘So God created man in his own image … male and female’). She insisted it established the equality of the sexes and an androgynous God. Infuriated and embarrassed by Stanton’s heresy, younger suffragists censured Stanton and canonized [Susan B.] Anthony, creating a breach in their forty-five-year friendship. Stanton was erased.”
Younger women wanted a greater role in determining their fate, Griffith writes. “The second generation was impatient with Stanton, who refused ‘to sing suffrage evermore,’ preferring ‘the rub-a-dub of agitation.’”
As I read Griffith’s book, I found the most uncomfortable passages to be the most necessary, particularly regarding racism. Many White suffragists, she reminds us, once endorsed lynching. And Stanton, for all her activism, was a “myopic visionary” who “ignored Black women.”
In 1866, Black author Frances Ellen Watkins Harper pleaded with White suffragists at the American Equal Rights Association to include Black women in their fight. “You white women speak here of rights. I speak of wrongs,” she said, and then recited a list of ongoing humiliations inflicted on Black women. Stanton expunged her remarks from the meeting’s official record.
Nearly seven decades later, Black singer Billie Holiday’s signature song “Strange Fruit,” about lynching, sold 1 million copies in 1939, when she was just 24. She became a symbol of the resistance to lynching, Griffith recounts, and a civil rights icon — as well as a target for government surveillance and harassment for the rest of her life.
First lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s support for Black Americans was often used against her husband as a campaign issue. “We didn’t like her a bit,” one Georgian was quoted as saying at the time. “She ruined every maid we ever had.”
Also, alas, some of our best-known leaders of earlier decades, including Franklin Roosevelt’s labor secretary, Frances Perkins, who was a fierce advocate for worker safety, did not support all working women. “The woman ‘pin money’ worker who competes with the necessity worker is a menace to society, a selfish … creature, who ought to be ashamed of herself,” Perkins said in 1930. “Until we have every woman … earning a living wage … I am not willing to encourage those who are under no economic necessities to compete with their charm and education, with their superior advantages, against the working girl who has only two hands.”
One of the most common ways to trivialize women is to characterize us as fractionalized infighters. The effective response, if we must offer one, is not to prove how similar we are, but rather to celebrate how our differences keep us honest and fuel momentum. Every leader, past and present, has her flaws, but she can still accomplish great things.
Griffith has found the words for us and does an exemplary job of showing how women have always discovered ways to be powerful, regardless of obstacles. The lesson is always the same: The sooner we recognize this power in one another, the sooner the next wave of progress will reach our shores.
Connie Schultz is a columnist for USA Today and the author, most recently, of the novel “The Daughters of Erietown.”
American Women and the Fight for Equality: 1920 - 2020
By Elisabeth Griffith
Pegasus. 507 pp. $35 | 2022-08-12T10:57:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review of Formidable: American Women and the Fight for Equality: 1920-2020 by Elisabeth Griffith - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/an-inclusive-look-womens-history-beyond-white-activists/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/an-inclusive-look-womens-history-beyond-white-activists/ |
‘The Boys’ author Katie Hafner on her path from journalist to novelist
Perspective by Katie Hafner
Katie Hafner is a journalist and author. She is host and co-executive producer of the podcast Lost Women of Science. Her first novel, "The Boys," was published last month.
Katie Hafner as a cub reporter at the San Diego Union in 1986, the start of many decades she'd spend constrained by facts. (Stan Honda)
When I was in college in the 1970s, I majored in German literature, focusing almost exclusively on Franz Kafka. I was so taken with the fabulist leaps of Kafka’s shorter pieces that I spent a semester working on a paper in which I analyzed his diaries. His entries, I discovered, fell into three categories: pure observation, observation transformed into invention, and pure invention.
I was most intrigued by the entries in the second category. These always began with an observation of some kind — a woman on the tram, say, or the expression on a friend’s face — then quickly turned to fabrication. One example: On Oct. 30, 1911, Kafka writes about his famously delicate intestinal tract, noting that “for once I feel my stomach is healthy.”
In the next sentence Kafka slides into invention. He imagines himself at the butcher shop, shoving “long slabs of rib meat unbitten into my mouth,” eating “dirty delicatessen stores completely empty” and having “bonbons … poured into me like hail from their tin boxes.” Not only was I captivated by how suddenly he immersed himself in his made-up experience, but I was also quietly thrilled by the idea that I was trespassing upon Kafka’s inner life.
I became a journalist, and for four decades I tethered myself to Kafka’s first category: pure observation. That intriguing second category was strictly off limits. There could be no flights into the “what if” of a story.
Then, five years ago, my daughter and I were taking a bike trip, and one evening at dinner one of the guides described a previous guest who had been particularly problematic. Our guide told the story in only two or three sentences, but it was so wildly evocative that my daughter turned to me and said what I was thinking: “That’s a novel.”
I spent the next three years, on and off, spinning a book-length tale from that threadbare anecdote. “The Boys,” my first novel, after six books of nonfiction and hundreds of articles for the New York Times, is the product of the license I granted to myself — to make stuff up.
Even now, having sent my novel out into the world, I find that a reporter’s fact-abiding mind-set can be hard to shake. A friend came to dinner recently. She had just read the novel and was eager to discuss the plot, the characters, their motivations, their psychological makeup. I began to feel uneasy, accountable for her investment in people who didn’t exist. I had a sudden urge to apologize to her, to confess that I had, like Janet Cooke and Jayson Blair and other reporters who violated the public’s trust with their fabricated stories, invented those people and everything about them.
For a journalist to turn to fiction is liberating, to be sure, and many have made the transition seamlessly. Anna Quindlen is one good example. Geraldine Brooks is another. But writing fiction can also be paralyzing for a reporter. We’re tyrannized by what’s true but also protected by it. The closed fist of facts is a haven of sorts. When granted the freedom of fiction, and with it what feels like an infinite number of directions a story can go, a journalist can lose control and run off the rails, into language that’s too flowery, plot twists that are preposterous, a cast of hundreds devoid of nuance.
I found myself particularly susceptible to the temptation to go overboard. The topics I’ve covered as a journalist have been mostly lacking in intrinsic suspense. I haven’t written any true crime to speak of, nor chronicled a courtroom drama. It isn’t easy to bring narrative tension to a story about, say, the origins of the Internet or the risk of falls among the elderly. But that’s the part of the challenge I’ve enjoyed most: How do I make something interesting out of the story of one famous pianist’s beloved instrument, or 150 years in the life of one house in Germany, all while constrained by the facts? Or how to make these topics interesting enough to compel people to want to know what happens next?
Yet, paradoxically perhaps, the decades I’ve spent as a journalist have made me more restrained as a fiction writer, not less. That is, I find more similarities than differences between writing fiction and nonfiction. In both, one’s choice of language, imagery and metaphors is as important as pace and storyline. The one key difference is that journey into the “what if?”
Time and again while writing “The Boys,” I was put in mind of Kafka’s second category — the shift from observation to invention. My visit, during my husband’s college reunion in Philadelphia, to a museum of medical oddities became the unusual venue for a wedding. A single derailleur cable found snapped in two during a bike ride I took in Italy morphed into something more sinister. My terrifying experience in the early weeks of the pandemic of seeing a man coughing as he leaned over to examine the bok choy at the grocery store turned into a scene that advances the story of my protagonist.
And how did I keep myself from wandering onto the ill-advised terrain of linguistic Febreze, cartoon villains and outrageous plots? Much as when I’m researching a nonfiction story, I did the bulk of the reporting first, then sat down to write. I researched the psychological condition known as the anniversary reaction, in which an anniversary triggers feelings rooted in childhood trauma. I went to a diner with tabletop jukeboxes; I scouted out a house in Philadelphia I thought would be perfect for my main characters, then asked the owners, whom I had never met, for a tour. I roamed the exhibit hall at the Mütter Museum, the museum of medical oddities. I know this kind of basic research is something novelists do all the time, but it seemed especially important with this, my first stab at fiction.
One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned from my years of writing nonfiction is to choose wisely, to include only those details and quotes that propel a story forward or illuminate a larger point. Back when movies came on DVD, I studied the discussions of deleted scenes, seeking insights into how a director decides what to cut. Darlings get killed left and right when movies are made, not because the scenes aren’t good, but because their service to the story is weak or has been achieved elsewhere.
When writing nonfiction — whether 1,500 words or 50,000 — I constantly struggle with that question: How does each and every detail or quote serve the story? With fiction, the task is twice as demanding: Not only must your words serve the narrative, but you must always be mindful of your characters and their place in the story. It seems obvious, but when sprung free, journalists are in danger of losing sight of that simple rule.
After that brief moment of panic during dinner with my friend, I relaxed into the recognition that my characters had become as real to me during the course of writing the book as they now were to her. And in a way, they were more real to me than anyone I had written about as a journalist. There’s only so much I can know about people who actually exist. When it comes to those of my own invention, I am omniscient. It’s an intoxicating feeling, one that surely inspires many a novelist to go back for more.
Katie Hafner is a journalist and author. She is host and co-executive producer of the podcast “Lost Women of Science.” Her first novel, “The Boys,” was published last month. | 2022-08-12T10:57:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Katie Hafner, author of the novel "The Boys," reflects on her path from nonfiction to fiction - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/boys-author-katie-hafner-her-path-journalist-novelist/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/boys-author-katie-hafner-her-path-journalist-novelist/ |
Review by Aram Goudsouzian
Jim Thorpe was a renowned football star, an Olympic medalist and a professional baseball player in the early 20th century. A Native American, he was often portrayed in the press as either a noble Indian or an ignorant savage, David Maraniss writes. (Bettmann/Getty Images)
In 1950, the Associated Press named Jim Thorpe “Greatest Athlete of the Half-Century.” The poll of nearly 400 sportswriters and broadcasters ranked him above such stars as Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis.
Yet Thorpe’s story evokes a sense of loss. As David Maraniss artfully demonstrates in the biography “Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe,” Thorpe was both puffed and pilloried. The press crafted his image as both a noble Indian and a simple savage. Sports administrators stripped him of his gold medals for violating the dubious tenets of amateurism, and despite his status as a transcendent athlete and Native American hero, he struggled to find consistent, lucrative work. Maraniss states that he was a victim of the harmful myth “that the Great White Father knows best.”
A member of the Sac and Fox nation, Thorpe grew up in the Indian Territory of central Oklahoma and earned fame at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, a Pennsylvania institution that sought to “civilize” Native Americans through regimentation, manual labor and cultural assimilation. Like many of his classmates, Thorpe both resented and appreciated Carlisle. Like other aspects of American policy in the Progressive Era, it sought to uplift Indians, even as it treated them with racist contempt.
Thorpe vaulted to fame as the star of Carlisle’s football team, playing running back, defensive back, kicker and punter. In 1911, his squad raised the school’s profile by beating top college programs and winning the national championship. In 1912, Thorpe led a symbolically charged victory over Army (a team that included second-year cadet Dwight D. Eisenhower). In the words of Maraniss, Thorpe displayed “the uncommon multiplicity of his running skills — his change of pace, stop-and-go, swivel hip swing, straight-arm, and burning speed, all with the power of a wild horse pounding the Oklahoma prairie.”
Between these legendary seasons on the gridiron, Thorpe won both the decathlon and the pentathlon at the Olympic Games in Stockholm, a feat so remarkable that King Gustav V of Sweden purportedly greeted him, “You, sir, are the most wonderful athlete in the world.” While some press reports treated him as the Indian stereotype of a feral creature, Thorpe also was hailed as an exemplar of American achievement — an irony, considering that the U.S. government did not recognize Native Americans as citizens.
When the Amateur Athletic Union stripped Thorpe of his gold medals in 1913, it ran along these historic patterns of condescension and exploitation. In his era, the lines between professional and amateur were fuzzy. Carlisle football coach Pop Warner, for instance, dispensed cash to his athletes, including Thorpe. But when the press started reporting that Thorpe had spent two summers in North Carolina playing minor league baseball — a common practice for college athletes — it was treated like a scandal. Warner, along with Carlisle superintendent Moses Friedman, disingenuously cast Thorpe as a simple, ignorant Indian boy who turned professional without their knowledge.
An associate editor at The Washington Post, Maraniss owns a well-deserved reputation for crafting meticulous, sweeping narrative histories of American politics and culture, including works on sports. His book on football coach Vince Lombardi, “When Pride Still Mattered,” might be the best sports biography ever written.
If “Path Lit by Lightning” cannot reach that impossible standard, it is largely because Thorpe kept his thoughts and emotions to himself. His stoic personality loaned him a shield from the pressures and prejudices that accompanied his unique celebrity, but he also played some role in his own struggles. He let his first two marriages fail. He had distant relationships with his eight children. He struggled with alcohol abuse. Maraniss pulls out the few shreds of evidence that reveal Thorpe’s unfiltered personality, but it is often difficult to see the man behind the mask.
Thorpe’s story reaches its dramatic climax during his glory years at Carlisle and in the Olympics, so the later chapters of his biography chronicle an ever-rambling life on sports teams of diminishing prestige; unsatisfying stints as a one-line actor or extra in Hollywood films; and short-lived gigs as a public speaker, traveling entertainer or saloon owner.
Yet by highlighting Thorpe’s perseverance, Maraniss paints a portrait with both heroic and tragic shadows. He writes, “Rarely demonstrative, more introvert than showman, lonelier than he ever showed the public, he endured nonetheless as the itinerant entertainer, the athlete, the Olympian, the Indian in constant motion, moving from one city to the next across America, fueled by a combination of willpower and often desperate financial need, searching for ways to adjust and survive.”
At the end, Maraniss tells the tale of Thorpe’s bones. They now lie under a shrine in the old coal country of the Pocono Mountains. The small memorial park is in a town called Jim Thorpe, Pa. Despite his decades of constant travel with countless sports teams, Thorpe never set foot there.
Thorpe had asked to be buried near his Oklahoma birthplace, in the lands of his ancestors. His widow instead profited by arranging for two municipalities to merge and rename themselves after the famous athlete. In return, the town received Thorpe’s remains, along with unrealized promises of economic development.
In death as in life, then, Thorpe was a celebrated hero, but one commodified beyond his control and stripped of his authentic identity. “Path Lit by Lightning” tells his story with skill and integrity.
Aram Goudsouzian is the Bizot family professor of history at the University of Memphis. His books include “King of the Court: Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution.”
The Life of Jim Thorpe
Simon & Schuster. 672 pp. $32.50. | 2022-08-12T10:58:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review of "Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe," by David Maraniss - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/incredible-feats-lonely-life-sports-legend-jim-thorpe/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/incredible-feats-lonely-life-sports-legend-jim-thorpe/ |
A veteran asks: What did the Afghan war mean for those who served?
Review by Carter Malkasian
U.S. Marines in Afghanistan's Helmand province in August 2017. In his book, Elliot Ackerman reflects on the war's chaotic end, and what could have been done differently on the ground and in Washington throughout the conflict. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images)
The book is broken into five acts. The chapters within each act (called scenes) shift among Italy, flashbacks of Ackerman’s deployments to Afghanistan, and analysis of why the war was lost and its impact on America. The consistent thread is Ackerman’s exhausting remote effort to evacuate Afghans while vacationing in Italy with his family. The juxtaposition of Italian vacation against the chaotic scenes of the Kabul evacuation is jarring — and familiar to hundreds of Americans who spent time in Afghanistan and then tried to do something to help during the evacuation. A clash occurred between family life and conflict zone, two worlds that weren’t supposed to meet. In my own case, I was at home in California visiting my parents for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, while trying to talk to Afghans, texting with other Americans over WhatsApp, taking calls all night and trying to force out sentences in Pashto when suddenly awakened.
The line that I value most is in Act III at the end of Scene III. Following a difficult combat engagement in which a member of a fellow team was killed, Ackerman tells Marine Capt. Garrett “Tubes” Lawton, “The longer this war goes on, the more I trust my judgment but the more I doubt my courage.” The passage bears on the war and its end. Over time, America’s judgment about the war came into conflict with the courage to stick it out. Today we are still wondering if our courage faltered or our judgment improved.
Carter Malkasian is the author of “The American War in Afghanistan: A History,” “War Comes to Garmser: Thirty Years of Conflict on the Afghan Frontier” and “Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State.” He spent several years in Iraq and Afghanistan as a civilian.
The Fifth Act
America’s End in Afghanistan
Penguin Press. 288 pp. $27. | 2022-08-12T10:58:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review of "The Fifth Act: America's End in Afghanistan," by Elliot Ackerman - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/veteran-asks-what-did-afghan-war-mean-those-who-served/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/veteran-asks-what-did-afghan-war-mean-those-who-served/ |
A water main break hit a pipe that runs along MacArthur Boulevard, causing a boil water advisory in the Cabin John/Glen Echo area
Montgomery County's Cabin John/Glen Echo area that is under a boil water advisory after a water main break. (WSSC)
About 2,200 residents and businesses in part of Montgomery County are advised to boil their water Friday after a water main break in the area.
Officials with Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) said the advisory is being issued as a precaution for some parts of the Cabin John/Glen Echo area after a water main break Thursday evening on a 12-inch pipe along MacArthur Boulevard.
Businesses and residents in the affected area are advised that water for drinking, brushing teeth, washing food, and making ice and baby food and formula, as well as water for pets, should be brought to a boil for one minute and then allowed to cool before use.
The water main break caused a “small portion of the WSSC Water system to lose pressure,” officials said in a statement. When a break happens, officials said, there is an “increased risk of contamination to the water distribution system.”
Tests will be done of water in the affected area to make sure it is safe, officials said. Once the water is deemed safe, the advisory will be lifted, they said. | 2022-08-12T11:15:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Residents, businesses in Glen Echo/Cabin John area advised to boil water - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/12/boil-water-advisory-glen-echo-cabin-john/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/12/boil-water-advisory-glen-echo-cabin-john/ |
A 1952 Mickey Mantle card is expected to set a sales record at auction this month. (LM Otero/AP)
Anthony Giordano had spent two years looking for a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card before his 15-year-old son, Ralph, stumbled upon the “finest known example” at a 1991 baseball card show at Madison Square Garden.
The card, which Giordano purchased for $50,000, is expected to sell for more than $10 million when the auction closes Aug. 27. With just over two weeks left, the bidding has exceeded $6 million — already a record figure.
To Giordano, the card’s value is not a surprise, but he wrestled with the idea of selling such a prized possession. In 1991, Giordano bought the card from Alan Rosen, a card dealer so renowned he was nicknamed “Mr. Mint.” Rosen is well known for his association with the famous 1952 Topps find.
“When he said that, I said, ‘Would you mind documenting that and putting that in writing for me?’ ” Giordano said.
Rosen obliged. That letter, written on Rosen’s “Mr. Mint” letterhead, says the card is “in my estimation the finest known example in the world.”
“If he was asking $100,000 for that card back then, I probably would have paid it,” Giordano said.
“Whatever he asked, I probably would've just offered less,” Giordano said. But any of those figures pale in comparison to what the card is expected to sell for today.
“It’s that extra layer of pedigree or provenance which separates this particular example from every other high-grade example that has ever come through any of the grading services,” Orlando said.
Five years ago, before Giordano’s card had been graded, he was approached with an offer of more than $2 million. But after discussing it with his sons, Giordano turned it down.
This time, he almost passed on selling again but ultimately decided parting with the card was the best course of action. He partnered with Heritage Auctions to facilitate the sale and heeded the auction house’s advice to submit the card for grading. When he did, it was graded a mint-condition 9.5.
Chris Ivy, director of sports auctions for Heritage Auctions, said Giordano’s 1991 purchase came just before a spike in professional card grading. He estimates that, today, more than 95 percent of cards that sell for more than $1,000 are graded.
“If I were sitting down with someone who was not familiar or not experienced in card collecting or card grading, even an eight on a scale of one to 10 at arm’s length looks like it’s in mint condition,” Orlando said. “It looks virtually perfect.”
“Our job is to present this in the best possible light to collectors around the world, and we think this piece definitely warrants it,” Ivy said. “And it’s on its way to setting a world record.” | 2022-08-12T11:19:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mint Mickey Mantle card drawing bids in excess of $6 million - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/12/mickey-mantle-card/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/12/mickey-mantle-card/ |
Just like old times. That’s what it must seem like with the S&P 500 Index up about 15% since mid-June and poised for its fourth consecutive weekly gain, its longest winning streak of the year. Those who question the durability of this rally, given the slowdown in the economy and a Federal Reserve that has doubled down on its plan to keep raising interest rates, can take comfort in one key metric: the smart money.
That can be seen in the Smart Money Flow Index, which measures action in the narrower Dow Jones Industrial Average during the first half-hour and the last hour of trading. The thinking is that the first 30 minutes represent emotional buying, driven by greed and fear of the crowd based on good and bad news as well as a lot of buying on market orders and short covering. The “smart money” institutional investors, though, wait until the end of trading to place big bets when there is less “noise.”
That gauge has risen to its highest level in two years, when animal spirits ruled Wall Street and the S&P 500 was surpassing its pre-pandemic highs, sparking one of the most powerful bull markets in history. Few are anticipating a repeat performance, but the latest trading patterns should provide some confidence that the nasty sell-off in the first half of the year, which pushed stocks into a bear market, may be over.
The reasons for the rebound are clear. Gasoline prices have fallen every day since peaking at $5.016 a gallon on June 13, dropping all the way to $3.99 amid a broad decline in commodities prices and alleviating substantial pressure on consumers. Companies have reported solid second-quarter earnings. The labor market remains unusually tight, with 528,000 jobs added in July, more than double the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. There’s even optimism that perhaps inflation has peaked and will start to slow after the government said this week that its consumer price index was unchanged in July from the month earlier.
All this is bolstering the case for a so-called soft landing of the economy, in which the Fed is able to continue to raise interest rates, albeit more slowly, to get inflation back under control without causing a deep, long and nasty recession. “Such a moderation in the Fed’s messaging and actions would be positive” for stocks, David Kelly, the Chief Global Strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management Inc., wrote in a research note earlier this week.
Granted, this is just one metric, but the rise in the Smart Money Index has been corroborated by another other key measure. State Street Global Markets, which has about $38 trillion of assets under custody or administration, said its North America Investor Confidence Index rose in July by the most since February, putting it back in bullish territory. The reason this measure is worth heeding is because it’s derived from actual trades rather than survey responses.
All this is not to say that there aren’t plenty of headwinds ahead for stocks. For one, the Fed is nowhere near done raising rates. Bloomberg News’s Matthew Boesler reports that Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who before the pandemic was the central bank’s most dovish policy maker, said Wednesday that he wants to see the Fed’s benchmark interest rate at 3.9% by the end of this year and at 4.4% by the end of 2023. It’s now in a range of 2.25% to 2.50%.
The point about higher rates is that they might translate into lower valuations for stocks. More specifically, simple discounted cash-flow analysis shows that higher interest rates render future earnings less valuable in the present, making it hard to justify the current high multiples for stocks without strong profit growth. The problem, though, is that valuations are not cheap after the recent rebound, and profits, although still forecast to rise, can’t be considered strong. At 18.6 times this year’s forecasted earnings, the S&P 500 is trading at levels more in line with a robust economy rather than one struggling to avoid recession. And at about $227, the S&P 500’s earnings component for this year is forecast to be higher than 2021 by only about 8%.
When it comes to the stock market, there is no (legal) secret sauce that can definitively determine the direction of equities. In the end, everyone basically just wants to know what the best and brightest are doing with their money so they can mimic those strategies. Right now, the smart money is saying buy. More From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion:
• Meme-Stock War Is Hedge Fund Versus Hedge Fund: Jared Dillian | 2022-08-12T11:23:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Don’t Buy the Stock Rally? The Smart Money Does - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/dont-buy-the-stock-rally-the-smart-moneydoes/2022/08/12/c3e1ab72-1a2e-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/dont-buy-the-stock-rally-the-smart-moneydoes/2022/08/12/c3e1ab72-1a2e-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Families are concerned about affordability of higher education
The Rotunda at the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
At the University of Virginia, where prices were little changed last year, tuition and fees for state residents who pay in full are up nearly 6 percent for the coming school year, to about $20,350. Howard University’s sticker price, after a similar pause, has risen more than 7 percent, to about $31,050.
Colleges and universities across the country, squeezed by sharply rising labor and supply costs, are taking steps to fortify their revenue and resume their pre-pandemic patterns of annual tuition increases. These price hikes, for the most part, do not appear to be as high as the overall national inflation rate measured at 8.5 percent in July.
But they are substantial — often in the range of 3 to 4 percent, sometimes more. For many students and parents, that means significantly higher college bills in the fall term. The pocketbook bite, felt all the more keenly alongside higher prices for groceries, gas and rent, is sowing fresh fears about the affordability of higher education.
Tia Pitts, 19, a Howard sophomore who is majoring in broadcast journalism, said the list of expenses she faced before classes resume at the D.C. university led to a panic attack.
“I kind of shut down thinking about all of the financial responsibilities,” Harris said. “I have to spend more money for housing. I have to buy more things for the room. It’s just a lot and that’s not even including tuition.”
Some schools continue to freeze tuition. Purdue University in Indiana boasts that it has held in-state prices virtually constant — about $10,000 for base tuition and fees — for the past decade. Most public universities in Virginia complied this year with a request from Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) to freeze tuition.
U-Va., which set its rates in December, before Youngkin took office, did not. Full tuition and fees for a Virginian starting at the public flagship in Charlottesville are now estimated to be 5.8 percent more than the year before, according to university and federal data. The previous increase, for fall 2021, was 1.5 percent. Those figures don’t count room and board and other expenses. They also don’t include financial aid.
“If they don’t, I will be very disappointed,” the governor said in a recent interview. Youngkin said he is mindful of middle class families that barely miss qualifying for financial aid. “Those are the ones at the margins that are seeing the biggest impact from tuition increases,” he said. “That’s why we’re so focused on this.”
Phillip B. Levine, an economist at Wellesley College who has studied higher-education pricing, said tuition freezes are problematic for schools that aim to provide substantial grants to families with low-to-moderate income. The reason is that freezes limit revenue that could be used for financial aid. “The money has to come from somewhere,” Levine said. “And it needs to come from higher-income families.”
“Nobody likes to raise tuition,” said Jennifer “J.J.” Wagner Davis, U-Va.’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. “It’s a balancing act, looking at all of the needs … and trying to make sure we can provide an excellent educational experience.”
Nationally, prices had remained nearly flat at the start of the pandemic as colleges scrambled to maintain enrollment amid widespread campus closures and a shift to virtual learning. Average tuition and fees inched up 1.2 percent for public universities in fall 2020 and 1.6 percent in fall 2021, according to the College Board. Those were the lowest increases, in percentage terms, since the 1970s. A similar pattern held for private colleges and universities, with increases of 1.1 percent in 2020 and 2.1 percent last year.
In the decade before the pandemic, College Board pricing data shows, a typical annual increase was around 3 percent in the public sector and 3.7 percent in the private sector. But prices sometimes rose much more: There was an 8.5 percent jump in average public university tuition and fees in fall 2011.
The recent national spike in consumer prices, with inflation reaching 9.1 percent in June, then subsiding somewhat last month, is disrupting the finances of higher education. Inflation can erode the value of endowments. Schools face higher costs for utilities, supplies and food. They are also under pressure to raise salaries to avoid losing faculty or staff to more lucrative jobs. Many universities reduced or froze faculty salaries at the start of the pandemic. Now payrolls are rising again.
Building maintenance, renovation and new construction are also more expensive now than colleges had planned. At the same time, federal pandemic relief that had helped support college and university budgets is winding down. It is unclear how long state funding for public higher education — a fiscal pillar that supports in-state tuition discounts — can hold steady.
“The inflationary and cost pressures are real,” said George Suttles, a higher-education expert at the asset management firm Commonfund. “Some colleges and universities are still trying to figure it out.”
Among private universities in the District of Columbia, school and federal data shows, full tuition and mandatory fees rose 3.5 percent at Georgetown University, 3.9 percent at Catholic University, 4.2 percent at George Washington University, 4.9 percent at American University and 7.4 percent at Howard. School officials cited rising internal costs but said they continue to offer significant aid to students in need.
Experts emphasize that financial aid plays a major role in containing expenses for students and parents. Net prices — what students must pay after taking into account any grants or scholarships — matter more than sticker prices. In a time of rising concern about student debt, the net price determines whether or how much a student must borrow to go to college.
For every dollar Howard charges in tuition and fees, said the university’s chief financial officer, Stephen Graham, 47 cents are returned to students through scholarships and grants.
Graham said the university also is striving to strengthen its programs. “We’re investing in attracting and retaining the highest-quality faculty,” he said.
At the University of Maryland, an increase of 2.5 percent in tuition and fees for state residents was outpaced by a 9 percent jump in room and board. The estimated charge for campus meals and housing at College Park — $14,576 — is well ahead of the full price for in-state tuition and fees — $11,232. The university said higher room and board revenue is needed for renovations, maintenance, rising food costs and pay increases for housing and dining staff.
George Mason University, in Northern Virginia, joined U-Va. in raising its price. Its in-state tuition and fees rose 2.2 percent, to about $13,400. GMU’s governing board cited twin challenges: The university receives less state funding than comparable universities and faces an expensive labor market in the D.C. region. “As a result, Mason faces an ongoing loss of talent in most units due to our inability to pay competitive wages, and is absorbing substantial unfunded inflationary increases in operating expenses,” the board said in a June 29 statement. But the board, in response to Youngkin’s request, promised to revisit tuition policy for the spring semester.
Elsewhere in the country, school and federal data shows, tuition and fees for entering in-state freshmen were up about 3 percent at the universities of Massachusetts and Michigan, about 4 percent at the universities of California at Berkeley and Minnesota and nearly 5 percent at the universities of Colorado and Connecticut. Oregon State University showed a 6 percent increase.
“Of course it can’t last forever,” Daniels said. “We just take it year to year. The day will come when there needs to be an adjustment. But it’s not soon.”
Purdue is not immune from inflationary pressures, Daniels said, but it has boosted revenue through growth in enrollment. It had 37,800 undergraduates last fall, about 25 percent more than it had in 2014.
“We would like to keep this place as affordable as we can,” he said.
On one measure of college access, the university has not made progress. Federal data shows the share of Purdue freshmen whose family incomes were low enough to qualify for Pell grants was 14 percent in the 2020-21 school year, down from 19 percent in 2013-14.
The Pell share at U-Va. was also about 14 percent in 2020-21. At George Mason, it was about 30 percent.
Inside elite transfer admissions: From community college to U-Va.
Youngkin, explaining his request for a tuition freeze, said he believes large universities can hunt for — and find — ineffective programs and unneeded expenses. “If you want to keep costs down, you can find ways to do it,” he said. He also signaled that he is open to alternative pricing policies in the future. “This is not a forever discussion, [that] tuition can never be raised again," he said.
The Virginia governor’s call for a tuition freeze resonated with Jenn Hart. She and her husband, who live in Midlothian, near Richmond, have three daughters, the eldest a rising sophomore at U-Va. Hart, 48, a real estate agent, said the family pays full tuition and is keenly aware of the expense every semester. To save money, she buys less meat these days at the grocery store. And she is mindful of future college bills. “It’s always in the back of my mind that there’s two more coming along,” she said.
Hart said she winced when she read that U-Va. declined Youngkin’s request for a freeze. “That really stung a little,” she said. But she added: “Do I think U-Va. is worth every penny? I do. I was surprised they wouldn’t do the freeze, but I will live with it."
Inflation explained: How prices took off
What is a recession? Your economy questions, answered. | 2022-08-12T11:24:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Colleges raise tuition as inflation increases costs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/12/college-tuition-inflation-prices/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/12/college-tuition-inflation-prices/ |
Reports from Nigeria beginning in 2017 suggested the virus appeared to be spreading through sexual contact and affecting mostly young men
In a remote village in the Republic of Congo in 2017, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document monkeypox cases. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
In an eerie echo of the coronavirus pandemic, more than a decade of warnings preceded the global outbreak of human monkeypox that has now spread to more than 31,700 cases — with about a third of those in the United States.
A second alarm came in late 2017, when Nigerian health authorities confirmed the country’s first case in almost 40 years: An 11-year-old boy brought to a hospital with lesions across his face and limbs ― a suspected case of chickenpox.
“His presentation was very unusual compared to chickenpox,” Dimie Ogoina, the physician who treated the boy, said by email. The child’s lesions, including some inside his nose, were larger than those found in chickenpox and doctors knew right away they were dealing with more than an isolated case. Two relatives said they’d experienced similar symptoms. Ogoina and his colleagues at Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital diagnosed monkeypox and alerted health authorities.
Their published report two years later concluded the virus was spreading from person to person, not just from animals to humans. And it appeared to be transmitting in a potentially dangerous new way ― through sexual contact. Most of the infected were young men, compared to previous monkeypox outbreaks in the region that had largely affected children.
The World Health Organization noted in its own report about the Nigerian outbreak in 2017: “The nature of person-to-person contact leading to transmission needs to be studied; some suspect sexual transmission may be one route.”
But the broader health community took little notice. Within eight months of Ogoina’s report, the novel coronavirus was overshadowing virtually all other global health concerns as it circled the globe.
The 2017 cases in Nigeria, believed to be the origin of the current outbreak, only garnered serious interest this spring, when monkeypox spread to dozens of other countries in the West, including the United States. By then, the world’s inattention had left two clades, or types of the virus, smoldering: The West African version that Ogoina encountered in Nigeria now reproducing globally, with less than 1 percent mortality, and the more severe Congo Basin version, with about 10 percent mortality. In the United States, with more than 10,760 confirmed cases, largely among gay and bisexual men, there have been no monkeypox-related deaths.
“We should have listened to people like Dimie Ogoina who was saying, 'This is circulating, and it seems to be circulating to a large degree through sexual transmission,’ " said Michael Worobey, head of the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, who is now collaborating with Ogoina on monkeypox research. “We should have been stamping it out where it was circulating before it emerged.”
Worobey, who once fought forest fires in British Columbia, said stopping infectious diseases requires the same approach.
When lightning strikes, he said, “we get there and put the fire out when it’s a single tree burning, instead of a thousand acres. What we’ve done here is allowed it to become a thousand acres on every continent, instead of a single tree here and there.”
W. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University epidemiologist, argued the monkeypox outbreak does not represent a public health failure, so much as an example of “the enormous challenge” of predicting which of a hundred global outbreaks poses the greatest threat.
“It’s a fire hose,” he said of the myriad viruses and pathogens. “How do you decide where to look?”
The WHO defended its record on monkeypox in a statement, saying it “has been working on monkeypox for decades ― even before the first human case was identified ― hand in hand with relevant Ministries of Health, research institutions and communities.” In Nigeria in 2017, WHO said, the agency supported that country’s CDC to mount a response. Given the growing risk of monkeypox, the statement said the agency has also advocated for development of additional therapies, vaccines and clinical trials.
‘A big warning signal’
The monkeypox virus, likely in the environment for hundreds if not thousands of years, was first identified and named for Danish laboratory monkeys in 1958. The first human case was not reported until 1970 in the Congo.
By 1980, a study in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization documented just 47 cases scattered through Central and West Africa over the previous decade. Although monkeypox had been found in laboratory and zoo animals, the paper’s authors wrote, “animal cases have not been detected in nature; the source of human monkeypox infection is still unknown.” They noted that in four of the 47 cases, “person-to-person spread” may have occurred.
That same year, global health leaders declared smallpox eradicated and the Congo stopped vaccinating its population against the disease, which comes from the same family of viruses as monkeypox but is more severe.
In 1987, researchers using a computer model, predicted that lack of smallpox vaccinations, which had protected people against similar viruses, would lead to more cases of monkeypox. But they concluded “it appears highly improbable” that monkeypox could reach a point of permanent spread among humans.
Rimoin’s findings suggest less certainty: She and her colleagues reported 760 confirmed cases in the Congo between 2005 and 2007, mostly among children born after smallpox vaccinations stopped in 1980.
Until now, the virus had made just one inroad into the United States — a 2003 outbreak afflicted 71 confirmed and suspected patients in six states, the majority in Wisconsin. Those cases spread to people from pet prairie dogs housed close to infected small mammals that had been imported from Ghana.
In 2003, however, it was unclear whether the virus was transmitted only from animals. While all of the infected people had interacted with animals, two also reported coming in contact with lesions or eye fluids from another patient. In contrast to the current outbreak, the virus spread for a little more than a month in 2003 before dying out.
Viral opportunities
DNA viruses, such as monkeypox, have much larger genetic blueprints than RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2, and usually evolve more slowly. Yet the mutations in monkeypox have occurred far more rapidly than expected ― about one a month as opposed to one a year, according to Trevor Bedford, an evolutionary biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.
Viruses are opportunistic, needing only to find the right environment to thrive.
“With HIV, it’s virtually certainly the case that these viruses were jumping from chimpanzees and maybe gorillas into humans, probably for thousand of years,” Worobey said. “But it wasn’t until the late 1800s and the early 1900s that you started to have steamships on the Congo River, railways, roads, cities. And in cities, you have things like prostitution that really help the transmission of a sexually transmitted virus."
“You take the same virus that couldn’t make a living in humans for thousand of years and now it can,” he added.
Several factors in recent decades appear to have provided monkeypox with opportunities to exploit.
The first was likely the successful eradication of smallpox, one of only two diseases that humans have wiped from the face of the Earth (the other is the animal disease rinderpest).
In addition, recurrent civil war in the Congo, clearing of forests for logging and agriculture, and the butchering of animals for meat increased human contact with animals that transmit the virus. But these trends, and their effect on monkeypox transmission, failed to generate a significant response from health authorities.
“It’s much easier to stay out of trouble than it is to get out of trouble, and boy, did we not heed these warnings,” said Rimoin. “What happened in Nigeria should have been a big warning signal.”
Instead, she said, “globally everybody was hitting the snooze button on a pathogen that clearly had potential to take off.”
Researchers suspect the current outbreak began in Nigeria because of a pattern of mutations in virus samples taken from patients in 2017 that has persisted and expanded to the present day. These mutations were unlike those found in animal versions of the virus. They showed the mark of having encountered a human protein that fights viruses as part of the immune response.
While some viruses jump from animals to people without ever causing a sustained outbreak, Bedford said any human-to-human transmission is concerning. “That creates evolutionary pressure for the virus to get better at transmitting between humans,” he said.
Monkeypox’s success will depend not only on human behavior, but where mutations take the virus. Most mutations alter monkeypox’s genetic signature but not its ability to function. That allows health officials to track the virus and identify clusters of infected people, such as those in Nigeria since 2017 and from other countries this spring.
In a worst-case scenario, a mutation could make the virus more deadly or contagious. In the best case, accumulating mutations at 10 times the normal rate could lead to changes that threaten the virus’s survival.
“But don’t hold your breath for that to stop this outbreak,” Worobey said. “It’s not going to be a process that happens anytime soon.”
Scientists’ worst fear is that monkeypox may establish a permanent foothold in the United States and other countries, joining viruses such as HIV and influenza. Finding a reliable animal reservoir in the United States or elsewhere increases that likelihood.
“I think that it’s certainly possible,” Rimoin said.
Back in 2010, she and her colleagues warned that American ground squirrels are highly susceptible to the virus. “If monkeypox were to become established in a wildlife reservoir outside Africa, the public health setback would be difficult to reverse,” they wrote. | 2022-08-12T11:24:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A decade of warnings on growing monkeypox threat were ignored - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/12/monkeypox-virus-origins-nigeria-sexual-transmission/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/12/monkeypox-virus-origins-nigeria-sexual-transmission/ |
The monkeypox outbreak reflects our failure to learn from AIDS activism
AIDS activists wanted to transform health systems to make sure that all people had the care they needed
Perspective by Dan Royles
Dan Royles is an assistant professor of history at Florida International University and the author of "To Make the Wounded Whole: The African American Struggle against HIV/AIDS."
Health-care and LGBTQ rights activists demonstrate outside the federal building in San Francisco on Aug. 08, 2022, demanding an increase in Monkeypox vaccines and treatments as the outbreak continues to spread. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
For those LGBTQ people who lived through the worst years of the AIDS epidemic or grew up in its shadow, monkeypox brings a grim sense of deja vu. Once again, an unfamiliar virus is spreading through gay men’s sexual networks, and far too little is being done to stop it. But monkeypox isn’t just a case of history repeating itself. It also shows that, despite remarkable improvements in the prevention and treatment of HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — the vision of health justice that AIDS activists articulated and fought for over the past 40 years remains largely unfulfilled.
Granted, the response to monkeypox shows signs that some doctors, public health officials and political leaders have learned valuable lessons from HIV/AIDS. For example, guidelines on monkeypox from the Centers for Disease and Prevention emphasize “harm reduction,” advising people on how to reduce the risk of transmission during sex. This approach recognizes that abstinence-only messages tend to be ineffective, and harks back to Michael Callen and Richard Berkowitz’s “How to Have Sex in an Epidemic,” which offered gay and bisexual men advice on how to practice a range of sexual activities as safely as possible based on what little information was known about AIDS in 1983.
Public health officials have also shown a genuine desire not to replicate the kind of anti-gay stigma that marred early responses to AIDS. Last week President Biden appointed Demetre Daskalakis, a gay doctor and former assistant health commissioner for HIV prevention in New York City who is well known for offering HIV testing and counseling at the city’s gay sex clubs and bath houses, to be deputy coordinator of the White House Monkeypox Response Team.
Indeed, the U.S. medical system has gotten better at providing care to LGBTQ people, which reflects a greater degree of social acceptance and real political gains in terms of LGBTQ rights and legal protections. That doctors and public health officials have gotten better at talking to and about queer people when it comes to their health is important, and that progress is due in no small part to the work of AIDS activists.
But early AIDS activism was about far more than crafting effective messages about safe sex. AIDS activists also wanted to change health systems to make sure that all people had the care they needed. And monkeypox shows just how much we have failed to deliver on their vision of an equitable health-care system at home and a humanitarian vision of global health abroad.
From almost the time that doctors first identified what would later become known as AIDS among gay men in 1981, activists understood the new disease as part of a larger fight to reform and strengthen the U.S. health-care system. Some saw the opportunity to harness the energy of AIDS groups in the fight for universal health care and rallied around the slogan “health care is a human right.” Others sought to realign national priorities by shifting public spending from the military-industrial complex to medical research and care. From the 1980s through the new millennium, these activists demanded “money for AIDS, not for war.”
This slogan was coined as early as 1983 by queer activists who organized against U.S. interventions in Central America, as the historian Emily Hobson has uncovered. At the time, a growing number of Americans were becoming sick and dying of complications of AIDS while the Reagan administration propped up right-wing regimes throughout the Western Hemisphere. These activists linked the two issues to highlight what they saw as an appalling truth: instead of saving lives at home, the federal government was using its power to destroy lives abroad.
Looking at the numbers underscored their point. By its own account, the Reagan administration spent $1.2 billion on security in Central America and the Caribbean in 1985 alone, although at the time political scientists Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers estimated the real cost to be almost eight times that figure. Meanwhile, the White House’s proposed federal budget for 1985 allocated just $95 million to funding AIDS research and treatment. In the years that followed, federal spending on public health remained a fraction of spending on national defense, and the difference became even starker after 9/11.
Beginning in the late 1990s, U.S. activists began to organize on behalf of people in the Global South who were seeking access to highly effective treatments for HIV. They did so not because they saw AIDS as a threat to national security, as did U.S. intelligence officials, but because they believed that the United States had a humanitarian obligation to help people who were sick and dying in other parts of the world. If Americans benefited from lifesaving HIV drugs, it was immoral to deny others the same.
U.S. officials were then using trade policy to prevent South Africa and other countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America from producing or obtaining less-expensive generic versions of these treatments. AIDS activists used direct action to force changes to these policies by interrupting Vice President Al Gore’s campaign events and occupying the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
After George W. Bush became president in 2001, activists continued to pressure the federal government to make HIV drugs available to poorer nations. They took to the streets when Andrew Natsios, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, suggested that such treatments would be ineffective in Africa because people there “don’t know what Western time is.”
In the context of both the “war on terror” and the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, AIDS activists continued to demand “money for AIDS, not for war” by pushing for a significant U.S. commitment to fighting AIDS in Africa. Bush chose to fund both.
When Bush committed billions of dollars for fighting AIDS in Africa in the form of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2003, activists considered it a result of years of their own organizing, even if their efforts are often excluded from histories of the program. Since then, the United States has committed over $110 billion to PEPFAR, which has saved an estimated 20 million lives. In contrast, scholars estimate that the war on terror has cost $8 trillion — over 70 times as much — and directly resulted in the deaths of nearly a million people.
From PEPFAR, we might have learned the value of U.S. commitments to global health. Instead, the federal government seems committed to hoarding resources that are badly needed elsewhere in the name of national defense and security.
Take the case of Jynneos, the vaccine now being used to prevent monkeypox, which was developed under the auspices of national security — not health care. After 9/11, amid fears of a future bioterror attack, the U.S. government spent upward of $1 billion on the development of Jynneos as an effective smallpox vaccine. The work was done by Bavarian Nordic, a Danish company.
At one point, the national stockpile held 20 million doses of the vaccine, several times the quantity experts believe is needed to vaccinate every American considered to be at high risk for monkeypox. However, almost all those doses were allowed to expire, perhaps because they were developed for national defense, not public health.
While the United States retained doses of Jynneos, people in Africa were getting sick and dying of monkeypox. Outbreaks in West and Central Africa over the past decades have resulted in thousands of cases — although officials suspect the actual number may be much higher — and at least 75 deaths. This, too, represents a failure to learn from the history of AIDS activism.
Today, the Jynneos vaccine has been in scarce supply in the United States. Dr. Carlos del Rio of Emory University School of Medicine described a “Hunger Games approach” to vaccine distribution. In fact, the country may soon face a “vaccine cliff” that will leave a million or more who are at risk unprotected against monkeypox.
Learning from the history of AIDS activism would mean a real investment — of time, money and capacity — in protecting and promoting the health not just of Americans, but also of people around the world, by making sure that all have the care they need. | 2022-08-12T11:24:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The monkeypox outbreak reflects our failure to learn from AIDS activism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/12/monkeypox-outbreak-reflects-our-failure-learn-aids-activism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/12/monkeypox-outbreak-reflects-our-failure-learn-aids-activism/ |
What to watch with your kids: ‘Summering’ and more
From left, Madalen Mills, Eden Grace Redfield, Sanai Victoria and Lia Barnett in “Summering.” (Bleecker Street)
Summering (PG-13)
Well-meaning but uneven tween drama has death, lies, swearing.
“Summering” is a “Stand By Me”-like drama about four 11-year-old girls who find a dead body the summer before starting middle school. Although there’s much less violence, language and suggestive humor than in that 1986 classic, it’s still a potentially disturbing storyline. Preteens make iffy decisions regarding a corpse, and there’s an upsetting moment when one girl unexpectedly wields a gun to shoot at a lock. The main characters lie to their parents and break into a school after hours so they can keep solving the mystery together. Expect occasional strong language, including “s---,” “Jesus,” “stupid,” “sucks,” “weird,” “crazy” and “nerd.” The girls visit a bar where adults drink, and there’s a mature subplot about one of them having a father who’s missing/walked out on the family. Families may want to talk about the movie’s coming-of-age themes, as well as the importance of honest communication between parents and kids. (85 minutes)
Inu-Oh (PG-13)
Blood and gore in powerful anime fantasy/rock opera.
“Inu-Oh” is an anime film that’s based on true events from 14th-century Japanese history but reimagined as a fantasy/rock opera. It rambles a bit, but once it gets going, it’s dazzling, tackling themes such as people in power trying to suppress the truth. Violence may be animated but is very graphic, with many scenes of blood and gore. A character is sliced in half (his body starts to slide apart); a child is blinded; and there are swords/stabbings, dying soldiers screaming and sinking into the water, blood spatters, bloody handprints, fighting, bullying, a person exploding, etc. There’s also some scary stuff, such as a woman giving birth to a supposed monster and, later, a man punching the grown “monster” (who’s actually a boy with physical differences) in the face. Dancers make humping/thrusting motions during performances. There are a few uses of “hell” and a use of “b------s.” (95 minutes)
Secret Headquarters (PG)
Tween superhero adventure has sci-fi weapons, violence.
“Secret Headquarters” is a family-friendly superhero film about a middle-schooler named Charlie (Walker Scobell). It’s a great pick for fans of movies like “Shazam!,” “Spy Kids” and “Ant-Man.” Charlie and his three best friends discover a secret basement under his divorced father’s (Owen Wilson) house and realize that Charlie’s dad might be world-renowned superhero known as the Guard. They run into trouble when the bunker is attacked by a team of corporate mercenaries. The kids use lots of sci-fi gadgets and weapons, and the villains have guns. Expect mostly mild language (“idiots,” “damn,” “piss”) and a combination of both comical and realistic violence. Most of it is aimed at the teen characters, who are taken hostage, chased and threatened with death. In one shocking scene, someone is shot and killed (no blood) for refusing to harm the kids. There are lots of jokes and physical comedy, as well as a couple of crushes/romances, one of which leads to a first kiss. Themes include courage, teamwork, perseverance and the importance of honesty between parents and kids. (89 minutes)
Available on Paramount Plus.
13: The Musical (PG)
Middle-school musical has bullying, some positive messages.
“13: The Musical” is a coming-of-age tale about a boy learning lessons about friendship and maturity on the eve of his bar mitzvah celebration. Forced to change cities and schools, main character Evan (Eli Golden) is quick to make friends, but he also takes one close friend for granted. He and other kids in his diverse eighth-grade class learn about respecting their peers, treating each other with kindness and also forgiving each other (and their parents) their mistakes. A middle-schooler is bullied when kids throw straws at her and laugh at her climate activism in the school cafeteria. Thirteen-year-olds sneak into a slasher film about an ax murderer called “The Bloodmaster.” (The violence isn’t shown, but the audience’s reaction is.) A main storyline involves two kids who have been texting all summer and are ready to date and have their first kiss. There are jokes about circumcision and the “hottest rabbi.” Mild language includes “suck,” “screwed up,” “love god,” “dumb,” “geek,” “fool” and “dissed.” (94 minutes) | 2022-08-12T11:24:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Common Sense Media’s weekly recommendations. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/08/12/common-sense-media-august-12/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/08/12/common-sense-media-august-12/ |
A destroyed structure in a former U.S. military outpost in Afghanistan's Ghazni province. (Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post)
In an intelligent essay in the Atlantic, Gen. David H. Petraeus takes stock of the war and argues that America’s “foundational mistake” in Afghanistan was a “lack of commitment.” He is right at one level. There was clearly an ebb and flow in U.S. support, but it is worth noting that the United States stayed fighting in Afghanistan longer than the British during the three Anglo-Afghan Wars combined. It stayed twice as long as the Soviet Union did in the late 1970s and ’80s. | 2022-08-12T11:24:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why did so much blood and treasure yield so little in Afghanistan? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/afghanistan-war-failures/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/afghanistan-war-failures/ |
Firing a successful prosecutor is DeSantis’s latest political stunt
By Radley Balko
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa in July. (Octavio Jones/Reuters)
Last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Andrew Warren, the state attorney for the judicial district that includes Tampa and replaced him with a conservative judge. DeSantis said the move was necessitated by Warren’s “woke” policies, including declining to prosecute certain categories of crimes. In particular, DeSantis cited a pledge Warren signed with other prosecutors across the country to not charge women who seek abortions or the doctors who perform them. (Florida recently passed a law banning all abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, though a judge has temporarily blocked the measure.)
The move is part of a conservative backlash against reform-oriented prosecutors across the country. “Over the last few years, individual prosecutors take it upon themselves to determine which laws they like and will enforce and which laws they don’t like and won’t enforce, and the results of this in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco have been catastrophic,” DeSantis said.
But the data tells another story. By my calculation, the homicide rate in San Francisco in 2020 (the last year for which comparable data are available) was 5.5 per 100,000 people. The rate for the state of Florida that year was 7.8, according to the CDC, a remarkable comparison given that crime in cities tends to be higher than crime in states as a whole. The 2020 homicide rate in Los Angeles was, by my calculation, higher at 8.9 per 100,000 people, but that’s still significantly lower than the murder rates in nearly every large locality in Florida, including Miami-Dade County (10.7) and Jacksonville (15.5), and the capital, Tallahassee (14.5).
As for Tampa itself, it’s true, as DeSantis claimed at his news conference, that murders have surged, from 10.4 per 100,000 people in 2020 to 12.1 per 100,000 people last year. But they’ve surged everywhere. The 2021 murder rate was still lower than that of nearby St. Petersburg (12.5)— whose lead prosecutor, incidentally, is a Republican — and the overall crime rate in Warren’s district was 30 percent lower in 2020.
The main consequence of DeSantis’s stunt is to disenfranchise Tampa’s voters. Warren was voted into office in 2016 by a margin of less than one percentage point. Four years later, voters had the opportunity to reject Warren’s “woke” agenda. They reelected him by nearly 7 points.
Florida gives its governor the power to remove public officials from office, but that power has traditionally been reserved for officials accused of crimes or corruption. DeSantis suspended Warren over policy disputes.
DeSantis’s order gave three reasons for dismissing Warren. In addition to Warren’s pledge not to prosecute women who seek abortions or doctors who provide them, he cited Warren’s signature on a joint statement by prosecutors refusing to prosecute parents or health-care professionals for providing gender-affirming health care should Florida make it illegal to do so. But Florida failed to pass that law. In both cases, DeSantis’s beef is that Warren vowed not to enforce laws that are not even in effect — essentially just expressing his opinion about new or proposed laws, as prosecutors do all the time.
Finally, DeSantis cited Warren’s policy of not prosecuting several categories of low-level crime, including prostitution and trespassing. Warren also declines to prosecute misdemeanors stemming from police stops of pedestrians and bicyclists — an effort to reduce the incentive for police to harass and profile people from marginalized communities.
Every prosecutor in the country chooses which crimes will get resources because no one has the ability to prosecute every crime. Warren’s constituents clearly support his priorities. His real offense is prioritizing different and more serious crimes than the culture-war issues that preoccupy DeSantis.
As several Florida criminologists recently argued in an op-ed, Warren in fact is one of the more transparent, responsive prosecutors in the country. His policies are informed by regular meetings with community leaders and researchers, and in 2019, he became the first prosecutor in the state to publish his office’s charging and conviction statistics on a public dashboard.
Warren’s priorities also make sense. Though DeSantis’s order criticized Warren for deprioritizing low-level offenses, the office still prosecutes 85 percent of all crimes that have come to his office, including 80 percent of felonies. Both figures rank highly, both in the country and in the state of Florida. Warren’s office is also less likely than most to reduce felony charges to misdemeanors, and his 74 percent conviction rate is above the state average.
Notably, as DeSantis decried the catastrophe of progressive prosecutors at his news conference last week, he was flanked by Grady Judd, the outspoken law-and-order sheriff from Polk County. Murders in the judicial district that includes Judd’s county jumped 40 percent from 2019 to 2020, then soared again in 2021. In Warren’s district, from 2019 to 2020, they increased by nearly 23 percent. Oddly enough, Judd doesn’t blame his own policies for the murder surge the way he and DeSantis blame Warren. He blames the pandemic.
In September, DeSantis held another widely covered news conference in which he announced new funding for law enforcement, including signing bonuses for new hires. He was flanked by several former New York City cops who had recently joined the force in Lakeland, Fla., part of DeSantis’s effort to recruit officers whom he described as unappreciated by their departments. It was later revealed that two of the officers standing behind DeSantis lied on their job applications about discipline they’d received in New York. Another officer was named in a lawsuit by a man who suffered four broken bones and a dislocated shoulder after a police beating. The low-level marijuana charges against the man were later dropped, and the city paid him a settlement.
Both of these news conferences were political theater. But they were instructive about what Ron DeSantis celebrates in law enforcement officials — and what he finds intolerable. | 2022-08-12T11:24:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | DeSantis firing a Tampa prosecutor is a cheap political stunt - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/desantis-fires-prosecutor-political-stunt/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/desantis-fires-prosecutor-political-stunt/ |
Former vice president Dick Cheney with his daughter Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in D.C. on Jan. 6. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo)
It has all the makings of a Greek tragedy.
The tragic hero, a statesman of great ability, is driven by hubris to abuse power. The forces he unleashes spread uncontrollably — and eventually destroy his own daughter. He comes to her aid, but it is too late.
Closing the last hearing of the House Jan. 6 select committee, the younger Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, delivered a powerful indictment of Donald Trump’s abuse of his followers. “He is preying on their patriotism,” she said, turning “their love of country into a weapon.” A moment later, she added: “We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.”
She’s right. And Cheney deserves the lionization she is getting as she courageously fights the authoritarianism that has taken over the GOP. For this, she lost her party leadership position, and on Tuesday will likely lose her primary to a Trump acolyte.
There is a bitter irony in Cheney’s fall: She is being undone by the very politics her father championed. Weaponizing patriotism? Abandoning the truth? Vice President Dick Cheney was a pioneer.
In my new book, “The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five-Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party,” I traced the actions of GOP leaders who essentially created the Trump era by removing the guardrails of our political system. Dick Cheney was one such leader.
Liz Cheney speaks rightly of the primacy of truth to a free people. But her father abandoned the truth in the most profound way, starting a war on the basis of lies. Liz Cheney denounces the evil of preying on patriotism. But her father was a key figure in a White House that politicized the 9/11 attacks and portrayed the administration’s opponents as traitors.
There was extraordinary national unity after the 2001 terrorist attacks. But George W. Bush’s strategists argued that Republicans should “go to the country” on the issue of terrorism and “focus on war” in the elections of 2002 and 2004, making the case that Democrats endangered Americans’ security. On the campaign trail, Dick Cheney warned that if people made “the wrong choice” and voted Democratic, “then the danger is that we’ll get hit again, that we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating.” As Bush said Democrats were “not interested in the security of the American people,” Cheney claimed electing Republicans was “vital” for “defending our homeland.”
In that same year, Republicans close to the administration ran an infamous ad implying that then-Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), a triple amputee from his service in Vietnam, with images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Two years later, a group with ties to Bush did similarly to Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry, with flimsy accusations that he lied about his Vietnam service and betrayed comrades.
Cheney was also the primary force for distorting intelligence about Iraq to make the case for war. He falsely claimed in 2001 that it was “pretty well confirmed” that the 9/11 mastermind met with Iraqi intelligence. He falsely called evidence of a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda “overwhelming” and said Hussein had “long-established ties with al-Qaeda.” He falsely called Iraq “the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault … on 9/11.”
Cheney said in 2002 that he was “convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon”; U.S. intelligence said that was nearly a decade away. Eventually Cheney baldly — and falsely — said Iraq had “in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons.”
In the scandal over the White House’s outing of a CIA operative after her husband questioned the administration’s nuclear claims, Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted of perjury. Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan later complained that Libby “and possibly Vice President Cheney — allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie.”
Cheney claimed that “we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators” in Iraq; intelligence had (accurately) warned that the situation could “rapidly deteriorate.” Later, Cheney wrongly claimed that Iraq had “turned a corner,” that the insurgency was “in the last throes.”
Those contagions — using disinformation and patriotism as political weapons — spread through the Republican Party and consumed it utterly with Trump’s triumph. Too late, Liz Cheney bravely stood against both, and is on the verge of political exile. Now, in the final act, Dick Cheney has returned, filming an ad for his daughter.
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” the elder Cheney said. “He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters.”
No, he wouldn’t. All our Greek tragedy needs now is the catharsis: a glimmer of self-awareness from Dick Cheney about his role in causing this. | 2022-08-12T11:24:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Dick Cheney set Liz Cheney's demise in motion decades ago - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/dick-cheney-liz-demise-deception-iraq/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/dick-cheney-liz-demise-deception-iraq/ |
The mystery of Mar-a-Lago and the dilemma of democracy
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks to reporters in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 11 as he refuses to answer questions after making a statement about the FBI's search warrant served at former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. (Leah Millis/Reuters)
With information about the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence still sparse, the political fallout has taken a predictable shape. For conservatives, the use of an aggressive law enforcement tool against a former president (and likely future candidate) by the administration led by his 2020 rival reeks of partisan motivation. For many liberals, this suspicion is itself evidence that conservatives believe Trump is “above the law.”
Here’s a prediction: No matter what comes out of the court-authorized search (Trivial White House heirlooms? Super classified documents? Jan. 6 plots? Nothing at all?) almost no one who takes either position will be moved. Experience shows that polarizing Trumpian legal sagas are not “settled” by new information, which is refracted immediately through a partisan lens.
The Trump-Russia scandal persisted for years even as an investigative and media drumbeat did not turn up evidence of illegal collusion. And Trump’s egregious conduct in trying to overturn the 2020 election has been publicized extensively, but his grip on the Republican Party remains strong. So don’t expect a “smoking gun” — or exoneration — to emerge from Mar-a-Lago, only political recriminations.
The long-term question, then, is not what evidence the raid will turn up. It’s what role law enforcement power can and should play in regulating a political system like ours, where consensus is eroding and trust is breaking down.
There is a constituency for two main visions. The first is that the Justice Department should serve the partisan interests of whomever is in office. If we live in a zero-sum political world where each party believes the other is an existential threat, why shouldn’t law enforcement officials leverage their power against the opposition? That’s what Trump and his supporters claim Attorney General Merrick Garland is doing when it comes to the former president.
This was also Trump’s idea of how the Justice Department should operate. He asked Attorney General William P. Barr to prosecute his political rivals in retaliation for investigations against him, and to cast doubt on the 2020 election to help him stay in power. Barr refused.
The opposite view of the Justice Department’s role is at least superficially more attractive. It says that law enforcement investigations ought to be as technocratic and mechanical as possible. Criminal law should function like an algorithm, taking in legal inputs and spitting out legal outputs, regardless of the political environment in which it is operating.
If that’s the case, then of course evidence that Trump violated the Presidential Records Act of 1978 or another statute by bringing government property to Mar-a-Lago should have prompted the FBI to seek a search warrant. Any other response would be giving the former president special treatment and interfering with the impartial administration of justice. This is fast becoming the orthodox liberal defense of the Mar-a-Lago raid.
But despite its righteous pretenses, this mechanical view of justice is no panacea. If the Justice Department’s Mar-a-Lago decision aggravates partisan furies, it won’t be because Garland’s department is politicized in an overt, Trumpian sense.
On the contrary: It will be because it sees itself as so scrupulously and high-mindedly apolitical that it could not foresee — or else ignored — the consequences of the raid for the United States’s cycle of polarization. The explosive response was predictable, yet multiple news reports suggest that at least some officials thought executing a search warrant on a former president’s residence for the first time in history would somehow be a low-profile affair.
There’s a third option between justice distorted by partisanship on the one hand, and justice so narrowly technocratic that it abandons common sense on the other. Barr in 2020 delivered a landmark speech expounding on this view. He highlighted “the importance of not fully decoupling law enforcement from the constraining and moderating forces of politics,” and said that “our system works best when leavened by judgment, discretion, proportionality.” Was the Mar-a-Lago search characterized by those traits?
Barr concluded his speech by quoting Robert H. Jackson, attorney general under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who said “the qualities of a good prosecutor are as elusive and as impossible to define as those which mark a gentleman. And those who need to be told would not understand it anyway.”
Americans should hope that Garland, who on Thursday confirmed that he approved the Trump search, possesses those ineffable qualities. It’s not enough if he is a legal genius, or conscientious and well-meaning. What’s required to navigate these high-stakes decisions is statesmanship — an intuitive understanding of the body politic and how to advance its interests.
As Barr pointed out, the United States’s law enforcement institutions derive their legitimacy from its democratic political system, not the other way around. Successive legal quests to bring down Trump have failed because his challenge to American self-government is fundamentally political, not legal — and will ultimately have to be answered in kind. | 2022-08-12T11:25:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Justice is hard to achieve in a deeply divided nation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/garland-barr-maralago-search/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/garland-barr-maralago-search/ |
The Internal Revenue Service building in D.C. on March 22, 2013. (Susan Walsh/AP)
Give him points for honesty. In a Senate floor speech, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called President Biden’s massive climate tax and spending bill what it is: “the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.” “I say ‘so-called,’ by the way,” Sanders added, “because according to the [Congressional Budget Office], and other economic organizations that have studied this bill, it will, in fact, have a minimal impact on inflation.”
According to Sen. Mike Crapo (Idaho), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, 57 percent of the $80 million in the final bill is for enforcement. So, let’s be conservative and estimate that it could add at least 49,600 IRS agents and auditors. That could increase the size of the IRS workforce (which currently has 78,661 full-time staffers) to more than 128,000. To put that in perspective, the largest NFL stadium — MetLife Stadium in New Jersey — has a maximum capacity of 82,500. This new army of tax collectors would be larger than the actual armed forces of 24 of our 29 NATO allies. It would also be 6½ times the size of our Border Patrol, which has just 19,536 agents trying to handle the worst border crisis in American history.
That’s if he can hire them. Good luck finding tens of thousands of new workers in this economy. One of the main reasons we are experiencing the worst inflation in four decades is because we have a historic labor shortage. There are 10.7 million unfilled jobs in the United States today, and 59 percent of small businesses report they cannot find workers, including 80 percent of restaurants, 76 percent of manufacturers, and 71 percent of travel and lodging businesses. The demand side of the economy is overheating because of all the free government money Biden has provided, while the supply side can’t keep up because of a lack of workers — which means shortages and higher prices. | 2022-08-12T11:25:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The Inflation Reduction Act is more like the IRS Enforcement Act - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/inflation-reduction-act-irs-enforcement-buildup/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/inflation-reduction-act-irs-enforcement-buildup/ |
How the student loan payment pause affected Latinx millennials
With payments due again soon, will Biden offer any loan forgiveness?
Analysis by Daisy Verduzco Reyes
Student debt holders demonstrate outside of the White House on July 27. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images)
Since March 2020, federal student loan repayments have been on pause. With that pause scheduled to end Aug. 31, many borrowers are anxiously waiting to see whether President Biden will offer any student loan forgiveness, as promised during his campaign.
How has the pause affected millennials’ lives?
For the past 14 years, I’ve tracked a cohort of 60 Latinx millennials, most children of immigrants and childhood arrivals, who were college students in 2008. Most took out student loans. Most recently, I interviewed many of them in 2018-2019, before the student loan repayment pause, and again this April through July, as the pause has been set to expire. I found that for those carrying debt, the pause didn’t just help them to make ends meet during the pandemic — it also enabled them to provide for parents and other kin, pay off consumer debts, have weddings, plan families and start saving toward homeownership.
Latinx graduates and the student loan burden
The graduates I interviewed attended three different colleges in California: a private liberal arts college, a public research university and a regional public university. Most are children of Mexican immigrants and the first in their family to attend college. By 2018 and 2019, the impact of student loans on them was clear. Repayments were a burden on their emotional well-being and limited their life choices. Over half were helping their parents financially, either giving them money outright or living with parents and covering rent and mortgages. Such assistance is common among Latinx immigrant families, making the burden of student loans even heavier.
Deidra, for example, was 27 and living with her immigrant parents and two adult siblings when I spoke to her in 2018. (Note: All names used here are pseudonyms in keeping with the study’s guarantees of confidentiality.) Although she was working full-time as a counselor, most of her income went toward loan repayments and helping her parents pay off debt accrued for her own and her sister’s education. Financial stress was taking its toll: Deidra cried when talking about her debt and shared that she was delaying marriage and having children.
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The pandemic and the pause
Then in 2020, the coronavirus hit — and it hit Latinx communities particularly hard. Latinx people were more likely than any other ethnic-racial group to work jobs deemed “essential.” They were more likely than White people to get sick, have trouble accessing care and die of the virus.
For the interviewees I caught up with in 2022, 80 percent of whom had student loan balances, the repayment pause was welcome news. Deidra recently married and is planning to have children soon. She and her husband were finally able to have a wedding and start saving for a house.
Melinda, also the child of Mexican immigrants, holds a master’s in counseling and is expecting her first child. She does not yet qualify for paid maternity leave through her employer, so the repayments pause has eased some of her anxiety about “all of the expenses” associated with motherhood.
Who should pay for college? Here's what Americans believe.
Like many Americans, these graduates grew up hearing that college was the key to success. As immigrants and children immigrants, they sought to realize this dream for themselves and their parents. A decade after graduating, however, they have a more critical perspective.
Carlos grew up poor and is the first in his family to go to college. He recalls being told that “when you go to school, you’ll get out of here.” But after two degrees, including a master’s of social work from a prestigious private university, he says, “I still feel like I haven’t really moved too far out of my social class, which is something that we all want to do. … I’m kind of in the same place.” Even with the repayment pause, he says, “I feel a lot of relief whenever I have a chance to pay off something … But this is something that I never will.”
Karla took out most of her loans to get a master’s in industrial engineering. She now lives in a single-family home with her partner, two adult siblings, her mother and an in-law. She observes, “It doesn’t make sense, in my head, to pay all of this interest for student loans and to continue to pay for it for years … You’ve essentially paid off whatever you borrowed; you still have almost double the amount in interest payments.”
Karla adds that debates about who “deserves” loan forgiveness are “really hard to hear” when they don’t take race, ethnicity and generational class privilege into account. When people say, “Well, you could have chosen a different, cheaper college,” she explains, “you don’t understand what it’s like to be a first-Gen Latina and have to choose what colleges to go to. It’s not just: ‘Oh, it’s the cheapest.’ It’s: ‘Do you have support from the staff? Is there diversity?’… There’s so many things … that inform our decision on what college to go to.”
The question of who has to take out loans in the first place is far from neutral. Seventy-two percent of Latinx students finish four-year undergraduate programs with debt, compared with 66 percent of White students.
Loan forgiveness would allow these graduates to pursue basic goals shared by many: to make ends meet, start families, save for retirement and start saving to buy a home. What makes their stories distinct is the impact of student loan debt across generations. Latinx children of immigrants are more likely to live in multigenerational homes and more likely to financially support their parents compared with other racial and ethnic groups. Forgiveness doesn’t just benefit the borrower; it benefits their children and their parents.
As sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom puts it, “The people making the rules did not talk straight with the American people about what college debt would actually cost, how it would work, and what it would mean for economic mobility.”
How the U.S. census ignores Afro-Latinos
Daisy Verduzco Reyes (@direyes29) is associate professor of sociology at the University of California Merced and author of “Learning to Be Latino: How Colleges Shape Identity Politics” (Rutgers University Press, 2018). | 2022-08-12T11:25:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How student loan debt affects Latino millennials' lives - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/biden-student-debt-pause-forgiveness/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/biden-student-debt-pause-forgiveness/ |
Post Politics Now House poised to send Inflation Reduction Act to Biden for his signature
On our radar: Oz commits to five debates in coming weeks
On our radar: House to vote on Inflation Reduction Act, preparing bill for Biden
The latest: Under fire, Homeland Security watchdog delays probe — with GOP help
The latest: FBI searched Trump’s home to look for nuclear documents and other items, sources say
Noted: Florida to bar Medicaid coverage for those seeking gender-affirming care
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) during the signing of the Chips and Science Act on the South Lawn of the White House on Tuesday. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
Today, the House returns to Washington for the expected passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping package that aims to lower health-care costs, combat climate change, raise taxes on some large companies and reduce the deficit. The legislation would then go to President Biden for his signature, handing the president the latest in a summer string of legislative victories.
Meanwhile, drama continues to play out over the FBI search this week of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence. Late Thursday, Trump said he would welcome the release of a court-authorized search warrant in the case. Earlier Friday morning, he tried to push back on Washington Post reporting that classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought. “Nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax,” Trump said in a social media post.
9 a.m. Eastern time: The House convenes to debate and later vote on the Inflation Reduction Act. Watch live here.
9:30 a.m. Eastern: Rep. Michael R. Turner (Ohio), the ranking Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, holds a news conference on the FBI’s search of Trump’s Florida residence. Watch live here.
1o a.m. Eastern: The Congressional Progressive Caucus holds a news conference on the Inflation Reduction Act.
10:45 a.m. Eastern: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) holds her weekly news conference. Watch live here.
1:35 p.m. Pacific (4:35 p.m. Eastern): Vice President Harris delivers remarks in Oakland, Calif., on the administration’s support for the commercial space sector. Watch live here.
Former president Donald Trump said late Thursday that he encourages the release of the court-authorized search warrant that was used by the FBI to enter his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Fla., earlier this week.
On Friday morning, he weighed in again on the case on social media, seeking to push back on Washington Post reporting that classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items that FBI agents sought from his home.
Justice Department lawyers filed a motion in federal court earlier Thursday seeking to unseal the search warrant in the case, noting that Trump had publicly revealed the search shortly after it happened on Monday.
“Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the unAmerican, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid and break-in of my home in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents, even though they have been drawn up by radical left Democrats and possible future political opponents, who have a strong and powerful vested interest in attacking me, much as they have done for the last 6 years,” Trump posted.
Trump is believed to have a copy of the search warrant in his possession and could release it and related documents on his own. The White House has said it was unaware of the search before it occurred.
In its motion, the Justice Department said that the public has a “clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred under these circumstances” and that it “weighs heavily in favor of unsealing.”
“That said, the former President should have an opportunity to respond to this Motion and lodge objections, including with regards to any ‘legitimate privacy interests’ or the potential for other ‘injury’ if these materials are made public,” the motion said.
Mehmet Oz, the Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, said Friday morning that he will participate in at least five debates ahead of the November election. The first is set for early September.
His Democratic opponent, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, is set to appear onstage Friday evening for his first rally after suffering a stroke in May that has largely kept him off the campaign trail. Fetterman’s campaign has said he is recovering, although videos released by his campaign show that his speech is at times halting.
The timing of Oz’s announcement is designed to focus attention on one of the questions hanging over Fetterman’s recovery: How will he perform on a debate stage?
The campaign is among the marquee contests that will determine which party controls the Senate for the next two years.
The debates that Oz has committed to attend include ones hosted by KDKA-TV Pittsburgh on Sept. 6, WFMZ-TV in Allentown and Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce on Sept. 9, and Nexstar Media Group on Oct. 5, according to the Oz campaign. Oz also has promised to attend one hosted by FOX 29 News Philadelphia, in partnership with Spotlight PA and WGAL-TV Harrisburg.
The Post’s Tony Romm reports that with debate set to begin in the morning, and a vote on passage likely later in the afternoon, the chamber is on track to deliver for Democrats a major legislative victory — one that party lawmakers already have touted on the campaign trail in a bid to protect and expand their majorities in this year’s midterm elections. Per Tony:
President Biden on Friday is continuing a family vacation on Kiawah Island in South Carolina, where he arrived Wednesday. He has no public events scheduled.
Vice President Harris is scheduled to continue a West Coast swing, with events Friday in Oakland, Calif., her birthplace.
In the morning, she plans to visit a nonprofit organization to talk about the benefits of higher education. In the afternoon, Harris plans to tour Chabot Space and Science Center and deliver remarks about the administration’s support for the commercial space sector.
The White House has faced mounting questions about a decision by the Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s office to abandon attempts to recover missing Secret Service texts from Jan. 6, 2021.
The Post’s Lisa Rein has the latest:
President Biden, in response, has signaled his intention to stay out of the process as an independent watchdog investigates the inspector general.
You can read Lisa’s full story here.
The Post’s Devlin Barrett, Josh Dawsey, Perry Stein and Shane Harris report that experts in classified information said the unusual search underscores deep concern among government officials about the types of information they thought could be located at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and potentially in danger of falling into the wrong hands.
A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department and FBI declined to comment.
Transgender Floridians of all ages will soon no longer be able to use Medicaid to help pay for gender-affirming care under a new state rule, as Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration pursues policies increasing restrictions on medical treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
The Post’s Anne Branigin and Annie Gowen report that Florida joins at least 10 other states — including Arizona, Missouri and Texas — in barring residents from using Medicaid to pay for several often-prescribed medications and surgeries for those diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Our colleagues write:
The rule was published Wednesday and is slated to take effect Aug. 21.
Florida’s move is a “major change” that is going to disrupt low-income members of the transgender community who have been receiving treatment through Medicaid for years, said Carl Charles, senior attorney of the Southern Regional Office for Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ advocacy group.
He said his group was “alarmed” to see the measure come so quickly and that “people would be right to assume” the move has the stamp of approval from DeSantis, who is widely considered a potential contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. | 2022-08-12T11:25:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | House poised to send Inflation Reduction Act to Biden for his signature - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/house-inflation-trump-nuclear-weapons/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/house-inflation-trump-nuclear-weapons/ |
Good morning, Early Birds. Please, no more “fission expedition” jokes. Tips: earlytips@washpost.com. Thanks for waking up with us.
Trump won't oppose release of warrant for Mar-a-Lago search
A big development in the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.
“Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of former president Donald Trump’s Florida residence on Monday, according to people familiar with the investigation,” The Post's Devlin Barrett, Josh Dawsey, Perry Stein and Shane Harris report.
The new details came hours after Attorney General Merrick Garland held a brief news conference saying nothing about the reason for the search, but that he personally approved moving forward with requesting a search warrant and that he has asked for the search warrant to be unsealed.
"Experts in classified information said the unusual search underscores deep concern among government officials about the types of information they thought could be located at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and potentially in danger of falling into the wrong hands," Devlin, Josh, Perry and Shane report.
In a statement on Thursday night, Trump said he wouldn't oppose the Justice Department's motion to unseal the search warrant.
“I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents, even though they have been drawn up by radical left Democrats and possible future political opponents, who have a strong and powerful vested interest in attacking me, much as they have done for the last 6 years,” Trump said.
Garland spoke as police in Cincinnati were in a standoff with an armed man attempting to gain access to an FBI field office. Many Republicans have targeted the FBI and the Department of Justice as political pawns of President Biden and some have even suggested, without evidence, that the FBI planted items at Mar-a-Lago during their search.
“A law enforcement source told The Washington Post that the man’s name is Ricky Shiffer. According to another law enforcement official familiar with the investigation, agents are investigating Shiffer’s possible ties to extremist groups, including the Proud Boys — a far-right group whose leaders are accused of helping launch the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol,” The Post's James Bikales and Meryl Kornfield report.
How Republicans — many of whom quickly came to Trump's defense earlier this week — respond?
Republicans led by Rep. Michael R. Turner (Ohio), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, are scheduled to hold a news conference this morning to discuss the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. The event was scheduled Thursday morning — before Garland's announcement and The Post's reporting. Late Thursday night, the far-right House Freedom Caucus cancelled their press conference on the FBI search due to a “scheduling conflict.” A spokesperson said in a press release that it would be rescheduled.
On Embassy Row
Afghanistan's last ambassador to Washington talks ahead of withdrawal anniversary
Nine questions for … Adela Raz: We spoke with the last Afghan ambassador to Washington — who's now the director of Princeton University's Afghanistan Policy Lab — ahead of the first anniversary of the fall of the Afghan government. This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
The Early: It’s been nearly a year since the U.S. left Afghanistan. The country’s economy is on the verge of collapse and up to half the country is facing starvation, according to the United Nations. How would you describe the situation there now?
Raz: It was a poor country, and it is a poor country. It has gone through droughts. Climate change has definitely impacted the country. It's a country right now with half of its population being expected to stay home and not work, which is women. There are shortages of food. The financial sector is absolutely broken. It’s truly a dire situation. It’s a humanitarian catastrophe in terms of people being hungry, in terms of people having no job, in terms of shortages of food and the health situation.
The Early: You stayed on as ambassador for more than six months after the Afghan government fell. What was your life like during these months? Were you able to do your job?
Raz: It was not easy. It was very hard on many levels. I tried my best to identify what I could do in the short term. The focus was on those Afghans who were in the process to be evacuated. We tried to see how we could process their paperwork, advocate on their behalf, link them to the institutions and individuals who were helping them out.
The Early: Were you still being paid?
Raz: No, no. [The Afghan government's payments to the embassy] arrived on a quarterly basis. So [after the government fell] we knew that the budget was limited. It helped us for the next two to three months, and then there was no more salary.
The Early: Citibank froze the embassy’s bank account at one point to avoid violating sanctions against the Taliban. How did the embassy function without a bank account?
Raz: As soon as that happened, we started to get into conversations with Citibank. Our hope on a daily basis was that it [would be unfrozen] the next week, the next month, a month later. In terms of the finances, the good news was that the embassy building is the property of Afghan people. We didn't have to pay rent. It was the utilities that we had to really manage. There were times when the internet was not working, we even [had to] use our phones [as hotspots] to connect to our computers and use them.
The Early: What has happened to the diplomats who worked in the embassy and in Afghanistan’s consulates and their families? Have they been able to stay in the U.S.?
Raz: Yes, most of them have been able to stay.
The Early: Your husband worked for Ashraf Ghani, the former Afghan president. Has he been able to join you in the U.S.? What about your friends and family?
Raz: My husband was able to come later. He joined me here. My extended family — my aunts, uncles, cousins, the rest of the family — they are still back in Afghanistan. Some of my family members worked in the government before. They have difficult times right now. Those of my family members who did not work for the government, they continue their regular lives but with difficulties and complexities. For the younger women in my family who cannot go to school, it's extremely difficult and hard.
The Early: The Atlantic's George Packer detailed in January how hard the U.S. has made it for Afghans who worked for the Americans to get special immigrant visas and for other Afghans at risk from the Taliban to come to the U.S. What is the situation like now?
Raz: Those who worked with U.S. allies, those who worked with the Afghan government, with the Afghan security forces — we all know that their lives are in danger. For some, they’ve been killed. For some, they’re still in hiding. That's probably the most difficult aspect of all this — just thinking about all those Afghan security forces, those who couldn't leave the country.
The Early: You've said that one of the goals of the Afghan Policy Lab is “national healing and reconciliation. What does that look like? Can it happen while the Taliban remains in power?
Raz: I'm not really sure, to be very honest, if it can happen now. For Afghans, the big question we always think [about] is why we move from one conflict to another conflict. We have to address our grievances, which we have not done, at least in the last 40 years. We need to look long term. We always say in the Lab, it's not an easy question. There is not going to be an answer right away. But we have to start thinking about it now.
The Early: What does the U.S. strike killing Ayman al-Zawahiri mean for Afghanistan?
Raz: For many Afghans, we weren't too surprised. We knew the Taliban’s commitment to not create space for terrorist groups like al-Qaeda — it's very difficult to deliver on that commitment, because there is so much interconnection between the Taliban and these groups. But it was hurtful to think that it happened in less than a year, and it happened in the heart of Kabul. For my generation, it really brought [back] the terrible memories [of what] we had gone through post-9/11. It took us such a long time to [recover from] Afghanistan being linked to terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. And now, I think, to be known for that once again is very hurtful.
When I first came to the U.S. in 2004, for quite a few years whenever I would go anywhere — I’d maybe be taking a cab or getting an ice cream — when people would find out I'm from Afghanistan, a lot of times the question would be ‘Oh, do you know where is Osama bin Laden?’ And I would feel hurt. I just didn't know where he is, and I couldn’t explain to them that Afghans are not terrorists and this is one individual being protected by a small group of people there. And then it was also very joyous when, in 2018, I traveled to Sri Lanka — I was in a cab and the cab driver, when he found out I was from Afghanistan, his first question was — we have a very well-known cricket player, [Rashid Khan], and he asked me, ‘Do you know him?’ And I said, ‘Of course I do.’ And then we talked about cricket. That's where we wanted to see Afghanistan to move forward.
Democrats' best day?
Could today be Biden's best day of his presidency?
The House is back in to vote on the Democrats' $740 billion climate, health care and tax bill, and if it passes as expected, it would allow Democrats to argue they have overseen a productive Congress and to tell voters they are trying to address soaring inflation by reducing the budget deficit. They wrote that message into the title of the bill — the Inflation Reduction Act.
While Democrats say the bill will tame rising prices, Republicans say it will make the problem worse. Experts have offered a more mixed picture, with the Penn Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania saying its impact will be negligible.
Either way, it is the largest infusion of climate focused cash ever in the U.S., it fulfills a two-decade long promise by Democrats to allow the government to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs in Medicare and it raises taxes on corporations, another long-standing promise of Democrats.
But first the House must pass the bill.
A long day?
Democrats have a slim majority and can only lose four votes. The bill will pass. The question is: Will any Democrats defect?
The day could also drag out, depending on Republican attempts to slow the bill's passage by forcing Democrats to take politically difficult votes. Final passage is expected between 2:30 and 3:30 p.m. But that feels optimistic.
Democrats will also be taking their victory lap.
Various groups of Democrats are holding news conferences celebrating the bill. House progressives will hold one as well as Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) and the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.) will hold a press call with the health care advocacy group Protect Our Care. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will hold her weekly news conference, too.
Kicking off the day, newly elected Rep. Brad Finstad (R-Minn.) will be sworn in. He won a special election on Tuesday to replace Republican Rep. Jim Hagedorn, who died in February.
Embattled DHS watchdog, GOP allies delay probe
Delay, delay, delay: Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari is being investigated by an independent panel of federal watchdogs from the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE). “But Cuffari and his staff have refused to release certain documents and tried to block interviews, effectively delaying that probe, which has now stretched for more than 15 months and evolved into a wide-ranging inquiry into more than a dozen allegations of misconduct raised by whistleblowers and other sources,” our colleague Lisa Rein reports.
“Some Republican senators have also raised stiff resistance to the investigation … Led by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) the senators have demanded that investigators scale back records requests from Cuffari’s office and pressed them on their motives.”
We usually like our coffee break(s) to be lighthearted, especially on a Friday. But this weekend is the 10-year anniversary of Washington Post freelance journalist Austin Tice's captivity in Syria (his 41st birthday was Thursday). His parents have been fighting for him ever since. This Manuel Roig-Franzia piece is both devastating and full of hope.
The Inflation Reduction Act could push climate change tech into the future. By The Post’s Pranshu Verma and Evan Halper.
The new Wall Street tax key to Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act. By The Post’s Jacob Bogage.
The bland ambition of Kevin McCarthy. By the New Republic’s Grace Segers and Daniel Strauss.
Trump hires #BillionDollarLawyer. By the New York Times’s Danny Hakim and Richard Fausset.
The poisoned relationship between Trump and the keepers of U.S. secrets. By the New York Times’s Mark Mazzetti.
CDC loosens coronavirus guidance, signaling strategic shift. By The Post’s Lena H. Sun and Joel Achenbach.
FBI says armed man tried to breach Cincinnati field office. By The Post’s Meryl Kornfield and James Bikales.
Groups get creative to help Alaska voters with ranked voting. By AP News’s Becky Bohrer.
In Albuquerque murders, American Shi’ite Muslims see old divides they hoped to leave behind. By Time Magazine’s Sanya Mansoor.
Local news: Virginia center is first stop in U.S. for thousands of Afghan refugees. By The Post’s Steve Thompson.
World news: World ignored monkeypox threats, including signs of sexual transmission. By The Post’s Mark Johnson.
Lawmakers mourned the loss of Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) during a two-hour service at Granger Community Church in Indiana on Thursday.
“It is impossible on one day to quantify what this lady liberty, what this true Hoosier, torch-bearer, this good and faithful servant, accomplished before she entered eternity and met her maker’s smiling, determined face,” Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb of the 58-year-old congresswoman.
Jackie Walorski’s casket arriving at Granger Community Church. pic.twitter.com/bTzPSmo09N
— Jordan Hatfield ABC57 (@JayHatfieldTV) August 11, 2022
Late Congresswoman Jackie Walorski’s husband, Dean Swihart, playing saxophone at her funeral to “How Great Thou Art.” pic.twitter.com/EJIYXhgONS
— Erica Finke WSBT (@EricaFinkeTV) August 11, 2022 | 2022-08-12T11:25:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump Mar-a-Lago search goes nuclear - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/trump-mar-a-lago-search-goes-nuclear/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/trump-mar-a-lago-search-goes-nuclear/ |
‘Leadership decapitation’ can inspire Islamist extremist groups and followers to carry out more attacks, my research finds
Analysis by Jenna Jordan
Afghans shout anti-U.S. and anti-Pakistan slogans during a demonstration against a U.S. drone strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul on Aug. 5, 2022. (EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Just over a week ago, and 11 years after killing al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, the United States killed bin Laden’s successor Ayman al-Zawahiri with a drone strike in Kabul. Zawahiri led the Egyptian Islamic Jihad until its merger with al-Qaeda in 2001, and then led al-Qaeda from May 2011 until his death. Unlike al-Qaeda’s more charismatic and ideologically passionate founder, Zawahiri’s leadership was reserved and restrained. Some criticized that style as weak and ineffective; under him, al-Qaeda split with its affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, and the Islamic State rose, declared a caliphate in 2014 and then declined with territorial losses.
Nevertheless, Zawahiri managed the organization during a time when Western counterterrorism efforts focused on the Islamic State. He kept the loyalty of many of al-Qaeda’s affiliated organizations and its key senior leaders. According to the international relations scholars Tricia Bacon and Elizabeth Grimm, Zawahiri served as “caretaker of bin Laden’s legacy” — and succeeded in maintaining al-Qaeda’s ideological and organizational coherence.
Nevertheless, his death probably won’t weaken the organization. In fact, under new leadership, al-Qaeda now has a new and significant opportunity for growth and increased influence.
Does killing terrorist groups’ leaders work?
In my book, I examine whether capturing or killing terrorist leaders — or what political scientists call “leadership decapitation” — works to reduce terrorist attacks or dismantle terrorist groups. Examining more than 1,000 instances of such decapitation from 1970 to 2016 revealed that the strategy doesn’t really work against religious, separatist, Islamist extremist, larger and older organizations. In fact, sometimes decapitation actually prompts groups to launch more terrorist attacks more often. Why?
These three factors made the difference in whether decapitation hurt or inspired a terrorist group: organizational structure, popular support and ideology.
Organizational structures make a big difference
First, a terrorist group’s ability to withstand decapitation depends on how it is structured. Some are structured like bureaucracies, with standard operating procedures, administrative responsibilities divided among various lieutenants, and clear lines of succession. Groups structured this way are more likely to remain stable after a leader dies. Under bin Laden, al-Qaeda developed a bureaucratic organization structure. As a result, after he was killed, al-Qaeda swiftly elevated al-Zawahiri as his successor, minimizing uncertainty about the organization’s future.
While al-Qaeda has not yet announced its plans for al-Zawahiri’s successor, the group retains the conditions it needs for a smooth leadership transition. Its Shura Council, its executive leadership responsible for coordinating and approving major operations, remains active. Many analysts have speculated that the organization might select Saif al-Adel, a longtime al-Qaeda operative, as Zawahiri’s successor. Adel has considerable military and operational expertise and has garnered respect from the group’s leadership. He has the skills and experience to inspire loyalty, strengthen the group’s organizational structure and secure its affiliate relationships.
Terrorist groups also have found considerable benefits to organizational decentralization. Al-Qaeda has done this as well by expanding its network of affiliated organizations, or Islamist militant groups, operating in Africa, Asia and the Middle East that have sworn allegiance to its leader. These affiliates largely focus on local and regional agendas but can mobilize toward al-Qaeda’s transnational goals.
As a result, al-Qaeda has a hybrid structure, hierarchical at the top and decentralized at the lower operation levels, which makes it especially resilient after decapitation. Zawahiri provided the affiliates operational and financial support, thereby expanding al-Qaeda’s geographic reach and gaining recruits. While affiliates often have considerable autonomy, the core can offer an overarching ideological orientation. All of that remains despite Zawahiri’s death.
‘Islamic State in Africa’ explores nine militant Islamist groups
Ideological strength matters as well
Second, decapitation is less likely to undo religious organizations, specifically Islamist extremist groups, because their ideology is coherent, self-reinforcing, and doesn’t depend on a specific leader to survive. The religious motivations transcend the leadership itself.
Bin Laden was particularly adept at broadening al-Qaeda’s ideological appeal, through rhetoric that highlighted its commitment to both national causes and the global Islamist extremist movement. Al-Qaeda’s propaganda arm was successful at messaging, enlarging support and securing ideological adherence from its affiliated groups. Zawahiri continued these efforts.
Local support offers critical resources
Finally, terrorist groups with strong support from the communities in which they operate can access critical resources, financial support, potential recruits and legitimacy, all needed to survive the loss of a leader. Al-Qaeda has done that effectively through its own and its affiliates’ messaging under bin Laden and Zawahiri.
Zawahiri’s death seems to have created an opening for a successor with the personal and operational skills necessary to re-energize al-Qaeda, expand its ideological reach to new audiences, grow its base of support, and continue strengthening ties with affiliated organizations.
5 ways the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan will hurt Pakistan
Sometimes, targeting leaders can increase terrorism
Sometimes, decapitation can embolden groups to launch retaliatory attacks or inspire previously passive followers to become active in the struggle. Terrorists often launch attacks after high-profile leadership deaths to signal that they have not been weakened and intend to continue fighting. The desire for revenge can be powerful, motivating existing members and other followers and supporters.
For instance, after a 2019 raid led by U.S. Special Operations forces resulted in the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, spokesman Abu Hamza al-Qurashi called upon Islamic State followers to avenge that death, which rallied the global Islamist militant community. Similarly, a month after a U.S. drone strike killed Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi this past February, ISIS Khorasan, a regional affiliate in Central and South Asia, claimed responsibility for an attack on a Shiite mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, that killed 57 people and wounded more than 100. This attack was part of a retaliatory campaign of repeated attacks launched after deaths. Al-Qaeda’s followers may similarly launch retaliatory attacks.
Killing a terrorist group’s leader can reassure Americans that their government is engaged in the war on terrorism. It’s a highly visible, low-cost alternative to large-scale military operations or efforts to reshape governments. But policymakers may wish to be realistic about what decapitation can actually achieve — and consider the possibility that attacks on high-profile leaders may increase terrorism under new and more effective leadership.
Jenna Jordan, associate professor and associate chair of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology, is the author of “Leadership Decapitation: Strategic Targeting of Terrorist Organizations” (Stanford University Press, 2019). | 2022-08-12T11:25:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The U.S. killed al-Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri. Will that reduce terrorism? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/zawahiri-drone-kabul-al-qaeda/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/zawahiri-drone-kabul-al-qaeda/ |
He said the ship would load in a Ukrainian port and depart for Ethiopia, saying “cooperation of all involved actors is key” to avoid food shortage and hunger around the world. Such a move would be a big step in the food crisis caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. | 2022-08-12T11:25:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Grain ship to dock in Ukraine, leave for Africa - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/grain-ship-to-dock-in-ukraine-leave-for-africa/2022/08/12/d2dd2ff6-1a2a-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/grain-ship-to-dock-in-ukraine-leave-for-africa/2022/08/12/d2dd2ff6-1a2a-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
If the Senate spending bill becomes law, it would send a jolt of energy and cash for experimental green energy solutions
(Emily Wright/The Washington Post)
Direct air capture machines
Carbon capture rail cars
Superhot rock energy
Carbon-free building blocks
Fusion energy
Billions in tax credits to make electric vehicles cheaper. Hefty fees for high-polluting gas and oil companies. Funding to speed the production of solar panels and wind turbines. Cash to create the country’s first “green bank.”
The Inflation Reduction Act, which passed the Senate on Sunday, would unlock roughly $369 billion to battle climate change — far less than what some lawmakers originally proposed, but it still marks the single largest investment in combating global warming in American history.
The proposed legislation includes tax credits, rule changes and grant dollars to lower carbon emissions and reduce household power bills. It could also have another effect: Making experimental green energy solutions, fantastical ideas that seem stolen from science fiction movies, more appetizing for investors to fund.
Start-ups, researchers and established companies across the country piloting creative solutions will likely get a jolt of energy and cash.
“The U.S. needs it all,” Lindsey Baxter Griffith, federal policy director of the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental nonprofit, said in a statement. “This bill has a lot of it.”
The Washington Post talked with company leaders and climate change experts about some of the more intriguing solutions being studied and developed. Here are a few getting attention.
To the naked eye, direct air capture machines look like shipping containers stacked on each other, dominating open swaths of land. They are designed to eliminate carbon: either by sucking it out of the air and storing it deep underground or by converting it into something solid, removing it from the atmosphere permanently.
The technology has caught the attention of the Biden administration, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and companies such as Alphabet and Meta. Proponents say carbon capture technology is a creative and essential way to rapidly slow the Earth’s warming and reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Critics say it’s more important to focus on reducing greenhouse gases by changing behaviors in society.
Still, the spending bill offers companies a tax credit of $180 per ton of carbon they capture, up from $50 per ton — a boon for the industry. To qualify, projects would need to remove at least 1,000 tons of carbon, dropped down from a more restrictive 100,000 tons.
Adrian Corless, the chief executive of Carbon Capture, based in Pasadena, Calif., said these changes will help his business scale up. Currently, he said, it costs his company roughly $400 to $500 per ton of carbon captured to operate.
Having a larger tax credit makes his business more attractive to investors and less reliant on philanthropy dollars, he said. Dropping the project size cap to qualify allows his company to partner with states, corporations and other entities on smaller projects across the country.
“It allows us to enter the market and have a business starting in 2023,” he said. “And it allows us to quickly drive our volumes.”
Carbon capture projects might not be limited to containers out in the middle of nowhere if CO2 Rail Company, an Austin-based company gets enough funding to pilot and scale their technology.
The company proposes putting carbon sucking machines that look like rail cars on existing trains. They would use power generated by the train’s braking system to function, eliminating energy costs which plague other carbon capture solutions.
There’s a carbon-capture gold rush. Some warn better solutions exist.
As the train travels, the rail cars would suck air and store the separated carbon in to a reservoir on board. Once the car reaches a rail yard, carbon would be emptied out into a CO2 rail tank or potentially injected into a pipeline.
Eric Bachman, the chief technology officer of CO2 Rail Company, said the $180 per ton tax credit in the spending bill helps make the case to investors that his company will be financially viable.
That’s crucial for his company, he said, as it’s in the middle of seeking around $10 million in funding, and trying to develop a prototype of the rail car to be functional by next year.
“This changes everything,” he said.
For years, scientists have used the heat generated from the Earth’s core to create geothermal energy and convert it into clean sources of power. But the spending bill could spur research and development for extreme versions of the technology, which remain years from fruition.
One particular concept is “Superhot rock energy.” The method, climate scientists say, aims to harness the intense heat generated from the Earth to develop an alternative energy source that could be a limitless source of energy that emits zero greenhouse gases.
It requires drilling miles down into the Earth until temperatures reach around 750 degrees Fahrenheit. After that, water would be pumped down where it would turn into steam and come back up to the earth into a turbine and be processed into energy.
The technology is years away from widespread use because of engineering challenges, said Bruce Hill, the chief geoscientist at the Clean Air Task Force. In parts of the world that get very cold and are away from breaks in the Earth’s plates, companies would need to drill upward of 9 miles deep to reach 750 degrees. The deepest anyone has ever drilled into the earth is almost 7.5 miles, Hill said.
The spending bill’s tax credit for geothermal technologies will spark research and development and help solve these challenges, said Terra Rogers, the Clean Air Task Force’s program director of superhot rock energy.
It signals “to early-stage investors that they will have support as they push superhot rock energy from the research, development, and demonstration stage into commercial viability,” she said.
At present, concrete production accounts for nearly 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
But house building could become more climate friendly if companies such as California’s Carbon Built, which makes a carbon-free concrete, scale up.
The most carbon-emitting part of creating concrete is the cement used to make it. One ton of carbon dioxide is emitted for every ton of cement produced, said Cindy McLaughlin, head of products at Carbon Built.
What Are Carbon Offsets and How Many Really Work?
Carbon Built offers concrete makers a product that retrofits onto their facilities allowing them to create concrete blocks primarily out of a less-carbon intensive material called calcium hydroxide. The company cures the concrete blocks using carbon dioxide captured from the air or biomass waste. It locks the CO2 used into the concrete blocks instead of putting it back into the atmosphere.
The process can reduce the carbon used in concrete production by 7o to 1oo percent, McLaughlin said. It costs roughly 1 to 2 million to retrofit concrete facilities with their technology. The company currently splits the cost with clients, she added.
But concrete makers are often small, mom-and-pop businesses that are reluctant to change and too cash-strapped to invest in retrofitting their facilities, McLaughlin said. The spending bill offers a 30 percent tax credit to any manufacturing facility that wants to retrofit its operations to be at least 2o percent less climate emitting. It also provides grant funding to modernize technology.
The bill “sort of turbo charges the investment opportunity for them,” she said. “There’s a moment when they sort of say: ‘Okay, we can’t not do this, it would be just stupid of us not to.’”
The Act promises an infusion of funding for “green hydrogen,” a zero-emissions hydrogen fuel capable of powering vehicles, jets and homes. The industry has struggled to bring down the cost of this technology, which is produced using wind and solar power and a high tech electrolysis process.
If prices can be made competitive with that of other forms of energy, hydrogen fuels could play a big role in lowering emissions. The hydrogen can also store solar and wind energy, helping to power the grid in off-hours, when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.
The nuclear industry for years has been trying to develop technology it promises will be smaller, nimbler and safer than the massive, decades-old reactors typically associated with nuclear energy.
Small scale, zero-emission nuclear plants could be used to power factories or small communities with the versatility — but not the pollution — of natural gas plants. The Act frees up funding for some of these projects, which would launch in the next few years.
The holy grail of energy: Fusion is the process through which two nuclei combine to form an atom — what keeps the sun burning and generating energy.
Scientists have been working for decades to replicate that process in the lab, producing unlimited clean, safe renewable energy at a low cost. Scientists remain a long way off from reaching this goal, but the Inflation Reduction Act invests hundreds of millions of dollars in continued research.
Evan Halper contributed to this report. | 2022-08-12T11:26:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The climate change-fighting tech the Inflation Reduction Act could fund - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/12/climate-technology-spending-bill/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/12/climate-technology-spending-bill/ |
Facebook’s role in a Nebraska case underscores the risks of communicating on unencrypted apps
Facebook, which rebranded itself as Meta, faced criticism on social media for its role in helping to prosecute what looked to many like a young woman’s efforts to end her pregnancy. (Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters)
The hashtag #DeleteFacebook trended on Twitter as activists decried the social media giant’s role in helping to prosecute what looked to many like a young woman’s efforts to end her pregnancy. In the face of the pushback, Facebook said the search warrant they received didn’t mention abortion but declined to say how the company would have responded if it had been clear the case was about an abortion.
Facebook might have had a good reason to stay silent on that question. Legal experts said that even if the nature of the case had been spelled out, the company wouldn’t have had any alternative but to comply.
Prosecutors and local law enforcement have strict rules they must follow to obtain individuals’ private communications or location data to bolster a legal cases. Once a judge grants a request for users’ data, tech companies can do little to avoid complying with the demands.
“If the order is valid and targets an individual, the tech companies will have relatively few options when it comes to challenging it,” said Corynne McSherry, legal director at the privacy advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. “That’s why it’s very important for companies to be careful about what they are collecting because if you don’t build it, they won’t come.”
How tech companies handle user data has come under growing scrutiny from privacy advocates, politicians and their own employees since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, making abortion illegal for millions of Americans. Privacy advocates have worried that tech companies’ massive collection of user data, from private messages to real-time location information to search results, could be used to prosecute those getting or facilitating abortions.
Despite repeated attempts in Congress, there is no comprehensive federal law protecting data privacy in the United States. On Thursday, the government’s top tech watchdog, the Federal Trade Commission, announced that it was exploring whether to create new federal rules to address privacy concerns surrounding health and location data.
“Some of the discussion around the recent Dobbs decision just underscores what many people have been saying for a long time: Consumer privacy is not just an abstract issue,” said Sam Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
To bolster the case, a law enforcement officer asked a court to order Facebook to turn over private messages between the women. In his application, the officer said the women had told investigators that they had texted back and forth on Messenger about Celeste’s pregnancy. In the messages, the two women discussed how to take pills and get the “thing” out of Celeste’s body, according to court records.
“On the basis of that warrant, they can go to the phone company and say, ‘Give me what I am asking for,’ ” Columbia Law School professor Daniel Richman said.
In March, a federal judge said authorities in Virginia had violated the constitution when they used Google location data to find people who were near the scene of a 2019 bank robbery. The ruling found that a widely used police tactic known as geo-fencing, where an agency asks a company for the identifying information of anyone whose phone was detected in a given area at a certain time, breached the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches because it gave police information about the location of many innocent people who were not suspects in the crime.
Many privacy activists say the abortion issue simply reinforces what they’ve been saying for years: Tech companies should collect less data that might be used in an abortion prosecution. Or messaging apps and device makers could implement end-to-end encryption, which means the data is scrambled so that outsiders, and even the company, cannot read it.
“This is obviously good for users of these devices because they don’t have to worry about who has access to what they assume are private conversations,” said Caitlin Seeley George, the campaign director of the privacy advocacy group Fight for the Future.
“It’s also good for the companies, because then they aren’t caught in this position where they have to try and defend themselves for their actions. They can just say, ‘We didn’t have an ability to share that information.’ ” | 2022-08-12T11:26:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Facebook had little choice but to surrender data in Nebraska abortion case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/12/nebraska-abortion-case-facebook/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/12/nebraska-abortion-case-facebook/ |
Friday briefing: What the FBI was looking for at Mar-a-Lago; new coronavirus guidelines; Inflation Reduction Act; monkeypox; and more
We learned more about why the FBI searched Donald Trump’s home.
The latest: Agents were at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida this week looking for classified documents related to nuclear weapons, according to Post reporting.
Why that matters: Material about nuclear weapons is especially sensitive. However, we still don’t know whether such documents were found.
The CDC loosened its coronavirus guidelines.
The big changes: Screening for covid is no longer recommended in most situations. Unvaccinated people exposed to the coronavirus or people exposed in schools don’t need to quarantine.
What this means: You’ll probably see policy changes in workplaces, schools and day cares. It puts more responsibility on individuals to limit the spread of the virus.
Why is this happening? The CDC says the U.S. is in a new phase of the pandemic, even though hospitalizations and deaths (tracked here) are still high.
The House is expected to pass Democrats’ major economic package today.
This is a big deal: The Inflation Reduction Act includes changes to the Affordable Care Act, the biggest climate bill in U.S. history, a large corporate tax hike and more.
Why a tax hike? It’s a 15% minimum rate on big companies like Amazon and Intel, which often pay far less, to fund the health-care and climate proposals.
Next step: It would go to President Biden to sign into law, which he’s expected to do.
The Arctic is warming much faster than scientists expected.
In one region, temperatures have increased at least four times faster than the global average, a significant new study revealed yesterday.
The big picture: This is just the latest sign of the growing, daily impact of climate change, along with floods, heat waves and drought. The U.S. is making progress on its climate goals but is still falling short.
A gunman was killed after trying to get into an FBI office in Ohio, officials said.
What we know: The man ran after triggering an alarm, leading to an hours-long standoff. He was shot after firing at officers, law enforcement said.
Agents are investigating the man’s possible ties to far-right extremist groups. Threats against the FBI have increased since its search of Mar-a-Lago.
There were years of missed warnings about the monkeypox outbreak.
What warnings? In 2010, researchers noted a big growth in cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A second alarm sounded in 2017 when Nigeria recorded its first case in 40 years.
Why this matters: It might have been possible to prevent the global outbreak of the normally rare virus.
Gen Zers don’t want to spend their lives stuck in a cubicle.
Who is Gen Z? People born between 1997 and 2012. Many are starting careers looking for wellness perks and flexibility to work from the office and remotely.
Why it matters: Gen Z will make up about 30% of total employment by 2030, so it could become increasingly important for employers to take these preferences into account.
And now … find your next favorite book with these recommendations from top authors, or try “The Sandman” on Netflix for something to watch. | 2022-08-12T11:26:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Friday, August 12 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/08/12/what-to-know-for-august-12/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/08/12/what-to-know-for-august-12/ |
Federally funded centers are a key part of the government’s healthcare safety net. A handful have recorded surpluses of 20 percent or more.
By Phil Galewitz
The walk-up pharmacy at Genesis Health Care, a community health center in Darlington, S.C., is key to its financial success. Genesis treats about 11,000 mostly low-income patients at its Darlington facility and six smaller clinics in South Carolina. (Phil Galewitz)
Those sales helped Genesis make a $19 million surplus on $52 million in revenue — a margin of 37 percent — in 2021, according to its audited financial statement. It was the fourth consecutive year the center’s surpluses had topped 35 percent, the records showed. The industry average is 5 percent, according to a federally funded report on health centers’ financial performance.
Some of America’s wealthiest hospital systems ended up even richer, thanks to federal bailouts
A KHN analysis found that a handful of the centers recorded surpluses of 20 percent or more in at least three of the past four years. Health policy experts say the surpluses alone should not raise concerns if the health centers are planning to use the money for patients. But they add that the high margins suggest a need for greater federal scrutiny of the industry and whether its money is being spent fast enough.
Beat cancer? Your Medicare Advantage plan might still be billing for it.
But Ge Bai, an accounting and health professor at Johns Hopkins University, questioned why some centers should be making surpluses of 20 percent or more over consecutive years.
The unintended consequences of the $178 billion bailout to keep hospitals and doctors afloat
Officials at the health centers defended their strong surpluses, saying the money allows them to expand services without being dependent on federal funds and helps them save for big projects, such as constructing new buildings. They pointed out that their operations are overseen by boards of directors, at least 51 percent of whom must be patients, ostensibly so operations meet the community’s needs.
The annual federal base grant for centers makes up about 20 percent of their funding on average, according to HRSA. The grants have more than doubled over the past decade. Federal grants to the centers are provided on a competitive basis each year based on a complex formula that takes into account the need for services in an area and whether clinics provide care to specific populations, such as people who are homeless, agricultural workers, or residents of public housing.
For its analysis, KHN started with research by Davlyatov that used centers’ tax filings to the IRS to identify the two dozen centers with the highest profit margins in 2019. KHN then examined those centers’ audited financial statements for the past four years (2018 through 2021), and found nine that had margins of 20 percent or more for at least three years.
The center — whose profit margins topped 25 percent from 2018 to 2020 — opened a $1.9 million facility in Ontario last year, and purchased the building that houses its main clinic, in La Habra, for $12.3 million with plans to expand it, he said. | 2022-08-12T11:26:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | For a few community health centers, serving the poor brings big surpluses - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/08/12/few-community-health-centers-serving-poor-brings-big-surpluses/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/08/12/few-community-health-centers-serving-poor-brings-big-surpluses/ |
The vote Friday marks the end of more than a year of internal debate and negotiations among Democrats over the president’s economic agenda
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) attends the Aug. 9 signing of the Chips and Science Act. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
With debate set to begin in the morning, and a vote on passage likely later in the afternoon, the chamber is on track to deliver for Democrats a major legislative victory — one that party lawmakers already have touted on the campaign trail in a bid to protect and expand their majorities in this year’s midterm elections.
“We’ve been fighting for decades — for decades — for the ability for the [government] to negotiate for lower prices,” Pelosi said, referring to the efforts to make seniors’ medicines more affordable.
“We cannot undervalue what this legislation does [over] what it does not do, and families will be very affected. The kitchen table issues are about the cost of health care.”
Democrats hope to fund the package through changes to tax laws, including a new minimum tax on some billion-dollar corporations that currently pay nothing to the federal government. They also seek taxes on companies that buy back their own stock, and money to help the Internal Revenue Service pursue tax cheats. Party lawmakers say the measures are enough to cover the costs of their bill and reduce the deficit by about $300 billion, though they have yet to furnish a final fiscal analysis.
Democrats need only band together in the House to overcome fierce and likely unanimous Republican opposition, having prevailed in a successful, party-line Senate vote on Sunday. The bill itself was forged in that chamber, after Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) brokered a long-elusive deal with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) last month.
Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.), the leader of the House Appropriations Committee, described the economic package ahead of the House vote as “historic legislation that really deals with issues that haven’t been dealt with for years.”
But House Republicans have sought to mount a stiff, united front against it anyway. They have attacked it as a tax increase on families, even though the bill does not raise individuals’ rates. And they have said it will worsen inflation while resulting in intrusive IRS audits, even though some of the money is focused on improving the agency’s well-known deficiencies.
Some Republicans have suggested they could weaponize the House’s procedural rules to slow the debate on Friday. GOP lawmakers did that in November, when Democrats considered their larger package known as the Build Back Better Act. While the House ultimately adopted the bill, the vote came after Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) seized on the speaking privileges afforded to party leaders — and held up the chamber floor for more than eight hours.
“Right now, we’re trying to defeat the bill,” said Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the House minority whip, in an interview before debate began. “If they vote for it, they know good and well it’s going to hurt low- and middle-income families.”
Reacting to the GOP opposition, Pelosi said the looming vote would offer Democrats a “big contrast” with their political foes entering this year’s midterm elections. She later added: “This is the path we’re on. The Republicans want to take us off this path.”
The House vote Friday marks the culmination of a long and winding debate that began last spring with the release of Biden’s blueprint, dubbed the “American Families Plan,” which marked the start of a broader Democratic effort to rewire the economy in the wake of the pandemic. The party’s proposal eventually would become known as the Build Back Better Act, borrowing from the president’s 2020 campaign slogan.
House Democrats adopted the roughly $2 trillion measure in November, despite months of warfare between the party’s own members. Liberals had sought a vast piece of spending legislation that greatly grew the role of government in Americans’ lives, while moderates urged more fiscal restraint. The tension at one point prompted Biden himself to intervene in October with a rare appearance on Capitol Hill, during which he urged unity around his economic agenda.
Yet their bill would never even see a vote in the Senate, where Manchin said last winter that he could not support spending so much given economic and geopolitical uncertainty. The moderate West Virginian’s opposition infuriated liberal lawmakers, who felt the party’s agenda — and in many ways its political prospects — had been hijacked by a single member who did not reflect the party’s broader views.
Even in its more scaled-back, renamed form, Democrats this week have hailed the Inflation Reduction Act as urgently needed and immediately beneficial to families in financial need. Pelosi said in the interview Thursday that she had emphasized to members that they should “respect the bill for what it does” rather than “make judgments about it for what it does not.”
The House speaker said the bill belonged to a longer line of recent legislative accomplishments, including the passage of a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package last year, the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law approved months later, and action to deliver new restrictions on guns approved after the school shooting in Uvalde, Tex., in May.
“There’s been a stranglehold of the gun industry, the pharmaceutical industry and the fossil fuel industry on Congress,” Pelosi said. “And right now, we have changed that dynamic. The leverage is now with the people’s interest, not the special interest.” | 2022-08-12T11:26:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inflation Reduction Act: House to vote on final passage Friday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/08/12/inflation-reduction-act-house-vote/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/08/12/inflation-reduction-act-house-vote/ |
Zedd, the Grammy-winning DJ, was burned out. PC gaming was the fix.
(Washington Post illustration; HyperX)
Most people probably know Anton “Zedd” Zaslavski as a Grammy-winning EDM producer and DJ. Two of the musician’s songs on Spotify have more than 1 billion plays. But a smaller subset of that audience also knows Zedd as a gamer.
Zaslavski, who has created skins for Riot Games’ “Valorant” and music for “League of Legends,” is now deepening his professional involvement and association with the gaming industry by becoming a global brand ambassador for peripheral company HyperX. The collaboration, the musician said, started “completely organically through social media,” where mutual admiration sparked a conversation that eventually turned toward business.
The Washington Post spoke with the 32-year-old about how he got into gaming, his collaboration with Riot Games on “Valorant” skins and the ways in which he says music is like language.
Launcher: Can you just share a little bit about how you got into gaming?
Anton “Zedd” Zaslavski: I’ve always been gaming since I was a little kid, I was probably like, five years old or so with the Sega consoles, Sonic the Hedgehog, that kind of stuff was what I started out with. And then I think when I was like, I don’t even know, 13, I started playing “Counter-Strike.” And that’s when I really got into the competitive side of gaming.
When my career started, I kind of paused gaming, just because everything got crazy busy. And things got a little off balance. And at some point, I kind of brought the balance back into my life. I got a PC, and I started gaming, and it kind of became my routine after work.
I try to keep a balanced life. And to me a balanced life is not to work 24/7, but to have your time when you’re in the studio or on the road. And then when you have time off, for me, that’s gaming.
When you got back into gaming, what game brought you back into the fold?
Zedd: It was “Overwatch.” I was playing “Overwatch” on PS4. And I’m not good with a controller. I’ve always played mouse and keyboard. And I wanted to be better than I could be with a controller. So that’s when I got a PC and started playing and got the itch back. And then, “Valorant” came out, and I sunk even deeper into the gaming world. And I still play “Valorant” today.
Evil Geniuses, XSET, 100 Thieves and the pitch to make Riot's 'Valorant' league
There was a collaboration you did with Riot Games to create skins and music for “Valorant.” How did you find that experience? Was it different from your normal day-to-day work creating music?
Zedd: Yeah, it was super fun working with Riot on those skins. Mainly because I feel like I was borderline burned out. I was working on my album. We had a whole pandemic. There were just a lot of things going on that made me not inspired to do what I typically do, especially not being able to go to clubs and stuff like that as much.
Working on the skin line and the sound design and the whole psychology that goes into how you feel when you use a certain skin, and why you like one better than another, I dove really deep into that. And it was super fun. I learned so much doing that. And now I still play the game and I have my own skin in the game. And like I know every bit of how it sounds. It’s just kind of awesome. It was one-of-a-kind experience for me for sure.
What were some particularly interesting things that you learned while doing research around those skins?
Zedd: I had a really specific idea of what I wanted to do with my skin in terms of sound design. Because I’ve been playing the game since the alpha and I like certain skins better than others. And I know all my friends prefer certain skins over others. And I was like, well, it’s probably not the look because they’re somewhat comparable. But I felt like the sound has one of the biggest impacts on how you feel about a skin. And so, I really wanted my skin to be sound-driven, instead of it being based on a particular look. I think all our first ideas came from sound and not from like, what we’re going to make it look like.
I had a very particular idea of what I wanted the sound to feel like. And then the big question was: How do I push my skin to feel different without it being technically better? What can you do? How can you get creative with — these are random things but — a gunshot? I used, as a base layer, a snare drum and a kick drum together — something that I use in my world a lot, and it gives you a similar punch, like a shot would. But that was the base layer, and I built on that and just experimented. I’ve never had to do that. I’ve never had to reimagine what a futuristic sci-fi laser version of a gun that I’ve been using in this game for so long would feel like, or sound like. There’s a lot I learned in experimenting there.
Do you go through a similar process when you’re creating new songs?
Zedd: I think it depends on the kind of song I’m working on. Some songs tend to be more sound design driven, where that little bit of a difference is within the sound. And sometimes that difference, which is probably more the case with my music, is within a chord.
I really like to make music accessible. I see music like language, where you can make it overly complicated. And then it becomes language for people who speak the language really well. Or it can be a language that more people can understand. And you can build in little things like a specific chord that is out of the ordinary that, you know, musicians, or people like that will be like, Oh, I know what he did there. But it doesn’t shock other people to the point where they don’t get it. That’s kind of how I approach my music.
But every song at a certain stage during production will require you to think about what’s going to make your song stand out from the other billions of songs. And that something can be a specific sound design.
You’ve just become a brand ambassador for HyperX, the gaming peripherals brand. What drove you toward this?
Zedd: When I got into PC gaming again, there was this moment of, well, I’m going to need everything. And I just did some research and I tried a bunch of headsets. And I just thought the HyperX headsets were by far the most comfortable, especially for longer periods of time. So I’ve just been using them ever since I got back into gaming.
Is there a difference when it comes to audio that’s optimized for gaming versus audio that’s optimized for either making or listening to music?
Zedd: I think those are two different worlds, generally speaking. When you produce music, and this goes for headphones and speakers, they technically have to be flat, so that when you produce music, you know exactly what’s going on. While when you’re listening or when you’re gaming, you kind of want things sweetened a little bit because you don’t need to know the truth. It just has to sound good.
I think those two are somewhat different worlds, but they are definitely blending more and more together. And I think gaming headsets have progressed so far from back when I was 13. I think we’re in a completely different world now in terms of quality and what you get for your money.
When you’re playing games, do you find yourself paying attention to the sound design of the games and thinking, ‘hey, if I were doing this, maybe I would make this sound different’? Are you able to disengage, or is it always in the back of your mind?
Zedd: I think once you’re a producer in your mind, you’re always going to think about sound. And that’s partially, what made me want to make my own sound design for my skin line, because I play “Valorant” every day when I’m at home, and I know what I want to hear and feel. And especially when you lose a round because you heard something wrong, you know, then you’re like, ‘Okay, let’s figure out what’s wrong here.’
So yeah, it’s hard to disengage once you’re so deep into it. I would say that now that I know how the game works, on the audio level, it’s even harder for me to forget about all the knowledge.
As far as new gaming related initiatives, so do you have any plans coming up here? To buy an esports organization maybe? Or anything else?
Zedd: No esports teams for me just yet. I’d have to get better. For now, HyperX and I are working on a product together, some exclusive drops. That’s the only thing that’s on the horizon for me now. | 2022-08-12T11:26:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Zedd becomes HyperX ambassador, cementing DJ's investment in gaming - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/08/12/zedd-valorant-skin-hyperx/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/08/12/zedd-valorant-skin-hyperx/ |
The real, decidedly less creepy Harry Caray, shown in 1989. (AP Photo/John Swart, File)
The Fox Sports telecast Thursday of MLB’s second annual “Field of Dreams” game had several charming aspects, but not all viewers were pleased when a virtual version of Harry Caray led a rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch.
The virtual appearance of Caray, the beloved former Chicago Cubs announcer who died in 1998, in a press box above the Iowa field did not come as a total surprise. A rumor emerged the day before that Fox Sports might render him in hologram form, and the network teased a tribute of some sort before and during the game.
Sure enough, after the Cincinnati Reds got three quick groundouts from the Cubs in the top of the seventh, a brief commercial break was followed by the sight of the Caray apparition. Presumably, the network used his real voice from any of the renditions of the signature song over his 16 years calling the home team’s games at Chicago’s Wrigley Field.
The setting Thursday was in Dyersville, Iowa, at a temporary, 8,000-seat stadium built last year to host the first “Field of Dreams” game. It sits next to the cornfield and diamond where the 1989 film was shot and where visitors can still tour the premises, including the farm house familiar to fans of the movie.
While the 2021 game featured the New York Yankees against the Chicago White Sox, whose infamous 1919 squad figured prominently into the movie’s plot, the Cubs’ presence this year created a natural tie-in to Caray.
Given that the Reds were technically the home team, Fox Sports had what it described as a “recreated animation” of Caray leave it up to the fans in attendance to proclaim their root, root, rooting interests. After the song ended, the virtual announcer told the crowd, “Boy, you never sang better in your life!”
“This is about paying tribute to what makes baseball iconic,” Brad Zager, an executive producer for Fox Sports, said in a statement. “We hope this moment allows parents to tell their children about what it was like to watch Harry Caray, or what it was like to listen to Harry Caray lead the singing of the seventh-inning stretch in Wrigley Field, so the next generation can understand and appreciate how much it meant.”
“Everything about the Field of Dreams is about taking our favorite aspects of baseball history and bringing them to life in the modern day,” added Zager, “whether it’s from an all-time iconic baseball movie or from the game of baseball itself.”
A spokesman for Fox Sports confirmed to The Washington Post that the representation of Caray was not a hologram, as it was widely referred to online Thursday, but something “closer to augmented reality.”
Fox Sports executive Michael Davies said the network used a production partner’s “cutting-edge tech that allows photo-realistic animated re-creations” to present “as faithful a tribute to Harry Caray and his legacy as technology allows.”
Not all of the reaction online was negative, but many wondered why Fox Sports had bothered to do it. An informal Twitter poll conducted by New York Post sports-media reporter Andrew Marchand of whether people liked it found a majority of respondents choosing neither “Yes” nor “No” but “That was really weird.”
Poll: Did you like Fox's Harry Caray hologram?
Elsewhere on the platform, a popular term among shared assessments was “creepy.”
Fox Sports was on firmer footing earlier in its telecast when it used just the voice of recently deceased broadcasting legend Vin Scully. As viewers were shown scenes from the Kevin Costner film interspersed with great moments in baseball history, the longtime Los Angeles Dodgers announcer was heard reciting the “People will come” speech originally delivered by James Earl Jones.
The film was also nicely evoked before the game, when Ken Griffey Sr. and Ken Griffey Jr., the only father and son known to have played together in an MLB game, emerged for the cornfield beyond the outfield for a game of catch. Players for the Reds and Cubs then also came out onto the field, accompanied by former team stars including: Chicago’s Billy Williams, Andre Dawson, Fergie Jenkins, Ryne Sandberg and Lee Smith; and Cincinnati’s Johnny Bench, Ken Griffey Jr. and Barry Larkin.
When the game began, the Cubs jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning, and they went on to get a 4-2 win.
One has to assume that Caray would have been delighted. His quasi-hologram version certainly seemed happy enough, even if his appearance wasn’t universally well-received. | 2022-08-12T12:37:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Harry Caray hologram appears in Cubs' ‘Field of Dreams’ game vs. Reds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/12/recreated-harry-caray-startles-viewers-mlb-field-dreams-game/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/12/recreated-harry-caray-startles-viewers-mlb-field-dreams-game/ |
Daughter conned mother out of $140 million with psychic scam, police say
Sabine Boghici allegedly worked with phony psychics to swindle her 82-year-old mother out of art, jewels and money
A photo made available by the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro State shows two agents holding the painting “Sol Poente” by Brazilian artist Tarsila do Amaral upon confiscation in Rio de Janeiro. The artwork, valued at about $50 million, was found in a house in Rio de Janeiro during a police operation, authorities said. It was allegedly stolen from an older adult by her daughter. (EPA-EFA/Shutterstock)
A rich, elderly widow was leaving a Brazilian bank in January 2020 when a psychic approached with a terrible prophecy: Her daughter would soon get sick and die.
To prove it, the fortune teller had the widow participate in a divination game involving cowrie shells, then took her to two more seers who spoke of freeing her daughter from the “bad spirit” that would soon plague her, Brazilian newspaper Correio Braziliense reported.
The widow, Geneviève Boghici, grew skeptical when the psychics charged her the Brazilian equivalent of nearly $1 million for their soothsaying services, and she turned to her daughter for advice, according to Correio Braziliense.
She told her mother to pay them right away, the newspaper reported.
Over the next two weeks, the 82-year-old followed that advice by shelling out about $970,000 for “spiritual treatment” in the start of what police in Brazil are alleging was a multimillion-dollar scam led by the very daughter whose counsel Boghici trusted. Instead of honoring that confidence, police said the daughter for years orchestrated a group of purported psychics to swindle about $140 million worth of high-end art, jewelry and money from her mother.
On Wednesday, Rio de Janeiro police assigned to working cases of elderly abuse arrested four members of the gang that preyed on Boghici, police said in a statement; according to Reuters, those in custody included the daughter. They face charges of embezzlement, robbery, extortion, false imprisonment and criminal association, Reuters reported.
In total, police believe at least six people were involved, meaning the investigation continues.
The scam started that day in January 2020 when 48-year-old Sabine Boghici allegedly fed inside information to the psychics she sent to bump into her mother, intelligence they would use to gain her confidence, Reuters reported.
After hooking her mother, Sabine and her accomplices allegedly spent months maintaining the con to bilk the elderly woman out of money, jewelry and artwork. In one part of the charade, Sabine and an accomplice masquerading as a psychic “began to take the artwork from the [mother’s] house, claiming that the painting was cursed with something negative, with negative energy that needed to be prayed over,” Rio de Janeiro police officer Gilberto Ribeiro told Reuters.
Sabine then allegedly fired her mother’s domestic workers so her accomplices could enter the home and take the artwork unimpeded, the Associated Press reported. When, at one point, her mother refused to keep making cash payments, Sabine allegedly took away her cellphone, stopped feeding her and threatened her with a knife, according to Correio Braziliense.
Over the course of the scam, the suspects are accused of stealing 16 pieces of art, including museum-quality paintings from Brazilian masters Tarsila do Amaral and Emiliano Di Cavalcanti, according to the AP. Three of the stolen works — “O Sono,” “Sol Poente” and “Pont Neuf” — were painted by Amaral, described by the Museum of Modern Art as a “daring modernist” with a “signature style of sensuous, vibrant landscapes and everyday scenes.”
During a raid of the home of one of the purported psychics, police found 11 paintings under a bed, Reuters reported. At the bottom of the pile, they discovered “Sol Poente,” which investigators said was valued at about $48.5 million.
Police captured on video the moment an officer discovered the work, according to the AP.
“Wow! Look who’s here!” the officer exclaimed as she removed bubble wrap from the painting. “Oh, little beauty. Glory!”
The painting is a lush depiction of unidentified mammals wading through blue waters. Behind them, a green tree, a green hill, some green cactuses. Behind everything, a brilliant, radiating sun rippling throughout and dominating the background.
The title of the multimillion-dollar masterpiece — allegedly stolen and stashed away only to be unearthed at the unseemly end of an unraveling art plot — translates as “Setting Sun.”
María Luisa Paúl contributed to this report. | 2022-08-12T12:38:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brazilian police say daughter used psychic scam to steal from mother - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/12/brazil-artwork-psychic-scam/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/12/brazil-artwork-psychic-scam/ |
Energy-Rich Texas Should Love the Climate Bill
As you might expect, Texas’ two Republican senators aren’t fans of the Inflation Reduction Act. Yet few states stand to gain as much from it as theirs does.
Texas is known as an oil state but is more accurately an energy state. Yes, it is the biggest producer of oil (and gas) in the country, as well as the top refiner. It is also in the top 10 states for coal mining. And Texas produces more electricity from coal than any other state — indeed, more electricity, period. Yet Texas is also the biggest state for wind power generation — for 16 years running — and ports such as Corpus Christi are critical entry points for turbine imports. In utility-scale solar power, Texas ranks number two and is catching up to California fast.
In conjunction with Enersection, a Houston-based energy-data visualization firm, I recently analyzed where clean technology gets deployed in the US. Our main finding: Republican politicians’ vocal antipathy toward renewable energy is at odds with the fact that the vast majority of it is sited in red locales. Texas is a prime example.
Of the top 10 congressional districts in the country for operating and planned wind, solar and battery capacity, four are in Texas, more than in any other state and including the No. 1 district, Texas’ 19th. All are represented by Republicans. Despite their likely nays when the House votes on the IRA, their state stands to benefit on several fronts — mainly by galvanizing existing trends and opportunities.
Federal investment and production tax credits have been crucial to the expansion of wind and solar power across the US. The new tax credits are more generous and flexible; for example, solar developers can now utilize a production tax credit previously available only for wind projects. The maximum $26 per megawatt-hour credit — provided developers meet labor and wage requirements — is huge compared with current Texas electricity futures prices for 2024 of about $48 per megawatt-hour.
What’s more, renewables were already growing like weeds in Texas, due to the state’s deregulated power market, open land, growing electricity demand, high wind speeds and abundance of sunshine. Wind generation overtook coal-fired power generation a couple of years ago. Solar energy, which was slower to get going, pairs well with wind by stepping in during listless lunchtimes on hot days, which have contributed to strains on the grid this summer.
As of July, the grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, counted planned solar and wind projects equivalent to three times the installed base. Most of that won’t end up getting built. But analysts at CreditSights posit that even if only 30% is realized — the upper end of the range in prior years — wind and solar could be supplying roughly half of the state’s projected peak demand by 2025, up from just 23% last summer.(1)
Now add in batteries. Again, the rationale for building these in Texas exists already, given big spreads in peak and off-peak power prices. There are 69 gigawatts of battery capacity in ERCOT’s project queue versus an installed base of less than 2 gigawatts (and peak demand nearing 80 gigawatts). In extending a 30% tax credit to stand-alone battery projects regardless of whether they use renewable energy, the IRA should ensure that more of the queue actually gets built. It should also encourage large power customers, such as industrial plants, to install their own batteries as insurance against blackouts such as those of February 2021. Taken altogether, massive increases in renewables and storage would probably force further closures of coal-fired capacity and, as CreditSights points out, reduce reliance on gas-fired peaker plants.
Realizing the full benefits of this, however, means also building more transmission lines, both to connect remote renewables projects with demand centers within the state and, if Texas can overcome its libertarian impulse, to link its own grid with surrounding networks. Wholesale power prices in sparsely populated West Texas have averaged 14% less than in Houston over the past five years — a classic arbitrage that new transmission could close. Meanwhile, Berkeley Lab just published a study of the potential value of new transmission projects across the country, based on observed electricity price spreads between neighboring areas. One glance at this map tells you where the most value could be found.
The IRA’s transmission incentives are relatively small, at less than $3 billion of explicit funding and up to $15.5 billion if you squint at some other, broader subsidies. Again, however, given the strong existing economic case for new wires, any help could mean the difference between an opportunity being realized or lost. In addition, last year’s bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provided funds for the grid.
The mooted permitting legislation that Senator Joe Manchin demanded for backing the IRA is also important here. Among other things, this would identify 25 strategic energy projects aimed at “reducing energy costs, improving energy reliability, decarbonization potential, and promoting energy trade with our allies.” Transmission hooking up a wind and solar boom in Texas to its own cities and perhaps other states easily meets the first three of these criteria. Given the potential to displace domestic gas demand that could be redirected to exports, the fourth might also apply.
In addition to addressing energy supply, strengthening Texas’ power grid and reducing bills means tackling demand. The state scores poorly on energy efficiency, especially with regard to electric home heating. Cutting that load on the grid by just 10% would be the equivalent of adding three nuclear reactors’ worth of spare capacity in the winter, and wouldn’t cost nearly as much (see this). The IRA’s $9 billion in funding to cover rebates for things such as heat-pump water heaters and air-conditioning systems and other efficient appliances isn’t huge. Again, however, the case for more efficiency in a state with the sixth-highest average monthly bills in the country and a clearly struggling grid is a no-brainer anyway. Even a small nudge could help.
One counterargument to all this is that, by subsidizing energy displacing fossil fuels, the IRA simultaneously undermines Texas’ traditional oil and gas industry (and coal, too). This is outdated thinking on several fronts.
First, all Texas industries would benefit from a grid featuring more renewables, batteries and transmission, which would boost resilience and reduce costs and carbon. Second, even in a decarbonizing world, Texas’ concentration of low-cost resources, world-class infrastructure, skills and export capacity means its oil and gas production will endure far longer than in other states and countries. Third, and adding to that, being able to boast lower carbon intensity due to a greener grid and reduced methane emissions — owing to an IRA-legislated penalty — would give Texas’ oil and gas exports a competitive edge. Fourth, expanded subsidies for carbon capture and hydrogen offer a boost to nascent, and as yet uneconomical, decarbonization technologies that align more closely than renewables with oil majors’ existing businesses. There’s a reason that Darren Woods, Exxon Mobil Corp.’s chief executive, gave the proposed legislation a cautious welcome on a recent earnings call.
Above all, Texas would be a magnet for investment in not just greener energy infrastructure but also the manufacturing encouraged by the IRA’s domestic-content measures. Expanded rebates on electric vehicles, for example, will boost the emerging EV and battery hub around Austin, where, in telling symbolism, Tesla Inc.’s new headquarters is now less than a three-hour drive from Exxon’s in Houston. For all the tribal rhetoric in Washington, the transition’s facts on the ground in Texas are already plain to see.
(1) “HY Power: Texas Renewables Deep Dive,” by Andrew DeVries, Joseph Sushil and Nick Moglia, CreditSights, June 23, 2022. | 2022-08-12T12:55:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Energy-Rich Texas Should Love the Climate Bill - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/energy-rich-texas-should-love-the-climate-bill/2022/08/12/1e6320c8-1a37-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/energy-rich-texas-should-love-the-climate-bill/2022/08/12/1e6320c8-1a37-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Free TV Is a Rerun That Investors Should Watch
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - JANUARY 09: An attendee walks by the Pluto TV booth during CES 2019 at the Aria Resort & Casino on January 9, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. CES, the world’s largest annual consumer technology trade show, runs through January 11 and features about 4,500 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to more than 180,000 attendees. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images) (Photographer: David Becker/Getty Images North America)
With the price of Walt Disney Co.’s Disney+ and Hulu streaming services rising sharply in the next few months, following Netflix’s price increases earlier this year, budget-conscious consumers may soon be culling the streaming outlets they pay for. As they do, services that should get more attention from viewers and investors are those that don’t cost anything, such as Paramount Global’s Pluto TV, Fox Corp.’s Tubi and Amazon.com Inc.’s Freevee.
These free services, which generate revenue with ads, aren’t likely to serve as a substitute for a paid service for too many people. Viewers who want to catch the latest episode of buzzy shows like “Stranger Things,” for instance, won’t find it on Pluto or Tubi. What they will find are older movies and TV shows — some made decades ago, like the original “Mission: Impossible” or “Gunsmoke” — interrupted by plenty of commercials. If that sounds like much of the cable TV universe, so be it. But unlike cable, these services are free, in a throwback to the original days of television, which makes them a decent supplement to the now-costly array of subscription streaming services.
Moreover, the growing number of subscription services with ad-supported options should make the presence of ads on these free services less of an issue. There’s already data suggesting these services are drawing more attention from viewers while still badly lagging behind paid subscription services. Just more than 22% of US households were using one of the free ad-supported streaming services in the second quarter, up 2 percentage points from the first quarter, according to a regular survey by Kantar’s Entertainment on Demand service. In contrast, nearly 83% of households were using ad-free paid services.
And this is part of the streaming equation that investors seem to be ignoring. Wall Street has now lumped entertainment stocks into two categories: the streaming leaders, defined by Netflix and Disney, and the rest, including Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Fox. While Netflix and Disney trade at an average of 3.5 times this year’s expected revenue, the other three are trading at an average of 1.5 times the same metric. And Paramount is at the bottom of the pile, trading at one time revenue.
Paramount’s position makes little sense. Aside from the solid prospects of its paid streaming services — Paramount+ and Showtime — and its relatively healthy balance sheet (at least compared with debt-laden Warner), Paramount’s ownership of Pluto could be a significant bonus. While reliable viewership data in the market is difficult to find, given that the services don’t all follow apples-to-apples metrics, Pluto appears to be one of the most popular services along with Fox’s Tubi and Roku’s Roku Channel.
Paramount says the number of devices tuning into Pluto at least monthly rose to 69.6 million at the end of June from 12 million at the end of 2018, soon before Paramount acquired it. While that’s not the same as the number of people — viewers can access Pluto on both their iPads and TVs, for example — it’s a reasonable proxy. Pluto’s ad revenue, meanwhile, reached $1.06 billion in 2021, up from $70 million in the same period. Not bad for a business that Paramount bought for just $324 million in early 2019.
In comparison, Fox is hoping Tubi will generate $1 billion in ad revenue within the next couple of years, the company said on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Warner’s total ad revenue from its streaming segment, including both HBO Max’s ad-supported tier and Discovery+, was just under $100 million in the second quarter, less than half what Pluto generated in that period.
Pluto, like other free services, has to share its ad revenue with its program suppliers and the TV-set and streaming-device makers that make Pluto available. Assuming the revenue split is around 50/50, that still adds up to $500 million in net revenue for Pluto last year. Take out marketing costs and staff, and it’s not surprising that as Paramount Chief Executive Officer Bob Bakish disclosed, Pluto made money last year, at least in the US. Overseas, it is still expanding.
What isn’t clear is how vulnerable Pluto is to competition. Because these services typically pay for content and distribution on devices by giving a cut of their ad revenue, they’re cheap to launch. There are plenty of program suppliers willing to license their content to anyone. That means the barriers to entry are almost nonexistent.
And the market has become crowded, with offerings from Roku, lesser-known outlets like streaming tech firm Distroscale’s DistroTV as well as TV-set makers themselves. NBCUniversal’s Peacock has a free tier, while NBCU’s parent, Comcast Corp., partly owns another Pluto rival called Xumo. Earlier this year, YouTube, the original free ad-supported streaming service, started offering full seasons of TV shows free, putting it directly in competition with Pluto. Warner said last week that it was considering jumping into the market as well.
Pluto has some advantages. For one thing, thanks to its parent Paramount, Pluto gets special access to the Paramount film and TV studio’s library, which includes the “Mission: Impossible” franchise, “Forrest Gump” and “The Godfather” and its sequels. That means directly competing free streaming services won’t be able to license the same programming from Paramount as Pluto. So yes, Netflix might air an old Paramount show, but Tubi won’t.
For another, because Pluto is well established, it has plenty of leverage in negotiating with program suppliers that are looking to maximize revenue. Anyone who gets paid by getting a cut of the ad revenue is more likely to license their content to a service that can deliver a bigger audience than to one that no one has heard of or whose distribution isn’t as broad.
There is a risk, though, that over time Pluto has to spend more cash on programming. It already pays a fee for some programming rather than paying through a share of the ad revenue. A related issue is that some competing free services, such as Amazon’s Freevee and Roku’s eponymously named channel, are investing in original programming to make their services stand out. If Pluto decides it has to follow suit, the beauty of its business model would fade quickly.
On the positive side, the ad market is likely to continue to expand. Brian Wieser, global president of business intelligence at GroupM, says that free services offer only limited targeting capabilities to help advertisers reach the specific kinds of viewers they want, while there is almost no cap on the frequency with which ads are shown. Fixing those issues could bring more advertisers into the market.
Over time, this market is likely to evolve, with some of the early offerings losing ground. But Pluto seems well positioned. Investors should pay it more attention. It’s brightening the picture for Paramount Global.
• Disney Joins Tough-Love Club for Streaming Viewers: Martin Peers
• After 37 Years, a Hollywood Pipeline Ends Down Under: Tim Culpan | 2022-08-12T12:55:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Free TV Is a Rerun That Investors Should Watch - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/free-tv-is-a-rerun-that-investors-should-watch/2022/08/12/ef0d0ff4-1a32-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/free-tv-is-a-rerun-that-investors-should-watch/2022/08/12/ef0d0ff4-1a32-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Counselors, colleges struggle through the summer to make sure students show up
“Summer melt” has increased during the pandemic, and experts fear it could get even worse
Millersville University Assistant Director of Admissions Joni Klopp, left, speaks to Jaden Lopez, center, and Jose Chavez, right, during a Class of 2022 college send-off celebration on Aug. 10 at McCaskey East High in Lancaster, Pa. Lopez and Chavez are both going to Millersville in the fall. (Harrison Jones/The Hechinger Report)
When J.P. McCaskey High School held its graduation ceremony in June, students were all smiles. A sea of black and red robes, the event was the finale of an adolescence marred for many by the pandemic and its attendant solitude, financial insecurity and stress.
For Alejandra Zavala, a college and career counselor at McCaskey, it was a chance to see the results of the hours she’d spent meeting with students and going over the details of their college applications. But she also knew that, in the surrounding city of Lancaster, Pa., 43 percent of students who intended to go to college last year never enrolled come September. That was up from 26 percent before the pandemic.
It’s a phenomenon education experts call “summer melt.” Students graduate with the intention of going to college, even committing to a school, but then life happens: jobs, family and fear get in the way. And the problem has likely gotten worse since the start of the pandemic; a tight job market also could lure additional students away from higher education.
Statistics are hard to come by about how many students say they’ll go to college and then change their minds. But Ben Castleman, an associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Virginia who studies summer melt, estimates about 20 to 30 percent of students with college plans, depending on the district, change their minds.
After they graduate from high school, students typically don’t have access to the professional support they might during the year. But since 2017, Lancaster’s school district has continued college counseling into the summer, helping students keep up with the things they need to do to stay on track for college. The district uses predictive analytics to figure out which students are most at risk of melting away and give them particular attention.
“When I was off in the summer, I would come back to a ton of emails from students,” Zavala said. “Now that we’re there, we definitely see the impact.”
Students from racial and ethnic minority groups, as well as those from low-income families, are more likely to experience summer melt than other students. That means they might need more assistance.
“It’s possible that students are saying, ‘I’ve got a variety of decently paying job opportunities and I do want to go to college at some point, but at least in the near-term maybe I’ll work while wages are high,” Castleman said.
Ibrahim Ntege, who graduated from McCaskey in the spring, worked in a warehouse this summer assembling battery wires and cables full-time while also focusing on soccer, his favorite hobby. The son of immigrants from central Africa, he was accepted to several colleges, including Pennsylvania State and Temple universities. He plans to attend Millersville University, a public college just outside Lancaster.
Some of his friends, Ntege said, have different plans. They want to go to college but have decided to work for now to save up money — something he said wouldn’t sway him.
Counselors in Lancaster try to help all students sketch out their plans — even if they’re not looking at higher education — but inevitably some don’t respond. Those who need help the most may be the least active in seeking it, Zavala said.
“If you were to not go to school and you were stuck with this loan, would you be able to pay it back?” she asks them.
Some universities have tried to give some students extra help in understanding how college works. Ruvieliz Acevedo-Guzman is a recent McCaskey graduate set to attend West Chester University in the fall. But first, she needed to attend a five-week summer residential session called the Academic Success Program, which helps students learn about the school and its procedures.
Momentum builds behind a three-year degree to lower college costs
For colleges and universities, it’s in their best interest to try to prevent summer melt, said Christopher Lucier, director of partner relations at Othot, a higher ed analytics firm, and former enrollment manager at the University of Delaware and University of Vermont. That’s especially important because enrollment has declined by nearly 10 percent over the course of the pandemic, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Every student, whether they intend to go to college or not, needs to have access to quality advising, preferably from someone who already knows them, said Laura Owen, executive director of the Center for Equity and Postsecondary Attainment at San Diego State University.
“I had a lot of people pushing me,” he said. “I think if all the students had that kind of support they’ll be better off, whether they choose to go to college or not. I don’t think I would do it myself.”
This story about summer melt was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for its higher education newsletter. | 2022-08-12T12:55:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Counselors and colleges try to reduce 'summer melt,' ensure students enroll - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/12/summer-melt-college-student-enrollment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/12/summer-melt-college-student-enrollment/ |
Police shot Jayland Walker 41 times. His mother is fighting for his memory.
Pamela Walker and her daughter, Jada, are trying to honor the memory of Jayden Walker, 25, who was shot 41 times and killed by Akron police after fleeing from a traffic stop on June 27. (Dustin Franz for The Washington Post)
“Ninety shots,” Paige White, an attorney, said. “We don’t treat animals that way.”
Sitting behind her legal team, Pamela Walker began to shake and cry. It was the first time she’d heard that police in Akron, Ohio, had fired dozens of shots at her son, who was killed three days earlier on June 27.
His death was unfathomable — hearing how he died was even worse, if that was even possible.
While her lawyer continued speaking to a crowd of residents and news media about her son’s death, Walker slumped in her chair and asked to go inside. As she walked away, her cries crescendoed, becoming so loud they could be heard back outside where the news conference was being held.
“They didn’t have to do that to him,” she said, news conference attendees recalled. “They didn’t have to do that.”
Jayland Walker was killed by Akron police after a car chase stemming from an alleged traffic violation. Body-camera footage shows eight officers — seven of whom were White — shooting a flurry of bullets at Walker, a Black man, after a 4½-minute chase.
His body had 41 gunshot wounds, and five graze injuries.
Walker’s killing has brought national attention to Akron, drawing calls for accountability and heightening concerns once again about police use of force.
Community groups have released lists of demands for city officials and the Akron Police Department. National leaders have called for the U.S. Justice Department to investigate his death.
During it all, Pamela Walker stayed largely quiet, rarely spoke publicly about her son and is still struggling to adjust to life without him.
But now, just more than a month after her son was killed, she’s opening up.
She has questions about the shooting and Akron police officers’ response, which left her son dead. She hopes for change in the community she’s spent her whole life in.
But most of all, she wants Jayland Walker to be remembered — not as the man who was fatally shot after a car chase, but as the man she raised and loved.
‘We love you’
The last time Jayland Walker saw his mother and sister, it felt like any other visit.
He lived on the opposite side of Akron, but made the drive across the city throughout the week to see them, take his mother to doctor’s appointments and watch movies at night — the 1996 film “The Nutty Professor” was a favorite. They’d seen that movie and others so many times Walker recited lines before they came up to make his family laugh.
On June 26, Walker drove to their house, knocked on the door and greeted his mother with a hug and kiss.
It had been a few days since the last time he visited. But just when his mother started to feel as if Walker might show up in the next day or two, he would knock on the door, she said, ready to give her a hug and kiss.
“Please, stay longer?” Walker’s sister, Jada, asked that day.
“I just wanted to check in on y’all for a minute before I get the day started,” Walker told his mother and sister.
They weren’t upset he had to leave early, Jada Walker said, they just wanted more time with him — sitting at the dinner table, dancing to music, hearing her brother’s laugh.
“That’s always what I looked forward to, just seeing him,” she said. “That’s my baby, my brother.”
When he left that day, Pamela Walker told him the same thing she did at the end of every visit: “You take care. You be safe. We love you.”
It was the last thing she said to him.
The next time there was a knock at their door, it was detectives who had come to tell her that her son was dead.
‘Like a slaughter’
Akron released 13 body-camera videos on July 3 — eight from officers who fired and five from “witness officers” who did not. The footage was uploaded to an Akron police YouTube channel for the public to view.
Pamela Walker hasn’t watched the body-camera footage of the car pursuit and killing of her son.
“I don’t want to see it,” she said. “I want to remember him as my beautiful son that loved and cared for his family.”
The body-camera footage was released because Akron law requires it within seven days of incidents when officers use force that is deadly or results in serious bodily injury.
In a news conference before the footage’s release, city officials showed two videos: one that was narrated with clips and still photos, and a second that was an unedited body-camera video.
According to the narrated video, after Walker did not pull over and the car chase began, officers heard a “sound consistent with a gunshot.” Police said they found a handgun, a loaded magazine and a gold wedding ring in Walker’s car.
When Walker got out of his car and fled, he was wearing a ski mask, according to police. In the lot, he stopped running, turned toward the pursuing officers and moved into a “firing position,” Police Chief Stephen Mylett said at the news conference.
He said that account was corroborated by each officer during individual walk-throughs of the crime scene.
When the car chase ended and Walker ran into a nearby parking lot, the body-camera footage showed eight officers firing at him. The shots continued as he fell and rolled onto the concrete.
Bobby DiCello, an attorney for the family, said Walker’s behavior — including wearing a ski mask — was “strange,” but “not lethal.”
The unknowns of that night have highlighted a disconnect between what police have said about Walker and the man that his family and community remember.
“We will never understand why this happened,” Pamela Walker said. “Never.”
The day the footage was released, Judi Hill, president of the Akron NAACP, recalled watching part of the news conference on her phone before stopping, realizing the first video was narrated.
“I was incensed by the production that was put on,” she said.
And she’s not alone. Groups across the community have organized to demand change from city officials and the police department, leading demonstrations before and after the release of the shooting footage.
“It was beyond excessive force,” Hill said. “It was almost like a slaughter.”
The plans Walker had
Before Jayland Walker was killed, he was planning his wedding.
He had proposed to his girlfriend, Jaymeisha Beasley, in March 2021. When he called to tell Pamela Walker the news, she said she could feel her son’s classic, bright smile on the other end of the phone.
“Mom, I’m engaged,” he told her.
But she hadn’t known he was going to propose until then, and she wanted to know more. How did he propose? Where did he get the ring? And, most importantly, when was the wedding?
“'We’ll let you know, but you’ll be on time to get there,'” Pamela Walker said. “That’s what he would tell me all the time.”
That’s how Jayland Walker was, she said. Humble, sweet and soft-spoken, never oversharing.
“It was just to the point, and that’s it,” she said.
Both from Akron, Jayland Walker and Beasley started dating in high school.
Jada Walker said she met Beasley when she and her brother were teenagers. Beasley became a part of the family instantly, she said. They were “the three J’s” — Jada, Jayland and Jaymeisha.
As the years went by, Beasley often joined Walker when he visited his mother and sister across town. She spent time with the Walker family, watching their favorite movies and eating dinner with them.
“There’s no Jayland without mentioning her,” she said.
The couple lived together in Akron, and they made plans — a list of places they wanted to travel to, when they wanted to have kids, how they would take care of their families.
Even on one of the happiest days of his life, Walker was matter-of-fact, to the point.
He and Beasley had just finished eating dinner. He took their plates to the kitchen, came back to the living room where she was sitting and got on one knee, asking if Beasley would marry him. She said yes right away.
But the pair never got to have their wedding.
On May 28, Beasley died in a car crash. A month later, Walker was killed.
His family has been in shock. First after losing her, then him shortly after. The wedding, the family and the lives they wanted together all came to a sudden stop.
“I know for certain that they’re together, and they’ll always have each other,” Jada Walker said.
In a first for the Akron Police Department, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) is conducting an independent investigation of Walker’s killing.
The results of the investigation will be given to the attorney general’s office to determine if the officers involved in the shooting will be criminally charged. The Walker family’s next steps are also pending the results of the BCI investigation, attorney Bobby DiCello said.
When the investigation is done, the family hopes Akron officials will be open to a conversation about changing policies, including use of force.
“If that fails, or if the information that we receive is so tragic or so egregious that we feel there’s no meaningful way to have a dialogue, then we’ll make that clear by filing a lawsuit,” DiCello said.
As she waits to know more, to know the answers to her questions, Pamela Walker has been reserved in the weeks since he was killed. She did not speak at his public funeral. She stands to the side during news conferences.
But she sees the work of the community and people across the country.
In the days before and after the body-camera footage was released, community members protested late into the night. During city council meetings, they’ve voiced concerns about Jayland Walker’s case.
And she’s appreciates these efforts — from afar.
“A lot of times I can’t come up with words to use for things, but everything that they’re doing, I totally agree with,” Walker said. “And I hope that something comes about from what they’re doing.”
Every night, she struggles to sleep, remembering his smile and the sound of his voice. Every day, she scrolls through her phone, looking at pictures of her son.
And now, even knowing he never will, his mother waits at home, with the feeling that her son might knock on the door in the next day or two, ready with a hug and kiss. Because it’s been awhile since his last visit. | 2022-08-12T12:56:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Police shot Jayland Walker 41 times. His mother is fighting for his memory. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/12/jayland-walker-police-shooting-akron/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/12/jayland-walker-police-shooting-akron/ |
The unnamed deputy constable was suspended after a 911 caller’s claims spread widely on social media
The corner of Royal and Toulouse streets in New Orleans’s French Quarter, where a woman reported a rape on July 26. (Google Maps)
Close to midnight on one of the main drags in New Orleans, a woman who said she was witnessing a rape told a 911 dispatcher she saw someone who might be able to help.
“Actually, there’s a police officer in front of me now,” the woman told the dispatcher, who asked her to get the officer’s attention.
The caller told the officer that a woman was being raped on a nearby corner, according to audio of the 911 call obtained by Nola.com and the nonprofit newsroom the Lens. The victim was unconscious, she said.
But her cry for help was allegedly brushed away. While still on the phone with the emergency operator, she’s heard telling the officer what she saw — but he doesn’t respond.
The woman grew increasingly anxious, expressing her frustration to the 911 dispatcher. “I mean, this police officer isn’t even moving — he’s still just parked here,” the woman told the dispatcher.
Within minutes, the woman said, the assailant had fled the scene. The woman, who was visiting the area on vacation, shared the experience in tweets that garnered national attention, sparking a wave of backlash against the city’s law enforcement officials.
New Orleans Police Chief Shaun Ferguson said Thursday that an investigation was immediately launched. The officer accused of ignoring the woman’s pleas on July 26 wasn’t a member of the New Orleans Police Department but rather a deputy constable with the Second City Court, Ferguson said, relaying that the deputy constable had been suspended from duty.
Constables are peace officers in Louisiana with full arrest powers under state law. Their duties include handling evictions, property seizures and subpoenas. They are trained law enforcement officers who wear a badge, carry a gun and are assigned a police radio, according to local news station WWL.
The police chief explained Thursday the difference between his department and the office of city constables. “Unfortunately, some of our uniforms are similar in nature,” Ferguson said.
The unnamed deputy constable, who has over three decades of experience and no history of infractions, has been suspended indefinitely without pay while an internal investigation proceeds, Nola.com reported. The night of the alleged rape, he was working an off-duty security detail for a movie being filmed in the city’s French Quarter, a historic area filled with boutiques, antique stores, galleries and jazz bars.
The woman who called 911 said she was on the corner of Royal and Toulouse streets when she witnessed what appeared to be a rape in progress. In the over five-minute conversation with the emergency dispatcher, first obtained by the Lens, the caller sounds increasingly frustrated as she frantically tries to seek help.
A woman was raped on a train, police say. Passengers watched and didn’t call 911.
The attacker fled after the woman on the 911 call approached the deputy constable but before officers with the New Orleans Police Department arrived at 11:24 p.m., three minutes after the emergency call was logged into the system, Ferguson said.
“He’s gone. This … cop is still a block away,” the caller told the dispatcher, referring to the deputy constable, “and this girl got raped in the street corner. There is a cop a block away.” The woman also claimed to have seen two more police officers drive past the scene.
A New Orleans Police Department spokesperson told Nola.com earlier this week that the alleged victim was “not ready to be part of the investigative process.”
Ferguson said Thursday the alleged assault remains under investigation. The chief defended his department’s response, saying a review showed “our officers responded swiftly and they responded appropriately.”
“In our review of the evidence … we did see a vehicle drive by, but we cannot prove or disprove that our officer could actually see that there was something going on at that intersection,” Ferguson said.
Hours after the alleged crime, the 911 caller posted about what she’d witnessed in a Twitter thread that was shared some 18,000 times and garnered over 50,000 likes.
The story reverberated deeply in a community struggling with a crime spike amid a severe law enforcement staffing shortage. But after much outrage was directed at the New Orleans Police Department, its investigation concluded that the issue of the deputy constable’s response falls to the Second City Court.
Constable Edwin Shorty, who oversees that office, told Nola.com the allegations against the now-suspended deputy constable are “not in character with the majority of people in law enforcement.”
“We are all shocked that anybody could get that kind of complaint and not respond timely,” Shorty said. | 2022-08-12T12:56:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New Orleans deputy constable suspended, accused of ignoring rape - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/12/new-orleans-french-quarter-rape/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/12/new-orleans-french-quarter-rape/ |
DeSantis sacked me for doing my job as a prosecutor. Who’s next?
By Andrew Warren
Andrew Warren in Tampa on Aug. 7. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)
Andrew Warren was elected state attorney for Florida’s 13th Judicial Circuit, which covers the city of Tampa and Hillsborough County, in 2016 and 2020.
For nearly four years, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has pursued an approach to governing that has violated the freedoms of people in our state, inventing whatever enemies would help him in his ambition to be the next Donald Trump.
Without warning, last week, he added me to his list.
An armed sheriff’s deputy and a governor’s aide showed up on Thursday morning at the State Attorney’s Office in Tampa, where I was serving as the elected prosecutor for Hillsborough County. They handed me an executive order signed by DeSantis that immediately suspended me from office. Before I could read it, they escorted me out.
This is a blatant abuse of power. I don’t work for DeSantis. I was elected by voters — twice — and I have spent my entire career locking up violent criminals and fraudsters. Without any misdoing on my part or any advance notice, I was forced out of my office, removed from my elected position, and replaced with a DeSantis ally. If this can happen to me, what can DeSantis do to other Floridians?
Already, the governor has summarily stripped away constitutional rights for millions of people in our state: Black Floridians, who will find it harder to vote because of a DeSantis law that creates unnecessary restrictions targeting election fraud that does not exist. Women, who stand to lose their right to make their own reproductive health choices because of a DeSantis law, which a judge has ruled unconstitutional under state law, severely limiting access to abortion without even exceptions for rape and incest. The LGBTQ community, targeted by the DeSantis “Don’t Say Gay’’ law that prevents educators from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity with students.
The DeSantis enemies list goes on and on. Teachers, accused of putting “incredibly disturbing” books on their shelves. College faculty, who are directed by a DeSantis law to complete a survey about their political beliefs. Even Disney World, which lost its special taxing district in central Florida after it criticized the “Don’t Say Gay’’ law.
So I stand in good company, and the stakes are high. We have seen this sustained attack against our freedoms around the country — and we have to fight back.
That is what I will be doing. I grew up in Gainesville, Fla., left for college and eventually moved to Tampa to raise my family, pursue my career and build a productive life serving my community. Hillsborough County voters elected me as their state attorney in 2016 over a longtime incumbent, and reelected me in 2020. We plan to fight this suspension in the courts, and if successful, I intend to resume the important work I was elected to do: Ensure my community is safe by embracing effective criminal justice policies.
In removing me from office, DeSantis offered no examples of specific actions taken by me or my office that broke or ignored the law. On the contrary, I have been delivering on the promises I made to voters by fighting violent crime, reducing recidivism and investing in public safety through rehabilitation and prevention. Our county’s crime rate is the lowest in the region.
The governor cites statements I signed with other prosecutors from around the country regarding gender-affirming care and restrictions on abortion rights, two of his political wedge issues. These are value statements, where I expressed my opposition to laws that I believe violate constitutional rights. Florida’s current 15-week abortion ban was found to violate the Florida Constitution by the first court to review it. And Florida has no criminal law at all regarding medical treatments of gender-affirming care. His allegations of “neglect of duty” and “incompetence” are based not on what I have done but on what he predicts I will do.
Not one single case dealing with either of those issues has ever reached my desk. So DeSantis’s complaints with how I’m doing my job ring hollow.
By attacking me, DeSantis is overruling the will of the voters who have twice elected me. He is selectively ignoring the discretion prosecutors have — and are ethically required to exercise — in setting priorities and deciding who to prosecute for which crimes. And he is violating my right of free speech to call attention to public policies that take away our freedoms.
Today, in Florida, first businesses, then teachers, and now public servants are being punished if they disagree with or speak out against DeSantis. Our governor’s overreach should alarm anyone who believes in a fair and free democracy, regardless of your political persuasion. And I fear such actions will become part of the political playbook in states around the country if we allow them to stand.
For now, this governor is working to fire me — an independently elected official — for voicing my opinion on issues directly impacting my job. To a lot of us, DeSantis’s self-proclaimed “free state of Florida” doesn’t feel very free. | 2022-08-12T12:56:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Andrew Warren: Ron DeSantis fired me for doing my job as a prosecutor - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/florida-state-attorney-desantis-fired-me/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/florida-state-attorney-desantis-fired-me/ |
Can the U.S. fight climate change — and shift industrial policy?
Ramping up a domestic supply chain for clean energy won’t be easy
Analysis by Jonas Nahm
Joanna Lewis
Bentley Allan
A man installs a solar panel in Salt Lake City this week. (Rick Bowmer/AP)
On Friday, the House will vote to approve the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), clearing the way for President Biden to sign the bill into law. The IRA addresses health care and taxes — but it’s also the first and most ambitious federal effort to address climate change in at least a decade. These provisions alone won’t meet the U.S. goal of cutting emissions in half by the end of the decade, but are still likely to reduce U.S. emissions by about 40 percent
The IRA also marks a radical shift in federal-level climate policy. It tries to combine climate change policy (slowing down global warming) with industrial policy (building up U.S. manufacturing). If the new provisions work as the bill’s designers hope, the IRA may have transformative political consequences.
The IRA tries to move clean energy manufacturing away from China
In 2021, the Biden administration carried out a comprehensive review of U.S. supply chains for key clean energy technologies. The review revealed that clean energy industries overwhelmingly relied on China for materials and components. Another finding was that U.S. clean energy manufacturing was trailing the European Union across key dimensions.
The Inflation Reduction Act is in part intended to address these problems. One of the central elements is a series of tax incentives to encourage the purchase of electric vehicles, or EVs. Buyers can claim a $7,500 tax credit for the purchase of a new EV or $4,000 for the purchase of a used one. And the bill encourages the use of clean energy in the U.S. electric grid by revising and extending existing tax credits for investments in and generation of zero-emissions electricity, for instance through solar, wind and geothermal energy technologies.
What’s new here is that these tax credits are conditioned on where the technologies are sourced and made. For example, to qualify for the full EV tax credit, at least 40 percent of the raw metals and minerals (such as lithium and cobalt) used in the vehicle’s battery will have to be mined and refined in the United States, or in a country with which the United States has a free-trade agreement. The battery, the cells, and the cathodes, anodes and electrolytes contained in the cells will eventually have to be manufactured in North America — or a free-trade partner — to quality for the full credit.
Similarly, the tax credits for zero-emissions electricity provide bonus credits for electricity made with and purchases of wind turbines, solar panels and other clean energy technologies produced domestically. These measures are intended to reduce the U.S. reliance on China, and they mark the largest effort to expand U.S. clean energy manufacturing since the 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.
Industrial policy may clash with the fight against climate change
One challenge is that these ambitious industrial policy goals may come into conflict with the bill’s climate goals. What happens if domestic supply chains cannot ramp up fast enough, for instance?
Automakers have already begun building electric vehicle assembly plants and battery factories in the United States, but few of the cars manufactured here will initially meet the 40 percent local mining and refining requirements for battery materials. And these target requirements are set to accelerate by 10 percent a year.
It will be difficult to reduce U.S. reliance on China, the research suggests. For example, China processes roughly two-thirds of global lithium, a key material for batteries. Businesses are already finding it hard to buy alternatives to Chinese lithium as global markets get tighter. The bill will make it even harder. Building domestic lithium mines will take years, not months, as mining companies battle to get permissions and overcome local opposition. Furthermore, the increasing demand is only half the battle. Building a domestic supply chain would also probably require additional policies to invest in vocational training for workers and financing for manufacturers.
Americans agree with their state and local officials on climate action
America’s trade partners may be unhappy
Another hitch is that the IRA might spark conflict within the global trading system, which could take years to resolve. The IRA contains protectionist measures that seem likely to violate World Trade Organization rules in ways that have led to frequent trade conflicts in the past.
Here’s an example: The bonus credits for investments in zero-emissions electricity are available only for products manufactured in the United States. They don’t include exemptions for products made in countries with free-trade agreements with the United States.
Canada and Mexico in particular may reject these provisions and could bring complaints through dispute settlement clauses in the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on free trade in North America.
The IRA will have transformative consequences
For all these challenges, the IRA puts economic opportunities rather than economic costs at the center of the climate policy conversation. That may transform America’s economy — and perhaps its politics, too.
The scramble to meet domestic content requirements will lead to a rapid build-out of domestic manufacturing capacity for electric vehicles, batteries, wind turbines, solar panels and the components and materials required to produce them. As states compete for these investments, many new plants will inevitably be constructed in parts of the United States where voters to date have not considered climate change a key priority.
Will we start to see new climate-friendly political coalitions emerge in America? As local economies shift, voters who don’t see climate change as a threat could plausibly join others to embrace the broader economic opportunities created in the transition to clean energy technologies.
Jonas Nahm is an assistant professor of energy, resources and environment at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and author of “Collaborative Advantage: Forging Green Industries in the New Global Economy” (Oxford University Press, 2021). Find him on Twitter @jonasnahm.
Joanna Lewis is a provost’s distinguished associate professor of energy and environment at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and author of the forthcoming book “Cooperating for the Climate: Learning from International Partnerships in China’s Clean Energy Sector” (MIT Press, 2023). Find her on Twitter @JoannaILewis.
Bentley Allan is an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University and research director at the Transition Accelerator. Find him on Twitter @bentleyballan. | 2022-08-12T12:56:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inflation Reduction Act domestic manufacturing focus may break WTO rules - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/inflation-reduction-act-clean-energy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/inflation-reduction-act-clean-energy/ |
NEW DELHI — India on Friday criticized China’s decision to block the imposition of U.N. sanctions sought by it and the United States against the deputy chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad, a Pakistan-based extremist group designated by the United Nations as a terrorist organization.
Noted: Poll shows more women favoring Democratic congressional candidates | 2022-08-12T12:56:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | India criticizes China for blocking UN sanctions on militant - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/india-criticizes-china-for-blocking-un-sanctions-on-militant/2022/08/12/09bd1e1c-1a3c-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/india-criticizes-china-for-blocking-un-sanctions-on-militant/2022/08/12/09bd1e1c-1a3c-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Long-haul trucking has always been a tough job that keeps drivers away from their families for days and sometimes weeks. It’s no wonder there’s a perennial shortage of them. The pool of available drivers is aging — the median age is about 46 and climbing — and the industry is struggling to attract younger people to get behind the wheel of a big rig.
Critics contend the problem is rooted in pay. Raise truckers’ wages, they say, and more will be willing to hit the road, even with the sacrifices to home life. A survey by the American Trucking Associations published on Wednesday, however, suggested the problem goes beyond compensation, especially after Covid-19 unleashed a pandemic of self-reflection on life’s priorities. The job description is stark: Live out of a truck for days while missing your children’s games or school plays.
The good news for drivers is that salaries are going up. The ATA study showed that annual pay for long-haul truckers rose to almost $70,000 in 2021, an 18% jump from 2019. The more interesting nugget from the survey was that the higher pay per mile enabled drivers to work less and be at home more while making the same amount of money, said Bob Costello, the trade group’s chief economist. “The idea that it’s only pay” that is keeping truckers off the road “is wrong,” Costello said. So higher pay isn’t going to necessarily translate into enough drivers to fill demand.
The shortage of truck drivers is now more than 80,000, and that’s expected to double by 2030, according to the ATA. At the same time, trucking freight rates including fuel surcharges jumped to an all-time high in January on the spot market as demand outstripped capacity (they have cooled some since then as fuel prices have dropped). Higher pay has also put upward pressure on rates.
There is an obvious long-term solution to both these problems: driverless trucks. But only if the industry gets off on the right foot with maximum transparency on its operations. If autonomous trucks are introduced prudently, they can improve highway safety and continue to promote the small-business ownership that dominates the trucking industry.
They are already on the road. Companies like Aurora Innovation Inc., TuSimple Holdings Inc., Kodiak Robotics Inc. and several others are testing driverless trucks on US highways with a safety driver still behind the wheel.
Some of them, such as Aurora, are planning “driver out” operations in less than two years. The goal is laudable: Increase highway safety while pushing down the cost of moving freight. The logical entry point of these driverless trucks will be in the long-haul market, where trucking companies struggle the most to find workers.
The gains from autonomous trucks go beyond the salary of a driver. For example, TuSimple said last year that its system saved more than 13% on fuel alone in a 30-month testing period with United Parcel Service Inc., mostly because the trucks drove at a steady pace between 55 and 68 miles an hour. More important, the productivity gains are exponential because the trucks can operate practically around the clock and aren’t limited to the hours a driver can put in each day. And if accidents were to drop even into the hundreds instead of the tens of thousands that occur on US highways every year, the savings on insurance would be huge.
The bar for safety will be set incredibly high, and the only way the autonomous trucking companies will gain the confidence and support from the public is with an enormous amount of transparency on their operations. People need to know how the technology works and how it’s performing before turning loose 80,000-pound robot trucks on the highways.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is part of the Department of Transportation, supports the technology and has a tracking tool for people to see where tests are being performed. “Vehicle safety promises to be one of automation’s biggest benefits,” NHTSA says on its website. Higher levels of automation “remove the human driver from the chain of events that can lead to a crash.”
Any incidents, such as accidents or near-misses, should be reported and made public immediately. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month on a leaked video of an accident involving a TuSimple truck that unexpectedly swerved left on Interstate 10 and did more damage to driverless trucks’ image than it did to the truck. The safety driver was able to take control after the truck moved abruptly from the middle lane of the three-lane highway and hit a concrete barrier separating the oncoming lanes. No one was injured. The same YouTube channel that made the accident public also posted a separate video of a truck driver unbuckling his seat belt to reach back for an item and flipping his 18-wheeler.
TuSimple reported the accident to authorities and shut down its operations while investigating the cause, which the company attributed to human error when the computer system was rebooted improperly and the truck was given an old command to turn left. The company upgraded the system to eliminate the possibility of this error occurring again, Chief Executive Officer Xiaodi Hou said in an Aug. 2 earnings conference call. In seven years and more than 8 million miles of on-road testing, this is the only accident for which the TuSimple system has been responsible, Hou said.
The data that autonomous trucking companies provide needs to go beyond just reporting accidents to authorities. Statistics should include how many times and why the safety drivers grab the wheel and take over from the onboard computer, which is fed information from a combination of sensors such as cameras, radar and lidar. The argument against providing this data is that the decision to intervene is subjective and that some drivers are more skittish than others. That shouldn’t matter. A clear, downward trendline of interventions — planned or unplanned — will show that safety drivers are gaining more confidence in the automated systems they are testing.
There are other hurdles for autonomous trucks. For one, California doesn’t allow driverless operations for vehicles weighing more than 10,000 pounds. Both industry advocates, such as the newly formed Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, and critics, including unions and safety groups, agree that the Transportation Department needs to set some rules. That regulation must perform a delicate balancing act to ensure the vehicles are safe while not smothering this nascent industry before it gets started.
Keep in mind that accidents involving driverless trucks are going to happen at some point — perhaps from a motorist cutting in front of the truck, a blown tire or a computer glitch. But they will most likely be involved in a fraction of the large-truck accidents that cause injuries or deaths; 159,000 people were injured in crashes in 2019, and 5,600 people were killed in 2021, according to NHTSA data. Otherwise, the robot-truck industry won’t survive.
The rules also need to take into account that the trucking industry is dominated by small companies and owner-operators. There are almost 2 million freight motor carriers in the US, and more than half of them own just one truck, which they likely drive themselves. Only 5,600 of these motor carriers operate more than 100 trucks. It’s important that autonomous-vehicle technology is also available to these small entrepreneurs. For now, most of the driverless-system developers have partnered with large companies, including UPS, FedEx Corp. and J.B. Hunt Transport Systems Inc.
It will take some time, perhaps years, before autonomous trucks cut into the shortage of long-haul drivers. To pave the way, transparency on how these companies’ technologies are performing will generate public confidence that, instead of being a threat, these trucks will actually be much safer and can handle the job of moving freight across the country.
• Farm Robots Will Solve Many of Our Food Worries: Amanda Little
• Walmart Truckers Pull Even With Junior Bankers: Jared Dillian | 2022-08-12T14:26:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Driverless Trucks Can Be Safe and Efficient - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/driverless-trucks-canbe-safe-and-efficient/2022/08/12/e2d42ca8-1a47-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/driverless-trucks-canbe-safe-and-efficient/2022/08/12/e2d42ca8-1a47-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 28: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks to reporters during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol July 28, 2022 in Washington, DC. Schumer discussed the CHIPS and Science legislation as well as his recent agreement with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) (Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images North America)
Sadly, however, some fiscal habits seem hard to break. In a flurry of last-minute revisions designed to win the support of Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the plan’s tax provisions were tweaked yet again. As a result, the Senate passed the measure without knowing exactly how much it will raise. And revenue implications aside, the further revisions do nothing to improve the IRA’s basic approach.
The deal first struck by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Joe Manchin had three main tax components: a new corporate minimum rate of 15% for the most profitable firms, a provision to end the preferential treatment of “carried interest,” and stepped-up enforcement. The new version retains expanded of funding for the Internal Revenue Service, but waters down the minimum tax and scraps the change to carried interest.
The minimum tax aims to limit the deductions that companies can apply to their profits in calculating what they owe. But here’s the problem: Those “loopholes” (as advocates like to call them) exist because Congress enacted them to make firms do what Congress wants. So the Schumer-Manchin plan already allowed various climate-policy incentives and other deductions to be set against book income before applying the minimum rate. The new version goes further — in particular, by allowing bigger deductions for depreciation to encourage investment.
There’s no ambiguity about the defeat of the carried-interest reform. Allowing private-equity and other finance managers to call earnings capital gains rather than ordinary income reduces their taxes, serves no good fiscal purpose, and is plainly unfair. The survival of this longstanding anomaly is nothing but a tribute to the power of lobbying. Its substitute in the new plan — a 1% tax on stock repurchases — is another half-baked tax complication, serving to lock capital into firms whose managers think they can’t invest it profitably.
One caveat. Much will depend on how well the agency uses its new resources. Things could backfire unless a more aggressive IRS also gives weight to improving the service it offers to ordinary taxpayers, who’ve grown accustomed to inordinate delays in processing and granting refunds, lack of clear information, and botched procedures for resolving tax debts and other issues that unduly burden low-income taxpayers. It would be good, as well, if the IRS could tell its new staff to occasionally pick up the phone.
• New Chips Act Could Become a $280 Billion Boondoggle: The Editors | 2022-08-12T14:26:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Senate’s Tax Plan Has Issues - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-senates-tax-plan-has-issues/2022/08/12/7d8b2642-1a3f-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-senates-tax-plan-has-issues/2022/08/12/7d8b2642-1a3f-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
(Rey Lopez for The Washington Post/food styling by Carolyn Robb for The Washington Post)
While “nooch” is a relatively new term, nutritional yeast has been around for decades. According to NPR, the product hit shelves in 1950 and became popular with hippies in the late 1960s and 1970s. Since then, nooch has been a prized ingredient among people who adhere to plant-based diets for its umami-rich flavor and as a source of essential nutrients. And in more recent years, its fandom has spread to eaters of all diets and has even led to merch that lets people to declare their love with the words “Nooch Life” or “Dear Nooch I Love You” emblazoned across their chest.
If you’re curious about why this ingredient should be added to your pantry or how to use the supply you already have, here’s what you need to know about nutritional yeast.
“As its cells die, the proteins that made up its cells break down and amino acids like glutamic acid, which is naturally found in many fruits and vegetables, are released,” Alicia Kennedy writes in Serious Eats. It’s this glutamic acid, also called glutamate, that is responsible for nutritional yeast’s umami flavor and explains the comparison it often gets to Parmesan cheese, another umami-rich food. While I do get hints of cheesiness, I also find nutritional yeast reminiscent of roast chicken, as if the skin has been dehydrated and put in a shaker bottle.
Why you shouldn’t fear MSG, an unfairly maligned and worthwhile seasoning
While some deny the cheese comparison when it comes to flavor, the analogy to Parmesan is apt for how it can be used, which is to say that it can be added to anything. And in comparing it to another umami-rich seasoning, MSG, nooch does not contain any sodium and can be used in larger quantities. It’s perhaps best known as a seasoning for popcorn or as a crucial ingredient in many vegan mac-and-cheese recipes. You could also sprinkle it on roasted vegetables, use it in salad dressings or add it to boost the umami in soups. (Note that it also acts as a thickener.) Tim Chin for Serious Eats discovered that, beyond adding flavor, it also works as a dough relaxer, improving the elasticity in his recipe for hand-pulled lamian noodles.
And as its name implies, it is in fact a good source of nutrients. “A quarter cup of nooch, which has 60 calories, provides more protein than a large egg and is packed with fiber and an array of B vitamins and minerals. It is often fortified with vitamin B12, which is especially important for vegans because this essential nutrient is primarily found in animal products,” Ellie Krieger writes.
Nutritional yeast is available in many supermarkets, health stores and online. It should last for up to two years when stored in an airtight container in a cool dark place, such as a pantry (refrigerate it for a slightly extended shelf life). You can tell it has expired if the color shifts from pale yellow to a darker brown and/or it starts to clump together. Here are some recipes to use it up before you get to that point.
Vegan Broccoli Mac and Cheese. Nutritional yeast, miso and mustard pack this cashew-based “cheese” sauce with nutty, deep and sharp flavors.
Maple Mustard Tofu. A combination of cornstarch, nutritional yeast and dried herbs coats the tofu before it gets roasted in the oven and then tossed in a maple-mustard sauce.
Chickpea Omelets With Mushrooms, Spinach and Tomato. Nooch and turmeric are responsible for the color and earthy, nutty flavor in these eggless omelets.
Collards and Quinoa. This recipe relies on nooch to add cheesy umami to collard greens mixed with onion, sun-dried tomatoes and pine nuts.
Crunchy Nut and Seed Clusters. Coconut aminos and nutritional yeast team up in this recipe to make these crunchy clusters extra savory and rich with umami. | 2022-08-12T14:27:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What is nutritional yeast, plus tips and recipes for using it - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/08/11/nutritional-yeast-nooch-tips-recipes/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/08/11/nutritional-yeast-nooch-tips-recipes/ |
Drag exploded in popularity. Then came the protests and attacks.
Many drag performers say this era is an inflection point — for the art form and LGBTQ rights more broadly
D'Manda Martini says she worries drag could be pushed back underground or even made illegal. (Shuran Huang for The Washington Post)
On a sweltering Saturday morning in July, several dozen people steeled themselves for a fight outside a library in a quiet Maryland suburb.
They were defending something they saw as essential, and they were willing to put themselves on the line for it: a story time for toddlers, led by a drag queen.
In some ways, the crowd outside the Drag Queen Story Hour in Kensington, Md. — moms and kids, a rabbi and a priest, a mayor and a state representative — marked how far drag has come. A largely underground performance art until as recently as 20 years ago, drag has by many measures gone mainstream. Parents of young children see it as a form of entertainment, members of the LGBTQ community have embraced it and elected officials are defending it.
But recent threats toward the drag community serve as a reminder that not everyone is ready to welcome them. In June, members of the far-right Proud Boys stormed into another Drag Queen Story Hour in California, yelling homophobic and transphobic remarks and prompting a hate-crime investigation. Later that month, a man carrying a rifle outside a drag story time in Nevada sent families running for cover. The same day, library security escorted a group of protesting men out of a drag program in Silver Spring, Md. Other events have been canceled out of fear of backlash.
And at the Kensington event, a small group of protesters stood across the parking lot, filming the counterprotesters and occasionally engaging them in arguments over religious objections to drag.
The protests against family-friendly drag events nationwide come as right-wing extremists and some politicians have in recent months falsely asserted that drag queens “groom” children, employing a line of attack increasingly used on the right to undermine gay rights more broadly. Republican lawmakers in several states are proposing legislation to bar minors from attending drag shows.
The growing appeal of drag, which showcases the fluidity of gender, has become a beacon of progress for many in the LGBTQ community, as has an increasing number of transgender and gender-nonconforming people openly challenging rigid gender norms. But performers say the increase in protests and violence at events threatens to drive drag back underground, and with it an important symbol of visibility.
Drag performers themselves are rattled — and wondering what is next for the profession.
“We’re reaching one of those culminating points where the scale has got to tip,” Bella Naughty, a drag queen who performs in the D.C. area, said at the Maryland library counterprotest.
“There’s a bigger backlash against drag queens, there’s a bigger backlash against the LGBTQ+ community and people of color, no matter what group you’re in,” Naughty continued. “We’re in it not just for drag, but for the greater picture.”
‘Breaking any notion of gender’
For most of its history in the United States, drag has existed on the fringes, kept alive by marginalized communities. Historians consider William Dorsey Swann — a Black, openly gay man born into slavery in Maryland — to be the first American to label himself a “queen of drag,” performing at balls around Washington with other formerly enslaved men in the late 19th century.
From there, drag developed as a part of the widely popular vaudeville theater of the early 1900s, according to Joe Jeffreys, a lecturer at the New School in New York. Drag-specific shows had to be held mostly in homes, away from the public eye.
Jeffreys said the proliferation of drag shows in gay bars only occurred after the Stonewall riots in 1969, and even then, drag performers faced stigma from within the gay community for the way they presented gender as malleable.
“Drag is itself breaking any notion of gender,” he said.
In 1994, as the organizers of New York City Pride prepared to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Stonewall, they “let it be known that they really didn’t care for drag or it to be seen necessarily in their parade,” Jeffreys said. In response, a group organized the NYC Drag March, an alternative event before the main parade that continues today.
‘Queering Black history’: Here are 5 LGBTQ pioneers to know
Clinton Leupp, who has performed as Miss Coco Peru since 1992, said that early in his career even gay friends considered it a “dangerous and dirty” profession. “Calling yourself a drag queen was the lowest of the lowest thing you could be in the gay community,” Leupp said.
That’s changed in the past two decades: The venues for drag have shifted from underground nightclubs to drag brunches and corporate events. And so too has the audience, from mostly gay men to teenage girls, straight adults and even toddlers, since Drag Queen Story Hour was founded in 2015 and expanded to nearly 50 chapters nationwide. Now, drag can be a viable full-time career.
Performers credit the rapid mainstreaming to two primary factors: the internet, which allowed drag to reach a wider audience in their homes, and “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” the Emmy Award-winning reality show now in its 14th season.
For drag queens featured on the show — in which they compete in challenges to be crowned “America’s next drag superstar” — it can be life-changing.
Latrice Royale, who has been performing drag for 30 years, said her career was a “slow burn” of nightclubs and amateur shows until she auditioned for the fourth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” in 2012.
“That really changed my world and the world of drag,” she said. Royale now has a residency at the Flamingo Hotel on the Vegas Strip, where she performs in a live show featuring contestants from the TV show.
‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ is more than a TV show. It’s a movement.
Drag is sometimes conflated with being transgender, but the two are distinct in that drag is not a gender identity in itself. In fact, transgender drag queens and kings can sometimes face stigma from within the drag community because the profession originated with cisgender, gay men performing as women, performers say. That’s changed in recent years, thanks in part to “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” said Miss Peppermint, who became the first openly transgender woman featured on the show in 2017.
“I’ve had to fight with people in the community to let them know that trans women do deserve a spot when it comes to the art form of drag,” Peppermint said. “It is something that people had to become accustomed to and now that is more mainstream.”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” has had both positive and negative effects on the industry, performers say. Kareem Khubchandani, an associate professor of theater, dance and performance studies at Tufts University who also performs in drag around the country, said the show has largely popularized one form of drag — “cisgender men performing in glamorous, feminine styles” — over its many subcultures.
RuPaul, the show’s host, declined an interview for this story through his agent.
‘An easier, new target’
As drag expands to new venues outside of queer spaces, it has also become more of a target for attacks.
“There is a big backlash of people being like, ‘Okay, well, you guys have had enough,’” said D’Manda Martini, a drag queen in Washington, D.C.
Martini was leading a Drag Queen Story Hour at a library in Silver Spring in late June when at least three men without children walked in and began to film her reading, she said. They soon started to interject, yelling about how Martini would face God’s judgment until they were confronted by parents and escorted out by security.
Martini said the incident rattled her, but she managed to finish the reading and security guards accompanied her to her car. “I now am the proud owner of a mini lavender Mace,” she said.
A Pride Month marked by grief, rage and resilient joy
The pushback has had a chilling effect elsewhere. Amid threats, a story hour in Apex, N.C., was canceled in June but reinstated after community members stepped in, WRAL reported. And a bar in Woodland, Calif., rescheduled a drag happy hour in June after right-wing extremists arrived, according to the Los Angeles Times, one of a number of Pride Month events threatened by far-right violence this year.
Performers say this type of prejudice is familiar to drag performers and the LGBTQ community as a whole, which has long been falsely maligned by accusations of pedophilia. What is new is the targeting of family-friendly drag events by protesters and conservative lawmakers. In Florida, Texas, Arizona and other states, politicians have introduced or said they would introduce legislation banning drag events for minors, arguing that such performances aren’t appropriate for children.
Teachers who mention sexuality are ‘grooming’ kids, conservatives say
Martini said she believes drag performance has always been a political statement, but brunches and story hours make “an easier, new target” because they happen “in broad daylight” and have children in the audience.
“They can’t be outright calling us slurs anymore, so they have to find new ways and political ways of making it so that we feel like we’re not people,” she said.
An inflection point
Because many drag performers believe the profession has helped increase visibility for the LGBTQ community, they see the recent attacks as threatening more than just drag.
Ben Schatz, who has been performing drag for more than 40 years and founded the drag a cappella quartet Kinsey Sicks, said he sees the protests as “backlash to the mainstreaming of the LGBT community” and that drag is simply a front line.
“It’s a convenient target — it’s easier than making Pete Buttigieg sound scary to make someone like me sound scary,” Schatz said.
A generation of LGBTQ advocates hopes the clock isn’t ticking backward
Peppermint said she sees the attacks as a “red herring” and “code for ‘we don’t like gay people, we don’t like trans people, but we’re going to say drag.’”
That politicization is why combating the pushback is especially important, performers say.
“Drag is actually a pivot point around which gay rights, trans rights, and women’s rights, we might see them all — that sexism, transphobia and homophobia are actually all wrapped up inside of drag phobia,” Khubchandani said. “That’s not a singular gay rights issue, to defend drag, but actually a trans women’s rights issue, as well.”
For Martini, this era is an inflection point — for drag and LGBTQ rights more broadly.
“We’re just at this sort of weird meeting of, there is so much drag out there, but there’s also this very real political threat — we could potentially be made illegal,” Martini said. “Everything could just be over.” | 2022-08-12T14:27:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Drag faces new threats as it moves into the mainstream, performers say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/12/drag-mainstream-attacks-crossroads/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/12/drag-mainstream-attacks-crossroads/ |
FILE - Jon Batiste attends the TIME100 Gala in New York on June 8, 2022. Batiste is leaving “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” as bandleader after a seven-year run. Louis Cato, who has served as interim bandleader this summer, will take over on a permanent basis when the show returns for its eighth season. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-08-12T14:27:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jon Batiste leaves Stephen Colbert's 'The Late Show' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jon-batiste-leaves-stephen-colberts-the-late-show/2022/08/12/78f8ea0e-1a46-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jon-batiste-leaves-stephen-colberts-the-late-show/2022/08/12/78f8ea0e-1a46-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
By Richard B. Karel
Maryland Del. Dan Cox, center, arrives with his family Jan. 9 in the House chambers before the opening of the 439th session of the Maryland General Assembly. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Richard B. Karel is a freelance writer in Baltimore.
In the wake of Maryland’s 2022 gubernatorial primary, in which Maryland Del. Dan Cox (R-Frederick) claimed the GOP slot, there has been much Sturm und Drang over ads funded by the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) supporting Cox over his primary opponent, Kelly M. Schulz. Cox will face moderate Democrat Wes Moore in the November general election.
Nothing about the DGA-funded ads and mailers — on which it spent about $2 million — was inaccurate. The ads were deployed as a tactic to increase the odds that in a blue state that has occasionally elected moderate Republicans to the governor’s mansion, a Democrat would recapture the state’s top prize. Well-liked centrist Gov. Larry Hogan (R) is term-limited. Schulz, Hogan’s handpicked successor, understandably cried foul.
It is highly unlikely that the DGA gambit was the deciding factor in Cox’s victory in Maryland. The DGA ads emphasized Trump’s endorsement of Cox and Cox’s opposition to gun-safety reform and his support of the former president’s attempt to steal the election. As a probing analysis by Sam Janesch in the Baltimore Sun revealed, Cox’s support among the GOP base was both broad and wide — and reflected the prevailing sentiment of Maryland’s Republican Party.
Hogan won his first gubernatorial race in 2014 — in the pre-Trump era. Despite getting reelected with the help of a large swath of Maryland Democrats four years later, his flailing efforts to stay in good standing with much of the Republican base were reflected in Schulz’s decisive loss. Many Maryland Republican voters characterized Hogan as a RINO — a Republican in name only — for his failure to embrace Trump and for his cautious response to the pandemic.
Though I recognize the funding of far-right Republican candidates by Democratic PACs — in Maryland and elsewhere — is Machiavellian, I just can’t muster outrage over this hardball Realpolitik tactic. There is indeed some risk in Democrats boosting a MAGA candidate such as Doug Mastriano in a purple state such as Pennsylvania. Mastriano won the Republican gubernatorial primary. How that pans out for the Democrats remains to be seen.
Perhaps the problem is that the Republican base finds these candidates appealing — and that Schulz failed to run a campaign that spoke to these voters. When she insisted these ads were an attempt by the DGA to “trick" voters, it is possible that Republican voters found her comments condescending or were indifferent to the source of the funding.
Meanwhile, in other state races, Democrats are supporting centrist independents. A prime example is Utah’s Evan McMullin, who is running for the Senate against Sen. Mike Lee (R). Tactically, this makes perfect sense. Unlike in Maryland, there is no chance that a Democrat could win a Senate race in Utah. McMullin is a reasonable centrist, and though he would almost certainly caucus with Republicans, he would likely exert a moderating influence in the Senate. Any fist-shaking at Democrats here strikes me as misguided.
Given the recent record of the Republican Party at the national, state and local levels, I find it difficult to muster anger at the DGA or other Democratic PACs for employing hardball tactics that are legal and transparent. The best I can do is shrug and hope that at some point in the future, we have a more informed, more rational and more centrist electorate. Former representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.) once quipped that though politicians often fall short, “voters are no bargain either.” | 2022-08-12T14:27:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Anger over ‘Democratic meddling’ in Maryland’s GOP primary is misplaced - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/anger-over-democratic-meddling-marylands-gop-primary-is-misplaced/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/anger-over-democratic-meddling-marylands-gop-primary-is-misplaced/ |
By DeForest “Buster” Soaries
A boy squeegees the windshield of a car on May 19 in exchange for cash in Baltimore. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post)
DeForest “Buster” Soaries is pastor emeritus of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens, N.J., a board member of the Stand Together Foundation and co-chair of the Heal America Movement.
Does Baltimore care about squeegee kids? That’s the most important question after a driver attacked one of them and was shot dead in return last month. Everyone in cities like Baltimore knows these kids, who live in terrible poverty and stand at stoplights and street corners and wipe the windshields of passing cars. Sadly, in the wake of this tragedy, the risk is that Baltimore will double down on failed approaches that trap squeegee kids in poverty, instead of helping them escape it.
This heartbreaking incident has generally divided people along two lines. The first is the most obvious: Crack down on these kids — or even lock 'em up. According to this common response, squeegeeing is illegal for a reason. It’s annoying and dangerous, especially during rush hour when traffic is thick and tensions are high. The thinking goes that the police should intervene and get squeegee kids off the streets for good.
But is arresting and even imprisoning these kids going to solve anything? This approach basically means punishing poverty. Squeegee kids are typically middle or high school dropouts. They’re doing it because they want to earn a quick buck — and the alternatives are dealing drugs, joining gangs or worse. If they end up behind bars at such a young age, Baltimore will basically doom them to a life of crime. A criminal crackdown on squeegee kids will lead to more poverty, more violence and more heartbreak.
The second response is no better: sweeping poverty under the rug. The recent tragedy has led many to call for new government programs and projects targeted to squeegee kids. According to this thinking, society writ large needs to do something, anything, to help. Left unspoken is the reality of these programs, which generally involves throwing money at the problem — the definition of one-size-fits-all.
But does anyone really expect this to work? No doubt it’s well intentioned, but the same is true of all the costly programs and projects from the past 50 years — virtually none of which have made a meaningful, lasting difference. If one-size-fits-all solutions worked, then Baltimore wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. Trying again would merely perpetuate squeegee kids’ poverty, when they really need individualized help to leave poverty behind.
Baltimore can do better than perpetuating poverty or criminally punishing it. Instead of listening to the loudest voices, the city should look to the effective efforts that tackle the root causes of each squeegee kid’s situation.
Lo and behold, there is much inspiration to be found.
Consider Thread, a Baltimore nonprofit that’s weaving “a new social fabric.” It focuses on the kids who are most affected by structural barriers — many of whom could be future squeegee kids. Thread connects them with community members who become interwoven into each other’s lives, giving them the encouragement and support they need to succeed in school and then in life. This isn’t a one- or two-year thing; it’s a 10-year commitment or more. Thread’s unique approach has helped hundreds of kids achieve goals they never imagined possible
Then there’s New Vision Youth Services, which connects struggling kids with mentors who’ve lived similar experiences. These mentors have squeegeed, dropped out of school, spent time in prison, you name it. They help the kids believe in themselves, giving them the boost needed to finish their education and start a better life. New Vision Youth Services has empowered hundreds of kids, including more than a few squeegee kids.
Are these the only efforts that work? Of course not. I know of other inspiring groups in Baltimore and dozens nationwide. These incredible projects are making a difference because they spring from the ordinary love and care that people feel toward their own communities. Even more important: The people behind them believe in the dignity, worth and incredible potential of these undervalued and overlooked kids. That, more than anything, is what squeegee kids need.
So, how can Baltimore help squeegee kids? By recognizing that we all are involved in the answer. The city needs private citizens and churches and nonprofits and scrappy start-ups, not more public programs and police departments that reach down from on high to “solve” these kids. Each person can do something, from mentoring to donating to volunteering. Even the drivers who deal with squeegee kids on a daily basis can step up. It’s as simple as rolling down the window and referring them to a group that can help.
This is hard work, no question. But it’s much better than taking the easy and uncaring road of dooming squeegee kids to a life of crime, poverty or both. They deserve so much better — and they’re capable of so much more. | 2022-08-12T14:27:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | A better way for Baltimore to help its ‘squeegee kids’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/better-way-baltimore-help-its-squeegee-kids/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/better-way-baltimore-help-its-squeegee-kids/ |
D.C. is a world-class city without world-class health care
By Roberta Shapiro
United Medical Center in Southeast Washington on May 10, 2021. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Roberta Shapiro is a retired health-care executive who has served in senior management roles with hospitals, health insurers and one of the nation’s largest free clinics.
D.C. is undeniably a world-class city. It offers great universities, museums, performing arts, notable architecture and monuments, beautiful parks and rivers, great restaurants, unique opportunities for civic engagement, and myriad cultural and entertainment options reflecting the city’s diverse mix of people and perspectives.
D.C. has a great deal to boast about. Unfortunately, when it comes to health-care services, D.C. can claim no boasting rights. On July 27, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) updated its Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings. Nationally, about 5 percent of rated hospitals received one star, the lowest rating. Strikingly, 50 percent of D.C. general hospitals — George Washington, Howard and United Medical Center — received this troubling rating, which “is based on how well a hospital performs across different areas of quality, such as treating heart attacks and pneumonia, readmission rates and safety of care.”
No D.C. hospital was among the more than 10 percent of all U.S. hospitals to receive five stars from the CMS.
Certainly, the CMS rating system is not immune to criticism. The most notable concern is that it is intrinsically biased against urban tertiary-care hospitals that treat large percentages of poor, marginalized and medically complex patients. However, the list of four- and five-star hospitals includes many urban facilities, including Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital, which was ranked No. 5 in the nation in U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of inpatient facilities.
Furthermore, D.C.'s pipeline of providers looks similarly bleak. Out of 192 U.S. medical schools, none of D.C.’s three such schools break into the top 50 in the U.S. News ranking.
D.C. and its educational and civic institutions should be attempting to address these issues head-on, rather than perpetuating mediocrity. Accordingly, it is difficult to understand how the city could rely on Universal Health Services (UHS), which owns and operates one-star-rated GW Hospital, to manage the replacement facility for the troubled and one-star-rated United Medical Center. This question becomes even more acute after a recent Post article cited a disability rights watchdog group claiming serious problems with care at D.C.’s Psychiatric Institute of Washington, which is also owned and operated by UHS. Furthermore, the Medicare star ratings for 16 acute-care hospitals operated by UHS nationwide reveal that more than 40 percent received one- or two-star ratings. In addition, in 2020 UHS paid $122 million to federal and state governments to settle claims of having provided inadequate services.
D.C. and all of its residents deserve better health-care providers and partners. | 2022-08-12T14:27:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | D.C. is a world-class city without world-class health care - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/dc-is-world-class-city-without-world-class-health-care/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/dc-is-world-class-city-without-world-class-health-care/ |
We have to stop saying ‘political’ when we mean ‘partisan’
Attorney General Merrick Garland exits following a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington on Aug. 4. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
The dispute over the FBI’s search of former president Donald Trump’s property at Mar-a-Lago highlights a flaw in our public discourse that I think has real and negative consequences: the widespread use of the term “political” when we really mean “partisan.” America desperately needs less partisanship in our government and policy decisions, but it will be almost impossible to make them less political.
In criticizing the FBI, the Justice Department and, in particular, Attorney General Merrick Garland over the search this week, Republican officials have often invoked the terms “political,” “politicized” and “politicization.” Journalists in the mainstream media are writing that the search makes Garland part of the political process, which is framed as negative. The attorney general might have played into this dynamic himself, because he has long cast himself as apolitical, even saying in 2016, as he was considered for a U.S. Supreme Court seat, that he does not have a “political bone” in his body.
Those are distortions of what political means. Merriam-Webster’s first definition of political is “of or relating to government, a government, or the conduct of government.” Some colleges have a political science major, others have a major called government, but students are taught similar material in both. You could argue that politics is really about power, so say, Bill Gates has a big political role even though he does not serve in government.
Thus, anything that an attorney general, a Supreme Court justice or a similarly powerful government official does in the conduct of his or her duties is political. Garland is literally a political appointee of President Biden. And Garland’s department is conducting an investigation that involves whether Trump and/or his supporters, people deeply involved in politics, violated the law in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
So Garland was deeply enmeshed in politics way before Monday’s search. And because Trump is a major political figure, either searching his home or not searching his home (or bringing charges against him or not) is a political decision.
But while Garland can’t avoid being political, he can and should try to avoid being partisan, what Merriam-Webster defines as “feeling, showing, or deriving from strong and sometimes blind adherence to a particular party, faction, cause, or person.” Ideally, this search was not entirely conceived by Biden appointees. (And that is almost certainly the case, because most of the investigative work done by the FBI and the Justice Department is conducted by career employees.) Ideally, the FBI and the Justice Department would have conducted this same search in the same manner if they were investigating former president Barack Obama instead of Trump. Ideally, in all prosecutorial decisions, Garland’s department is not going harder against Republicans or softer on Democrats.
Other terms that are more useful and precise than political are “ideological,” “electoral” and “personal.” Garland should not be investigating Trump or anyone else to boost the Democrats in the midterms (electoral), because he doesn’t agree with them on major policy issues (ideological) or because he simply thinks they are mean or stupid (personal).
But this collapsing of the distinction between electoral, ideological, personal and particularly partisan vs. political is widespread and damaging. As the Republican Party has gotten more radical since Trump became its leader, the mainstream media, businesses, universities and other institutions have continually mistaken being nonpartisan with being nonpolitical. These institutions aren’t aligned with either of the two major parties and want to maintain that independence. I agree with that perspective; we need a civil society outside of the two parties.
But desperate to avoid seeming partisan, these institutions have often either abandoned or shrunk from their proper political roles. Reporters who cover government are referred to as political journalists. Describing Republicans as trying to make it harder for Black people to vote is a political act. But it’s not a partisan one; it’s the job of journalists to directly and honestly describe events. The reluctance of many journalists to honestly and forthrightly describe the Republicans’ voting laws is an abdication of their political duties to avoid being cast as partisan.
Republican Party officials are taking advantage of this misunderstanding. At the local, state and federal levels, they cast academic researchers, public health officials, teachers, journalists and basically any other nonpartisan expert who disagrees with GOP policy priorities as being political, with the implication that the person is being improperly partisan, pro-Democratic and anti-Republican. The strategy is to collapse all of American life into people and institutions on Team Blue vs. those on Team Red.
And Republicans have in many ways succeeded. Among conservative activists, the media, academia, the federal bureaucracy, the field of public health and numerous other nonpartisan institutions are considered essentially arms of the Democratic Party, opposed to all Republicans and any conservative ideas. Delegitimizing these institutions makes it easier for the Republicans to ignore them and potentially even gut them, as GOP officials are pushing to do in terms of public schools and the federal bureaucracy in particular.
Now, an FBI run by Trump appointee Christopher A. Wray and a Justice Department run by the centrist Garland are being cast as partisan organizations out to get Republicans.
I’m usually hesitant to suggest simply using a different word will make a big impact. But in the case of partisan v. political, centering this distinction is hugely important. Being political, meaning getting involved in government, is generally good. We want more institutions and people in our society involved in public affairs. And if your job is special counsel, attorney general or president, your job is inherently political. Being partisan isn’t always bad, but it’s certainly not universally good. Ideally, the president and other politicians aren’t always being partisan and FBI agents, prosecutors and attorney generals never are.
We should really try to take some of the partisanship out of American politics. But we can’t make politics not political. | 2022-08-12T14:27:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Governance shouldn't be partisan, but it is unavoidably political - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/mar-a-lago-search-political-not-partisan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/mar-a-lago-search-political-not-partisan/ |
The Aug. 1 obituary for Nichelle Nichols, “Actress broke ground from a starship bridge,” dismissed her work with NASA as being “modest.” NASA and President Biden were far more generous in praising her role in promoting diversity within the space program. More significantly, Black and female astronauts have talked about the role Nichols played in encouraging them to join NASA.
The obituary noted the low ratings of the original series, but, 56 years later, Star Trek is one of the most successful franchises in TV history. People are still watching the original episodes. Five spinoff series are airing this year, with two more in development. And a young Uhura is one of the main characters in “Strange New Worlds.”
Nichols and Uhura are still encouraging young people to explore the universe.
Frank Caesar Branchini, Edgewater
As I was reading the obituary for Nichelle Nichols, one sentence stood out: “Nichols worked with series creator Gene Roddenberry, her onetime lover.” Deeper in the article was a more informative description of their relationship. But the implication here was she slept her way to the top. As a 70-year-old, White, male non-Trekkie, I found this offensive and unnecessary commentary. I am sure others found it so as well. My regards to Nichols and her fans. She deserved much better.
Jerry Lindsay, Las Vegas
Out-er space
The image from the James Webb Telescope that accompanied the July 30 Free for All letters “Number the stars” showed several arrows on the right-hand side of the photo with the annotation “Ionized gas and hot dust flowing up.” The arrows certainly point up with respect to the page, but there is no “up” in space. It might have been more correct to use “out.” Even better would have been to end the annotation after “dust.”
Lawrence D. Powers, Springfield
Take the hint, Post
I sure miss “Hints From Heloise.” Some days, they were the most enjoyable part of The Post. Please bring them back!
Dorothy Smith, Rehoboth Beach, Del.
What’s so damning about these demographics?
I was jolted by a line in “Middle-aged protagonist’s tale is somewhat middling,” Hamilton Cain’s July 23 Style review of “The Great Man Theory” by Teddy Wayne. In the second paragraph, Cain wrote, “ ‘The Great Man Theory’ is a fraught project from the get-go: a middle-aged White male writer telling the tale of a middle-aged White male writer.” I tried to figure out what the fraught part was. Was it his age, skin color or occupation?
I read books voraciously, and I can’t for the life of me see why this is “fraught.” Writers generally write what they know. Others try to imagine those with different lives, and I love it when they do, but that leaves them vulnerable to accusations of cultural appropriation. In any event, why does it matter that it is a “middle-aged White male writer” viewpoint?
Mr. Cain did spur me to action, though, despite the rest of the negative review. I immediately added the book to my to-be-read list, right after I finish “Hell of a Book” by Jason Mott. Read everything, folks!
Mark Maddrey, Arlington
A giant off the court, too
Kudos to The Post for its superb coverage of the life of NBA GOAT Bill Russell. In particular, Jerry Brewer’s Aug. 1 Sports column, “A man before his time, fully dimensional,” did a beyond-spectacular job of repeatedly capturing the unique essence of Russell. A masterful piece of writing.
I was fortunate enough to live in the Boston area and caught the last four years of Russell’s NBA career. In 1968, the Celtics again faced Wilt Chamberlain and the Philadelphia 76ers, who had defeated them the year before. Russell and Sam Jones were 34, and the consensus was that the old Celtics days had passed. Their response was to win the next three games and become the first team in league history to overcome a 3-1 playoff series deficit.
The following year, Chamberlain was with the Los Angeles Lakers. The Celtics nabbed the last playoff spot and therefore didn’t have home-court advantage. Everyone knew those old Celtics had no chance. They proved it by losing the first two games in L.A. Yet, aided by a couple of fortunate bounces, they won Game 7 in Los Angeles by two points. Lacking an adequate backup, Russell, at age 35, played nearly every minute of every playoff game. No other team was able to win two consecutive championships for the next 18 years. As well, Russell was the only player who played as long as he did who won a championship his rookie year and repeated that feat in his final season before retirement.
Thirteen years ago, Russell did a local book-signing. He insisted on chatting with every person, which of course meant the line moved very slowly. It was 1:30 in the morning before it was the turn of the young boy in front of me. Russell took one look at him and asked, “Does your mother know where you are?!” This was followed by Russell’s inimitable laugh. When my turn came, I was trembling like a little kid and as I shook his hand, I told him how thrilled I was to be able to thank him in person for all the championship basketball he brought to Boston. He looked up at me with this broad, almost angelic smile on his face and said, “Well, thank you!”
What an amazing athlete. What a remarkable human being.
Dann Chamberlin, Gaithersburg
We hope the Packers crumple, too
Despite what Barry Svrluga wrote in his July 28 Sports column, “For one day at least, the focus in Ashburn can be on football,” no one in Ashburn saw a professional football “franchise gathered” for training.
“The right or license granted to an individual or group to market a company’s goods or services in a particular territory” would look more like a letter or a certificate than a squad of players.
Go Commanders NFL franchise; fold the Packers’ license.
Carl Eifert, Alexandria
Tear down this confusion
I had been wondering what former Post Sports columnist Thomas Boswell would make of Juan Soto’s rejection of the 15-year, $440 million contract offered by the Nationals, so I appreciated having that question answered, with Boz’s signature acuity, in his Aug. 3 column, “This move ends an era, but a new one will start sooner than you think.” He wrote that the offer was “enough to ensure he would not take it, unless Juan wanted to climb over agent Scott Boras’s dead body.” And I took some small consolation as well as enlightenment from Boz’s observation that the Nats’ teardown became almost inevitable last year when Stephen Strasburg required surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome: “The list of pitchers who have truly come back from it is about five.” Did I miss some other Post sportswriter providing that key insight sometime in the past 12 months?
But as wonderful as it was to read Boz again, shame on The Post for its front-page teaser: “The columnist returns in time for the full Nats teardown,” which implied that Boswell is now back on at least a semiregular basis. I looked eagerly for confirmation in the column itself but found nothing indicating that it was more than a one-off occasioned by the Soto trade (like the one in May following the death of Roger Angell and his Aug. 7 column, “Russell really was the greatest of all time”). Way to add insult to injury!
Perry Beider, Silver Spring
Gee, Wally, you made our hearts swell
I was touched by David Von Drehle’s July 31 op-ed about the death of Tony Dow, “Tony Dow as Wally Cleaver was a Grade A big brother.” Dow played Beaver’s older brother, Wally, in the TV show “Leave It to Beaver,” and he was a model of what a big brother should be.
I had a brother like Dow. I felt that he was a protective brother whose life was cut short by his battle with paranoid schizophrenia. I felt his love just like Beaver felt his brother's love. My brother always had my back, and I will be eternally grateful for that.
Von Drehle’s column made me feel lucky that I had a brother like mine before he lost his battle with schizophrenia. The column gave me peace of mind amid chaos. I hope it touches all little brothers wherever they may be.
Daniel J Weinberg, Silver Spring
Uncoupling ‘Uncoupled’ from its antecedents
Regarding “The problem with ‘Uncoupled’? Every single thing.,” Inkoo Kang’s July 29 Style review of “Uncoupled”:
I was thoroughly entertained by the new series, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether Kang’s review relied too heavily on her feelings about previous shows written by Darren Star. This show is subtly hilarious, and just because we know that Neil Patrick Harris has “broad-appeal likability” doesn’t mean the character he plays can’t believably suffer angst about being single at his age. It’s not Harris up there; it’s a character he’s playing.
Also, and I can’t emphasize this enough, Marcia Gay Harden’s “camp diva” is amazing, amusing and fabulous. She plays it perfectly. Where is the overacting that Kang reported?
As I finished reading the review, I thought Kang didn’t get it. She missed the point all over the place. She missed the jokes, the cultural references and the premise itself, and she is not seeing this show for what it is. Instead, she’s seeing it for what it isn’t — “And Just Like That … ,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “Sex and the City” or any of the other shows she referenced. This one, “Uncoupled,” is new. It’s funny and entertaining. I hope it finds its audience, because I want to see more!
Amy C. Cohen, Columbia
Thirsting for clarity
With reference to the July 30 news article “Kenya drought kills more elephants than poachers, threatens food security,” how many poachers did the drought kill?
Robert Bergman, Old Orchard Beach, Maine
Filthy ‘othering’
The Aug. 5 front-page article “Monkeypox fight invites debate on limiting sex” was a collection of harmful, dated and homophobic stereotypes that create fear and a sense of “othering.” At its worst, this piece reinforced painful stereotypes that extend back nearly 50 years to the beginning of the AIDS crisis.
Language, specifically dominant language in relationship to marginalized culture, matters. As an exercise in dominant language and narrative — both written and visual — The Post allowed readers to marginalize gay men while allowing those with privilege to create distance from an epidemic that is spread through intimate contact, regardless of sexual orientation.
The use of dominant cultural language stereotypes as a cudgel against men who have sex with men is painfully evident when examples from this piece are placed in succession.
Using a photograph — one taken at the San Francisco “Dore Alley kink and fetish festival” — depicting Black and Brown bodies as the face of a rapidly spreading epidemic, while noting that the festival “took place days after city officials declared a state of emergency over monkeypox.”
Opening with the line: “Thousands of gay men clad in leather, latex — and often much less — partied along Folsom Street here last weekend during the annual kink and fetish festival.”
Naming Dan Savage, an openly gay man, as a critic of current public health approaches but also noting that he “is no prude as a proponent of non-monogamous relationships and exploring fetishes” and noting that “Savage is taking his own advice, limiting sex to his husband and his boyfriend and skipping San Francisco’s Dore Alley festival this year.”
Remarking that “many revelers kept their clothes on or donned full latex outfits inside crowded bars.”
Seeming to indicate that attendance was down because of the outbreak but also noting that “participants remained spaced apart as they browsed booths hawking leather harnesses and gawked at men dressed as dogs.”
Speaking to one attendee who sported “a black leather and chain corset, lace-up mid-calf boots, chartreuse face paint and a small set of horns” and noted that this year there would be “no dark room sex parties, no orgies.”
Describing the San Francisco AIDS Foundation’s released guide as one that would allow attendees to have a “filthy weekend — free of anxiety” when in reality, the report’s subhead states, “Here are some ideas to reduce your risk, and still enjoy your favorite kink & fetish festival in San Francisco.”
I am a social worker and licensed psychologist who has committed his career to the acknowledgment and correction of bias and blind spots created by the places of marginalization and privilege within my identity. Second, I am a gay man, one who carries the weight of the intergenerational trauma created by the continuation of stereotype that extends back nearly 50 years to the beginning of the AIDS crisis. Please do better. This article helped no one.
Matthew James Graziano, Jersey City
Whoever ‘wins,’ we lose
The Post continues to use headlines that frame everything as politics, usually declaring a “win” for a politician or party, which feeds the current polarization and encourages even more positioning by politicians. Now companies are having political wins and losses, too. Example: the July 29 news article “Manchin deal hands a rare political loss to Big Pharma.” Why not “Congress finally moves to lower drug company prices”?
Much of the news is about wins and losses, but it is the American people generally losing at the hands of our elected political leaders. Headlines such as this do not help.
Lisa Reilly, Silver Spring
A stalled view of progress on guns
The Aug. 3 Style article “Atlanta music festival canceled” inaccurately said “As gun-control legislation stalls at the federal level.” In July alone, President Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and H.R. 1808, the Assault Weapons Ban, leaped out of committee and onto the House floor, where it passed 217-213.
Perhaps gun-control legislation was stalled for decades, but in the horrific aftermath of mass shootings in Uvalde, Tex., Highland Park, Ill., and elsewhere, lawmakers are finally listening to mass-shooting victims, survivors and the majority of Americans who want a federal ban on assault weapons.
I would know. I led a group of them that emerged from the wreckage of the Highland Park shooting to D.C. to channel our anger and horror. Highland Park and Uvalde previously had little in common. Now, we share a tragic history, a laser-focused mission (ban assault weapons federally) and the tenacity to not quit. If all of this is what is considered stalled, I’d love to know what defines progress.
Kitty Brandtner, Winnetka, Ill.
The writer is founder of March Fourth, a one-month-old nonprofit organization dedicated to a federal assault weapons ban.
Way ahead of his time
Was Patrick M. Reynolds, in his “Flashbacks” comic strip of July 24, striking a subliminal blow for the rights of the unborn? He depicted Alexander Hamilton defending John Peter Zenger in a libel trial in New York in August 1735. Hamilton was not born until 1755 at the earliest. It would be quite remarkable if he were defending the accused in 1735.
I think Reynolds meant to refer to Andrew Hamilton, a colonial lawyer born in Scotland circa 1676.
Richard Stone Rothblum, Springfield
Detecting a myth
The Aug. 2 editorial about allegations against former Virginia lieutenant governor Justin Fairfax (D), “ ‘Time to get answers,’ ” used the misnomer “lie detector” for a “polygraph.”
The National Academy of Sciences found the scientific evidence on the validity of polygraph tests to be “scanty and scientifically weak,” and the American Psychological Association reports general agreement among psychologists that there is “little evidence” that polygraph tests are accurate.
The Post should not be using a deceptive term that reinforces and promotes the popular myth that a device can detect lies.
Richard Klein, Falls Church | 2022-08-12T14:27:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Readers critique The Post: Nichelle Nichols boldly went - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/reader-critiques-nichelle-nichols-star-trek-nasa/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/reader-critiques-nichelle-nichols-star-trek-nasa/ |
By Aimee Guidera
A woman takes a photo at a Loudoun County School Board meeting in Broadlands on Sept. 28. (Eric Lee for The Washington Post)
Aimee Guidera is the Virginia education secretary.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) first action within an hour of being sworn in to office was to affirm his commitment to restoring excellence to education throughout the commonwealth. Since Day 1, his administration has focused on providing every learner — regardless of background or Zip code — with opportunities to access quality education. As parents and children get ready to go back to school, our commitment to Virginians remains that every family has access to a quality education that prepares their children for success in life.
Some people quibble with our use of the term “restore.” They cite national rankings and question why we are not celebrating our reputation. I know there is excellence in Virginia education; I was a consumer of it. I first became a Virginian in 1995, when my husband chose to attend one of the nation’s most innovative law and economics programs, at George Mason University; we remained Virginians because of the promise of excellent public schools for our daughters. But I also know that the exceptional education experiences from which our family benefited are not the norm for every family and every community in the commonwealth.
A culture of high expectations for every one of our students would not tolerate the fact that 42 percent of our second-graders are not on track to read independently, that our reading scores on our Standards of Learning statewide tests have declined every year since 2017, and that only 33 percent of our eighth-graders are proficient in reading. Our reputation and overall high-average performance mask widening achievement gaps among student demographic groups and a recent slip in comparison with other states on a range of academic achievement measures.
The recent historic legislative session — culminating in a $3.2 billion education budget — laid a strong foundation to restore excellence to education by prioritizing literacy and building a best-in-class education system. If Virginia is to be the best place to live, work and raise a family, it must be the best place to learn. Money isn’t a silver bullet, especially in education. But with transparency and accountability, we know that to build a world-class workforce pipeline, we need to prioritize funding it.
Those historic investments include: a 10 percent salary increase and $1,000 bonus for every teacher to attract, grow and retain quality teachers; fully funding the bipartisan Virginia Literacy Act, which will transform the training, tools and teaching of reading based on evidence; and allocating $1.25 billion through a combination of grants and school construction loans to provide secure and vibrant educational environments for Virginia’s children. To keep campuses and schools safe, Youngkin increased the $4.7 million School Resource Officer Incentive Grants program by $22.5 million each year, bolstering this important program more than fivefold — supporting 350 new school resource officers; provided additional security funding for our Historically Black Colleges and Universities; and authorized an investigation into Loudoun County Public Schools’ mishandling of sexual assault incidents.
Youngkin’s commitment to protecting and expanding education freedom and innovation is evidenced by this budget. The new $100 million investment to support the launch of dozens of pioneering innovation lab schools across the commonwealth by our public and private two- and four-year colleges and universities will increase career preparation and success. In partnership with employers, school divisions and other community organizations, colleges will foster new approaches to ensure students have multiple pathways to be ready for life. To support educational choices for our poorest families, Youngkin protected our tax-credit scholarship program from being reduced by half. He also has required all public colleges to commit to supporting free inquiry and speech on our campuses and provide plans for promoting diversity of thought in higher education.
Throughout the legislative session, Youngkin reinforced the rights of parents regarding their children’s health, education and well-being. He issued new coronavirus guidance that reaffirmed parents’ decision-making about their own child’s mask-wearing and then followed with legislation codifying this right. Youngkin continues to be responsive to parent concerns and, thus, ended the use of any form of discrimination in our classrooms (which was documented in our report on the use of inherently divisive concepts in our schools) and advocated successfully for the right of parents to be notified when sexually explicit material is in their school curriculum.
Through the bipartisan partnership, Youngkin has achieved his Day 1 agenda. Partnering with all stakeholders, from parents and teachers to policymakers, we will redouble our efforts to do the urgent work of ensuring that every child in the commonwealth is prepared to prosper. | 2022-08-12T14:27:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Virginia’s education future is now on the right track - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/virginias-education-future-is-now-right-track/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/virginias-education-future-is-now-right-track/ |
We can transform local government by treating it as a kind of theater
Messy and tedious as local government is, we can ensure that it’s a place where the democratic process still works
Perspective by Aaron Landsman
Aaron Landsman is a playwright, teacher, and the co-author of “The City We Make Together,” along with director Mallory Catlett.
Participation in local government can be understood as a kind of theater in which we all can be performers, writes Aaron Landsman. (Washington Post illustration; iStock)
In 2009, while I was working on a theater project in Portland, Ore., I attended a public city council meeting on the grounds that it would be what one commissioner called a “hot one.” Skeptical, I went to watch, even though it was about the decidedly temperate topic of zoning. City and state governments are where our rights — to medical care, public education or, as in a Michigan town this month, libraries — can be protected or lost; where the community can come together to change the role of law enforcement. But the meetings are also normally pretty boring.
Or so I assumed.
As a playwright, I immediately noticed the innate theatricality of the setup in the Portland council chambers: The most important players faced the audience from their (literally) elevated positions of power at the dais. But what really stood out to me was the relationship of the stage and the audience: As the meeting went on, citizens and officials — some prepared, some not — came and faced “upstage” to speak to the council with their backs to the rest of us. The whole room served as an arrangement of power that reminded each of us where we belonged.
About 20 minutes into the meeting, the secretary called Pete Colt for testimony. A council member greeted him familiarly, making clear that he was a regular there. Colt, who was dressed in slacks and a tie, looked to be about 60 years old, White, with glasses; his demeanor said we could trust him. He brought a briefcase. Though he didn’t read from a script, his speech was clearly practiced.
As he went on, Colt unlatched his briefcase, put on a rubber glove and dumped a pile of trash on the table: drug paraphernalia, used condoms and other refuse. “Those of you who know me from the neighborhood know that I pick up this stuff every day—”
Two commissioners attempted to interrupt Colt, but he continued, unperturbed. Finally, a third commissioner announced that they were going to clear the room to disinfect it. At that point Colt turned from the council to the citizens in the room and said with a flourish: “Thank you for agreeing with me. Thank you for making my point better than I ever could.”
Another commissioner came back with a final retort: “We appreciate your passion, but this was not at all well thought out.”
But Colt’s actions were well thought out. In fact, I felt like I was watching the best theater I’d seen all year. He’d costumed himself to win trust, he knew his audience, he understood the structure and expectations of the event and the room itself, and he pierced those expectations just enough to make us all sit up and listen. He had, in short, treated his appearance as a kind of performance.
That experience inspired me to ask what happens when we examine local government meetings, often dismissed as tedious and utilitarian, through a theatrical frame. Starting in 2010, as many Americans were increasingly caught up in the miasma of national politics, director Mallory Catlett and I began visiting council meetings across the country and meeting with officials, artists, organizers and other community members in more than a dozen cities and towns. In these quietly dramatic performances, we experienced a rare kind of political engagement, in which neighbors had to look one another in the eye as they wrestled with decisions that would impact their communities in immediate, concrete and visible ways.
While we encountered moments of expected gridlock and procedural boredom, we also saw opportunities for hope and cooperation. In Bismarck, N.D., one council member told me that his job was to “lean in and listen to what causes pain for people and really try to do something about it,” and he felt that this calling transcended his political views or party. In San Antonio, young people asked the council that their neighborhood not be left behind. In city after city, even when the meeting itself seemed designed to keep people from fully participating, they found powerful, innovative ways to advocate for their communities.
As we were touring these meetings, Mallory and I turned to the thought of contemporary French philosopher Jacques Rancière. In “The Emancipated Spectator,” he examines Plato’s foundational writings on democracy. According to Rancière, Plato holds that if democracy really is a government of equals, no one is better suited to lead than anyone else. Plato wasn’t sure this was a good thing. As Rancière says, if everyone is qualified, then no one is qualified.
This notion plays out in ways inspiring and terrifying. The same forces of repression and polarization that hound us in national politics also exist locally. The far right already uses performance to co-opt local meetings, silence hard-won coalitions and subvert common-sense legislation.
At times it’s paid off, even if indirectly, or personally: In Mount Vernon, Ind., a non-board-certified doctor spoke at a school board meeting in a convincing enough way that the board tabled a mask mandate. One article detailing the event begins, “Dr. Dan Stock looked and sounded the part” — a testament to his skill at playing a doctor even as he presented medically dubious information. And Alex Stein, most recently known for harassing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, first called attention to himself by trolling the Dallas City Council at a meeting where he donned surgical scrubs and rapped (poorly) to protest vaccine mandates. From there it was a short hop to national prominence as a guest on Tucker Carlson’s and Alex Jones’s shows.
But while many thinkers in politics and theater alike emphasize the power of shared experience or identity to build community, Rancière asserts that each of us narrates and translates our experiences of live performance in our own ways. He says it’s not necessarily a coerced unity that binds us, but more likely an equal capacity we share to comprehend the work of democracy or theater and make our own choices, regardless of background, identity or education, whether or not the system tells us we can.
Plato and Rancière’s double-edged promise — if everyone is qualified, no one is — excited me and Mallory as artists: What if we assume that no one in this room is better than anyone else at doing this? Maybe we don’t need special skills to be in charge or to make art or teach. Messy and tedious as local government is, that might mean it’s a place where the democratic process still works. It also might mean it’s one of our democracy’s most vulnerable sites.
School board meetings used to be boring. Why have they become war zones?
Perhaps one response to theatrical far-right extremism, then, is this: Instead of trying to build community or find middle ground with people who will probably always disagree with us, we can embrace the theatrical in our own ways and show up with our own creative tools. It’s what organizers do when they bring a hundred tenants dressed in matching colors to push back on a punishing rent law, or what neighborhood kids do when they dress up and prepare elegant speeches to challenge stereotypes and policy. Thinking in these terms convinced us that we could craft a theater piece that embodied that promise.
We used what we saw in meetings across the country to make a participatory performance called “City Council Meeting” in five U.S. cities. With brilliant production designer Jim Findlay, we put the dramaturgy and visual arrangements of the local meetings into a theatrical form. I assembled transcripts from six cities, and Mallory created a structure that highlighted each viewer’s choices about how to participate — as a councilor, supporter or speaker, or as a bystander who simply watches. Once they had chosen, local citizens guided them through a performance; in effect they brought to life a new, composite community by speaking the words of the transcripts. In partnership with local organizations, we also created a local ending in each city, bringing adversaries together to make an artistic response to a particular issue there. We wanted to see how art might frame a debate in a way that politics could not. The ultimate goal was to nudge everyone in the room to reflect on the structures they encountered and the choices they made — both inside the production and when they went back out into the world.
What can stop a diverse democracy from tearing itself apart?
We found that when we trusted viewers to make their own choices about how to participate, the piece offered a way to see Plato’s democratic promise in action. During a workshop in Houston, sixth-graders sat in the mayor’s chair — for some, the first time they saw themselves in a position of power. Our collaborators in two of the five cities actually decided to run for public office. Turning bureaucracy into theater freed our audience from their preconceived notions of the way local government works and made it easier for them to envision how to create effective change. We are now working with K-12 schools to adapt our approach in classrooms for broader and braver civic engagement.
Do city council meetings always work? No. And on a couple of particularly chaotic nights, neither did our show. But like Pete Colt’s simple turn to face the audience after his point was made by the Portland commissioners themselves, “City Council Meeting” did something more than call attention to a point of view; it allowed the people assembled to see their city more clearly and better understand who they could be within it.
If no one is any better suited to the work of democracy than anyone else, then maybe the boring, formal process of a city council meeting is a necessary part of it. And even if the process needs to change, grounded as it is in hierarchies and exclusions that may no longer serve progress, I think we are best off trying to change it with a critical awareness of its design flaws.
I recently checked in on Portland to see what Colt’s performance had wrought. I found not a simple answer but an ongoing series of actions: In public records of council meetings, Colt appears regularly, advocating for his neighborhood or another neglected area to be cleaned up, recognized as worthy of the same services that more gentrified areas were getting. At times he’s cooperative, at times more combative, but his approach is always with playful and generous. The transcripts reveal a table of commissioners willing to listen, and that seems like the most important thing. Unlike a play, where everything has to resolve in the span of an evening, the theatrical arc of local political engagement often works over years. The work is urgent; the work is ongoing.
Mallory and I took a bureaucratic event most of us ignore or write off and made it into a form of civic theater. Along the way, we found some hope for American democracy. Understanding democratic process as, in part, a performance means we can perform better as citizens, as cities and even as society. People like Pete Colt might show us the unexpected beginnings of how. | 2022-08-12T14:28:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | We can transform local government by treating it as a kind of theater - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/local-government-theater-ranciere-plato/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/local-government-theater-ranciere-plato/ |
How ‘pink slime’ journalism exploits our faith in local news
The disappearance of local news outlets has been weaponized by partisan interests
Perspective by Ryan Zickgraf
Ryan Zickgraf is a journalist in Mobile, Ala.
Though local newspapers are more trusted than national news outlets, polls show, they're rapidly shrinking or disappearing. (kmaassrock/Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The 17th-century word “courant,” which once meant “newspaper,” is obsolete, according to Merriam-Webster, except in the rare case of the title of a periodical. Papers with that moniker in their masthead got grandfathered in because they were founded hundreds of years ago. Hearing something called “courant” today, I imagine a time-tested media institution anchored in a specific city or region, such as Connecticut’s Hartford Courant, which is a decade older than the United States government.
At first glance, the Mobile Courant, the site covering my home city of Mobile, Ala., has all the trappings of a traditional community news portal like Hartford’s. It’s got the old-timey-sounding name and familiar sections dedicated to local government, business, real estate and sports.
But that’s a smokescreen. The Mobile Courant not only lacks real-life reporters and editors, but the articles are regurgitated news releases. Clicking on the Politics section directs the reader to word-for-word releases straight from the desk of Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville: “Tuberville Meets with President Biden’s Supreme Court Nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson,” for example, or “Tuberville Veterans Bill Passes U.S. Senate.” Below this, you’ll find a steady stream of Federal Election Commission notifications about individual donations to various Republican politicians, the dull text seemingly optimized for search engines rather than human consumption.
That Democrats don’t seem to exist in the Courant’s world is a feature, not a bug. The Courant is merely one of dozens of networked sites mass-produced by the digital news company Metric Media since 2019. It’s part of a growing right-wing propaganda project cosplaying as a network of nonpartisan local newspapers.
The answer to the media industry’s woes? Publicly owned newspapers.
Ten years ago, I coined the term “pink-slime journalism” to describe the sneaky way companies like Metric Media exploit Americans’ lingering trust in local newspapers to peddle an inferior product. The term is a reference to the controversial paste-like meat byproduct that was, according to reports at the time, supposedly being added to ground beef on supermarket shelves without a label. If the yellow journalism of the 19th century can be defined by the sensationalistic “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality, pink slime is the opposite. It wants to quietly smuggle low-quality pastel goo from a machine into your regular media diet.
Faith in journalism in the age of “fake news” and algorithm-driven misinformation keeps dropping, but polls show that local news is still relatively well-regarded. According to a 2019 Knight Foundation survey, local outlets are more trusted than national organizations by a wide margin — 45 to 31 percent. It’s probably because local news focuses on issues that tend to be nonpartisan: weather, sports, obituaries, local elections. And the staff members are your neighbors and members of your community.
But maybe not for long. As local outlets have disappeared, many have been replaced by algorithmically managed pink-slime outlets that use the good will earned by news institutions of yore to help push political agendas from outside those communities. I know how the sausage is made, because I worked in the proverbial slaughterhouse of Metric Media’s predecessor in the early 2010s. Journatic was a start-up company that borrowed the buzzword-heavy language of Silicon Valley to obfuscate the fact that it wasn’t reinventing newspapers — it was merely disrupting the high cost of labor in the name of saving the industry from bankruptcy.
Poorly paid freelancers replaced staff reporters who had made living wages at newspapers like the Chicago Tribune. Part of my job was to write local news stories for the Houston Chronicle — even though I lived in Chicago — and select fake American-sounding bylines for stories written in virtual sweatshops in the Philippines. A Filipino writer named Junbe, for instance, might be renamed Jimmy Finkel, thanks to a built-in drop-down menu, and Gisele Bautista could instantly become Jenni Cox. These “reporters” earned pennies per story, and much of the content was plagiarized. “It would pay off to have you both write and edit these stories only if you could write the stories in about 90 seconds,” my remote supervisor told me.
The ugly future of corporate media
In June 2012, I collaborated with public-radio reporter Sarah Koenig on an episode of “This American Life” to blow the whistle on Journatic’s shady tactics. The fallout was instant: The Chicago Tribune and others suspended Journatic or ended their contracts. But Journatic’s canny chief executive, Brian Timpone, didn’t fold; he went underground — rebranding the company multiple times in the process.
A few years ago, Timpone switched gears after hooking up with conservative pundit Dan Proft through the Illinois Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank that then had financial ties to Bruce Rauner, Illinois’ recent ex-governor. The pair began building a mini media empire that intentionally put a conservative slant on backyard journalism — the Sinclair Broadcast Group of local newspapers. (Timpone and Proft did not respond to requests for comment sent by email.)
That mission is accomplished if you look at the sheer numbers. Metric Media boasts that it publishes “over 5 million news articles every month” and claims to be “the largest producer of local news in the United States.” A 2020 New York Times investigation pegged 1,300 news sites with Timpone’s fingerprints on them — far outnumbering those of Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain. But because it’s pink-slime journalism, it’s not all under one banner. Many have been laundered through a web of networks with vague names such as LGIS News Service, the Business Journals and Newsinator.
Quantity trumps quality. Nothing written by pink-slime journalism sites will win a Pultizer Prize, but sometimes one of its thousands of articles about a right-wing talking point manages to go viral. That’s certainly true of articles about “critical race theory” and public schools’ alleged “wokeness.”
Most notoriously, an article from a Chicago-based pink-slime site published in May went viral on social media, especially in right-wing circles, because it claimed that suburban school administrators were implementing race-based grading. The article prompted school officials in Oak Park, Ill., to release a statement calling the report “not true,” but days after the story was proved false, right-wing outlets such as One America News were still reporting it as fact.
The Oak Park case is unusual in that it broke through nationally, but it’s not an exceptional incident. A study published by the Popular Information Substack found that 28 pink-slime sites in Virginia published 4,657 articles about critical race theory in schools between January and November 2021 — many of which contained unverified or false information — just in time for the election of Republican Glenn Youngkin, who rode a wave of anti-CRT sentiment to win the governor’s race. It’s difficult to say whether these stories are helping drive the trend or merely mirroring it, but it’s clear that they speak to a partisan political pattern that has little to do with what’s happening on the ground in this or that local community.
Every week, two more newspapers close — and ‘news deserts’ grow larger
As it happens, pink slime’s obsession with liberal ideology in public schools aligns with one of Timpone’s pet peeves. In 2017, he loudly took his kids out of an affluent suburban Chicago public school because of an initiative to hire more non-White teachers. “This is a small group of left-wing activists that want to push their social engineering on the rest of the community,” he said. “They’re sending teachers to indoctrination camps led by race-hustling consultants.”
The response from Democrats has been lackluster. Andrew Yang was the only Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 to make local news subsidies a plank of his campaign, and he’s no longer a Democrat. During that same election cycle, ACRONYM, the left-of-center media nonprofit behind Shadow Inc. — a tech start-up that flubbed the results of the 2020 Iowa caucuses with a glitchy app (and has since rebranded as Bluelink) — funneled $1.4 million into Courier Newsroom, a media company running eight pro-Democratic news websites un key swing states appear to be respectable local papers with folksy names like Arizona’s Copper Courier and the Keystone in Pennsylvania. Articles such as “Sinema, Kelly, Join Bipartisan Group of Senators on Historic Gun Reform Proposal” and “Phoenix Lawyer Known for Defending Election Integrity, Invest in Ed, Nominated to 9th Circuit” — both written by an undergrad at Arizona State — read like glorified ads for Democrats.
Congress has been in no hurry to help; the Local Journalism Sustainability Act was first introduced in the House nearly two years ago and has languished since then — despite some bipartisan support for what is now a problem that potentially threatens both parties. The bill offers tax credits designed to fund local newspapers and small news nonprofits at a time when pink slime is increasingly the public’s main course instead of an additive.
Here in the Mobile area, where I live, we have zero daily print newspapers for a population of more than 430,000 people. I don’t believe I’m the only one starving for the real thing. | 2022-08-12T14:28:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How ‘pink slime’ journalism exploits our faith in local news - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/pink-slime-jounrnalism-local-news/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/pink-slime-jounrnalism-local-news/ |
Self-portrait: “This photograph was taken a few days before my sixth surgery for endometriosis. My weight was quickly dropping; chronic nausea, pain and strict diets prevented me from eating enough food. My stomach burnt from heat-pad use. The waistbands of my clothing were cut to ease the pain of my swollen abdomen, caused by inflammation.” — Georgie Wileman (Georgie Wileman)
Perspective by Georgie Wileman
Tristen Rouse
When she was 13, Georgie Wileman began suffering debilitating abdominal pain and fatigue that would forever alter her life.
For more than a decade, Wileman struggled to get a diagnosis for her condition. At 26, she was diagnosed with endometriosis, an inflammatory disease in which cells similar to that of the uterine lining grow outside the uterus. Symptoms can differ drastically from patient to patient, but the disease can cause chronic pain, infertility, painful menstruation, heavy bleeding, gastrointestinal problems and extreme fatigue. In Wileman’s case, the pain from the disease immobilized her for a time.
Frustrated by not seeing her own experiences reflected in endometriosis stories, Wileman, now 34 and a photographer and filmmaker, started photographing herself with the help of caregivers.
As her health improved, she began photographing others living with the disease that she met through online endometriosis communities. She set out to create “true representation” of what the disease looks like, who it affects and how it impacts their everyday lives.
“It was a very powerful experience, really,” said Wileman, reflecting on the first time she photographed another person with endometriosis. “It was the first time I’d spent time with a person who was as sick as I’d been.”
The result is “This Is Endometriosis,” a photo and documentary film project, and a social media campaign, #THISISENDOMETRIOSIS. One of the goals of the project was to dispel a long-running misconception that the illness affects only childless White women. Endometriosis affects about 10 percent of those born with a uterus, regardless of race or gender identity.
A lengthy delay between the onset of symptoms and endometriosis diagnosis is common, said Iris Kerin Orbuch, a California-based endometriosis specialist.
“You can imagine 10 years of pain, 10 years of gut issues, 10 years of anxiety and depression because they’re walking into a doctor and they look normal,” said Kerin Orbuch, explaining that the physical and psychological effects of endometriosis can compound over time. She compared the buildup of pain to the difference between stubbing one’s toe and stubbing a toe every day for 10 years. “What happens is that your whole body feels like it’s on fire.”
Despite the long list of symptoms, endometriosis is frequently thought of as “just painful periods,” Kerin Orbuch said. But the pain caused by endometriosis can exist outside of the menstrual cycle and be present every day of a person’s life.
Severity of the disease is also commonly misunderstood. “Someone could have a belly full of endo and not be in any pain,” Kerin Orbuch said. “Someone could have a spot of endo and be in extreme pain and use a walker.”
When Wileman was diagnosed, she was first treated using ablation, a laparoscopic surgical technique which burns off the top layer of endometriosis but leaves underlying endometriosis tissue. As she underwent three ablation surgeries in 18 months, each had a worse effect on Wileman’s health and body. In so much pain, she was given a mix of morphine and nerve blockers. She became bedbound.
Eventually, through an online endometriosis community, Wileman heard about a surgical technique called excision. The technique cuts out endometriosis tissue and is considered the gold-standard of treatment by specialists. She has since had two excision surgeries for endometriosis and is preparing for another. She still lives with enough pain that she uses a cane to help her walk and a wheelchair as needed.
In images for her project, Wileman often focuses closely on people’s abdomens, annotating them with dates of the multiple surgeries they have undergone for treatment. In a social media campaign she kick-started, #THISISENDOMETRIOSIS, she encouraged people to recreate the look on their own stomachs.
A film she made, which shares her photo essay’s name, debuted at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival this year and is on the film festival circuit. Created by a volunteer crew, many of whom had endometriosis, it uses Wileman’s own story as an example of life with the disease.
It is “a film that lets you know how it feels to have endometriosis,” she said.
The film also allowed Wileman to return to her endometriosis project years after she had stopped making pictures for it.
“I keep coming back to it, one way or the other,” Wileman said. “This project is bigger than me.” | 2022-08-12T14:28:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Photographer creates portraits of those living with endometriosis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/08/12/georgie-wileman-this-is-endometriosis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/08/12/georgie-wileman-this-is-endometriosis/ |
MLK’s Baptist denomination reunites with AFL-CIO for midterm voter push
Poll workers assist a voter at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Charlotte in November 2020. North Carolina is one of 11 states the Progressive National Baptist Convention and AFL-CIO are targeting this fall. (Logan Cyrus for The Washington Post)
A predominantly Black denomination and the country’s largest federation of labor unions have joined forces in a new voter-mobilization initiative ahead of the midterm elections.
Reviving a partnership from the 1960s, the Progressive National Baptist Convention (PNBC) and the AFL-CIO are launching a faith and labor alliance focused on battleground states, where they expect to feature summits with other religious and union organizations as well as door-to-door canvassing to get out the vote.
“We ought to make sure that people have equal access to vote, people are registered to make their voice heard,” the Rev. David Peoples, the PNBC’s president, said Thursday ahead of the announcement at the denomination’s annual session in Orlando. “Not telling anyone who to vote for, but just trying to empower people to understand that each vote and each voice counts.”
He said the PNBC, which was the denominational home of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., has more than 1.5 million members, with more than a million in the United States. About 2,000 were expected to attend the meeting that is set to conclude Friday.
The PNBC worked with the AFL-CIO to lobby for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination on the basis of sex or race in hiring, firing and promotions, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited discriminatory voting practices that had limited Black voters.
“We share a mission of justice, fairness and opportunity for all people, especially those in underserved communities,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond said in a statement. “Our movements are uniquely connected. And now more than ever we need to strengthen that connection, come back together and rebuild the bond between faith and labor.”
The AFL-CIO is a federation of 57 international and national unions that represent 12.5 million workers, according to its website.
A trans 24-year-old finds his voice and ignites a union effort at his Starbucks
PNBC leaders said their joint plans with the AFL-CIO come in the wake of dozens of state laws, such as voter identification bills, that have been enacted since 2021 and have been found to disproportionately restrict people of color. They also have been lobbying for national voting rights legislation, such as the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which has passed in the House but not in the Senate.
The Rev. Darryl Gray, a national social justice commissioner for the PNBC, noted that speakers representing religious organizations and organized labor groups took turns at the microphone at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, where King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Now, Gray said, the voter registration, education and mobilization initiative will focus on 11 “consequential states”: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“These are consequential elections, either gubernatorial races or U.S. Senate races that could affect the landscape of American politics,” said Gray, a Democrat who served in the Kansas Senate in the 1980s and ran an unsuccessful 2020 campaign for Missouri state representative. “It could determine the U.S. Senate.”
Here’s where GOP lawmakers have passed new voting restrictions around the country
Dennis Dickerson, a history professor at Vanderbilt University, said the new juncture is significant, given the history of joint lobbying for civil rights legislation and the recent “resurgence of labor activism” that has prompted greater interest in organizing workers.
“This is a natural outgrowth of this earlier forging of a much closer alliance between the civil rights movement and labor,” said Dickerson, the former historiographer for the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
“Just as the civil rights movement found that having labor allies was important for the advancement of civil rights,” he said, “I think that is correspondingly true now that the labor movement sees a great need to have the alliance of these Black religious communities.”
The PNBC and AFL-CIO worked together most recently, along with many other religious and labor groups, in a partnership seeking to improve conditions for U.S. Postal Service workers. Peoples called President Biden’s April signing of the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 an example of “building blocks” as groups like these continue to seek better pay and health benefits for employees of various organizations and companies across the country.
Gray said the newest plans will involve meeting in gathering places with which church attendees and union members are familiar.
“Some of our training, some of our rallying, some of our organizing will be split between faith venues or houses of worship and labor halls,” he said. “We want to make that connection between the two, and we want these two entities to feel comfortable again as they did in the ’60s.” | 2022-08-12T14:28:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Martin Luther King Jr.’s denomination teams with AFL-CIO for midterms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/08/12/mlk-baptists-afl-cio-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/08/12/mlk-baptists-afl-cio-midterms/ |
The move, which has overwhelming public support in South Korea, allows Jay Y. Lee to formally resume control of the conglomerate
Members of the media surround Jay Y. Lee (center) Friday outside Seoul Central District Court. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has cleared the heir to the country’s biggest company of bribery charges, for which Lee spent 18 months in prison before his parole a year ago. (Seongjoon Cho/Bloomberg)
The de facto leader of the manufacturing conglomerate Samsung, received a presidential pardon Friday, wiping the billionaire scion’s criminal record clean after a massive bribery scandal that ignited nationwide protests in 2017.
Lee Jae-yong, who goes by Jay Y. Lee in the West, had been imprisoned for bribing South Korea’s former president, Park Geun-hye, but was paroled after serving 18 months behind bars. The pardon allows Lee to formally resume control of the semiconductor and smartphone maker, clearing what had been a five-year employment ban as part of his sentence.
Business leaders and the broader public have backed Lee’s release on the belief that freeing him would inject a competitive boost into the nation’s economy.
Recent polling in South Korea showed popular support for the pardon, with more than three-quarters of the public backing it.
“In a bid to overcome the economic crisis by revitalizing the economy, Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jae-yong, whose suspended prison term ended recently, will be reinstated,” the South Korean government said in a statement, according to the reported by the Financial Times. | 2022-08-12T15:32:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Samsung scion Lee pardoned for bribing former president - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/12/samsung-lee-pardon/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/12/samsung-lee-pardon/ |
Mar-a-Lago seen in 1997, a few years after Donald Trump purchased the property. (Shutterstock)
Within the first two months that he was president, Donald Trump had already visited his estate in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, five times. His weekend jaunts, in addition to being pricey, were a scramble for the Secret Service, tasked both with protecting the president personally and the presidential entourage generally.
“While Trump’s private club in South Florida has been transformed into a fortress of armed guards, military-grade radar, bomb sniffing dogs and metal-detection checkpoints,” Darren Samuelsohn wrote, “there are still notable vulnerabilities, namely the stream of guests who can enter the property without a background check.”
Because Trump operates a club on the property, members are allowed to explore the grounds with guests. It plays host to numerous events — political fundraisers, weddings, you name it — which provides a level of access that is otherwise unheard of for a presidential (or even post-presidential) residence.
In 2019, the perils of the scenario were manifested when a Chinese national was arrested after gaining access to the facility while in possession of several phones and other electronic devices. She made it to the reception area after bypassing security by saying she was going to the pool.
That situation carries a new weight this week.
On Monday, as you are no doubt aware, the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago and procured a number of boxes of material from the property. It was the latest stage in a protracted effort to secure material that Trump took with him when he left office, including, it seems, classified documents. Among those, The Washington Post reported Thursday evening, may have been ones pertaining to nuclear weapons.
In addition to learning more about the nature of what Trump allegedly possessed at Mar-a-Lago, reporting over the past several days has fleshed out our understanding of where the material was kept and how it was protected. In the immediate aftermath of the search, attorneys for Trump disclosed that material had been recovered from three locations: Trump’s office above the ballroom, a bedroom and a “storage area.”
That storage area has been described in some reports as a “basement,” but, according to NewsNation reporter Brian Entin, was actually “a storage room off an interior hallway near the pool.” Measuring about 10 feet by 6 feet, the room was lined with boxes. You can see the pool at the center of the complex on the map below. (There is also another pool to the east, adjacent to the ocean.)
This room, it seems, was the one that had been a focus of investigators’ attention in the weeks before the FBI moved in. A Justice Department official reportedly visited the property and was shown the room in June; after that visit the department recommended that a lock be added for additional security. That lock was added, an attorney for Trump said — and then broken when the FBI arrived Monday.
But remember that we’re not simply talking about a room near a pool at Trump’s house. We’re talking about a room near a pool that is used regularly for events.
A quick review of Instagram shows how often this area is a centerpiece of events at the facility that are open to the public. Here is one example, a model posing next to the pool during an event.
A post shared by Valentina Deva (@realtorvalentina)
And here’s Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake posing for a photo near the east end of the pool earlier this year after attending a screening of the movie “2000 Mules.”
One of the more interesting photos is this one, promoting a luxury car event that was hosted at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year. In the background, you can see Mar-a-Lago buildings — including, beneath the palms, a covered hallway lined with doors.
A post shared by The Palm Event (@thepalmevent)
It is not yet clear where the storage area searched by the FBI is located. But it’s easy to see how storing material in the general vicinity of the pool could have been problematic: It was a focal point of activity as part of Mar-a-Lago’s day-to-day business.
In addition to requesting an additional lock for the storage room itself, the government also subpoenaed surveillance footage that, the New York Times reported, “could have given officials a glimpse of who was coming in and out of the storage area.” This may have been an effort to determine if particular individuals had gone into the room — or it may simply have been to assess the level of risk posed by having the material near publicly accessible areas.
Questions about Trump’s handling of classified information preceded his presidency and accelerated quickly once he was inaugurated. There were — and are — many reasons to think that Trump was less careful about protecting classified information than his predecessors in the White House or than other elected officials. Then he left office and moved into an event space, allegedly bringing a number of secrets with him.
This week’s search, cast by Trump and his allies as the nefarious actions of a devious “deep state,” may have included a focus on something far less controversial: ensuring that some slightly tipsy guy who rolled up to Mar-a-Lago to check out Ferrari’s 2023 models didn’t accidentally stumble onto America’s nuclear vulnerabilities as he was hunting for the bathroom. | 2022-08-12T15:40:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump's Mar-a-Lago club is not a good place to store nuclear secrets - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/trump-fbi-search-nuclear-documents-mar-a-lago/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/trump-fbi-search-nuclear-documents-mar-a-lago/ |
This combination of images shows promotional art for “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” premiering Aug. 18 on Disney+, left, “House of the Dragon,” premiering Aug. 21 on HBO Max, center, and “Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers,” a 10-part docuseries debuting Monday, Aug. 15, on Hulu. (Disney+/HBO Max/Hulu via AP) (Uncredited/Disney+/HBO Max/Hulu) | 2022-08-12T15:58:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New this week: 'House of the Dragon,' Lakers doc and Lovato - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/new-this-week-house-of-the-dragon-lakers-doc-and-lovato/2022/08/12/ee427d20-1a4b-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/new-this-week-house-of-the-dragon-lakers-doc-and-lovato/2022/08/12/ee427d20-1a4b-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
The discovery extends the virus’s presence from the northern New York suburbs to the nation’s largest city
This 2014 illustration made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention depicts a polio virus particle. (AP)
Health authorities announced Friday that polio virus has been found in New York City wastewater, a discovery that extends the known presence of the virus from the region’s northern suburbs to the nation’s largest city.
City and state health departments offered no details of where or when the virus was discovered. But they said the finding suggests “likely local circulation of the virus.”
“Polio can lead to paralysis and even death,” the city said in a tweet. Officials are urging unvaccinated New Yorkers to immediately seek the shots that protect against the virus.
Before Friday’s announcement, the virus had been found in wastewater in the northern New York City suburbs of Rockland and Orange counties. Only one person, an unvaccinated 20-year-old man from Rockland County, was known to be infected. The man sought treatment in a New York City hospital in June, officials said last month, and is having difficulty walking. Officials said no other cases have been identified.
His infection, the first in the United States in nearly a decade, and the presence of the virus in wastewater in the suburban counties indicated wider local transmission, the New York State Health Department said last week. Officials urged anyone not immunized against polio, especially people in the greater New York metropolitan area, to be vaccinated.
The U.S. population is highly vaccinated, but anyone unsure whether he or she received the series of shots in childhood should seek advice from a medical provider. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has sent a team to Rockland County to help with the investigation.
Along with covid-19 and monkeypox, the polio case gives the United States three worrisome viral diseases that were nonexistent here a little more than two years ago.
Highly contagious, polio was a fearsome, sometimes fatal scourge before a vaccine was developed in 1955. It causes permanent paralysis in people who are not fully vaccinated in about 5 of every 1,000 cases.
Most of the U.S. population is protected against the disease through vaccinations in childhood. But in areas with low vaccination coverage, such as the Orthodox Jewish community in Rockland County, unvaccinated people are at high risk. There is no treatment for polio.
Genetic sequencing performed by New York state’s public health laboratory and confirmed by the CDC showed a type of polio virus that indicates transmission from someone who received the oral polio vaccine, according to a July health alert. The oral vaccine, which is not administered in the United States, uses weakened virus to stimulate immune system protection against infection.
In rare cases, an unvaccinated person can become infected that way, with the virus eventually returning to full strength, known as neurovirulence, according Irina Gelman, Orange County’s commissioner of health.
In her county, also home to a large Orthodox Jewish population, just 62.1 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, significantly less than the New York State total of about 80 percent, Gelman said.
The last naturally occurring cases of polio in the United States were recorded in 1979.
On Wednesday, the Rockland County outbreak was causing little outward sign of concern. At four community health centers in Spring Valley, Monsey and Pomona, there were no signs urging unvaccinated residents to get free shots, despite a county vaccination rate of about 60 percent.
Most clinics were quiet and empty, though the sidewalks in Orthodox Jewish enclaves of Spring Valley and Monsey were crowded with mothers pushing strollers. If they were concerned, they kept it to themselves, with one woman after another saying that she had “no opinion about it.”
Esther Miller, however, said she felt secure in the continued health of her five children, who are all vaccinated against polio and other childhood diseases.
“It’s up to parents to keep their kids healthy,” said the 35-year old Spring Valley resident, an Orthodox Jew. “Giving vaccines is what you can do to protect them. My mother got all of her kids vaccinated. She was right on top of it. I do the same.”
Local officials said vaccine misinformation has contributed to low compliance. The polio vaccination rate among children in the county, which has the largest Orthodox population in the country, is just 42 percent, and nearly 30 percent of Rockland County’s overall population is under the age of 18.
Officials in London announced Wednesday that they are offering polio booster vaccines to children ages 1 to 9 after traces of polio virus were found in the British capital’s wastewater in June. The U.K. Health Security Agency said Wednesday that the vaccination program will start in areas where traces of the virus have been detected and immunization rates are low.
The June discovery prompted the United Kingdom to declare a rare “national incident.” No cases have been reported. The United Kingdom was declared polio-free by the World Health Organization in 2003.
Adela Suliman and Rachel Pannett contributed reporting from London | 2022-08-12T15:58:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Polio virus found in New York City wastewater - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/12/polio-wastewater-nyc-rockland-orange-county/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/12/polio-wastewater-nyc-rockland-orange-county/ |
By Karen Matthews and Mike Stobbe | AP
This 2014 illustration made available by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention depicts a polio virus particle. On Thursday, July 21, 2022, New York health officials reported a polio case, the first in the U.S. in nearly a decade. (Sarah Poser, Meredith Boyter Newlove/CDC via AP) (Uncredited/CDC) | 2022-08-12T15:58:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Polio detected in NYC's sewage, suggesting virus circulating - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/polio-detected-in-nycs-sewage-suggesting-virus-circulating/2022/08/12/57978776-1a4b-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/polio-detected-in-nycs-sewage-suggesting-virus-circulating/2022/08/12/57978776-1a4b-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
White House appoints Va. mosque leader to religious freedom commission
Imam Mohamed Magid, the executive religious director of a Northern Virginia mosque and a leader in interfaith relations, has been appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Magid said he received word from the White House that his appointment was official as of Wednesday.
“I’m looking forward to work with the wonderful members of the commission and the staff of international religious freedom commission to advance religious freedom around the globe and to be the voice of the voiceless,” he said this week.
The bipartisan commission, an independent watchdog, issues an annual report on global religious liberty and deterioration of human rights. Its members take fact-finding trips and make recommendations to the State Department about which countries are the worst religious freedom violators.
President Biden announced his intention to appoint Magid as a commissioner on July 1, after which Magid said he was “honored and humbled.”
“It is indeed a divine privilege to work together with others to ensure that every person has the right to freely practice their beliefs,” Magid, 57, said in a statement posted to his Facebook page at the time.
He succeeds Khizr Khan, a Gold Star father who recently received a Presidential Medal of Freedom and who served as a commissioner from August 2021 through May of this year.
Medal of Freedom awarded to Catholic nun and Muslim human rights advocate
Commission chair Nury Turkel expressed appreciation for Magid’s appointment.
“We very much welcome the appointment of Mohamed Magid to the Commission,” Turkel said in a statement. “His breadth and depth of experience on a range of international religious freedom issues will be a tremendous asset to USCIRF going forward.”
Magid, a native of Sudan, is the executive imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society Center and has worked with the United Nations Development Program to train imams dealing with extremism and violence against religious minorities in West and East Africa.
During this year’s Ramadan, many Muslims can finally gather in person
A former president of the Islamic Society of North America and current co-president of Religions for Peace, Magid has played a key role in numerous declarations and dialogues bringing together global leaders of different faiths, including the 2016 Marrakesh Declaration, unveiled in 2016 in Morocco.
“I hear other people’s perspective and then we can come away with a common understanding of what’s unique on an issue,” he told Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs in a January interview. “The challenge is to ensure that out of our discussion or conference somebody will say, ‘We want to take this to the next level.’”
Magid also is the co-founder of the Multi-faith Neighbors Network, which seeks to foster relations between evangelical Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities, and recently was named a thought leader with Interfaith America’s Vote Is Sacred initiative. | 2022-08-12T17:03:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mohamed Magid named to U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/08/12/mohamed-magid-virginia-religious-freedom/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/08/12/mohamed-magid-virginia-religious-freedom/ |
Dulles solar farm would be the nation’s largest at an airport
If built, Dulles International Airport would be among a growing number of airports nationwide to install solar arrays on otherwise undevelopable land
A rendering of the solar farm being proposed at Dulles International Airport near Washington. (Dominion Energy Virginia )
Dulles International Airport could soon be home to the largest airport-based solar and battery development in the United States — one that at peak production could provide enough energy to power more than 37,000 Northern Virginia homes.
The solar farm would be built and managed by Dominion Energy on more than 835 acres on land. It would include a solar array capable of producing 100 megawatts of solar generation and a 50-megawatt battery storage system. The power generated would feed the larger Northern Virginia electrical grid.
Once built, Dulles would join a growing number of airports across the country looking to solar developments as a way to meet sustainability goals, save money on electricity and generate revenue from land that might otherwise be undevelopable. The project is one of dozens the Virginia utility company is building statewide as it shifts to meet requirements of a sweeping clean energy law that state lawmakers passed in 2020.
“It’s land that’s adjacent to a runway that has not-great building potential,” said Thomas Beatty, vice president of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority’s office of engineering. “No one wants to build a hotel next to a runway, so for us and them it made good sense.”
The Dulles project is a response to the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which requires Dominion to deliver electricity from 100 percent renewable sources by 2045, while southwest Virginia’s Appalachian Power must be carbon free by 2050. The measure also set a timeline for closing old fossil fuel plants and mandated gains in energy efficiency.
In addition to the proposed solar and storage work at Dulles, Dominion is also building the largest offshore wind project in the United States off the coast of Virginia Beach and a project in southwest Virginia, known as Highland Solar, that will convert a coal mine into a solar farm.
Virginia becomes the first Southern state with a goal of carbon free energy
Under the proposed Dulles deal, Dominion would lease land from the airports authority, which manages Dulles and Reagan National airports. MWAA would not receive traditional rent payments, but instead, Dominion would build two 1-megawatt solar carports to provide power for the airport and give the authority 18 electric buses and 50 electric vehicles. Dominion also would provide the airports authority with charging infrastructure for the vehicles.
Dominion spokesman Aaron Ruby said the agreement could be a model for airports across the country considering similar ventures because it incorporates both renewable energy and clean transportation.
The project is awaiting final federal approvals from the U.S. Transportation Department, which Ruby said could come later this year. Construction could begin in 2023, and the development could start generating power in the second half of 2024.
The Federal Aviation Administration determined the project would not interfere with the airport’s aviation operations. DOT officials did not respond to a request for comment about the project.
A preliminary environmental assessment of the project’s possible effects was completed last year, looking at possible sites for the solar development. In a letter to MWAA in response to that assessment, groups including the Piedmont Environmental Council, the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy and Northern Virginia Conservation Trust urged Dominion and MWAA to install solar panels on existing buildings and above parking areas to reduce the effects on undeveloped land.
In Virginia, abandoned coal mines are transformed into solar farms
Ruby said Dominion evaluated several alternatives as part of the study, including rooftop installations. He said the assessment concluded that building on structures was not a feasible alternative because of limited rooftop space available for solar installation. The company also determined the ground-mounted solar array would be more cost-efficient for customers and produce more energy than rooftop panels.
The plans call for the solar farm to be constructed in the southwest corner of the airport near Loudoun County Parkway. A final environmental assessment is expected to be sent by MWAA to the FAA for review later this year.
Dulles, located about 25 miles west of Washington, is among several airports nationwide seeking to harness the sun’s power in recent years.
A 2020 study by Serena Kim, a research associate in the College of Engineering, Design and Computing at the University of Colorado at Denver, found that 20 percent of the nation’s 488 public airports are using solar energy. Kim said she expects that number will grow.
Metro agrees to solar power deal worth $50 million
“Airports will continue to deploy solar projects because solar panels and batteries are getting cheaper, and airports can diversify the energy mix and promote energy security,” Kim said.
In most instances, airports contract with a company that builds and manages the solar development, although financial arrangements vary.
Indianapolis International Airport will generate more than $9 million from land it leases to a private company for a 183-acre solar farm, the first phase of which began operating in 2013. The development’s more than 87,000 solar panels produce enough energy to power 3,675 homes.
Kent Ebbing, project manager for property development at the Indianapolis airport, said solar power is a resource all airports should consider.
Denver International Airport, which in 2008 became one of the first to install a solar array on its campus, has business models that allow it to purchase electric power at a discounted rate. That arrangement has saved the airport millions of dollars in energy costs, said Scott Morrissey, the airport’s senior vice president of sustainability.
“We’re going to power our growth with electricity that is low carbon, cost-effective, reliable and resilient,” he said. “Solar really has to be a part of that.”
Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst with financial services firm Raymond James, said Dominion’s investment at Dulles comes as a growing number of companies are shifting to renewable self-generated energy as part of the environmental, social and governance goals.
Molchanov said solar has become the world’s fastest-growing power source, in part because it can work in a variety of settings and in large areas of land that might otherwise be unbuildable. He said it can make an airport with a large geographic footprint, like Dulles — which sits on more than 12,000 acres — an ideal site.
“There is a lot of space,” he said. “Think of all that grassy territory around runways that just sits there empty.”
Even airports with limited acreage can take advantage by installing solar panels on top of terminal buildings, Molchanov said. Wind is a popular alternative in some settings, he said, but is not viable around airports because of the effect turbines can have on flight operations.
A surge in green financing boosts climate businesses
After years of looking at different proposals to create solar energy at Dulles, airports authority and Dominion officials said they are eager to move forward with the project.
“A clean energy transition is happening. Every passenger that takes off and lands at Dulles is going to see this array,” Ruby said. “So that’s kind of cool that all of the passengers that are traveling in and out of Dulles are going to see that same energy transition unfolding.” | 2022-08-12T17:03:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dulles solar farm would be the largest at a U.S. airport - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/08/12/dulles-airport-solar-farm/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/08/12/dulles-airport-solar-farm/ |
MobileWalla, a privately owned firm that collects and sells data from mobile phones, told the lawmakers it doesn’t sell information to law enforcement entities or let customers provide or use data for law enforcement purposes. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company had sold consumer information from mobile phones that ended up with federal agencies and military contractors. MobileWalla also came under fire for tracking the movements and demographics of crowds during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. | 2022-08-12T17:29:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amazon, Oracle Say Fears of Abortion-Data Sales Are Overblown - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/amazon-oracle-say-fears-of-abortion-data-sales-are-overblown/2022/08/12/90d0d2d0-1a38-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/amazon-oracle-say-fears-of-abortion-data-sales-are-overblown/2022/08/12/90d0d2d0-1a38-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
A beachgoer was killed after being struck by an umbrella
Thousands of people have been injured by beach umbrellas in recent years.
A woman struggles with a wind blown beach umbrella on July 3, 2020 in Wildwood, New Jersey. (Mark Makela/Getty Images)
A woman was killed this week in Garden City, S.C., after a beach umbrella flew into the air and then struck her — a tragic reminder that beach umbrellas can quickly become dangerous projectiles.
After becoming airborne, the umbrella struck and impaled 63-year-old Tammy Perreault as she sat on the beach, according to statements from a Horry County spokesperson and the county’s chief deputy coroner Tamara Willard.
Off-duty medical professionals and bystanders helped the woman before she was transported to a hospital, where she later died. According to local reporting, the umbrella was set free by winds of 10 to 15 miles per hour.
‘Horrific accident’: Woman killed by umbrella at windy Virginia Beach
Her death is just the latest such umbrella-related fatality. In 2016, Lottie Michelle Belk, 55, was celebrating her anniversary and a birthday at Virginia Beach when a flying beach umbrella struck her in the torso, causing fatal injuries. In that case, Virginia Beach police said a “strong gust of wind” tore the umbrella loose from the ground.
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, there were 2,800 beach umbrella-related injuries treated in emergency rooms across the country in the nine years between 2010 and 2018. A December 2021 study from the Journal of Safety Research found that at least 5,512 beach umbrella incidents in the United States were referred to emergency rooms and that the victims were disproportionately women over 40.
Wind was involved in more than 50 percent of beach umbrella-related injuries, according to the 2021 study. Lacerations, contusions and abrasions and internal organ injuries made up the three most common injuries. The study suggested that “policymakers should educate the public about the potential dangers of beach and patio umbrellas.”
The CPSC provides tips to the public on how to properly set up a beach umbrella, advising beachgoers to rock their beach umbrellas back and forth until they are two feet deep in the sand, and to tilt the umbrella into the wind to prevent them from blowing away. The CPSC also recommends using some sort of weight or anchor to hold beach umbrellas down.
However, some safety advocates say the CPSC’s latest efforts to protect beachgoers from rogue umbrellas are not enough.
Bill Schermerhorn, president of beachBUB USA, a company that sells a beach umbrella embraced by safety advocates, said the latest guidance from the CPSC is insufficient.
Beach trips can be costly to the environment. Here’s how to reduce your impact.
Schermerhorn is concerned that the CPSC’s advice to tilt the umbrella into the wind is not enough. Winds on the beach can shift quickly and unexpectedly, meaning an umbrella that is set up correctly at one hour could become a hazard the next, especially when it does not take a lot of wind to untether a poorly anchored umbrella.
“If you’ve ever been to the beach and tried to put in an umbrella eight inches into the sand, much less two feet, you realize that’s an impossible task,” Schermerhorn said.
Schermerhorn, who is working with ASTM International to help design safety standards for beach umbrellas, said he wants the CPSC to produce a stronger public-service announcement on beach umbrella safety.
CPSC did not immediately reply to questions regarding its guidelines.
Severe weather at Bethany Beach, Del. on Aug. 5 blew beach umbrellas into the ocean. (Video: The Washington Post)
Last week, a viral video from Bethany Beach, Del., showed dozens of beach umbrellas flying in the air and tossed into the ocean after a strong thunderstorm with winds up to 40 mph tore them loose.
“This is one of many videos out there where umbrellas go dancing down the beach … because they’re not weighted, they are simply poked into the sand,” Schermerhorn said.
What parents should know before letting their kids play in a bounce house | 2022-08-12T17:29:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A beachgoer was killed after being impaled by a beach umbrella - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/12/beach-umbrella-death-south-carolina/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/12/beach-umbrella-death-south-carolina/ |
Gunman ID’d in FBI field office attack, but motive remains unresolved
Clinton County employees sit in their vehicles blocking the road that leads to the scene where an armed man was shot and killed by police after trying to breach the FBI's Cincinnati field office on Aug. 11 in Wilmington, Ohio. (Jay Laprete/AP)
Ohio state police on Friday identified the armed man who tried to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati field office Thursday as Ricky W. Shiffer, 42, of Columbus.
Shiffer was fatally shot by police after fleeing the FBI building and leading officers on a chase that led to a six-hour standoff on a rural road, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said in a news release. After negotiations failed, police attempted to utilize “less lethal tactics” to arrest Shiffer, but he “raised a firearm” and officers shot him, they said.
Shiffer died at the scene. Authorities are investigating a possible motive, in addition to Shiffer’s possible ties to extremist groups, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation said. His name is used on several social media platforms by an individual who spoke about being at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and urging a “call to arms” after the FBI executed a search warrant at former president Donald Trump’s Florida estate on Monday.
Around 9:15 a.m. Thursday morning, Shiffer attempted to breach the visitor screening facility at the field office, located on the outskirts of Cincinnati, authorities said. An alarm sounded and armed agents responded, leading Shiffer to flee to his car and onto Interstate 71.
In a statement Thursday evening, the FBI’s Cincinnati field office called the incident an “agent-involved shooting.” State police said they are investigating the incident alongside the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the FBI. | 2022-08-12T17:29:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ricky Shiffer identified as man who tried to breach Cincinnati FBI field office, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/12/fbi-cincinnati-ricky-shiffer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/12/fbi-cincinnati-ricky-shiffer/ |
By Lin Fei-fan
A flag-lowering ceremony takes place at Liberty Square on Aug. 9 in Taipei, Taiwan. (Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)
Lin Fei-fan is the deputy secretary general of the governing Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan.
China’s bellicose response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) historic visit to Taiwan proves the paramount necessity for the international community to be vocal about its support for Taiwan — now more than ever.
Since Pelosi’s visit, China has escalated tensions through unprecedented and disproportionate military actions, economic coercion and diplomatic sanctions. The shift is severe enough that some analysts have called it the most dangerous development in the Taiwan Strait since the 1996 missile crisis.
In Taiwan, threats from China have been a part of daily life for decades. But at this moment, we face a deeper, existential question: Can the world really afford to lose Taiwan, an integral member of the world’s liberal democratic order?
After Xi Jinping took power in 2012, China made a major national shift from Deng Xiaoping’s “hide your strength, bide your time” approach to a new strategy that actively and aggressively pursues the “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” International policies such as the Belt and Road Initiative and debt diplomacy have extended China’s influence in developing countries. Internally, the Chinese Communist Party has cracked down on domestic rights protection and democratic movements, including those in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
Cross-strait policy under Xi is no exception to the emboldened changes in China’s national strategy. China has worked incessantly to curb Taiwan’s development as a sovereign nation and undermine its democratic system, relentlessly promoting unification and beginning to set an internal timetable for doing so — a move made obvious in 2019 when Xi officially proposed the “one country, two systems” model for Taiwan following its annexation.
This clear strategic shift is exactly why the United States and its allies must begin to rethink their approach toward China. For Taiwan, the eventuality of Chinese aggression is no longer a “what-if” scenario — the more important question is whether the international community will stand with Taiwan as we fight to defend our way of life.
China’s military capacity and its potential expansionist timeline are indubitably major threats to the world order, especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But there is a lot that Taiwan and the global community can do to harness international support and make Beijing aware of the heavy price it would pay in choosing to take Taiwan by force.
The world is generally aware of Taiwan’s critical geopolitical role due to its prevalence in the semiconductor supply chain and its strategic location. But even more important, Taiwan is a beacon of democratic achievement and a regional pillar of peace.
The recent history of Taiwan, one of the few emerging democracies in Asia, is a testament to the social capacity for the region to engage in democratic transitions without military coups or violent revolutions. Taiwan is the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, boasts one of the most comprehensive universal health-care systems in the world, and is among one of the few nations to commit to global climate governance despite being excluded from international organizations that are designed to foster global cooperation on these key sociopolitical issues.
Taiwan is by no means enthusiastic about the prospect of a war, but we’re also unwilling to back down in the face of threats. Recent polls show that more than 70 percent of the Taiwanese people — across varying socioeconomic backgrounds — are willing to defend Taiwan in the event of an attack. Diplomatic support bolsters our existing commitment to national defense by giving our people a greater assurance that they are not isolated from the international system, and their choice to defend democracy will not be in vain.
This is why the Taiwanese people welcomed Pelosi’s choice to visit Taiwan. As she expressed, the world is facing a choice between autocracy and democracy. The United States, Taiwan and our democratic allies must not give in.
I was born in Taiwan after martial law had already ended; I’m part of a generation lucky to have grown up in a society undergoing democratic transformation, rather than the authoritarian rule experienced by our parents. My generation is bound together by a collective identity forged on the basis of freedom of expression and the ability to shape our own future. When China tried to intimidate Taiwan with a restrictive economic deal eight years ago, we organized the Sunflower Movement— and changed the trajectory of our nation. We made Taiwan prioritize the voices of young people concerned about the future of democracy rather than the might of corporations backed by autocratic powers.
Taiwan has a demonstrated and tenacious democratic spirit that is magnified in the face of threats to our way of life. We call on the international community to see us as a trusted ally and country worthy of the world’s collective defense. | 2022-08-12T17:30:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The free world must stand up for Taiwan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/china-taiwan-democracy-defense-free-world/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/china-taiwan-democracy-defense-free-world/ |
Garland should tune out the Trumpists — and follow the law where it leads
Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks at the Justice Department on Aug. 11 in D.C. (Susan Walsh/AP)
There are some things encountered during the vicissitudes of life that are difficult, if not hard, to comprehend. The FBI’s execution of a search warrant at former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida is not one of them.
As I have written on earlier occasions, a full-blown inquiry into the ex-president’s handling and safeguarding of classified information taken with him when he left the White House should have been launched immediately after the National Archives and Records Administration learned of the documents’ existence.
Some of the discovered materials were reportedly so sensitive that their unauthorized disclosure could cause, by definition, “exceptionally grave damage” to national security, according to the Archives’s Information Security Oversight Office.
To recall, this saga began about half a year ago when the National Archives raised a red flag over whether Trump had, as required, turned over presidential records for historical preservation when he left the White House in January 2021. The retrieval of 15 boxes of documents from Trump’s home, and the discovery of items “marked as classified national security information,” caused the Archives to call on the Justice Department to examine Trump’s handling of White House records.
It would have been a dereliction of duty for the FBI and the Justice Department to sit on their hands and not try to determine how materials at Mar-a-Lago were handled, who had potential access to them and what were the circumstances of their removal from the White House. An immediate damage assessment, to say the least, was required upon finding out that classified materials had been spirited out of federal control. I say this as one who gave a substantial part of another professional life to protecting U.S. classified information, including materials at the highest classification levels.
To learn, as federal authorities reportedly did, that more classified documents were possibly still being held at Trump’s Florida residence, and then do nothing, would have constituted willful government failure. The possibility that this included documents relating to nuclear weapons in an unauthorized private home only raised the stakes. The act of obtaining and executing a search warrant to retrieve government-owned documents, including national security information, as was done by the FBI this week, was a legitimate governmental exercise — especially if those materials are believed to represent evidence connected with a violation of federal law, i.e., the unlawful possession of national security information.
Former vice president Mike Pence’s tweeted protest, “no former President of the United States has ever been subject to a raid of their personal residence in American history,” begs a question: Has any former president in almost 250 years of U.S. existence ever given cause for such law enforcement action?
No other living former president — Jimmy Carter (D), Bill Clinton (D), George W. Bush (R) or Barack Obama (D) — has ever been accused of illegally possessing classified documents taken from the White House to his private property.
And none of Trump’s predecessors has ever demonstrated that he could be so reckless with the nation’s secrets.
Trump and his devoted Republican followers can scream all they want about the Mar-a-Lago search being a politically motivated, headhunting exercise to take Trump out of the 2024 presidential race.
George F. Will: Garland has a political duty to explain the circus perpetrated at Mar-a-Lago
To no one’s surprise, they are leaving no smear unleveled: “Gestapo-style injustice,” “prosecutorial misconduct,” “weaponization of the Justice System,” “attack by Radical Left Democrats.” More of this kind of thing can and will be said, limited only by the reach of “Roget’s Thesaurus.”
So, too, demands for Attorney General Merrick Garland to resign.
Bear in mind, some Trump worshipers would vote against the Second Coming if they thought it might jeopardize Trump.
Garland has said what he must: “We will … look at the facts and the law and take it from there.”
And, to his credit, Garland on Thursday announced that the Justice Department asked a judge to unseal the court-authorized warrant that led the FBI to search Trump’s Florida home. Trump could have simply released his copy of that on his own. Now that Garland has acted, Trump said he encourages “the immediate release of those documents.”
Meanwhile, Trump continues to stand by as his allies heap vitriol upon the FBI, the Justice Department and the federal magistrate who approved the warrant.
Trumpists may weep and wail.
Garland need say no more. The legality of Trump’s actions is the prime issue. That is, and should remain, the nation’s focus. Our national security demands no less. | 2022-08-12T17:30:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Trumpists may scream, but Garland should follow the law where it leads - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/garland-trump-maralago-documents-search/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/garland-trump-maralago-documents-search/ |
A victory for the IRS is a victory for America
Margaret Moore, an IRS clerk, searches through taxpayer documents that have been stored in the IRS cafeteria due to a lack of space. (Matthew Busch for The Washington Post)
During their first debate in 2016, Hillary Clinton suggested that Donald Trump was refusing to release his tax returns to the public because they would reveal that he paid no income taxes despite his considerable wealth. Trump leaned into the microphone and said, “That makes me smart.”
As far as Trump is concerned, paying taxes makes you a sucker, a loser, a chump. While there are few other Republicans who will say it so forthrightly, many of them think that too, and they’ve spent years trying to make sure only the little people have to pay.
But with the pending passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, we may finally begin to turn the tide in a war only one side has been fighting, a war against not just the Internal Revenue Service but the very idea that everyone should pay their taxes.
Naturally, Republicans are enraged. But this is something all Americans should celebrate.
The bill contains nearly $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service, in addition to its existing budget, spread out over the next decade. The biggest chunk is for enforcement, i.e. making sure people pay what they owe, but there’s also lots of money to update systems and improve customer service. Right now, the agency struggles with outdated equipment, insufficient staffing and overwhelming backlogs of paperwork.
The Opinions Essay: Why does the IRS need $80 billion? Just look at its cafeteria.
The desperate and demoralized state of the IRS is no accident. It’s the result of a purposeful campaign by congressional Republicans to gut the agency so it can’t do its job, particularly when it comes to ensuring that the wealthy meet their tax obligations. If the GOP had a slogan to describe its stance toward the IRS, it would be “Defund the Police.”
The result has been fewer audits, a shrinking staff and a much larger federal deficit. Hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes go uncollected, by some estimates as much as $1 trillion a year, that ought to be used to fund necessary programs. And the agency is woefully outmatched when it tries to make the rich and super-rich, who can employ squadrons of accountants and lawyers, pay what they owe.
The IRS estimates that over the next decade it will need to hire 52,000 employees just to maintain its current inadequate staff levels, because of retirement and attrition. With this bill, it would be able to hire as many as 87,000 new employees over that period. So of course, Republicans are saying falsely that the IRS will hire 87,000 agents, who are going to bust down your door and root through your underwear drawer.
They’ve even spun out fantasies of IRS violence, pretending that bringing the IRS into the 21st century and hiring enough employees to make sure the agency operates well will in practice mean that heavily armed agents could literally be coming for you and your family.
“STOP BIDEN’S SHADOW ARMY!” cried a tweet from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) “How long until Democrats send the IRS ‘SWAT team’ after your kids’ lemonade stand?” asked Ronna Romney McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee. “Are they going to have a strike force that goes in with AK-15s [sic], already loaded, ready to shoot some small business person in Iowa?” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).
Trust me, these elite Republicans know they’re lying when they spin out such deranged fantasies. They also know how out of step they are with public opinion on taxes. The top complaint people have about the system isn’t that they pay too much or that they might get audited, let alone that the IRS is going on a bloodthirsty killing spree through the heartland. It’s that the wealthy and corporations don’t pay their fair share.
In other words, Americans don’t mind paying taxes, as long as they believe the system is fair. And if fairness is a key principle the tax system ought to embody, you can’t do it without adequate funding.
Here are three things we should all be able to agree on, no matter our politics:
We need a government. We’ll always argue about what it should do and how to do it, but we all have things we want government to do, whether you’re a conservative who likes a strong Border Patrol and military or a liberal who loves Medicare and food inspections.
In order to have a government, we need to collect taxes. Even the most fervently anti-tax conservative admits there will have to be some taxes, even if we disagree about how high they ought to be.
If we’re going to collect taxes, the agency that does it should operate as efficiently and effectively as possible.
If we can agree on those principles, it’s obvious that we ought to give the IRS the funding it needs to do its job. The Inflation Reduction Act is finally going to do that, even if it will take years to rebuild the agency after the pummeling it has taken. It’s long overdue. | 2022-08-12T17:30:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | A victory for the IRS is a victory for America - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/irs-inflation-reduction-act-victory/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/irs-inflation-reduction-act-victory/ |
For my birthday, ’90s nostalgia and the gift of grief literacy
Welcome back! Thank you for all your support and feedback on my debut newsletter last week.
And ... Happy Birthday to me! I turn 36 today. I’m usually the type to make a big deal about birthdays. Last year, I rang in 35 with an amazing dinner party in D.C., a girls’ trip to New Orleans and, in true Leo fashion, a photo shoot for the ’gram, just because. My usual birthday traditions include pool parties, red velvet cupcakes, caipirinhas. I also usually put out a call for Rihanna or Beyoncé GIFs on Twitter.
Today is my birthday! As per my birthday tradition, I would love it if you could send me @rihanna or @Beyonce gifs! :) pic.twitter.com/9xjPGz3WAE
But for a while, I wanted 36 to come in quietly, shut the door, take off its shoes, and just please not touch or break anything in my house.
My 35th year brought much loss and death to my door. I watched as my parents struggled with aging and serious health issues. I was mourning the loss of a relationship. Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt, who hired me and helped shape my career, died in December at age 66. I got covid-19 and experienced weeks of debilitating fatigue that left me unable to do much at all.
And then in February, my grandmother, who was a survivor of Nigeria’s brutal civil war and one of the brightest lights of my life, passed away. She was just a few months shy of 90. I traveled alone to Ghana for her burial, my first time attending a funeral in my parents’ homeland.
One thing that struck me about Ghana is that death is very much a part of everyday life there. In major cities, you can find billboards and fliers announcing funerals, which are often large, weekend-long social events. When a person dies of old age, guests and family typically wear white and black to signify that they are both mourning their loss and celebrating the fact that their loved one lived a full life. Typically, the process of honoring the dead doesn’t just end with a funeral — most families hold anniversary events a year after the person has been buried.
When I returned to the United States, in comparison with our culture of grief, support appeared to be ... lacking. Most people just didn’t seem to know what to say when I told them I was mourning multiple things and people at once. “Wow, that’s a lot.” “It will be okay.” “They’ll always be with you” — as though the default reaction was to express hope that I could speed through to the other side of healing.
But grief is complicated and messy, and in our power-through culture, I felt like I didn’t have social permission to admit that I was far from okay. So, it might sound strange, but on this birthday I am comforted to have stumbled upon the concept of “grief literacy” — which refers to the knowledge, skills and values that we need to compassionately understand and care for those who are going through an inescapable part of a fully lived human life. I’ve found the work of writers and researchers who are trying to change Americans’ insensitivity to the grief of others. Grief expert David Kessler has written about America’s grief illiteracy and also discusses it on his recent podcast episode, “Why Talk About Grief?”
If you are going through a time of grief, I hope some of these conversations can be a gift to you.
Above all, I’ve learned that we don’t move on from grief; we just move forward with it. Like the white and black cloth I wore for my grandmother’s funeral, I have learned to celebrate life and carry sorrow at the same time. My plan now for 36 is no longer so quiet. I’m going to celebrate life by jumping out of a plane tomorrow with a friend. Yes, I’m going skydiving for the first time I’ll tell you about it next week. Wish me luck!
And send me those Rihanna GIFs on Twitter.
Home Front: Millennials are the old kids on the digital block
Speaking of getting older: My fellow millennials, we are no longer cool. Kate Lindsay’s Atlantic essay on the “Millennial Pause” nails how we ’80s and ’90s babies, who spent our youths as masters of so much fast-changing tech, are aging out of social media. “Although Boomers fell out of the internet zeitgeist,” she writes, “they never had as far to fall as Millennials — the first cohort to watch their youth fade in real-time, with evidence of their growing irrelevance meticulously documented in memes, trends, and headlines published on the very internet they once reigned over.”
Ouch — but true. While trying to do one of the viral TikTok dance challenges — and failing to get a decent video — I realized this week that my digital skills (and knees) just ain’t what they used to be. *Insert LOLSOB emoji here*
Whatever! It’s fine. I have been enjoying 1990s and 2000s nostalgia, including remakes of popular games like Final Fantasy VII, reunion tours of groups such as the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys, cringe-watching old episodes of “America’s Top Model” (which was hella problematic in retrospect), and soaking up documentaries about the downfall of iconic brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch and Victoria’s Secret. Cultural irrelevance comes for us all.
Fun Zone: Have a Corntastic Day!
I promise this video from the Instagram account @RecessTherapy is the most wholesome thing you’ll see all week.
What do I love so much about the wisdom of the insanely cute “Corn Kid”? He reminds us of the value of finding pleasure and joy in the simplest of things.
For the Culture: The curious case of ‘Miss Cleo’
Speaking of birthdays, I happen to share one with Youree Dell Harris, otherwise known as the popular television psychic “Miss Cleo,” who was born on Aug. 12, 1962. I remember being a kid in the 1990s and seeing her commercials for the Psychic Readers Network. With a thick Jamaican accent and colorful Afrocentric clothes, she would ask viewers to call in with their problems, so that she could read cards for them and spiritually advise them, live on air, for $4.99 a minute.
However, Harris, who died in 2016 of cancer, was no psychic; she wasn’t even from Jamaica. She was an actress and a playwright, born in Los Angeles. In 2002, the Federal Trade Commission filed complaints against two corporations for whom Miss Cleo served as the face and spokeswoman, alleging deceptive advertising and collection practices — it estimated the organizations made over $1 billion in charges from nearly 6 million viewers who called in.
I was happy to discover there is reportedly a documentary in the works about “Miss Cleo.” The director of the film, Senain Kheshgi, has said “Youree Harris may have been an accomplice or perhaps a victim in the Psychic Reader’s Network fraud but she also had talent and personality, which for women doesn’t always translate into access or wealth.” This is true for far too many Black women. I’m looking forward to learning more about Harris’s real story.
Cat’s Corner: Artemis, strung out
Artemis is not going skydiving with me tomorrow, to answer a question some of you have raised. Here’s how Artemis prefers to fly through the air: chasing his favorite rainbow streamer.
(Video: Artemis playing with his favorite string toy.)
Ten years ago, a Swedish commercial “featured” cats supposedly skydiving (including a cat that looks a lot like Artemis). Global controversy ensued after people took the fake commercial a little too seriously.
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget my Rihanna GIFs. See you all next Friday! | 2022-08-12T17:30:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | For my birthday, ’90s nostalgia and the gift of grief literacy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/karen-attiah-newsletter-birthday-grief-millennials/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/karen-attiah-newsletter-birthday-grief-millennials/ |
President Donald Trump waves as he boards Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House en route to his Mar-a-Lago Florida Resort on Jan. 20, 2021. (Alex Brandon/AP)
The FBI conducted its search of Mar-a-Lago at least in part to look for nuclear documents, The Post has reported. Sounds bad, especially if such documents are actually there! But that is only if you fail to consider the plethora of perfectly innocent ways former president Donald Trump could potentially have wound up with nuclear documents at his combination home-and-country-club! For instance:
Trump was tired and distracted at the end of a big day at work and suddenly remembered he needed to purchase a card for his son’s birthday. An aide rushed out to get one. When an aide next came in, Trump grabbed the paper that was put down before him and hastily signed it with birthday wishes, seized it and put it into his pocket. Well, just the other day, the Biden administration opened a very secure briefcase and found an unsigned birthday card, and they figured out pretty quickly what must have happened!
Trump was busy flushing a big pile of documents and did not notice that he had gotten some classified materials stuck to his shoe. Unfortunately, the material was too classified to even be described, so nobody could tell him it was there, and he dragged it to Florida without even realizing he was doing it.
You know sometimes when you are browsing in a bookstore and you pick up a book off the shelf and you become so engrossed in it that when you walk out of the store without buying anything you are still holding it and have reached page 73, and you set off all the alarms and have to go rushing back in? That, but with the nuclear documents, and without the alarms or rushing back in.
Trump was out playing a round of golf. It was a beautiful spring day and the birds were singing and the grass looked especially verdant, and he was in the best golf form of his life. Unfortunately, there were none of those little cardstock score sheets available. Fortunately, he had some official documents with him, so he decided to keep score on those. When he got the first hole-in-one he was amazed, and when he got the second he was awestruck, and when he went around the entire course in 18 miraculous strokes, he simply could not bear to part with the piece of paper on which he had written down this accomplishment. Well, wouldn’t you know? That piece of paper happened to be a nuclear document!
Trump was told it was important that these documents stay safe in the right hands because otherwise they might compromise national security, so he has been holding them in his right hand or safe for the past two years.
Trump was holding the nuclear documents and also a Coke and an umbrella, and when somebody gave him one more thing to hold, he put it under his arm and forgot about it for two years.
Trump was walking out to Marine One when he noticed that a cat was stuck up a tree. The poor creature mewed and yowled so piteously that he could not help feeling sorry for it. He spent several hours trying to lure the cat down from the tree, first with appealing words and then with a can of tuna and then with a laser pointer, but nothing worked. The only thing that worked to get that cat down from that tree was to pull out all the nuclear documents and wave them at it, and when the cat did get down from the tree, it immediately sat down on the nuclear documents and wouldn’t get off, which everyone knows is an impossible situation if you want access to a document. Trump decided he would take the documents and cat with him and wait for a better time, but the cat has hissed at him every time he has tried to get the documents out from under it. This situation has continued for two years.
Trump was always misplacing the nuclear documents and finally decided to put them somewhere important where he would remember them — after which he was unable to find them for the next three years and he decided the simplest thing was to just say he had them and hope the FBI would be able to succeed in locating them where he had failed.
Or maybe it’s for another reason! But I can’t think of any of those! | 2022-08-12T17:30:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | If Trump has nuclear documents at Mar-a-Lago, I’m sure it’s for good reason - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/trump-nuclear-documents-mar-a-lago-satire/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/12/trump-nuclear-documents-mar-a-lago-satire/ |
Republican lawmakers and candidates have accused the agency, without evidence, of carrying out political retribution against a former president
Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks at the Justice Department on Aug. 11 about the FBI's search warrant served at former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. (Leah Millis/Reuters)
Law enforcement leaders are raising alarms about threats to federal agents as prominent Republicans attack the FBI for its search of Donald Trump’s residence and as authorities investigate an attempted breach at an FBI field office in Ohio.
In interviews Thursday, Larry Cosme, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, expressed alarm at GOP warnings to Americans that federal agents are “coming for you.” Politicians’ rhetoric could lead to more violence, regardless of what fueled the Ohio attack, he said, noting that online messages have advocated killing FBI agents.
“The rank-and-file officers on the street and agents, they are career employees that … cherish the Constitution like the average American,” he said. “So for them to be attacked by these individuals that believe something else — or they’re believing, you know, someone’s rhetoric that’s uncalled for — to me, it’s shameful and disgusting.”
On Thursday, an armed man wearing body armor tried to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati field office, according to authorities. It was not clear whether the incident was connected to the backlash over the court-authorized search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property. The man was fatally shot after a standoff with officers, authorities said.
A law enforcement source identified him as Ricky Shiffer. According to another law enforcement official familiar with the investigation, agents are investigating Shiffer’s possible ties to extremist groups, including the Proud Boys — whose leaders are accused of helping launch the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Shiffer’s name is used on several social media platforms by an individual who spoke about being at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Authorities declined to comment on whether Shiffer is connected to those accounts.
Earlier in the week, the individual using Shiffer’s name on Truth Social posted that he was issuing “a call to arms” hours after the search of Mar-a-Lago became public information.
Even before details of that incident emerged, Cosme and others had warned about rising threats. Cosme said Wednesday that “the politically motivated threats of violence against the FBI this week are unprecedented in recent history and absolutely unacceptable.” He warned on Thursday, “Politicians need to be cautious when they’re critical of law enforcement … because, you know, they could potentially ignite something.”
Brian O’Hare, president of the FBI Agents Association, said in a statement Thursday that “threats made recently contribute to an atmosphere where some have, or will, accept violence against law enforcement as appropriate.”
Republican lawmakers and candidates have accused the agency, without evidence, of carrying out political retribution against a former president, tapping into long-running GOP hostility toward arms of the federal government that Trump and legions of his followers deride as part of a “Deep State.” Many Republican officials likened the search of Mar-a-Lago on Monday to the act of a “dictatorship” or even a Nazi regime, while some far-right lawmakers are calling on Congress to “defund the FBI.”
Leaders throughout the GOP have been telling the public that the FBI is out to get them. An op-ed by Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, is titled, “Trump targeted by Biden administration, and they can do it to you, too.”
The FBI is not the only target of such rhetoric: Republicans this week have also been warning Americans that an army of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents is “coming” for them, as Democrats seek to boost the tax agency’s funding and ability to pursue tax dodgers. Many in the GOP have zeroed in on the fact that certain special agents carry guns, casting them as a threat or falsely suggesting the IRS is arming tens of thousands of new employees. Treasury Department officials have said the proposed funding is meant to target high-income tax evasion.
Rep. Michael R. Turner (Ohio), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said Friday that “all of our members of this committee are in full support of the men and women who every day work to keep our nation safe at the FBI and the Department of Justice. And we condemn any actions of violence against any law enforcement personnel.”
He added: “Having said that, we have serious questions concerning the actions taken by [FBI] Director [Christopher A.] Wray and ordered by … Attorney General [Merrick] Garland to raid Mar-a-Lago.” Turner said both are subject to congressional overnight, “and it is our job to ensure that they are not abusing their discretion or politicizing the powers that we have given them.”
Appearing at the same news conference, Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), the No. 3 House Republican, said Trump is Biden’s likeliest opponent in the 2024 presidential election and noted that the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago came fewer than 100 days before the midterms. “The FBI raid of President Trump is a complete abuse and overreach of its authority,” Stefanik said.
Some Republicans critical of the FBI denounced suggestions they bear responsibility for any threats. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — who called for the agency’s defunding and accused it of political persecution — said in a statement, “Politically-motivated violence and politically-motivated abuse of our legal system have no place in America.”
She said she supports “law, order, and the brave men and women who protect our communities” and asked whether The Washington Post is responsible for attacks on officers, referring to published opinion pieces defending the “defund the police” movement.
Emma Vaughn, a spokeswoman for the RNC, said that “violence has no place in our politics.” She argued that language on the political left has fueled violence, pointing to examples including a 2017 congressional baseball practice shooting by a man vehemently opposed to Trump and an alleged assassination attempt on Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. The FBI said the assailant opposed overturning Roe v. Wade.
In her op-ed, McDaniel said there is a “pattern of bureaucratic abuse against Trump” — pointing to his impeachment and an investigation by former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, which found that the Russian government sought to help elect Trump but did not find that his campaign coordinated with Russia.
Cosme condemned past attacks on police from the far left, saying members were seriously injured during violence he attributed to far-left critics of police. People of all political bents “need to be cautious and careful [with] the rhetoric that they’re espousing,” he said.
Garland — the focus of Republicans’ ire — defended the Justice Department at a news conference Thursday and said it is applying the law “evenly without fear or favor.”
“The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants,” the attorney general said.
Classified documents relating to nuclear weapons were among the items FBI agents sought in a search of Trump’s Florida residence, people familiar with the investigation told The Washington Post. Experts told The Post that distribution of the type of top-secret information described by the people familiar with the probe could cause grave harm to U.S. security, and the possibility would probably prompt authorities to try to move as quickly as possible to recover sensitive material.
Logically, a tech company that normally monitors online threats related to elections, saw a surge of threats to FBI employees after the Mar-a-Lago search, said Kyle Walter, the firm’s head of open-source intelligence for the United States. He said he has not seen anything like it since the months after the 2020 election, when Trump sought to overturn his loss and spread the false claims that animated the mob at the U.S. Capitol last year.
“There’s things that are explicit threats, saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to go kill X person at X date,’ ” Walter said. “And then there’s people saying that generally we should engage in violence against this group of people. I would say the second class, we’ve seen hundreds of those types of threats.”
Republican leaders have largely coalesced behind Trump’s claims of political persecution — and continue to assail the Justice Department in social media posts and fundraising pitches. Greene, one of the farthest-right lawmakers in Congress, is selling “Enemy of the State” and “Defund the FBI” merchandise online.
That language has raised eyebrows even on Fox News Channel, a network favored by many conservatives, where host Steve Doocy on Thursday asked Rep. Steve Scalise (La.), a top House Republican, “Whatever happened to the Republican Party backing the blue?” GOP candidates have criticized Democrats as soft on crime and overly critical of law enforcement, taking particular aim at far-left calls to “defund the police.”
“Frankly, we’re very strong supporters of law enforcement,” Scalise said on Fox. “And it concerns everybody if you see some agents go rogue, and if you see an agency that doesn’t have the right checks and balances at the top. This is coming from the top.”
“Steve, who went rogue?” Doocy said. “Who went rogue? They were following a search warrant.” Later in the day, Garland said he personally approved the request for the warrant and is seeking to unseal it.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said Thursday that she was “ashamed” at party members’ attacks on those involved with the Mar-a-Lago search.
“These are sickening comments that put the lives of patriotic public servants at risk,” said Cheney, a former member of House leadership, whose relentless criticism of Trump has made her a pariah in the GOP.
And Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), a moderate and former FBI agent, has cautioned against jumping to conclusions and eroding trust in federal law enforcement, even as he agreed that the unusual action at Mar-a-Lago deserves scrutiny. FBI employees need the public’s support as they knock on doors and build sources, he said during a recent live discussion hosted by The Post.
“When you lose that aspect of the job, it makes our country less safe,” Fitzpatrick said. “So I think it’s incumbent upon all of us, number one, obviously reserve judgment until we know all the facts.”
While the FBI has been in the spotlight, Republicans have also focused on the IRS this week, after Democrats in the Senate narrowly passed a sweeping bill to address climate change, lower health-care costs and raise some taxes. The bill also included about $80 billion for the IRS.
“It is a shame that this much-needed new investment in the IRS is being misrepresented,” said Tony Reardon, the national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, in a statement to The Post. He said an “increase in anti-government rhetoric has understandably raised concerns for the safety of all federal employees, including those at the IRS.”
Meryl Kornfield, Spencer S. Hsu, James Bikales, Devlin Barrett, Josh Dawsey, Perry Stein and Shane Harris contributed to this report. | 2022-08-12T17:30:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Federal law enforcement faces threats as GOP assails FBI - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/fbi-threats-trump-search/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/12/fbi-threats-trump-search/ |
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